Leaderboard: St. Jude Invitational, Round 2

Welcome back to PGA TOUR Pick ‘Em Live, you seasoned players. Remember, there’s only one, awkward first day of class. Consider yourself settled in. Everything now is familiar. If you’re new here, a plain-old welcome suffices. And relax. Every week is its own competition to win free money. Play as often or as little as you want. You can dive into more of the detail here. PGA TOUR Pick ‘Em Live enters its second week for The Honda Classic. The field of 144 presents a greater likelihood that a non-winner or a golfer with maybe one title on his résumé will prevail, and the odds powered by PointsBet reflect it. In addition to supporting all six props below, Glass and Rob share valuable feedback about what happened at Riviera last week. Understand that every week possesses a unique set of variables that require patience and understanding of where to respect the dynamics and when it’s sensible to pull levers. Register for PGA TOUR Pick ‘Em Live here. WEEKLONG Outright Glass … Lucas Glover (+6600) As we learned last week, there’s no reason to book favorites this early unless you are completely sold that they will do the business. While not everyone is going to go wire-to-wire like Joaquin Niemann did at Riviera, there is always time on Sunday to latch on and get a piece. I’m riding with an experienced ball-striker who knows when to hit the gas and when to pump the brakes in South Florida. With T21 or better in four of his last five at PGA National, including T4 in 2019, I’ll start my ascent here. Rob … Mito Pereira (+5000) What Glass said. See, we can agree! I authored the lesson in Draws and Fades on Tuesday. And yeah, I’m opening with the expectation that Chilean chums will go back-to-back on the PGA TOUR. Pereira witnessed first-hand what it was like for fellow countryman, Joaquin Niemann, to endure and survive the stress at Riviera. The big difference, at least in our world, is that Niemann was +6600 in that field, while Pereira isn’t that long at PGA National. He’s well above average with most of his bag in his rookie season, so the timely, inspirational bump is the kicker. And although he’s a non-winner, Keith Mitchell (2019) and Sungjae Im (2020) are recent breakthroughs on the Champion Course. Top 10 Rob … Hayden Buckley (+1300) I know that this is aggressive, but that’s the point. One thing we learned last week, other than having and holding a pre-tournament Joaquin Niemann at +6600, the prop for a Top 10 remained locked until after the third round. So, it pays to reach for a calculated flier in this space and still put points on the board in the finale in case it flames out. The rookie sat out the potential for last week’s large payday to rest and get ready for this week’s test where his ball-striking can shine. He also has quite of bit of success on bermuda, so I’m thrilled that his line is as favorable. With a pair of top 10s on the board as a rookie, he’s already unafraid of that airspace. Glass … Ryan Palmer (+540) Don’t let the MC at Riviera bother you as that is not one of his happier hunting grounds. T17 and T4 in his last two visits here will allow me to fly him in under the radar. Also has cashed in eight of his last nine, and I don’t mind a bit of experience this week. Top 20 Glass … Harry Higgs (+425) Made a ton of pars last week at Riviera, which is usually helpful but only good for T55. He returns to a track where he led the field in par-3 and par-5 scoring a year ago plus, and he was No. 1 in Strokes-Gained: Approach the Green. Let’s hope he can add to his T19 with three rounds in the 60s from last year! Rob … Brice Garnett (+750) C.T. Pan’s top 20 at +850 was responsible for more than half of my total points at Riviera, so I’m focusing again on the edge of the lens at PGA National. I really wanted to work in Garnett in some capacity, too. The grass is bermuda, not paspalum on which he’s thrived, but he’s one of the most underrated ball-strikers on the PGA TOUR. That toolbox comes to life on shorter courses and in the wind. Check, check! In the last two editions, he finished T11 (2020) and T25 (2021). Round 1 Leader Glass … Sam Ryder (+10000) Had to get somebody early before you used them all up! With you already investing in Buckley and Garnett, you’re awfully bullish on the first threesome off the 10th tee on Thursday morning! One of the first groups out on the back side, Ryder will get a chance to navigate THE BEAR TRAP (GRRRRRRRRRRRRR) in hopefully the quietest part of the day. Fresh greens, a 63 here in Round 2 last year plus a raucous ace on No. 16 at TPC Scottsdale, can mix into some magic mojo in Round 1. Rob … Mito Pereira (+5000) It’s almost like Glass is reading my notes (as usual). He’s right. The FRL is going to come out of the morning wave and before wind kicks up midday. I’m all-in on tiptoeing through the par 10 before the bear arises for lunch. Of course, there’s the not-so-insignificant expectation for my outright to start strong, but the juiciest part of this is that Ryder and Pereira are in the same threesome. Stakes within the stakes! Make the Cut Rob … Camilo Villegas (-149) Don’t stress too much about this prop. Last week, I snared Francesco Molinari at (-188). Those were the longest odds on the board. He made the cut and yielded 13 coins. If Villegas cashes, he’ll contribute 17 coins, and there are only two longer options available. He’s among the players commuting from home, and he’s among the locals who have won at PGA National (T8). He also finished T8 last year and has a modest three consecutive cuts made upon arrival. Glass … Jhonattan Vegas (-229) I was looking for Jason Dufner who has never MC in 12 appearances. Or Stewart Cink who has cashed 11 straight. I’ll settle on the Venezuelan who has picked up a check in five consecutive appearances and eight of nine. Surely, he was caught up in the wave of South American pride at Riviera and will be excited to join the conversation. Matchup Glass … Billy Horschel (+136) over Patrick Reed and Cameron Young Nobody is hotter than Young, but Horschel didn’t have to fly across country and fight any jetlag as he skipped Riviera. Reed hasn’t played here since 2018 and has MC in his last two visits. I’ll take #FloridaMan over the upstart making his first appearance after a career-tying-best. The letdown is natural. Rob … K.H. Lee (+150) over Ryan Palmer and Henrik Stenson. I was hoping to get Vaughn Taylor in his 3-ball but it didn’t pop up on the boards so I’ll pivot to my top sleeper pick in K.H. Lee. In his last 14 starts, he’s connected for just one top 10 – a T6 at the 3M Open that started the stretch – but he’s missed only one cut (Sanderson Farms) while adding five top 25s on the strength of solid ball-striking and a nice touch around greens. This is his fourth consecutive appearance at PGA National, which forever will be the site of his first-ever top 10 on the circuit, a T7 in 2019. Palmer, a draw from this week’s Draws & Fades presents a challenge for sure but veteran Stenson sits as a fade.

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SAN DIEGO - Marc Leishman wasn’t one to spend time on the range as he was growing up - and who could blame him. In those days you had to pick up your own range balls at Warrnambool Golf Club. Instead, he would use the course proper as his practice facility, challenging his mates to contests on each hole. Warrnambool is a coastal town in Victoria, Australia, a little over three hours drive from Melbourne. The course was rarely full, which allowed a group of youngsters to spend a bunch of time on each hole without slowing pace of play. "It might take us three hours to play nine holes - not holding people up - but we forever came up with things to do," Leishman recalls. "We put ourselves behind trees, or in divots, or tough bunker lies – really in all sorts of spots where we had to use our imagination. We had a lot of fun." Imagination. It's a word used less and less in modern golf. The art of golf is - at times - being bludgeoned by the science. In the past, the likes of Seve Ballesteros would wow the masses with his creativity from all over the course. In more modern times, Bubba Watson has shaped the ball in ridiculous ways. But now the game is skewed towards the athletic prowess and strength of a player and brute force can get you to places never seen before. We have players like Bryson DeChambeau following the science of the swing and of the body and calculating all sorts of variables around every shot to chase perfection. We have technology and stats measuring everything. Gadgets and gizmos a plenty, whozits and whatsits galore. Science has indeed taken the sport to incredible new heights. But science isn't everyone's best subject. Leishman has always been an artist. The joy in his golf comes from shaping the ball both ways or hitting it high or low on demand. He craves hard and fast courses and thrives in the wind. He loves being able to hit the same club across a wide yardage range and gets juiced up when the opportunity to paint a picture surfaces in his game. "That’s when I play my best golf - when I have to use my imagination. Augusta requires a lot of it, the British Open requires a lot of it and it’s what makes golf fun for me," Leishman says. I would call myself an old school pro. The game is an artistic game for me, and I love when you have to control it on the ground and through the air and you really have to think. It is a style that has seen him win five times on the PGA TOUR including last year at the Farmers Insurance Open where he defends this week at Torrey Pines. In the final round a year ago, Leishman couldn't buy a fairway. He was 70th in the field for Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee losing -1.235 to the field. But he invented ways to get himself to the greens regardless of the inaccuracy and gained +4.778 strokes putting as he made 151 feet, four inches worth or putts. Not long after Leishman was runner up at the Arnold Palmer Invitational Presented by Mastercard, an event he won in 2017. Then he opened THE PLAYERS Championship with a 5-under 67, his career best first round at TPC Sawgrass where his scoring average is a not so impressive 72.25. At seventh in the FedExCup, he was rolling along nicely. Of course, we all know what happened to the world next. But Leishman had no clue the COVID-19 pandemic would derail his form so significantly. Not many players - if any - spiraled like he did after the extended pandemic break. In his six regular season starts upon return, Leishman missed three cuts and posted a T40 as his best result. His early season form kept him in the duration of the three FedExCup Playoffs but he was a virtual passenger. Leishman missed the cut at THE NORTHERN TRUST. He then shot 80-78-79-73 (+30) in the no-cut BMW Championship (another tournament he's won before) to be dead last, nine shots worse than second last and 34 shots behind winner Jon Rahm. In the TOUR Championship he was 29th of 30 players. His start to the 2020-21 season wasn't much better as the now 37-year-old missed the cut at the U.S. Open followed by a T52 and T70 at the limited field CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK and ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD. It wasn't pretty. So, what happened? It was a bunch of factors but at its core - Leishman got bogged down studying science and got frustrated with his art not making it to a gallery. "Having a big rest over the pandemic break was good for me to be with family but for my golf game it wasn’t so good for me," Leishman explains to PGATOUR.COM. “Normally on weeks off I don’t play at all, so I virtually have never played golf with no crowds. It’s either in a tournament or in a practice round at a tournament so that was very new to me. Even when I play golf back home in Warrnambool there are people watching me so returning without fans was weird. I really struggled with energy." The energy he refers to is the competitive instinct of the artist who loves to entertain and who thrives on an internal underdog factor. Leishman long went unheralded by the American public who confused him with other golfers and even when his profile rose, and he was grouped with big name stars, Leishman's nationality usually meant he'd be fighting for the majority of support. It was fuel for him. "When you’re struggling with crowds around it can still be fun because if there are 50 people watching and you hit a shot from the trees you can kind of entertain or show off your skills a little bit," Leishman says. "It gets you engaged even if you’re going to miss the cut – you think these people might remember this if I pull it off. But I was in the trees a lot last year and you can’t even show off when no one is there. "As an artistic player, when you start drawing dodgy pictures with your shots, which I was doing, you start to think about it too much and I started getting technical. I started thinking science and that's never good for me. I was looking in the wrong places for solutions." Now, it's not like Leishman hadn't had some tough weeks in his career before. But in normal circumstances, time with coach Denis McDade would quickly fix any swing issues. Problem was McDade is based in Australia and the pandemic made travel to the U.S. very difficult indeed. Sure Leishman could have looked for a local coach but he's a fiercely loyal type of guy. He's had the same coach and same caddie since he burst on to the PGA TOUR and was Rookie of the Year in 2009. McDade is loyal also. Despite plenty of roadblocks he made his way to the U.S. in late October last year and hooked up with Leishman in Los Angeles during the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP. After watching the opening two rounds intently, he had the answer. "It was huge for him to come over and a massive commitment from him," Leishman says. "He has a family back home, but he was over here for six weeks and he got home and had to spend two weeks mandatory quarantine in a hotel room where you don’t get given a room key. He missed his birthday and his wedding anniversary during quarantine, so I am really appreciative and want to thank him. "In the end it wasn't really my swing at all. It was the way I was getting into the ball - I was standing too far away from it," Leishman reveals. "I was being technical on the tee; I was doing drills in the tournaments before every tee shot which I had never done before, and it was getting me too far away from the ball and my weight too far on the toes. When my weight is on the toes my balance is bad and I miss it right and left and it’s just a disaster – I was in a hiding to nothing. "So, it was something really simple and that's where it’s really good that I’ve been with Denis for 18 years. He knows my tendencies and he saw it straight away. If I had gone to someone else or jumped ship with him not being able to come over, a new coach may or may not be able to see that." The results were near instant. In his next start at The Masters, Leishman was T13, hitting the ball better than most of the field but only falling behind on the greens. Two weeks ago at the Sony Open in Hawaii, he finished T4, his first top 10 since the pandemic break. Now he gets another crack at Torrey Pines where he has a win, two runner ups and two further top 10s in his portfolio. Look out. The artist is back.

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PACIFIC PALISAIDES, Calif. – Tiger Woods has suffered from a late-round fade for the second day running at The Genesis Invitational, leaving his chase for a much wanted win at Riviera Country Club in a precarious spot. Woods produced three bogeys over his last seven holes to settle for a 2-over 73, pulling him back to even par for the tournament. He should still be set for weekend play though, as the cut was trending towards being one-over-par when the 44-year-old signed his scorecard. Woods is in the midst of a 13th attempt to win a tournament at the venue where he began his PGA TOUR career as a 16-year-old. He grew up some 40 miles away and now hosts the event which became an elevated Invitational status this season. Related: Leaderboard | TOUR pros: My first time with Tiger | JT admits Tiger carried him at Presidents Cup In Thursday’s opening round, he played his opening eight holes in four under before fading to two under. Friday, he opened on the par-4 10th with a birdie, but stumbled with a double-bogey on the 15th when he caught his approach shot fat and ended up in a bad bunker lie. However, the 82-time TOUR winner rebounded with birdies on the 17th and first holes to be within shouting distance of the leaders at the time. Unfortunately, the round unraveled from there. Woods was unable to get up and down from a bunker to save par on the third hole and missed a five-foot par putt on the next. A three-putt on the sixth hole was another dagger and contributed to losing over two strokes on average to the field in Strokes Gained: Putting. But Woods was more annoyed with his approach game as he aims to move out of a tie atop the all-time TOUR wins list with Sam Snead. “I made some pretty bad mistakes out there with balls in the fairway… one ball in the fairway with wedge in my hand and another one with a sand wedge in my hand and played those two holes in three over. Not very good,â€� Woods said. “You take those away and I’m near the top of the board. So it’s not that complicated, I just need to clean it up, but I’m now pretty far back and I have to make a lot of birdies this weekend. “I was not sharp today. I just could not get the ball close enough to the hole to give myself good putts. And then when I did, I was in the wrong spots, I was above the hole and had to putt pretty defensively.â€� It was the first over-par round of the season for Woods, including the four he played in his Hero World Challenge. After Thursday’s fade, Woods referenced a lack of preparation time as he juggled his dual roles as host and player. But with his early finish Friday, he hoped some rest would freshen his mind and game. “Hopefully I can get off to a quick start like I did last year, hot birdie run and maybe make an eagle in there like I did last year,â€� he said in reference to a third-round 65 that saw him move from 52nd to 10th in 2019. “I need a start like that tomorrow to get myself back in this thing. Everyone’s bunched. There’s so many guys that have a chance going into the weekend. The wind’s picked up. I don’t know if the guys will go quite as low this afternoon as they did this morning. I just can’t (drop any more shots), not where I’m at.â€�

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