Richard H. Lee was successful in a second consecutive Monday qualifier as he tries to work his way back to the PGA TOUR. Lee’s 64 was the low score in the Genesis Open’s qualifier at Industry Hills Golf Club’s Eisenhower Course. It came two weeks after he fired a 66 to play his way into the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Lee, 30, played the PGA TOUR from 2012-14, finishing a career-best 96th in the FedExCup in 2013. He had surgery on his left thumb in February 2015 and has been unable to regain PGA TOUR status since. Last year, Lee made just two starts apiece on the Web.com Tour and Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada. This year’s Waste Management Phoenix Open, where he missed the cut with rounds of 74-70, was his first PGA TOUR start since the John Deere Classic in August 2016, the final event of his medical extension following surgery. He has six top-10s in 88 career TOUR starts, highlighted by T4 finishes at the 2016 Barbasol Championship and 2014 Puerto Rico Open. Zecheng Dou, Rob Oppenheim and Parker McLachlin were the other successful qualifiers for the PGA TOUR’s annual stop at Riviera Country Club. Dou shot 65 on Monday, while Oppenheim and McLachlin fired 66 before winning a 5-for-2 playoff. Conrad Shindler, club pro Michael Block and Hyun Woo Ryu, the world’s 130th-ranked player, also were in the playoff. Block is the winner of the 2014 PGA Professional National Championship and a four-time Southern California PGA Player of the Year (2013-16). Dou, 21, and Xinjun Zhang both graduated the Web.com Tour in 2017, becoming the first Chinese-born players to earn PGA TOUR cards. Dou was the first Chinese-born player to win on the Web.com Tour, as well. He is 201st in this season’s FedExCup standings. Dou won PGA TOUR China’s Order of Merit in 2016 after winning four times. Oppenheim, 38, is playing his second PGA TOUR season after regaining his card at last year’s Web.com Tour Finals. He finished 27th on the Web.com Tour’s Regular Season money list in 2017, missing his TOUR card by about $7,000, but had two top-5 finishes in the four Finals events. The Rollins College alum was 35 years old when he earned his first PGA TOUR card, but he finished 158th in the FedExCup standings and had to return to the Web.com Tour last year. He’s 138th in this season’s standings. McLachlin, winner of the 2008 Barracuda Championship, is an alumnus of nearby UCLA. This will be just his 16th PGA TOUR start since the end of the 2010 season. He has made the cut in just one of those events. McLachlin made seven of 18 cuts last year on the Web.com Tour to finish 157th on the money list. Julian Suri, the world’s 65th-ranked player, shot 67 on Monday to miss the playoff by a shot. Former Masters champion Mike Weir fired 68.
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