Wolff pounces into US Open lead as Oosthuizen charges

TPC Craig Ranch makes its debut in the big leagues this week. The newest host of the AT&T Byron Nelson located 25 miles due north of downtown Dallas is in it first of a five-year agreement with the PGA TOUR, but it’s not new to TOUR-sanctioned competition. It was the site of the Korn Ferry Tour Championship in 2008 and 2012. A field of 156 is assembled this week. For a breakdown of what it will attempt to tackle, how the course comps to familiar nearby tracks and more, scroll past the ranking of projected contenders. RELATED: The First Look | How the field qualified POWER RANKINGS: AT&T BYRON NELSON Brooks Koepka, Lee Westwood, Rickie Fowler, Thomas Pieters and defending champion Sung Kang will be among the notables reviewed in Tuesday’s Fantasy Insider. For both editions of the KFT Championship, TPC Craig Ranch played to a par of 71 with three par 5s. For the AT&T Byron Nelson, it’s been stretched by 30 yards and will play as a stock par 72. The par-5 12th tips at 547 yards. Previously, it was a 493-yard par 4 and played as the toughest hole on the course in both KFT Championships. The only other change in length occurred at the par-3 17th. Now 147 yards, it’s down 24 yards. TPC Craig Ranch features bermudagrass rough and bentgrass greens. That matches the combination of grasses at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, site of the Charles Schwab Challenge in two weeks. However, while the fairways at Colonial also are bermuda, the target off the tee at TPC Craig Ranch are zoysiagrass. That matches the same at Trinity Forest (which has bermuda greens), host of the last two editions of the AT&T Byron Nelson. While it’s making its PGA TOUR debut, TPC Craig Ranch isn’t new to PGA TOUR membership. For one, AT&T Byron Nelson defending champion Sung Kang practices here. For another, 12 of the participants of the more recent KFT Championship are in this week’s field (as of Monday). They are led by James Hahn, who was the runner-up in 2012. Typically, because of the learning curve required for the putting surfaces, largely unfamiliar tracks reward ball-strikers. The primary rough will be allowed to grow north of two inches, but because scoring should be low, the combination of greens in regulation and converting those chances into par breakers likely will define the majority of the final leaderboard. Consider that Justin Bolli posted 16-under 268 en route to victory at the 2012 KFT Championship and Matt Bettencourt hung up 17-under 267 in 2008. Now that the 72-hole par is 288, 20-under very much is in play this week. Greens average almost 6,800 square feet and they are prepped to run upwards of only 11-and-a-half feet on the Stimpmeter. They’re governed in part so that Texas winds don’t take control of the wheel. It’ll be relatively calm early in the tournament before breezes will intensify with encroaching inclement weather on Sunday. Otherwise, comfortable springtime conditions are forecast with daytime highs in the 70s and an 80 or two on the weekend. ROB BOLTON’S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM’s Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton recaps and previews every tournament from numerous angles. Look for his following contributions as scheduled. MONDAY: Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Sleepers; Fantasy Insider SUNDAY: Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Rookie Watch * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM’s Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, which also publishes on Tuesday.

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GUYANCOURT, France – On Sunday, Phil Mickelson will play in his 47th career Ryder Cup match. That will break the tie with Europe’s Nick Faldo and elevate Mickelson to the top of the record books in that category. Also on Sunday, Tiger Woods will play in his 37th career Ryder Cup match. That will tie him with Billy Casper for second-most on America’s all-time list – with Mickelson, of course, at the top spot. But it’s hardly been the week for either Mickelson or Woods to celebrate. It’s been a frustrating two days for the two veterans, each for different reasons. Woods is winless in his first three matches, two with Patrick Reed and one with Bryson DeChambeau. Mickelson has played in just one match, a Friday Foursomes in which he and DeChambeau were dispatched in 14 holes. On Saturday, Mickelson sat out both sessions. The only other time that has happened was four years ago, when then-U.S. Captain Tom Watson sat him out the entire Saturday. The next day, in the aftermath of the U.S. loss, Mickelson was critical of how the team was managed, and a task force was created to help the U.S. win back the Ryder Cup. Mickelson was on the practice range mid-day at Le Golf National when he received a text message from Furyk – who was following the Jordan Spieth-Justin Thomas morning match, the only one that the U.S. won in the Four-balls session That’s when Mickelson knew he was not among the eight Americans playing in Saturday’s Foursomes. “I had to leave him a message to tell him, which I don’t like to do,â€� Furyk said. “I’d rather do it in person. But really need to be out there on the golf course, and I wanted to really kind of cheer on my team.â€� The good news for Mickelson, of course, is that he’ll be participating in Sunday’s Singles, which will be his 12th Singles match. That will break the tie with Arnold Palmer for most Singles matches by any American. The bad news, unfortunately, is that he must take on Francesco Molinari, who has been the best player on either side this week. Molinari and partner Tommy Fleetwood are the first European duo to go 4-0-0 in a single Ryder Cup. Said European Captain Thomas Bjorn: “Francesco, it’s like he’s leaning on golf shots and they land about 3 feet from the hole. I don’t know what planet he lives on, but it’s not the one that the rest of the players live on, that’s for sure. He’s been phenomenal these two days.â€� Mickelson, of course, has mostly just been absent. Even Furyk admitted he didn’t expect to play Mickelson as little as he did in the first two days. “I envisioned more, but that’s the way it worked out and that’s the way we thought we had to go. You get a guy like him in the team room, he had so much more than his play, if that makes sense. … “I’d be disappointed if he said he thought he was going to play two. I know Phil. He wants to be out there just like everyone else. That’s part of being a team and part of this event. We have 12 amazing players, and they can’t all play every match, and you accept what you get.â€� As for Woods, he’s already felt the sting of the Molinari-Fleetwood pairing. All three of his losses this week were to the duo, including a 4 and 3 loss with Reed in Four-balls, and a 5 and 4 loss with DeChambeau in Foursomes. “Just pretty pissed off, the fact that I lost three matches, and didn’t feel like I played poorly,â€� Woods said. “That’s the frustrating thing about match play. We can play well and nothing can happen. We ran against two guys that were both playing well and when one was out of the hole, especially in best-ball, the other one made birdie and vice versa. They did that a lot to us.â€� Said Furyk: “Those guys played incredible golf, the scores that they shot in both formats were very impressive. I think I heard that, in one of Tiger’s interviews, he felt like he played some pretty good golf, and it wasn’t good enough. And I think it’s because of those two gentlemen, to be honest with you.â€� Furyk said he didn’t think there was anything physically wrong with Woods. But the grind of a longer-than-expected season following his comeback from back surgery, along with the emotional stress of winning the TOUR Championship a week ago, may have left him exhausted coming to Paris. Furyk sat him for Friday’s Foursomes session. “I think early in the week, he looked a little tired. His pace looked a little bit slow walking; I think that’s expected, you know, coming off a big win. You have to think emotionally what he put into his comeback to this season, the amount of golf he played leading up, trying to make the Ryder Cup Team, trying to, basically, almost win the FedExCup. I mean, he put a lot of work and effort into it and played a lot more golf than he’s used to. “And physically, I think Tiger’s pretty fit, but that takes a mental toll, and I think he was a little tired earlier this week. I think the idea … to rest him on Friday afternoon was a good one. I think he was tired. It allowed him to maybe get some energy back, watch his teammates play a little bit, provide a spark as a veteran leader. And you know, we came out today and decided to play him 36. I think his style of game lends itself very well for Foursomes. I think he can control the ball very well. That’s what you need. “It didn’t work out, but you know, I think he might be emotionally a little bit tired. You find a way in a Ryder Cup to gain some energy and some adrenaline, and you know, you work hard. I know he’s going to be fit and ready to go tomorrow.â€� Woods will face Jon Rahm in the fourth match out in Sunday’s Singles. Down 10-6, the U.S. needs an early momentum boost to have any chance at a miracle. It hasn’t been a successful week for the two American legends, but they’ll have one last chance Sunday to leave Paris on a high note.

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Don't lament that it's ending. Celebrate that it's going to conclude in its entirety. This recurring affirmation has applied to the 2019-20 PGA TOUR season, the fall portion of the 2020-21 season, the Aloha Swing that opened calendar-year 2021 and now the West Coast Swing. Until the world operates in whatever the new normal will be, expectations must continue to be reasonable so as to guarantee a positive experience. The same approach has applied to the host of The Genesis Invitational, Tiger Woods, both in recent years as it concerns his career trajectory and his inability to capture victory in the annual atop at Riviera County Club. Woods currently is sidelined indefinitely as he recovers from his most recent back surgery. But of course, the show must go on in the morning shadows of Hollywood. Continue reading below the projected contenders for what a stacked field can expect from the historically tough track west of Los Angeles, an enhanced perk for the winner and more. RELATED: The First Look | Inside the Field POWER RANKINGS: THE GENESIS INVITATIONAL Tuesday's Fantasy Insider will include Jordan Spieth, Hideki Matsuyama, Viktor Hovland, Will Zalatoris, three-time Genesis champion Bubba Watson and other notables. As of Monday afternoon, the field at Riviera was 121 deep. That's one more than reserved because of the strength in numbers among the automatic qualifiers. Included in its qualifying criteria, the tournament invited the top 125 in a special FedExCup points list that extended from the beginning of the 2019-20 season and through the Waste Management Phoenix Open two weeks ago. (Similar criteria will apply to THE PLAYERS Championship and the RBC Heritage, but those tournaments reserve space for 144 and 132 golfers, respectively.) "The Riv" is a par 71 with three par 5s. It tips at 7,322 yards. For relevant purposes, the course remained unchanged since last year. The only layer of kikuyu rough is trimmed to an inch and a half, plenty deep for relatively narrow fairways and greens that are prepped to reach 12-and-a-half feet on the Stimpmeter. Putting surfaces are 7,500 square feet on average, but Riviera's fairways annually are among the stingiest to split, so the targets need to be a little larger than other courses. Anyone who finds as many as eight (of 14) fairways per round is beating the historical average. Last year's field averaged 7.14 (or 50.97 percent), fourth-lowest of all courses that season. Hitting the greens on approach and on the par 3s is no bargain, either. Last year's average of 10.11 per round was second-lowest among all courses. It cannot be expected for a golfer who descended with inconsistent ball-striking to find a level of success with it here. En route to victory a year ago, Adam Scott hit the short grass off the tee just 23 of 56 times (to rank T63), but he led the field in averaging 13 GIR per round. Forever the ball-striker, he used his length (eighth in distance of all drives at 300.9 yards) to finish third in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green. Riviera's three par 5s are the soft underbelly as Nos. 1, 11 and 17 surrendered a scoring average of 4.56 last year to rank 10th-easiest of 41 courses in 2019-20, but Scott was a middling T37 in par-5 scoring. Instead, he rose to the challenge on the difficult par 4s, ranking third. While the par-3 sixth hole catches the eye with a bunker in its center, the par-4 10th is the signature hole. Avid fans of golf already are aware of that, but even they might be surprised that the 315-yard beauty is easier than a few egos inside the ropes might let on. It's a fact that No. 10 was the easiest par 4 at Riviera in four of the last five years, including in each of the last two. Scott birdied it in each of the first three rounds before settling for a par in the finale last year. The overarching message is that Riviera is as firm and fair as it is consistent. In other words, returning competitors know exactly what to expect. There are no tricks. In general, the aforementioned data could apply to every edition in which the weather cooperates, as it often does in sunny Southern California. This week's forecast is almost identical to last year's with daytime highs in the mid-to-upper 60s and only passing clouds, if any. The only difference is that wind might be a little fresher this week, but the course rests 1-2 miles from the ocean, so it's protected from the unrelenting gusts hard on the shore. In line with its second edition as an invitational and elevated status, the winner again will be rewarded with a three-year PGA TOUR membership exemption (or extension of one season up to five if already exempt through 2023-24). What's new to this year's staging is that the champion will receive 550 FedExCup points instead of the customary 500. The same bump will apply to the winners of the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard and the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide. ROB BOLTON'S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM's Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton recaps and previews every tournament from numerous angles. Look for his following contributions as scheduled. MONDAY: Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Sleepers, Fantasy Insider SUNDAY: Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Rookie Watch * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM's Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, which also publishes on Tuesday.

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