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HAMILTON, Ontario – There are not many people in golf, let alone on the PGA TOUR, who could rely on past experience when they get close to shooting a 59, golf’s magic number. But Brandt Snedeker is one of those people. Snedeker, who won the RBC Canadian Open in 2013, shot a 10-under-par 60 on Friday at Hamilton Golf and Country Club and was flirting with 59, again, late in his round. The former FedExCup champion shot a 59 to open last year’s Wyndham Championship. He’d go on to win that week, his first TOUR win in two years. “When I did it at Wyndham I wasn’t feeling very good about my game at all; today I was feeling good,â€� said Snedeker of the differences between the two days. “I knew I could get something going early, make a putt early, I was rolling it really good on the putting green so I felt like I was there. “You get one those days every once in a while, and so I did the best I could taking advantage of it. I tried to make sure I made every putt today.â€� Snedeker made 136 feet of putts on Friday, his best of the season after making 112 feet of putts at the second round of the Charles Schwab Challenge. Snedeker and Carl Pettersson, who won in 2010 at St. George’s Golf and Country Club, are the only golfers to shoot 60 at the event. Greg Norman also had a round of 10-under, a 62, at Glen Abbey Golf Club in in 1986. Snedeker tied the best 36-hole score at the Canadian Open with 129 after he opened with a 1-under 69.   “I made a small adjustment in my setup this week and it kind of clicked and felt great on the range. I think I missed one fairway with my driver, and you do that around here you’re going to set yourself up for success,â€� he said. “I just kept feeding on it, feeding on it, didn’t really think about (the score) too much until… 17 is the first time kind of popped in my head. Like, ‘oh, if I finish birdie-birdie I can shoot 59 again.’â€� As the afternoon wave was just getting started Friday, Snedeker was leading by two shots. Snedeker was grouped with Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas – another past FedExCup champion – and combined the trio shot 19-under on Friday. “It was fun to watch. It was exciting for sure. He made it look really easy,â€� said Koepka of Snedeker’s round. “I felt like I didn’t play very well playing with him,â€� echoed Thomas, with a laugh. “I mean, man that guy can putt. It was unbelievable.â€� Snedeker said the golf course sets up well for him since it’s not a layout for bombers. “You’ve got to put the ball in the fairway and give yourself plenty of opportunities. Sounds boring, but that’s the way this golf course is meant to be played,â€� he said. “That’s why I love it. I love old-school golf courses.â€� Although Snedeker has had two top-10 finishes this year, including at THE PLAYERS Championship, he classified his season to this point as “mediocre,â€� admitting he’s had trouble stringing four good rounds together. He said he usually plays well at events he’s won before – indeed, he’s won twice at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, the Farmers Insurance Open, and the Wyndham Championship – and even though he’s playing the Canadian Open this week at a different course than when he won in 2013, he’s still feeling good heading into the weekend. “I hold this tournament up a little bit more just because of what it means to me being a past champion,â€� said Snedeker. “I’ve only won RBC (Canadian Open) once, so would be find of a fitting way to top this one off.â€�

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BROOKLINE, Mass. – Jon Rahm is the defending champion, Rory McIlroy is coming in hot, and FedExCup frontrunner Scottie Scheffler is having the best season, with four wins. RELATED: Tee times | Nine Things to Know: The Country Club | How to watch first round Not that he doesn’t have anyone behind him. Good friend Sam Burns has three. The 122nd U.S. Open is rife with storylines. Here are five: 1. EIGHT IS GREAT Eight different players have won the last eight majors, which speaks to how hard it is to stay on top. McIlroy, 33, who just won the RBC Canadian Open but hasn’t captured a major since the 2014 PGA Championship, would make it nine straight with a win this week. “I liked what I saw,” said McIlroy, who played The Country Club’s front nine Monday. Cameron Smith, who won THE PLAYERS Championship in March, would also extend the streak to nine. So would Sam Burns and Max Homa. All three players have won more than once on TOUR this season, and each is in pursuit of his first major championship. On the other hand, the most likely recent major winners to do it again (and break the streak) are: – Scottie Scheffler, who won for the first time on the PGA TOUR at the WM Phoenix Open in February and picked off his first major title at the Masters Tournament two months later. He also won the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play and Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. Oh, and he boasts two runner-up finishes. He’s atop the FedExCup and world ranking, with sizeable leads in both. – Justin Thomas, who captured the PGA Championship at Southern Hills last month for his second major title, and made a run at last week’s RBC Canadian Open before finishing third. The winner of 15 PGA TOUR events, he already has nine top-10 finishes this season, and recently committed to playing the weeks before the majors. (It worked nicely at the PGA.) – Jon Rahm, the defending U.S. Open champion, won the Mexico Open at Vidanta last month and is coming off a T10 at the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday. “I played the front nine (Monday),” Rahm said. “I think it’s a wonderful course.” 2. IT’S A FAMILIAR COURSE Matt Fitzpatrick won the U.S. Amateur nine years ago at The Country Club and has since won seven times on the DP World Tour. He is one of 22 players in the U.S. Open field who played here in ’13. Scottie Scheffler (quarterfinalist), Patrick Rodgers (quarterfinalist), Corey Conners (semifinalist, lost to Fitzpatrick), and several who missed the cut – including Justin Thomas, Max Homa, Will Zalatoris, Aaron Wise, and Cameron Young – also have experience at The Country Club. Most others in the field do not. “Yeah, I remember everything,” said Fitzpatrick, who has seven top-10 finishes this season, including a T10 at the RBC Canadian Open. “I’ve been back a few times since, and love coming back here … back in 2013 it was – you had to hit fairways and greens.” Scheffler had just won the U.S. Junior when he got to the U.S. Amateur at The Country Club, where Justin Leonard had made the putt to put the Americans over the top at the 1999 Ryder Cup. Randy Smith, who coached Leonard, was also coaching Scheffler and was with him at the 2013 U.S. Amateur, where Scheffler put together a few classic comebacks of his own. “I remember being down in pretty much all my matches (that I won),” Scheffler said. 3. IT’S A COMPOSITE The course is made up of a blend of holes from The Country Club’s three 9s, so none of the players have seen every hole. Nor have they seen the holes in this sequence. Also, architect Gil Hanse has been hard at work restoring the course. There’s the drivable par 4 fifth hole at 310 yards, uphill. And there’s a 619-yard par 5, the 14th. But the newest hole, which hasn’t been used since the 1913 U.S. Open, is the 131-yard, downhill, par-3 11th, the shortest hole on the course. That’s only a gap wedge for the best players in the world, but there’s trouble lurking: four bunkers around the green to collect short and left misses, plus sharp drop-offs for misses right and long. And a lot of gnarly rough. Justin Thomas, who didn’t make the match play portion of the 2013 U.S. Amateur, said he loves the addition of the new hole. “I think every golf course should have a short little hole like that,” he said. “And it’s got a diabolical green to where it’s – they can put some tough pins. You can make 2 and 4 in a heartbeat.” 4. LOCAL FLAVOR Francis Ouimet, who won the 1913 U.S. Open at The Country Club, grew up in a house just across the street from the 17th hole and learned the game as a caddie at the course that would make him famous. A handful of players in the field have local ties this time around. Stanford golfer Michael Thorbjornsen grew up in Wellesley, Massachusetts, about 50 minutes away. “I got to see the course one time,” said Thorbjornsen, who will hit the opening tee shot off the first tee. “I’ve had a couple of dinners here.” Shortly before finishing T4 at the Charles Schwab Challenge, Scott Stallings, who was born in Worcester, about an hour west of here, got through Final Qualifying in Texas. “That was a huge goal,” said Stallings, 37. “Probably the biggest goal I had of the year.” Four-time TOUR winner Keegan Bradley is a graduate of nearby Hopkinton High School. “It’s big,” he said in a story on PGATOUR.COM. “It’s the thing I’m most proud of; when you’re from New England, it becomes who you are.” Finally, there’s Fran Quinn, 57, who plays out of Worcester Country Club. He’s a Massachusetts legend who plays on PGA TOUR Champions. Quinn will hit the first tee shot off No. 10 on Thursday. 5. PLAYOFF TIME Little-known amateur Francis Ouimet beat British heavyweights Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, the most accomplished players of the day, in an 18-hole playoff at the 1913 U.S. Open at Brookline. Julius Boros, 43, took down the legend Arnold Palmer and Jacky Cupit in another three-man playoff in 1963. The last time the U.S. Open was at The Country Club in 1988, Curtis Strange beat Nick Faldo, then the reigning champion of The Open, in an 18-hole playoff. Three U.S. Opens, three playoffs. Widen the view, and playoffs have been necessary to decide the winners of the last six U.S. Opens played in the state of Massachusetts. Not since Tiger Woods outlasted Rocco Mediate over 19 holes on Monday at Torrey Pines in 2008 has the U.S. Open gone beyond regulation – the 13-year gap is a tournament record. The 18-hole playoff format has been removed with a two-hole aggregate (holes 17 and 18 at The Country Club) now in its place. Sudden death on those holes will follow if players remain tied.

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Editor’s Note: This article was originally published October 22, 2019 to celebrate the inaugural ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP, the PGA TOUR’s first official event in Japan. Since then Hideki Matsuyama made history at Augusta National Golf Club becoming the first player from Japan to win a men’s major championship. This week marks the first time an official PGA TOUR event will be played in Japan with the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP, but this very proud nation has a great history in golf and has long been a very important part of the TOUR fabric. While in modern times Hideki Matsuyama – a five time PGA TOUR winner – has laid claim to possibly being the greatest ever player from Japan, his path to the TOUR was blazed decades prior to his emergence. It was way back in 1929 that the first Japanese players found their way into a TOUR event. The Hawaiian Open that year – which was won by Craig Wood – had Tomekichi “Tommy” Miyamoto (T13), Haruo “Jack” Yasuda (T17) and Kanekichi Nakamura (T22) in the field. In May 1935, at the invitation of Walter Hagen, six Japanese golfers — Miyamoto, Yasuda and Nakamura, plus Toichiro “Torchy” Toda, Seiha “Chick” Chin and Rokuzo Asami — traveled to Michigan for an exhibition against TOUR players Mortie Dutra, Al Watrous, Clarence Gamber, Jake Fassezke, Joe Belfore and Hagen. A week later at the 1935 U.S. Open outside Pittsburgh, all six became the first players from Japan to appear in a PGA TOUR tournament in the United States (Hawaii was not yet a state but a territory in 1929). Nakamura was the only player to make the cut. He tied for 58th at Oakmont Country Club. Continuing on their trek the six players traveled to South Bend, Indiana, for the Western Open (now known as the BMW Championship and part of the FedExCup Playoffs). All but Asami made the cut, with the best finish coming from Nakamura (15th). Following that tournament, the six went to Virginia at the invitation of Sam Snead to play in a goodwill exhibition match at The Homestead’s Cascades Course in Hot Springs, where Snead was the head professional. Virginia golfers Bobby Cruickshank, Graham Napier, Tommy Halloway, Nelson Long, Billy Howell and Snead played against six Japanese golfers. In 1936, Toda played in nine documented PGA TOUR events. He, along with Chin, became the first players from Japan to play in the Masters. Chin tied for 20th, with Tommy Armour, Lawson Little, Sam Parks and Craig Wood (all major champions or future major champions), while Toda tied for 29th. Chin was born in Chinese Taipei to Chinese parents, but he grew up in Japan and counted himself a citizen of Japan. Also in 1936, Toda recorded top-10 finishes at the Hollywood (Florida) Open (T2), the Catalina (California) Open (fifth), the Thomasville (Georgia) Open (ninth) and the Richmond Open (T10). His only missed cut was at that year’s U.S. Open. Toda’s tie for second was the best performance by a player from Japan until Isao Aoki won the 1983 Hawaiian Open (now the Sony Open in Hawaii). He famously holed a pitching wedge for eagle on the 72nd hole to beat Jack Renner and became the first Japanese player – and first Asian – to win on the PGA TOUR. Aoki’s PGA TOUR debut had come at the 1974 Hawaiian Open where he tied for 36th, but he became a PGA TOUR member for the first time in 1981. In the 1980 U.S. Open at Baltusrol, Aoki was runner-up to Jack Nicklaus. Aoki only had the one TOUR win but went on to win nine times on PGA TOUR Champions. Since Aoki’s breakthrough win, we have seen plenty more stars from Japan. Among them, Shigeki Maruyama was a crowd favorite with tremendous character who won three times on the PGA TOUR. He first claimed the 2001 Greater Milwaukee Open to be the first Japanese player to win on the mainland. He added wins at the 2002 AT&T Byron Nelson and the 2003 Wyndham Championship but perhaps is still best known for going 5-0 in the 1998 Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne as the International Team’s star performer in what to this day is still their only victory. Masashi “Jumbo” Ozaki is a legend in Japan, having won 94 times on the Japan Tour. He spent the majority of his career at home but had three top-10s in majors and was a big presence. Tommy Nakajima was another who spent the majority of his time on the Japan Tour – where he won 48 times – but he had six top-10 finishes at majors including a third place at the 1988 PGA Championship. Ryuji Imada won the Atlanta Classic on the PGA TOUR in 2008 and Ryo Ishikawa played 145 PGA TOUR events between 2009-2017 with 11 top-10s and two runner-ups. Satoshi Kodaira won the 2018 RBC Heritage. And while nine Japanese players will suit up this week at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP, it is of course Matsuyama who will garner the most interest. After bursting into our consciousness as a young amateur standout in the Masters, it didn’t take long for him to prove he could cut it as a pro. From winning the 2014 Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide as a 22-year-old to adding the 2016 and 2017 Waste Management Phoenix Open’s and the 2016 World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions and the 2017 World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational. He also won the 2016 Hero World Challenge. Matsuyama was the first Japanese player (and first Asian) to win a World Golf Championships event. He hopes to be the first to win a major championship and a FedExCup. But for now he will attempt to be the first Japanese player to win the first PGA TOUR event in Japan. “I feel very excited. So many top players are here, so I’m very excited to play,” Matsuyama said. Tournament organizers expect bumper crowds each day and despite the likes of Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy in the field you can bet a majority of those will be flooding around their countryman.

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