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Adam Long (+400 for a Top 20) … From multiple angles, he took care of business at Mayakoba where he had recorded podium finishes in both prior appearances. His performance this time wasn’t as gleaming but he still signed for four red numbers and a T22. That extended his laughable trend of nine consecutive top 30s – when he’s made the cut – in his last 26 starts. That’s right; he missed the cut in all of the other 17. Hopes remain again in Houston where he finished T11 with four rounds of par or better last year. Martin Laird (+400 for a Top 20) … The Scot saunters in having connected top 25s for the first time since July of 2019. After a T11 in his title defense at TPC Summerlin, he finished T22 at Mayakoba. Always strong from tee to green, and with a little pop when he needs it, Memorial Park suits his long game, so he’ll need to tighten the screws on his putting that cost him a shade over four strokes en route to a missed cut on the track last year. If he does that, the next target would be another top 25. He hasn’t had three in a row since early 2015. Luke List (+375 for a Top 20) … He last appeared in Sleepers for the Sanderson Farms Championship and answered the bell with a T17. In the interim, he’s added a T7 at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP. He can be fairly judged as a long hitter and little more, but in the last four months, he’s 7-for-10 with a pair of top fives to open that stretch. Just like with Laird, the putter is List’s nemesis, but it cost him only 1.40 strokes en route to his missed cut here last year. It’s important to add that he wasn’t showcasing the kind of overall form that he has been lately. Taylor Moore (+300 for a Top 20) … Not all momentums are alike, but he can’t be unhappy with his transition from a torrid 2021 portion of the Korn Ferry Tour to his foray on the PGA TOUR. With a pair of T10s to open the KFT Finals, the 28-year-old born in San Angelo, Texas, fortified his position in the opening graduate reshuffle. and sat out the finale. After missing the cut at Silverado, he went T17-T24 before sitting out the last four weeks. It’s too early to judge his skill at this level, but early on he’s aligning with what got him here in the first place. En route to a win, a second and two thirds among 13 top 10s on the 2020-21 KFT, he ranked T6 in total driving, 10th in greens hit, fifth in ball-striking, sixth in scrambling, sixth in the all-around and fourth in scoring average. Dawie van der Walt (+800 for a Top 20) … Although he’s a native South African, he’s a local. He lives in Kingwood, which is north of the city, and it’s not a small thing that he’s stayed given the fact that Hurricane Harvey flooded his home in 2017. This will mark his fifth career start in the tournament, four via a sponsor exemption (including this week) and once as an open qualifier (2018). The first three were forgettable but there was magic in the air when the event moved to Memorial Park in 2020. He sat T4 at the midpoint and T6 entering the final round. A closing 1-over 71 on what was the easiest day for scoring bumped him back to a T20 that remains his second-best finish in 34 career PGA TOUR starts. The 38-year-old came close with a T22 at the season-opening Fortinet Championship, which was an extension of form on the Korn Ferry Tour where he concluded its campaign with three top 15s in four starts to earn his second TOUR card. Odds were sourced on Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2021. For live odds, visit betmgm.

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - Two first-time contestants have prevailed in the nearly three decades of THE PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass. Hal Sutton did it in 1983, the tournament's second year at the Stadium Course, and Craig Perks won in 2002. The Stadium is intimidating, but also subtle. Mark McCumber, 1988 PLAYERS champion and father of 2021 first-timer Tyler McCumber, spoke for many when he said in a recent Florida Times-Union story, "It took me a while to get comfortable in this tournament." And yet these might be the best odds for a first-timer to raise the trophy since Jack Nicklaus won the first PLAYERS in '74. With the 15 rookies in 2020 who made it back this week - second-time first-timers, if you will, after playing just one competitive round - and this year's 16 players who haven't played at all, there are 31 PLAYERS first-timers. And some are among the game's elite. "I feel like it'll be my second time," said world No. 4 Collin Morikawa, who won in his last start at the World Golf Championships-Workday Championship at The Concession. "I realize I only got one round in, but it doesn't mean I didn't do any prep." Although the Masters Tournament gets the most attention as being the one that's hardest for the uninitiated to win, THE PLAYERS isn't far behind. If it's behind at all. Rory McIlroy, who will be this week's defending champion of sorts since he won the last time the tournament got in all four rounds, in 2019, has said he didn't really like TPC Sawgrass for the first few years he played it. He didn't even really like any Pete Dye courses. Now, though, after winning the PGA Championship at Kiawah, the BMW Championship at Crooked Stick, and THE PLAYERS at TPC Sawgrass, he has learned to like them very much. "They’re like beer when you’re younger," McIlroy said last year. "You sort of don’t like it, but then you think it’s cool to drink it and then you sort of acquire a taste for it." Justin Thomas said this week that it took him a long time to learn the course and how it played in May, which was the tournament date when he registered his best finish, T3, in 2016. Since 2019, he added with a laugh, he's had to learn how it plays in March. "If you drive it well," he said, "being in March, it’s always going to be softer, the fairways and the greens, and you can make so many birdies out here. You have four par-5s, a lot of short scoring clubs into holes. But if you get it out of play, you’re missing the fairways, you get it out of play on the par-5s, it’s tough to shoot under par out here." Webb Simpson missed the cut in four of his first six PLAYERS starts but won in 2018. "I just learned that you have to respect the golf course," he said. "There’s trouble on every hole." This year's true rookies include but are not limited to Cameron Percy, 46, the oldest first-timer not to get in via a win at the Bridgestone SENIOR PLAYERS. Scott Harrington isn't too far behind at 40. Maverick McNealy co-owns the career wins record at Stanford (11). Lefty Robert MacIntyre comes from Oban, Scotland. Tyler McCumber has Sawgrass in his blood. Will Zalatoris, 24, is the most highly regarded true newbie. He's climbing up the world ranking (47th) and coming off a T10 at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. The second-time first-timers, though, are truly dangerous. Last August, Morikawa won the PGA Championship, becoming the ninth player to win the PGA in his debut. He shot a 4-under 68 in the first round of THE PLAYERS last year and is riding high after capturing the WGC-Workday Championship with his new "saw" putting grip. As for the notion that he'll have to pay his dues at the Stadium, don't be so sure. "I did my normal prep Monday through Wednesday," he said of 2020, "and was able to play Junior PLAYERS, even though I was never in contention. It's not like I'm showing up having played just one tournament round. I've seen it quite a bit now. For me, every week I see the same guys, and that's what helps me no matter what the tournament is called." Norway's Viktor Hovland looks ready to win, too. Top-five finishes in four of his last six starts, including a win at the Mayakoba Golf Classic presented by UNIFIN, have him up to No. 3 in the FedExCup. What's more, he also shot 68 in his one and only competitive round here. "I haven't thought much about that," he said, when asked whether he feels more like a first- or second-timer. "I guess it will be my first because I only got one round in. It was a good round. "I have good memories of that day," he continued, "I'll try to build on it. I haven't played there much. I played Junior PLAYERS. It's a fun track; I'm looking forward to playing it again." Scottie Scheffler also got his first look at Sawgrass at the Junior PLAYERS. He, too, shot an opening 68 last year. "I feel like I know the course pretty well," he said. So does South Africa's Christian Bezuidenhout, who scorched Sawgrass with a 65 last year. That round notwithstanding, he said, he still feels like a newcomer this week. "THE PLAYERS is the one everyone wants," he said. "It's the biggest PGA TOUR event apart from the majors. I'd like to play that course four rounds and finish off on Sunday." As would they all - and this year they will. We're about to see what happens when one of history's most extravagantly talented rookie classes takes the biggest stage on TOUR.

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PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico – Damon Green, caddie for Zach Johnson, went down with illness after 14 holes and could not continue in the first round of the Mayakoba Golf Classic. Sybi Kuchar, wife of Johnson’s playing partner Matt (7-under 64), took the bag for the last four, during which Johnson made an eagle and went 2-under to salvage an even-par 71. “He hadn’t been feeling well the last few days,� Johnson said of Green. “I’m assuming he was dehydrated, but I don’t know. Matt saw Damon struggling, and I did, too. He didn’t look right. PGA TOUR staff brought him in. I’d like to say it was the first time, but it’s happened like four times at Maui, NORTHERN TRUST at Bethpage, and a couple other places.� Green later confirmed he was suffering from dehydration and received an IV. Johnson had a decision to make on who should get the bag when Green exited. Kuchar, who like Johnson lives in St. Simonds Island, Georgia, was happy Sybi could help. “I didn’t talk too much to Damon, but you could tell it was heat fatigue, heat exhaustion, whatever the term is,� Matt Kuchar said. “It was really getting the best of him. I knew Sybi was in the crowd, I knew she had caddied for me before and was friendly with Zach Johnson, and figured she would be good to handle it, and Zach would go easy on her. “She knows the deal of keeping up and staying out of the way,� Kuchar added, “and I knew Zach would be happy to see a friendly face to take over the bag.� Sybi called the situation a first. Billy Horschel, the third player in the group, joked that someone should ask Matt about kissing another player’s caddie on the lips. Kuchar himself worked with a new caddie Thursday. He was a late commit to the tournament, and his usual caddie, John Wood, had planned a reunion that conflicted with Mayakoba. Kuchar gave him the week off and hired a local caddie whose nickname is “Tucan� (real name: David). Tucan was on the bag for 32-year-old Mexican Armando Favela as the former Loyola University golfer won a qualifier at El Camaleon to get into the field. (He shot 67 on Thursday.) And now Tucan is on the bag for the early co-leader Kuchar. (Kramer Hickok also came in with 64.) Still, it was the situation with Johnson, Green and Sybi Kuchar that was more unusual. But not unprecedented. “I’ve had friends fill in, I’ve had my brother in law, I’ve had random individuals I don’t know,� Johnson said. “I would have called a security guy or a rules official to have somebody brought out, but Sybi has done this before and she’s in great shape, so there you go.�

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