You can’t get too much more thrilling a 5-man playoff. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many competing at one time but there’s a first time for everything. Luke List came out on top after being the only one of the five to birdie the 18th hole which was the 1st hole of the playoff. This was his second career PGA Tour victory and first since the 2022 Farmers Insurance Open. My favorite part of the weekend was Joel Dahmen competing once again shooting three rounds in the 60s before closing with a 71 on Sunday to finish T-13. Enough about last week, let's move onto this week.     

VEGAS BABY!  The PGA Tour extended season continues in Las Vegas, Nevada for the Shriners Children’s Open.  We’ve got an improved field this weekend and you have to think that this event being in 
Sin City” helps bring in more top tier talent.  We’ve got 8 of the Top 50 players in the world teeing it up this weekend.  The tournament is played at TPC Summerlin which was designed by Bobby Weed and consulted on by Fuzzy Zoeller.  It is consistently ranked by Golf Digest as one of "America's Best" in their "Top 100 Modern Golf Courses in the United States."  

Some of the previous winners you may know over the last decade are Ryan Moore (2012), Webb Simpson (2013), Patrick Cantlay (2017 - 1st PGA Tour Victory), Bryson DeChambeau (2018), Kevin Na twice (2011 & 2019), Martin Laird (2020), and Sungjae Im taking it down in 2021.  We’d probably see more household names if there was no LIV Tour still happening.    

The course went through a major overhaul a few years back after nearly 25 years.  All 102 bunkers were redone and fitted with white sand.  In a lot of the cases, they were relocated to enhance the value of strategy for today’s talent.  TPC Summerlin sits between 7,200-7,300 yards in length depending on the tee boxes and plays as a Par 71.  That distance is deceiving because of the thin air in Las Vegas, it plays a lot shorter than the actual distance.  The 280 hitters hit it 300, the 300 hitters can stretch it to 320 and so on.  We need birdie makers this weekend because 10 of the last 12 editions of this event the winner has ended at 20 under par or better.  Players have got to finish 3-5 under par each day to keep themselves in the hunt for a Top 10 finish.  

Putting is a vital stat every single week and when you look at Kevin Na’s history of winning on this course, it was done on the greens.  In this tournament, the greens in regulation for even the worst golfers are very high.  Overall, this will be one of the easier courses that these players will face the entire 2021-2022 season.

I can’t write this article without mentioning that this week for only the seventh time, we will have an LPGA pro playing in a PGA Tour event. It was announced that 28-year-old and 11 time winner on the LPGA Tour Lexi Thompson would participate in this week’s Shriners. It’s the first time since 2018 when Brittany Lincicome played in the Barbasol. This event typically brought in a decent field but with the changes to the PGA Tour schedule, you’ve got to stand out and this is one way of doing that. Good luck to her and I hope Lexi turns some heads because she is a future Golf Hall of Famer. 

The weather should be exactly what you expect from Las Vegas in October.  No rain in the forecast at all with sunny skies and temperatures in the upper 80s throughout the weekend.  It should be a fun week in the desert for these players and hopefully we all can bring home big cash in DFS.  

Good luck!

Stacks

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