The 16th of 24 contributing events for PGA TOUR Champions One & Done presented by SERVPRO is this week’s Senior Open Championship presented by Rolex. It begins at 2:00 a.m. ET on Thursday, which is 11:00 p.m. on Wednesday on the West Coast. Scroll for tournament notes, 22 notables and five wild cards from the field of 144 in Scotland. With The Open Championship in the books, we can focus on the last nine tournaments of 2017-18 as a singular frame. They present a sample size small enough for us to maintain thoughts about all of them in our heads at once – at least in theory – but let’s dissect it properly. Most of the usual suspects will be in our crosshairs for next week’s World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational and the following week’s PGA Championship. They will then reappear en masse for most of the four FedExCup Playoffs events. If you pencil in your favorites for each, you should have some morsels for this week’s RBC Canadian Open and the Wyndham Championship in three weeks. I’m holding my breath that Martin Laird commits to next week’s Barracuda Championship where golfers who qualify for the WGC cannot play because the Barracuda is contested concurrently. (Gary Woodland and Brendan Steele also would present strongly in Nevada, but both will be at Firestone.) The field of 156 at Glen Abbey includes cornerstones Dustin Johnson, Tony Finau, Charley Hoffman, Brandt Snedeker and Matt Kuchar. All reside inside the top eight of my Power Rankings. I wouldn’t talk you out of any assuming you’ve mapped out the remainder of the season accordingly. Only Snedeker remains available to me, but I’ve earmarked him as a possibility for the Wyndham. Brooks Koepka is back after a two-year hiatus since his close call as a debutant in 2015. He’ll have zero issues with the challenge, and he’s still on my board, but I’m saving him for one of the next two tournaments. Among the elite, he’s as electrifying as any on the biggest stages. This opens the door – finally – for Joaquin Niemann. After cementing his TOUR card for 2018-19 via the non-member route, he received a special invitation for the PGA Championship on Tuesday of this week. The 19-year-old from Chile has been as quick a study as Jon Rahm two years ago, but Niemann went about his craft competing in professional events in his homeland regularly as an amateur. His unintentional transition from attending and playing collegiately at USF to instant success at the highest level of professional golf is the kind of mythical twist reserved for legends. But for now at Glen Abbey, he’ll attack a vulnerable par 72 that has yielded the most eagles of any course in each of the last five seasons it’s hosted the tournament. I’m advising sitting out Kevin Kisner, Ian Poulter, Tommy Fleetwood and Bubba Watson in favor of spots in the last eight events. Two-time defending champion Jhonattan Vegas has course history on his side, naturally, but even those swinging for the fences are unlikely to connect, much less threaten the warning track. Two-man gamers should entertain Harold Varner III, Joel Dahmen, Chez Reavie, Stewart Cink and J.J. Spaun. FUTURE POSSIBILITIES NOTE: Select golfers committed to the tournament are listed alphabetically. Future tournaments are sorted chronologically and reflect previous success on the courses on which the tournaments will be held in 2017-18. The numerical values in parentheses represent the order of relative confidence of where to use each golfer if multiple sites are listed (e.g. 1 for strongest, 2 for next-strongest and so on). To present weighted confidence in real time, numerical values will not change all season no matter how many tournament remain listed for each golfer. All are pending golfer commitment. Tony Finau … Canadian (4) Sergio Garcia … TOUR Championship (4) Bill Haas … Wyndham (2) Charley Hoffman … Canadian (3) Billy Horschel … TOUR Championship (4) Dustin Johnson … Canadian (10); WGC-Bridgestone (14); PGA Championship (9); Dell Technologies (11); TOUR Championship (6) Kevin Kisner … Wyndham (6) Brooks Koepka … WGC-Bridgestone (6); PGA Championship (2) Matt Kuchar … Canadian (3); WGC-Bridgestone (7); THE NORTHERN TRUST (9) Martin Laird … Barracuda (1) Brandt Snedeker … Canadian (3); Wyndham (4) Jimmy Walker … Dell Technologies (7) Bubba Watson … WGC-Bridgestone (1); TOUR Championship (4) CHAMPIONS ONE & DONE Senior Open Championship presented by Rolex This is the fifth and final major on the PGA TOUR Champions in 2018. The field of 144 will be chasing total prize money of $2 million, lowest of the five majors. In fact, five of the remaining eight tournaments this season will feature richer purses. This week’s winner will clear a little over $300K. A cut of low 70 and ties will occur at the conclusion of 36 holes. It’s the last of the three cuts of the season. The Old Course at St. Andrews is the backdrop. It needs no introduction except for the fact it’s hosting this tournament for the first time, and that includes from 1987-2002 when the tournament was considered unofficial on the PGA TOUR Champions. St. Andrews will play to its customary par of 72 with just two par 3s and two par 5s, but at 7,216 yards, it’s slightly shorter than how it set up for recent Open Championships (2005, 2010, 2015) and for its annual slot in the rotation for the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. Bernhard Langer defends his third title in the tournament. His last two occurred at Royal Porthcawl (2014, 2017). He prevailed for the first time at Carnoustie in 2010. Not surprisingly, he’s the tournament’s all-time earnings leader. FUTURE POSSIBILITIES NOTE: Select golfers committed to the tournament are listed alphabetically. Future tournaments are sorted chronologically and reflect previous success on the courses on which the tournaments will be held in 2018. The numerical values in parentheses represent the order of relative confidence of where to use each golfer if multiple sites are listed (e.g. 1 for strongest, 2 for next-strongest and so on). To present weighted confidence in real time, numerical values will not change all season no matter how many tournament remain listed for each golfer. All are pending golfer commitment. Stephen Ames … Boeing (2); Shaw (7) Fred Couples … Usable everywhere. Joe Durant … 3M (6); DICK’S (12); Boeing (10); Shaw (11); PURE (3); SAS (13) David Frost … 3M (7); Boeing (5); Shaw (8); PURE (1) Paul Goydos … 3M (1; defending); DICK’S (3); SAS (5) Miguel Angel Jiménez … Senior Open Championship (4); 3M (9); Shaw (7); SAS (12) Brandt Jobe … 3M (5); Boeing (8) Jerry Kelly … Boeing (1; defending); Shaw (5); PURE (2); SAS (4) Bernhard Langer … Usable everywhere. Defending five titles. Tom Lehman … SAS (9) Jeff Maggert … Shaw (5) Billy Mayfair … Boeing (2); PURE (1) Scott McCarron … Senior Open Championship (10); DICK’S (4; defending); Shaw (5; defending); PURE (8) Colin Montgomerie … Senior Open Championship (10); Shaw (4); PURE (7); SAS (3; defending) Tom Pernice, Jr. … Shaw (3); SAS (5) Kenny Perry … 3M (1); DICK’S (11); SAS (2) Gene Sauers … Boeing (1) Vijay Singh … Shaw (5); SAS (1) Kevin Sutherland … Usable everywhere. David Toms … Boeing (2); SAS (4) Kirk Triplett … Shaw (4) Duffy Waldorf … Shaw (5) WILD CARDS (short list of golfers not included above but on the rise or still building portfolios after recently turning 50): Paul Broadhurst; Bob Estes; Steve Flesch; Scott Parel; Tim Petrovic
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