Thompson shoots bogey-free 66, leads Open by 1

The first anniversary of the Return to Golf is not without the irony that it’s also a reminder that not every tournament is all the way back. This position on the 2020-21 PGA TOUR schedule originally was occupied by the RBC Canadian Open, but it’s been tabled yet another season until it can be determined that all things associated with the tournament can be completed safely during and hopefully after the pandemic. In its place is the Palmetto Championship at Congaree. Situated in South Carolina’s Lowcountry near the small town of Ridgeland, Congaree will host 156 golfers for a traditional four-round competition. For details on the course, what’s at stake and more, scroll past the projected contenders. RELATED: The First Look | How the field qualified POWER RANKINGS: PALMETTO CHAMPIONSHIP AT CONGAREE Sungjae Im, Kevin Kisner, Tommy Fleetwood and Pat Perez will be among the notables reviewed in Tuesday’s Fantasy Insider. For the third consecutive month, the PGA TOUR finds itself in The Palmetto State. Its last visit crowned Phil Mickelson as the oldest champion in a major at the PGA Championship at Kiawah Island. The first yielded then-47-year-old Stewart Cink’s second victory of the season and third career at the RBC Heritage. As the seabird flies, Congaree is about 35 miles north-northwest of Hilton Head Island. Like Harbour Town, Congaree is a par 71 that shot-shapers will find to their liking what with swerving fairways crisscrossing mature oaks. Unlike Harbour Town, which tips at just 7,121 yards, Congaree can stretch to 7,655 yards. The 645-yard, par-5 fourth is the second-longest hole on the PGA TOUR behind the 677-yard, par-5 18th at Kapalua, except it’s essentially at sea level as compared to the downhill finisher of the Sentry Tournament of Champions. Golf Digest declared Congaree the best new private course in the United States in 2018. Tom Fazio designed and built it to resemble what can be found across the Sandbelt region of Melbourne, Australia. There is no rough, which means that there is no transitional area between fairways, green and sand. Ah, yes, the sand. It’s everywhere. The hole-by-hole description of Congaree at PGATOUR.COM presents dazzling overhead images. Of course, the game is played on the ground, or at least that’s where the eyes are and on which many an attempt to escape from trouble around green complexes will be preferred, but golfers who manage distance and control from tee to green will factor, so the aerial attack will play. Bermudagrass greens have matured and they’ll be TOUR-quality speed, but because they’re unknown to most of the competitors, putting is a secondary weapon to irons and short game. Winds are forecast to be light and rain cannot be ruled out during any round – it’ll be hot and muggy throughout – so hole locations will serve as a primary defense against scoring. ROB BOLTON’S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM’s Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton recaps and previews every tournament from numerous angles. Look for his following contributions as scheduled. MONDAY: Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Sleepers; Fantasy Insider SUNDAY: Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Rookie Watch * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM’s Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, which also publishes on Tuesday.

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Unique to the calendar is this week’s co-sanctioned World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions. It slots both in the fourth week of the 2018-19 PGA TOUR season and in the fourth-to-last week of the European Tour’s 2018 schedule. With no cut, dual-tour members are guaranteed to contribute points for the FedExCup and Race to Dubai. Among those in the field of 78 at Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai, China, who target multiple long-range goals are Americans Patrick Reed, Xander Schauffele and Pat Perez. As they work on their pursuit of the FedExCup, they also rank a respective third, 22nd and 84th in the Race to Dubai standings. Of the five winners of the WGC-HSBC Champions since it became an official PGA TOUR event in 2013-14, Dustin Johnson (2013), Russell Knox (2015), Hideki Matsuyama (2016) and Justin Rose (2017) also are committed to competing. Scroll beneath the expanded ranking for more on the course, how Rose prevailed and what Mother Nature intends to bring to the party. Tuesday’s Fantasy Insider will include Patrick Reed, Xander Schauffele, Alex Noren and 2015 champion Russell Knox among other notables. The history of the HSBC Champions, in its first four editions before it was tagged with the WGC badge and in the years since, is complicated. For example, it led off the European Tour’s 2008-09 schedule and appeared again very late in the same season when it debuted as a World Golf Championship. However, save in 2012 when the Olazábal Course at Mission Hills hosted, the constant has been Sheshan International. The stock par-72 tips at 7,261 yards. Its par 5s annually rank among the toughest sets of all courses on the PGA TOUR. The 603-yard eighth is especially difficult. In the tournament’s first five years as an official event on the PGA TOUR, No. 8 has been the hardest of all par 5s twice (2014-15, 2016-17). It slotted second-most challenging last season behind No. 14 at Pebble Beach. Similar to the experience at The Club at Nine Bridges, last week’s host of THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES, wind influences scoring considerably at Sheshan International. Winning aggregates have ranged from Bubba Watson’s 11-under 277 in 2014 to Johnson’s 24-under in 2013. Rose recorded a two-stroke victory last year at 14-under 274. That’s a reasonable target again this week. The narrative for the majority of Rose’s career has been sculpted in his putting. As long as he’s in control of it, he’s borderline unbeatable. Case in point, he reached a career peak in putting in 2017-18 and won the FedExCup, and it started at Sheshan International where he ranked seventh in putts per greens in regulation. (ShotLink is not utilized in the tournament.) With bentgrass greens prepped to run just 11 feet or so on the Stimpmeter (to help balance the international field’s overall inexperience on faster surfaces with undulation), it’s understandable why scoring has gone as low as it has. The premium of hitting greens in regulation is multiplied due to the fact that Sheshan International was the third-hardest to scramble for par last year, and that not an anomaly. Moderate breezes cannot be ruled out during any of the four days of this week’s competition. It’ll freshen the most on Friday when a serious threat of rain shares the headline. Daytime temperatures won’t climb out of the low 70s. The winner of the Old Tom Morris Cup will bank 550 FedExCup points and $1.7 million of a record $10-million prize fund. ROB BOLTON’S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM’s Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton recaps and previews every tournament from numerous angles. Look for his following contributions as scheduled. MONDAY: Rookie Ranking, Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Power Rankings (WGC-HSBC) TUESDAY*: Power Rankings (Sanderson Farms), Sleepers (WGC-HSBC), Fantasy Insider WEDNESDAY: One & Done (WGC-HSBC), One & Done (Sanderson Farms), Twitter live fantasy show * – 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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