Richard Bland, Russell Henley share lead at U.S. Open

SAN DIEGO – FedExCup leader Xander Schauffele has plenty of big goals remaining this season but one of the biggest – at least in his mind – comes this week at Torrey Pines. The San Diego native has never played well at the Farmers Insurance Open – a fact that grates at him like nails on a chalkboard. After all he grew up here. He played high school events here. He went to college here. He started watching PGA TOUR golf here. But in his three attempts at the Farmers Insurance Open the 25-year-old four-time PGA TOUR winner has three missed cuts to show for it. He has yet to post a round in the 60s. His scoring average is 73.83. And that has to change. But just how will it? When asked if had any form to speak of at the iconic coastal venue going back to his junior days, he couldn’t come up with a single time. “Wait … maybe I won a high school match play event here,â€� Schauffele said while going into his deep thought tank. “No … you were second in that. Twice,â€� father and swing coach Stefan interjects. Schauffele laughed it off but he at least has some warm memories of those days when he attended Scripps Ranch High School about 10 miles inland of Torrey. “I just remember being excited to leave school early to come out to Torrey Pines, eating onion rings in the Lodge after nine holes,â€� he smiled. “My high school teammates and I would do some stupid race, we would sprint down No. 9 and the loser in the race would have to buy the onion rings. I just remember all kind of kid‑ish fun things about this property, so I need to sort of revive those thoughts and bring them into this week.â€� And therein lies the key. Schauffele feels perhaps his three Farmers Insurance Open appearances have been laced with a bit more pressure than they should have been. He has spent a huge chunk of his preparation in the past trying to say hi to as many of his friends and acquaintances as possible. This time around Schauffele intends to get away from the property more and feed into his more comfortable “recluseâ€� type existence. “Playing in front of my friends and fans is sort of what’s put more pressure on me to be impatient and to get a little more ticked off than I normally do,â€� he figures. “I always want to do that little extra … If I’m playing poorly, it will (tick) me off a little more than if I’m in New York or somewhere way away from home. There’s added pressure just to perform better.â€� But this is the first time he enters the week with much less pressure given he has already claimed the World Golf Championships–HSBC Champions and the Sentry Tournament of Champions this season. He can virtually book his place at the TOUR Championship – which he won in his rookie year –given the way he’s trending atop the FedExCup and Wyndham Rewards Top 10 lists. “Mentally, I’ve never come into this tournament with a win that fresh, so I’m in a good state,â€� Schauffele adds. “Two wins early is something new to us and it’s something I’ve always dreamt of since I’m sort of a late-in-the-season kind of guy, but hopefully we can kind of keep this trend going.â€� If the pressure is coming from anywhere it could be the fact he’s been paired with 80-time PGA TOUR winner Tiger Woods and Tony Finau during the opening two rounds. Woods has double the amount of Schauffele’s career wins just at Torrey Pines alone and always brings a huge gallery as a fellow southern California native. “It’s really cool. I’ve never played with him, not even a hole, so looking forward to the zoo that’s going to be out here Thursday, Friday,â€� Schauffele said. “This is going to be a little bit bigger of a zoo than I’m used to, but I just sort of block it all out. I’ve just got to sort of handle my own thing. “Mentally I should be okay. I’m not one to have a fanning moment there where I’m going to try to run up to him or take a picture with him or whatnot … We’re still out here to compete.â€� Schauffele remembers being part of the crowd zoo as a child at the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines when Woods made his clutch 72nd hole putt to force a playoff that he would win over Rocco Mediate. He’s now hoping to create a similar winning moment on the same patch of grass this week.

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CROMWELL, Conn. – Brendon Todd and Dustin Johnson each shot career-low 61s at the Travelers Championship on Saturday, leaving Todd with a two-stroke lead. The 34-year-old Georgian, playing a couple holes behind Johnson, had a chance at the tournament’s second 60 of the week but missed a 10-foot putt to the left on the 18th hole. He finished with a 54-hole score of 192 after shooting 66-65 the first two rounds. Johnson, who is looking for his 21st win on the PGA TOUR, also has improved each day, opening with a 69-64. Both golfers shot bogey-free rounds, with Todd making five birdies on the front nine and Johnson five on the back. Todd said the round became a game of whatever you can do, I can do just as well. RELATED: Leaderboard | Tee times | Morikawa’s made cut streak comes to an end | Gordon making the most of opportunity at Travelers “It’s hard to miss the leader boards obviously, so (Johnson’s) name was up there from a pretty early point,” Todd said. “Again, I just use it as motivation to go out there and make some more birdies.” Todd is looking for his third win of the season but his first since the fall, when he went back-to-back at the Bermuda Championship and the Mayakoba Golf Classic in Mexico. “Whenever I get a two- or three-week stretch in a row, I tend to be playing better by the end of it,” he said. “That’s just something I’m using to my advantage now after missing two cuts. I’m peaking in the third week and hopefully I can get it done tomorrow.” Despite going 9 under for the day, Johnson lamented missing several birdie chances and and eagle attempt on the par-4 ninth, when his ball stopped six inches from the pin. Just two of his birdie puts, an 18-footer at the 10th hole and a 21-footer on the 12th, were longer than 9 feet. “I really felt like I controlled the distance with my irons really well and hit tons of good shots,” he said. “I had a lot of really good looks at birdie.” Kevin Streelman fired a 63 after two straight rounds of 66 and was just three shots back. Mackenzie Hughes, who led after a 60 on Thursday, shot his second straight 68 for sole possession of fourth place. “Today if I had putted like I did the first day, I could have shot low 60s for sure,” Hughes said. “Play the same as I did today tee to green and roll in a few putts and it’ll be awesome.” Bryson DeChambeau and Kevin Na each shot 65 and were tied for fifth at 197. Phil Mickelson, who celebrated his 50th birthday last week, began the day with a one-stroke lead but struggled, finishing tied for seventh in a group six shots back. He made just his second bogey of the week on the third hole and also dropped strokes on the seventh and 13th before finishing with a 71. Mickelson, looking for his 45th win and third on this course, has mostly struggled. He missed the cut in his previous three tournaments. “I haven’t played great this year,” he said. “I’ve missed a lot of cuts, and the next thing I know my game is starting to come back and I can sense it. I played two great rounds, and this is really a lot of fun.” Top-ranked Rory McIlroy, who opened the tournament with a 63, said he feels he is too far back to contend for the title after rounds of 68 and 69. He bogeyed two of his final four holes — his tee shot landed in the water on the course’s signature 15th hole and he also made bogey at 18 — to finish in a group eight shots back. “I guess, if I had have been able to sneak a couple more over the last few holes, get to 14 and then all of a sudden you feel like you’re right in it. But I went the other way those last few holes, and that’s what took me out of it,” he said. Jason Day requested to be tested for COVID-19 on Saturday morning just before his round. Officials decided to have him play as a single on Saturday as a precautionary measure. He shot a 69 and is 1 under par headed into Sunday. The round began early in the day because of threatening weather, with golfers going off both the first and 10th tees. It finished just before the skies opened. A forecast for more rain on Sunday will mean another early start.

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On the PGA TOUR, the average approach shot from 200 to 225 yards out in the fairway finishes 42 feet from the pin. With Jon Rahm applying pressure and the FedExCup on the line, Patrick Cantlay hit his approach at 18 on Sunday at East Lake – from 218 yards away – to a cozy 11 feet, 4 inches. Those statistics help contextualize how good Cantlay’s approach was in the biggest moment so far in his PGA TOUR career. In a season loaded with big moments, there is no shortage of remarkable numbers to help accent the sport we all love. These are the 10 statistics that best defined the 2020-2021 PGA TOUR season. 1. Bryson DeChambeau breaks own season driving distance record (323.7 yards) In 2020, with a rebuilt frame and power-focused approach, Bryson DeChambeau set the PGA TOUR single-season driving distance average record, at 322.0 yards. In 2021, he shattered his own mark, averaging 323.7 yards off the tee – and more importantly – won multiple big tournaments along the way. Because it happened nearly a calendar year ago, it’s easy to forget that DeChambeau’s triumph at Winged Foot was part of the 2020-21 PGA TOUR season. That Sunday at the 2020 U.S. Open, DeChambeau shot the only round under par in the field, the first time a champion had done that since Jack Fleck in 1955. His 7.90 Strokes Gained: Total was the most in the final round by a U.S. Open winner since Johnny Miller’s Sunday 63 at Oakmont in 1973 (+10.77 Strokes Gained). The most poignant image from DeChambeau’s win at Bay Hill in March remains his mammoth drive at the par 5 sixth, carrying the water and whipping the crowd into a frenzy. But Bryson was razor-sharp through the bag that week, especially in the final round. The field scoring average in the final round at Bay Hill was 75.49, the highest in a final round there since 1980. DeChambeau’s 71 tied the low round of the day and lifted him to a 1-shot victory. 2. Dustin Johnson records lowest score to par in Masters history (-20) No single week embodied the oddities of sport during the pandemic like the 2020 Masters. An annual symbol of springtime renewal, a patron-less Augusta National staged a Masters Tournament while Thanksgiving décor adorned grocery stores stocked with frozen turkeys. It was bizarrely emblematic of a year where time both stood still and progressed at warp speed, where home, work and school were all the same place. Fittingly, it was the most unflappable player of his generation who brushed all of this aside and became Golf Terminator in a career-defining performance. Dustin Johnson won by 5 strokes, the largest margin of victory at Augusta National since Tiger Woods won by 12 in 1997. He hit 60 greens in regulation for the week, the most by any player in a single Masters Tournament since Tiger Woods in 2001 – the week he completed the ‘Tiger Slam.’ His 4 bogeys for the week are the fewest ever by a Masters champion. Johnson had +13.82 Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee + Approach for the Tournament, the most of any player by five full strokes. Cameron Champ ranked second, at +8.81. 3. Sungjae Im makes most birdies-or-better (513) in a single PGA TOUR season In a season of 50 tournaments, spanning 360 days, the prolific achievements of Sungjae Im can help sum up the sheer size of 2020-21 on the PGA TOUR. Im, who played 17 more rounds this PGA TOUR season than anyone else, finished with 513 birdies-or-better, the most in a single season on the PGA TOUR since at least 1980. The previous mark was held by Steve Flesch, who made 509 in the 2000 campaign. Im had a good season – he reached the TOUR Championship and had 5 top-10 finishes – but his birdie-making rate wasn’t close to the best on TOUR. Im ranked 29th in par-breaker percentage (23.36%), well behind TOUR leader Bryson DeChambeau (26.32%). Yet, because Im played 42 more rounds (756 more holes) than DeChambeau, he was the man to play his way into the record books. Using a baseball analogy, think of it as Im setting the single-season hits record while DeChambeau led the league in batting average. 4. Justin Thomas ties lowest closing 36-hole score ever at TPC Sawgrass (-12) Friday evening at THE PLAYERS Championship, Justin Thomas was a tournament afterthought. Eight shots behind Lee Westwood, Thomas would need a truly remarkable performance to get into contention on the weekend and possibly win against the toughest field in all of golf. That’s exactly what he did. Thomas was 12-under on the weekend, tying the lowest closing 36-hole score in the history of THE PLAYERS (Fred Couples and Rocco Mediate each shot -12 on the weekend in 1996). His ball-striking numbers were through the roof: Thomas gained 11.2 strokes tee-to-green over the last 36 holes, the most by any player in a single weekend since tracking began in 2004. His 17 greens in regulation in the final round were the most by any player in the final round of a Players Championship win since Hal Sutton in 2000. With the win, Thomas joined Tiger Woods as the only players with a PLAYERS, major championship and double-digit PGA TOUR victories before age 28. 5. Phil Mickelson becomes oldest major champion in golf history (age 50) In May, a new generation of golf fans got familiar with the name Julius Boros – the man who previously held the title of ‘oldest player to win a major.’ Boros was 48 when he won the 1968 PGA Championship at Pecan Valley. Less than a month shy of his 51st birthday, Phil Mickelson took that title with a timeless victory at Kiawah Island. Mickelson was spectacular from a ball striking perspective, leading the tournament in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green. He gained more than 2 full strokes per round with his approach play, and tied for the best par 5 scoring average in the field. Mickelson truly captured lightning in a bottle that week: it was his only top-10 finish of the 2020-21 PGA TOUR season. 6. Playoffs: Longest and Largest The quantity of playoffs on the PGA TOUR this season – 14 – is not particularly historic. Ten years ago, the 2011 season yielded 18 playoffs, most ever in a single season. In 2015, we nearly eclipsed that total, with 17 playoffs. The size and length of the playoffs we did see, though, were another story. At the Wyndham Championship, six players were tied through 72 holes, tying the largest sudden-death playoff in PGA TOUR history (done twice previously). At the Travelers Championship, Harris English and Kramer Hickok needed 8 extra holes to decide a winner. Only one sudden-death playoff, the 1949 Motor City Open, has ever lasted longer in PGA TOUR history. In that instance, Cary Middlecoff and Lloyd Mangrum were declared co-winners by after 11 holes due to darkness. Three other playoffs this season went at least 5 holes: the Rocket Mortgage Classic, Barbasol Championship and BMW Championship. It made for a summer full of sunset-backed drama and Sunday evening flight itinerary changes. 7. Collin Morikawa wins 2nd major in 8th career start Collin Morikawa’s brilliant performance at Royal St George’s was worthy of inclusion in this series of notes on its own. He didn’t miss many greens in regulation (he hit 75% for the week), but when he did, he scrambled efficiently (78%, T-3rd in the field). Morikawa needed less than 28 putts per round for the week, tied for fewest of anyone. There are only three instances since 2000 where a player shot a bogey-free final round of 66 or lower to win a major championship. Rory McIlroy has one of them (2012 PGA at Kiawah Island) – Morikawa has the other two, at the 2020 PGA Championship and 2021 Open. It’s the pace at which Morikawa claimed his first two major wins, though, that puts him in an unprecedented place in men’s golf history. Morikawa has won two major championships in just eight career starts, the fewest of any player since the Masters was first held in 1934. Only two players in the last century won their 2nd professional major in fewer starts: Walter Hagen (6th start, 1919 U.S. Open) and Gene Sarazen (4th start, 1922 PGA). 8. Fourteen consecutive PGA TOUR winners trailed entering the final round Closing out a PGA TOUR victory is difficult any given week. Over the last 15 seasons, players with the 54-hole lead or co-lead have gone on to win the tournament just 34.6% of the time. Players with a 1-shot lead have a win percentage just over 30%. Even a lead as big as 4 strokes isn’t completely safe – more than 22% of those tournaments end up won by a someone trailing through 54 holes. For 14 consecutive PGA TOUR events this summer, closing with the 54-hole lead was impossible. From the Charles Schwab Challenge (won by Jason Kokrak, who entered the final round 1 shot back) through THE NORTHERN TRUST (won by Tony Finau, who entered the day 2 off the lead) not a single PGA TOUR event was won by a player who held the 54-hole lead or co-lead. The run of 14 consecutive comeback wins on the TOUR was the longest such streak in at least the last 30 seasons. The leaders didn’t always simply fall flat on those particular Sundays (or Mondays). Usually, they were just caught by a particularly hot chaser. Excluding the Memorial (Jon Rahm was the 54-hole leader before his WD) and the Barracuda Championship (modified Stableford Scoring), there were 19 players during that run who held the 54-hole lead or co-lead. Their scoring average in those final rounds was 71.4. Those who won in that stretch had a final round scoring average of 66.7. 9. Patrick Cantlay sets Strokes Gained: Putting record at BMW Championship (+14.58) Before taking on Bryson DeChambeau in an epic 6-hole playoff, Patrick Cantlay wrapped up the most impressive putting performance of the ShotLink era at Caves Valley. Cantlay wound up with +14.58 Strokes Gained: Putting for the week, the most by any player in a single tournament since detailed tracking began in 2004. Perhaps even more remarkable is that he set the record despite having negative Strokes Gained: Putting the 3rd round. Cantlay made 21 putts longer than 10 feet, the most ever in a single tournament tracked by ShotLink. No other player that week made more than 16 putts of 10 feet or more. Cantlay finished the season with 15 straight rounds in the 60s, the most to finish a PGA TOUR season since Charles Howell III ended the 2002 campaign with 16 in a row. 10. Jon Rahm has 15 top-10 finishes, 6 more than any other player No player in the 2020-21 PGA TOUR season was more consistently great than Jon Rahm. His victory at the U.S. Open came during a summer flurry that featured almost exclusively high finishes. Since May, Rahm has only 1 result outside the top-10: his withdrawal from the Memorial Tournament when he led by 6 shots after 54 holes. In his last 28 rounds worldwide, Rahm has made birdie-or-better on 30% of his holes played, and shot in the 70s just 6 times. Rahm finished the season leading the PGA TOUR in scoring average, Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, total driving and Strokes Gained: Total. Rahm is just the fourth player since 1980 to have 15 or more top-10 finishes in a season with 22 starts or fewer. The others to do it are Tiger Woods (twice, 1999 and 2000), Tom Watson (1980) and Dustin Johnson (2015-16).

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