The First Look: PNC Championship

Round 4 of the U.S. Open from Torrey Pines takes place Sunday. Louis Oosthuizen, Mackenzie Hughes and Russell Henley share lead heading in to Sunday at Torrey Pines. Rory McIlroy and Bryson DeChambeau both are two shots behind after impressive rounds in the 60s on moving day. Other big names such as Jon Rahm, Dustin Johnson and Collin Morikawa are still in with a chance of lifting the trophy Sunday all under par for the championship. Here’s everything you need to know to follow the action. Leaderboard Full tee times HOW TO FOLLOW (All times Pacific) Television: Sunday, 7 a.m.-9a.m. (Golf Channel), 9 a.m.-5 p.m. (NBC). Radio: Sunday, 3 p.m.-8 p.m. (SiriusXM 92) For more live streaming information, click here for the official USGA Viewing Schedule. NOTE: The USGA, who owns and operates the U.S. Open, controls all digital streaming and broadcast rights to this event. For more information on how to watch this week, please visit the U.S. Open’s website. PGA TOUR LIVE coverage will resume on Thursday, June 24 at the Travelers Championship. MUST READS Iconic shots set up major chance for Oosthuizen, Hughes and Henley Louis Oosthuizen, Mackenzie Hughes, Russell Henley share lead at U.S. Open Jon Rahm, Bubba Watson look to mirror Farmers Insurance Open success at U.S. OpenRichard Bland: Five things to know DeChambeau and this history of ‘bomb and gouge’ Nine things about Torrey Pines An open letter to Phil Mickelson The (astonishingly) long story on Wilco Nienaber Schauffele discusses watching Tiger’s win in person in 2008 Recalling Payne Stewart’s U.S. Open win 30 years ago

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PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico – There’s posters of Abraham Ancer all over El Camaleón Mayakoba Golf Course. He is the local hero this week, ranked 14th in the world and for the first time playing in his home country as a winner on the PGA TOUR – having captured the World Golf Championship-FedEx St. Jude Invitational in August. He’s also one of the favorites this week, thanks to three top-15 finishes in his last four starts in Mexico. The tight El Camaleon course, lined by penalty areas and thick mangroves, complements Ancer’s game well. He ranked in the top 10 in driving accuracy in both 2019 and 2021. A successful showing this week would carry extra weight, as the race is on for roster spots on Trevor Immelman’s International Presidents Cup team, which will face the United States on Sept. 20-25 at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. It’s a team Ancer desperately wants to be part of. “After I played in Melbourne (in 2019), I knew I wanted to be part of that team every time. I mean, it’s an unbelievable experience. You can’t really put into words what it feels like to play for a captain, a group of guys like that. It’s just extremely special,” said Ancer, who finished runner-up in this year’s Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow. “I’m going to bust my butt to make that team.” While Ancer already has Presidents Cup experience (he went 3-1-1 in 2019 and was arguably the Internationals’ MVP), countryman Carlos Ortiz – who will defend his first PGA TOUR title at next week’s Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open – is hoping to join Ancer on next year’s International Team. “One hundred percent, that’s one of my big goals,” said Ortiz, who finished T8 at Mayakoba last season. “I would love to play with a bunch of my friends (on the Presidents Cup). It’s just something I always looked forward to competing on and a lot of the work that I’m doing is to be part of that team.” While there’s been lots of talk about the American Ryder Cup team’s big victory at Whistling Straits, plenty of Internationals have not-so-quietly been making noise this fall. Sungjae Im, who matched Ancer’s 3.5 points at the 2019 Presidents Cup, won the Shriners Children’s Open last month. Then Hideki Matsuyama captured the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP in his home country of Japan. And just last week, Lucas Hebert of Australia broke through for his maiden TOUR title at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship. Im is on top of the International Team standings, while Ancer is fourth, Matsuyama is fifth, and Hebert catapulted his way to No.14 in the standings after his win a week ago in Bermuda. And the solid results from the International hopefuls have caught the eye of one of Team USA’s big stars. “I think the International side is only getting better and better,” said Justin Thomas, who has been a part of the winning American team in each of the past two Presidents Cups. “It’s not like you look at the team lightly no matter who’s on the team, just because Team U.S. may have more accolades and wins put together. … You go put me against Sungjae Im and I know he’s going to be extremely difficult to beat. Same with Hideki, same with so many guys on their team.” And while Ancer is leading the Latin American charge, don’t be surprised to see Latin golfers make a solid impression on Immelman and his assistants at Quail Hollow. There’s Mito Pereria of Chile (who won three times in the most recent Korn Ferry Tour season), his countryman Joaquin Niemann, and multi-time TOUR winner Jhonattan Vegas of Venzeula as part of this core group. “We push each other, we motivate each other,” said Ancer of the Latin America crew. “We see somebody in our friend group obviously playing really well, it motivates us knowing that we can play the same or maybe even better, you know. I think it’s unbelievable. “I feel like we’ve got the firepower to have more Latin guys on that team and it would be so much fun.” Ancer ended up ninth on the FedExCup standings last season, and, at 30, is entering the prime of his career as both a player and ambassador for the sport in his home country. He alludes to the impact Lorena Ochoa had on golf in Mexico (Ochoa won 27 times on the LPGA Tour and ascended to No. 1 in the world – the first golfer of either gender from Mexico to get to that point) and how he’s trying to keep the torch lit. “I was speaking only about Mexico, but us as a whole and Latin America has been growing tremendously,” said Ancer. “It’s been fun and I can’t wait to grow that even more even little by little. I feel like we’ve done a great job, but we’ve got to do better.” And perhaps that growth will mean more of a Latin American presence on the Presidents Cup moving forward.

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HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. — Chalk up another victory for Friday the 13th. Kelly Kraft of Dallas was cruising inside the cut line at the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town on Friday when a freak bird strike potentially scuttled his chances of playing into the weekend. Kraft made what he described as clean contact at the 192-yard, par-3 14th hole only to watch his ball glance off a “giant, black bird� and plop into the water hazard in front of the green. The bird flew away.  “It cost me the cut, most likely,� Kraft said. “There was a helping wind, and I hit a 7-iron, caught it perfect. It was probably 30 yards off the tee box and this giant, black bird swooped in front of it and hit it and the ball fell 20 yards short in the water. It would’ve been in the middle of the green. It might have been close. I got screwed.� A bird strike on the course is so rare that Kraft, playing with Robert Garrigus and Michael Thompson, initially wasn’t sure what to do. None of them were. They needed a ruling. “Robert Garrigus came running up to me first,� said Mark Dusbabek, one of the PGA TOUR rules officials on site. “He said, ‘His ball hit a bird in flight! That’s a cancel-and-replay, right?’� It was not. The cancel-and-replay rule is invoked if a ball hits a permanent, elevated power line, but not a bird. “The big difference is a bird is a God-made object,� said Dillard Pruitt, another TOUR rules official on site. “Whereas a telephone wire is man-made. It’s just a stroke of bad luck. It doesn’t happen very often, but today is Friday the 13th. Freaky Friday.�  Dusbabek said Gary Woodland hit a bird at the CIMB Classic last fall, which turned out to be a good break as his ball landed on the green. Although a seagull once plucked Brad Fabel’s ball off the green and dropped it in the water at THE PLAYERS Championship, he was allowed to replace it thanks to Rule 18-1. “The difference there was the ball was at rest,� Pruitt said, “and this one you just don’t know where it would’ve gone. It could’ve gone in the water or it could have gone in the hole.� Kraft believes it was going on the green. He bounced back with birdies on the 17th and first holes, but bogeyed the seventh hole to wind up at 1-over, most likely one shot outside the cut line. “It’s kind of a dumb rule that you can’t re-tee there,� Kraft said. “If you hit a power line, you can re-tee, and if a bird moves your ball while it’s resting you can replace it. But there’s nothing you can do about this. This has got to be more unusual than a hole-in-one. Two moving objects colliding? I mean you hit balls all day long on the range and you don’t hit another ball in the air.�

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