Leaderboard: Paul Casey takes solo lead

Wake up! Time to get back to work. The 2019-20 season is upon us, starting with this week’s event, A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier. It’s a new date for the event, which skipped a year in the schedule reshuffling and now becomes the PGA TOUR’s kickoff event. Consequently, that means rookies in the field. In fact, all 21 rookies this season will be at The Greenbrier. So the chances of seeing a first-time winner this week? Higher than usual. The Flyover The 615-yard 17th is the last of the two par 5s on the back nine (but it’s not necessarily the last scoring hole, as the 179-yard par-3 18th played under par in 2018). Despite its length, the 17th is reachable for long hitters. Howard’s Creek guards the right side of the fairway, and bunkers surround the four corners of an undulating green. Landing Zone Beware of the “principal’s noseâ€� that sits in the middle of the fairway at the 385-yard 10th, the shortest – and easiest – par 3 at The Old White TPC. The nose is about 315 yards from the tee, so most players will land short – although J.B. Holmes had a tee shot two years ago that finished just left of the two bunkers. Here’s a look at where all tee shots landed in 2018. Weather check From PGA TOUR meteorologist Kyle Koval: “The threat for thunderstorms will persist into tonight, with highest chances before midnight. Another warm and humid day on Thursday may allow isolated shower/T-storm development over the higher terrain, again chances of impactful weather at the course is low. Shower and T-storm chances will increase Friday and Saturday as a front moves through the area. Rainfall amounts could exceed 0.50 inch. Drier conditions should return for Sunday but this will depend on the positioning of the front. Areas of morning fog are possible each day and could become dense after recent rains.â€� For the latest weather news from White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, check out PGATOUR.COM’s Weather Hub. Sound Check When you think about a bad season, really was it a bad season? I kept my job and I get to play golf for a living. When I look at it from that perspective it wasn’t a bad year at all. By the numbers 50 – Strokes under par by Kevin Na in his Greenbrier career (20 rounds). That’s the best cumulative score to par by any player in the tournament’s history. The next closest to Na is Russell Henley and Pat Perez, each at 39 under. 7 – Cuts made by Scott Stallings at The Greenbrier, the most of any player (he’s never missed a cut). Keegan Bradley is next with six made cuts. Stallings won the first of his three TOUR titles at Greenbrier in 2011. 480 – TOUR-leading total birdies made by Sungjae Im in his rookie season in 2018-19. It’s the third highest total in a single season on TOUR since 1980. Scattershots New cut line: This will be the first TOUR event since the change of the cut line from top 70/ties to now top 65/ties. Had the top 65/ties rule been in place the last time the Greenbrier was played, well, it would not have changed anything. A total of 77 players made the cut that week, with 18 players landing on the cut number of 3 under, leaving that group T-60 going into the weekend. Elusive Top 10: Although Bubba Watson has a house at Greenbrier, The Old White TPC has not treated him so kindly in his five starts. His best finish is a T-13 (in 2015 and 2018). A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier is one of just four events in which Watson has made five or more starts without at least one top-10 finish. (The rest of the list includes 12 starts at THE PLAYERS Championship, 11 starts at The Open Championship and five starts at the John Deere Classic). Zach’s 50th: Zach Johnson is playing A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier for the first time. It will be the 50th different tournament that Johnson has played on TOUR. His lone win in a tournament debut came in the 2008 Valero Texas Open. He has 24 top-25 finishes in those 49 previous debuts. Fall winners: Of the 43 players who have won fall events since the start of the wrap-around schedule for the 2013-14 season, 39 have finished inside the top 70 in the final FedExCup standings. That’s a 91% conversion rate. Of those who reached the BMW Championship, 25 advanced to the TOUR Championship. With 11 tournaments this fall, it’ll be interesting to see how those numbers are affected.

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OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. (AP) — Even with so few people around, Jon Rahm could hear from the other side of the Olympia Fields clubhouse that Dustin Johnson had made a 45-foot birdie on the final hole to force a playoff Sunday in the BMW Championship. Resilient as ever, Rahm went out and made some magic of his own. RELATED: FedExCup standings | Leaderboard | What’s in Rahm’s bag? From one end of the 18th green to the other, Rahm’s putt from just over 65 feet rolled down the ridge and into the cup, setting off a roar so loud it nearly made up for not having spectators. “I knew how good DJ has been playing. I was expecting nothing else,” Rahm said. “I was fully confident it was going to come into a playoff and hoping to win it. Never did I think I would make another 50-, 60-footer, a couple of breaks in there, to end up winning it.” Johnson remained No. 1 in the FedExCup standings while Rahm moved up to No. 2 as the TOUR Championship begins this week. Rahm’s big birdie putt on the first extra hole spared him thoughts of his blunder in the third round, when he picked up his ball on the fifth green without marking it, leading to a one-shot penalty and his only bogey of the weekend. He tore through the back nine Sunday on his way to a 6-under 64, the lowest round of the week, to finish at 4-under 276. Johnson, a 54-hole leader for his third straight tournament and coming off an 11-shot victory last week at the TPC Boston, birdied three of his opening four holes to open a three-shot lead, dropped a pair of shots around the turn and then delivered in the clutch with his 45-foot birdie putt on the last hole for a 67. Joaquin Niemann, the 21-year-old from Chile, also made a spirited run with a 67 and was in the lead until a bogey on the 14th and no birdies the rest of the way. He tied for third with Hideki Matsuyama, who had a 69. Tony Finau closed with a 65 to finish three behind. They were the only five players under par at Olympia Fields. Rahm won for the second time this year on the PGA TOUR, and the 11th time in his career worldwide. Mackenzie Hughes had reason to celebrate, too. He was on the verge of playing his way into the top 30 who advance to East Lake when he took a sloppy bogey on the 17th. Needing a par on the 18th, he put his approach into the front bunker, splashed out to 5 feet and raised both arms when it dropped. Niemann also moved into the top 30, though he was chasing victory all day. Adam Long and Kevin Streelman were bumped out, and Long suffered the worst of those fates. He was projected 30th in the FedExCup until Corey Conners three-putted from 5 feet for double bogey on the final hole. That allowed Billy Horschel to move up enough spots on the leaderboard to move to the 30th and final spot by three points over Long. The top 30 are assured spots in at least three majors next year, along with the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua to start the year. The winners-only event is taking the top 30 in the FedExCup from having lost three months of the season to the COVID-19 pandemic. Tiger Woods missed all the action. He made double bogey on his 17th hole for a 71, making this the first time he was over par in all four rounds of a tournament since the Bridgestone Invitational in 2010. Woods failed to reach the TOUR Championship for the second straight year. He now gets two weeks off before the U.S. Open at Winged Foot, and Olympia Fields proved to be a good test for that.

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