Live leaderboard: Big names in hunt at AT&T

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BROOKLINE, Mass. – Jon Rahm is the defending champion, Rory McIlroy is coming in hot, and FedExCup frontrunner Scottie Scheffler is having the best season, with four wins. RELATED: Tee times | Nine Things to Know: The Country Club | How to watch first round Not that he doesn’t have anyone behind him. Good friend Sam Burns has three. The 122nd U.S. Open is rife with storylines. Here are five: 1. EIGHT IS GREAT Eight different players have won the last eight majors, which speaks to how hard it is to stay on top. McIlroy, 33, who just won the RBC Canadian Open but hasn’t captured a major since the 2014 PGA Championship, would make it nine straight with a win this week. “I liked what I saw,” said McIlroy, who played The Country Club’s front nine Monday. Cameron Smith, who won THE PLAYERS Championship in March, would also extend the streak to nine. So would Sam Burns and Max Homa. All three players have won more than once on TOUR this season, and each is in pursuit of his first major championship. On the other hand, the most likely recent major winners to do it again (and break the streak) are: – Scottie Scheffler, who won for the first time on the PGA TOUR at the WM Phoenix Open in February and picked off his first major title at the Masters Tournament two months later. He also won the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play and Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. Oh, and he boasts two runner-up finishes. He’s atop the FedExCup and world ranking, with sizeable leads in both. – Justin Thomas, who captured the PGA Championship at Southern Hills last month for his second major title, and made a run at last week’s RBC Canadian Open before finishing third. The winner of 15 PGA TOUR events, he already has nine top-10 finishes this season, and recently committed to playing the weeks before the majors. (It worked nicely at the PGA.) – Jon Rahm, the defending U.S. Open champion, won the Mexico Open at Vidanta last month and is coming off a T10 at the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday. “I played the front nine (Monday),” Rahm said. “I think it’s a wonderful course.” 2. IT’S A FAMILIAR COURSE Matt Fitzpatrick won the U.S. Amateur nine years ago at The Country Club and has since won seven times on the DP World Tour. He is one of 22 players in the U.S. Open field who played here in ’13. Scottie Scheffler (quarterfinalist), Patrick Rodgers (quarterfinalist), Corey Conners (semifinalist, lost to Fitzpatrick), and several who missed the cut – including Justin Thomas, Max Homa, Will Zalatoris, Aaron Wise, and Cameron Young – also have experience at The Country Club. Most others in the field do not. “Yeah, I remember everything,” said Fitzpatrick, who has seven top-10 finishes this season, including a T10 at the RBC Canadian Open. “I’ve been back a few times since, and love coming back here … back in 2013 it was – you had to hit fairways and greens.” Scheffler had just won the U.S. Junior when he got to the U.S. Amateur at The Country Club, where Justin Leonard had made the putt to put the Americans over the top at the 1999 Ryder Cup. Randy Smith, who coached Leonard, was also coaching Scheffler and was with him at the 2013 U.S. Amateur, where Scheffler put together a few classic comebacks of his own. “I remember being down in pretty much all my matches (that I won),” Scheffler said. 3. IT’S A COMPOSITE The course is made up of a blend of holes from The Country Club’s three 9s, so none of the players have seen every hole. Nor have they seen the holes in this sequence. Also, architect Gil Hanse has been hard at work restoring the course. There’s the drivable par 4 fifth hole at 310 yards, uphill. And there’s a 619-yard par 5, the 14th. But the newest hole, which hasn’t been used since the 1913 U.S. Open, is the 131-yard, downhill, par-3 11th, the shortest hole on the course. That’s only a gap wedge for the best players in the world, but there’s trouble lurking: four bunkers around the green to collect short and left misses, plus sharp drop-offs for misses right and long. And a lot of gnarly rough. Justin Thomas, who didn’t make the match play portion of the 2013 U.S. Amateur, said he loves the addition of the new hole. “I think every golf course should have a short little hole like that,” he said. “And it’s got a diabolical green to where it’s – they can put some tough pins. You can make 2 and 4 in a heartbeat.” 4. LOCAL FLAVOR Francis Ouimet, who won the 1913 U.S. Open at The Country Club, grew up in a house just across the street from the 17th hole and learned the game as a caddie at the course that would make him famous. A handful of players in the field have local ties this time around. Stanford golfer Michael Thorbjornsen grew up in Wellesley, Massachusetts, about 50 minutes away. “I got to see the course one time,” said Thorbjornsen, who will hit the opening tee shot off the first tee. “I’ve had a couple of dinners here.” Shortly before finishing T4 at the Charles Schwab Challenge, Scott Stallings, who was born in Worcester, about an hour west of here, got through Final Qualifying in Texas. “That was a huge goal,” said Stallings, 37. “Probably the biggest goal I had of the year.” Four-time TOUR winner Keegan Bradley is a graduate of nearby Hopkinton High School. “It’s big,” he said in a story on PGATOUR.COM. “It’s the thing I’m most proud of; when you’re from New England, it becomes who you are.” Finally, there’s Fran Quinn, 57, who plays out of Worcester Country Club. He’s a Massachusetts legend who plays on PGA TOUR Champions. Quinn will hit the first tee shot off No. 10 on Thursday. 5. PLAYOFF TIME Little-known amateur Francis Ouimet beat British heavyweights Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, the most accomplished players of the day, in an 18-hole playoff at the 1913 U.S. Open at Brookline. Julius Boros, 43, took down the legend Arnold Palmer and Jacky Cupit in another three-man playoff in 1963. The last time the U.S. Open was at The Country Club in 1988, Curtis Strange beat Nick Faldo, then the reigning champion of The Open, in an 18-hole playoff. Three U.S. Opens, three playoffs. Widen the view, and playoffs have been necessary to decide the winners of the last six U.S. Opens played in the state of Massachusetts. Not since Tiger Woods outlasted Rocco Mediate over 19 holes on Monday at Torrey Pines in 2008 has the U.S. Open gone beyond regulation – the 13-year gap is a tournament record. The 18-hole playoff format has been removed with a two-hole aggregate (holes 17 and 18 at The Country Club) now in its place. Sudden death on those holes will follow if players remain tied.

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Nick Saban has faced plenty of formidable opponents throughout his famed career. He took on a new one Wednesday. Saban played the tricky closing trio of holes at TPC Sawgrass as part of Justin Thomas’ return to the Stadium Course for a media day before his title defense in two weeks. Thomas was surprised when his golf cart rounded a hill and he saw Saban and his University of Alabama golf bag, with ‘Coach Nick Saban’ stitched on the pocket, waiting on the tee. “I can’t believe you got this guy away from recruiting long enough to come here,” Thomas exclaimed. The timing worked out perfectly, as Wednesdays are Saban’s only off day during offseason practices and he had a speaking engagement in Atlanta, a short flight away, in the evening. “I knew something was going on out here but I didn’t know who or what was going to be standing there,” Thomas said. “I’m always glad to see Coach.” Thomas and Saban first met when the golfer visited Tuscaloosa on a recruiting trip. “He was like a shy little puppy dog sitting in my office,” Saban said Wednesday. Their relationship grew during Thomas’ time with the Tide, as the golf team’s practice facility was the rare escape for the town’s most famous resident. Saban would work on his game with Alabama’s men’s golf coach, Jay Seawell, but the players were relentless in ribbing him about his well-documented chipping woes. “The more they got on me, the worse it got because the anxiety would build up,” Saban said Wednesday. Thomas returns to campus each fall to watch a football game and visit the team in the locker room. He and Saban play during the coach’s offseason, as well. They also keep in contact via text, though it’s not Saban’s preferred method of communication. “I know things are either really good or really bad if I get a text from Coach Saban because he’s not a big texter,” Thomas said. “It’s either, ‘Hey man, I saw you haven’t been playing well and wanted you to know I’m here for you,’ or, ‘I was watching and I’m proud of you.’” On Wednesday, they had the Stadium Course to themselves – with the exception of a camera crew and a handful of spectators — as they played Nos. 16-18. They talked Alabama football while Thomas relived some of his shots from PLAYERS past and guided Saban through the treacherous stretch. Unfortunately, it got the best of him. “I love seeing JT,” Saban said. “He’s a lot of fun to be around. My expectation for today was to hit a few in the water. I didn’t disappoint.” That included two tee shots in the water on 17. His first attempt was a few feet short of land, while his second shot landed on the back of the green before bouncing into the water. Thomas took the blame after recommending that Saban hit a soft 9-iron to the Island Green instead of swinging hard with a pitching wedge. This was Thomas’ first time at TPC Sawgrass since his win at last year’s PLAYERS, where he shot 64-68 on the weekend to win by one after barely making the cut. “It’s a special place and an amazing course,” Thomas said. “I have a lot of great memories here, but just because you’re excited doesn’t mean it’s going to be handed to you. I have to put in some work and get ready to try to defend.” Thomas, 28, has 14 PGA TOUR wins but is seeking his first victory since his triumph at TPC Sawgrass. He’s 23rd in this season’s FedExCup standings thanks to four top-10s in six starts. Saban was quick to tell Thomas that defending his title should not be a concern, however. “I give him the same speech I give our team. When you win a championship they say you have to defend,” Saban said. “You don’t have to defend. No one can take away what you did last year. Just go have fun and do it again. “There’s no such thing as defending a title, in my opinion. If they took it away from you, it would be different. But you’re always going to be a PLAYERS champion and you’re always going to have that special place in the locker room, so just have fun and win it again.”

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