Fore! Things: Sam Burns Makes History, More Additions to Masters Field
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Fore! Things
1. Sam Burns’s victory over Cameron Young at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match play was his fifth on the PGA Tour and moved him to 10th in the Official World Golf Ranking.
2. He became the first player to win the tournament in his first appearance since Geoff Ogilvy in 2006. The only other player to do so was Jeff Maggert, the winner of the first Match Play contested in 1999.
3. Young now has eight top-three finishes on the PGA Tour since the beginning of the 2022 season without a victory, the most of any player. Collin Morikawa has four.
4. The WGCs likely came to an end Sunday with one impressive stat remaining place when Scottie Scheffler lost in the semifinals: only one player ever defended a WGC title. Tiger Woods did it eight times.
Fore! More Things
1. The Masters field has room for just one more player. Jason Day, Harris English, Keith Mitchell and Min Woo Lee qualified via the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking as of this date. That brings the field to 89 players. The winner of the Valero Texas Open, not otherwise invited, gets the last invite.
Jason Day has soared up the Official World Golf Ranking in recent weeks.
Eric Gay/AP
2. The Valero Texas Open has just 10 players in the field who are in the Masters field, led by No. 16-ranked Tyrrell Hatton. Hideki Matsuyama, who withdrew from the WGC-Match Play with a neck injury, is also entered.
3. LIV Golf’s third event of the year is at Orange County National outside of Orlando and, with a weak field at the Valero, is an opportunity to see if it can improve viewership numbers, which differ depending how you look at the various ratings measurements but undoubtedly have been far less than corresponding PGA Tour broadcasts. There are 18 players in the LIV field who will be playing the following week at the Masters.
4. The opening round of the Masters is 10 days away.