We’ll have to wait a little longer before US Open tees off, but the action from the PGA Tour’s greens and fairways roll on this week with another installment of the Dean & DeLuca Invitational from Fort Worth.
With a handful of Texas natives set to participate in the event, the Colonial Country Club will most likely host another exciting and closely-contested affair. Who exactly are the golfers worth keeping tabs on? Let’s find out below.
The month of May hasn’t been kind to Jordan Spieth at all, as the sixth-best golfer in the world had just suffered back-to-back cuts (THE PLAYERS and the AT&T Byron Nelson) for just the second time in his career.
Nonetheless, there’s plenty to like about Spieth’s chances of emerging victorious at Forth Worth to snap out of his uncharacteristic funk. He’s the defending champion of this week’s tournament and has three other runner-up finishes in PGA Tour events held in his home state. And let’s not forget that the Dallas native still has a win at Pebble Beach and a total of four top-five finishes under his belt this season already.
Similar to Spieth, Sergio Garcia’s month has not been encouraging since winning The Masters in early April. The Spanish veteran underwhelmingly ended up tied for 30th at TPC Sawgrass and followed that up with a T20 at TPC Four Seasons after taking a month-long rest from action since winning his first-ever major title.
Then again, Garcia’s one of only two top-10 golfers in this week’s field alongside Spieth, making him a favorite to win almost by default. In support of that claim, however, is his spectacular form in general this season, ranking third overall in scoring average (69.43) and sixth in greens-in-regulation percentage (71.35).
By the way, Garcia’s already won at the D&D Invitational before, albeit from way back in 2001.
All the hard work that Si Woo Kim has put out this season has finally paid off, as he’s hot off his second-career PGA Tour win at THE PLAYERS from a couple of weeks ago.
Sure, the South Korean had to withdraw from four events and was cut from seven other appearances out of his whopping 19 starts this season, but there’s hardly any golfer in this week’s field at Colonial that has momentum like his leading up to the tournament. He sat out the AT&T Byron Nelson to recover from his ailing back in the wake of his gritty victory at TPC Sawgrass, so he should be in line to pull out more surprises anew.
With the likes of upstarts Jon Rahm and Wesley Bryan having found success this 2017, there’s no reason to doubt that the 21-year-old Kim is capable of adding another win to his budding professional career.
As a Colonial Country Club member, we’d be foolish to count out Ryan Palmer as true contender this week. The Texas A&M product already has three top-five finishes and four top-15s on his favorite course, with his tie for third in last year’s run of the D&D Invitational being his career-best finish at that.
That goes without saying that Palmer has relative momentum heading into the tournament as well. He has three top-11 finishes over his last five starts, nabbing a T6 finish at San Antonio before securing a solo fourth at Avondale.
Long Shot
Beau Hossler
PGA Tour debutant Beau Hossler received one of just two invitations to this week’s tournament, but we shouldn’t be too high on the Texas Longhorn All-American just yet.
Hossler only has one professional start this year as our sample size, which was his T30 performance at the Panama Claro Championship in February. That Central American tournament, mind you, was only at the Web.com Tour level all the less.
Writer’s Prediction
Palmer (+4,000) wins his fourth-career PGA Tour event; his first victory since the 2010 season.
