Check out the list of big names who are heading home (or to Pebble Beach) earlier than expected.
SAN DIEGO — Eight of the top 20 players in the Official World Golf Ranking made the trip to this week’s PGA Tour stop along the California coast, and five made the 36-hole cut, the only time this season there will be a Thursday cut.
While most of the top-ranked players in the field earned tee times for the South Course at Torrey Pines on Friday and Saturday, a handful of well-known players will be heading home (or up the road to Pebble Beach) earlier than planned from the 2024 Farmers Insurance Open.
In all, 79 players made the cut, leading to threesomes going off both the 1st and 10th tee.
Here are the notable PGA Tour players (and southern California club professionals) who are heading home early after missing the cut – which came in at 3 under – at Torrey Pines.
Schauffele finished T-3 at last year’s American Express.
After a few weeks on the islands of Hawaii, the PGA Tour has made its way to the mainland for The American Express at PGA West in La Quinta, California.
A loaded field will tee it up for the third event of 2024, including world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Justin Thomas, Tom Kim, Sam Burns, Tony Finau and Jason Day.
Scheffler, the betting favorite at +550, tied for 11th at PGA West last season and is coming off a T-5 performance at The Sentry.
Defending champion Jon Rahm isn’t in the field due to his recent move to LIV Golf.
Three courses will be used over the first three rounds — Pete Dye Stadium Course, Nicklaus Tournament Course and La Quinta Country Club — before the final round is played at the Stadium Course.
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Golf courses
Pete Dye Stadium Course | Par 72 | 7,187 yards
Nicklaus Tournament Course | Par 72 | 7,147 yards
LA Quinta County Club | Par 72 | 7,060 yards
Jon Rahm putts on the fifth green during the final round of The American Express golf tournament at Pete Dye Stadium Course. (Photo: Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports)
Welcome to 2024, folks. And to start the new year, the PGA Tour is in Hawaii for the season’s first signature event, The Sentry.
The Plantation Course at Kapalua in Maui will once again play host, while the defending champion is not in the 59-man field.
Jon Rahm came from behind to defeat Collin Morikawa last year, but cannot defend his title thanks to his move to LIV Golf.
Some of the stars actually in the field include world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, Viktor Hovland, Patrick Cantlay, Max Homa, Xander Schauffele, Morikawa and Jordan Spieth.
Two notable names not teeing it up at the Plantation Course, Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas.
Reminder, there is no cut this week.
Golf course
Plantation Course at Kapalua | Par 73 | 7,596 yards
Course scenics during practice prior to the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Plantation Course at Kapalua Golf Club on January 02, 2023, in Lahaina, Hawaii. (Photo: Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
Course history
Course history at the Plantation Course at Kapalua for the #TheSentry going back to 2015.
-Includes average finish position and Strokes Gained per round. Players are sorted by SG: Total.
-18th (out of 44) most predictive annual course on Tour.
“When I’m home or in one place for too long, I start to go a little stir crazy.”
ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – Eat your heart out, SungJae Im, there’s a new iron man on the PGA Tour and his name is Mark Hubbard.
Im played in a league-leading 35 Tour events twice in the last five years but took it easy this year settling for a modest 31. The 34-year-old Hubbard raced past Im for iron man honors, making a PGA Tour record 39 starts during the 2022-23 wrap-around season (which counted the FedEx Cup Fall too so an asterisk needs to be applied to this mark but it’s impressive nevertheless), breaking a five-way tie with 38 starts held by Buddy Gardner (1986), Mike Donald (1988) and Bob Friend (1999) as well as Adam Long and Kevin Tway this season.
Hubbard’s social media handle on X (formerly Twitter) is @HomelessHubbs after all, so being a road warrior is part of his makeup, and he mused that it probably dates back to his parents getting divorced before he was five years old and sharing custody.
“I just kind of grew up going back and forth between their houses, do three days here and there. So I feel like unknowingly that kind of groomed me for this life and I’ve just always kind of felt like very comfortable being a gypsy,” he said. “When I’m home or in one place for too long, I start to go a little stir crazy.”
Hubbard, who compiled six top-10 finishes this season and crossed the $2-million-mark in earnings for the first time, said he didn’t intend to play quite so much but he likes many of the fall events, including the Fortinet Championship in Napa, California, and the Sanderson Farms Championship in Jackson, Mississippi, where he’s had good results. He ended up playing all seven FedEx Cup Fall events this go-round, which is one reason his number of starts reached an all-time high, as he chased status into the Signature Events in 2024.
“I feel like I spent, like I spent the whole season on the bubble of that barrier to get into the top 50,” said Hubbard, who finished 67th in the FedEx Cup regular season, his second best season during his career, earning a spot in the first FedEx Cup Playoff event in Memphis. “In hindsight, I wish I was a little more rested for the playoffs.”
And he would’ve played less this fall had he not been in pursuit of finishing in ‘’The Next 10,’ which guaranteed entry for Nos. 51-60 in the standings to qualify for AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (where he proposed to his wife and went to school up the road at San Jose State) and the Genesis Invitational at Riviera, which he called just about every pro’s favorite course on Tour and located just eight minutes away from his brother’s home.
“If it were San Diego and Waste Management that were the Signature Events, I probably would’ve played four less times in the fall but because those two events are so special to me I was motivated to keep playing.”
Mark Hubbard in the pro-am ahead of the 2023 Butterfield Bermuda Championship at Port Royal Golf Course in Southampton, Bermuda. (Photo: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
Hubbard came up short, finishing No. 67 in the FedEx Cup Fall, but he genuinely enjoys playing rather than practicing. Hubbard, who once played 11 straight events including the Korn Ferry Tour Finals, never played more than four straight this season and said he usually needs the first week to dust off the rust and plays his best in the next three weeks of a four-week stretch. Perhaps the most impressive part of his iron man season is that he did it while traveling for much of it with his wife and two kids under the age of three. The hardest part might have been those stretches when he was flying solo, he said.
“Take away just the mental fatigue and, you know, the physical fatigue of playing 39 events, I would say that was probably the hardest part for me this year is those stretches where I had to go two weeks without seeing them,” he said.
How much will Hubbard play in 2024? The new schedule of a calendar-year season presents a big unknown but he guesses he will still be a road warrior.
“Guys like myself outside that top 50 are going to end up having to play more than they normally do, if they’re really trying to get into those [Signature] events. Because you got three weeks or so leading up to qualify for them and then if you do get into those events then you got to play those too, but then you’re not necessarily in the next [Signature] event, so you got to keep playing… in a perfect world, I’ll play less than 30 events next year.”
But don’t bet on it. Homeless Hubbs is the new Sungjae Im.
“This has been the longest four days of my career,” Im told reporters. “Every hole felt so important.”
While the focus of the golf world this week was the Ryder Cup in Italy, something equally special was happening in Hangzhou, China, at the Asian Games.
South Koreans Si Woo Kim and Sungjae Im helped their home country win the gold medal in golf. That’s a big deal for one reason: It makes the two PGA Tour pros — Im is ranked 27th in the world while Kim is No. 40 — exempt from serving the two-year mandatory military service that is required in Korea.
Teaming with amateurs Jang Yu-bin and Cho Woo-young, Im, 25, and Kim, 28, cruised to a 25-stroke win over Thailand for the team gold medal Sunday at the West Lake International Golf Course. It was the country’s first men’s golf title in 13 years.
All able-bodied males are obligated to serve between 18 and 21 months in the military once they turn 19. They can postpone the date of their service but without a significant cultural justification, like an Olympic medal, service is mandatory.
Seung Yul-Noh and Sang-Moon Bae are two Korean golfers who won on the PGA Tour before their mandatory service obligation but haven’t been able to regain their form after taking two years away from competition.
Only an Olympic medal, or a gold medal at the Asian Games, is worthy of an exemption in the eyes of the South Korean government. Im and Kim failed to medal at the Olympics in Japan.
Im finished runner-up in the individual portion of the event, a shot back of China’s Taichi Kho, a Notre Dame alum who primarily plays on the Asian Tour. Kim was three shots behind Im, finishing fourth place.
“This has been the longest four days of my career,” Im told reporters. “Every hole felt so important, and I knew every shot counted for our team event. I wanted to fight for every shot and do the best I could until the finish.”
Former champion Spieth had never missed the cut in 10 previous starts.
FORT WORTH, Texas — Even with a PGA Championship in Western New York inconveniently interrupting a pair of PGA Tour events in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, the field at the 2023 Charles Schwab Challenge was strong with 11 of the world’s top 30 players making the trek.
But the cream didn’t necessarily rise to the top as many of the most highly ranked players at Colonial Country Club either failed to make the weekend or found themselves flirting with the cutline at the conclusion of play on Friday. Local favorite and former champ Jordan Spieth, who had never missed the cut in 10 previous starts, was among those who finished on the wrong side.
Here’s a look at some of the biggest stars who missed the cut, which settled in at 1-over 141 through two rounds of play. The cut at the Charles Schwab Challenge is the top 65 and ties.
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Cut day brings both joy and misery to the field of 156 that began on Thursday with a chance of hoisting the Wanamaker Trophy.
Some such as Tyrrell Hatton, who bounced back from an opening-round 77 with a 68, and world No. 4 Patrick Cantlay (74-67) have renewed faith that they can continue to vault up the leaderboard and join the trophy hunt. Harold Varner III was on the cutline after a double bogey at No. 11 and responded brilliantly. He closed with five consecutive threes on the card, four of them birdies, and is back in the mix at 1 over. Defending champion Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth, who is seeking to complete the career Grand Slam with a win, both needed to sink 8-foot putts to make the cut and they drained them. In all 76 golfers made it to the weekend at 5-over 145 or better.
But for the men on this list, the chase is over and they’re none too happy about it. A couple of them blew up, shooting 80, while another made bogey at the last to have the weekend off. Here’s the bad news for some of the best in the world who didn’t have their good stuff this week.
Here are takeaways from the third round in Louisiana.
AVONDALE, La. — Beau Hossler and Wyndham Clark have achieved all sorts of accolades as golfers from qualifying for the U.S. Open as a teenager for Hossler and being part of a NCAA national championship team for Clark. Both have been successful at maintaining their PGA Tour privileges, but a win has been elusive so far for both of them.
That could change tomorrow in one fell swoop as they have teamed up to shoot 26-under 190 and claim a one-stroke lead over the team of Sungjae Im and Keith Mitchell heading into the final round of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. Hossler is 0-for-4 in converting 54-hole leads and Clark is 0-for-1. Could having a partner be the difference in finding their way to the winner’s circle?
“Sometimes when you’re alone, it feels like you’re out on an island. When the momentum gets going bad, when you’re on your own, sometimes it’s tough to turn that,” Clark said. “With a teammate, you you can kind of feed off each other and really not allow that momentum to get going in the wrong direction. So I hope tomorrow we’re light and loose like we’ve been all three days.”
On a picture-perfect Saturday in the Bayou, Hossler and Clark each chipped in five birdies in the four-ball, or best-ball, format and posted 10-under 62 at TPC Louisiana, which tied for the low round of the day. Hossler made a few birdies from inside 10 feet and Clark connected from 21 feet at the third and 26 feet at No. 12.
“That’s a tough hole, and we kind of snagged one,” Clark said. “That was a huge momentum for the back nine.”
Clark and Hossler have held at least a share of the lead after each round this week.
On Sunday, the format switches back to foursomes, or alternate shot, which defending champions Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele were able to exploit to the tune of shooting a remarkable 9-under 63 on Friday. However, they are only a combined 11-under for two rounds of best-ball, settling for 6-under 66 in the third round. Cantlay made just one birdie on the day. They will start six back at 20-under and T-10, and likely will need another special round of 63 or less – and some help – to have a chance to defend.
The final round presents a great opportunity for the 29-year-old Clark and the 28-year-old Hossler — not to mention several other contending team where one or both partners is seeking a maiden victory — to break thorough for the first time.
“I think the more opportunities you get, the more comfortable you get, and hopefully we can lean on that tomorrow,” Hossler said.
“If the momentum goes in our direction, I hope we just keep riding it,” Clark added.
Here are four more things to know from the third round of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.
Beau Hossler and Wyndham Clark have known each other since they were 10.
AVONDALE, La. — Beau Hossler and Wyndham Clark have known each other since they were 10 years old, but that doesn’t mean their partnership was years in the making.
It turns out neither player had a partner lined up for the Zurich Classic of New Orleans when they were paired together for the first two rounds of the Genesis Invitational in Los Angeles.
“We kind of were talking it through, and by the end of the first two days, we were like, all right, let’s play together,” Hossler said.
That decision has paid off so far. Clark, 29, and Hossler, 28, carded a bogey-free 5-under 67 in foursomes at TPC Louisiana to claim the 36-hole lead.
“We didn’t do anything crazy, but we also didn’t really make any mistakes,” Hossler said. “It was a really clean round.”
The first-round co-leaders are bogey-free so far this week, improving to 16-under 128, one stroke better than their nearest competitors. Hossler did do one crazy thing Friday, burying a 60-foot birdie putt at the fourth hole. Otherwise, they kept it pretty simple.
“I’ll hit it pretty far off the tee and then he’ll have a wedge and he’s been stacking it,” Clark said. “It’s made it pretty easy.”
Play was suspended due to inclement weather for more than 2 and a half hours, but even that didn’t bother Hossler.
“I was pretty thrilled about it, to be honest. Standing on the sixth tee, it was raining pretty good, and it’s probably the most demanding tee shot out here, so I was happy to not have to hit it at that moment,” he said.
And Team Clark-Hossler has been enjoying not just the golf but the cuisine this week in the Big Easy. Hossler said Clark has been the director of food and beverage since they hit the town.
“We’ve gone to some really good spots,” Hossler said. “After tonight [Friday] we’ll have hit the best four (restaurants) in town, so it’s been really cool.”
Here are four other really cool things to know from the second round of the Zurich Classic.
