Some of golf ’s top players commit to Shriners
The winners of both majors played during the 2020 PGA Tour season are bringing their games to Las Vegas next month.
Bryson Dechambeau, who dominated the U.S. Open last week, and Collin Morikawa, winner of the PGA Championship in August, are among golfers who have made early commitments to play at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open.
The tournament will be contested Oct. 8-11 at TPC Summerlin.
Dechambeau and Mori
kawa are among 13 major championship winners who will be on hand, joining Jason Day, Sergio Garcia, Francisco Molinari and Louis Oosthuizen.
Other prominent players already committed to the Shriners include Rickie Fowler, Matthew Wolff, Hideki Matsuyama, Tony
Finau, Matt Kuchar and Paul Casey.
Players have until the Friday before the start of a tournament to formally commit to a PGA Tour event. At this point, 95 of the top 125 players from last year’s final Fedex Cup standings have signed on.
“This is a very strong field,” said Patrick Lindsey, executive director of the tournament, who hinted there are probably three or four other top names still to come.
“It’s strong now, and that might add some intrigue to those that are still out there,” he said.
Four of the past five winners will be in the field, including defending champ Kevin Na, Dechambeau (2018), Patrick Cantlay (2017) and Smylie Kaufman (2015).
The big draws are DeChambeau and Morikawa, who have been among the best players in the world since the tour returned from the Covid-19 shutdown in March. Both have two wins since July, with Dechambeau now ranked fifth in the world and Morikawa sixth.