Scary injury for Glover, but he’ll play Sunday

The Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide Insurance is presenting its 42nd edition this week. The last three winners – Hideki Matsuyama (2014), David Lingmerth (2015) and William McGirt (2016) – captured their first PGA TOUR victories at Muirfield Village Golf Club. This is in contrast to an opposing trend that was extended at last week’s DEAN & DELUCA Invitational. When Kevin Kisner secured the title on Sunday, he extended the tournament’s streak without a first-time winner to 16 editions. To put that drought into perspective, Sergio Garcia’s breakthrough at Colonial in 2001 is nearer in time (by almost a full year) to Jack Nicklaus’ last victory in a major (1986 Masters) than to today. POWER RANKINGS: the Memorial Tournament It’s comical that his T12-T13 run at TPCs Sawgrass and Four Seasons represented his first consecutive weeks outside top 10s in nine months. Solo third here last year. We’re already at the point that we’re surprised only when he doesn’t play well, no matter the venue, but Muirfield Village feeds all of his strengths. He should feast. Again. The 2014 champ added a T5 in his title defense before missing last year’s cut. Zero top 10s since winning the WMPO but his length and accuracy is always a threat. Returned to contention at Colonial (T2) with a return to his old putter. Led field in birdie-or-better percentage. Mixed results at the Memorial is highlighted by a T3 in 2015. Rested since season-best T6 at THE PLAYERS. T13 (2013) and T4 (2014) in last two trips to Muirfield Village. Sits 33rd in GIR, 18th in birdies-or-better, 13th in adjusted scoring. T8 (2015) and T11 (2016) in two tries, hardly unexpected given skill set. Ranks fifth in GIR and 23rd in adjusted scoring. Four top 10s and another three top 25s in 2017 alone. A horse for the course. Perfect in last nine trips with a win, a T2 and another seven top 15s. Logged top 15s the last two weeks. Under par in each of last six final rounds. Muirfield Village caters to his affinity of letting it sail off the tee (T11 in 2016) and he’s already confident on its greens. Chased two U.S. top 10s with a T24 at Wentworth. A regular participant since his rookie season of 2009. T5-T11 in his last two trips with a scoring average of 69.125. Rank ninth on TOUR in adjusted scoring. Got back on the board with a T12 at Colonial where his precision and putting was on display. The regular at Muirfield Village went a respective T4-T8-T18 from 2013-2015. Renewed confidence in short game has led to four top 25s upon arrival. T8 here in 2016; ranked T7 in GIR, fourth in strokes gained: tee-to-green, second in par-5 scoring. Did it all but slam the door after holding the 54-hole lead at Colonial. Ranked eighth in the field in proximity and fifth in strokes gained: putting. T11 at the 2016 Memorial. Remains in pursuit of his first top 25 at Muirfield Village, but 2017 has been an anomaly. Fresh off playoff loss at the AT&T Byron Nelson where his greenside touch was dialed in Converted on cue at Colonial where everything was clicking. Muirfield Village is a bigger ballpark but he placed T8 here in 2015, ranking fourth in strokes gained: putting. Riding 0-for-4 skid at the Memorial, but that mirrors a career slump. Three top 15s prior. Comes in hot for 11th appearance with a T5 (Byron Nelson) and T2 (DEAN & DELUCA). RANK PLAYER COMMENT Justin Thomas, Rickie Fowler, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Charl Schwartzel are among the notables who will be included in Tuesday’s Fantasy Insider. Muirfield Village is a stock par 72 tipping at 7,392 yards, but it’s hardly a secret that it’s a second-shot track even throughout its tireless evolution of nips, tucks and more invasive strategic and cosmetic upgrades. Despite greens that average just 5,000 square feet and save the occasional deviation, it’s been one of the most scorable courses on the PGA TOUR. The objective has been as simple as the definition of good golf: hit greens in regulation and press your luck with the putter. Last year’s field averaged 11.85 GIR per round. That yielded a birdie-or-better clip of 34.94 percent, which was third-highest on any course all season. The scoring average landed at 70.987, lowest in recorded history (since data were first maintained in earnest in 1983). Course modifications since McGirt posed for pictures were primarily subtle as compared to previous years. The most noticeable change occurred at the par-4 third hole where two fairway bunkers at the end of the elbow left were removed. A tee ball hadn’t landed in one since 2014 when Justin Lower found sand in the opening round. Fulfilling the expectation as the first northern site of the 2016-17 season, bentgrass is grown everywhere but in the rough where a blend of Kentucky bluegrass, rye and fescue is allowed to grow as high as three-and-three-quarter inches. The devilish greens are prepped to run at least 13 feet on the Stimpmeter, serving as an omnipresent reminder of the value of confidence on approach. On Tuesday, The Confidence Factor (formerly known as Comfort Zone) will expand on what the last three winners did en route to their victories, as well as identify which factors have defined success at Muirfield Village. Indeed, precision and accuracy on approach are keys, but you might be surprised by a couple of other influences. Seasonal conditions are forecast throughout the tournament. Daytime highs are unlikely to escape the 70s. In between a dry and calm open and close, rain and thunderstorms will pose a threat. With it, winds will kick up. With a limited field in this invitational, tournament officials will have flexibility to deal with weather concerns and still finish on time. The winner will receive a three-year PGA TOUR exemption (through 2019-2020). Total prize money is up to $8.7 million, a rise of $200,000 since last year. The champion will bank $1,566,000.00. ROB BOLTON’S WRITING SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM’s Fantasy Columnist Rob Bolton will be filing his usual staples leading up to this week’s event. Look for the following columns this week. MONDAY: Rookie Ranking, Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Sleepers, The Confidence Factor, Fantasy Insider WEDNESDAY: One & Done THURSDAY: Ownership Percentages in PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf and One & Done presented by SERVPRO * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM’s Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO, which also publishes on Tuesdays.

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NASSAU, Bahamas — The warm sun in the Bahamas brought out plenty of mud on the rain-soaked fairways and created some wild shots for just about everyone but Viktor Hovland. He made 10 birdies Saturday to build a three-shot lead in the Hero World Challenge. Hovland ran off six birdies on the back nine at Albany and finished with a bogey from a mud-shot on the 18th for an 8-under 64, putting him in position to join tournament host Tiger Woods as the only back-to-back winners of this tournament. “I hit a lot of just good quality iron shots to give myself seven to 12 feet. It wasn’t like I hit one just incredible shot and stuff it or make it like I did the other days, but it was just kind of consistently giving myself looks,” Hovland said. He was at 13-under 203, and he made it look easy. It wasn’t that way for the rest of the 20-man field, even with some of the best scoring of the week. Scottie Scheffler, who can go to No. 1 in the world with a win, dropped only one shot and had an eagle on the par-5 15th for a 66 that put him in the final group with Hovland. It was a good day on his card. It was tough on the emotions seeing so much mud on his ball that he had no idea where it was going. “Who’s good at those? You pretty much have no idea what the golf ball’s going to do,” Scheffler said. “It’s not something that I would practice at home just because it’s not something that I believe should happen on the golf course.” The Masters champion’s best work was not so much his five birdies and his eagle, rather not letting the mud balls get in his head. Everyone had to deal with it, some worse than others. Justin Thomas figures the one guy who caught a break was PGA TOUR official Rick Wild, who records all the scores at the end of the day. Good thing it’s a small field. “Only 20 people coming in and complaining versus 120. I think that’s probably a little easier on him,” Thomas said. “It’s unfortunate. And you can get some really, really unlucky breaks and unfortunate situations. But like I said, everybody has to deal with it and the more you let it get to you, probably the worse off you are.” Thomas was bogey-free for a 66, tied for third with Cameron Young (68). Young, the PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year, handled his misfortune well. With a 31 on the front nine and his sixth birdie of the round on No. 10, he was leading by two and in the middle of the fairway on the par-5 11th. He went to lay up with a 4-iron and saw the ball shoot straight out to the right and into the bush, leading to a penalty shot before playing the next one and making bogey. He had another bogey on a par 5 and had to settle for a 68, leaving him five shots behind. “The one that really hurt me was on 11,” Young said. “I feel like I made a pretty good swing and it was into the weeds. It just takes a mediocre shot there to give yourself a pretty good look at birdie. So that definitely, definitely hurt. Yeah, there were a few.” Kevin Kisner had a hole-in-one on the 12th hole with a 6-iron, the lone bright spot on a day when he shot 77. “I was putting probably the worst of my career today so I decided just to make it from 189 yards,” Kisner said. “But it was a lot easier on par 3s because you got to hit a clean golf ball.” Because a majority of the course was in reasonable shape, the PGA TOUR decided to play the ball down. Officials were concerned about four or five fairways, but the mud made its presence felt from fairways that were deluged with rain on Wednesday. Hovland ran off three straight birdies early on the front nine, all from 15 feet or longer, and then he really took off on the back nine. He twice two-putted for birdie. He hit 6-iron to 12 feet on the par-3 12th, hit 9-iron to seven feet on the next hole and then got some separation with an 8-iron to 15 feet on the 16th and a 7-iron to eight feet on the par-3 17th. “He played so good I almost felt bad about my round,” Xander Schauffele said after a 69 left him six back. “It was clean. It was so good I didn’t even realize what he was doing until he got to the end.” Woods won the Hero World Challenge in 2006 and 2007 when it was at Sherwood Country Club in California. He is not playing this week because of plantar fasciitis in his right foot that caused him to withdraw on Monday.

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Two-time FedExCup winner Rory McIlroy got off to a blistering start on Thursday at the BMW Championship, firing an 8-under 64 after making a series of equipment changes. Following his disappointing T43 finish last week at THE NORTHERN TRUST at Liberty National, McIlroy revealed that he tossed his 3-wood over the fence and in the direction of the New Jersey Turnpike, leaving him with some decisions to make before this week’s second event of the Playoffs. A quick rummage around his garage did the trick. The Irishman told media this week that rifling through his old gear led him to some significant changes, including the revelation of a “new old 3-wood,” he said. “It’s actually a 3-wood I used last year,” McIlroy said. “I went home, I went down to Florida after NORTHERN TRUST on Monday night, went into the garage and rummaged through a few different things, got my old putter back out, got my old 3-wood, brought a few shafts out, tried different shafts in the driver, went to a new shaft in the driver, and it seemed to work out today.” As well as the 3-wood change, McIlroy put a Graphite Design Tour AD XC shaft in his TaylorMade SIM2 driver. He said the new setup reduces spin while still allowing him to draw the ball consistently. “I just had a driver I felt was spinning a little too much, so a couple of times last week into the wind, I’d hit it and it would balloon up in the air,” McIlroy said. “And then if I wanted to try and hit a cut off the tee, I was not comfortable doing it because I felt like I was losing too much distance by hitting the cut.” Another significant equipment change this week has been McIlroy’s return to the TaylorMade Spider putter. The four-time major champion had recently swapped the club out for a Scotty Cameron blade but has returned to the Spider as he believes his off-days with the blade are too punishing. “I said to (caddie) Harry (Diamond) after the first round last week, I’m thinking about going back to the Spider,” he said, “and then I proceeded to gain four strokes on the greens over the next two days with the blade. But I think the thing with the blade is the good days are really good, but the bad days are pretty bad, as well. There’s quite a lot of inconsistency in it for me. It’s almost like I need to practice with the blade at home because you have to get your stroke spot-on to hit good putts with that style of putter.” Mcilroy also revealed that he may decide to practice with the blade at home while keeping the Spider for tournament play, as this week’s return to the mallet style has felt so easy after the small break. “Felt like I couldn’t not start it on line,” he said. “It was sort of – there’s a lesson in there somewhere about maybe just keeping the blade at home and practicing with it and then coming out here and putting with something that’s got a little more technology in it.” McIlroy’s driver shaft change led him to hit all but one fairway in the first round of the BMW at Caves Valley Golf Club, while the return to the Spider helped him gain over three strokes on the greens.

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