Watch live: Final-round action from the Bahamas

ATLANTA — Dustin Johnson went the last three hours over 13 holes without hitting from the fairway and still manged to hang on to the lead Saturday after two rounds at the TOUR Championship. Johnson could at least see his entire golf ball from the first cut on the par-5 18th at East Lake, setting up a two-putt birdie for an even-par 70 and a one-shot lead lead over Sungjae Im. RELATED: Full leaderboard | McIlroy begins fatherhood with 64 in Round 1 | JT thrives in pursuer role The big picture going into the final two rounds is all about opportunity. As well as Johnson has been playing — two runner-up finishes and an 11-shot victory in his last three starts — there was a chance he could have started with that two-shot lead and created some big separation. Instead, nine players are separated by five shots heading for the Labor Day finish. Im, the budding star from South Korea whose game had gone lukewarm coming out of the three-month shutdown, birdied three of his last four holes for a 64 and will be in the final group with Johnson. Xander Schauffele, who won the TOUR Championship as a rookie in 2017, ran off three straight birdies late in his round for a 65 and was two shots behind. Another big move came from PGA champion Collin Morikawa, whose 66 put him in range. And it took some help from the leading players who stumbled on an East Lake course that punished mistakes. Johnson has rounds of 67-70, and along with starting at 10 under because of his No. 1 seed, was at 13-under par. He hit only two fairways — the first hole and the fifth, where both times he made par. He still managed a birdie on No. 8 when he chipped in from 40 feet and the final hole, one of the two par 5s at East Lake. Rory McIlroy, who managed only two birdies, lost ground at the end with a shot that laser cameras estimated at 85 feet, which didn’t account for how far it sunk to the bottom of the lake. He tried to reach the 18th green from the thick rough just through the fairway, and it topped out into the water. That led to bogey and a 71. Justin Thomas pulled within one shot until he couldn’t convert birdie chances and then drove so far left on the 18th that he had to pitch out sideways, leading to bogey and a 71. Jon Rahm again was keeping stride with Johnson until he found the water off the tee at the par-3 15th and made double bogey, followed by a wild drive that led to bogey on the 16th. He shot a 74, nine shots worse than his opening round. That left him four shots behind at 9 under, along with Morikawa and Tyrrell Hatton, who had a 66 and spoke for the field when he said hitting from the rough “is a complete lottery.” That’s what was so maddening for Thomas, who felt like he was hitting it well enough from tee to green. He ranks last in the 30-man field in putting, which would not surprise him. “I should have never shot over par today with how well I played,” he said. “I just made absolutely nothing.” That much was evident when his 6-foot par putt swirled in and out of the cup, and Thomas gave it a sarcastic thumbs-up. McIlroy said he tried to take on too much with his shot that he duffed into the water, but he didn’t appear too shaken. This was more about the leaderboard than perspective on life from being a new father. “It doesn’t look like I’m going to lose any ground today anyway, which is some sort of consolation,” he said. Rahm was frustrated as ever, mainly because he couldn’t capitalize when he was in the fairway and felt it was another round at East Lake that would cost him. Now, however, he’s still only four shots behind with 36 holes remaining and the FedExCup still very much up for grabs. “The closest I came from the fifth hole on to make a birdie was that bunker shot on 18,” he said of his third shot from behind the green. “That’s the best look I had all day. It’s just one of those days. But like you said, the mentality is right now we’ve played two days of the tournament. I’m four back going into the weekend. Anything can happen.”

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The TOUR will travel about 10 miles northwest of Mexico City for the first World Golf Championship of the year. The WGC-Mexico Championship being played at Club de Golf Chapultepec. The course will play as a 7,355-yard, par-71. The players will putt on poa annua greens for the third consecutive week. RELATED: Tee times | Power Rankings | Horses for Courses This is the fourth year the tournament will be played at Chapultepec. Dustin Johnson has won two of the previous three tournaments here, with Phil Mickelson sandwiching a win in 2018 between Johnson’s wins in 2017 and 2019. Mickelson, along with Tiger Woods and Rickie Fowler are some notables not in the field this week. The course ranked 17th in difficulty last year but played easier in 2018, ranking 31st in scoring relative to par. What will be different from most weeks on TOUR is the altitude. Golf Club de Chapultepec is about 7,400 feet above sea level, which should equate to the course playing less than 7,000 yards long. The course will be similar in grass type to Riviera Country Club, but it’s not the only course we’ve seen a correlation with. Other places like Torrey Pines, the Plantation Course at Kapalua and the Omega European Masters played in Switzerland on a course 4,920 feet above sea level share similarities in layout and leaderboards.  Driving distance will not be an advantage nor a necessity at Club de Golf Chapultepec, but more utilized for the par-5s all measuring over 570 yards with two being over 600 yards. If the course isn’t long, where does the difficulty lie? It’s heavily tree-lined along the fairways so you’ll need to have a modicum of accuracy off the tee and have the correct angles into these greens, many of which are two-tiered. Lineups should also have players who’ve experienced the difficulties with poa annua over the past two weeks or one of the past two weeks with a higher average rate of three putts per round at this course over the TOUR average. As always, focusing on elite ball-strikers, mainly through approach, will be key where distance control may be tough to gauge at elevation. Rory McIlroy ($11,500) His Sunday was a letdown, losing two strokes on the greens and 1.5 strokes with his irons, which is not the Rory we’re used to seeing over his past few tournaments. Even though his Sunday was quite messy, he still didn’t lose strokes with his ball-striking and travels to a tournament where he’s finished T7 in 2017 and runner up last year. He’s been at or near the top in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green dating back to the past 25 tournaments he’s played in as well as first in his past three tournaments on TOUR. What is also going to help is how great he’s been around the greens, especially compared to the other golfers in this price range ranking seventh over his past 12 rounds. Xander Schauffele ($9,400) A 23rd last week at Genesis feels like a letdown, especially when he was rostered in over 25% of lineups in GPP contests and 36% in cash lineups. Hopefully this decreases his projected ownership this week at a no-cut event, a format that seems to fit his game with elite finishes throughout his career and more recently a runner-up at both the WGC-HSBC Champions and the Sentry Tournament of Champions this season. He ranked ninth in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green last week, but Schauffele lost close to 1.5 strokes on poa annua greens, which is not the norm. He should be able to regain some confidence with his putter ranking inside the top 15 in Strokes Gained: Putting over his past three tournaments on poa annua greens. Sergio Garcia ($8,600) Garcia had a nice return to the PGA TOUR at Riviera ranking 10th in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green last week, but he lost four strokes putting leading to a mediocre finish. Being inside the top 40 at the Genesis isn’t terrible, but Garcia’s been great here recording two top 10 finishes in back-to-back starts at Club de Golf Chapultepec. His solid ball-striking should continue at a course where he’s hit the ball well, finishing inside the top six in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green over the past two years. He should also be able to find the short grass this week, ranking 12th in fairways gained over the field in his past three tournaments. If he can have an average putting week, he could be in contention come Sunday. Matt Fitzpatrick ($8,000) We’ve seen some crossover with course condition and layout at Club de Golf Chapultepec and the Omega European Masters played at Crans-sur-Sierre GC in Switzerland, a tournament that Fitzpatrick has won in back-to-back years in 2017 and 2018. This doesn’t mean Fitzpatrick will automatically have success in Mexico — his best finish is a T16 back in 2017 — but he’s striking the ball well, ranking 10th in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green and eighth in fairways gained over the field in his past three tournaments. Lee Westwood ($6,900) Westwood’s stats aren’t going to jump off the page, but his recent win the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship was impressive beating players like Tommy Fleetwood, Sergio Garcia, Louis Oosthuizen and Matthew Fitzpatrick. He’s also done well at the Omega European Masters over the past two years. It’s not imperative to roster golfers at this salary, but he’s one of a few in this range who’s won recently and the type of upside we should be looking at this price. Put your knowledge to the test. Sign up for DraftKings and experience the game inside the game ABOUT THE WRITER: I am a promoter at DraftKings and am also an avid fan and user (my username is reidtfowler) and may sometimes play on my personal account in the games that I offer advice on. Although I have expressed my personal view on the games and strategies above, they do not necessarily reflect the view(s) of DraftKings and I may also deploy different players and strategies than what I recommend above. I am not an employee of DraftKings and do not have access to any non-public information.

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