No trespassing: Fleetwood enters hometown Open as a favorite

The Asia Swing culminates in China for the World Golf Championships – HSBC Champions where a cavalcade of stars are ready to do battle. It was here that Justin Rose kicked off his big push towards the FedExCup crown, winning with a final round surge over a faltering Dustin Johnson. Can Brooks Koepka continue his charge after winning last week in Korea or will it be another international star like Rose, or perhaps a rejuvenated Hideki Matsuyama? In the last two seasons the winner of the FedExCup (Justin Thomas and Rose) have won during the Asia Swing so everyone knows the 550 points on offer to the winner could be critical. There are seven Chinese players in the field led by Haotong Li. Perhaps it is time for the PGA TOUR’s first Chinese winner? Li is joined by Yechun Yuan, Xinjun Zhang, Yanwei Liu, Bowen Xiao, Wenchong Liang and Ashun Wu. Seven of the top 10 players in the world headline the field. The Golf Channel will provide live coverage for all four rounds. For the opening two rounds coverage starts at 10 p.m. ET (10 a.m. local time) on Wednesday and Thursday. Weekend play gets underway at 11 p.m. ET (11 a.m. local time). MORE: Tee times Here’s a look at the Featured Groups for the first two rounds (FedExCup ranking in parentheses): Brooks Koepka (3) – Hot off his victory in last week’s CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES in Korea the newly minted World No. 1 is looking to keep the momentum rolling. He was T2 here a year ago. Justin Rose (NR) – The FedExCup champion has three top 10s at this event including last season’s win in Shanghai. Looking to get his title defense in both off to a big start. 
Tommy Fleetwood (NR) – Has been knocking on the door of a PGA TOUR win for some time. Still flying high from his Ryder Cup efforts. Three top-25s previous here, but no top 10s. Tee times: Rd. 1 (9:55 p.m. ET); Rd. 2 (10:50 p.m. ET) Jason Day (21) – Finished strong last week in Korea to be T5 and comes off the back of a T11 here on debut last season. Australian set to take a break for baby No. 3 after this start so wants maximum points. Tony Finau (NR) – Did everything last season except win. An impressive 11 top-10 finishes and a sixth-place finish in the FedExCup. Now it’s time to take it up a notch again. Was T11 here last season. 
Hoatong Li (NR) – Crowd favorite looking to be the first Chinese player to win on the PGA TOUR. Best finish in the event is a T7 three years ago. 
 Tee times: Rd. 1 (10:45 p.m. ET); Rd. 2 (9:30 p.m. ET) Rory McIlroy (NR) – Six times he’s played and his worst return is a tie for 11th two seasons ago. Making his PGA TOUR season debut and expecting to make an immediate splash. 
 Dustin Johnson (NR) – Took a sizable lead after 54 holes last year before a Sunday stumble. Revenge is on his mind in his season debut. Won the event in 2014.
 Francesco Molinari (NR) – A winner here in 2010. Returns this season in the form of his career having claimed multiple worldwide wins last season, including the Open Championship. Tee times: Rd. 1 (10:55 p.m. ET); Rd. 2 (9:40 p.m. ET) Patrick Reed (NR) – The Masters champion is ready to let his clubs do the talking once more. Was T7 here a few years ago and is looking to better that to kick off his season. Jon Rahm (NR) – Spanish sensation ready to kick-start his 2018-19 PGA TOUR season. Finished midfield on debut at the event last year – something that doesn’t sit well with his personal standards.   Alex Noren (57) – Two good rounds mixed in with two not so good ones last week in Korea was still good enough for T18 finish. Noren’s accuracy off the tee and into the greens should spell success here although he’s yet to find a top 10 in five previous starts. Tee times: Rd. 1 (9:45 p.m. ET); Rd. 2 (10:40 p.m. ET)

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The Grateful Dead didn’t release an album about 2020, but the band from the Bay Area might as well have. Indeed, it’s been a long, strange trip. The four majors are the cornerstones on the golf calendar, but the pandemic has whittled the 2019-20 PGA TOUR season to one, this week’s PGA Championship. It’s the 102nd edition. Coincidentally, it’s the major to which you already associate a radical adjustment in recent memory. Long the anchor of the majors through 2018, it moved to May in 2019 as part of wholesale changes that repositioned THE PLAYERS Championship to its old spot in March and a shift of the FedExCup Playoffs up a month and into August. Consideration for the quadrennial Olympics over time also factored. RELATED: The First Look | Inside the Field Then 2020 was dropped on the world. Despite what that numerical value could suggest, there’s been nothing perfect about the vision for the near future. Yet, it keeps truckin’ on with this much as clear: the PGA of America is poised to present the tournament at TPC Harding Park in San Francisco. TPC Harding Park last hosted the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play in 2015. Forty in this week’s field competed that week. Before that and a trio of Charles Schwab Cup Championships, the Presidents Cup was contested in 2009. Before that, the then-WGC-American Express Championship in 2005. And before that, TPC Harding Park was a parking lot for the 1998 U.S. Open at The Olympic Club across Lake Merced. Seriously. That also was the last year that the PGA Championship was held on the West Coast (Sahalee Country Club in Sammamish, Washington). Each of the 156 entrants is slotted below. Thirty are first-time participants. The traditional component of the Power Rankings slots 20. Brief explanations for each category beneath it are provided. Scroll past all of them for details of the host course, what should be required to prevail and more. POWER RANKINGS: PGA CHAMPIONSHIP WILD CARD Collin Morikawa … Nothing like making your PGA Championship debut within a short drive of your college stomping grounds the year after graduation; oh, and as a two-time PGA TOUR winner with only one missed cut in 26 starts as a professional and slotted sixth in the FedExCup in your first full season. The former Cal-Berkeley standout has the game and he has the comportment. All he’s missing is the experience. It’s just that that hasn’t mattered. CHALLENGERS Each of the 24 slotted here demand attention, but all fall short of cracking the Power Rankings. It’s through no indictment of any, but each lacks a punch that those above present right now. Ranked in order of Rob’s confidence (* – former champion; ^ – debutant; 2015 WGC-Match Play finish) Charl Schwartzel (T9) *Tiger Woods Abraham Ancer Tony Finau Ryan Palmer (T52) Chez Reavie *Phil Mickelson Ian Poulter (T34) ^Viktor Hovland Adam Scott (T52) Billy Horschel (T17) Shane Lowry (T34) Matt Kuchar (T34) Jordan Spieth (T17) Sergio Garcia (T34) Patrick Reed (T17) Kevin Kisner Harris English (T17) Louis Oosthuizen (T5) ^Matthew Wolff Kevin Streelman Justin Rose (T17) Henrik Stenson (T34) *Martin Kaymer (T34) SLEEPERS The customary definition for this weekly category is tossed aside for a week in favor of full relativity to the field. Always an eclectic bunch, this grouping of 16 doesn’t disappoint. It’s loaded with youth, upstarts, dandy course fits and a 2020 Ryder Cup captain. Ranked in order of Rob’s confidence (^ – debutant; 2015 WGC-Match Play finish) Max Homa Mackenzie Hughes Corey Conners Joost Luiten (T17) Adam Hadwin Brendan Steele Adam Long ^Doc Redman Lucas Herbert Joaquin Niemann Cameron Champ J.T. Poston Dylan Frittelli Steve Stricker Mike Lorenzo-Vera Ryo Ishikawa QUESTION MARKS Seventy-five in the field of 156 are segregated into the two subcategories below. Placement is relative fit, form and other variables. ARROW UP Ranked in order of Rob’s confidence (* – former champion; ^ – debutant; 2015 WGC-Match Play finish) Richy Werenski Marc Leishman (T9) Tom Lewis ^Matthias Schwab Erik van Rooyen Michael Thompson Joel Dahmen Lucas Glover Danny Willett (3rd) ^Talor Gooch ^Scottie Scheffler ^Mark Hubbard *Keegan Bradley (T52) Troy Merritt Cameron Tringale Luke List ^Chan Kim Emiliano Grillo ^Lanto Griffin Si Woo Kim ^Christiaan Bezuidenhout ^Sepp Straka Kurt Kitayama ^Robert MacIntyre ^Joohyung Kim Shaun Norris Zach Johnson (T17) ^Benjamin Hebert Matt Jones (T34) ^Marcus Kinhult Russell Henley (T34) ^Tyler Duncan ^Xinjun Zhang ARROW DOWN Ranked in order of Rob’s confidence (* – former champion; ^ – debutant; 2015 WGC-Match Play finish) Byeong Hun An Jim Furyk (4th) Paul Casey (T5) Graeme McDowell (T52) Rafa Cabrera Bello Brian Harman Brandt Snedeker (T52) ^Denny McCarthy Bernd Wiesberger (T34) Jason Kokrak Bubba Watson (T17) ^Carlos Ortiz Scott Piercy Nick Taylor Sungjae Im Bud Cauley Brian Stuard Cameron Smith ^Sebastián Muñoz Keith Mitchell *Jimmy Walker (T52) Sung Kang ^Victor Perez Vaughn Taylor Hao Tong Li Andrew Landry Harold Varner III ^Wyndham Clark Jorge Campillo ^Tom Hoge Rory Sabbatini Jazz Janewattananond C.T. Pan Danny Lee *Jason Dufner *Davis Love III Andrew Putnam *Rich Beem ^Nate Lashley Jim Herman *Shaun Micheel ^Ken Tanigawa PGA PROFESSIONALS On June 29, the rescheduled PGA Professional National Championship (for July 19-22) was canceled. So, the 20 exemptions in the PGA Championship reserved for the top finishers in that annual competition were awarded to the top 20 in the 2019 PGA Professional Player of the Year standings. Among the notables, former PGA TOUR member and 60-year-old Jeff Hart is making his debut. Jeff “J.R.” Roth is making his first appearance since his fifth 16 years ago. He made his debut in 1988. The 62-year-old has won a record-tying 17 Michigan majors. Ranked in order of Rob’s confidence (% – former PGA TOUR member; # of prior appearances in parentheses) Ryan Vermeer (3) %Jason Caron (1) %Bob Sowards (10) Rob Labritz (6) Ben Cook (1) Shawn Warren (1) Danny Balin (6) Justin Bertsch (1) David Muttitt (4) John O’Leary (2) Alex Beach (2) Michael Auterson (0) Zach J. Johnson (1) Marty Jertson (4) Judd Gibb (0) Rod Perry (6) Rich Berberian, Jr. (4) Alex Knoll (0) %Jeff Hart (0) Jeff Roth (5) NOTE: John Daly, Branden Grace, Padraig Harrington, J.B. Holmes, Charles Howell III, Francesco Molinari, Ryan Moore, Eddie Pepperell, Thomas Pieters, Vijay Singh, Paul Waring, Lee Westwood and Y.E. Yang qualified but will not compete. Unlike the guided walks for the Presidents Cup and the Match Play, the traditional routing of TPC Harding Park will be used for the PGA Championship. It’ll also play to a par of 70 with two par fives for the first time since the 2005 WGC was contested. It was a par 71 for all events in the interim. Despite the reduction of par since its last time on center stage, TPC Harding Park is 107 yards longer. It now tips at 7,234 yards. The par-4 seventh and 16th holes are drivable – although that phrase never has been more relative on some seemingly non-drivable par 4s – and the par-4 ninth and 12th holes are converted par 5s. Lake Merced comes into view on the 13th green over which The Olympic Club can be seen. Most recently, that’s where Webb Simpson captured victory at the U.S. Open in 2012. From the 14th tee all the way to the house, water helps frame TPC Harding Park on the left. In part because of the beauty along the perimeter of the property, the inward side features the most interesting holes. Among them are the scorable par-5 10th and the 171-yard 17th, the shortest par 3 on the course. Without spectators on site, the variety of distinctive tall trees enhance the visceral experience, not that pinched fairways framed by rough as high as four inches and reasonably sized elevated greens won’t require most of the attention. Bentgrass greens are naturally groomed to be slick. That’ll be more evident later in every round with sunshine overhead. Because TPC Harding Park is situated within a mile of the Pacific Ocean, a morning marine layer always is a possibility. Sunny and dry conditions are forecast throughout the tournament. The not-so-insignificant invisible challenge will be prevailing winds out of the southwest. Trousers will be flapping at times – joggers, not so much – while daytime highs in the mid-60s will help govern distance off the tee and on approach. The winner of the Wanamaker Trophy likely will have contended for the lead in fairways hit, scrambling and bogey avoidance. Because of the penalty for missing fairways, greens-in-regulation percentages will take a hit, so he may need to slot inside only the top 20 or so. Once determined, the champion will earn 600 FedExCup points, a five-year PGA TOUR membership exemption, a lifetime exemption into the PGA Championship, five-year exemptions into the other three majors and THE PLAYERS Championship, and $2.7 million of the $15-million prize fund, a record in the history of professional golf. It’d be disingenuous to think that Jordan Spieth doesn’t care about those spoils, but his brass ring is the last leg of the career grand slam. This will be his fourth attempt. His pursuit will be followed by Phil Mickelson at the U.S. Open and Rory McIlroy at the Masters, both of whom are missing those pieces to their own career grand slams. If you’re interested in the greatest performers in the history of the PGA Championship, please read the all-time Power Rankings that published during the tournament’s originally scheduled week in May. 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: Rookie Ranking, Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Fantasy Insider * – 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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