LIV’s Canter wins DP World Tour event by 2

AVONDALE, La. – They call it ham and egging when a team cleverly splits their good holes between them. Chez Reavie and Lucas Glover timed it perfectly with six birdies each to send their team to a blistering opening 12-under 60 at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans on Thursday and a share of the lead with Chinese duo Xinjun Zhang and Zecheng Dou. The key? Making a ton of putts after solid communication. While most teams leave each individual to do their own thing in Four-ball play, this pair picked each other’s brains. And it worked. “We read them right early, and that just gave us good feeling for the rest of the day. Chez birdied the first two; we were dead on with both the reads, so we just kept it going,â€� former U.S. Open winner Glover explained. “We changed maybe a ball or two in a direction one way or the other and that was it. We were pretty right on. Luckily we were hitting our lines also.â€� The pair combined last season for a T39 finish and learned plenty from the experience. Joining back together again they’ve taken an analytical approach, as well as putting in plenty of practice. “I think we’re both really good ball strikers. We wanted to strategize properly, and so I would lay back in some of the fairways and let him get more aggressive on the tees,â€� Reavie explained. “We’re just very comfortable helping each other out. If I tell him something and he’s not all in, then he’s going to do what he wants and I’m completely good with it, and vice versa.â€� They expect to keep the roll going in alternate shot on Friday after getting in a solid 27 holes of practice in the format over the past few days. NOTABLES Xinjun Zhang and Zecheng Dou have been struggling a little in their rookie seasons on the PGA TOUR, but the Chinese pioneers had no such issues Thursday. Zhang, who sits 128th in the FedExCup and Dou, who is a distant 215th, came flying home in the final group to join the lead at 12-under 60. Despite being in the culinary town of New Orleans, the pair said they felt at home after finding a Chinese market and buying supplies. Kevin Kisner and Scott Brown are still a little rankled by their playoff loss to Cameron Smith and Jonas Blixt a year ago, so their 10-under 62 to open this year was certainly a step in the right direction for redemption. They sit T3. “Obviously we didn’t finish it off the way we wanted to, so we’re coming back for a little revenge this week,â€� Kisner said. Tony Finau and Daniel Summerhays have been friends a long time. They share the same coach (Daniel’s brother Boyd) and Utah roots. Summerhays opened their round with two birdies and closed it the same way to help them to a 10-under 62 and T3 position. Finau – in his return from an ankle injury had six birdies of his own. “I think it’s really important to get off to a good start in best ball,â€� Summerhays said. “Last year we started alternate shot and you always felt like you were behind the eight ball, because it is a more difficult format. So to come out and really play good golf as a team I think that sets us up really nice for tomorrow.â€� Tommy Fleetwood and Chris Paisley are looking to continue the trend of international winners at the Zurich Classic. The English pair and good mates fired up an impressive 10-under 62 to be T3. Both have won on the European Tour this season and are looking to now notch up a PGA TOUR win. “It’s been kind of the best start to the year I’ve ever had,â€� Paisley said. “It’s been amazing. Hopefully I can just kind of keep it going. Maybe get my card over here. That would be great.â€� Jim Furyk and David Duval turned back the clock with an impressive 7-under 65. Duval, who has played just seven TOUR events in the last three seasons and hasn’t made a cut since 2015, produced four of the seven birdies. “It’s a joy,â€� the former World No. 1 Duval said. “The competition is different. I certainly miss it. I’d like to play a little bit more than I do.â€� Rob Oppenheim created a huge highlight with an albatross on the par-5 7th hole. His hole-out from 262 yards helped his partnership with Nick Lashley open with an 8-under 64 to be T11. Roundup: Jordan Spieth and Ryan Palmer sit T32 after a 6-under 66. Cameron Smith and Jonas Blixt started their title defense with a respectable 7-under 65 to be tied 21st. Patrick Reed, in his first start since winning the Masters is T21 after a 65 with Patrick Cantlay. FedExCup leader Justin Thomas and Bud Cauley struggled to a 2-under 70 to be T77 of 80 teams. QUOTABLES Going to try and look good so we feel good to play good.When you got on so well and you feel comfortable, it makes a big difference out there.He’s the par-3 assassin, so he gets three Par-3s and I get to putt them.Sometimes simplicity is huge in this game. SUPERLATIVES Low Round: 12-under 60 from the Chez Reavie/Lucas Glover and Xinjun Zhang and Zecheng Dou teams. Hardest Hole: Par-4 15th played as the only hole over par at 4.013. It yielded just five birdies. Easiest Hole: The Par-5 7th averaged at 4.238 and had three eagles and 54 birdies. SHOT OF THE DAY

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SAN DIEGO — Will Zalatoris and Jason Day charged past Jon Rahm and Justin Thomas on Friday at Torrey Pines to share the third-round lead at the Farmers Insurance Open. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Inside the Field: AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Zalatoris posted the day’s best round with a 7-under 65, and two-time Farmers champion Day shot a 67. They were at 14 under heading to the final round of the tournament, which will finish Saturday. Rahm and Aaron Rai were 13 under, and Thomas, Sungjae Im and Cameron Tringale were another shot back. There were 24 players within five shots of the co-leaders after an eventful moving day. Zalatoris surged from six shots back after two rounds and moved into contention for his first career PGA TOUR victory, yet his round could have been several strokes better if his putter had kept up with the rest of his formidable play. The 25-year-old missed several birdie putts, including a pair inside 5 feet, but stayed in the lead alongside several more accomplished pros. “Obviously, a lot of great vibes here,” said Zalatoris, who made his first career PGA TOUR start as a pro at Torrey Pines in 2018. “This is, I think, by far one of the best golf courses that suits my game. Just keep enjoying it and whatever happens, happens.” Day, who won a playoff in 2018 to claim the Farmers title, finished his third round superbly with four birdies on the final six holes. The Australian former top-ranked pro buried a 27-foot birdie putt on the 16th and got firmly into contention on the course where he also won in 2015. “It’s nice to be able to know that I’ve done it on the golf course twice, not only in regulation but also in playoffs,” said Day, who hasn’t won on TOUR since that playoff victory in 2018. “But tomorrow is a new day, and you don’t know what’s going to come. I’ve just got to get a good rest tonight, get into it tomorrow and just be patient.” Rahm rebounded from a double bogey on the 10th and another bogey on the 12th to stay firmly in contention with a 72 on the course where he got his first PGA TOUR win in 2017 and his first major victory at the U.S. Open last year. “I played great, I think,” Rahm said. “I feel like I played a lot better than the score shows. There was only two holes where I struggled and probably gave a couple too many back. Today is one of those days that happen at Torrey Pines South. Played great golf, but I just couldn’t take the opportunities, and it’s going to be hard to shoot low.” Thomas and Rahm both finished the front nine with dramatic birdie putts. Thomas holed out from 41 feet, and Rahm hit his from nearly 38 feet to the thrilled roars of the gallery. But Thomas missed an 8-foot par putt on the 15th and then took a penalty stroke on the 17th when his drive went in a hazard before finishing his 73. Rahm, Thomas and Adam Schenk shared the lead after two rounds, but Schenk faltered even more with a third-round 75. Rai jumped into contention for his first career PGA TOUR victory by finishing his 68 with back-to-back birdies. The Englishman and former Scottish Open champion is a six-time winner internationally. “It’s always nice to have the validation through results to know that you can compete and your game is good enough,” Rai said. Zalatoris began the third round six shots off the lead, and hold out from 39 yards for eagle on the second hole Friday. He made a 9-foot birdie putt on the fourth, but missed from inside 15 feet on the fifth and from inside 8 feet on the seventh. “Today was the best I’ve ever driven a golf ball by far,” Zalatoris said. After saving par on the 11th with an exceptional 40-foot shot from the rough to within 4 inches, Zalatoris barely missed a birdie putt from inside 17 feet on the 12th before missing a 3-footer on the 13th, a 12-footer on the 15th and a 14-footer on the 16th. Zalatoris then followed up an exceptional second shot on the 17th by badly missing a birdie from inside 4 feet, but finished his round by saving par from a bunker. “I think really the two that I left out there today, I just didn’t commit to playing outside the hole,” Zalatoris said. “So I think that’s something that definitely tomorrow, just commit to it, and hey, if it bounces in, it bounces in. If it bounces out, it bounces out.”

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Don't lament that it's ending. Celebrate that it's going to conclude in its entirety. This recurring affirmation has applied to the 2019-20 PGA TOUR season, the fall portion of the 2020-21 season, the Aloha Swing that opened calendar-year 2021 and now the West Coast Swing. Until the world operates in whatever the new normal will be, expectations must continue to be reasonable so as to guarantee a positive experience. The same approach has applied to the host of The Genesis Invitational, Tiger Woods, both in recent years as it concerns his career trajectory and his inability to capture victory in the annual atop at Riviera County Club. Woods currently is sidelined indefinitely as he recovers from his most recent back surgery. But of course, the show must go on in the morning shadows of Hollywood. Continue reading below the projected contenders for what a stacked field can expect from the historically tough track west of Los Angeles, an enhanced perk for the winner and more. RELATED: The First Look | Inside the Field POWER RANKINGS: THE GENESIS INVITATIONAL Tuesday's Fantasy Insider will include Jordan Spieth, Hideki Matsuyama, Viktor Hovland, Will Zalatoris, three-time Genesis champion Bubba Watson and other notables. As of Monday afternoon, the field at Riviera was 121 deep. That's one more than reserved because of the strength in numbers among the automatic qualifiers. Included in its qualifying criteria, the tournament invited the top 125 in a special FedExCup points list that extended from the beginning of the 2019-20 season and through the Waste Management Phoenix Open two weeks ago. (Similar criteria will apply to THE PLAYERS Championship and the RBC Heritage, but those tournaments reserve space for 144 and 132 golfers, respectively.) "The Riv" is a par 71 with three par 5s. It tips at 7,322 yards. For relevant purposes, the course remained unchanged since last year. The only layer of kikuyu rough is trimmed to an inch and a half, plenty deep for relatively narrow fairways and greens that are prepped to reach 12-and-a-half feet on the Stimpmeter. Putting surfaces are 7,500 square feet on average, but Riviera's fairways annually are among the stingiest to split, so the targets need to be a little larger than other courses. Anyone who finds as many as eight (of 14) fairways per round is beating the historical average. Last year's field averaged 7.14 (or 50.97 percent), fourth-lowest of all courses that season. Hitting the greens on approach and on the par 3s is no bargain, either. Last year's average of 10.11 per round was second-lowest among all courses. It cannot be expected for a golfer who descended with inconsistent ball-striking to find a level of success with it here. En route to victory a year ago, Adam Scott hit the short grass off the tee just 23 of 56 times (to rank T63), but he led the field in averaging 13 GIR per round. Forever the ball-striker, he used his length (eighth in distance of all drives at 300.9 yards) to finish third in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green. Riviera's three par 5s are the soft underbelly as Nos. 1, 11 and 17 surrendered a scoring average of 4.56 last year to rank 10th-easiest of 41 courses in 2019-20, but Scott was a middling T37 in par-5 scoring. Instead, he rose to the challenge on the difficult par 4s, ranking third. While the par-3 sixth hole catches the eye with a bunker in its center, the par-4 10th is the signature hole. Avid fans of golf already are aware of that, but even they might be surprised that the 315-yard beauty is easier than a few egos inside the ropes might let on. It's a fact that No. 10 was the easiest par 4 at Riviera in four of the last five years, including in each of the last two. Scott birdied it in each of the first three rounds before settling for a par in the finale last year. The overarching message is that Riviera is as firm and fair as it is consistent. In other words, returning competitors know exactly what to expect. There are no tricks. In general, the aforementioned data could apply to every edition in which the weather cooperates, as it often does in sunny Southern California. This week's forecast is almost identical to last year's with daytime highs in the mid-to-upper 60s and only passing clouds, if any. The only difference is that wind might be a little fresher this week, but the course rests 1-2 miles from the ocean, so it's protected from the unrelenting gusts hard on the shore. In line with its second edition as an invitational and elevated status, the winner again will be rewarded with a three-year PGA TOUR membership exemption (or extension of one season up to five if already exempt through 2023-24). What's new to this year's staging is that the champion will receive 550 FedExCup points instead of the customary 500. The same bump will apply to the winners of the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard and the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide. ROB BOLTON'S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM's Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton recaps and previews every tournament from numerous angles. Look for his following contributions as scheduled. MONDAY: Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Sleepers, Fantasy Insider SUNDAY: Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Rookie Watch * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM's Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, which also publishes on Tuesday.

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