Tough weather forecast for final round at Royal Portrush

While defending champion Viktor Hovland heads to play the World Golf Championships-Workday Championship at The Concession, the field of the Puerto Rico Open features a solid handful of past PGA TOUR winners, up-and-comers looking for their first TOUR victory, and the top golfers from the 2020 portion of the Korn Ferry Tour season. FIELD NOTES: Ian Poulter is the top-ranked golfer in the world teeing it up in Puerto Rico... Fellow European Ryder Cup team member Thomas Pieters along with 2021 European Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington are also in the field... Eight of the top-10 golfers from the 2020 Korn Ferry Tour Points List will be playing in Rio Grande. With the Korn Ferry Tour season spreading out over two calendar years, the top-10 finishers in 2020 earned exemptions into the four alternate field events on the PGA TOUR in 2021. Taylor Pendrith, ranked second on the Points List, is the top draw... TOUR winner Smylie Kaufman is back playing a TOUR event for the first time since the 2020 Puerto Rico Open... College star Justin Suh is in the field on a Sponsor Exemption. Suh finished T14 at the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship... Past Puerto Rico Open winners looking to rekindle some magic include Martin Trainer (2019), D.A. Points (2017), Alex Cejka (2015), Scott Brown (2013), and George McNeill (2012)... Other Sponsor Exemptions include college star Bryson Nimmer, Korn Ferry Tour winner Ollie Schniederjans, and 18-year-old Asian Tour star Joohyung Kim. FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 300 FedExCup points. COURSE: Grand Reserve Country Club, par 72, 7,506 yards. The Tom Kite design boasts two par fives over 600 yards on the back nine, including the closer. Located east of San Juan, the course is by the sea and overlooks El Yunque U.S. National Forest. STORYLINES: Eight of the last 12 Puerto Rico Open winners made the tournament their first TOUR victory... No one has defended the Puerto Rico Open title and that streak will continue in 2021... Davis Riley is only one win away from a three-win promotion on the Korn Ferry Tour but is looking to accelerate his promotion in Puerto Rico. Riley is close with past FedExCup winner and fellow Alabama Golf team member Justin Thomas and is also roommates with Will Zalatoris, who tops the Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season Points List but is playing the WGC-Workday Championship at The Concession due to his world ranking... Martin Trainer is hoping a return to the site of his first PGA TOUR victory will see a return of good form. Trainer, the 2019 champion, has made only two TOUR cuts in his last 32 events. 72-HOLE RECORD: 267, Chesson Hadley (2014). 18-HOLE RECORD: 63, Derek Lamely (3rd round, 2010), James Driscoll (1st round, 2011), Chris Tidland (2nd round, 2011), Scott Brown (2nd round, 2013), James Driscoll (2nd round, 2014), Trey Mullinax (1st round, 2017), J.J. Henry (4th round, 2017), Martin Laird (3rd round, 2020). LAST TIME: Despite a triple bogey on the par-3 11th on Sunday, Viktor Hovland won for the first time on the PGA TOUR thanks to a chip-in eagle on the par-5 15th and an emphatic 30-foot birdie on the 72nd hole. It was the first TOUR victory for the former college and amateur superstar. He managed to hold off Josh Teater for a one-shot victory and was just one shot away from tying the all-time low score at the Puerto Rico Open despite windy and at times wet conditions. Hovland held the 54-hole lead after a Saturday 64. Kyle Stanley, Sam Ryder, and Emiliano Grillo all finished at 15-under and T3. HOW TO FOLLOW Television: Thursday-Friday, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). Saturday, 2:30 p.m.-5:00 p.m. (Golf Channel). Sunday, 2:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m. (Golf Channel). TOUR Pulse: Get the PGA TOUR app to utilize TOUR Pulse, which provides users the ability to experience a mix of content, such as video highlights, written hole summaries and stat graphics on every player after every hole they complete.

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The 2021-22 PGA TOUR season was unforgettable for many reasons. A season that began with one budding star picking up his third win (Max Homa at the Fortinet Championship) was capped off 11 months later by the biggest final-round comeback in TOUR Championship history (Rory McIlroy, 6 back). What happened in between was unforgettable, too. These are the stats and notes that best tell the story of the 2021-22 PGA TOUR season. The breakout superstar Scottie Scheffler began the year as the highest-ranked player without a PGA TOUR win. Less than five months later, he was a major champion, the FedExCup leader, and the No. 1 player in the world. On Super Bowl Sunday in Phoenix, he beat reigning FedExCup champ Patrick Cantlay in a playoff for his first PGA TOUR win. When he won the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play just 42 days later, he was tops in the OWGR. It’s by far the fastest a player has gone from winless on the PGA TOUR or DP World Tour to world number one – the previous-fastest sprint to the top came from Tiger Woods, who did it in 252 days. Scheffler made his first start as No. 1 at the Masters, the first player to do that since Ian Woosnam in 1991, and like Woosnam, Scheffler won. It was his first major title and fourth win in six PGA TOUR starts – the first time anyone had gone four-for-six since Jason Day in 2015. (Day’s run also included his first major win, at the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits, and an ascent to world number one.) The most recent player, before Scheffler, to collect his fourth win of the season at the Masters: Arnold Palmer in 1960. The scoring records Before the Sentry Tournament of Champions, there had never been a 72-hole PGA TOUR event where two players finished regulation at 30 under par or lower. The week of the Sentry, there were three. Jon Rahm made 32 birdies, tying the record for a 72-hole tournament, and he didn’t even win. At the Sony Open in Hawaii the following week Hideki Matsuyama and Russell Henley were tied through four rounds with a total score of 257. When Matsuyama won the playoff, Henley received the dubious honor of lowest 72-hole total in PGA TOUR history for a player who did not win. Sebastian Muñoz became the first player in TOUR history to record two rounds of 60 in the same season – he got his first at The RSM Classic, and second at the AT&T Byron Nelson. At the PGA Championship at Southern Hills, Justin Thomas played his last 13 holes (including the playoff against Will Zalatoris) in 6 under to win. He was seven shots off the lead to start the day. The comeback tied the largest by a winner in PGA Championship history (John Mahaffey in 1978), and was the biggest in a men’s major since Paul Lawrie was 10 back at the 1999 Open Championship. Thomas’ win was not just his second major, but also his 15th PGA TOUR title. Since World War II, only five other players have won 15 PGA TOUR events, including multiple majors, before the age of 30: Jack Nicklaus, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson, Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy. All four men’s major winners in 2022 were under 30, the first time that’s happened since the inception of the Masters in 1934. Players in their 20s had previously won three of the four majors 17 different times. The right mix of man and tournament/golf course After two years of cancelations due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the fans at the RBC Canadian Open were primed for a thrilling week. The players delivered. In the final round, Justin Rose flirted with 59 but settled for 60, becoming the first European player in PGA TOUR history with multiple rounds of 60 or better in his career. Thomas, McIlroy and Tony Finau were electric, shooting a combined 20 under par. When McIlroy came out on top, it marked the first time in his PGA TOUR career he had successfully defended a title. Nine years after winning the U.S. Amateur with his little brother on the bag at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, Matt Fitzpatrick returned to claim his first career major victory. It marked just the second time in men’s golf history that a player won the U.S. Amateur and the U.S. Open at the same course – Nicklaus also did it at Pebble Beach. Fitzpatrick hit 17 greens in regulation in the final round at Brookline, becoming just the third major winner in the last 30 years to hit 17 or more GIR on Sunday of a major win. The breakout rookie Cameron Young’s seven top-three finishes on the season included the PGA Championship (T-3) and The Open Championship (2nd). As well as he played all season, though, it did not include a victory. Young is the first player to have seven or more top-three finishes but no wins in a single PGA TOUR season since Payne Stewart in 1993. Young wound up with more than $6.5M in official earnings – the most in TOUR history for a rookie and the most for a player in a season without a win. Sahith Theegala, the other rookie to make the TOUR Championship, shot the most rounds in the 60s on TOUR (55). Davis Riley (6 top-10 finishes), Chad Ramey (won Corales Puntacana Championship) and Tom Kim (both winners this season), help make this rookie class one of the strongest in years. Feel-good win of the season Arguably the most cathartic win was by perpetual major contender Will Zalatoris in a playoff at the FedEx St. Jude Championship. By outlasting Sepp Straka, Zalatoris banked his first PGA TOUR title in the first stop of the three-week FedExCup Playoffs. His incredible consistency in the majors early in his career doesn’t happen often: at the U.S. Open, he picked up his sixth top-10 finish in just his ninth major start. The last player to do that was Antonio Cerda, an Open Championship fixture in the 1950s. When Zalatoris got the win at TPC Southwind he was 14th in the Official World Golf Ranking. That marked the highest World Ranking by any American player at the time of his first TOUR win, just ahead of Scheffler at TPC Scottsdale earlier in the year (15th). The winners who overcame calamity The PGA TOUR has been tracking hole-by-hole scoring data for 40 seasons. From 1983 through July of this year there were more than 1,700 official stroke play events contested, and never was a tournament won by a player who started the week with triple bogey or worse. Then it happened twice in August. At the Wyndham Championship, Tom Kim began his week with a quadruple bogey. His long, incredible climb back up the leaderboard – which included a front nine 27 in the final round – ended in a runaway five-stroke victory. Three weeks later in Atlanta, Rory McIlroy – who was already ceding six “Starting Strokes” to Scheffler – opened his tournament with triple bogey and went on to win. The sneakiest, most dramatic improvement The most impressive turnaround for McIlroy didn’t come at the TOUR Championship, or not just there, anyway. It was a facet of his game that went from burden to brilliant over just a few months. Through the Masters, McIlroy was struggling with his wedges: From 50 to 125 yards away, he ranked 208th of 209 qualified players in proximity to the hole (24 feet, 1 inch). From his next start – the Wells Fargo Championship – through the end of the year, he completely turned that around. His average of 14 feet, 1 inch from that point through the end of the season was tops on the PGA TOUR.

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OWINGS MILLS, Md. – Rory McIlroy shook off his lackluster second round with a 7-under 65 on Saturday at the BMW Championship, reinvigorating his tournament chances and setting him up for a tilt at what would be a record third FedExCup. McIlroy sits at 17-under for the week at Caves Valley Golf Club, tied for fourth but four shots adrift of co-leaders Bryson DeChambeau (67) and Patrick Cantlay (66). Having started the week at 28th in the FedExCup race McIlroy was in danger of not advancing to East Lake with the top 30 for the TOUR Championship where the FedExCup goes on the line. But the Northern Irishman 19-time PGA TOUR winner currently projects to 20th and is just a place on the leaderboard away from projecting towards the top 10. He joins Tiger Woods as the only players to have two FedExCup titles. Having won the FedExCup in 2016 before the handicap strokes system was introduced and again in 2019 when it was first implemented, McIlroy isn’t daunted about the prospect of starting behind at East Lake. He started five shots back in 2019 and as it stands now, he projects to be eight shots off the leader. “It lets you free-wheel a little more on the first day (when you’re behind). But it’s OK because I go out and shoot 6-under next Thursday and the leader shoots 2-over, and all of a sudden, you’re right in the golf tournament,” McIlroy said. “I like the format. I think that all 30 players going into next week should feel like they have a good chance to win. Even when you are starting 10 back because if you shoot a good one that first day, you’re right back in it.” McIlroy could make a huge leap up the standings should he reel in the leaders on Sunday. He knows he’ll need to start well with the two par 5’s coming in the first four holes on the front nine. “You don’t want to put yourself under too much pressure to get off to a good start, but a good start is really important because then you can get momentum on your side early and try to ride it from there,” he said. FedExCup Notes… With just one round to play only Sergio Garcia currently projects into the top 30 to make it to the TOUR Championship from the outside. Garcia sits T4 after rounds of 65-67-67 and projects from 44th to 27th… With one in, one must be trending out. That distinction belongs to Max Homa who is languishing at T66 and needs an incredible Sunday to have any chance of survival… Hudson Swafford, currently in ninth position, is withing striking distance of also playing his way in. Others to watch out for on Sunday include Erik Van Rooyen (T10), K.H. Lee (T12) and Cam Davis (T22). They will need impressive rounds but can’t yet be discounted… Sungjae Im (3rd) also projects to make a big climb. The Korean entered the week at 25th but currently is trending towards 12th on the standings. MOVING IN Sergio Garcia: 44th to 27th MOVING OUT Max Homa: 30th to 36th

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