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Corey Conners ... This sets up to be a special week for the Canadian. He led the PGA TOUR in ball-striking last season and he arrives having gone 4-for-4 with a T8 and two top 25s in the last six weeks, so the remaining variable in the equation is course knowledge. He has some of that, too. In his second appearance in 2019, he sat T22 entering the final round before fading to finish T46, but he did what he does best in ranking T4 in total driving and T17 in greens hit. Si Woo Kim ... Just 25 years of age and already in his sixth full season on the PGA TOUR, the native of South Korea turned around months of struggles post-hiatus with six top 20s, including a T8 at TPC Summerlin and a T17 at Shadow Creek. No stranger to the biggest and brightest stages, he prevailed at THE PLAYERS Championship in 2017 and has four top 25s in the majors, including a pair at the Masters in 2018 (T24) and 2019 (T21). Jimmy Walker ... Augusta National is one of a very few places that can forgive the absence of form in favor of experience. He's a far cry from the talent who broke through at the 2016 PGA Championship, but the regression isn't surprising given his extended battle with Lyme disease. The victory at Baltusrol yielded five years of exemptions into the Masters and the Texan hasn't wasted the opportunities in adding to what is now a 6-for-6 record overall with three top 20s. Justin Harding ... He enjoyed a strong 2018-19 PGA TOUR season as a non-member in maxing out his 12 starts with three top 25s among nine cuts made. It included a T12 in his debut at Augusta National. Remarkable for any first-timer regardless of pedigree, he led the field in putting while hitting 45 greens in regulation, just 1.4 lower than the field average for the week. Also started the final round in a five-way tie for seventh place that included eventual co-runners-up Dustin Johnson and Xander Schauffele. Now 34 years of age, the South African has scuffled throughout 2020, but he's still mustered a pair of third-place finishes and a T11 worldwide since the restart. Yuxin Lin ... The 20-year-old is one of the six automatic qualifiers among the amateurs, but he's the only among them with experience in competition at Augusta National. This is his second trip as the latest Asia-Pacific Amateur champion. It's been a little over 13 months since he outlasted Takumi Kanaya in the first-ever playoff in the 11-year history of the tournament, then contested in his native China at Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai. The lefty joined Hideki Matsuyama (2010, 2011) as the only multiple winner. Despite little competition on the college circuit due to the pandemic, the USC sophomore arrives on the strength of a T8 at the Azalea Invitational over in Charleston, South Carolina on Nov. 1. Three months ago, he finished T4 at the Alpharetta Classic on the LOCALiQ Series. And in his last start before competition was shut down in March, he was the co-champion of the Southern Highlands Collegiate. Currently 29th in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, one slot behind U.S. Amateur champion Ty Strafaci. NOTE: Sleeper is a relative term, so Rob uses unofficial criteria to determine who qualifies. Each of the following usually is determined to be ineligible for this weekly staple: Winners of the tournament on the current host course; winners in the same season; recent major champions; top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking; recent participants of team competitions.

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Bill Haas returns to golf this week knowing the Valspar Championship will be unlike any of the previous 347 times he has played on the PGA TOUR. The deep bruise on his left leg and the soreness in his right ankle have subsided. Still tender are memories of a friend, Mark Gibello, who was killed Feb. 13 on a winding road outside Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles when his Ferrari clipped another car and slammed into a pole. Haas was the passenger. “There’s not many templates to go by on something like this,” Haas said in his first interview since the accident. “I was in a state of shock, disbelief. It was a tragic event, traumatic. I’m still unsure how to handle it. I keep going back to focusing on the Gibello family.” He described the Gibellos as mutual friends he planned to stay with during the Genesis Open. Haas and Gibello played golf the previous weekend at Los Angeles Country Club, where Gibello was a member and played a role in the club hosting the Walker Cup last year. Gibello was a close friend of Bill Harmon, the swing coach who works with Haas. “It didn’t take me long to realize how much his family loved him, how nice he was to me and my family,” Haas said. His wife, Julie, has kept in touch with Gibello’s wife. The funeral service in Santa Monica, California, was Friday, the same day the final field was set for the Valspar Championship in Florida. Tiger Woods is playing for the first time. So is Rory McIlroy. That figures to deflect plenty of attention from Haas trying to get back to work. The 35-year-old Haas returns with a greater appreciation of life and a level of support he never realized he had. His golf bag remained in the Riviera locker room for the rest of the Genesis Open until it was shipped home to him in South Carolina. Haas hasn’t practiced much. He played golf Sunday in Greenville and planned to leave Monday night for the Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor, Florida. “The amount of love and support and outreach I got from my peers and friends has been amazing,” he said. “At the same time, a friend of mine is not here anymore. … There’s just no real way to explain life, why it happens and how it happens. You can’t take tomorrow for granted. You have to enjoy today and prepare for tomorrow. All that said, I still feel like I have to go compete. I can’t just say golf doesn’t matter. That’s what I do. I think that’s what Mark would want. “He was a golf fan. He loved golf. He would want me to care about how I play.” Haas has not responded to all of the phone calls and text messages because of the sheer volume, but he looks forward to being back out again among his golfing family. Webb Simpson, a fellow Wake Forest alum, is among those who reached out to him. “I remember waking up the morning after it happened. My wife got a text from Julie, and we were pretty emotional that morning,” Simpson said. “He hated it more than anything for that family. He needs to get over it mentally now probably more than physically, but I think it will be good for him to get out on tour.” Simpson lost his father late last year and remembers how much it helped to get back inside the ropes. “Time doesn’t necessarily heal, but with time it gets easier,” Simpson said. Haas is a six-time winner on the PGA TOUR, though he has gone three years since his last victory. He’s best known for saving par from the shallow water at East Lake during a playoff he won at the TOUR Championship to claim the FedExCup, and making the clinching putt in the Presidents Cup with his father, Jay, as the U.S. captain. Along with leaning on his wife and his family, he has spent time with a therapist to cope with the wide range of emotions and the lingering questions. “I don’t know that I won’t have recurring images and thoughts and feelings about that night,” he said. “Why was he taken and I wasn’t? I ask, `Why?’ all the time. From the people who have reached out to me and the advice I’ve been given, you can’t ask, `Why?’ in life. Life happens in ways you can’t explain. There’s no point in asking. It won’t solve anything, and it only brings more questions.” He doesn’t know what to expect at Innisbrook, only that he wants to focus on golf as much as he can. Haas will need a good week at Innisbrook to get into the World Golf Championships-Dell Match Play Championship in two weeks. Otherwise, he’ll take a few more weeks off. “Once I get inside the ropes, I think there will be a sense of relief,” he said. “It’s what I know best, to be competitive. Every time we tee it up, we want to do well. That’s important to me. Hopefully, I can do that. I think I’ll be able to do that.” What makes him most anxious about his return is the reception he might get from friends and from fans. “This needs to not be about me,” he said. “This has got to be about golf and the Gibello family.”

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