The Jedi mind tricks of Tiger’s 2000 U.S. Open win

The Monday of the week before the PGA Championship always is especially active in the fantasy world. It also serves as an unofficial launch into a dizzying few weeks as the fields of the last three majors of the season take serious shape. RELATED: Horses for Courses | Sleeper picks It’s not that we can’t project a high percentage of the qualifiers in advance – many of you already do that – but until the top 70 in PGA Championship Points are official, even one last-minute stumble or surge can change the complexion of your short-range decision-making. I write the weekly update to Qualifiers every Sunday night. It usually publishes soon after, but during weeks when there are so many moving parts, including a requirement to wait for the latest Official World Golf Ranking, you won’t read it until at least Monday morning. Then, because the PGA of America dished out the last set of special exemptions into the PGA Championship midday on Monday, the expected midweek update was necessary ASAP. If you’ve ever wondered, yes, I use that one-stop shop for my own gaming. In fact, I already had been maintaining my own database prior to introducing it to the fantasy audience at Rotoworld when I started an eight-year run leading the golf content on that old website in 2008. It remains as invaluable to all kinds of fantasy formats with which bettors, DFSers and other newer weekly gamers are not familiar. What Qualifiers doesn’t have is the list of alternates at Southern Hills Country Club. They consist of the golfers outside the top 70 in PGA Championship Points who are not yet exempt. So, Brendan Steele (78th), Beau Hossler (79th) and Kramer Hickok (80th) are the first three alternates. The last spot in the field of 156 is reserved for this week’s winner in Texas. POWER RANKINGS WILD CARD Tommy Fleetwood (+175 for a Top 20) … As likely as it is for relative unknowns to emerge as products of the equation that generates victory in shootouts, we shouldn’t look past familiar faces like the Englishman. We need him to gather more scoring opportunities, but he’s the kind of profile who could turn this into a putting contest. At the same time, he’s a better fit on more difficult venues. DRAWS Matthew Wolff (+350 for a Top 20) … Without perspective, what do you have? To paraphrase what my physics teacher in 11th grade said in his opening remarks on the first day, “Everything is optional.” He was referring to attending his class once we reached the age when physically going to school no longer was required by law. It varies by state, and no one bailed – why would we?; he’d open almost every class with 15 minutes of irreverent commentary reminiscent of the late P.J. O’Rourke before we started in on the material – but it’s a message that has rung loudly since. Last week, Wolff echoed it in his own way. He’s out to have fun because this is what he wants to do. Loyal readers know that my first rule of playing fantasy golf is to have fun, and that nothing else matters until you do. After opening with 65, Wolff held on for a T25. He led the field in distance of all drives, a can’t-teach superpower that will play up at TPC Craig Ranch. K.H. Lee (+350 for a Top 20) … It’s rare for a defending champion to be “only” a Draw. Typically, I’ll push him into an extreme or highlight as the Wild Card, but I think you’d agree that this is where he belongs. Shootouts often yield surprise winners for whom the win is more of a spike than a shock. He’s been coasting along since, but he’s risen for only one top 10 since, and last week’s T25 at TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm was his first top 25 of 2022. He’ll be impossible to hide this week, but you won’t miss him in the rueful way if you refrain from holstering, either. Jason Kokrak (+200 for a Top 20) … He’s missed only one cut in the last seven months, so he’ll fulfill even low expectations, but I’m more interested in how his game stacks up at Colonial in a couple of weeks. He’ll be defending what was his second PGA TOUR victory but it’s his first title defense on the same course. Davis Riley (+250 for a Top 20) … Not only did he descend with consistently strong form, but he also was a late recipient of an exemption into next week’s PGA Championship. Lots and lots of validation early in the PGA TOUR career of this rookie. Christiaan Bezuidenhout Adam Hadwin Si Woo Kim David Lipsky Sebastián Muñoz Adam Scott Sahith Theegala Odds sourced on Tuesday, May 10th at 6 p.m. ET. For live odds visit betmgm FADES Brooks Koepka … He missed the cut here last year, but even if he was the defending champion, he remains the most active moving target on the board. We can absorb that in the long-term, and I’ll never advise that any professional is looking ahead to a major, but we also can’t rule it out, either. When there are too many question marks, pass. Kevin Kisner … TPC Craig Ranch is a big ballpark, so the nuance that contributes to his success doesn’t have the impact that it does on tracks like Waialae and TPC Sawgrass, sites of top-five finishes this year. No, the concern isn’t airtight, but this game we play already is tough enough. Accept the challenge, invest elsewhere and we’ll reevaluate the next time. J.J. Spaun … Statistically a fine fit, but his breakthrough victory at TPC San Antonio presents as the aforementioned spike (see K.H. Lee’s capsule in Draws). He chased it with an impressive T23 in his Masters debut, but then missed the cut at Harbour Town at the tail end of that stressful, three-week stretch. Tom Hoge … For the guy who leads the PGA TOUR with 34 sub-70s, and with the promise of probably four more this week, this slot would seem patently wrong. However, in his last six stroke-play starts, all of which on tough tracks, he failed to connect for a top 30, and his scores do not reflect difficulty relative to the challenge. In other words, he’s struggled more than his season-long data would project. I wrote in the Power Rankings that golfers can find their games at TPC Craig Ranch. He’s the perfect example to put that to the test but consider letting his go it alone. Stephen Jaeger … OK, this is backwards. After lighting stages on fire through the 2020-21 Korn Ferry Tour season en route to his return to the PGA TOUR and with status north of the reshuffle, he did virtually nothing until the last two weeks, and only what are not the easiest courses to tackle, for different reasons. Rather, he would have been projected to hang up deeply numbers on a track like TPC Craig Ranch. He gets credit for current form and a rush of momentum, but I’m still skeptical no matter what analytics you want to cite. Jason Day Luke List Francesco Molinari Ryan Palmer Seamus Power Henrik Stenson Lee Westwood RETURNING TO COMPETITION Mito Pereira … Let’s try this again. A sore back prevented him from playing on after just on round of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, and he decommitted from last week’s Wells Fargo Championship before his R1 tee time. Given the test and the conditions, that was a sensible call. This week’s track is worthy of giving it a go. Warm weather and the ease for scoring will give him a fair understanding of his progress with the lights on. He’ll likely come cheap, too, so go ahead and reach. Nate Lashley … An injured toe thwarted the shot at another top 20. That’s what he cited for the reason he walked off TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm during his second round last week. Can’t imagine the problem would linger this long, but only DFSers should consider, and fractionally at that. Curtis Thompson … A back injury knocked him out of the Wells Fargo Championship during his first round. It was a shame considering his brother, Nicholas, had open-qualified. Alas, Nitro missed the cut. Martin Trainer … Wanna talk about the grind? Here’s a guy who tumbled to 1,310th in the Official World Golf Ranking seven events into this season during which he’s fully exempt by virtue of his victory at the 2019 Puerto Rico Open (and subsequent extension of status triggered by the pandemic), but now he’s 410th in the OWGR and 126th in the FedExCup thanks primarily to a pair of top 10s and a T11 (two weeks ago in Mexico). He had to withdraw after opening the Wells Fargo Championship with a 76 due to an injured thumb, but slot him as a flier in this shootout. NOTABLES WDs Brian Harman … This is odd because he was a late entry. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s not unprecedented. Given the variables, I loved the commitment so much that I slotted him at No. 9 in my Power Rankings. Instead, we won’t see the lefty until Southern Hills Country Club next week. Erik van Rooyen … He’s opted for four weeks of rest and prep ahead of next week’s PGA Championship. The South African is equipped with exemptions into the U.S. Open and The Open Championship as well, so a midseason break is as valuable as it is important. Doug Ghim … He’s 12-for-18 on the season with a T6 at THE PLAYERS, but that’s his only top 25, so he’s 127th in the FedExCup. Danny Lee … No stranger to mid-tournament WDs, the 31-year-old opened his current 0-for-5 skid with one at TPC San Antonio, citing an illness. He’s 74th in the FedExCup and virtually safe to return to the Playoffs after falling short for the first time in eight consecutive seasons since reclaiming his card in 2013-14. However, he’s been unownable in every format since the T2-T7 blast last fall. Morgan Hoffmann … With just one start remaining on his Major Medical Extension, he needs to be choosy. TPC Craig Ranch would seem to be a good fit in that it’s in the kind of climes with which he was familiar for his successful run at Oklahoma State University, but this is fixin’ to be a shootout, just as it was last year. Even if he truly believes that he could clear the hurdle, his game hasn’t returned well enough to contend. To fulfill the terms of his medical, he needs 238.420 FedExCup points for which no worse than a two-way T2 worth 245 would cover. For conditional status as the secondary objective, he’d need 127.098 FedExCup for which a solo fourth worth 135 points is the lowest target. Short of that and he’d lose his card. His next goal would be to qualify for the Korn Ferry Tour Finals via the KFT or non-member FedExCup points. Nick Hardy … This is the third consecutive tournament from which he’s pulled out early due to an injured wrist. The PGA TOUR rookie is 193rd in the FedExCup. Rasmus Højgaard … He also was an early withdrawal from the Puerto Rico Open, and he’s not exempt into next week’s PGA Championship, so his scheduling is as fluid as anyone’s. His non-member equivalent of FedExCup points (104) would slot him 184th among members, so he’s angling at eligibility for the KFT Finals; that is, if he’s pursuing a PGA TOUR card in 2022-23. Whatever the case, the 21-year-old Dane is an exciting talent, but he’s still useful only in spot starts. RECAP – WELLS FARGO CHAMPIONSHIP POWER RANKINGS Power Ranking Golfer Result 1 Marc Leishman MC 2 Corey Conners T21 3 Rory McIlroy 5th 4 Matt Fitzpatrick T2 5 Tyrrell Hatton T37 6 Matt Kuchar T49 7 Keegan Bradley T2 8 Cameron Young T2 9 Gary Woodland MC 10 Russell Henley T41 11 Seamus Power MC 12 Anirban Lahiri T6 13 Brian Harman T9 14 Sergio Garcia T21 15 Abraham Ancer T56 Wild Card Tony Finau T41 SLEEPERS Golfer (Bet) Result Joel Dahmen (+250 for a Top 20) T51 Cam Davis (+333 for a Top 20) MC Martin Laird (+300 for a Top 20) 61st Matthias Schwab (+400 for a Top 20) MC Jhonattan Vegas (+225 for a Top 20) T15 GOLFBET Bet: Seamus Power, Max Homa and Marc Leishman all to make the cut (+210) Result: MC/Win/MC BIRTHDAYS AMONG ACTIVE MEMBERS OF THE PGA TOUR May 10 … Parker McLachlin (43) May 11 … Briny Baird (50) May 12 … Jim Furyk (52); Mike Weir (52); Garrick Higgo (23) May 13 … none May 14 … none May 15 … Roger Sloan (35) May 16 … Bo Van Pelt (47); Derek Ernst (32)

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HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. – This week marks the 50th RBC Heritage; Arnold Palmer won the first one in 1969. Luke Donald finished second. Actually, no. That’s not true, but it’s only a small exaggeration. Donald, 40, is a five-time runner-up at Harbour Town, having finished second to Bryan (Wesley, 2017) and Brian (Gay, 2009); Branden (Grace, 2016) and Brandt (Snedeker, 2011). Oh, and he had his heart ripped out by Matt Kuchar in 2014. “The one that probably hurt the most,� Donald said Wednesday. “Kooch holing the bunker shot and shooting 63 or 64 and coming from a lot behind.� You have to dig hard to find a golf oddity that compares to Donald’s close-but-no-cigar record at Harbour Town, where every anniversary is plaid. He has played 32 of his last 35 rounds here at even par or better. He has five seconds, two thirds and a T15 (but no victories) since 2009. Over the last 75 years, only two players have had more runner-up finishes in a single event: Jack Nicklaus at the RBC Canadian Open (seven), and Phil Mickelson at the U.S. Open (six). Indeed, the plaid jacket is to Donald what the Emmy was to Susan Lucci, but on the flip side there could be no better place than this cozy Pete Dye masterpiece for him to begin a career comeback. (He’s 189th in the FedExCup and 196th in the Official World Golf Ranking.) We’ve seen Phil Mickelson get back into the winner’s circle this season, plus Paul Casey, Ian Poulter and Gary Woodland. Why not Donald? And why not here? “It’s been a good run around here, for sure,� he said. “I’ve done everything but win. I guess the simple answer is I think it suits the way I play. Obviously very small greens; it’s tough to hit a lot of greens. You have to be very good around the greens, which is a strong part of my game. “It’s a fiddly course,� he added. “You’re not going to always have straightforward shots to the greens. I think it takes some imagination, some creativity around this course. Again, that’s something I’ve always been known for.� Donald reached the top of the Official World Golf Ranking in the spring of 2011 and stayed there, on and off, for 56 weeks through the middle of 2012. He played on four European Ryder Cup teams, and racked up five PGA TOUR victories. That all seems like a long time ago. Niggling injuries have been part of the problem, and Donald was hospitalized with chest pains prior to teeing off at The RSM Classic in St. Simons Island, Georgia, last November. He withdrew from the tournament and underwent extensive testing, which showed he was not having a heart attack. “I think it was some kind of remnants of a stomach flu that my kids had,� he said. The other setback: his decision to part ways with his longtime coach, Pat Goss. (They’ve since reunited.) It was Goss, then the men’s golf coach at Northwestern, who recruited Donald to go to college in America, and their partnership continued after Donald turned pro. But in 2013, Donald began working with Chuck Cook. A little over a year later, he went back to Goss. “The impetus there was to search to try and hit my driver a little bit straighter and gain a little bit of distance,� Donald said. “I thought that would give me a better chance to win majors. Certainly, Chuck’s method was very different to what I had been doing, and after 13 months, what he was trying to get me to do, I couldn’t do. “But in trying to do it,� Donald added, “I got into some bad habits that took a long time to get out. I’m certainly not blaming Chuck. He’s a wonderful teacher; it just wasn’t the right fit for me.� Donald’s swoon has coincided with career highs by some of his old teammates like Poulter and Henrik Stenson, and he derives hope from their comebacks. If they can do it, he tells himself, then so can he. And, as Donald pointed out in one of his recent tweets, there’s nothing wrong with struggling, which is relative, after all. To be blunt, we should all struggle like him. His social media feed has featured photos of himself playing Cypress Point; a golf-and-basketball date with Keegan Bradley, Tom Brady and Michael Jordan; and a fierce Moana-themed Halloween costume lineup consisting of Donald, his wife, Dianne, and their three children. Was he tempted to reassess his priorities when he turned 40? Well, yes. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to step away to tend to his wine label fulltime, or start brewing his own kombucha. “Those things always cross your mind,� Donald said. “You could sort of disappear into the shadows and not really play again and live off what I’ve made on the golf course over the last few years. “But that’s not really my style,� he added. “I’m still very competitive. I want to be out here. I want to compete. I’ve seen lots of my peers go through struggles and tough times and slip down the rankings and come back. And those kinds of players and experiences give me heart that I can do the same.�

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GREENSBORO, N.C. – Geoff Ogilvy’s season, and his TOUR card, were in danger. It was enough to inspire a clutch performance in the second round of the Wyndham Championship. He birdied five of his final seven holes Friday to shoot 66 and keep his FedExCup Playoffs hopes alive. He stands at 4-under 136 (70-66). Ogilvy, 40, owns eight PGA TOUR victories, including a major and three World Golf Championships, but he arrived at the Wyndham Championship clinging to the final spot in the postseason. He was just seven FedExCup points ahead of No. 126 Cameron Tringale; the top 125 earn spots in next week’s THE NORTHERN TRUST. A missed cut would’ve led to, “a pretty depressing plane ride home,â€� Ogilvy said. He likely would have missed the Playoffs and lost his full PGA TOUR status if he failed to make the weekend. That early departure seemed likely after he made bogey on Sedgefield Country Club’s second hole, his 11th of the day. It dropped him to 1 over par, four or five shots outside of the projected cut line with just seven holes remaining. The pressure induced his best play. “It was do it or go home,â€� Ogilvy said. “If I’m playing OK, I play better when there’s a bit of pressure.â€� His rally started with a 16-foot birdie putt at the third hole. He birdied the next three holes, as well. A fortuitous bounce off a cart path left him with just a pitching wedge into the par-5 fifth hole. He stuck his 102-yard approach shot at the eighth hole to 2 feet for another birdie before parring his final hole of the day. “It’s nice to feel it. Only people who play out here understand that coming down the last few holes on Friday for the cut line is almost as hard as coming down the last few holes Sunday,â€� said Ogilvy the 2006 U.S. Open champion. “It’s different. It’s nerves on a Sunday, but pressure on a Friday. You feel uncomfortable. I have two more cracks at it.” BACK AGAINST THE WALL There are two par-5s at Sedgefield Country Club. Johnson Wagner needed just five shots to play them Friday. An albatross and an eagle helped Wagner shoot 64 on Friday and vault into contention. “It was incredible,â€� Wagner said. “I was kind of struggling early, making some pars and just hit a perfect shot. … I was lucky today.â€� At No. 141 in the FedExCup, Wagner estimates that he needs a top-10 finish to crack the top 125 in the standings. He’ll enter the weekend three shots behind leader Henrik Stenson. Wagner used a 5-iron to hole his second shot on Sedgefield Country Club’s par-5 fifth hole. He eagled the other par-5, No. 15, when he hit a 3-iron to 29 feet and made the putt. Wagner has three albatrosses in competition (two on the PGA TOUR and one on the Web.com Tour), but does not have a hole-in-one in a tournament. Wagner is accustomed to this position. This is the fifth consecutive season he’s been outside the top 125 in the FedExCup standings after July 1. He’s kept his card in three of the previous four seasons. Eight of his 11 top-10s in the previous five seasons have come after July 1. “I like to make it really hard and challenging on myself,â€� Wagner said. “I like to be outside the number at the end of the year and have to play my best golf coming down the stretch.â€� WHAT AN HONOR Arnold Palmer’s alma mater, Wake Forest University, is just 35 minutes from Sedgefield Country Club, a course that he played during his historic PGA TOUR career. Palmer was honored Tuesday with a plaque on the Wall of Champions that sits behind Sedgefield’s ninth green. Palmer’s grandson, Sam Saunders, took part in Tuesday’s ceremony. Then he got to work. Saunders started the Wyndham Championship at No. 127 in the FedExCup. He’s trying to qualify for the FedExCup Playoffs for the first time in his career. He’s off to a good start in that quest. Saunders, 30, followed Thursday’s 63 with a 2-under 68 on Friday. He’s missed just five greens in two days. He’s not thinking about a Playoffs berth and his PGA TOUR card, though. “The objective is to try to win a golf tournament,â€� Saunders said. His best PGA TOUR finish is a runner-up at the 2015 Puerto Rico Open, where he lost in a playoff.

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