Live leaderboard: Fowler in the hunt at PGA

LA QUINTA, Calif. – Justin Rose did what Phil Mickelson’s couldn’t: birdie the final three holes at La Quinta Countrty Club. Rose, the reigning FedExCup champion, birdied Nos. 16-18 to shoot 68 on Thursday. Mickelson needed to birdie all three of those holes to break 60. He came close, making birdies on 16 and 18 to shoot a 12-under 60 and take the Desert Classic’s first-round lead. Both Rose and Mickelson were playing their first round of the calendar year. For Rose, the Desert Classic is his first tournament since signing an equipment deal with Honma. “With the new bag of clubs, I felt really good with them,â€� Rose said. “I drove the ball fantastically well today and hit a lot of shots pin-high with my irons.â€� Rose also has a temporary caddie, Gareth Lord, this week because his longtime looper, Mark Fulcher, had heart surgery Thursday. Rose is making his first start at the Desert Classic since 2010. La Quinta Country Club is the only one of the three courses in use this week that also was being used back when Rose last played here. He is 22 under par in five rounds at La Quinta. He made six birdies and two bogeys Thursday after hitting 9 of 14 fairways and 13 greens. “I felt like I could have been 4- or 5- or 6-under par through the first seven holes. I left a few out there early in my round and (made) a couple silly mistakes here and there, didn’t capitalize on some short birdie putts,â€� Rose said. “ Birdieing my last three to get it to 4 under kind of made me feel good about kind of getting something out of the round.â€� This is Rose’s second start of the season. He finished third in the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions in October, his seventh top-three finish in his last 19 TOUR starts. He is 40th in this season’s FedExCup standings as he tries to become the first player to successfully defend the Cup.

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AVONDALE, La — Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele shot a 4-under 68 in alternate-shot play Friday at windswept TPC of Louisiana to maintain a one-stroke lead in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. RELATED: Leaderboard | Inside the Field: Mexico Open at Vidanta The Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup partners opened with a tournament-record 59 on Thursday in best-ball play. They were at 17 under. The teams of David Lipsky-Aaron Rai and Doc Redman-Sam Ryder were second after 67s. Cameron Tringale-Wyndham Clark and Brandon Grace-Garrick Higgo were 15 under. Higgo and Grace shot 64, and Tringale and Clark had a 67. Masters champion Scottie Scheffler and Ryan Palmer settled for an even-par 72 to make the cut on the number at 8 under. The father-son team of Jay Haas and Bill Haas also made the cut on the number, following a 65 with a 71. At 68 years, four months, Jay Haas is the oldest player to make a PGA TOUR cut. The format shifts back to the best-ball Saturday. The final round will be alternate shot.

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ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – A casual round on a par-3 course may have changed the course of Davis Thompson’s career. Thompson had impressed at the University of Georgia, having reached No. 1 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, won the SEC’s Player of the Year Award in 2021 and ranked second in that year’s class of PGA TOUR University presented by Velocity Global grads. As an amateur, he separated himself with his strong ballstriking. The margins are much smaller in professional golf, however, and his putting struggles were proving too costly. After missing the cut in the Korn Ferry Tour’s Nashville stop last year – his fourth missed cut in five starts – Thompson played a local par-3 course with a friend and started tinkering with his putting grip. Admittedly a creature of habit, the Korn Ferry Tour rookie was reluctant to depart from a traditional grip. But, as they say, desperate times call for desperate measures. Thompson decided to try the cross-handed, or left-hand-low, style of putting. “I was in a bad place mentally with my putting. … I needed to make a change,” he said recently at Sea Island Golf Club, the venue of this week’s RSM Classic and a course Thompson knows well. His father, Todd, is the RSM’s tournament director and Davis Thompson makes his home in St. Simons Island. He has already played the RSM three times, but this will mark his debut as a PGA TOUR member. He arrives home at 54th in the FedExCup thanks to two top-15 finishes, and credits his mid-season putting switch with making him a TOUR member at just 23 years old. He relied on two drills to get accustomed to the new grip, and they bore almost immediate fruit. He finished fifth in his second event with the new grip – before the final round, he watched putting highlights of Jordan Spieth, the gold standard for the left-hand-low grip – and won his next start. A month later, he’d earned enough points to officially clinch his first TOUR card. The drill: Thompson would hit putts from 3, 6 and 9 feet, requiring himself to make all five 3-footers he attempted, four of five from 5 feet and three of five from 9 feet. He had to start the drill over if he failed to hit all three benchmarks. He’d perform that drill from a variety of angles to the same hole to work on putts with different breaks. Thompson also would hit nine putts of 30 to 40 feet with a goal of averaging two strokes per hole. He said the cross-handed grip has made it easier for him to start his putts on their intended line and keeps his left shoulder from rising too early in the through-stroke. “It kept my left shoulder down—my shoulders are more level,” he said. “One of my flaws when I was putting traditionally was that my left shoulder was up and out of it pretty quickly.” A change to the tempo of his stroke accompanied the grip change. Thompson used to have a “pop” stroke, a la 2012 FedExCup champion Brandt Snedeker, but he found it difficult to control his speed on faster greens. Now his tempo is more even throughout the stroke. He practices while using a metronome app on his phone to dial in his tempo. He also counts in his head, a habit that has the added benefit of clearing his mind before he strikes his putts. “It gives my brain something to trigger the stroke and something besides the result to think of,” Thompson said. “I’m more focused on my counting instead of the line or speed or anything like that. “It’s one, look at the hole. Two, look back at the hole. Three, start my backstroke and four, make impact with the ball. It’s really helped create more positive energy on the golf ball. I used to take it back quick and decelerate coming through (impact) because I was trying not to kill it on fast greens. Creating more positive energy, you don’t see as much break because you’re hitting it solidly and the ball is rolling well.” Positive energy in his putting moved Davis Thompson’s career in a positive direction, straight to the PGA TOUR.

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