R&A hoping to conduct The Open and women’s British Open in July-August

The stars are out this week in the World Golf Championships – Dell Technologies Match Play at Austin Country Club in Austin, Texas. The course is a par 71, measuring 7,108 yards and will be on TifEagle bermudagrass overseeded with Poa Trivialis. Like TPC Sawgrass a couple of weeks ago at THE PLAYERS Championship, Austin Country Club is a Pete Dye design. The tournament starts on Wednesday and ends with the final match on Sunday. Past winners since the tournament moved to Austin CC include Jason Day, Dustin Johnson ($10,000), Kevin Kisner ($7,600), Bubba Watson ($7,200) and defending champion Billy Horschel ($8,800). Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $750K Pitch + Putt [$200K to 1st] (Match Play) FORMAT The 64-player field are seeding via world ranking with the top 16 forming the A pool, the next 16 in the B pool, the next 16 as C pool and the last 16 as D pool. From there 16 groups are then randomly assigned with one A, B, C and D player in each. Each group of four players will play their group opponents over the first three days, Wednesday – Friday. The player with the highest point total (1 point for winning a match, 0.5 point for tying, 0 for a loss) after the group stage advances to the Round of 16, which will begin the straight elimination section. Saturday will be the Round of 16 and the quarterfinals. Sunday will hold the semifinals in the morning followed by the final and a third-place match in the afternoon. STRATEGY Another Pete Dye design presents another test of precision golf. Austin Country Club sports deep pot bunkers, undulations throughout fairways and greens, and resembles a links style layout. The course also has its lowlands and highlands, and players like Jordan Spieth ($8,900) have mentioned that the two nines play like two different courses. The front nine is tighter, playing inside a canyon, before the back nine opens up for the stunning views and water holes. All Pete Dye courses demand precision with the approach shot, but we could also be leaning towards Strokes Gained: Off the Tee more this week. Gamesmanship is a factor in match play. Triple bogeys don’t carry the same negative weight as they do in stroke play, but driving it past your opponent and playing your second shot based on what your opponent does is advantageous in this setting. The course doesn’t just suit the bombers, but when Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson win here, we should be taking notice. Again, those players need to survive the tight early holes, where Kevin Kisner has shone, before it opens up to their strengths. Austin CC can also play windy, which is why we’ve seen golfers like Johnson, Scottie Scheffler ($11,000) and Sergio Garcia ($8,300) play well here. Most daily fantasy lineups go ‘chalk’ every year, choosing the top-seeded golfers at this tournament. It’s easy to think the top golfers will advance with relative ease, but as we’ve seen in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament this year and seasons past, the top seeds can lose early or fail to advance to the finals. Since 2017, the most top seeds to advance out of the group stage is five, and only one No.1 seed has won the event in Austin (Dustin Johnson, 2017). Also, only once has the final match been contested by two top-16 seeded players (No. 16 Louis Oosthuizen and No. 2 Jason Day). Match play is highly variant, so embrace the chaos this week; it should be fun. Tyrrell Hatton ($9,200) The good thing about Hatton is that he didn’t gain many strokes on the greens last week en route to his top 25. That shouldn’t be a net positive, but Hatton was gaining an unsustainable amount of strokes on the greens over his previous two tournaments before Valspar Championship and wasn’t gaining a ton via ball-striking. At the Valspar, Hatton gained the sixth-most strokes through approach and 1.64 off-the-tee, the improvement we (and he) were seeking. If we include only past winners in the field, since 1999 their average number of starts in this event before winning is 5.5, with Johnson having the most (eight) and Horschel having the least (four). This week will be Hatton’s fifth start here, and he’s coming in with form, finishing T21 at Valspar, 13th at THE PLAYERS Championship and runner-up at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Group 13 could be a tough draw for Hatton, but Daniel Berger ($9,800) is 3-9 at this event over his previous six starts. Si Woo Kim ($7,100) is fantastic on Pete Dye courses but also struggles in match play, with a 3-7-3 record at Austin CC. Kevin Kisner ($7,600) While Spieth is a potential sleeper in Group 6, Kisner ultimately gets the nod. He’ll need to get past Justin Thomas ($10,700), but the 2019 winner of this event isn’t going to back down from any competition. Since 2016, Kisner’s record is 16-6-1 with a 67% winning percentage. Compile that with his record at this tournament since 1999 and Presidents Cups, Kisner has the highest win rate of any golfer in the field (70%). His recent top-5 finish at TPC Sawgrass, another Pete Dye course, proves Kisner should be on the shortlist of golfers to roster this week. Cameron Young ($7,000) There’s an excellent chance Young will go under rostered because he has to face Jon Rahm ($11,300) and Patrick Reed ($7,500), who everyone loves in this format. Rahm and Reed are not playing up to their expectations coming into this event, and Young could exceed everyone’s expectation of him, especially if he’s going to be hitting second the majority of the time with how well he hits it off the tee. A near win at The Genesis Invitational, followed by a top 20 at PGA National (Honda Classic) and top 15 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, should give us confidence this ‘young’ golfer has the resolve to beat some top brass in Texas. Set your DraftKings fantasy golf lineups here: PGA TOUR $750K Pitch + Putt [$200K to 1st] (Match Play) Put your knowledge to the test. Sign up for DraftKings and experience the game inside the game. Place your golf bets at DraftKings Sportsbook or by downloading the DraftKings Sportsbook app. All views expressed are my own. I am an employee of DraftKings and am ineligible to play in public DFS or DKSB contests. The contents contained in this article do not constitute a representation that any particular strategy will guarantee success. All customers should use their own skill and judgment in building lineups. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537) (IL/IN/MI/NJ/PA/WV/WY), 1-800-NEXT STEP (AZ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO/NH), 888-789-7777/visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-BETS OFF (IA), 1-877-770-STOP (7867) (LA), 877-8-HOPENY/text HOPENY (467369) (NY), visit OPGR.org (OR), call/text TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN), or 1-888-532-3500 (VA). 21+ (18+ NH/WY). Physically present in AZ/CO/CT/IL/IN/IA/LA/MI/NH/NJ/NY/OR/PA/TN/VA/WV/WY only. Eligibility restrictions apply. See draftkings.com/sportsbook for full terms and conditions.

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PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico — Viktor Hovland of Norway holed a 12-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole Sunday for a 6-under 65 and a one-shot victory in the Mayakoba Golf Classic presented by UNIFIN, his second PGA TOUR victory this year. RELATED: Final leaderboard | Winner’s Bag: Viktor Hovland It was the first time since the Mayakoba Classic began in 2007 that it was won with a birdie putt on the final hole. For the 23-year-old Hovland, it’s old hat. He made a 30-foot birdie putt on the last hole to win the Puerto Rico Open in February. Aaron Wise closed with a 63 and did everything right over the last two holes except make the birdie putts. Tied for the lead, he missed birdie putts from 12 feet on each of the last two holes at El Camaleon Golf Club. Hovland had four birdies in the opening six holes and built a two-shot lead going into the back nine on a course softened by rain that caused a two-hour delay in the morning. But he made bogey on the 12th hole, and that seemed to create chances for a half-dozen players separated by one shot along the back nine. Hovland responded with birdies on the next two holes, and he appeared to be in control with a tee shot to 4 feet on the par-3 15th. But he hit a tentative putt to remain tied with Wise, and Hovland thought he was in big trouble when his long iron on the 515-yard 16th hole sailed hard to the right toward the mangrove trees. It came down in the waste area a few feet from the hazard, and he hit a splendid sand shot to 4 feet to save par. Hovland, starting his second season on the PGA TOUR after a stellar college career at Oklahoma State, finished at 20-under 264 and moved to No. 15 in the world. That makes three players in the top 15 who were still in college a year ago in May. The others are PGA champion Collin Morikawa and Matthew Wolff, a teammate of Hovland’s at Oklahoma State. Adam Long (67) and Tom Hoge (69) tied for third at 17-under 267. Hoge holed a 20-foot birdie putt from the fringe on the 15th hole to get within one shot, but he three-putted from some 70 feet on the tough 16th to fall back. Long lost hope when he sent his tee shot into the vegetation on the 17th hole and took bogey. Emiliano Grillo, who led after the second and third rounds, closed with a 72 and tied for eighth, five shots behind. Justin Thomas got back to the fringe of contention with a 62 on Saturday but followed that with a 69, making double bogey on No. 10 to end his chances. This was the final official PGA TOUR event of the year, one last chance for players to either qualify for the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua or lock up a spot in the Masters next year. Neither was an issue for Hovland, who qualified for Maui with his win in Puerto Rico and was set for Augusta National by reaching the TOUR Championship his rookie season. Austin Eckroat of Oklahoma State had a 67-65 weekend and tied for 12th.

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