Win probabilities: Houston Open

ORLANDO, Fla. – Rory McIlroy is a glass-half-full kind of guy. The defending champion at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard remained upbeat on Sunday despite suffering another final-group fade out. In what has become a worrying trend for the former FedExCup champion, he has now failed to win the last nine times he has played in the final group on Sunday dating back to the start of 2018. McIlroy did win at Bay Hill a year ago but came from well back to do so. It remains the 14-time PGA TOUR winner’s most recent triumph. Starting one shot back in second place, McIlroy could only manage an even-par 72 on Sunday to fall to T6, four shots off the pace. Of the top 14 on the leaderboard, he was the only one who failed to shoot under par. “My Sundays haven’t been what I would have liked, but I’m putting myself in that position, so good golf is good golf, I keep saying that, at the end of the day,â€� McIlroy said. “It was a tough day, tough to get it close to the hole. I feel like I really didn’t play that badly. I missed a couple of shots, but I felt like I was hitting good shots to 30 feet all day and it’s hard to sort of shoot a score.â€� While winner Francesco Molinari needed just 25 putts, making 146-feet, 9 inches worth, it wasn’t as pleasant for McIlroy on the greens. He needed 30 putts and made just 61 feet, 11 inches worth. On the plus side, McIlroy has now finished inside the top six, without winning, in his last six starts on the PGA TOUR. Rather than dwell on the missed chances, the Northern Irishman has already turned his focus to THE PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass. “I’m playing well, I’m getting myself into contention every week, (I need to) continue to do that, going into next week, that’s the great thing about golf, you don’t have to wait too long to get back on the horse,â€� he said. “So I’m happy with everything, I just think today I could have played the par 5s better, but really apart from that it was an unbelievable round from Francesco to shoot what he did. “I would have needed to go out there to shoot 67 to better him, which would have been one of the best scores of the day, and anything under 70 out there this afternoon was a great score.â€�

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Strokes Gained Stats: Last 5 PGA TOUR Seasons Top 20 SG: Off-the-Tee, PGA TOUR, Last 5 Seasons (min 50 rds) Top 20 SG: Approach-the-Green, PGA TOUR, Last 5 Seasons (min 50 rds) With this week’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans canceled, PGATOUR.COM writers will publish a series of our favorite two-man partnerships in honor of the tournament’s unique team format. Each day, we’ll focus on a specific category. Use the comments section to let us know which two-man teams you’d most enjoy seeing: Modern teams. Sean Martin picks out his 10 favorite teams from today’s active pros. Classic teams. Tom Alter picks out his 10 favorite teams from former PGA TOUR and golf greats. Fantasy teams. Jim McCabe picks out his 10 favorite teams using partners from different generations. ShotLink teams. PGA TOUR’s ShotLink crew picks out its 10 best partners utilizing analytics from the ShotLink Era (since 2003). Breaking down the numbers, looking at all the great players on TOUR today, you can use several different sequences of action to put together a dynamic duo. We looked at several composites of our ShotLink data. For example: • We combined strokes gained stats from last 3-5 years to bring top performers in each category to the top. • We pulled statistics from player performance at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans when it was a stroke-play event to identify top performers at this specific venue • We evaluated the 2018-19 season-ending statistics as well as all the current 2019-20 season statistics through the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard (the last official PGA TOUR event played). This gave us a very versatile dynamic of ballstrikers and power players throughout the lineup. With our ShotLink data, we were looking to find the perfect “ham & eggâ€� combination as you would when playing at your club for a couple $$ … but of course, from a TOUR standard, this would be more like a “Batman & Robinâ€� partnership. In no particular order, here are our top 10: 1. Rory McIlroy-Jordan Spieth In the last five seasons, McIlroy leads the TOUR in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green and Strokes Gained: Total. Jordan compliments Rory’s game, ranking 14th in Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green and 6th in Strokes Gained: Putting. Since 2013, Jordan has a career putt make percentage of 20.7% from 15-25 feet, marking the best make percentage of any player (min 350 attempts). 2. Adam Scott-Jason Day Combining this Aussie duo of the 8th best Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green player (Scott) with the best Strokes Gained: Putter (Day) in the last five years on TOUR. Despite their missed cut (by one stroke) playing together at the 2019 Zurich Classic of New Orleans, statistically they are a solid match. 3. Tiger Woods-Justin Thomas Combining for 94 career PGA TOUR wins, Woods and Thomas are among two of the best iron players on TOUR as well as the TOUR’s best performers on par 5s in their careers. Since 2004, Woods & Thomas have ranked inside the top 10 in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green for a single season a combined 11 times. They have the top-4 best par 5 scoring averages in a single season — Woods 4.37 in 2000; 4.38 in 2003; 4.39 in 2001; Thomas 4.42 in 2019. That bodes well on TPC Louisiana’s four par 5s. 4. Bubba Watson-Rickie Fowler Power and finesse: In the last five seasons, Watson ranks 3rd in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee while Fowler ranks 10th in Strokes Gained: Putting. Both players are among the top 20 in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green. From 2010-2016 at the Zurich Classic, Watson and Fowler are a combined 76-under-par on the par 5s at TPC Louisiana. 5. Jonas Blixt-Cameron Smith Inaugural duo who captured the Zurich Classic of New Orleans in 2017 (first year of team format), the duo of Blixt/Smith went bogey-free en route to their 2017 victory, making them the only team to play the event bogey-free since the start of team competition. 6. Francesco Molinari-Tommy Fleetwood Fleetwood has the second-most top-five finishes without a win on TOUR over the last six seasons (12); teaming up with Molinari, his partner in a spectacular 2018 Ryder Cup performance, would get Fleetwood to the winner’s circle. Molinari’s strong iron play and Fleetwood’s impressive tee-to-green performance over the last five seasons makes these Europeans a great duo for this event. 7. Justin Rose-Billy Horschel In stroke play at the Zurich Classic (2011-2016), these two have combined for 173 total birdies, and individiually they each rank inside the top six for most birdies in that stretch among all players. Oh, and they’ve combined for three wins (Horschel winning with Scott Piercy in 2018) and six top-10s. 8. Paul Casey-Webb Simpson Casey has the third-best Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green average in the last five seasons (Casey) while Simpson has the sixth-best Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green average in the same timeframe. That should go a long way at TPC Louisiana. Simpson compliments Casey’s ball-striking with his play on the greens, ranking inside the top 15 in each of the last two seasons on TOUR. 9. Dustin Johnson-Brooks Koepka This big-hitting superstar pairing combines both power and scoring ability. Johnson, the Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee leader in two of the last three seasons, partners with one of the best wedge players in Koepka, who ranks T-14 in proximity from 50-125 yards and 5th in this distance from the rough last season. Since the start of the 2013-14 PGA TOUR season, Dustin and Brooks have combined for 146 total eagles (T-2 of any players on TOUR). 10. Jon Rahm-Ryan Palmer Entering last year’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans, Rahm ranked second on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and averaged 300 yards on all drives (6th best). Palmer complimented Rahm in his ball-striking, ranking 35th in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green, 16th in greens in regulation and 3rd in rough proximity. This allowed Rahm to have more freedom and flexibility off the tee, knowing Palmer’s iron play performance. On the greens, Palmer made 30.77% of his putts from 15-20 feet heading into the event. This duo was one of two teams making the cut to make only two bogeys for the week (Shawn Stefani/Bill Haas). And of course, they went on to win at TPC Louisiana.

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Anirban Lahiri wasn't in the field for the Sanderson Farms Championship when he booked a ticket on the TOUR's charter flight from the Dominican Republic to Jackson, Mississippi. He needed a top-10 finish in the Dominican to get in this week's field. He hadn't had one in nearly two years, but Lahiri was confident about his game entering last week's Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship. "Jackson isn't exactly an easy place to get to, especially from the Dominican. ... I felt really good up in Napa (at the season-opening Safeway Open), had a horrific start and really fought my way back, played some quality golf after a long time. I felt like I could ride that momentum last week, and I love playing paspalum, so I just had that feeling that if I go out there and do what I’m doing right now, I should get on that plane to Jackson. It paid off," Lahiri said after shooting a bogey-free 66 in the first round of the Sanderson Farms Championship. Lahiri is 33 under par in his last eight rounds. After a first-round 74 at the Safeway Open, he shot 14 under in the next three rounds at the Silverado Resort. He was 13 under par at Corales Puntacana to finish sixth. Lahiri, a two-time Presidents Cup participant, struggled before this recent run. He had just one top-10 in the 2018-19 season and didn't finish in the top 40 in any of his 12 starts before the season ceased because of the coronavirus. Lahiri was in India for five months, which gave him an opportunity to work with his instructor, Vijay Divecha. He didn't return to the TOUR until the Wyndham Championship, the final regular-season event of the 2020 season. "I left pretty much the Monday after (the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard) to go play the Asian Open, and then we got locked in. They closed the borders down. So I was there for a long time," Lahiri said. "I spent about 40 days straight with my coach before I came back out here, and I got back to the basics, undid a lot of the bad habits that had crept into the game and just tried to clean up the game, clean up the mind."

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