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Of Justin Thomas' 13 PGA Tour victories, Sunday's was his second in a World Golf Championship event to go with a major. Now, as the 27-year-old from Kentucky heads to this week's PGA Championship (which he won at Quail Hollow in 2017), he brings the No. 1 ranking he last held two years ago.
Thomas won the WGC-FedEx St. Jude event with a 66-65 weekend, grinding through a Sunday that contained a push from Brooks Koepka and noteworthy steady play from Phil Mickelson and Jason Day. Quite the scene-setter for this week at Harding Park.
COVID-19 has forever altered the way we'll remember golf in 2020 but this is still the PGA Championship, Ron Green Jr. writes. So, this is a major step toward restoring what this season has been missing.
Now that competition has returned for the LPGA, its first major of the season also is on the horizon. Lewine Mair reports that young Japanese star Hinako Shibuno will defend her title at the renamed AIG Women's Open in Scotland with a restored sense of fun that became her trademark.
In the first LPGA tournament since February, Danielle Kang picked up her fourth victory on the circuit, escaping a playoff when Céline Boutier missed a short putt with a chance to tie at the last.
As the tour's best contest the PGA in California for the first time since 1995, John Steinbreder pays tribute to the vibrant and varied offerings of host city San Francisco, both on its golf courses and off.
Meanwhile, at the PGA Tour's alternate field event, Richy Werenski of Massachusetts claimed a spot in the PGA Championship field by winning the Barracuda Championship in Truckee, California, near that state's Nevada border.
In the second week of the European Tour's UK Swing, young Englishman Sam Horsfield won on home soil for his first professional title, scrambling past Thomas Detry for his one-stroke victory at the Hero Open.
The pandemic has demanded adjustment from top-level amateurs as much as in any other segment of the game. With a major conference postponing play until 2021, Jim Nugent questions the whys and wherefores of the decision and wonders about the impact it will have on elite collegians. Some players, however, are finding top form anyway, as Sean Fairholm delves into the developing legacy of Wake Forest's Rachel Kuehn and Pierceson Coody's star continues to ascend with his Western Amateur victory.
And in this week's installment of the Divot, Lewine Mair reminds us that the mental aspect of tournament golf is always top-of-mind for professionals and that is only heightened for some in these unsettling times.
Sam Dolson
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