Remembering Sergio’s improbable Masters win

Tom Lehman played in ten Buick Open’s dating back to his first in 1983 so he knows exactly what Warwick Hills offers – a lot of birdie opportunities. It led to a bunched leaderboard at the top that includes Lehman after he sank a 7-foot birdie on 18 to get in the clubhouse at 10-under par. After a second straight 5-under, 67, he’ll try to protect his spot at the top heading into Sunday. “There’s so many guys close and there’s so many good scores being shot, the guys are bunched up here at the top,â€� said Lehman, who won The Open Championship in 1996. “I think when you’re in or near the lead, that’s really good.  Whether you’re tied for the lead or a shot behind or two shots behind, you know, it’s all the same.â€� Lehman will go for his 12th PGA TOUR Champions victory. He won the Principal Charity Classic in early June. Lehman was sharp on Saturday with six birdies and just one bogey. He’s made just two bogeys through 36 holes. The five-time PGA TOUR winner shares the lead with Scott McCarron and Jeff Maggert heading into the final round. The leaders will play together starting at 1:35 p.m. “If you drive it well, you’re going to be able to attack pins, and the greens are so perfect, you’re going to make putts.  Scores tend to be low here and there’s going to be a lot of guys shooting low, so there’s the possibility for fireworks tomorrow.â€� Maggert will aim for his first win since the 2015 DICK’S Sporting Goods Open and will be relying on his 14 years playing the Buick Open at Warwick Hills. “I did play a lot of good rounds here in the Buick Open days, so looking for one more good round tomorrow.  I feel like I left a good one out there today, so hopefully I’ll make it up tomorrow.â€� Scott McCarron Notes • It’s the second time he shot 63 in his last three rounds, as he won the Shaw Charity Classic after carding a 7-under 63 on Sunday. • Should he go on to win, McCarron would be the first player to win back-to-back events since Bernhard Langer, who did it twice in 2017. • Entering this week, McCarron has four wins in nine tries when he starts the final round as a leader/co-leader. He is 0-for-2 when in that position this year (T3/KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship, T4/Constellation SENIOR PLAYERS Championship). • All eight of McCarron’s wins on PGA TOUR Champions have been by one stroke or by playoff. In two of his victories, he opened with a score in the 70s (70/2018 American Family Insurance Championship, 71/2017 DICK’S Sporting Goods Open). • McCarron will play in Sunday’s final group for the fifth time in 20 starts this season. Mark O’Meara Notes • O’Meara started on No. 10 and birdied seven of his first eight holes en route to a 6-under 30. The round of 8-under 64 is one off his career-best on PGA TOUR Champions, and it’s his best score since he shot 7-under 64 at the 2016 Pacific Links Bear Mountain Championship. •    His career-low round in 18 starts at the Buick Open was 64 (R3/1984), and his best finish was T2 in 2002. • O’Meara is the fifth-oldest player in the field (he will be 61 years, 8 months, 3 days on Sunday). Should he go on to win, he would be the seventh-oldest winner in PGA TOUR Champions history. Entering this week, 19 players have won 26 tournaments at the age of 60 or older. • O’Meara has two career wins on PGA TOUR Champions, the last being the 2010 Constellation SENIOR PLAYERS Championship. If he wins Sunday, it would mark the second-longest gap between victories in Tour history (7 years, 11 months, 6 days). • In 13 starts this year, his best finish was T13 at the Regions Tradition and Bass Pro Shops Legends of Golf, and he is currently 66th in the Charles Schwab Cup To come play on the PGA TOUR Champions and finish 40th or 50th is not my cup of tea. Now, I have to go out and practice, come out and compete a little more and that’s my goal for next year.

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Do not adjust your monitor or screen. Indeed, the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship is in its second edition of the 2020-21 season. And yes, we're only at the halfway point of 50 tournaments. The PGA TOUR has been proclaiming a super season and this qualifies as evidence, yet it's just the first of three tournaments with scheduled encores. The Masters and the U.S. Open will return to their traditional stages in April and June, respectively. Similarly, the 2021 edition of the Corales retreats into his customary position as an additional event contested concurrently with the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play. For a breakdown of what the 132-man field on the eastern edge of the Dominican Republic faces and what's at stake, scroll past the projected contenders. RELATED: Tee times POWER RANKINGS: CORALES PUNTACANA RESORT & CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP OTHER TO CONSIDER Justin Suh ... Rapidly making noise to remind fans that he's the forgotten fourth of the Class of 2019 headlined by Collin Morikawa, Viktor Hovland and Matthew Wolff. Suh is 4-for-5 on the PGA TOUR this season with a pair of top 15s, including a T14 at Corales. Pat Perez ... His reputation on paspalum is worthy and it paid off for a T21 in his Corales debut in September - he ranked sixth in putts per GIR — but it's still his most recent top 25 despite 15 starts in the interim. Thomas Detry ... The 28-year-old from Belgium has a pair of T33s in as many starts at Corales, so he's no stranger. Also strides in on the confidence buoyed by a pair of T9s in his last four starts abroad. Kelly Kraft ... Chasing the same Major Medical Extension magic that Hudson Swafford rode to victory in September. Kraft's track record here is superb. He's gone 3rd-T5-T14 with a scoring average of 68.83. The Honda Classic runner-up Brandon Hagy, 2019 Corales champion Graeme McDowell, Charles Howell III and Joel Dahmen will be among the notables reviewed in Tuesday's Fantasy Insider. When the PGA TOUR was in Punta Cana on the last weekend of September, a field of 144 was assembled for a stand-alone competition that rewarded 500 FedExCup points to champion Hudson Swafford, who also secured an exemption into the 2021 Masters. This time around, the top man of 132 entrants will bank 300 FedExCup points and will require another way to get into the Masters if he's not already eligible because that exemption is not on the table this week. However, spots in the 2021 PGA Championship, 2022 Sentry Tournament of Champions and the 2022 PLAYERS, among other invitationals, will be reserved in his name. This is to say that the revised version of the 2020 version was a bonus after it was among the casualties of the three-month shutdown due to the pandemic. And while obvious, it's nonetheless significant that we're far enough removed from the unscheduled break that this week's Corales marks the first time a tournament has been held a second time since. No, it hasn't been a full year since the start of the return to golf, but the cycle of the return visits starts in the Dominican Republic. En route to his winning pace of 18-under 264, Swafford ranked fifth in putts per greens in regulation and 10th in putting: birdies-or-better. Those are old-school-and-still-relevant measurements of efficiency and scoring with the putter when ShotLink technology isn't used. It won't be again this week. While thoroughly impressive and aligned with expectations for a champion in a shootout, he was the first of the winners at Corales not to lead his respective field in both putting metrics. Part of that has to do with its statistical inevitability, but it also can't be ruled out that the field was 12 larger as a stand-alone contest. Incidentally, as of Monday evening, 88 golfers in this week's field competed here in September. Swafford finished T14 in fairways hit and T26 in GIR, so he limited the stress to allow for a special week on the greens, but he also capitalized on the four par 5s by averaging 4.25 to rank T2. For the week, Corales yielded a scoring average of 71.118. That's a fair target again as the weather forecast essentially is identical. Mostly sunny skies will make room for passing clouds and the sight of a sprinkle, maybe. Daytime temperatures will eclipse 80 degrees with ease, while steady easterly breezes will favor lower ball flights and course management. But make no mistake, Corales is a resort course, so stockpiling the par breakers will present as an easy and early Easter egg hunt. Further fostering low scoring are the paspalum greens governed to measure just 11 feet on the Stimpmeter due to their exposure to the coastal breezes. Even shots struck from the thickest of the two-inch rough will have room to hold most greens. Still, as par 72s are concerned, this is as fair and consistent a test as the players will navigate. It will penalize the foolish. Corales' longest walk is 7,670 yards and, like PGA National last week, it features its own recognizable three-hole stretch. The par-4 16th, par-3 17th and par-4 18th are known affectionately as The Devil's Elbow. As a trio, they averaged 0.185 strokes over par in September. However, the par 3-4-3 swing of Nos. 9, 10 and 11 have been a bumpier road in each of the first three editions of the tournament. 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: Power Rankings (Match Play) TUESDAY*: Power Rankings (Corales); Fantasy Insider SUNDAY: Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Rookie Watch * – 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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Rory McIlroy put a host of near-misses behind him with a win at The Players. Perhaps that means he’s ready to put misses at Augusta behind him next?

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