By Stephen Hennessey
Jon Rahm was already one of the biggest stars in golf before his career-defining victory at the U.S. Open. The 26-year-old Spaniard’s birdie-birdie finish was the perfect punctuation mark on Rahm’s first major title.

You know Rahm for his elite off-the-tee game (second on tour); representing Europe at the 2018 Ryder Cup, where he defeated his idol, Tiger Woods, in Sunday singles; and maybe his on-course temper. But we bet you might not know these other 18 things about the first Spanish champion in U.S. Open history.

Rahm credits the 1997 Ryder Cup as being huge for getting his family into golf.

Rahm’s father, Edorta, had never played golf or seen it in person until the Ryder Cup came to Valderrama in 1997. Rahm says he started playing and got lessons when he was 6 or 7 years old.

Ross Parker – SNS Group

Among the other sports Rahm tried as a kid in Barrika, Spain, was Kung Fu.

Rahm says he played five sports up until he was 14 years old (soccer, canoeing, Jai alai, golf and Kung Fu). Rahm was a fan of martial arts movies as a kid, and when one of his friends started doing Kung Fu, he got into it.

Rahm’s local coach, Eduardo Celles, started working with the Spaniard when he was 13, and he encouraged him to shorten his swing.

Rahm explains that he struggled with accuracy as a junior but still hit it farther than anyone else. Celles encouraged him to shorten his backswing for more control, and to this day, Rahm has one of the shortest backswings on tour.

Matthew Lewis/R&A

He had never been to the United States—and spoke almost no English—before arriving in Tempe, Ariz., in fall 2012 to enroll at Arizona State.

Phil Mickelson’s brother, Tim, was the men’s golf coach at the time, and recruited Rahm when the Spaniard had very few offers. Rahm had to rush to take the SATs and verify his qualifications before being eligible at Arizona State in the fall, just a few months after Mickelson contacted him.

Tim Mickelson gets credit from Rahm for helping him learn English: Mickelson would make him and another Spanish-speaking teammate do 10 burpees for every Spanish word they used.

Though Rahm has said that learning the lyrics to rap songs helped him pick up slang and other English phrases not taught in a class, he says the rap part was exaggerated by the media after his win at the 2017 Farmers Insurance Open. He does cite Kendrick Lamar’s “Swimming Pools” and Eminem’s “Love the Way You Lie” as songs that particularly helped.

Jim Rogash

As a junior, Rahm earned a sponsor’s invitation into the 2015 Waste Management Phoenix Open and finished T-5.

It was the first time since Chris Wood’s T-5 at the 2008 Open Championship that an amateur finished T-5 or better in a PGA Tour event. And Rahm was just the second amateur to finish in the top five on tour since Justin Rose’s T-4 at the 1998 Open.

Jon Rahm in college.pic.twitter.com/7SHZDzX9gA

— GOLFTV (@GOLFTV) June 21, 2021

Rahm became the first multiple-time winner of the Ben Hogan Award, which honours the best player in college golf.

He also rose to the No. 1-ranked spot on the World Amateur Golf Rankings, having amassed 11 tournament victories at Arizona State, the second-most in school history (trailing only Phil Mickelson). Despite the success in pro events as an amateur, Rahm stayed four years at ASU—as a promise to his parents.

David Cannon

Following a T-23 at the 2016 U.S. Open—where he was the only amateur to make the cut—Rahm turned professional.

In just seven starts over the rest of the 2016 season, Rahm finished T-2 at the RBC Canadian Open, T-3 at the Quicken Loans (his first pro start) and collected just a little more than $1 million in on-course earnings.

Rahm treated himself to a Porsche with those on-course earnings in the fall of 2016.

He told Golf Digest then: “It’s good for me to see it, wake up every day and see what I’ve accomplished the last eight years.”

The Spaniard showed up to our last shoot with him in 2019 in a shiny Arizona State-maroon Mercedes AMG G 63.

In addition to being Rahm’s college coach, Tim Mickelson was also Rahm’s agent after the Spaniard turned pro.

Mickelson left his head coaching position at ASU in 2017 to pursue an agent career at Lagardere Sports, representing Rahm until Phil Mickelson asked his brother to become his caddie.

Jon Rahm met his wife, Kelley Cahill, at Arizona State—where she was on the track and field team and threw the javelin.

Rahm proposed to his college sweetheart while hiking near Torrey Pines in 2018 prior to the U.S. Open. And Rahm had the ring custom-built, as he told Golf.com in 2018: “I designed it. So Brian Stuard’s [wife] is a jeweler and is a really good friend of ours. So Kelley was talking to her. She knew what Kelley wanted, but I had my own ideas. Basically, with her help, I designed the ring. She wanted to pick the diamond, but I knew what I wanted. I designed what’s around the ring. It’s supposed to look like a crown and an engraving inside. I had a big part in it.”

The two got married in December 2019 in Bilboa, Spain.

The ceremony was in the Basilica de Begoña in Rahm’s hometown.

 

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With his wife, Kelley, due to give birth to their first son in April 2021, Jon vowed to withdraw from the Masters if she went into labour during the tournament.

Jon never had to follow through on the promise as Kepa was born a few days prior to Augusta. And though his son was just 10 weeks old when Dad won the U.S. Open, Rahm remarked: “he won’t remember this … but I do.” Rahm will get to tell his son all about it one day.

Ezra Shaw

Known for showing his emotions on the course, Rahm credits a shift mentally on Sunday at the 2021 PGA in being calmer on the course.

He said about that shift over the past month: “I still had that grit, but it was almost like each miss bothered me less. I couldn’t tell you why.” Perhaps that’s fatherhood adding that, you know, perspective.

He has worked on his temper with a mental coach, Joseba Del Carmen, who used to be a bomb-disposal expert.

Rahm told Golf Digest this in 2019: “I used to think that golf is my life, that it’s who I am. [Del Carmen] was the first person to make me realize that it’s not, and that golf and life are very similar. The happier I am in life, the better I’m going to play. But I’m much more interested in raising a family and being a good husband and father than I am in golf. Don’t get me wrong—I want to be the best golfer I can be. If I had a gun to my head and had to choose between having only one or the other, I wouldn’t pick golf. I hope people don’t take that as me thinking I’d quit, but I’d choose family every time.”

On Saturday at the Memorial, Rahm had opened up a six-shot lead when he was forced to withdraw after testing positive for COVID-19.

Rahm was told by PGA Tour officials immediately after stepping off the 18th green on Saturday, and the scene unfolded while TV cameras were still running—capturing an emotional Rahm on TV. To his credit, Rahm said before the U.S. Open he did not fault the PGA Tour for how it was handled—a sentiment he reiterated in his post-round interviews.

This is not the first time Rahm has earned the No. 1 spot in the Official World Golf Rankings.

The Spaniard first ascended to the top spot after winning the 2020 Memorial last July. He was ranked No. 1 for two weeks before Justin Thomas surpassed him, then Rahm retook the No. 1 ranking for two more weeks before Dustin Johnson was ranked No. 1 for the past 43 weeks.

The $2.25 million first-place prize Rahm earned at the U.S. Open gives the Spaniard more than $28 million in PGA Tour on-course earnings.

Ezra Shaw

In addition to Rahm’s six PGA Tour victories, he also boasts six European Tour titles—amassing more than 6.4 million euros for those wins.

The post 18 things you need to know about Jon Rahm appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Daniel Rapaport
Even the most ambitious youngster would have a hard time dreaming up Jon Rahm’s reality on Sunday at Torrey Pines. The 26-year-old birdied 17 and 18 to win his first major championship and become the first Spaniard to win the U.S. Open. He took over as World No. 1 in the process … at the same spot he proposed to his wife … on his first Father’s Day as a dad … two weeks after he made national news for a brutally timed positive COVID test.

Rahm emerged the last man standing from a punch-drunk final day in San Diego, his final-round 67 good for a one-shot victory over the perennially second Louis Oosthuizen. For one last look back at a dramatic and chaotic week, here are 18 parting thoughts on the year’s third major.

1: We start, as always, with the winner. As mentioned above, Rahm’s victory resembles a Hollywood script for a number of reasons. But we’re going to focus on something far less romantic: the distinctly unemotional decision he made in the most crucial moment.

Rahm was tied for the lead as he sent his second shot into the green on the par-5 18th hole. His ball kicked pretty hard right before resting on a downslope of the bunker, with the green sloping away from him and toward a water hazard. The temptation there is to try to nip a spinner right at the flag and leave yourself a kick-in birdie. As one of the better bunker players on Earth, Rahm is absolutely capable of that shot. But it’s also a hugely risky undertaking, for the consequences of a not-perfect shot could be dire.

It’s so difficult to think of the negative in that moment. Rahm had just gutted a winding birdie putt on 17 and screamed at the top of his lungs when it dropped. His veins were overflowing with adrenaline. He’d waited his whole life for this moment, an up-and-down birdie to likely win the U.S. Open … and he had the discipline to pull himself out of dreamland and acknowledge that he might not hit that bunker shot perfect—and if he doesn’t, he brings disaster into play.

Sean M. Haffey
Rahm’s decision not to take on the flag (and the water looming behind it) with his bunker shot on the final hole at Torrey Pines was the right call, even if he didn’t hole the subsequent birdie putt.

So he made the mature, if unsexy, decision, played safely right of the flag, eliminated the water from the equation and gave himself an 18-footer for birdie. He’s not likely to hole that putt—the PGA Tour make percentage from that distance is roughly 17 percent—but he made sure he had a birdie look, which is what made it the smart choice from a probability standpoint. He wasn’t taking a knee or accepting par; he made the decision that gave him the best chance to make the lowest score considering all possible outcomes from the bunker shot. Of course, it looked genius when the putt fell in dead-centre, but it was the right call either way. Little moments like those often serve as the differentiator in a 72-hole event, and Rahm handled a high-leverage situation perfectly.

2: That’s now six runner-up finishes at majors for Louis Oosthuizen, and along with his playoff loss to Bubba Watson at the 2012 Masters, this one might sting most. The shot he hit on the 17th tee—a pull into the hazard when there were acres and acres of turf right of the fairway—will not soon fade from his memory.

In turn, his reputation for near-misses only grows, which is equal parts amazing and unfortunate. One does not simply rack up seven top-two finishes in majors; that’s the same number Brooks Koepka has, and more than Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy. Oosthuizen is an incredible player who shows up time and again in the sport’s biggest events, but we’re running out of justifications for his down-the-stretch tumbles. That he still hasn’t won a PGA Tour event since the 2010 Open Championship remains one of the crazier realities in golf.

3: For a while there, this leader board featured the most superstar contenders we’ve seen on a major Sunday since the 2019 Masters. At roughly 1 p.m. local time, there were 11 guys within three shots of the lead—including Oosthuizen, Rahm, McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau, Collin Morikawa, Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka and Dustin Johnson. At 2 p.m., there were 10 guys within a shot. So many massive names being in the mix, coupled with the return of fans, made this year’s final round umpteen times more enjoyable to watch than last year at Winged Foot, when Sunday afternoon was dominated by has-Bryson-solved-golf chatter. This was markedly less existential, in a great way.

4: And then, about an hour later, it descended into pure and utter mayhem. Major Sunday pressure never fails to torment even the best players in the world. As soon as the 18th hole enters the line of sight, guys start moving in reverse. You had Morikawa blading a wedge shot over a green on 13. Bryson shooting a back-nine 44. Mackenzie Hughes lodging balls into trees. Koepka bogeying a par 5 to finish. It’s not the first time we’ve seen the tenor of a Sunday round completely flip when it gets to winning time, but this tempo change rang particularly loud.

5: On Saturday night, I received the following text from a player at Torrey: “Bryson is going to win this. And it’s gonna be like this for years if they don’t change the setup a bit.” A tad fatalistic, perhaps, but it does speak to a growing trend at the U.S. Open.

Last year, Winged Foot played straight into the bombers’ hands. Those fairways were nearly impossible to hit, and when everyone is constantly in the rough, being closer is simply a massive advantage. Torrey’s fairways weren’t quite so hard to find—the kikuyu gives them that soft first bounce, and they’re not as canted—and while some non-bombers were able to hang this week, it felt like no coincidence that Rahm, Bryson, Brooks, Wolff, Rory and Co. bashed their way into contention. The identity of this championship, as Paul Azinger pointed out ad nauseum, has shifted from accuracy-first to power-first. It’s not necessarily a good or bad thing, but it’s a true thing, and it’ll be fascinating to see the setups at The Country Club next year and Los Angeles Country Club in 2023. Rough doesn’t feature quite so prominently at either of those courses, but in the post-Chambers Bay, post-Erin Hills years, the USGA has stuck with a narrow-fairway-brutal-rough-formula. We’ll see if it continues.

6: Despite his back-nine implosion, DeChambeau has mastered the art—er, science?—of bomb-and-gouge. If that name offends you, we’ll go with bomb-and-reassess. Becoming a beefed-up Bryson wasn’t just about adding speed and distance, but also vowing to fully commit to a new strategy. It’s not just that he’s hitting it farther, it’s that he hits driver wherever it’s even semi-feasible. The data supports this strategy. You wallop driver off the tee. If you find the fairway, you attack. If you don’t, you shift your focus to making par. And DeChambeau is able to do this better than basically anyone for two main reasons. One, his sheer strength allows him to muscle balls out of rough that other guys cannot. Two, his single-length irons mean his wedge and short irons are longer than most, allowing him to get some extra speed and steepness into the ball, which are crucial to rescuing balls from calf-high cabbage.

Ezra Shaw
At Torrey Pines, DeChambeau copied the bomb-and-gouge game plan he used to win at Winged Foot in 2020, but too many unforced error on the back nine Sunday ended his hopes of a repeat victory.

And while it may not be the most aesthetically pleasing method to make your way around a golf course, nor is it the type of game Bobby Jones or Ben Hogan played, it’s paying huge dividends at tough courses with penal rough. Places like Winged Foot and Torrey Pines, yes, but also Bay Hill, where DeChambeau won earlier this year. How it’ll work at Royal St. George’s, where the wind is always a factor, is anyone’s guess. We have yet to see Beefy Bryson bring his experiment to a links course, and the juxtaposition between the ancient courses and his distinctly modern game present a fascinating dynamic.

7: Rahm speaks better English than 99 percent of Americans. Maybe 99.9 percent. A non-golfer friend reached out to ask if Rahm’s first language is English, for he couldn’t possibly have that kind of mastery of his second language. Only he does. Rahm knew very little English when he arrived at Arizona State in the fall of 2012, and he’s now a master of irony and sarcasm and pacing and dramatic pauses. On Tuesday, he eloquently explained why he supported the PGA Tour’s handling of the Memorial situation. On Sunday, after Oosthuizen failed to eagle the 18th, he waxed poetic about why Torrey Pines holds such a special place in his heart. It could’ve been an ad for Rosetta Stone.

8: Guido Migliozzi’s name could not be more fun to say. Nor could it be more Italian, which led to some delightful GIFs and memes and “Inglourious Basterds” references. (Enzo Gorlami! Dominic Decoco!) Migliozzi, however, was anything but a sideshow in his major-championship debut. The 24-year-old fist-pumped his way to a top-four finish, which gets him into next year’s U.S. Open and the Masters. He came into this week off back-to-back runner-up finishes in Europe and kept the momentum cooking on this side of the pond. A hugely impressive week for a promising young player who will join Francesco Molinari in representing his country at the Olympics.

Sean M. Haffey
Competing in his first U.S. Open, Migliozzi grinded out a top-four finish at Torrey Pines that earned him a return ticket in 2022 as well as a spot in next year’s Masters.

9: A half-baked idea: Golf tournaments should have a little screen next to the tee that shows radar data from tee shots. Imagine if, after a Bryson bomb, the fans could see “192 mph ball speed” and, a few seconds later “332-yard carry.” Something tells me some well-served patrons would get a kick out of that. It’d be similar to the pitch speed and exit velocity MLB teams show in their stadiums. The only potential snag in this genius plan is it would tell players how far their ball is flying on a certain day, which feels like something of an unnatural advantage. Ehhhhh. Not that big of a deal. Let’s make it happen.

10: Richard Bland—complete with grey stubble, a four-year-old driver and his home course’s logo on his hat—put a smile on all our faces for two-plus days. The 48-year-old, winless in his first 477 European Tour starts before finally grabbing a victory last month, held a share of the lead at the halfway point, providing our latest example of just how beautifully unpredictable this game is. To see him up there was a genuine shock … until you saw him swing the club. As good a move as anyone’s. It was yet another reminder of just how many great, great golfers there are lurking beneath the surface in professional golf.

What he said on Friday afternoon stuck with us: “The old saying is you get knocked down seven times, you get up eight. I’ve always had that kind of attitude that you just keep going. You never know in this game. You just keep going.”

How relatable is that? You truly, truly never know. We’ll play our best round ever and then stink the next time out. Hit terrible shots all day, then pure two in a row for a kick-in birdie. Most professionals feel similarly. There is an element of chaos in golf that borders on randomness. It’s part of what makes this torturous game so great.

Harry How
A spot atop the leader board through 36 holes for journeyman Richard Bland was one of the U.S. Open’s more entertaining subplots.

11: Torrey Pines took quite a beating this week. The wonkier corners of Golf Twitter were dominated by debate over Torrey’s worthiness as a U.S. Open course. We see both sides. On one hand, Torrey did not benefit from falling directly after Kiawah’s Ocean Course, one of the more visually distinct and intriguing designs in the United States. It’s uncanny how many holes at Torrey are just long and straight, with bunkers on both sides of the fairway landing area and both sides of the green. Apart from Nos. 3 and 18, there aren’t really any holes you immediately recognize because they’re all so similar. On the other hand: not every golf course can be breathtakingly beautiful and unique, and one measure of a tournament venue is the leader board it produces. This one was loaded.

Two things can be true at once: Torrey is not a bucket-list golf course, and it served its purpose as a U.S. Open host venue. The lack of complaining spoke volumes as far as player satisfaction with the golf course. Here’s what Phil Mickelson, who has not held back from ripping the USGA in years past, had to say about the setup: “I’m very surprised that, in the 30 years I’ve played the U.S. Open, this is the best I’ve seen. I thought they did a remarkable job, and I’m really proud and happy that it’s here at Torrey.” That’s not for nothing.

12: One more Torrey note. Hard not to love what the USGA did with the par-3 third on Friday, when it was converted from a 195-yard mid-iron to a 134-yard wedge. There is no feeling in golf quite like seeing your ball flying toward the flag but not being sure exactly where it’s going to plop down. Short, in the bunker? A solid 40 feet past the flag? Or, ideally, right next to the stick? Short, downhill par 3s are a factory for please-be-good-type shots because it’s quite tricky to figure out just how much mustard to take off, and it was terrific watching guys hoping (praying?) their ball carried the correct weight. Plus, having the Pacific swirling in the background only added to the intrigue.

Positive Torrey take: *love* what they did with 3 today.

Hard to beat a short, downhill par 3 where everything is right in front of you. Most fun feeling in golf is waiting for the ball to drop, not entirely sure where it’ll land. This maximizes that. With that backdrop too ?? pic.twitter.com/J0yQw2fE38

— Daniel Rapaport (@Daniel_Rapaport) June 19, 2021

13: How great was it to see Matt Wolff play so well this week? And, more importantly, enjoying himself in the process? It does feel we’re at a bit of an inflection point regarding athletes and mental health—Naomi Osaka has played a major role in shaping the conversation—and Wolff’s ability to return like this, after all that time off, will surely inspire more players struggling internally to consider stepping away for a bit. Which, of course, is great. Golf tortures all of us who play it for fun; imagine the mental toll it takes on guys who play it for dollars.

Wolff wasn’t the only one this week to candidly discuss the mental anguish this game wreaks. Here was Bubba Watson, after shooting four-under 67 on Friday: “I’m going to be dead honest with you. Don’t tell nobody, this is a secret. I am nervous over every shot, OK? … I don’t know what’s going on. I’m so nervous.” And, a day later, 19-year-old Akshay Bhatia: “I just have a hard time enjoying myself and understanding the opportunity I created for myself and just the atmosphere. I should enjoy it a lot more than I do. I just didn’t have fun today, which really sucks because a lot of golf is score-oriented, and when you’re not playing well, it feels like it sucks, but I can’t do anything about it.”

That’s hard to read, coming from a teenager who’s living out his dream. But the first step toward improvement is acknowledging the problem, and more and more guys are open to doing exactly that. It’s wonderful to see.

Sean M. Haffey
Matthew Wolff’s openness to the mental-health struggles he’s been going through of late made him easy to root for this week at Torrey Pines.

14: An interesting, inside-golf problem that could use addressing. A number of Korn Ferry players were in the field this week and did not receive any Korn Ferry Tour points for their performance. This may sound like the obvious outcome—the U.S. Open is not a Korn Ferry Tour event—but should guys really be punished for playing their way into a major?

Consider Taylor Montgomery, who got into the field through the Southern California qualifying site. He came into this week ranked No. 24 on the KFT points list, with the top 25 getting PGA Tour cards at the end of the regular season in August. Montgomery made the cut in the U.S. Open. And he dropped to No. 28 on the KFT list because he didn’t play in the tournament that was going on simultaneously in Wichita, Kan. The same is true for Dylan Wu, who came into the week at No. 28 on the KFT, finished T-31 at Torrey, and will be further from his PGA Tour card come Monday morning. This feels like a no brainer; create some points scale to award players who get into majors and play well in them.

15: Announcers can’t stop, won’t stop saying “this, from a minute ago.” It’s a reasonable thing to say if journalistic integrity is your No. 1 goal. But this is entertainment, and every time a broadcaster says that we know something is about to happen. If it’s a guy way out of contention putting from 60 feet, you know it’s going down. If it’s a shot from the fairway, you know it’s going to flirt with the flag. A huge part of what makes watching sports on TV so fun is not knowing what’s going to happen. So, stop telling us this was from a moment a go. Lie to us. We’re giving you permission to do so. For entertainment’s sake.

16: Super aggressive, yell-at-the-top-of-your-lungs fist pumps have their place. But so do understated, muted fist-clenches. They feel a bit more intimate. More inwardly focused. Less let’s goooo and more come on, we can do this. Rory McIlroy delivered a perfect one after holing a birdie putt on 4 on Sunday.

The loud, yell-in-your-face fist pumps are cool and all…but always felt the subdued one hits a little harder.

Rory’s not messing around today. pic.twitter.com/IpVHh7OIQF

— Daniel Rapaport (@Daniel_Rapaport) June 20, 2021

17: Different week, same story for Collin Morikawa. The 24-year-old has emerged as the premier iron player in the world, and the gap between him and everyone else is widening. Morikawa leads the PGA Tour in strokes gained/approach and strokes gained/tee-to-green this season, and so he’s able to contend week-in, week-out despite losing strokes putting most weeks. At Torrey, he led the field in SG/tee-to-green and finished T-5 despite losing a half-shot to the field putting.

About that putting … it seems the best putters get up there, have a look, maybe a practice stroke or two, and go. Morikawa often looks frozen as he stands over the ball, and while we can’t pretend to know exactly the reason, most instructors will tell you nothing good happens in those extra still moments. If he ever figures out the flatstick, he will become No. 1 in the world shortly thereafter. But it’s a not-small if.

Sean M. Haffey
If Morikawa could figure out his putting woes, he’d rise to World No. 1 not long afterward.

18: After a one-year COVID hiatus, the U.S. Open once again had qualifiers in the field, and the tournament was much better off for it. USGA officials love to point out that playing your way into our national championship is “part of the U.S. Open’s DNA” but the slightly canned talking point is so true. Last year’s all-exempt field lacked the charming stories of off-the-radar guys who earned their week in the sun. Take Kyle Westmoreland, the first graduate of the Air Force Academy to make a cut in the U.S. Open. Or Bhatia, the 19-year-old former junior prodigy who made the cut on the number. Or Wu and Montgomery and Greyson Sigg, who showed that Korn Ferry Tour players can hang with the big boys. The best finish at Torrey by a qualifier? That would be Branden Grace with a tie for seventh. Not exactly an underdog story, as the South African has played on three Presidents Cup teams, remains the only man to shoot 62 in a major and once sat inside the top 10 of the World Ranking. But his game has been in a tough spot for a few years, and so he had to qualify for this tournament—because golf is the ultimate meritocracy, and the U.S. Open is the most meritocratic tournament of them all.

The post Jon Rahm’s gutsy 72nd-hole decision and 17 other parting thoughts from Torrey Pines appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Daniel Rapaport
He does what he can to make us question him. We should know better than to doubt Brooks Koepka at the majors—but man, does he make it tough. He’ll miss the cut the week before, as he did six days ago in South Carolina. He’ll geezer-limp up the stairs, his right leg looking distinctly noodle-like, as he did Wednesday in San Diego. Toss in a headline-hogging feud with a fellow beefy golfer, and you’d be excused for thinking this might be the major that Koepka finally puts up a clunker.

You’d also be wrong to doubt, of course. Flagrantly so.

Koepka put himself in the thick of yet another major championship on Thursday, briefly holding the lead at the U.S. Open before a few late bogeys forced him to settle for a two-under 69. It was his sixth consecutive under-par round at the U.S. Open—he missed last year’s event at Winged Foot with a knee injury—which ties Sam Snead’s all-time record. In more immediate matters, it left him two shots behind Russell Henley’s pace-setting 67 when he headed into the scoring tent.

“You can’t win it today, but you can definitely lose it,” Koepka said. “It was nice to get off to a good start, putted well, drove it well on the back nine, my front, but missed a couple fairways there. I missed them on the correct side, which is what you’ve got to do, depending on where the pin location is. Get lucky enough where you’ve got a decent lie and get it there.

“Pretty pleased. Not the best, but I’ll definitely take it.”

Koepka knows better than to concern himself with the lead on Thursday afternoon. He’s said multiple times that he doesn’t think much about his standing in the tournament until the back nine on Sunday—when, more times than not at these things, he’s within whisper’s distance of the lead.

It’s not just his major victories, which number four. Koepka has finished seventh or better in 10 of his last 14 major starts, an unparalleled stretch that has seen him emerge as the sport’s alpha male. He is not, of course, the only player who shows up at the game’s biggest events. Tony Finau peppers the front page of leader boards, as does Xander Schauffele. But those players are, more or less, the same player in majors as they are in non-majors. Koepka doesn’t hide his apathy for the non-majors. At last week’s Palmetto Championship, he openly admitted his focus had shifted to Torrey by noon on Friday. That makes him something of a unicorn in this game. He’s missed the cut in five of his nine starts this calendar year, and yet it made no difference at all when he stepped to the first tee at Torrey Pines.

Asked about his major strategy by Golf Channel’s Steve Sands after the round, Koepka did not waste words: “I guess I just have it figured out.”

Indeed, he does. Teeing off the back nine alongside Justin Thomas and Collin Morikawa, a grouping of the PGA Championship winners from 2017 to 2020, Koepka birdied his third hole of the day and added another at 17. When he nipped a wedge to tap-in range at 18 to make the turn in three-under 33, Koepka summitted the leader board and sent a message to the 155 other players in the field: Nothing has changed. It’s a major. I’m here.

“I’ve just got a good game plan, focused. I know what I’m doing, and I don’t try to do anything I can’t. It’s just all about discipline in a U.S. Open. That’s I guess the gist of it.”

Koepka briefly reached four-under before two bogeys put something of a damper on the round—and it could have been worse, if not for a faith-affirming par save at the eighth. He’s played three times since, so it’s not exactly top of mind, but Koepka is still just three months off a knee surgery that normally demands a six-month recovery period. His performance at last month’s PGA Championship assuaged any injury concerns, but a rather concerning video surfaced on Wednesday showing Koepka struggling mightily to get up the stairs. He still cannot bend his right knee to read putts. All this made his stance on the par-3 eighth a bit dicey—with the ball well above his feet, he had to trust the leg to hold firm as he hacked it out of the cabbage. He judged it perfectly and hearted the four-footer for par.

Me after running approximately 1 mile pic.twitter.com/0kh9GCBqTJ

— Christopher Powers (@CPowers14) June 16, 2021

“It feels good,” Koepka said of the knee. “I felt great. My movement is as good as it’s ever been.”

Translation: Ignore that video, just as you should ignore the missed cut last week. When it comes to Koepka, ignore everything that happens outside the ropes at a major championship.

The post Like clockwork, Brooks Koepka takes up residence on a major leader board again appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

“It’s just like small little mistakes that you shouldn’t make,” Johnson says of his mini-swoon. In a vague allusion to his mysterious WDs, he adds, “So, yeah, sometimes it takes a little bit of time away and kind of clearing my head, and definitely it helps.”

Johnson was once golf’s most extravagant underachievers but forever altered the trajectory of his career with a monk-like dedication to exercise and clean-eating, to say nothing of dialling in his wedge game. (After further reviewing the social media posts of his fiancé Paulina Gretzky, perhaps monk-like is not the best description.) Johnson’s inner circle insists he is working as hard as ever but there are allusions to “distractions” which appears to be code word for the mega-wedding Gretzky is now pulling together after seven years of betrothal.

Johnson and his team have also been saying yes to a few more business opportunities in the wake of last year’s victory at the Masters, when DJ smashed the tournament scoring record shared previously by Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth. That five-stroke blowout was the sixth time since the start of 2017 that Johnson has won by at least that many strokes, cementing his standing as the game’s most dominant force.

Last week at the Palmetto Championship at Congaree, Johnson took the opening-round lead with a 65 that included some of the most overpowering driving of a career built on the long ball. All was right in the world, or so it seemed, until some head-scratching mistakes, including a 3-iron nearly slipping out of his hand on the 36th hole, which led to a momentum-shifting double bogey. Johnson looked a little lost over the weekend as he stumbled to a tie for 10th that included a triple bogey on Sunday. Afterwards, a flummoxed Johnson said, “I didn’t feel like I played that bad. It was just, if I could get a bad break, I did. It felt like all day, every shot that I had was in between clubs. It was just a weird round.” And yet it was his first top-10 on the PGA Tour since February.

Ezra Shaw
Dustin Johnson hits his tee shot on the fourth hole during a practice round prior to the start of the 2021 U.S. Open.

Wednesday at Torrey Pines was a reminder of who Johnson is, as he was presented with the Mark McCormack Award for having spent the most weeks in 2020 atop the World Ranking (19). Johnson has now been No. 1 for more than two years in total, the third-longest reign since the ranking debuted in 1986, behind only Woods and Greg Norman.

Form is temporary but class is permanent, and Johnson still carries himself with the quiet confidence of a man who knows his best golf is better than that of any other player on the planet. “If I can drive it well, I feel like I’m going to have a really good week,” he said on Wednesday. “Fairways are pretty narrow. The course is long, like I was saying, and if I can hit the driver good, yeah, I like my chances.”

Doesn’t sound like somebody who is all that worried about the state of his game. Maybe we shouldn’t be either.

Alan Shipnuck is a partner with the Fire Pit Collective.

The post Guess who isn’t worried about his game at Torrey Pines? Try Dustin Johnson appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Tod Leonard
SAN DIEGO—Yuka Saso stood out just a wee bit on Tuesday at Torrey Pines. It was hard to miss her, this diminutive young woman carrying around a huge silver trophy, the sun brightly reflecting off it. We’re not talking about a lap around the clubhouse, either. The 19-year-old Saso carried it everywhere, including out on the South Course, like a fan with the biggest piece of bling you can imagine.

The reigning U.S. Women’s Open champion, who won the title at Olympic Club in San Francisco less than two weeks ago, was a guest of the USGA at Torrey Pines, where the U.S. Open begins on Thursday. And Saso was on a mission: She wanted to meet Rory McIlroy, whom she has idolized since her early teen years. Through YouTube, she learned to copy McIlroy’s swing, but she had never come close to meeting the four-time major champion.

There was a bit of staging that took place as Saso caught up to McIlroy on the South’s seventh hole, but the reaction was endearing and genuine. McIlroy greeted Saso with smiles and hugs, and she joined him inside the ropes over the next three holes.

“When I finally saw him, I said, ‘That’s Rory! That’s the real Rory I’ve been watching on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, and now I’m seeing him in person,” Saso recalled later for Golf Digest as she sat in the media dining area with her father and the trophy.

“It’s like a dream. It was much better than I was thinking.”

Saso actually took her reaction to the experience a step farther. “It is the greatest moment of my life,” she said.

Greater than winning the U.S. Women’s Open?

Saso’s eyes crinkled behind her safety mask, and she moved her hand like a scale.

“Fifty-fifty,” she said with a laugh.

The distant runner-up on the day was meeting and trading fist bumps with Phil Mickelson.

“I saw Phil activating his calves,” Saso said.

Chris Keane
With her U.S. Women’s Open trophy by her side, Yuka Saso talks to Rory McIlroy.

Saso said she didn’t want to pepper McIlroy with a lot of questions because she knew he was working on his prep for a major, but she asked him about certain shots and they chatted about various subjects, and she hopes to be able to get more of his advice in the future.

“He’s a really good person,” she said. “He’s had his ups and down, but whatever happens, he looks forward. He’s a very honest guy.”

Saso stunned the golf world with her victory at Olympic Club, becoming the first person of Filipino heritage to win a major. She triumphed in a playoff over Nasa Hataoka after both finished 72 holes at four under, and she joined Inbee Park as the youngest-ever winner of the U.S. Women’s Open. Saso was playing in her third U.S. Women’s Open and had notched to wins on the LPGA Tour of Japan.

The victory earned Saso an immediate invitation to join the LPGA and she accepted. Her next start will come in another major, the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship in Georgia next week.

Saso admitted that she never thought she’d win a major so soon, and that she was only looking for more experience at Olympic Club. “I think I’m still in the learning stage. I’m still 19,” she said. “I know I won the U.S. Women’s Open, but there are so many players who have more experience than I do. So I’m hoping that I can learn more on the LPGA too, and get to where I want to be.”

On this day, where she wanted to be was anywhere near Rory McIlroy.

The post Yuka Saso compares meeting Rory McIlroy to winning her first major appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Daniel Rapaport
In the time between last month’s PGA Championship and this week’s U.S. Open, the feud between Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka—which was re-ignited by a rogue, viral video—has dominated our sport’s discourse. Who’s side are you on? Is it good for the game? And, perhaps most saliently: Should they be paired together at the U.S. Open?

It’s a fair question, given the USGA’s history of cheeky pairings for the opening rounds of its marquee championship. The last time the U.S. Open was at Torrey Pines, the powers that be grouped the top three players in the world—Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Adam Scott—in a precursor to the modern “supergroup.” They’ve lumped together small guys and big guys (literally), U.S. Amateur champions and guys with long last names … you get the picture.

And while there’s been some concern—given the antics at the Memorial Tournament, when fans repeatedly referred to Bryson as “Brooksy”—that having the two men play together on Thursday and Friday at Torrey Pines would devolve into a fracas, allegedly the USGA actually considered the possibility. At least, according to Brad Faxon.

Faxon, an eight-time PGA Tour winner who worked as a broadcaster when Fox held the U.S. Open rights, was discussing the possibility of a Brooks-Bryson pairing in an appearance on SiriusXM PGA Tour radio.

“I found out last night that the USGA actually did call Bryson DeChambeau and his agent, and asked them if they would be okay with that, and Bryson declined.”

“Bryson declined”

Brad Faxon tells Michael Breed what he’s heard about Brooks and Bryson possibly playing together at the US Open@BradFaxon I @MichaelBreed I @usopengolf pic.twitter.com/rhqHyh8AfN

— SiriusXM U.S. Open Radio (@SiriusXMPGATOUR) June 15, 2021

DeChambeau’s agent, Brett Falkoff, denied Faxon’s accounting.

“The USGA did not reach out to Bryson regarding a potential pairing the first two rounds with Brooks Koepka,” Falkoff told Golfweek. “Bryson is fully focused on defending the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines this week.”

Golf Digest has requested comment from the USGA.

While DeChambeau initially stoked the flames with Koepka on social media, he has since tried to distance himself from the back-and-forth. After Koepka released a video promising free beer to fans who’d been ejected from the Memorial, DeChambeau was asked about where this kerfuffle is headed.

“I think that’s something the tour needs to handle; it’s something I can’t control,” the World No. 5 said. “I tried to take the high road numerous times, and I think that, from my perspective, I’ll continue to keep doing so and people are going to do what they want to do.”

If Faxon’s suggestion is not accurate, as Falkoff suggests, it wouldn’t be the first time he reported information regarding Koepka that was subsequently disproven. Back in March, also on PGA Tour radio, Faxon offered some insight on Koepka’s knee injury.

“There was rumours around here, the Honda Classic was last week where I live, I was on the range with caddies and talking, and I have instructor friends, I think this injury is way more serious than Koepka’s letting on. I’ve heard, you know, patella injury, post collateral ligament, PCL. I’ve dealt with multiple ACL injuries, and I’ve heard rumours he’s out for six to eight months. So I don’t think the Masters has a chance.”

Koepka did indeed play in the Masters, missing the cut just a month after undergoing surgery to repair the medial patellofemoral ligament in his right knee. A month later, he finished tied for second at the PGA Championship.

The post Did Bryson DeChambeau really turn down a pairing with Brooks Koepka? appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Tod Leonard
SAN DIEGO — Jon Rahm was back in his happy place. Upbeat and smiling, he stood at the podium on Tuesday for a U.S. Open press conference with one of his favorite pieces of real estate in the world in the background.

Rahm has returned to Torrey Pines, the site of some of his best and most consistent performances on the PGA Tour. And let’s not forget that only a few thousand yards from the South Course’s 18th green is where he proposed to his wife, Kelley, on the red sandstone cliffs.

It all looks so bright and promising to Rahm now, when only 10 days ago being struck with COVID-19 was his reality, as was getting eliminated from having a chance to finish the job at the Memorial after he’d built a six-shot lead in the third round. It’s not the way Rahm wanted to enter a major in which there’s every reason to believe he will contend, but the 26-year-old Spaniard seemed more grateful than rattled by what he’s just been through.

“I feel invincible,” Rahm said with a smile in reference to having both been vaccinated for COVID-19 and possessing the antibodies that would fight against the disease.

Rahm, of course, was destined to face questions about the circumstance of getting COVID, how he responded, and the way in which the news was delivered to him by the tour—all of which was fodder for a flurry of social media posts over the last week and a half.

He also shared the human side that so many families who have dealt with the coronavirus have faced. As previously planned, his parents flew from Spain to his home in Scottsdale, on the Monday after Memorial. And while Rahm was home, having arrived in a private jet fitted with an ICU unit, he wasn’t able to be there when his parents met his 2-month-old son Kepa for the first time.

“Those are the hard parts about this virus in life,” he said.

As for how things played out at Memorial, where he was informed of his positive results on national TV, Rahm defended the tour’s policies regarding COVID. He acknowledged that while he played in the Memorial, he knew that he was part of a contact-tracing effort, and that any time he could receive bad news. (Rahm said on Tuesday that he had been vaccinated but the 14-day post-vaccination time had not expired, which was what he was required to be tested daily at Memorial.) Rahm said that fact that it ultimately did come to a forced withdrawal shouldn’t be blamed on the tour.

“To all the people criticizing the PGA Tour, they shouldn’t,” Rahm said. “We are in a pandemic, and even though this virus has very different forms of attacking people, you never know what reaction you’re going to get. So [the] PGA Tour did what they had to do.

“I’ve heard a lot of different theories: I should have played alone. [No], I shouldn’t have … that’s nonsense. The rules are there, and it’s clear.”

What Rahm is not happy about is the way the tour handled telling him. A medical advisor stopped Rahm after he’d finished the 18th hole in the third round to tell him he was positive. The golfer broke down in tears before being taken away in a golf cart. The tour contended that it had to tell him immediately after the round to prevent him from interacting with fans.

Suffice it to say, Muirfield Village’s 18th green is not a site of good memories for Rahm. Last year, Rahm was involved in a rules issue in the Memorial when it was determined that his ball moved slightly when he addressed it before chipping in for birdie on the 16th hole. Rahm was told of the potential penalty after briefly celebrating his victory at 18, and though he ended up taking a two-stroke penalty, he still won the tournament by three shots.

“I’m not going to lie,” Rahm said. “That’s the second time I get put on the spot on national TV on the same golf course on the same hole.

“For all those people wondering when I said, ‘Not again,’ that’s exactly what I mean—not again. Last year, I put my heart out talking about one of my family members passing [away], and I get told, ‘Well, go sign your scorecard with a penalty stroke,’ with no warning.

“Then this past year I put arguably the best performance of my life, and I get told again on live TV, ‘Hey, you’re not playing tomorrow.’ So it could have been handled a little bit better, yeah. But it still doesn’t change the fact of what really happened. Because it was the second time I got put on the spot on the same course, [it’s] why I was a little bit more hurt, but yeah. Again, it’s tough.”

With the Memorial behind him, Rahm has turned his focus to preparing for the U.S. Open. He spent several days isolated and only hitting a bit on his home simulator, and he does admit to feeling slightly behind in his preparation. But for a man who’s played only five times in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, few could be more confident on the South Course. Rahm won in his Farmers debut in 2017 and has since notched four other top-seven finishes, including a solo second in 2020.

Icon Sportswire
Jon Rahm reacts to his eagle on the 18th hole that helped him win the 2017 Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, his first victory on the PGA Tour.

The South figures to play quite a bit different in June rather than January, with Rahm noting the biggest change being the firmness of the greens. The rough, he said, is inconsistently thick.

“You can actually get lucky and get some decent lies, or you can get some that it’s hard to move five yards,” said Rahm, who got in nine holes on Monday, his first time to the course out of quarantine, and nine more on Tuesday. “So the discrepancy is big. It’s going to happen. It’s a U.S. Open. You’re going to get good breaks and bad breaks.”

At this point, it would seem that Rahm is due for more good breaks than bad.

The post Jon Rahm defends tour on COVID policy, but isn’t happy with way news was handled at Memorial appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Since “the video” went viral, it’s been what golf fans have anxiously wanted to know: When will Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau be paired together again in a tournament?

For those hoping the answer might be the 2021 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines—the rivals have combined to win the championship three of the last four years—well, we’ve got bad news. While the USGA has a history of getting creative with its opening-round threesomes, tradition outweighed bedlam. As the defending champion, DeChambeau can be found in the usual pairing with the reigning winner of the U.S. Amateur (Tyler Strafaci), and joined this year by the Masters winner (Hideki Matsuyama); the trio will go off at 4:14 p.m. EDT on Thursday.

That said, the USGA did put together some entertaining pairings for the opening rounds on the South Course. Koepka will play alongside Collin Morikawa and Justin Thomas. The trio tee off on Thursday at 10:29 a.m. Eastern. PGA Championship winner and local favorite Phil Mickelson will be joined by another San Diego native, Xander Schauffele, and Max Homa, who grew up outside Los Angeles. They have a 10:51 a.m. Eastern tee time on Thusday.

Below are the complete pairings for the first and second round, with players competing in threesomes off the first and 10th tee.

THURSDAY/First round (all times EDT)
Ed’s Note: The United Arab Emirates is 11 hours ahead of California, USA

Hole #1
9:45 a.m. – Sahith Theegala, Chino Hills, Calif.; Edoardo Molinari, Italy; Greyson Sigg, Augusta, Ga.

9:56 a.m. – Chris Baker, Brownstown, Ind.; J.J. Spaun, Los Angeles, Calif.; Fabian Gomez, Argentina

10:07 a.m. – Patrick Rodgers, Jupiter, Fla.; Robby Shelton, Birmingham, Ala.; (a) Pierceson Coody, Plano, Texas

10:18 a.m. – Russell Henley, Columbus, Ga.; Mackenzie Hughes, Canada; Harris English, Sea Island, Ga.

10:29 a.m. – Francesco Molinari, Italy; Henrik Stenson, Sweden; Shane Lowry, Ireland

10:40 a.m. – Matt Fitzpatrick, England; Tyrrell Hatton, England; Viktor Hovland, Norway

10:51 a.m. – Martin Kaymer, Germany; Webb Simpson, Charlotte, N.C.; Gary Woodland, Topeka, Kan.

11:02 a.m. – Tony Finau, Salt Lake City, Utah; Abraham Ancer, Mexico; Daniel Berger, Jupiter, Fla.

11:13 a.m. – Si Woo Kim, Republic of Korea; Kevin Na, Las Vegas, Nev.; Bernd Wiesberger, Austria

11:24 a.m. – Jimmy Walker, San Antonio, Texas; Ian Poulter, England; Ryan Palmer, Colleyville, Texas

11:35 a.m. – J.T. Poston, Sea Island, Ga.; Adam Hadwin, Canada; (a) Joe Long, England

11:46 a.m. – Luis Fernando Barco, Peru; Dylan Meyer, Evansville, Ind.; (a) Matthew Sharpstene, Charlotte, N.C.

11:57 a.m. – Mario Carmona, Mexico; Wilson Furr, Jackson, Miss.; Davis Shore, Knoxville, Tenn.

3:30 p.m. – Zach Zaback, Farmington, Conn.; Steve Allan, Australia; Eric Cole, Delray Beach, Fla.

3:41 p.m. – Hayden Buckley, Tupelo, Miss.; Taylor Montgomery, Las Vegas, Nev.; Jordan Smith, England

3:52 p.m. – Chez Reavie, Scottsdale, Ariz.; Richard Bland, England; Troy Merritt, Meridian, Idaho

4:03 p.m. – Robert MacIntyre, Scotland; Victor Perez, France; Matt Wallace, England

4:14 p.m. – Tyler Strafaci, Davie, Fla.; Hideki Matsuyama, Japan; Bryson DeChambeau, Clovis, Calif.

4:25 p.m. – Adam Scott, Australia; Sergio Garcia, Spain; Bubba Watson, Bagdad, Fla.

4:36 p.m. – Dustin Johnson, North Palm Beach, Fla.; Rory McIlroy, Northern Ireland; Justin Rose, England

4:47 p.m. – Matt Jones, Australia; Brendan Steele, Idyllwild, Calif.; Cameron Smith, Australia

4:58 p.m. – Carlos Ortiz, Mexico; Zach Johnson, Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Lanto Griffin, Blacksburg, Va.

5:09 p.m. – Sam Burns, Shreveport, La.; Chan Kim, Gilbert, Ariz.; Thomas Detry, Belgium

5:20 p.m. – (a) Ollie Osborne, Reno, Nev.; Peter Malnati, Knoxville, Tenn.; Brian Stuard, Jackson, Mich.

5:31 p.m. – John Huh, Dallas, Texas; Johannes Veerman, Houston, Texas; Zack Sucher, Birmingham, Ala.

5:42 p.m. – Rick Lamb, Nashville, Tenn.; Michael Johnson, Birmingham, Ala.; Carson Schaake, Omaha, Neb.

Hole #10
9:45 a.m. – Andy Pope, Glen Ellyn, Ill.; Brad Kennedy, Australia; Thomas Aiken, South Africa

9:56 a.m. – Yosuke Asaji, Japan; Marcus Armitage, England; Jhonattan Vegas, Venezuela

10:07 a.m. – Cameron Young, Jupiter, Fla.; Wilco Nienaber, South Africa; Guido Migliozzi, Italy

10:18 a.m. – Brian Harman, Sea Island, Ga.; Tommy Fleetwood, England; Matthew Wolff, Agoura Hills, Calif.

10:29 a.m. – Collin Morikawa, La Canada, Calif.; Justin Thomas, Louisville, Ky.; Brooks Koepka, West Palm Beach, Fla.

10:40 a.m. – Kevin Kisner, Aiken, S.C.; Billy Horschel, Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.; Matt Kuchar, Sea Island, Ga.

10:51 a.m. – Max Homa, Valencia, Calif.; Xander Schauffele, San Diego, Calif.; Phil Mickelson, Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.

11:02 a.m. – Jason Kokrak, Hudson, Ohio; Cameron Champ, Sacramento, Calif.; Corey Conners, Canada

11:13 a.m. – Paul Barjon, France; Sam Ryder, Atlantic Beach, Fla.; Ryo Ishikawa, Japan

11:24 a.m. – Dylan Frittelli, South Africa; Martin Laird, Scotland; K.H. Lee, Republic of Korea

11:35 a.m. – Rafa Cabrera Bello, Spain; Adrian Meronk, Poland; Sung Kang, Republic of Korea

11:46 a.m. – Akshay Bhatia, Wake Forest, N.C.; (a) Andrew Kozan, West Palm Beach, Fla.; Alvaro Ortiz, Mexico

11:57 a.m. – James Hervol, Hopkinton, Mass.; Hayden Springer, Trophy Club, Texas; Roy Cootes, Rolling Hills, Calif.

3:30 p.m. – David Coupland, England; Taylor Pendrith, Canada; Wade Ormsby, Australia

3:41 p.m. – Tom Hoge, Fargo, N.D.; Bo Hoag, Columbus, Ohio; (a) Joe Highsmith, Lakewood, Wash.

3:52 p.m. – Erik van Rooyen, South Africa; Christiaan Bezuidenhout, South Africa; Charl Schwartzel, South Africa

4:03 p.m. – Garrick Higgo, South Africa; (a) Cole Hammer, Houston, Texas; Joaquin Niemann, Chile

4:14 p.m. – Lee Westwood, England; Stewart Cink, Atlanta, Ga.; Paul Casey, England

4:25 p.m. – Will Zalatoris, Dallas, Texas; Scottie Scheffler, Dallas, Texas; Jordan Spieth, Dallas, Texas

4:36 p.m. – Marc Leishman, Australia; Jon Rahm, Spain; Patrick Reed, The Woodlands, Texas

4:47 p.m. – Patrick Cantlay, Jupiter, Fla.; Louis Oosthuizen, South Africa; Sungjae Im, Republic of Korea

4:58 p.m. – Kevin Streelman, Wheaton, Ill.; Branden Grace, South Africa; Charley Hoffman, Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.

5:09 p.m. – Sebastian Munoz, Colombia; Rikuya Hoshino, Japan; Brendon Todd, Athens, Ga.

5:20 p.m. – Wyndham Clark, Denver, Colo.; (a) Matthias Schmid, Germany; Matthew Southgate, England

5:31 p.m. – (a) Spencer Ralston, Gainesville, Ga.; Dylan Wu, Medford, Ore.; Justin Suh, Las Vegas, Nev.

5:42 p.m. – Luis Gagne, Costa Rica; Kyle Westmoreland, Daniel Island, S.C.; Christopher Crawford, Bensalem, Pa.

FRIDAY/Second round (all times PDT)

Hole #1
9:45 a.m. – David Coupland, England; Taylor Pendrith, Canada; Wade Ormsby, Australia

9:56 a.m. – Tom Hoge, Fargo, N.D.; Bo Hoag, Columbus, Ohio; (a) Joe Highsmith, Lakewood, Wash.

10:07 a.m. – Erik van Rooyen, South Africa; Christiaan Bezuidenhout, South Africa; Charl Schwartzel, South Africa

10:18 a.m. – Garrick Higgo, South Africa; (a) Cole Hammer, Houston, Texas; Joaquin Niemann, Chile

10:29 a.m. – Lee Westwood, England; Stewart Cink, Atlanta, Ga.; Paul Casey, England

10:40 a.m. – Will Zalatoris, Dallas, Texas; Scottie Scheffler, Dallas, Texas; Jordan Spieth, Dallas, Texas

10:51 a.m. – Marc Leishman, Australia; Jon Rahm, Spain; Patrick Reed, The Woodlands, Texas

11:02 a.m. – Patrick Cantlay, Jupiter, Fla.; Louis Oosthuizen, South Africa; Sungjae Im, Republic of Korea

11:13 a.m. – Kevin Streelman, Wheaton, Ill.; Branden Grace, South Africa; Charley Hoffman, Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.

11:24 a.m. – Sebastian Munoz, Colombia; Rikuya Hoshino, Japan; Brendon Todd, Athens, Ga.

11:35 a.m. – Wyndham Clark, Denver, Colo.; (a) Matthias Schmid, Germany; Matthew Southgate, England

11:46 a.m. – (a) Spencer Ralston, Gainesville, Ga.; Dylan Wu, Medford, Ore.; Justin Suh, Las Vegas, Nev.

11:57 a.m. – Luis Gagne, Costa Rica; Kyle Westmoreland, Daniel Island, S.C.; Christopher Crawford, Bensalem, Pa.

3:30 p.m. – Andy Pope, Glen Ellyn, Ill.; Brad Kennedy, Australia; Thomas Aiken, South Africa

3:41 p.m. – Yosuke Asaji, Japan; Marcus Armitage, England; Jhonattan Vegas, Venezuela

3:52 p.m. – Cameron Young, Jupiter, Fla.; Wilco Nienaber, South Africa; Guido Migliozzi, Italy

4:03 p.m. – Brian Harman, Sea Island, Ga.; Tommy Fleetwood, England; Matthew Wolff, Agoura Hills, Calif.

4:14 p.m. – Collin Morikawa, La Canada, Calif.; Justin Thomas, Louisville, Ky.; Brooks Koepka, West Palm Beach, Fla.

4:25 p.m. – Kevin Kisner, Aiken, S.C.; Billy Horschel, Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.; Matt Kuchar, Sea Island, Ga.

4:36 p.m. – Max Homa, Valencia, Calif.; Xander Schauffele, San Diego, Calif.; Phil Mickelson, Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.

4:47 p.m. – Jason Kokrak, Hudson, Ohio; Cameron Champ, Sacramento, Calif.; Corey Conners, Canada

4:58 p.m. – Paul Barjon, France; Sam Ryder, Atlantic Beach, Fla.; Ryo Ishikawa, Japan

5:09 p.m. – Dylan Frittelli, South Africa; Martin Laird, Scotland; K.H. Lee, Republic of Korea

5:20 p.m. – Rafa Cabrera Bello, Spain; Adrian Meronk, Poland; Sung Kang, Republic of Korea

5:31 p.m. – Akshay Bhatia, Wake Forest, N.C.; (a) Andrew Kozan, West Palm Beach, Fla.; Alvaro Ortiz, Mexico

5:42 p.m. – James Hervol, Hopkinton, Mass.; Hayden Springer, Trophy Club, Texas; Roy Cootes, Rolling Hills, Calif.

Hole #10
9:45 a.m. – Zach Zaback, Farmington, Conn.; Steve Allan, Australia; Eric Cole, Delray Beach, Fla.

9:56 a.m. – Hayden Buckley, Tupelo, Miss.; Taylor Montgomery, Las Vegas, Nev.; Jordan Smith, England

10:07 a.m. – Chez Reavie, Scottsdale, Ariz.; Richard Bland, England; Troy Merritt, Meridian, Idaho

10:18 a.m. – Robert MacIntyre, Scotland; Victor Perez, France; Matt Wallace, England

10:29 a.m. – Tyler Strafaci, Davie, Fla.; Hideki Matsuyama, Japan; Bryson DeChambeau, Clovis, Calif.

10:40 a.m. – Adam Scott, Australia; Sergio Garcia, Spain; Bubba Watson, Bagdad, Fla.

10:51 a.m. – Dustin Johnson, North Palm Beach, Fla.; Rory McIlroy, Northern Ireland; Justin Rose, England

11:02 a.m. – Matt Jones, Australia; Brendan Steele, Idyllwild, Calif.; Cameron Smith, Australia

11:13 a.m. – Carlos Ortiz, Mexico; Zach Johnson, Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Lanto Griffin, Blacksburg, Va.

11:24 a.m. – Sam Burns, Shreveport, La.; Chan Kim, Gilbert, Ariz.; Thomas Detry, Belgium

11:35 a.m. – (a) Ollie Osborne, Reno, Nev.; Peter Malnati, Knoxville, Tenn.; Brian Stuard, Jackson, Mich.

11:46 a.m. – John Huh, Dallas, Texas; Johannes Veerman, Houston, Texas; Zack Sucher, Birmingham, Ala.

11:57 a.m. – Rick Lamb, Nashville, Tenn.; Michael Johnson, Birmingham, Ala.; Carson Schaake, Omaha, Neb.

3:30 p.m. – Sahith Theegala, Chino Hills, Calif.; Edoardo Molinari, Italy; Greyson Sigg, Augusta, Ga.

3:41 p.m. – Chris Baker, Brownstown, Ind.; J.J. Spaun, Los Angeles, Calif.; Fabian Gomez, Argentina

3:52 p.m. – Patrick Rodgers, Jupiter, Fla.; Robby Shelton, Birmingham, Ala.; (a) Pierceson Coody, Plano, Texas

4:03 p.m. – Russell Henley, Columbus, Ga.; Mackenzie Hughes, Canada; Harris English, Sea Island, Ga.

4:14 p.m. – Francesco Molinari, Italy; Henrik Stenson, Sweden; Shane Lowry, Ireland

4:25 p.m. – Matt Fitzpatrick, England; Tyrrell Hatton, England; Viktor Hovland, Norway

4:36 p.m. – Martin Kaymer, Germany; Webb Simpson, Charlotte, N.C.; Gary Woodland, Topeka, Kan.

4:47 p.m. – Tony Finau, Salt Lake City, Utah; Abraham Ancer, Mexico; Daniel Berger, Jupiter, Fla.

4:58 p.m. – Si Woo Kim, Republic of Korea; Kevin Na, Las Vegas, Nev.; Bernd Wiesberger, Austria

5:09 p.m. – Jimmy Walker, San Antonio, Texas; Ian Poulter, England; Ryan Palmer, Colleyville, Texas

5:20 p.m. – J.T. Poston, Sea Island, Ga.; Adam Hadwin, Canada; (a) Joe Long, England

5:31 p.m. – Luis Fernando Barco, Peru; Dylan Meyer, Evansville, Ind.; (a) Matthew Sharpstene, Charlotte, N.C.

5:42 p.m. – Mario Carmona, Mexico; Wilson Furr, Jackson, Miss.; Davis Shore, Knoxville, Tenn.

(a): amateur

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