The Genesis Invitational, Round 2: Leaderboard, tee times, TV times

The second half of the 2017-18 PGA TOUR season opens with one of the toughest tests on the schedule. The AT&T Oaks Course at TPC San Antonio hosts the Valero Texas Open. Hard-track specialist Kevin Chappell returns to defend his breakthrough title. His 12-under 276 on the stock par 72 is tied for the third-lowest aggregate among the eight champions since the course debuted in 2010. Scroll past the ranking for much more on TPC San Antonio and how Chappell solved, er, survived it. POWER RANKINGS: VALERO TEXAS OPEN RANK PLAYER COMMENT The tournament’s all-time earnings leader is 8-for-8 with a win (2016), a T2 (2011), a T3 (2013) and four more top 15s at TPC San Antonio. Logged top 25s in four of last six starts. The 2011 winner has added three top 15s since that breakthrough. Ranks eighth in GIR, 11th in birdies-or-better and T19 in par-5 scoring. Four top 20s in last seven starts. Look out now. He tends to ride a heater. Found some magic with the flat stick at Harbour Town and finished T5. Recorded top fives at TPC San Antonio in 2013, 2015 and 2016. Cooled in last three months, but only relatively speaking. A force at TPC San Antonio where he’s 4-for-4 with no worse than T22 (2010) and a scoring average of 71.25. First visit since 2015. Converted on converging trends here last year. Experiencing duties as a first-time defending champ this week and enters a bit cold, but his tee-to-green game is too good to ignore. Continues to sizzle. T3 at Harbour Town was fifth top 20 in last nine starts. Making fourth trip to TPC San Antonio. Sixth on TOUR in strokes gained: tee-to-green and T19 in par-5 scoring. The course horse hasn’t missed an edition. He has four top 10s (and a T15), including in each of the last three. The course design rewards the native Texan’s confident tee ball. Top 20s in both prior visits to TPC San Antonio (2012, 2017). Ranked second in both fairways hit and greens in regulation at Harbour Town (T16). Finished T5 at Bay Hill a month ago. Sustaining form that yielded a career-best five top 10s in the first half, including a T7 at Harbour Town. Currently 11th on TOUR in the all-around. Placed T4 here in 2015. Perfect in six appearances with three top 15s and a scoring average of 71.58. Two top 10s and two top 30s in his last four starts. Inside top 30 in proximity and strokes gained: putting. First appearance since the inaugural edition in 2010. Served as player consultant on the design. Prior to his unusual experience in defending the Masters, connected three top 10s. Showcased strong tee-to-green work en route to P2 at Harbour Town. Preceded that with a T9 at Match Play and T24 at Masters. Placed T22 here last year; ranking T3 in par-5 scoring. Elevating. Shook off playoff loss at the Houston Open with a T16 at the RBC Heritage where he led the field in strokes gained: putting. Currently 10th on the PGA TOUR in the stat. Front-loaded at Harbour Town but still finished T23. Inconsistent tee-to-green game hasn’t been an issue at TPC San Antonio where he placed fourth in 2011 and T25 in 2016. In the wind (at times) and on tough tracks, he’s gone T16-T13-T8 from Copperhead to Corales to Houston. It makes sense given his roots in Texas and Oklahoma. T42 here in 2016. Zach Johnson, Xander Schauffele and former champions Adam Scott (2010) and Jimmy Walker (2015) will be among the notables reviewed in Tuesday’s Fantasy Insider. The annual irony of the Valero Texas Open is that the incredible charity for which the tournament is known – $11 million was raised last year alone – doesn’t extend inside the ropes. Thanks in part to the ubiquitous winds of south Texas, par is a good score at TPC San Antonio, which tips at 7,435 yards. Last year’s field averaged 72.853 and it still didn’t score high enough to rank inside the top half of any of its first eight editions. The tournament’s co-leaders in bogey avoidance (Carl Pettersson and Kevin Tway) squared eight bogeys or worse, most for any pacesetters in the stat in any non-major since the 2016 Farmers Insurance Open (that included one round on an easier Torrey Pines North). The course relents – with due respect – off the tee. The challenge increases multi-fold on approach into greens that average 6,400 square feet. That’s a typical area for putting surfaces on the PGA TOUR, but designer Greg Norman infused undulations that shrink the overseeded bermudagrass landing areas into some of the most difficult targets of the season. Those hills and curves also defend against Stimpmeter readings of approximately 11 feet, which is lower than most other courses due to the winds. The 2017 field averaged 10.43 greens in regulation per round, third-lowest of any host course, so it’s not surprising that seven of the 12 golfers who finished inside the top 10 on the leaderboard ranked inside the top 10 in GIR for the week. The par 5s aren’t pushovers, either. They’re always among the most challenging groupings of any course. This is one of the areas that explains how Chappell prevailed. He went bogey-free 8 under to slot T3 in par-5 scoring average for the week. He also ranked third in greens hit and T10 in proximity, and he capitalized on his chances in finishing fourth in birdie-or-better percentages after hitting GIR. As usual, Mother Nature will play a role this week. Varied threats of rain and boomers are forecast for Friday and Saturday. Sustained winds of 15-20 mph will precede the front and reenter the picture on Sunday, which projects to be beautiful otherwise. Seasonable daytime highs in the upper 70s will assist cutting through humidity. Touring professionals who embrace this kind of experience can look forward to many more years of it. Last October, it was announced an extension of the existing sponsorship through 2028. It includes a shift to a permanent spot in advance of the Masters. ROB BOLTON’S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM’s Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton covers numerous angles in between tournaments. Look for his following contributions this week. MONDAY: Rookie Ranking, Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Sleepers, Facebook Live, Fantasy Insider WEDNESDAY: One & Done, Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Champions One & Done * – 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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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — In what already was the toughest pre-cut round at THE PLAYERS Championship in 15 years, Justin Thomas and Bubba Watson managed to play bogey-free Saturday in ferocious wind on a day of far more spills than thrills. RELATED: Full leaderboard | High winds wreak havoc at THE PLAYERS The rain finally cleared out and the TPC Sawgrass got even more terrifying with gusts that approached 40 mph on a Stadium Course that can be punishing even in calm conditions. Where that leaves Thomas (69) and Watson (68) won’t be determined until Sunday when the second round is completed. The rain-plagued tournament is so far behind that 27 players have yet to start the second round. Thomas and Watson shared the clubhouse lead at 3-under 141. They left in a tie for 15th, and six of the players ahead of them had not finished a single hole. Kevin Kisner reached 6 under in his second round until missing a short par putt on No. 4 and going from rough to water for a double bogey on the next hole. He shot 74 and was at 2-under 142. Dustin Johnson birdied his final hole for a 73 and was at 142, with two double bogeys on the par 5s over 36 holes. The course was so saturated by rain that it took 54 hours, 16 minutes from Adam Schenk hitting the opening tee shot Thursday morning to Brendan Steele holing out early Saturday afternoon to complete the first round. Tom Hoge goes into Sunday with his name atop the leaderboard. He still has played only 18 holes. He opened with a 6-under 66 on Thursday and was tied with Tommy Fleetwood, who was even par through three holes when play was suspended. Those who spent more than six hours on the course Saturday held on for dear life, especially when they came to the notorious island green on the par-3 17th. Over two days, only four players hit into the water. On Saturday when play resumed, the first four players couldn’t find the green. Scottie Scheffler had the wind die and went long into the water. Xander Schauffele and Brooks Koepka caught a gust and came up short, as did Collin Morikawa in the group behind them. By the end of the day, 29 balls had gone into the water. The average score for the second round when play was suspended was 75.37, and it was certain to go higher Sunday morning. The average was 75.41 for the opening round in 2007, the first year THE PLAYERS was in May. The highest ever for the opening two rounds was 76.19 in 2000 when it was in March. Scoring tends to get lower after the cut. The highest average score for any round was 76.51 in the third round of 2005. “Insane,” Thomas said to describe the challenge. Keegan Bradley (71) spoke of hitting a 9-iron from 96 yards on the 12th hole dead into the wind, and the same club from 206 yards with the wind at his back on the par-5 16th. The forecast was for temperatures in the upper 30s when play was to resume Sunday morning and wind not quite as fierce but still challenging. Thomas thought he was going to end up on the good end of the draw when they started out Friday in soft, still conditions in the rain. Returning to 30 mph wind on Saturday morning to finish the round and then facing 18 holes of that in the afternoon? Not so much. “There’s always one person who play good on the bad side of the draw,” Thomas said. “I kept saying, ‘Be that guy.’ I’m very proud of myself today.” So many others went the wrong direction. Schauffele was 4 under for his opening round, two shots out of the lead, when he hit into the water on the 17th and did well to salvage a bogey. But on the 18th hole — playing so long into the wind that some players needed fairway metal to reach the par 4 in two shots — Schauffele drew such a bad lie in the rough that he advanced it only about 15 yards. From there, he hit into the water. After a drop, his pitch had so much spin into the wind that it rolled back some 75 feet back into the fairway. He finished bogey-quadruple bogey for a 73, and then shot 78 in the second round. Koepka was 3 under when he returned and was just left of the par-5 16th in two. It took him four shots to get down, he put his tee shot in the water on the 17th for double bogey and shot 72. He followed that with an 81, matching his highest score on the PGA TOUR. Asked to describe the 17th, Koepka said, “It’s luck.” He hit 8-iron from 205 yards on the 16th hole in the morning. He estimates his 8-iron on the 17th going the other direction went 105 yards in the air, and then some 20 feet to the bottom of the pond. Tour officials tried to prepare with easier pins for the second round, slightly raising the cut of the greens the last two days by not rolling them since Friday. The second round was to resume at 8:15 a.m. That will be followed by the third round, which would not end until Monday morning. The tournament still was likely to finish Monday evening.

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