THIS WEEK on the PGA Tour: The CJ Cup @ Shadow Creek
COURSE: Shadow Creek, Las Vegas
ARCHITECT: Tom Fazio
YARDS/PAR: 7,527 yards/Par 72
PRIZE Money/First Place Winnings: $9,750,000/$1,755,000
DEFENDING Champion: Justin Thomas
FEDEx CUP Points/Winner Share: 2,989/500
TV Coverage: Thursday-Sunday (5pm-8pm ET) - GOLF Channel
PGA Tour Radio Coverage: Thu-Fri (2pm-8pm ET); Sat-Sun (3pm-8pm ET)
NOTE for TODAY: The PGA Tour is staging a Charity Challenge (presented by MGM Resorts) which will be televised today, Oct. 14, (5-7pm ET) on Golf Channel, GOLFTV and the tour’s social media accounts. Rickie Fowler, Bubba Watson, Byeong Hun An and Vegas’ own Kevin Na will tee-it-up in a benefit for Shriners Hospitals for Children and the MGM Resorts Foundation.
Tournament Notes
Last year’s CJ Cup was held at The Club at Nine Bridges, Jeju Island, Korea. The PGA Tour moved the event to Shadow Creek for a new schedule that calls for the tour to spend its second consecutive week in Las Vegas.
This is the second time of the 2020 season that the PGA Tour has played in the same city on consecutive week-ends. The tour was played back-to-back weeks at Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio, in July.
Shadow Creek is the course where Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods faced-off for their $9-million one-on-one grudge match over Thanksgiving Weekend 2018. Neither is playing this weekend and Mickelson opted for a second consecutive tournament on the PGA Champions Tour. “Lefty” will be in Richmond, Virginia competing for a winner’s share of $300,000 rather than the $1,755,000 in Vegas.
Tyrrell Hatton, last week’s winner of the BMW Championship on the European Tour at Wentworth in his native Surrey, England, opted for Shadow Creek rather than the Scottish Championship at St. Andrews.
News: No. 1 ranked Dustin Johnson tested positive for COVID-19 and withdrew from the tournament, per PGA Tour testing protocol. (Statement) … J.T. Poston replaced Johnson in the field.
The Field - Link
Featured Groups
The featured groupings for Thursday-Friday coverage on Golf Channel, and online at PGA TOUR LIVE:
Thomas
Koepka
Im
Poston
Rahm
Wolff
McIlroy
Garcia
Si Woo Kim
Morikawa
Schauffele
Hovland
The Odds
2020 CJ Cup odds (courtesy William Hill)
Jon Rahm 11-1
Justin Thomas 12-1
Rory McIlroy 14-1
Xander Schauffele 14-1
Matthew Wolff 22-1
Brooks Koepka 25-1
Patrick Cantlay 25-1
Tyrrell Hatton 25-1
Collin Morikawa 28-1
Tommy Fleetwood 28-1
*Tony Finau 28-1 (tested + last week)
Hideki Matsuyama 28-1
Daniel Berger 28-1
Viktor Hovland 30-1
Our “view” - You’ve gotta like Patrick Cantlay at 25-1. Was T-2 at the Shriners and lost in playoff to Martin Laird.
What They’re Writing
Shadow Creek a Golfing Wonderland (PGA Tour (dot) com)
Golf Channel Telecast to include live betting odds (Golf Digest)
Note: “This marks the first time a network broadcast of a PGA Tour event will include odds integrated in the broadcast. BetMGM, one of six official betting operators of the PGA Tour, will be providing the odds.” What do you think of that fact?