What to watch in the LPGA season finale

Welcome to the Monday Finish where everything old is new again as Justin Thomas continued his love affair with Asia, this time finding his way to the top of the leaderboard in Korea at THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES.  Here’s five observations and insights from the inaugural PGA TOUR event in Korea.  FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. Reigning FedExCup champion Justin Thomas just moved to third on the new season points list. He also moved to third in the world rankings. But if we throw the current formula out the window and just tell it how it is… he’s the best player in the world right now. Thomas’ seventh PGA TOUR win, his third in Asia, caps off a dominant last few months. In the last 10 weeks, he won his first major at the PGA Championship; he claimed the Dell Technologies Championship; he won the FedExCup with his runner-up finish at the TOUR Championship; he was part of the dominant U.S. team at the Presidents Cup (3-1-1), he was rightfully voted PGA TOUR Player of the Year after a 5-win season; and now he’s kicked the new season off again with victory at THE CJ CUP. While Dustin Johnson and Jordan Spieth sit above him on the rankings, Thomas is the hot hand. It is going to be fascinating to watch him after he has his well-earned break and off-season to see if he can continue the roll and continue his rapid rise. He ended 2016 at 22nd in the world. He will probably end 2017 inside the top five. I don’t think many would be surprised if he ended 2018 at the top. 2. Some players are winners. Pure and simple. Justin Thomas is a winner. While he didn’t have his best stuff all week in Korea, he certainly stood up with the game on the line so to speak. After a penultimate hole bogey dropped him back into a tie for the lead, his approach shot on the par-5 72nd hole to set up a close-range eagle putt was epic stuff. The putt may not have dropped, but the swagger was palpable. While some players struggle in the moments, Thomas does not. He wasn’t thinking about making birdie to get in a playoff. He was thinking eagle and victory the whole time. Later in the playoff after Marc Leishman found water, Thomas didn’t think about playing safe for birdie. Once again, he pulled off another beauty from long range to secure his victory. Leishman also showed he’s not afraid to chase glory when it’s presented. While he may have found the water in the playoff, earlier he had also produced a brilliant approach on the final hole in regulation to set up an eagle try. His loose swing in sudden death came with his aggressive mindset. So while it will burn, it should at least make him happy to know he refused to take the soft option. He was playing to win. 3. Speaking of Leishman – the former PGA TOUR Rookie of The Year must be commended for the continuation of his career form. The year 2017 has been a banner one for the boy from Warrnambool in Australia, as he claimed victory in the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard and the BMW Championship. He’s moved from 56th in the world to 12th and is now pushing towards being the best ranked player from Down Under, chasing his mate Jason Day who sits eighth after starting the year at No.1. While Leishman has always been loved in his home country, he hasn’t been feted at the levels Day and Adam Scott have. This is beginning to change. His goals for 2018 are lofty, and rightfully so. He has major championships and another assault on the FedExCup clearly in focus and you’d be mad to count him out of either. 4. I will be accused of bias and I’m sure there is some … but I expect this new season to be a big one for Cameron Smith. Living in the time of Spieth and Thomas and the like puts high expectations on young players, but this 24-year-old can handle it. With a T5 at the CIMB Classic and a third place finish this week, he’s moved himself to sixth at this early stage in the FedExCup race. A winner with Jonas Blixt at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans last year, Smith now has his sights on an individual title. His shot into the penultimate hole in Korea was epic, given the wind and clear troubles others were having. While he’d like his birdie putt back, given it finished a few revolutions short of the hole, Smith can be proud of his fight that left him one shot shy of the playoff. As he becomes more and more comfortable with TOUR life, the Australian will prosper further. His schedule can seem limited to some, but this is because he likes to return to his native land to have a “normal life� with his mates and customs at times. Don’t be surprised if this kid upstages Jason Day and Jordan Spieth in the Australian Open in November. 5. It was great to see the golf on display in Jeju this week and I’m looking forward to more visits to Korea in the future. The locals provided great support for their PGA TOUR heroes and you couldn’t help but get behind Whee Kim as he tried to make a Sunday surge before ultimately being the top Korean in fourth place. Seeing the likes of K.J. Choi get to play a TOUR event in front of his home crowd was certainly uplifting, as was the strong support behind Seung-Yul Noh after he announced he will be heading into his two-year mandatory military service after the event. Our game truly is a global one and as an international traveler myself I get a real buzz from seeing the TOUR make its presence felt in Asia. I’ve made no secret of the fact I’d love to see places like Japan, Australia and South Africa join Malaysia, Korea and China in this part of the season to truly celebrate our global TOUR. FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Thomas held the first-round lead by three after a 63 on the first day. His win made him three for four in converting first-round leads to victory. For comparison, only eight of 46 first-round leaders went on to win last season (twice by Thomas, at the CIMB Classic and the Sony Open in Hawaii). 2. Thomas is 5-for-7 when it comes to converting 54-hole leads in his career. He has now converted five of his last six. 3. The previous week’s CIMB Classic winner, Pat Perez, shot the low round of the day on Sunday and the only bogey-free round of the weekend with a 4-under 68 to finish T5. It allowed him to take the FedExCup lead over Brendan Steele with Thomas now third. 4. Thomas’ win gets the 20-somethings on the board after their dominant 2016-17 season. Last season, we had 28 wins by 19 different players in their 20s but the opening two events this season saw the 30-somethings (Brendan Steele) and 40-somethings (Pat Perez) strike the early blows. 5. Just 24 players have played in all three opening events of this new PGA TOUR season with Keegan Bradley being the pick of that bunch in terms of points. He sits fifth in the FedExCup standings after starting the year CUT-2-T47. Nick Taylor has been the model of consistency from the same group, posting T9-T13-T23 to sit ninth in the FedExCup. TOP 3 VIDEOS

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Rahm on a Roll Incredibly, Tuesday marks seven full months since the last time Jon Rahm recorded an over-par round on TOUR. That came in the first round of the 2021 Open Championship, and he still tied for third place. Rahm’s run of 33 consecutive rounds of par or better is the longest active streak on TOUR, with Patrick Cantlay close behind at 31. With an opening 71 or lower on Thursday, Rahm will be the first player in nearly 20 years to have a streak of 34 or longer in this statistic, the last being Charles Howell III in 2002-03. It would also tie the mark for longest such streak by an international player, matching Vijay Singh’s streak of 34 straight from 2000 to 2001. Since 1983, the only player with a streak longer than 38 rounds is – who else – Tiger Woods, who rattled off 52 consecutive rounds at par or better from the 2000 AT&T Byron Nelson to the WM Phoenix Open in February of the following year. Woods had six TOUR wins, including three majors, in that unbelievable stretch. Days removed from hosting a thrilling Super Bowl, Los Angeles is the site of another star-studded competition this week at The Riviera Country Club. For the first time in the history of The Genesis Invitational, the top 10 players in the Official World Golf Ranking will tee it up. It’s the first time since last year’s TOUR Championship that all 10 in the OWGR will compete in the same PGA TOUR event. One of the marquee events on the TOUR schedule, The Genesis Invitational has boasted some extremely strong fields in recent years: 9 of that week’s top 10 played in both 2017 and 2020. Still, it’s rare when all of the world’s best are in the mix at an event that isn’t a major championship, FedExCup Playoffs event, World Golf Championships event, or THE PLAYERS Championship. Historically Speaking To find another field like this on TOUR, you have to go back to the 2007 Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow Club, the last time 10 of the top 10 played in a tournament that wasn’t a major, Playoffs event, WGC, or THE PLAYERS. Tiger Woods would earn his 57th official TOUR title that week, which happened to be the week before THE PLAYERS. The Wells Fargo was the second victory in what would turn out to be a seven-win season for Woods. Another 10-of-10 field happened the week before THE PLAYERS in 1995, when every one of the top 23 players in the world played the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. That week at Bay Hill had an incredibly strong international contingent, including a rare stateside, non-major start for Japanese star Jumbo Ozaki, the 9th-ranked player in the world. Loren Roberts would go on to successfully defend his title that week at Arnie’s place. As for Riviera, it last hosted a major in 1995, when Steve Elkington won the PGA Championship. Not even that week could boast the entire top 10: Bernhard Langer, No. 4, missed the tournament with a back injury. Since 2010, about 12% of all events on TOUR (including the majors, PLAYERS, WGCs and FedExCup Playoffs) have had every member of the world top 10 in the field. But to see it at this particular spot on the schedule – at one of the best venues all year on TOUR – is a rare treat for golf fans. Short Game Significance Riviera has some of the most difficult greens to hit on TOUR. Last season, only Winged Foot (52.1%) and Kiawah Island (53.8%), both major championship venues, yielded a lower G.I.R. percentage than Riviera (54.2%). And while this statistic does highlight the need for precision approach play, it also hints that everyone in the field will, sooner or later, need to get up-and-down to make a key par save. Because of this, Strokes Gained: Around the Green is a more impactful statistic than usual in determining a winner at Riviera. Since 2010, TOUR winners have averaged 0.42 Strokes Gained: Around the Green per round. At Riviera, that number is significantly higher – 0.79 per round for players who take home the trophy. For winners of The Genesis Invitational, shots around the green have accounted for 22.1% of all Strokes Gained since 2010. That is nearly double the TOUR average for winners in that span, 11.6%. Nine of the previous 14 winners at Riviera ranked in the top 10 that week in Strokes Gained: Around the Green, including Max Homa in 2021.

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA – The PGA TOUR today unveiled a revamped tournament schedule for next season, providing an exciting change for players and fans as they are able to engage in – and better follow – a cadence of events highlighted by significant championships every month and culminating with the FedExCup Playoffs in August. Highlights from the new 46-tournament schedule: · The FedExCup Playoffs will feature three events, instead of four: THE NORTHERN TRUST, August 5-11 (125-player field); the BMW Championship, August 12-18 (70 players); and the TOUR Championship August 19-25 (30 players). TPC Boston will continue as a Playoffs site every other year, rotating with the New York City area as host of THE NORTHERN TRUST starting in 2020.   · As previously announced, two new tournaments have been added, though now the dates have been confirmed: the Rocket Mortgage Classic June 24-30, the first PGA TOUR tournament to be held in the city of Detroit; and the 3M Open at TPC Twin Cities July 1-7, which becomes the first PGA TOUR Champions tournament to transition to the PGA TOUR. · Per last week’s announcement, the RBC Canadian Open is moving from its traditional spot in late July to June 3-9, leading into the U.S. Open. Hamilton Golf & Country Club in Hamilton, Ontario, will host the event for the first time since 2012. · The Puerto Rico Open returns to the schedule following its cancellation this year due to the devastation of Hurricane Maria. Puerto Rico is slotted for February 18-24, the same week as the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship. · As previously announced, THE PLAYERS Championship moves from May to March (11-17) and the PGA Championship moves from August to May (13-19). · Also announced previously is the final World Golf Championships event of the season, until now staged in Akron, Ohio, will be held July 22-28 at TPC Southwind in Memphis as the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational (replacing the FedEx St. Jude Classic). · The Houston Open and A Military Tribute at The Greenbrier are moving to the fall and will be played next as part of the 2019-20 schedule. “We are extremely pleased with the way the schedule has come together, particularly with the number of changes that were involved and the strength of the partnerships required to achieve this new look,� said PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan. “It’s been our stated objective for several years to create better sequencing of our tournaments that golf fans around the world can engage in from start to finish. And by concluding at the end of August, the FedExCup Playoffs no longer have the challenge of sharing the stage with college and professional football. This will enhance the visibility of the FedExCup Playoffs and overall fan engagement with the PGA TOUR and the game as a whole.� Monahan credited FedEx, umbrella sponsor of the FedExCup, title sponsors and host organizations for their crucial role with the revamped schedule. “Beginning with our 10-year extension with FedEx last May and continuing with many recent, long-term title sponsor commitments, as well as new sponsors and host organizations joining the PGA TOUR, our key constituents have validated our vision and the direction for our future,� he said. “Our thanks to these tremendous partners for their flexibility and support during this process. We feel strongly that together, we have created a schedule that will heighten interest in all tournaments while further elevating the FedExCup Playoffs.� The season also features venue rotations for several tournaments, including the first two FedExCup Playoffs events. THE NORTHERN TRUST returns to Liberty National Golf Club in Jersey City, New Jersey, where it was last held in 2013, while the BMW Championship returns to Medinah Country Club near Chicago for the first time since 1966. The three rotating major championships add historical notes to the schedule. Coinciding with the PGA Championship’s first May dates since 1949 will be its debut at Bethpage Black on New York’s Long Island. The Open Championship, meanwhile, will be held at Royal Portrush July 15-21, marking its return to Northern Ireland after nearly 70 years. And the U.S. Open (June 10-16), last held at Pebble Beach Golf Links in 2010, returns next year when the club celebrates its 100th anniversary.

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