Shanshan Feng wins, will make Chinese history

Hao Tong Li … The lanky 23-year-old is the host nation’s highest-valued golfer at 54th in the Official World Golf Ranking. Each of the top seven Chinese talents are in the field of 78 at Sheshan International. Thanks most to his one-stroke victory over a deep pool of talent at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic nine months ago, he’s 21st in the Race to Dubai standings. Most recently, he’s added a T5 at the Dunhill Links and a T9 at the British Masters. This will be his sixth consecutive appearance in the WGC-HSBC Champions. His personal-best finish is a T7 in 2015. Lucas Bjerregaard … If you don’t pay attention to golf abroad, then this is for you. If you do, then it will feel like cheating to slot him on this page, but at 53rd in the Official World Golf Ranking, he qualifies … barely. While he captured his first European Tour title at the Portugal Masters in September of last year, 2018 has served as his breakout. In 16 starts since finishing sixth at the Volvo China Open, he’s connected for nine top 10s. The headliner was a one-stroke victory over two-time defending champion Tyrrell Hatton at the Dunhill Links. As a result, the 27-year-old Dane sits comfortably at 11th in the Race to Dubai. Matt Wallace … With his trajectory over the last three seasons, it was only a matter of when – not if – he was going to crash a World Golf Championship. The 28-year-old from London is 62nd in the Official World Golf Ranking. He made surreal news in 2016 by winning six times on the Alps Tour, including in five consecutive starts over a four-month period. Come mid-May of 2017, he went wire-to-wire at the Open de Portugal for his breakthrough victory on the European Tour in what was just his fourth career start. This year, he’s added three victories, the most recent of which in Denmark on the first Sunday of September. A T3 at the Volvo China Open in late April also contributes to his current spot at 20th in the Race to Dubai standings. Yuki Inamori … Just 24 years of age and making his PGA TOUR debut after lighting up the Japan Golf Tour with video-game numbers. In his last 15 starts going back six months, he’s finished outside the top 25 just once and ranks first in fairways hit, fourth in greens in regulation, first in scrambling and third in scoring. Currently second on his circuit’s money list with his breakthrough victory at the Japan Open Golf Championship two weeks ago. It included an exemption into the 2019 Open Championship at Royal Portrush. Andrea Pavan … Francesco Molinari established the European record with a 5-0-0 slate at the Ryder Cup and won thrice earlier in the summer, but he’s not the most recent Italian to win on a major tour, Pavan is. The 29-year-old native of Rome secured his first European Tour victory by two strokes in the Czech Republic in late August. He was teammates with Bronson Burgoon at Texas A&M when they won the 2009 NCAA Championship. Pavan subsequently prevailed four times on the Challenge Tour before first scaling to the European Tour as a rookie in 2012. Currently 33rd in the Race to Dubai, this week’s appearance marks his debut in a World Golf Championship

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Two weeks ago, Cameron Champ looked like a player set to miss the FedExCup Playoffs due to his form in 2021. But he reminded us of all of his raw talent as he defied some terrible form to produce four days of beautiful golf at TPC Twin Cities where he claimed his third PGA TOUR win. RELATED: Final leaderboard | What’s in Champ’s bag? Here are five stories you may have missed from the 3M Open. 1. Form be damned, Champ knows how to win. Cameron Champ came to TPC Twin Cities at 142nd in the FedExCup standings and without a top-10 finish since last October at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD. He ranked 206th on the PGA TOUR in Strokes Gained: Putting, 199th in Strokes Gained: Around the Green and 162nd in Strokes Gained: Approach the Green. Even a T11 finish in his last start at the John Deere Classic wasn’t enough for people to seriously consider Champ as one to watch at the 3M Open. But riding an incredible +8.480 in Strokes Gained: Putting at TPC Twin Cities, Champ overcame Cameron Tringale’s 54-hole lead, and bettered sentimental favorite Louis Oosthuizen with a bogey-free 5-under 66 on Sunday to win. It’s his third TOUR win in 76 starts, seeing him join Collin Morikawa, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau as players 27 or younger (he’s 26) to win in each of the last three seasons. He’s now 49th in the FedExCup standings and can count on a Playoff berth. Get the full lowdown on the victory here. 2. Louis Oosthuizen’s runner-up list is getting near comical. The South African set the clubhouse lead on Sunday only to see Champ better him by two shots, relegating Oosthuizen to a fifth top-3 finish in his last seven starts on the PGA TOUR. Unlike The Open, where Oosthuizen couldn’t get it going Sunday, he pushed hard to the end, making three birdies in the final four holes. Since losing in a playoff at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, Oosthuizen has finished T8 (Valspar Championship), T2 (PGA Championship), T18 (the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide), 2nd (U.S. Open), T3 (The Open Championship), and T2 (3M Open). It means four of his 12 career TOUR runner-up finishes have come during this stretch. Incredibly, Oosthuizen now sits sixth in the FedExCup without a victory. “I was happy to play this week. I sort of didn’t really want to just think about last week, about not playing great on that Sunday and immediately quickly go back into tournament mode and then play this tournament,” Oosthuizen said. “We had a good time here this week and I’m just trying to see if I can go one better than all these seconds and thirds.” 3. Vegas and Pereira head to Tokyo in nice form. Jhonattan Vegas will head to the Olympic Games fresh off a third career runner-up result on the PGA TOUR – funny enough they’ve all come this season. The Venezuelan was also second at the Puerto Rico Open and the Palmetto Championship at Congaree. “I had a dream start making three birdies in five holes, kind of got slowed down a little bit through the middle of the round, couldn’t really buy a putt,” Vegas said. “Gave myself a little bit of a chance at the end. But solid week, that’s all you want. You want to play good under pressure and feel like I did that. “(Tokyo), it’s super exciting. Like I’ve said before, we don’t really get to play for our countries that often and every chance you get a chance it means a lot, especially being Venezuelan. “Venezuela’s been going through extremely rough times lately. To be able to represent it and hopefully give the country a medal would be a dream come true.” Chile’s Mito Pereira is also ready to hold his own with teammate Joaquin Niemann in Japan after a second consecutive top-10 finish on TOUR. Pereira was T5 at the Barbasol Championship last week and T6 this week. 4. Cameron Tringale’s scars continue but they could help in future. The 54-hole leader is now 307 events into his TOUR career and has yet to win. But experience builds with every missed opportunity. This time around birdies on the 11th and 12th holes saw his 1-over front nine a forgotten annoyance as he pulled within one of the lead. But then a mental lapse of epic proportions proved costly. Tringale came up short in a bunker on the par-3 13th only to fail to hit the green from there. A third shot jumped a little but still left 15 feet for bogey. Inexplicably, Tringale three-putted from there for a triple bogey and the end of his challenge. He’d talked about having “tons of upside” and playing with “freedom” after the third round but he stiffened up Sunday and lost over 3.5 strokes to the field in putting. Still – he sits 39th in the FedExCup now and could yet have the last laugh if he can harness the lessons learned. 5. Horses for Courses to remember. Charl Schwartzel posted his second top-three finish in as many starts at the 3M Open (T3, 2020; T2, 2021) and he wasn’t alone showing a little course form to remember about next season when doing your fantasy picks. Fellow former International Team Presidents Cup player Adam Hadwin now also has top-10 finishes in both starts at the 3M Open (4th, 2019; T6, 2021). Schwartzel moved to 43rd in the FedExCup as the Playoffs approach and Hadwin made a very timely move from 120th to 107th to try to lock in his place in the post-season. On the other side of the coin, past 3M Open champions Matthew Wolff and Michael Thompson both settled at a tie for 39th this time around with Thompson still under pressure to find a Playoff spot now sitting 132nd in the points standings. Ryan Armour (117th) and Gary Woodland (119th) both played their way inside the Playoff zone. COMCAST BUSINESS TOUR TOP 10 The Comcast Business TOUR TOP 10 highlights and rewards the extraordinary level of play required to earn a spot in the TOP 10 at the conclusion of the FedExCup regular season. The competition will conclude prior to the FedExCup PLAYOFFS where the top 10 FedExCup points leaders will be recognized and awarded as the most elite in golf. Week after week, shot after shot, each event matters more than ever before. Who will finish in the Comcast Business TOUR TOP 10? Click here to follow the weekly action.

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