Thompson fires 63 to take LPGA lead in Indy

Daniel Berger takes a run at becoming the first man since 2011 to three-peat a PGA TOUR event, joining reigning U.S. Open champion Brooks Koepka and predecessor Dustin Johnson in the final stop before Shinnecock Hills. This year will be the final pre-Open setting for the longtime Memphis stop, which gets an upgrade to World Golf Championships status in 2019 and will move into the late summer slot following the Open Championship. FIELD NOTES: Phil Mickelson and Henrik Stenson also will take a running start into Open week, giving the lineup four of the top 20 players in the world rankings. Stenson visits Memphis for the first time since 2012. … In all, 13 St. Jude entrants will use Memphis as a tuneup for Shinnecock Hills. That number could rise after Monday’s final Open qualifying. … Ole Miss junior Braden Thornberry, fourth last year after capturing the NCAA individual title, returns on another sponsor exemption. … Two other former college standouts join the lineup: Grant Hirschman (Oklahoma) and Dawson Armstrong (Lipscomb). … John Daly, now primarily on the PGA TOUR Champions, joins the Memphis lineup for the first time since 2014. … Memphis native Casey Wittenberg tees it up on the PGA TOUR for the first time since 2016 at Torrey Pines. FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 500 points. STORYLINES: Berger, whose only two professional wins have come at TPC Southwind, sets out to become just the sixth man in the past four decades to win three straight at the same venue. Steve Stricker was the last to pull it off, winning three John Deere Classics from 2009-11. … Mickelson, never lower than 11th in any of the past five editions, returns to sharpen his game ahead of the only major he hasn’t won. The Hall of Famer has six top-6 finishes this season, including a win at the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship. … Koepka arrives off a runner-up finish at the Fort Worth Invitational, just his third start since a 16-week layoff to let a wrist injury heal. …Just five St. Jude champions have come from outside the United States, with Nick Price winning twice in 1993 and ’98. The others: Gary Player (1974), Greg Norman (1997), Lee Westwood (2010) and Fabian Gomez (2015). … A U.S. Open berth remains available for anyone who moves into the top 60 of the world rankings after the St. Jude’s conclusion. Seeking a last-gasp rise: No.63 Patton Kizzire and No.65 Adam Scott. COURSE: TPC Southwind, 7,244 yards, par 70. Hosting its 30th edition of the St. Jude Classic, the former dairy farm takes a step up next year as a World Golf Championships venue. Architect Ron Prichard teamed with former U.S. Open champions Hubert Green and Fuzzy Zoeller on a layout that winds through natural lakes, streams and ponds southeast of Memphis. Loren Roberts was brought in for a 2004 upgrade that removed dozens of trees on the property and replaced Southwind’s bentgrass greens with more heat-tolerant Bermuda strain. Southwind’s par-3 11th hole draws comparisons with the famed 17th at TPC Sawgrass, requiring a short iron over water to a small island green. 72-HOLE RECORD: 258, John Cook (1996). 18-HOLE RECORD: 59, Al Geiberger (2nd round, 1977 at Colonial CC). TPC Southwind record: 61, Jay Delsing (4th round, 1993), Bob Estes (1st round, 2001). LAST YEAR: Berger picked up his second PGA TOUR title at the same place he claimed his first, emerging from a logjam at the top with a bogey-free 66 on the final day. A 17-foot birdie at No.15 pushed Berger to the front for good, finishing at 10-under-par 270 and one stroke clear of Charl Schwartzel and Whee Kim. Thornberry was among five players who finished two shots off the pace, becoming the first amateur to record a top-10 finish at Memphis since 1965. At one point, nine players shared the final-round lead at 8-under before Berger finally rose above the crowd. The Florida native became the St. Jude Classic’s fourth back-to-back winner and first since David Toms in 2003-04. HOW TO FOLLOW TELEVISION: Thursday-Friday, 4-7 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). Saturday-Sunday, 1-2:45 p.m. (GC), 3-6 p.m. (CBS). PGA TOUR LIVE: Thursday-Friday, 8 a.m.-4 p.m. (Featured Groups), 4-7 p.m. (Featured Holes). RADIO: Thursday-Friday, 1-7 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 1-6 p.m. (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.COM).

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Long-hitting Cameron Champ will carry a four-stroke lead over Corey Conners into the final round of the Sanderson Farms Championship.

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Matt Hill was a can’t-miss college star at North Carolina State, matching accomplishments that only Tiger Woods had achieved before him. And after Hill’s eight-win season in 2009, he quickly made a deep splash in his native Canada, topping the Order of Merit on the Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada. But life, like golf, is unpredictable. Sometimes the can’t-miss kids end up missing. Or they run into injuries. Or the game rears its unsympathetic head – no matter your resume. Hill, of Brights Grove, Ontario — the same hometown as Mike Weir – is proof. He will make his first start on the PGA TOUR since 2017 after Monday qualifying for this week’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship. “I haven’t played a ton of tournaments lately, but you just never know with golf,” Hill said from his home in West Palm Beach, Florida. “You keep plugging along and try to get better and you never know when it’s going to happen.” Hill won the NCAA individual title in 2009, one of his eight collegiate titles that year. He was the ACC’s Male Athlete of the Year (in all sports) and captured the Haskins Award as the year’s best collegiate golfer. He turned professional in 2010 and won his first – and to date, only – professional title on PGA TOUR Canada in 2012. He was the tour’s leading money winner that same season. Since that year, however, Hill has hopped around without finding secure footing. He’s made just five PGA TOUR starts in the past decade and played fewer than 30 times on the Korn Ferry Tour in that span. It certainly hasn’t been for lack of trying, and Hill says he’s happy, despite not quite living up to the expectations that he and others bestowed upon him after college. He’s the father of two girls – the second, Rhemi, was born in July – and has mostly been playing mini-tours in the southeastern United States while trying to earn a spot in Korn Ferry Tour and PGA TOUR events via qualifiers. He played the Evan Scholars Invitational on the Korn Ferry Tour last summer but this week’s event in Bermuda will mark his first start on TOUR since a missed cut at the RBC Canadian Open four years ago. “Obviously I haven’t played out on the PGA TOUR in a while so it’s hard to expect too much,” admits Hill. “But I definitely would love to play well for (my family). It would make it extra special. I could play good golf and they could see me doing it.” Hill has battled a wonky back for most of professional career and not a day goes by when he doesn’t feel some tightness or soreness – amplified a bit, he says, by the long drives between mini-tour events. But he says he’s found ways to manage his back pain now better than ever. He frequently tees it up in South Florida alongside fellow Canadian prs Corey Conners, Taylor Pendrith, Michael Gligic and Adam Svensson. He even lives on Conners’ street, he says. But why have most of those guys, younger and with a lighter college resume than Hill, made it to the TOUR and he hasn’t? “There could have been a few different things. It’s definitely not for lack of putting in the work,” says Hill. “It’s been a long go for me and I haven’t made it out there yet, and I definitely have thought about doing different things. But I love the game and for now I’m just going to keep trying to get better. “As of right now, it’s hard to explain. Guys more in my shoes, it’s up and down. Some weeks – or months – you feel like you’re ready to get a job and other times you feel like your game is really good and you’re ready to get out (on TOUR). It’s a fine line.” Days like the Monday qualifier for the Butterfield Bermuda Championship showed Hill he can still do it. He points to Weir as an example of someone who has shown there isn’t an age limit in this game. Weir has had a career resurgence on PGA TOUR Champions after turning 50. “It shows you I have a lot of time and everyone’s on a different plan, as well,” says Hill. “Looking back isn’t going to do too much for me. I’m just trying to take it week to week right now and make the best of my situation.”

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