One & Done: Masters Tournament

Phil Mickelson will continue his Ryder Cup legacy as part of the captaincy crew after being formally named as a Vice Captain for Steve Stricker’s U.S. Team for the 2021 Ryder Cup later this month at Whistling Straits. Stricker named Mickelson, a veteran of all 12 Ryder Cups since 1995, along with Fred Couples, as Vice Captains to join the previously announced Davis Love III, Jim Furyk and Zach Johnson to join his squad for the Sept. 21-26 contest against Europe in Wisconsin. “I’ve been staying in close contact with both Freddie and Phil, talking about all things Ryder Cup, for a while now,” Stricker said via statement. “They provide honest and impactful feedback, and both have such a passion for the Ryder Cup. I’m honored that they were willing to join our Team and help put us in the best position to win in a few weeks at Whistling Straits.” Mickelson had been fighting for a place as a player in the team after becoming the oldest winner of a major at the PGA Championship in May but sits 20th on the points list and failed to qualify for the TOUR Championship, the last tournament before Stricker adds his six captains picks to his six automatic qualifiers. “I’m humbled and honored to be a part of this year’s Ryder Cup as an assistant captain. Thank you Captain Stricker for including me and I hope to help in an way possible. GoUSA,” Mickelson tweeted in response to the news. His playing record will now seemingly end at 18-22-7 in Ryder Cups, with his 47 matches a record for the U.S. Team. He also holds the U.S. record for most fourball points won with nine and most Ryder Cups with 12. Collin Morikawa, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Justin Thomas and Patrick Cantlay were locked in as qualifiers last Sunday night as the top six. Those next in line vying for the last six positions decided by Stricker next Wednesday include Tony Finau, Xander Schauffele, Jordan Spieth, Harris English, Patrick Reed, Daniel Berger, Webb Simpson, Scottie Scheffler, Jason Kokrak, Sam Burns, Billy Horschel and Kevin Kisner. While it is Mickelson’s first foray into the captaincy squad, Couples has experience having been a Ryder Cup Vice Captain in 2012 alongside Love III. Couples was a victorious U.S. Team Presidents Cup captain in 2009, 2011 and 2013 and a captain’s assistant in 2015, 2017 and 2019. Couples also played in the 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995 and 1997 Ryder Cups.

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Justin Thomas comes into this year’s CIMB Classic in Malaysia pretty much the same way he came into last year’s CIMB Classic, as one of the best players in the world after a multiple-win season that also saw him take a leadership role with the U.S. Presidents/Ryder Cup Team. The biggest difference: Thomas is coming off “onlyâ€� a three-win season, not a five-win season and the FedExCup, coming into this CIMB, which is the only official PGA TOUR tournament in Southeast Asia and the first of three official TOUR events in Asia this month. “Anytime you win three times in a season, it’s still a pretty good season,â€� Thomas said at his press conference at the CIMB on Wednesday. “Obviously not winning a major was a big difference and not winning the FedExCup, but I played plenty well enough last year to win the same amount of times. “When you win (five) times in a year, you have a lot of things go your way,â€� Thomas continued. “You have a couple hot streaks and I just never really had any. I played really consistent good golf kind of throughout the year and I just didn’t have as many hot weeks like I did in ’16-’17.â€� Not that he wouldn’t gladly take a three-win season anytime, he added. The CIMB, which will celebrate its ninth edition this year, is the second tournament of the new 2018-19 TOUR season. It features a limited field of 78 players comprising of the top 60 available players from the 2017-18 FedExCup points list, eight sponsor exemptions and the top-10 available players from the Asian Tour. Pat Perez is the defending champion. Others of note also include two-time CIMB winner Ryan Moore, plus Kevin Tway, who is coming off his first TOUR win at the Safeway Open. Last we saw Thomas, he was going 4-1-0 for the losing U.S. Ryder Cup Team, the best showing by an American. Before that, he came to the TOUR Championship at East Lake with a chance at making history as the first player to successfully defend his FedExCup title. It didn’t go his way as he finished T7 to also finish 7th in the FedExCup, won by England’s Justin Rose. Still, Thomas took pleasure in friend Tiger Woods’ victory at East Lake, Woods’ first win in over five years. And no one would dispute that Thomas remains a potent threat who not only knows how to end a season in style, he knows how to begin it. Which is to say no one would be surprised if he won at TPC Kuala Lumpur for the third time in four years (2015, ’16). “It’s just a place that I’ve obviously played well,â€� said Thomas, 25. “I’m comfortable. I think being a little bit of a longer hitter you have an advantage, but I mean, the fact of the matter is that I’ve just played well the years I played here. I think my wedge game is a strong suit of mine and you have a lot of wedges out here, so I’ve been able to take advantage of that.â€� You could say that. Thomas is 60 under par over 12 rounds on the West course, but it’s since been resurfaced with Bermuda grass. Thomas praised the quality of the re-grassing while at the same time maintaining that the course’s bones remain unchanged. It’s a shorter track, allowing for multiple pitching- and sand-wedge approach shots—right in his wheelhouse. It always has been. He’s the same player he was when he lifted his first TOUR trophy at the 2015 CIMB, albeit with a more impressive resume. Now a nine-time TOUR winner, he’s not only won the FedExCup, a World Golf Championship and a major, he’s also tasted world No. 1. “This is always going to be a special place to me,â€� Thomas said. “This is always going to be the place I got my first PGA TOUR victory and that’s very, very special. Every time I look at that trophy in my office at home, it brings back a lot of great memories, anytime I see videos or clips of it.  It was a very instrumental part of my career, for sure.â€�

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The 10th of 24 contributing events for PGA TOUR Champions One & Done presented by SERVPRO is this week’s Regions Tradition. It’s the first of five majors, all of which are contested over 72 holes and begin on Thursdays. Scroll for tournament notes, 22 notables and four wild cards from the field of 78 in Birmingham, Alabama. No matter what you think you know, you don’t, you know? With proper and deserved respect to open qualifier Ryan Baca and North Texas PGA Section representative Brian Norman, neither are likely to generate enthusiasm for even two-man gamers at the AT&T Byron Nelson. See, they are the only two in the field of 156 with competitive course experience at Trinity Forest Golf Club in Dallas. At the 2017 Texas State Open, Baca placed T10 and Norman finished T53. The 47th edition of the esteemed competition also included recognizable names like former PGA TOUR members Edward Loar (T15), Hunter Haas and Craig Kanada – the latter two of whom withdrew mid-tournament — among a handful of other blasts from the past for the truly hardcore (e.g. Brady Watt, Stuart Deane and “Mr. 57” Curtis Reed). Certainly, our own Sean Martin could have penned a Power Rankings for that event and made me blush. The moral of this story is that none of those guys are One & Done-worthy, but they’re the golfers with the muscle memory and some idea of where to miss on the collaboration by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw. At the head of the class among short-listers in PGA TOUR Fantasy One & Done presented by SERVPRO are locals Jordan Spieth and Beau Hossler, but only Hossler demands serious consideration. Sorry, Sean, but the massive unknown favors the field. Your advised strategy is to review how you’d arrange available golfers on your board for later stops. It’s the essence at the core of the existence of Future Possibilities below. However, you still need to leave yourself with a chip for the AT&T Byron Nelson. I’ve already burned Marc Leishman, but he’d be the most logical at Trinity Forest. Aside from his reputation in the wind, he’s proven comfortable and confident on links-style tracks. And with four top 10s in 2018 alone, he presents no reason to wait. Jimmy Walker is back on the rise and doesn’t line up exceptionally strong the rest of the way. The Texan is the epitome of striking while the irons are hot and while we’re essentially in the dark. Form over everything else, gang. Like Walker, Adam Scott is the kind of chalk to which we can turn just to sleep better. A top 20 would be a net-positive as the Aussie continues to grind through relative adversity. He could emerge as a candidate again later, but the blank canvas of this week serves as a sensible time to circle him now. Billy Horschel is the defending champion on a different course. His recent uptick after finding magic with a familiar putter furnishes all the confidence we need to latch on, but his record at the FedEx St. Jude Classic is phenomenal and should be embraced. Holster. Because I view Matt Kuchar as a wild card who fits in almost everywhere but often doesn’t win tiebreakers, he’s my pick. As I wrote in the Power Rankings, he placed second at the 2017 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, which Jordan Spieth used as a comp to Trinity Forest. Sold. Martin Laird and Branden Grace are seriously tempting. Laird is a beast at the Barracuda Championship contested the same week as the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational where fellow Barracuda go-to’s Gary Woodland and Brendan Steele will be competing. Grace makes more sense at Trinity Forest and easily could have slotted higher than No. 11 in my Power Rankings. Since two-man gamers won’t be flipping a coin between Baca and Norman, saddle Hossler into the back seat. FUTURE POSSIBILITIES NOTE: Select golfers committed to the tournament are listed alphabetically. Future tournaments are sorted chronologically and reflect previous success on the courses on which the tournaments will be held in 2017-18. The numerical values in parentheses represent the order of relative confidence of where to use each golfer if multiple sites are listed (e.g. 1 for strongest, 2 for next-strongest and so on). To present weighted confidence in real time, numerical values will not change all season no matter how many tournament remain listed for each golfer. All are pending golfer commitment. Sergio Garcia … Open Championship (1); TOUR Championship (4) Branden Grace … U.S. Open (4); WGC-Bridgestone (3) Bill Haas … Wyndham (2) J.B. Holmes … Greenbrier (5) Billy Horschel … St. Jude (1); TOUR Championship (4) Russell Knox … Dell Technologies (7) Matt Kuchar … Fort Worth (6); Memorial (2); Canadian (3); WGC-Bridgestone (7); THE NORTHERN TRUST (9) Martin Laird … Barracuda (1) Marc Leishman … Fort Worth (7); Memorial (5); Travelers (2); Open Championship (1) Hideki Matsuyama … Memorial (10); U.S. Open (6); WGC-Bridgestone (8; defending) Graeme McDowell … WGC-Bridgestone (3) Kevin Na … Memorial (10); John Deere (9); Wyndham (3); THE NORTHERN TRUST (11) Ryan Palmer … Fort Worth (2); St. Jude (6) Scott Piercy … John Deere (6) Adam Scott … U.S. Open (10); Open Championship (8); WGC-Bridgestone (3); Dell Technologies (9); TOUR Championship (6) Brandt Snedeker … Fort Worth (11); U.S. Open (5); Travelers (6); Canadian (3); Wyndham (4) Jordan Spieth … Fort Worth (2); Travelers (6; defending); John Deere (7); Open Championship (9; defending); WGC-Bridgestone (10); TOUR Championship (4) Jimmy Walker … Greenbrier (8); Dell Technologies (7) CHAMPIONS ONE & DONE Regions Tradition Greystone Golf & Country Club in Birmingham, Alabama, hosts for the third consecutive year. It’s an unusual par 72 in that there are five par 3s and five par 5s. It’ll tip at 7,277 yards. Like all majors on the PGA TOUR Champions, it begins on Thursday. However, it’s one of only two majors (Constellation SENIOR PLAYERS Championship) for which there is no cut. Bernhard Langer is the two-time defending champion. He’s also the PGA TOUR Champions’ most recent winner at the Insperity Invitational, which came on the heels of consecutive playoff losses in the previous two tournaments. As a result, the 60-year-old sits atop the Schwab Cup money list. Total prize money for the Regions Tradition is $2.4 million. The champion will pocket $360,000. This is the most lucrative event of the season thus far. It’s fourth-most overall behind the U.S. Senior Open Championship ($4 million), the KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship (estimated $2.8-$3.0 million) and Constellation SENIOR PLAYERS Championship ($2.8 million). FUTURE POSSIBILITIES NOTE: Select golfers committed to the tournament are listed alphabetically. Future tournaments are sorted chronologically and reflect previous success on the courses on which the tournaments will be held in 2018. The numerical values in parentheses represent the order of relative confidence of where to use each golfer if multiple sites are listed (e.g. 1 for strongest, 2 for next-strongest and so on). To present weighted confidence in real time, numerical values will not change all season no matter how many tournament remain listed for each golfer. All are pending golfer commitment. Stephen Ames … Principal (8); U.S. Senior Open (6); Boeing (2); Shaw (7) Joe Durant … Principal (2); American Family (8); U.S. Senior Open (7); SENIOR PLAYERS (1); 3M (6); DICK’S (12); Boeing (10); Shaw (11); PURE (3); SAS (13) David Frost … U.S. Senior Open (4); 3M (7); Boeing (5); Shaw (8); PURE (1) Fred Funk … Regions Tradition (3); Boeing (6); PURE (5) Doug Garwood … SAS (1) Paul Goydos … 3M (1; defending); DICK’S (3); SAS (5) Lee Janzen … U.S. Senior Open (2) Miguel Angel Jiménez … Senior PGA (6); Principal (10); U.S. Senior Open (5); SENIOR PLAYERS (3); Senior Open Championship (4); 3M (9); Shaw (7); SAS (12) Brandt Jobe … Senior PGA (2); Principal (3; defending); U.S. Senior Open (4); SENIOR PLAYERS (1); 3M (5); Boeing (8) Jerry Kelly … Boeing (1; defending); Shaw (5); PURE (2); SAS (4) Bernhard Langer … Usable everywhere. Defending five titles. Tom Lehman … Regions Tradition (5); Principal (1); U.S. Senior Open (3); SAS (9) Jeff Maggert … American Family (3); Shaw (5) Scott McCarron … Regions Tradition (2); Senior PGA (11); Principal (1); SENIOR PLAYERS (3; defending); Senior Open Championship (10); DICK’S (4; defending); Shaw (5; defending); PURE (8) Colin Montgomerie … Senior PGA (1); U.S. Senior Open (6); SENIOR PLAYERS (2); Senior Open Championship (10); Shaw (4); PURE (7); SAS (3; defending) Tom Pernice, Jr. … Principal Charity (2); Shaw (3); SAS (5) Kenny Perry … Regions Tradition (5); Senior PGA (6); 3M (1); DICK’S (10); SAS (2) Gene Sauers … Regions Tradition (3); U.S. Senior Open (5); SENIOR PLAYERS (6); Boeing (1) Vijay Singh … Senior PGA (3); U.S. Senior Open (2); Shaw (5); SAS (1) Kevin Sutherland … Usable everywhere. David Toms … Regions Tradition (3); Boeing (2); SAS (4) Duffy Waldorf … Principal (6); Shaw (5) WILD CARDS (short list of golfers not included above but on the rise or still building portfolios after recently turning 50): Bob Estes; Steve Flesch; Scott Parel; Steve Stricker

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