Masters patrons a rare breed in wild world of sport

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The final stop in Florida of the 2017-18 PGA TOUR season is 45th edition of THE PLAYERS Championship. THE PLAYERS Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass has hosted this event since 1982 and during the month of May since 2007. TPC Sawgrass will host this event for the last time in May this week as it will switch back to its original calendar position of March in 2018-19. Si Woo Kim posted 10-under-par 278 to win by three shots last year and become the youngest winner in history. TPC Sawgrass, which underwent multiple changes before last year’s event, will welcome 144 of the world’s best players including all of the top 50 in the OWGR. The top 70 and ties will play the weekend and the winner this year will pocket $1.98 million, 600 FedExCup points and a five-year exemption on TOUR. The argument continues as to whether or not this is the “fifth major” on the calendar. From a gaming standpoint, the purse ($11 million), first-place money and the FedExCup points to the winner (600) answers that question quite easily. This is not the week to “save” players for down the road in any format. TALES OF THE TAPE Si Woo Kim became the youngest winner at 21 years and 10 months surpassing Adam Scott in 2004. Fred Funk is the oldest winner at 48 in 2005. He’s also the last Jacksonville-area resident to win if that’s an angle you were checking. Kim’s final round was a bogey-free 69 that saw him come from three-shots off the lead of 54-hole leaders J.B Holmes and Kyle Stanley. Dating back to 2007, 54-hole leader(s) have won exactly twice with Martin Kaymer (2014) and Jason Day (2016) turning the trick. Holmes fired 84 to finish T41 and Stanley 74 to cash T4. Day shot 80 in the final round last year proving again that this course can reward and ruin players all in the same round. Day had the last laugh in 2016 as his wire-to-wire victory was only the fifth occurrence in history and first since Hal Sutton in 2000. He tied the course record of 63 in Round 1 and never looked back eventually winning by four shots. The interesting part of 2016 to me was Ken Duke, Colt Knost and Matt Kuchar all sharing a piece of T3 along with Justin Thomas. Day, runner-up Kevin Chappell and Thomas obliterate the golf ball off the tee while Duke, Knost and Kuchar don’t. Fred Funk has also never been accused of teeing it high and letting it fly! Other known bomber Graeme McDowell was T9. The first and second rounds were the easiest played in the history of the tournament. Day didn’t come close to scaring the tournament record of 264 set by Greg Norman in 1994 as the weather on Saturday didn’t cooperate. Day’s four-shot victory is the largest since the move to May. Fowler’s unbelievable finish in 2015 included the lowest four-hole score in history as he closed birdie-eagle-birdie-birdie TO FORCE A PLAYOFF. The three-hole playoff saw Sergio Garcia eliminated but Kevin Kisner had one more chance to knock Fowler out in sudden death. Fowler held his nerve again on No. 17 and stuck it to less than five feet for the winning birdie. Kisner had a noble showing for his first PLAYERS reinforcing that course history isn’t a requirement at TPC Sawgrass. Justin Thomas also made his debut and was T24 and co-led the field with 21 birdies. He also made 10 in one round. Fowler’s comeback was so entertaining folks forgot 54-hole leader Chris Kirk shot 75 to finish T13. Day shot 81 in the second round. The last three winners, as shown above have added to the complexity of cracking the code this week. This reinforces the belief that there is more than one way to solve Dye’s riddles at TPC Sawgrass. I’ve have reached back into the winning trends from the ShotLink Era (2004-now) to see the what parts of the game were essential to the May winners. Since 2004, 13 of the 15 winners have finished in the top 24 GIR. The only two that haven’t have won two of the last three trophies! I’m leaning on the longer trend this week. The trend I like even better is eight of the last 15 winners have finished in the top three in GIR. Similarly, eight of the last 15 winners have finished first or second in SG: tee to green. Of those 15, only two (Tim Clark, 2010 and K.J. Choi, 2011) finished outside T11. Players that don’t hit GIR better be able to get up-and-down. Of the last nine winners, eight were in the top 10 in scrambling. Since the Par-5 holes aren’t 660 yards most will score well and make hay. It will be the Par-4 scoring that separates the field as eight of the last 15 winners have been either first or second in this category. NOTE: Golfers inside the top 20-ish in each statistic on the 2017-18 PGA TOUR are listed only if they are scheduled to compete this week. * – Finished inside the top 10 at THE PLAYERS since 2013 or is a former winner. Greens in Regulation Rank  Golfer 1  *Henrik Stenson 2  *Kyle Stanley 3  *Jordan Spieth 4  Pat Perez 5  Gary Woodland 6  *Brendan Steele 6  *Kevin Streelman 8  Bubba Watson 9  *Rafael Cabrera Bello 10 *Rickie Fowler 12 Emiliano Grillo 13 Dustin Johnson 14 *Brian Harman 14 *Justin Thomas 16 Charles Howell III 17 Keegan Bradley 18 Chez Reavie 19 Patrick Cantlay 20 Scott Piercy SG: Tee to Green Rank  Golfer 1  Dustin Johnson 2  *Jordan Spieth 3  *Sergio Garcia 4  Luke List 5  *Justin Thomas 6  *Henrik Stenson 7  *Francesco Molinari 8  Paul Casey 9  Tommy Fleetwood 10 Keegan Bradley 11 Scott Piercy 12 *Brendan Steele 13 Patrick Cantlay 14 Bryson DeChambeau 15 Tony Finau 16 *Hideki Matsuyama 17 *Tiger Woods 18 *Kevin Chappell 19 *Kevin Streelman 20 Byeong-Hun An Scrambling Rank  Golfer 1  *Jordan Spieth 2  Webb Simpson 3  *Louis Oosthuizen 4  *Henrik Stenson 5  *Rickie Fowler 6  *Kevin Na 7  *Brandt Snedeker 9  Cameron Smith 10 *Kevin Streelman 12 *Justin Thomas 13 *Jason Day 15 Brian Gay 16 *Phil Mickelson 17 *Justin Rose 18 *Ben Crane 19 Chez Reavie 20 Chris Kirk Bogey Avoidance Rank  Golfer 1  *Henrik Stenson 2  *Jordan Spieth 3  *Rickie Fowler 4  *Kevin Streelman 5  Dustin Johnson 6  Webb Simpson 7  Cameron Smith 7  *Justin Rose 9  Chez Reavie 10 Charles Howell III 11 *Brandt Snedeker 12 *Justin Thomas 13 Zach Johnson 15 Emiliano Grillo 16 William McGirt 17 Bubba Watson 18 *Matt Kuchar 19 *Phil Mickelson 20 *Hideki Matsuyama Par-4 Scoring Rank  Golfer 1  *Henrik Stenson 2  *Justin Thomas 3  Dustin Johnson 3  Jon Rahm 5  *Rickie Fowler 5  *Jason Day 5  *Jordan Spieth 8  *Justin Rose 9  *Phil Mickelson 9  Chez Reavie 9  *Marc Leishman 14 Patrick Reed 14 Bubba Watson 14 *Brian Harman 14 Cameron Smith 14 Scott Piercy 14 Zach Johnson 20 Webb Simpson 20 *Matt Kuchar 20 *Brandt Snedeker 20 Emiliano Grillo 20 Pat Perez 20 *Kevin Chappell There is nowhere for the bombers to miss as the two-and-a-half inches of Bermuda rough doesn’t allow accurate recovery. There aren’t many places to easily get up-and-down for the inaccurate as the greens are just 5,500 square feet on average. The TifEagle Bermuda greens, not even two years old, will probably fluster and frustrate the best putters. The way to crack the code this week is impossibly simple: miss it in the right spot or hit it in the perfect spot. Great shots are rewarded while marginal shots suggest anything can happen. Target golf combined with indecision, weather, false visual clues and the pressure of dealing with the world’s best field will also be part of the examination. Pete Dye’s design will test every club in the bag and every will in the soul of the world’s best. This is one of the most challenging tournaments to win for golfers and gamers alike. The pedigree of winners here has varied greatly over the years as have the contenders. In the 36 previous years as host, no player has repeated and frankly, nobody has been close. Before last year Pete Dye expanded four greens to add extra pin placements that had never been seen before and also had all of the surfaces regrassed. Once the guys think they have it figured out around here, something else changes. Holes No. 12 was turned into a drivable Par-4 and has even more changes this year. Players will have their second test at navigating the pond between Holes Nos. 6 and 7 this year as well. Even though it has four Par-5 holes (Par-72) and plays to only 7,189 yards it is one of the toughest tests on TOUR as Dye challenges the players to work the ball both ways off the tees and both ways off the fairways and sometimes on the same hole. Don’t forget the weather is an important factor as well as no two holes play consecutively in the same direction. The wind is always being calculated and re-calculated and is part of the Dye master plan. As with one of the most difficult courses anywhere, I will lean on the best-of-the-best to handle my fantasy business this week. I’ve learned over the years that TPC Sawgrass rewards GREAT golf. Guys who are in current form and are in the categories above will populate my rosters across all formats. As you’ll see below, some are just getting things figured out here while others haven’t figured it out in a while. Gamers are going to be faced with some difficult decisions because the talent pool is deep, the course is Dye-ian and the stakes are massively high. Good luck! Rob Bolton’s Power Rankings will give you more juice for the week so make sure you stop by. It’s also who I trust with the weather each week so pay attention! NOTE: The groups below are comprehensive to assist in data mining. Inclusion doesn’t imply automatic endorsement in every fantasy game as all decisions are specific to your situation. CONFIDENCE MEN BUILDING CONFIDENCE OTHER SIGNS OF CONFIDENCE

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OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. - Tiger Woods won't be contending for a third FedExCup next week at the TOUR Championship unless he can pull off one of the biggest performances of his career. With scores of 73-75-72, the BMW Championship is the third non-major, and sixth tournament overall, that Woods has opened with three over-par rounds. At 10-over the 82-time PGA TOUR winner is tied 55th, and nine strokes off the pace he'd need to be to have a chance to progress to East Lake. RELATED: Full leaderboard | McIlroy chases FedExCup as fatherhood looms | Rahm cards 66 despite Rules gaffe So he will need to post a low number on a course that has averaged more than two shots over par through three rounds. Only once did he post an under-par final round (2007 PLAYERS Championship) on the above mentioned occasions. Sadly for Woods he could've been much closer to pulling off a miracle. After birdies on the third and fourth holes on Saturday he was climbing slowly up the leaderboard and even a bogey on the 10th kept him within a good run of applying some pressure. But his tee shot on the par-4 17th hole sailed right and into a water hazard and his third shot after a drop went miles left. In the end he carded a triple bogey seven and likely killed off any hope of being around next week. International Trio Set to play on... Three International players sit in position to play their way into the TOUR Championship through three rounds of the BMW Championship. Presidents Cup players Adam Scott (Australia) and Joaquin Niemann (Chile) are joined by Canadian Mackenzie Hughes as those who currently project from outside in for a place at East Lake. All three currently sit in a tie for third place and will start Sunday just two shots off the lead. As such their focus in winning the tournament rather than the projections. For the record, Nieman projects from 31st to 18th, Hughes is set to move from 36th to 22nd and Scott from 38th to 23rd. Of course they will need to continue their good play for 18 more holes. "This golf course is actually a pretty good distraction because it’s so hard that you have to just focus on every shot so much that it’s easy to just kind of get in your own world out there and just the task at hand, the task at hand. So that’s been kind of nice," Hughes said. "Obviously in between shots your mind wanders sometimes, but this is kind of where you want to be. Obviously I would have loved to have locked it up by now, but I’m happy to have this opportunity and I’ll go embrace it tomorrow." For Scott, a spot in the TOUR Championship, which he won in 2006 a year prior to it becoming the FedExCup finale, would be impressive given he only returned from the COVID-19 break at the recent PGA Championship. "It would be a great achievement to reach East Lake. I’ve played very well this year. I had one really great week, but I’ve left myself a lot of work to kind of get in there," he said in reference to his win at the Genesis Invitational in February. "Better late than never. I’ve got a chance to do it tomorrow, so if I can play a really good round tomorrow, I’d be very proud to be there at East Lake and kind of roll the dice and see what happens there." Of course if three project in, that means three project out. At this stage Cameron Champ (T59) projects to drop from 25th to 31st, Adam Long (T59) from 27th to 32nd and Kevin Streelman (T63) from 28th to 33rd.

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