JACKSON, Miss. – Will Zalatoris set the course record with an 11-under 61 to share the lead with Nick Watney and Sahith Theegala in the Sanderson Farms Championship.

Zalatoris, voted the PGA Tour rookie of the year despite not having full status last year, made it look so simple at the Country Club of Jackson that his longest putt for par was 3 feet.

One of the poorer shots he hit was on the par-5 third hole after making the turn. He hit a weak fade into a bunker some 30 yards away and blasted out to 3 feet, turning a difficult shot into yet another birdie.

“The days where I make 20-footers, those are the days that I end up putting a great round together, because I’m always going to be the guy that’s going to hit 14 plus greens to give myself chances,” Zalatoris said.

Watney, coming off his worst season in a decade, backed up a solid start with another good round. He opened with four birdies in six holes and dropped only one shot on his way to a 66.

Theegala also held his own after opening with a 64, which is new territory for the California rookie in just his second start as a PGA Tour member.

He chipped in for eagle on the par-5 third hole to right back in the mix. Theegala finished with a 30-foot birdie putt for a 67. They were at 13-under 131 in what figures to be a week of low scoring.

Roger Sloan of Merritt, B.C., was two strokes off the lead at 11-under after shooting a 67 on Friday, and finished the round sitting 6^th on the leaderboard.

“I had a great command of my ball, put it in great position off the tee,” said Roger. “Out here there’s a premium for hitting the fairway, I was in great position all day long and rolled in a couple putts, I think that’s really the key around here is a lot of patience, we just happened to happened to kind of can a couple putts today which was nice”

The cut was at 5-under 139. Among those who missed was Sergio Garcia, the defending champion playing a week after a draining Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits. Canadians Adam Svensson, Nick Taylor, and Michael Gligic would miss the cut as well.

Former U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland took two shots from behind the ninth green on his final hole and made bogey for a 73 to miss the cut by one.

Zalatoris had a remarkable rookie season without having full status, boosted by a tie for sixth in the U.S. Open last September and tying to second in the Masters.

Playing on sponsor exemptions last year, he still finished No. 22 in the Ryder Cup standings.

Watney hit only two fairways, though not by much and he was rarely out of position.

“It didn’t seem that stressful. That sounds really stressful, but it wasn’t that stressful,” he said. “For the most part I kept it in the right spot on the greens and I made a few kind of bonus putts that you might not expect to make. So those are always fun.”

Cameron Young and Hayden Buckley each shot 65 and were one shot out of the lead.

Corey Conners of Listowel, Ont., shot a 69 and was 8-under after two rounds. Taylor Pendrith of Richmond Hill, Ont., was 7-under after posting a 66.

Adam Hadwin of Abbotsford, Ont., and MacKenzie Hughes of Dundas, Ont., shot 71 and 66 respectively Friday to make the cut at 6-under.

For full scores click here.

Jackson, Miss. – California rookie Sahith Theegala carved his tee shots into play and made it look easy from there Thursday for an 8-under 64 and a one-shot lead over Nick Watney and Harold Varner III in the Sanderson Farms Championship.

Roger Sloan of Merritt, B.C., opened with a 66 to sit two strokes back of Theegala.

Adam Hadwin of Abbotsford, B.C., and Corey Conners of Listowel, Ont., each shot a 67 to trail by three.

Theegala missed three fairways but was out of position just once at the Country Club of Jackson. He had a birdie putt on every hole but one and finished his round with a 15-foot birdie on the par-4 ninth.

It also was a big start for Watney, coming off one of his worst seasons. Watney holed a couple of long putts, including a 45-footer for eagle on the par-5 second hole, for his lowest start to a PGA Tour event in 15 months.

Varner, whose wife is due next week, had another strong putting round in making nine birdies.

“The place is pretty pure right now, if you hit a lot of good golf shots you’re going to get a lot of looks and you just got to be patient,” Varner said. “And the way I’m putting it right now I just need to get it on the green.”

Defending champion Sergio Garcia, the only player from the Ryder Cup last week in the field, had two birdies in a bogey-free round of 70 that left him six shots behind. He is drained from last week, when he set the Ryder Cup record for most matches won in a European loss. His only frustration was having too many chances from the 20-foot range.

His birdies putt were from 3 feet and 10 feet, one of them on a par 5.

Very happy about not making bogeys. Obviously, that’s always a very positive thing, first round of the season bogey-free, very proud of that,” Garcia said. “But at the same time I feel like I drove the ball quite well and didn’t take advantage of it.”

Theegala is on the growing list of young Americans with a strong pedigree. He swept the three awards as NCAA college player of the year his senior year at Pepperdine, which was cut short by the pandemic. He made it to the PGA Tour on his first try through the Korn Ferry Tour finals.

In his second start as a rookie, he found the tree-lined course to his liking and said his round was best described as “really stress free.”

That started from the tee.

“Just drove it really well. I was really working it well,” Theegala said. “I got my slider back. I was hitting a pretty good cut _ probably 25- to 30-yard cut _ out there and this course kind of allows it because the trees around the tee box aren’t that close.

“I really felt comfortable all day,” he said. “Being in the fairway helps so much.”

His putter was working just fine, too. Only three of his eight birdies were inside the 15-foot range, and those were on the par 5s. He also made a 15-foot par save from the bunker on the par-3 fourth hole, the only time he was threatened with a bogey.

Watney once reached the Tour Championship five straight years and played in the Presidents Cup until he was slowed by a herniated disk in his lower back. He missed the cut in all but six of the 25 events he played last year and worked hard in the month off between seasons.

Most of that was his putting, and that started with his head.

“I think I missed a lot of putts before I even stroked the ball,” Watney said. “A lot of doubt on my read or stroke or posture, just a lot of unnecessary thoughts. So I tried to develop a process of trusting myself more. And so far, so good.”

Two shots behind were Sloan, Si Woo Kim and Kurt Kitayama, a 28-year-old California in his first year on the PGA Tour.

Kitayama went to UNLV and after two tough years on the PGA Tour’s developmental circuit, he took his game overseas. He started on the Asian Tour, earned his European Tour card through qualifying school and has won twice on the European Tour.

He earned a PGA Tour card for the first time by finishing 23rd in the Korn Ferry Tour finals.

Since then, Kitayama went back to England to play the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth, his caddie tested positive for the coronavirus and he had to find a new caddie for the start of his PGA Tour season two weeks ago in Napa, California.

There was no golf last week because of the Ryder Cup.

“Having a week off was kind of nice to settle down,” he said.

Taylor Pendrith of Richmond Hill, Ont., posted a one-under 71 to start the tournament. MacKenzie Hughes of Dundas, Ont., was even-par on the first day.

Michael Gligic of Burlington, Ont., turned in a 1-over 73. Nick Taylor of Abbotsford and Adam Svensson of Surrey, B.C., each shot 74.

For updated scores click here.

ATLANTA (AP) For the second day in a row, no one had a better score than Jon Rahm at the Tour Championship. That’s just what he needed to make up ground on Patrick Cantlay going into a weekend chase for $15 million.

Rahm birdied his last three holes Friday for a 5-under 65. Cantlay birdied his last two holes for a bogey-free 66 to keep one shot ahead.

It’s not quite a two-man race for the FedEx Cup with 36 holes still to play at East Lake, though it was shaping up as a possibility. Bryson DeChambeau was the next closest player, and his 67 lost ground Friday. He was six shots behind.

Cantlay looked as though he was protecting a lead, often playing to the fat of the green. That was more a product of showing respect to an East Lake course that punishes even slight misses on the wrong side of the hole. He hit 16 of 18 greens, and only twice did he have par putts from about the 5-foot range.

“I’m playing really well, and I think I’m playing the golf course the right way,” Cantlay said.

Cantlay started the Tour Championship at 10-under par because he was the No. 1 seed in the FedEx Cup. Rahm began four shots back.

Asked if the idea was to chip away at the lead, Rahm replied, “What other strategy is there?”

The reason for Cantlay’s pre-tournament advantage was because of last week at Caves Valley.

Cantlay and Rahm played in the final threesome, along with DeChambeau, going into the weekend at the BMW Championship. Cantlay finished 66-66 and won in a playoff. Rahm closed with 70-70 and tied for ninth, dropping to the No. 4 seed.

That now seems long ago.

The Tour Championship, to a degree, feels normal now.

Cantlay was at 17 under. He and Rahm will be in the final group again.

DeChambeau had more work to do, as did Justin Thomas, who made two bogeys and failed to birdie the par-5 18th in his round of 67. He was seven behind.

“A place like this, there’s not really a lead that’s safe with how tough it it can play,” Thomas said. “But at the end of the day, I can’t worry about what the other guys are doing. I just have to go out and try to make some birdies and stop making mistakes.”

Harris English made his share of mistakes with five bogeys in his round of 69, leaving him in the large group at 9 under.

So did Jordan Spieth. He was going for his fourth straight birdie to get right in the mix, facing a 10-foot putt on the 13th hole. He three-putted, lost momentum and shot a 67. Spieth, Rory McIlroy (66) and Louis Oosthuizen (67) were at 8 under.

The lone Canadian, Corey Conners of Listowel, Ont., fired a 2-over 72 and fell back to 2 under heading into the weekend.

Gone are the low scores from the opening FedEx Cup playoff events, at rain-soaked Liberty Natitonal and Caves Valley, where players at each course had a putt at 59. The best anyone has managed at East Lake, still slightly soft from rain and a light breeze, had been a 65.

So it’s tougher for players to make up a lot of ground unless the leaders come back, and there has been little indication Cantlay and Rahm are going to do that.

Cantlay had plenty of looks at birdie, and didn’t hear many calls of “Patty Ice” because not many of those putts were going in. He got up-and-down from a bunker on the par-5 sixth. His wedge into the 13th spun back to an inch of the cup.

Rahm holed a 35-foot putt from off the green at the 13th, gave it back with a bad drive to the right on the next hole, and then closed the gap to one shot with a 10-foot birdie on the 16th.

The final two holes felt like a duel, even for a lazy Friday afternoon.

Rahm poured in a 25-foot birdie putt on the 17th, and Cantlay matched his birdie from 15 feet, the first time he had made a putt longer than 5 feet all day.

On the closing hole, Rahm blasted out of the front bunker to tap-in range. Cantlay chipped down the slope and with the grain one of the few times he was out of position and watched it trail off 8 feet from the hole. He made that to regain the lead.

“When you have somebody like him who played a round with very few mistakes you could argue that it could have been a lot lower it only motivates me to keep doing a little bit better,” Rahm said. “Even though I want to focus on myself, you know he’s not going to let up and he keeps putting it in the fairway and on the green and in the fairway and on the green.

ATLANTA (AP) Patrick Cantlay met his goal in the first round of the Tour Championship on Thursday, and it had nothing to do with the score on his card or the size of his lead.

As the top seed in the FedEx Cup, he started with a two-shot lead over Tony Finau before even hitting a shot. He finished the warm, breezy day at East Lake at 3-under 67 with a two-shot lead over Jon Rahm.

This was all about playing another tournament round.

Only four players had a better score, so it was a good day regardless of the format that allows player to start at various points under par depending on their FedEx Cup position.

Rahm began by chipping in for birdie, kept the round from getting away from him with a few key saves one for bogey, one for par at the turn, and ran off four birdies over his last seven holes for a 65.

Cantlay, who started at 10-under par, moved to 13 under.

Five shots behind was Bryson DeChambeau and Harris English, and only one of them managed to pick up a little ground on Cantlay while delivering one of the more exciting moments.

That would be English, who was headed in the wrong direction when he stepped to the tee at the par-3 15th over water, the second-toughest hole at East Lake, smashed a 5-iron from 224 yards and watched it drop for a hole-in-one, the first one since the Tour Championship first came to East Lake in 1998.

He followed with two more birdies for a 66, one better than Cantlay on the day, a little closer than when English started.

DeChambeau birdied his last three holes to salvage a 69. He started three shots behind and now is five shots behind, without any reports of unruly behavior outside the ropes.

The subject of name calling was who else? English.

One fan following along kept referring to him by another name Hudson Swafford which is understandable. English and Swafford were teammates at Georgia, have similar builds, look a little alike. They’re even tied in driving distance (81st) on the PGA Tour.

Finau, meanwhile, had a 72 and went from two shots behind to seven back.

This is the third year of the format, and Cantlay doesn’t know how the lower half feels. He was the No. 2 seed in 2019 when it started, the No. 1 seed last year. That first time didn’t go well. He had one of his worst weeks of the year, which cost him nearly $2 million with how far he fell.

Justin Thomas was the Nos. 1 and 3 seeds the previous two times. Now he’s at No. 6, meaning he started six shots out of the lead. That was a new experience.

He noticed he already was in 10th place by the time he teed off, based on some early scoring, and found that to a bit jarring. Worse yet was being 1 over on the front nine. Starting out six shots behind in the first place, his hopes could have ended early.

But he shot 31 on the back nine, five birdies and one impressive par save on the 14th, and pieced together a 67. He’s still six back. It could have been worse.

“When you start behind like that, unfortunately, you just don’t have the luxury of shooting a 1 over or 2 over the first round,” Thomas said. “And I salvaged a good round out there and feel like I can easily go out there and shoot 6 or 7 under one of these next three days. And hopefully I do.”

The lone Canadian in the field, Corey Conners of Listowel, Ont., fired a 67 and is at 4 under. Conners finished the first round of the championship tied for the 17th spot.

Rahm started four back and, like Cantlay, chose not to pay attention to anything but the next shot, even as the good start looked as though it could get away from him. He took bogey from the left rough on No. 7, had to get up-and-down from behind the eighth green for bogey and saved par from a bunker on the par-3 ninth.

That was as important as some of his birdies. Now he’s two behind Cantlay with 54 holes left, and now matter how odd it might seem at the start, now it feels like a regular tournament.

“It’s very easy to get caught up on how far back you start. I don’t think I really once thought about it out there. I was just trying to post a score,” Rahm said. “My job is to hit the best shot I can each time and that’s all can I control.”

For the second time in his career, Corey Conners has qualified for the TOUR Championship.

After finishing tied for 22nd last weekend at the BMW Championship at Caves Valley Golf Club in Maryland, the 29-year-old from Listowel, Ont., will enter the PGA TOUR playoff finale at No. 21 on the FedEx Cup standings.

The TOUR Championship, which features the top 30 players on the FedEx Cup standings following the conclusion of the BMW Championship last weekend, will be held at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta starting Thursday.

This is the highest Conners has been on the FedEx Cup rankings when entering the TOUR Championship. He first qualified for the TOUR finale in 2019, where he started the weekend at No. 23 and ultimately finished at No. 26.

This season, the Canadian entered the FedEx Cup playoffs comfortably at No. 28 – already in a position to qualify for the TOUR Championship. Throughout the first two tournaments of the three-part FedEx Cup playoffs, Conners was able to move up seven spots to enter this weekend’s final event at No. 21. 

His position entering this weekend is a clear reflection of Conners’ performance this season on the PGA TOUR. Undoubtably his best, most consistent season to date, the Canadian played in all six major championships that were held during the 2020-2021 season, which had two more majors than normal with both the 2020 and 2021 U.S. Opens and Masters Tournaments included. Of those six majors, Conners held an 18-hole lead (PGA Championship), two top 10 finishes (both Masters Tournaments), and had two more top 20 finishes (PGA Championship, The Open Championship).

Conners also played in two of the three World Golf Championships and though it was not officially part of the PGA TOUR schedule, was selected to represent Canada at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics where he finished 13th.

Known for his accuracy and iron play, Conners is currently ranked 8th in strokes gained off the tee, and 9th in strokes gained approaching the green on the PGA TOUR.

Just two weeks ago, at The Northern Trust – the first of the FedEx Cup playoffs – Conners shot a career-low round – a 62 that included five birdies and an eagle on the front nine at Liberty National Golf Club.

Due to the TOUR Championship format, Conners will start the tournament at one under, alongside four other players who finished from Nos. 21 to 25. Patrick Cantlay, whose win at the BMW Championship last weekend over Bryson DeChambeau after a six-hole playoff, was catapulted into the first place as a result, and will start the tournament at 10 under.

The FedEx Cup points – the system that determined the 30 players who qualified for the TOUR Championship – will be wiped clean entering the tournament, with the tournament results determining the final positions of the top 30 players on the FedEx Cup for the 2020-21 season.

The player who finishes first will win $15,000,000 USD, while the player who finishes at No. 30, will still make $395,000 USD. 

Most recent FedEx Cup champions include Dustin Johnson (2020), Rory McIlroy (2019), and Justin Rose (2018).

Conners will tee off on Thursday alongside Hideki Matsuyama at 12:20 p.m. ET.

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) Tony Finau was developing a label as the player who did everything right but win. What he never lost was his belief he could beat the best.

That moment finally arrived late Monday afternoon at The Northern Trust against the sunlit backdrop of the Manhattan skyline. Finau delivered the best back nine of his career to track down Jon Rahm, the world’s No. 1 player, and then beat Cameron Smith in a playoff.

Finau tapped in the winning par putt at Liberty National, tilted his head to the sky and fluttered his lips in a sigh that was equal parts relief and satisfaction.

“It’s more massive I think for just my sense of
accomplishment,” he said. “It’s hard losing, and it’s hard losing
in front of the world. I’ve done it already a couple of times this
year. That made me more hungry. If it doesn’t discourage you, it
makes you more hungry. You guys keep telling me, `When are you going
to win again?’ That makes me more hungry.

“It all equals up to now. It was time for me to win again.”

In a rain-delayed start to the FedEx Cup playoffs, with players sitting out Sunday as Hurricane Henri moved off the eastern seaboard, Finau ended a drought that had stretched more than five years and 142 starts on the PGA Tour.

He had eight runner-up finishes, three of them playoff losses, and 39 top 10s since his lone victory in the Puerto Rico Open in the spring of 2016.

That ended with a dynamic charge, starting with a birdie-eagle-birdie stretch for a 30 on the back nine to close with a 6-under 65.

And like most victories on this tour, he needed plenty of help.

Rahm, who had a two-shot lead at the turn, made his first bogey of the final round on the 15th hole and then had to settle for par on the reachable par-4 16th, which felt like a bogey. He had to settle for a 69 to finish alone in third.

Smith had a big finish of his own with two straight birdies and a chance at three in a row with a 25-foot putt on the 18th for the win. He missed and shot 67, and that was as close as the Australian came to winning.

Returning to the 18th in the playoff, Finau pounded his drive down the middle. Smith pushed his drive so wild to the right that it sailed over the retaining wall that separates Liberty National from the edge of the Hudson River.

At that moment, the playoff was effectively over. For Smith, it was the second straight time a bad drive at the end cost him a chance to win.

The timing was just right for Finau. He moved atop the FedEx Cup standings for the first time with two events left in the chase for the $15 million prize.

It also moved him to No. 6 in the Ryder Cup standings. The top six after the BMW Championship this week automatically qualify. Even if Finau falls out, it would be hard for U.S. captain Steve Stricker to leave him off the 12-man team.

“I told myself, `If you didn’t win, you’re not going to make the team.’ Although I’ve always been high in the rankings, I wanted this validation more for myself to be part of a team like that as a winner this season and playing good golf going into the Ryder Cup,” Finau said.

Finau, who had to save par from the bunker with a 6-foot putt on the 18th in regulation to finish at 20-under 264, only had to two-putt for par in the playoff.

There were other big winners Monday, starting with Keith Mitchell. He was at No. 101 in the FedEx Cup, and only the top 70 advance to the BMW Championship. Mitchell needed a big finish and delivered with three straight birdies for a 69 to tie for eighth at 13-under 271.

Tom Hoge started at No. 108 and tied for fourth to advance. That was his best finish of the year, and it came at just the right time with points counting quadruple.

Also moving on to the BMW Championship later this week were Alex Noren, Erik van Rooyen, Harold Varner III and Harry Higgs. Van Rooyen was in contention on the front nine until he hit two shots in the water on the par-3 11th and made a quadruple-bogey 7.

Canadian Corey Conners walked away from the Northern Trust with a personal victory of his own, scoring his career lowest score of 62 to wrap up the third round. Conners momentarily tied the course record before Cameron Smith set a new record of 60 in the same round.

Conners rocketed up the leaderboard and finished the tournament tied for the 8th spot, after the postponement. Listowel Ont.’s Corey Conners is one to watch at the BMW Championship alongside fellow Canadian, Mackenzie Hughes.

The final round was postponed on Sunday as Hurricane Henri approached, and the edges of what became a tropical storm at landfall dumped more than 6 inches of rain on Liberty National. There was another four-hour delay in the morning and spectators were kept away.

They missed quite a show, and a popular winner. Few others have been so gracious as so many chances to win got away from him.

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) Cameron Smith missed out on his chance at a 59 and figured he at least would keep close to the lead Saturday in The Northern Trust. Thanks to a few surprising blunders by Jon Rahm, they wound up in a tie.

And now they get a day off because of Hurricane Henri.

Smith missed a 12-foot birdie putt on the final hole and had to settle for an 11-under 60 to set the course record at Liberty National. Rahm finally got going with a string of birdies, only to twice hit into the water that briefly cost him the lead and certainly slowed his momentum.

The U.S. Open champion had two birdies, one bogey, a double bogey and a terrific par save over the final five holes to scratch out a 67.

They were at 16-under 197, one shot ahead of Erik van Rooyen of South Africa. He made 10 birdies for a 62, one of four rounds at 62 or lower.

Justin Thomas (67) and Tony Finau (68) were three shots behind. Shane Lowry and Corey Conners each shot 62 and remained in the mix. Conners scored his lowest career round on Saturday flying up the scoreboard with an eagle and 9 birdies.

The average score in the third round was 68.3

Rahm was still 30 minutes from starting his third round when the PGA Tour looked at the path of Henri and determined there was enough rain and dangerous wind on the edges of the hurricane that it was best to wait until Monday for the final round.

Workers began taking down loose structures, such as the poles to which cameras are attached for its ShotLink data. The final round Monday won’t start until the course is ready, and it likely will be played in threesomes off both tees.

That’s what made the finish important. There’s enough uncertainty about the storm and any lingering weather that a 54-hole event was not out of the question.

Smith teed off some three hours before the leaders and opened with five birdies in six holes, one of several good starts. The Australian, however, kept it going. He picked up his eighth birdie on the 13th, came within a foot of a hole-in-one on the 14th and started thinking 59.

Smith narrowly missed an eagle putt on the reachable par-4 16th, hit a wedge stiff on the 17th to reach 11 under for the round and was one birdie away from the 13th sub-60 round on the PGA Tour. His approach to the 18th settled 12 feet to the right of the flag.

“Just didn’t do it,” Smith said.

Even with Smith posting his 60, Rahm regained the lead with his fifth birdie of the round on the 11th hole, and he had good scoring chance ahead of him.

They just didn’t work out very well for him.

From the fairway on the par-5 13th, he found the water in front of the green. After a penalty drop, he hit it well to the left into deep rough on a bank, barely got that on the green and took two putts for a double bogey.

Then, he went long on the par-3 14th along the Hudson River into rough so thick he could barely see his ball. Opening up the face of his lob wedge and playing it like a bunker shot, he chopped out superbly to 5 feet for par.

He regained a share of the lead with a short birdie on the 15th, and then drove just left of the green on the 16th. But his flop shot came out way too hot, rolled across the green and into the water, leading to bogey. He answered that with a 2-foot birdie on the 17th and narrowly missed a birdie chance on the 18th.

Thomas was among several players making a move that got stopped in their tracks. He started the back nine with three birdies in four holes, only to go long of the par-3 14th into a hazard and made double bogey. Even so, he’s very much in the mix.

Harold Varner III made his blunder at the worst time. A poor drive on the 18th was followed by a blocked approach over the wall and into the hazard. He made triple bogey, had to settle for a 68 and went form one shot off the lead to a tie for ninth, four shots behind.

Varner is still in good shape to be among the top 70 in the FedEx Cup who advance to next week. More pressure is on Tom Hoge (No. 108) and Keith Mitchell (No. 101), who have to finish somewhere around the top 10 to keep their seasons going.

Hoge shot 67 and was tied for sixth with Lowry and Viktor Hovland (65), three shots behind. Mitchell took triple bogey with a bad drive on the 10th. He was tied for 11th, five behind.

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) Jon Rahm is young enough at 26 that the FedEx Cup has been a big part of the PGA Tour as long as he has been chasing his dreams, and winning the trophy would mean a lot to him.

He just doesn’t like the way it works, and building a one-shot lead Friday in The Northern Trust was only a reminder that great golf doesn’t really mean much without a great finish.

“I don’t like it. I don’t think it’s fair,” Rahm said Friday after another bogey-free round at Liberty National, this one a 4-under 67 for a one-shot lead over Tony Finau.

What never made sense to him was someone who could win the all the postseason tournaments and then finish with a dud at the Tour Championship and “you can end up with a really bad finish.”

The PGA Tour was trying to create drama among more than a few players at the final event. This is the postseason, and the example often cited was the New England Patriots going undefeated until losing the Super Bowl.

Rahm had an answer for that, too.

For now, Rahm can only worry about the tournament at hand, and while he has produced a mixture of great shots and great saves to reach 12-under 130, he still has his hands full.

“Believe it or not, hit my fair share of bad shots today,” Rahm said. “Much like yesterday, I was able to save a couple of good ones. Coming into the weekend, I’m definitely going to have to clean a couple of those mistakes up.”

Finau had a 64 with a bogey on the final hole as he tries to secure another spot among the 30 who make it to the season-ending Tour Championship, along with boosting his bid to play his way onto another Ryder Cup team.

Olympic gold medalist Xander Schauffele tied his personal best on the PGA Tour and the course record at Liberty National with a 62 and was in the group at 10-under 132 along with Justin Thomas (69) and Keith Mitchell (64).

Thomas, who shared the 18-hole lead with Rahm, couldn’t figure out which way the ball was going in making four bogeys in eight holes, only to play his last five holes in 5 under that included an eagle at the par-5 eighth to stay in the mix.

Mitchell did his work at the start of his round by running off six straight birdies, a streak that ended on the 18th hole as he made the turn. He took two shots to get out of a longer bunker and made double bogey on No. 7, only to close with two birdies.

More is it stake for Mitchell, who is No. 101 in the FedEx Cup and needs a high finish to be among the top 70 who advance to next week at the BMW Championship.

Jordan Spieth got back in the game with a consecutive eagles he holed out from the fairway on the par-4 fifth and holed a chip from the edge of the water on the par-5 sixth and tied the course record himself at 62. That left him four behind, along with Brooks Koepka (64).

Spieth started the day worried about making the cut, especially after a bogey on the opening hole. He ended it in a tie for 10th, and figures he led the field in luck with those eagles.

“When things starting well, you go on a run, right? You get momentum and the ball finds the cup and when it’s not going well it bounces the wrong way,” he said. “I feel like I’m on the right side of some momentum right now and I just have to keep it going.”

Canada’s Mackenzie Hughes remained inside the top 20 after the second round, completing the day with a 69 tied for 17th.

For others, their season is over.

Adam Scott, who missed a 4-foot putt in a playoff that would have won the Wyndham Championship last week, followed an opening 67 with a 75 to miss the cut by one shot. He was among 28 players outside the top 70 in the FedEx Cup who missed the cut.

Rahm isn’t the only player who doesn’t like the postseason model.

The new system that began in 2019 awards a two-shot lead to the No. 1 seed at the Tour Championship who starts at 10-under par.

“At the end of the day you could win 15 events, including both playoff events, and you have a two-shot lead,” Rahm said. “I understand it’s for TV purposes and excitement and just making it more a winner-take-all and they gave you a two-shot advantage. But over four days, that can be gone in two holes, right?”

He doesn’t have a solution of his own. And he does like the idea that with a staggered start of 10 under for the top seed down to even par for the final five players in the 30-man field, at least players know what they have to do.

He just knows the FedEx Cup is a trophy he’d like to have.

For now, Rahm can only do so much, and the world’s No. 1 player is doing it well.

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) Jon Rahm returned from a month off and played like he was never gone. Justin Thomas took the advice of a 15-year-old and had his lowest score of the year.

Both opened with an 8-under 63 on Thursday at The Northern Trust as the PGA Tour’s postseason began with no shortage of bizarre developments.

Rahm, who missed his chance at the Olympics because of what amounts to a false positive test result for COVID-19, expected a little rust in his game. It just didn’t show on his card. He chipped in for birdie, saved par on the next two holes and was on his way.

Thomas had benched his putter for bad behavior after he spent too much of the year not seeing putts go in the hole. But during his junior event last week, a teenager asked why he wasn’t using his old putter.

He didn’t hole all of them, but enough to record nine birdies for his lowest round since a 62 last November in Mexico.

Bryson DeChambeau also made nine birdies. He was eight shots behind. His round of 71 was noteworthy because of the pars he made on No. 4 and No. 10. Those were the only pars he made all day. The nine birdies were offset by five bogeys and two double bogeys.

It was the first time in 10 years someone shot par or better with two pars or fewer.

Not to be overlooked was Dustin Johnson, one of the most stress-free players in golf at least he looks that way who uttered words rarely heard: “Threw me for a loop.”

He was hitting drivers on the range, and hitting them well, right before teeing off when a few of them came off the club funny and another one sounded funny. His driver cracked, and Johnson headed to the first tee with 13 clubs and one head cover for his 5-wood.

He had a spare 3-wood in the car but no driver and got that on the third hole. If that wasn’t enough, he decided on a putter switch at the last minute. He still managed a 70.

Otherwise, there was a range of good golf in surprisingly strong wind off the Hudson River across from the Manhattan skyline.

Harold Varner III had a 66 in the morning, boosting his postseason chances. He is No. 72 in the FedEx Cup standings, and only the top 70 after this week advance to the next tournament. With the points at quadruple value, some big movements are expected.

The six players at 67 included Adam Scott (No. 82), Robert Streb (No. 68) and Mackenzie Hughes (No. 67). Hughes sits tied for the fourth spot with Scott and Streb, putting him one off the lead heading into the second round.

British Open champion Collin Morikawa, the No. 1 seed, struggled to keep the ball in play and opened with a 74. Jordan Spieth at No. 2 opened with a 72.

Rahm has endured the strangest of times with COVID-19. He tested positive on the day he built a six-shot lead through 54 holes at the Memorial and had to withdraw, and then returned to win the U.S. Open for his first major.

And then after more negative test results than he can remember for the British Open he tied for third at Royal St. George’s he had two more negative tests prior to his departure for the Olympics before a positive result showed up. The next day, he took two more tests (both negative), but by then it was too late.

He returned from his bout with COVID-19 by winning a major. This is different. He never had a chance to win a gold medal because he never made it to Tokyo. But he wouldn’t mind the same result, which in this case would be a FedEx Cup title worth $15 million.

Thomas knows putts that don’t fall is not the fault of the equipment, but something had to change, so he benched his putter at he U.S. Open. Ultimately, it’s about getting the speed to match with the line of the putt, and he did that well for so much of the day.

He holed a 35-foot birdie putt for his first lead on the par-3 14th, gave it back with a poor chip, and then drove the 283-yard 16th green to set up a closing stretch of three straight birdies.

The day started with another development: Patrick Reed withdrew with a sore ankle, the second straight week he has had to withdraw.

Reed is No. 22 in the FedEx Cup, and there are only two tournaments left to qualify for the Ryder Cup. He is No. 9 in the standings, and only the top six automatically qualify. The idea was to give it another week of rest and being ready for the next one.

The Golf Canada Foundation has opened applications for bursaries to provide Canadian professional golfers with financial assistance for upcoming Q-school tournaments in support their journeys to the LPGA and PGA TOUR.

These bursaries are being made available this year in recognition of the increased travel expenses that many players have incurred due to the impact of COVID-19. For example, host family housing has not been available at many events, thus creating increased expenses for players. 

Canadian professional golfers who anticipate expenses attempting to qualify for the 2021-2022 season on any tour that is affiliated with the PGA TOUR, European Tour, or LPGA tour are welcomed to apply through this link.

The application will be open until Monday, September 20 at 5pm ET. Bursaries will be awarded by mid-October in amounts ranging from $2,000 to $7,000, depending on a player’s competitive results and projected expenses.

For more information, please contact Emily Phoenix (ephoenix@golfcanada.ca).