Power Rankings: Quicken Loans National

After a successful debut last year, the Zurich Classic of New Orleans returns with its unique team format. Many of the game’s biggest names have descended on TPC Louisiana for the opportunity to partner with a friend for the only team event during the FedExCup season. The two-man teams will play four-ball on Thursday and Saturday and alternate shot in the second and fourth rounds. Last year’s tournament included one of the best shots of the year, as Kevin Kisner chipped in for eagle on the 72nd hole to force a playoff with Jonas Blixt and Cameron Smith. Smith clinched the title by hitting a wedge to 3 feet on the fourth hole of the sudden-death playoff, which concluded Monday because of darkness. Blixt and Smith have returned to defend their title. They’ll be part of PGA TOUR LIVE’s Featured Groups coverage, as will two of the past three FedExCup champions (Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas), Masters champion Patrick Reed and all three medalists from the 2016 Olympics. The Thursday broadcast will begin at 8 a.m. Eastern, while the Friday broadcast will begin at 9:15 a.m. Featured Holes will begin at 3 p.m. and run until the end of the broadcast at 6:30 p.m. TPC Louisiana’s two back-nine par-3s, Nos. 14 and 17, are this week’s Featured Holes. PGA TOUR LIVE also can be viewed on Twitter from approximately 8 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. on Thursday and 9:15 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on Friday. Here’s a closer look at what you can see this week on PGA TOUR LIVE (Note: FedExCup rankings in parentheses): THURSDAY Justin Thomas (1)/Bud Cauley (61), Daniel Berger (66)/Gary Woodland (22): FedExCup leader Justin Thomas is teaming with fellow Alabama alum Bud Cauley for the second consecutive year. The duo finished fifth in last year’s Zurich Classic. Thomas won last year’s FedExCup and holds the lead again this season after victories at THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES and The Honda Classic. They’ll play alongside Thomas’ Presidents Cup teammate, Daniel Berger, and another of this season’s winners, Gary Woodland. He won earlier this year at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Tee times: 8:39 a.m. Eastern off No. 10 on Thursday; 2:08 p.m. Eastern off No. 1 on Friday. Jordan Spieth (28)/Ryan Palmer (84), Wesley Bryan (153)/Jon Rahm (7): The Texas twosome of Ryan Palmer and Jordan Spieth has reunited after a fourth-place finish here last year. Bryan and Rahm are good friends who promise to make a colorful pairing. Rahm’s strong driving and Bryan’s crafty wedge play could make them a dangerous duo. Tee times: 8:52 a.m. Eastern off No. 10 on Thursday; 2:09 p.m. Eastern off No. 1 on Friday. FRIDAY Patrick Reed (6)/Patrick Cantlay (15), Jonas Blixt (162)/Cameron Smith (25): The Patricks are back after a 14th-place finish at last year’s Zurich. They were one shot off the lead at the halfway mark. For Reed, this will be his first PGA TOUR start since his Masters victory. Cantlay picked up his first PGA TOUR title earlier this season at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. They are the only team with two players ranked inside the top 15 in the FedExCup standings and the only team of PGA TOUR winners this season. Smith is coming off fifth-place finishes at the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play and the Masters. Click here to read Ben Everill’s feature on Smith. Tee times: 1:44 p.m. Eastern off No. 1 on Thursday; 9:53 a.m. Eastern off No. 10 on Friday. Justin Rose (8)/Henrik Stenson (37), Matt Kuchar (58)/Bubba Watson (3): All four of these players competed for their countries at the 2016 Olympics. Three of them won medals (sorry, Bubba). However, Watson is the only one with multiple titles this season. He won both the Genesis Open and WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. Kuchar earned a bronze medal in Rio de Janeiro. Kuchar and Watson are among an elite group of players who have qualified for the FedExCup Playoffs in all 11 seasons of the FedExCup. Rose and Stenson, the gold and silver medalists, respectively, have reunited despite a surprising MC at last year’s Zurich Classic. Rose (2015) and Watson (2011) also are former Zurich champions. Tee times: 1:57 p.m. Eastern off No. 1 on Thursday; 10:04 a.m. Eastern off No. 10 on Friday.

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2022 the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday, Round 1 Scoring Conditions: Overall: +0.73 strokes per round Morning wave: +0.32 Afternoon wave: +1.14 Current cutline (top 65 and ties): 70 players at +1 or better (T59) Top 3 projected cutline probabilities: 1. 1 over par: 37.9% 2. 2 over par: 33.7% 3. Even par: 15.3% Top 10 win probabilities: 1. Cameron Smith (T1, -5, 9.1%) 2. Cameron Young (T1, -5, 6.8%) 3. Shane Lowry (T11, -3, 6.1%) 4. Rory McIlroy (T21, -2, 6.1%) 5. Davis Riley (T1, -5, 4.4%) 6. Corey Conners (T11, -3, 4.4%) 7. Will Zalatoris (T7, -4, 4.3%) 8. Sungjae Im (T21, -2, 3.7%) 9. Kyounghoon Lee (T1, -5, 3.5%) 10. Luke List (T1, -5, 3.3%) NOTE: These reports are based off of the live predictive model run by @DataGolf. The model provides live “Make Cut”, “Top 20”, “Top 5”, and “Win” probabilities every 5 minutes from the opening tee shot to the final putt of every PGA TOUR event. Briefly, the model takes account of the current form of each golfer as well as the difficulty of their remaining holes, and probabilities are calculated from 20K simulations. To follow live finish probabilities throughout the remainder of the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday, or to see how each golfer’s probabilities have evolved from the start of the event to the current time, click here for the model’s home page.

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SANDWICH, England – U.S. Open champion Jon Rahm has revealed his distinctive shorter swing is a direct result of being born with a club foot. Rahm, the favorite for this week’s Open Championship at Royal St George’s, explained how the restriction of movement in his right ankle has necessitated the swing he has now used to win six times on the PGA TOUR. “I have the swing I have, and I’ve gotten more mobile and stronger in some parts of my swing so that might slightly change it, but I have certain unique parts and certain unique, let’s say, physical limitations that let me swing the way I swing, and I don’t deviate from that,” Rahm explained. “I was born with a club foot on my right leg, which means for anybody that’s sensitive about that, my right leg up to the ankle was straight, my foot was 90 degrees turned inside and basically upside down. “So when I was born… they pretty much broke every bone in the ankle and I was casted within 20 minutes of being born from the knee down. I think every week I had to go back to the hospital to get recasted, so from knee down my leg didn’t grow at the same rate.” Rahm also revealed his right leg is a centimeter and a half shorter than his left leg and he’s spent the majority of his golf life adapting his game around his own unique swing rather than searching for something others might term more clinical. “What I mean by limitations is I didn’t take a full swing because my right ankle doesn’t have the mobility or stability to take it. So I learned at a very young age that I’m going to be more efficient at creating power and be consistent from a short swing. If I take a full to parallel, yeah, it might create more speed, but I have no stability,” he added. After claiming his first major championship last month at Torrey Pines, Rahm enters The Open in red hot form – 44 under in his last 12 worldwide rounds. All signs point to the Spaniard having a great chance to become just the seventh player to win both Open’s in the same year. Only Bobby Jones (twice – 1926, 1930), Gene Sarazen (1932), Ben Hogan (1953), Lee Trevino (1971), Tom Watson (1982) and Tiger Woods (2000) have managed the incredible feat. Rahm’s previous best Open Championship finish is a tie for 11th in 2019 but with a seventh-place finish at last week’s Scottish Open he continues to trend towards doing much better. And with the major drought over, the shackles are off. “It would be pretty incredible to win both Opens in one year. It would be amazing. I did have a sense of relief after winning the first major. I felt like for the better part of five years, all I heard is major, major, major just because I was playing good golf, as if it was easy to win a major championship,” Rahm said. “But the fact that you are expected to win one means nothing… I still come with the same level of excitement obviously and willingness to win… It would be pretty incredible to be able to win The Open. Nobody (from Spain) after Seve has been able to do it, so to give Spain that, that would be pretty unique, as well.”

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