Live leaderboard: Round 3 of Genesis Open

The Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open featured a little bit of everything atop the leaderboard. The highest-ranked player in the world on the PGA TOUR without a win (Scottie Scheffler), a revitalized young stud (Matthew Wolff) and a player who had missed 61 of his last 70 cuts (Martin Trainer) all held the lead at some point. The trophy went to Jason Kokrak, who has more wins in the last 13 months than anyone not named Patrick Cantlay. 1. Kokrak does it again For nearly a decade, Jason Kokrak was known as a guy who came close, but just couldn’t convert a PGA TOUR victory. Now he’s become a bona fide winner. Kokrak started his Houston Open campaign red hot, getting to 7 under through 27 holes before a 6-over back nine in his second round, including a triple-bogey on 18, had him stumbling into the weekend. He fought back with a 4-under 66 in his third round and then a 5-under 65 on Sunday, highlighted by four straight birdies on holes 13-16, to win by two over Scottie Scheffler and Kevin Tway. After accumulating zero wins In his first 233 TOUR starts, Kokrak now has three in his last 27. Not a bad turnaround. “I guess you can call me an underdog, but the last couple years I’ve played some pretty solid golf, so I wouldn’t exactly say that I’d be the underdog going in,” Kokrak said Sunday. “I guess this week I would be because my game was not in top form and I definitely made the best of it, made a lot of birdies, made a lot of nice putts.” During the course of his three wins, over 13 months, his next-best finish is a T8. In other words, Kokrak is now winning when he gets in contention. A great starting pitcher for a decade, he has become a dominant closer, too. 2. Scheffler comes close (again) Scottie Scheffler can relate to the old Jason Kokrak. In Scheffler’s TOUR career, he’s been about as good as one can be without a win. Following an opening-round 72, the Dallas resident and former Texas Longhorns star shot a course-record 62 in his second round at Memorial Park. A third-round 69 put him at 7 under, one ahead of five players headed into Sunday. He started his fourth round with a 2-under front nine to maintain the lead. It didn’t last. Scheffler’s fate flipped on the back nine, with bogeys at 11 and 14 dropping him as many as four strokes behind Kokrak. Scheffler salvaged birdies on No. 16 and 18 to tie Tway for second place. “I’ll take from this I felt like I played a lot of good golf this week without really my best stuff,” Scheffler said. “I really felt uncomfortable with my ball-striking going into the week, but I gave myself a chance to win here in the end, I put myself in position on Sunday. I’d say today I just probably didn’t make enough putts.” In 67 TOUR starts, Scheffler now has two runner-up finishes, four top-3s and 17 top-10s. But the 2019-20 Rookie of the Year and standout on the 2021 U.S. Ryder Cup Team still has yet to break through for his first W. 3. Fall stars keep rolling Several of the fall’s top players stayed hot. After a three-week break, FedExCup leader Sam Burns picked up where he left off with a T7 finish. He shot 70, 67, 71 and 67, a solid week despite a double-bogey on 18. He has finished T14 or better in four events this fall. Burns’ closest FedExCup chaser, Sungjae Im, himself returning from a rare three-week hiatus, also closed out the week with a 3-under 67, getting him to 2 under overall and a T19 finish. Im has posted T31 or better in his four events this fall. Maverick McNealy, who opened the week at No. 9 in the FedExCup, posted a T19 and has four top-25 finishes in six starts this season. He stays in the FedExCup top 10 but drops a spot to 10th with Kokrak jumping him. Oh, and Matthew Wolff had a chance to win this weekend, again. The top player in the FedExCup standings without a victory this season jumped from 8th to 6th place with a T11. 4. Wolff adds hole-in-one highlight to stellar fall Matthew Wolff’s Red Hot Live Fall Tour continued as he opened 68-67-69 to go into Sunday one behind Scheffler. Seeking his second career win, Wolff hit the highest highs but also faltered slightly in the homestretch. Playing in the final group with Scheffler and Jhonattan Vegas, Wolff made three bogeys and a birdie in his first eight holes. But just when it seemed this wouldn’t be his day, he aced the 9th hole, the roar of the crowd giving him the news. Alas, three more bogeys and just one birdie added up to a 2-over 72 as he finished 4 under for the tournament and T11. His fall now consists of a T17, 2, T5 and T11. While Wolff’s name may not be etched on a trophy yet this season, that is an incredible run for a player who struggled for much of the previous year. 5. Trainer rekindles magic In February 2019, in his ninth event as a TOUR member, Martin Trainer claimed his first victory at the Puerto Rico Open. A 27-year-old rookie at the time, Trainer opened up so many new doors in his golf career. But in the last 33 months, that career has featured significantly more struggles than glory. In his 70 TOUR starts between the 2019 Puerto Rico Open and the 2021 Houston Open, he missed 61 cuts. His best result was a 34th place at the 2020 Sentry Tournament of Champions, which happened to be a 34-player, no-cut event. Trainer was ranked 128th in the world after the 2019 Puerto Rico Open. He came to Houston as No. 1,310. But sometimes golf makes no sense, because there he was opening with a pair of 65s at Memorial Park. Not only had he made the cut, he was in the lead through two rounds. He had made just one bogey through 36 holes. “There’s always an incentive to play and there’s always that hope that maybe I can find it,” he said Friday. “There’s definitely been times when I haven’t been playing well in the last couple years where I thought about and pondered my future in the game. It’s nice to finally have one of these validating performances where all that work actually is paying off.” A third-round 74 dropped him one off the lead, and a 70 on Sunday landed him at 6 under for a T5 finish. After a 71-foot birdie putt on No. 11, Trainer actually briefly held the lead in the final round before bogeying three of his final five holes. Still, his $289,688 in prize money was roughly $60,000 more than he had made in those 70 starts since Puerto Rico. COMCAST BUSINESS TOUR TOP 10 The Comcast Business TOUR TOP 10 highlights and rewards the extraordinary level of play required to earn a spot in the TOP 10 at the conclusion of the FedExCup Regular Season as determined by the FedExCup standings. The competition recognizes and awards the most elite in golf.

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Politics aside, Presidents Cup gets off to flying start

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IRVING, Texas — Brooks Koepka leaned in for a closer look at his ball buried in deep rough when a critter he couldn’t identify caused him to jump back with a bit of a startled look. His best guesses were a frog or rat, though he was too disoriented to be sure. It definitely wasn’t a birdie, because Koepka was on his way to finishing with two straight bogeys after sharing the lead late in his opening round of the AT&T Byron Nelson on Thursday. A year after losing to Sergio Garcia in a playoff at the TPC Four Seasons, Koepka settled for a 3-under 67 and trailed co-leaders James Hahn and Ricky Barnes by three shots. “It jumped out and I didn’t know what was going on, freaked me out,” said Koepka, who needed help from a bevy of tournament volunteers and fans to find his ball while hitting two shots out of the thick grass and just missing a chip that would have saved par on the ninth hole, his last. “I was so in amazement of what just happened, whether it jumped out, scared me. I couldn’t see it because it ran underneath the grass again.” Matt Kuchar, Jhonattan Vegas, Jason Kokrak and Cameron Tringale shot 66, and top-ranked Dustin Johnson topped the group at 67, a stroke ahead of fourth-ranked Jason Day and Jordan Spieth, the No. 6 player competing in his hometown event. Masters and defending Nelson champion Garcia, ranked fifth, had three bogeys on the front nine and just one birdie in a 73 that left him tied for 93rd. The event is the last at TPC Four Seasons, ending the tournament’s 35-year run in Irving. The tournament will move to the new links-style Trinity Forest Golf Club south of downtown Dallas next year. Tringale was the only player with a lower score than Johnson in a blustery afternoon round, while Hahn and Barnes played in slightly calmer conditions in the morning. “It was blowing hard and it was gusty,” said Johnson, who has four top-10 finishes in seven previous Nelsons. “I thought it was very difficult to judge the wind and control the ball. Felt like there were a lot of times I hit really good shots that didn’t end up in good spots.” Using a mallet putter instead of his traditional blade, Spieth made a 10-footer for his second straight birdie on his 17th hole, the par-4 eighth. Normally one of the best putters on tour, the Dallas native was frustrated with that part of his game after missing the cut at THE PLAYERS Championship last week. “It’s nothing crazy new,” said Spieth, whose best Nelson finish remains his tie for 16th as a 16-year-old amateur in 2010. “It helps me line up a bit better and that’s kind of been my struggle is lining the putter up where I want to. I just haven’t quite dialed in the speed yet.” Day birdied the par-4 11th when he chipped to 12 feet off a cart path behind the green after a 326-yard drive on the 309-yard hole. On the next hole, he had to bend his second shot around tree from the rough and saved par. Day eagled the par-5 seventh and curled in a 28-footer for birdie on 18. “In this wind, I think everyone’s kind of scrambling,” said Day, whose first PGA TOUR win came at the 2010 Nelson. “I was not going to drop it all the way back onto the other side of the road. It was just in long grass and I wouldn’t be able to flop it over. It was quite a simple shot. You just had to contact it correctly.” Hahn finished a bogey-free round with a 22-foot birdie putt on 18 to match his lowest round of the season. The two-time tour winner saved par with a 24-footer on 14. Hahn’s first four birdies were inside 10 feet. Barnes, who has made four straight cuts after missing 10 of his previous 13, started a run of three straight birdies with a chip-in on his 15th hole, the par-4 sixth. He had two bogeys. “I’m having signs of brilliancy,” said Barnes, still looking for his first win in his 255th PGA TOUR start. “I just need to put it all together.” Koepka birdied his first two holes and was 5 under through 13 holes before stumbling late. On No. 8, his 17th hole, Koepka had to lift a folder lawn chair to uncover his ball behind the green. He missed the par putt. After missing on a birdie chance for the win in 2016, Koepka went in the water on 18, the first playoff hole, to open the door for Garcia to become the only two-time winner since Lord Byron’s event moved to the Four Seasons. “I didn’t play very good today,” Koepka said. “Even last year, I didn’t play very good around this place and just managed to get a decent score. Three under isn’t very good around here. I’ll take it for how I played.”

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