Sergio advances at Match Play with walk-off ace

Thorbjorn Olesen finished eagle-birdie for the second straight day to win the British Masters by one shot in a dramatic fashion Sunday, earning his first European tour title in nearly four years.

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With the season’s final major championship right around the corner, only seven PGA TOUR events remain before the beginning of the lucrative FedExCup Playoffs. Several postseason stalwarts find themselves in precarious spots with less than two months to go in the Regular Season. As marquee names jockey for position down the stretch, Twenty First Group ran more than 10,000 simulations of how the rest of the PGA TOUR regular season would play out to project the likelihood of different points scenarios unfolding. The projection gives newly-minted major winner Jon Rahm the best chance at leading the FedExCup race entering THE NORTHERN TRUST (36.3%), with current FedExCup leader Patrick Cantlay right behind him (32.8%). RELATED LINKS: Twenty First Group | FedExCup standings The math says that currently, 100 of 125 spots in the standings are projected to be taken. The most intrigue lies with the remaining 20 percent of the spots still up for grabs. Here are some of the more interesting probabilities the mathematical projections unearthed: Rickie Fowler Current FedExCup position: 114 Probability of reaching Playoffs: 73.3% Strong finishes at the PGA Championship (T8) and the Memorial Tournament (T11) moved Fowler from outside the playoff picture to firmly inside the top 125. Twenty First Group probability models now have Fowler at a better than 73 percent chance to reach the FedExCup Playoffs. Fowler’s marked recent improvement can’t just be tied to one particular statistic. Entering the PGA Championship, he was averaging +0.22 Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green per round, and -0.39 Strokes Gained: Putting per round. In his last four starts, he’s gaining more than half-a-stroke per round in both statistics. Fowler has qualified for the FedExCup Playoffs every full season he’s been on TOUR (since 2010). Chesson Hadley Current FedExCup position: 116 Probability of reaching Playoffs: 55.8% Hadley’s season is a perfect example of how one week can change the narrative of an entire season. The lanky TOUR veteran has missed 13 cuts in 21 starts entering this week’s John Deere Classic, but a runner-up finish at the Palmetto Championship in June has him in a great position to make the FedExCup Playoffs for the fifth time in his career. More than 42% of Hadley’s FedExCup points for the 2020-2021 PGA TOUR season came that week in South Carolina. With just a few events left, can he turn an up-and-down campaign into a spot in the Playoffs? Tommy Fleetwood Current FedExCup position: 125 Probability of reaching Playoffs: 71.1% The man currently in the final qualifying spot in the standings, Tommy Fleetwood, is not in that spot due to the nature of his global schedule. On the contrary, his 15 starts this season are his most entering the month of July in his PGA TOUR career. Currently, Twenty First Group has Fleetwood at about a 71% chance to reach the Playoffs. Fleetwood has just a single top-10 finish in a stroke play event this season, a far cry from the previous three PGA TOUR seasons, when he was tenth or better in 38% of his starts. Fleetwood has not been as proficient with his driver in 2021, ranking outside the top 150 in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee. Still, The Open Championship – where Fleetwood finished runner-up in 2019 – presents a great opportunity to accrue the points needed to lock up a playoff spot. Dylan Frittelli Current FedExCup position: 130 Probability of reaching Playoffs: 43.8% Sitting just outside the top 125 is this week’s defending champion, Dylan Frittelli. In his 2019 John Deere Classic victory, Frittelli was lights out on and around the greens, leading the field in scrambling percentage and ranking second in Strokes Gained: Putting. Those are two statistics Frittelli has struggled with in 2021, as he’s ranked 114th in scrambling percentage and 186th in putting. After seven missed cuts in his last nine starts, the friendly confines of Sylvis, Illinois, might be just what the South African needs to right the ship. Charles Howell III Current FedExCup position: 131 Probability of reaching Playoffs: 55.1% He is one of just nine players to qualify for the FedExCup Playoffs every season since its inception in 2007, but Charles Howell III has some work to do in the coming weeks if he wants to make it 15-for-15. This week’s John Deere Classic would be a good place to start a resurgence – he finished tied for sixth here in 2019 and has eight top-25 finishes in twelve previous career starts. Howell’s approach play, in particular, has betrayed him a bit this season, as he is on pace for a career-low finish in Strokes Gained: Approach (currently ranks 194th on TOUR). TPC Deere Run could be a place that turns around, through: In his last 16 rounds played at the John Deere Classic, he’s gained a strong four-tenths of a stroke on approach shots per round.

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THE OVERVIEW ORLANDO, Fla. — When it comes to Tiger Woods and his comfort zone at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, a remarkable sense of symmetry surrounds his total of eight victories. To wit, there have been eight different standings after Round 1 and eight different players who have been his runner-up: Davis Love III, Phil Mickelson, Michael Campbell, Stewart Cink, Bart Bryant, Sean O’Hair, Graeme McDowell and Justin Rose. Where the story has achieved a semblance of consistency is Woods’ blueprint for success at Bay Hill. In his eight wins, he has fired a solid sub-par second round (scoring average: 66.63) to roar inside the top 10, then assumed even greater control in Round 3 (scoring average: 68.36) to get into at least a share of first (seven times) or second. That, in turn, has afforded Woods a position he relishes — the chance to pretty much go head-to-head against a reduced list of competitors. The result has been vintage Woods as his final-round scoring average in the eight wins is 68.63, while the 12 players who have been second to Woods through 54 holes and the one who led him (O’Hair) have a fourth-round average of 72.31. Uncanny stuff, especially when you consider that some high-octane names have been in position through 54 holes to outplay Woods here — Love, Sergio Garcia, Bubba Watson and Rickie Fowler, to name a few. Yet for all of that, Woods will be the first to polish some caution onto his story here. Mostly due to injuries, Woods hasn’t played in the last four tournaments at Bay Hill and the eight times when hasn’t won, he pretty much has been well back — five times outside the top 20, just once inside the top 10. “Just because I won here eight times doesn’t mean I’m going to win this week,â€� Woods said Tuesday, just three days after tying for second at the Valspar Championship. “I’ve got to do some serious homework (Wednesday) and really get to know and get the feel of how this golf course is playing this particular year.â€� THREE PLAYERS TO PONDER Jason Day Playing for the first time in a month, he’ll be well-rested on a course that’s treated him well (2016 win). Tommy Fleetwood Six top-10 finishes in his last nine worldwide starts for the new special temporary TOUR member. Rory McIlroy Hard to believe: In his last eight starts on American soil, he has exactly zero top-10 finishes. THE FLYOVER Want to make a birdie down the stretch at Bay Hill? Your best bet is the 511-yard par-5 16th. Last year, it was the only hole among the closing five holes at Bay Hill to play under par (4.393 stroke average). In fact, of the 900 holes on TOUR last season, it was the eighth easiest. THE LANDING ZONE The 458-yard par-4 18th isn’t the toughest closing hole in Florida – that belongs to the 18th at TPC Sawgrass – but it’s still one of the toughest on the PGA TOUR. A year ago, it ranked as the fourth toughest, playing to a stroke average of 0.283 over par as water on the right side challenges approach shots. Here’s a look at where all tee shots landed last year. WEATHER CHECK From PGA TOUR meteorologist Stewart Williams: “Below normal temperatures can be expected through Thursday as high pressure builds over the gulf and slowly moves east across Florida. Temperatures will be quite cool each morning, with lows in the low to mid 40s and highs generally in the upper 60s to low 70s each day. The high will shift east on Friday, producing more of a southerly flow. This will provide a quick warming trend with highs returning to the low 80s this weekend.â€� For the latest weather news from Orlando, Florida, check out PGATOUR.COM’s Weather Hub. SOUND CHECK “I thoroughly enjoyed being around him, being with him and we had so many great times — none more so than last time I won here. We were over there, I’m cleaning out my locker, and he’s over there having his ice tea thing and so he’s just sitting there and, hey, grab a seat. Absolutely, yes, sir. So we sat down, we just started to BS and have a great time together and I’m going to miss those times, for sure.â€�  BY THE NUMBERS 122.5 – Average clubhead speed off the tee for Tiger Woods this season. That’s more that 4 mph faster than his average in 2013 when he won five events. His average driving distance of 303.4 yards is 10 yards longer than his 2013 average. 0.478 – Strokes above par average for the field at the opening three holes at Bay Hill last year. That was the highest average of any opening three holes on TOUR last season. 72.890 – The field stroke average last year at Bay Hill. The 0.890 strokes above par made it the fifth toughest course on the PGA TOUR last season. 3,008 – Balls in the water at Bay Hill since 2003. The par-5 sixth has accounted for 21 percent of those balls (636). SCATTERSHOTS Australians enter on a two-year winning streak, with Jason Day winning in 2016 and Marc Leishman winning last year (when 10 Aussies were in the field). This week, there are six Aussies teeing it up – Day, Leishman, Stuart Appleby, Adam Scott, Cameron Smith and Curtis Luck. Matt Every’s two career PGA TOUR wins have been at Bay Hill. If he wins this week, he would become the first player to post his first three TOUR wins at the same tournament since 1934, when Leonard Gallett won his third Wisconsin PGA event. Bay Hill has some of the toughest par 3 holes on the PGA TOUR. When Tiger Woods won in 2013, he played the par 3s in 1 over – the worst par-3 performance of any Bay Hill champion in the last five years. On the flip side, Matt Every had the best performance at 3 under while winning his second consecutive Arnold Palmer Invitational in 2015. University of California junior Collin Morikawa is in the field this week thanks to the Arnold Palmer Cup exemption. The 20 participants of the Arnold Palmer Cup – a Ryder Cup-style tournament featuring the top male university/college golfers – vote on the player who best represents the “Arnold Palmer Legacy.â€�

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