TPC San Antonio, AT&T Oaks Course, 7, 435 yards, Par 72

Defending champion: Jimmy Walker, -11 winning score

TV times:

Golf Channel: Thursday-Friday 2 PM-5 PM CT/3-6 PM ET

CBS: Saturday-Sunday 2-5 PM CT/3-6 PM ET

Key hole: No. 18. 591 yards, Par 5

Terrific finishing hole that usually leads to stellar drama. Three shot hole for most every player in the field as it is an uphill hole. Players need to shape their tee shots left to right in order to remain in the fairway that slopes right to left. The second shot should be played up the right side and avoid the creek that bisects the fairway and what is described as the “spectacular” bunkers on the right side by the TPC San Antonio staff. The third shot will be a short iron played uphill to a green that has three tiers and is protected by a creek in front and three bunkers around the green. Players will have visions of birdieing this final hole to win the Valero Texas Open.

Prediction

I’m going to go outside of the box a little here and go with the 36 year old native Texan, from Amarillo. He was in a playoff in 2015 at the Shell Houston with J.B. Holmes and Jordan Spieth, in which Holmes won by beating him on the second playoff hole, but it was a war and this guy showed a lot of mental toughness and clutchness. He’s won three times on tour in his career. He won the Shell Houston in 2008,  the Mayakoba Golf Classic in Cancun, Mejico in 2011, and the Sony Open in Honolulu in 2012.  He finished tied 39th last week at the RBC Heritage, but I like his roots in Texas and his knowing how to play these courses. The weather forecast looks excellent with plenty of sun. The winds Sunday are predicted to be  8-15 MPH, so that’ll be a factor in club selection. Should be a very compelling tournament with an excellent field including Phil, Brandt Snedeker, Patrick Reed, Zach Johnson, Jimmy Walker, Brooks Koepka, quite a few excellent players. Going with the 6’3″, 230 pound hoss from Amarillo by way of Virginia Tech. 

Johnson Wagner

Darkhorse:

Bryson DeChambeau

22 year old from Modesto, California by way of SMU. Just turned pro and really making some noise. Finished tied 21st at the Masters two weeks ago as an amateur, turned pro a week ago before the RBC Heritage, and finished tied fourth at Harbour Town in Hilton Head shooting a final round 68. He’s on his home turf, too, somewhat, so I like his chances as well.

David Price and the BoSox have taken two of three from the hitting machine that it the Toronto Blue Jays as they play the fourth game of the series in Fenway right now. The BoSox are up 1-0 in the top of the fifth with Clay Bucholtz on the mound for the Sox.

On Saturday afternoon at Fenway, David pitched a beauty, going seven, giving up six hits, two earned runs, with zero walks and nine K’s. DP is a strike throwing, strikeout machine. David threw 107 pitches with 74 for strikes and 33 balls, better than a 2:1 strike to walk ratio, which is outstanding. David moved to 2-0 on the season and now has a 4.50 ERA and a 1.11 WHIP, which is getting closer and closer to being stellar. Anything under 1.15 WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) is a good number and 1.0 or less is exceptional. David threw 92-93 a lot of the time and relied on his fastball against the Blue Jays hitter. He used his cutter some and his 80-84 MPH change up is a weapon now. He didn’t use his curve ball much, but he didn’t need it. He’ll keep progressing with that pitch as the season moves on. I also see him hitting 95 and maybe better as the season progresses. He didn’t need to hit the high 90’s on Saturday. His stuff was really good. After Josh Donaldson tripled off David in the first, Joey “Bats” Bautista, hit one into deep left center off the Green Monster wall. Donaldson scored and Bats tried to stretch it to a triple. Center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr, threw a pretty good rocket to third, third baseman Travis Shaw received it behind the bag and made a lunge at Bats to tag him out. Third base umpire Ted Barrett called Bats out, and Bats didn’t like it. It was close. Jays manager John Gibbons challenged it, but the call held up in New York, so Bats was out. That was huge. It was a really close play, but it looked like Shaw just got Bats’ wrist before he touched the bag. Could have gone either way, but it was inconclusive and looked like Shaw could have very well gotten him. That was a big play for Dave and the Sox. David got out of that jam and had some trouble in a few other innings, like any other pitcher would against that lineup, but battled out of them and pitched very well. Happy for Dave after a tough outing against the Orioles. It was a big win for his team as well. Shortstop Xander Bogaerts had the big hit for the Sox with a three run shot. Bogaerts is a super player as is right fielder Mookie Betts. Dustin Pedroia is back at second after struggling with some injuries last year and that’s huge. He’s having a good year so far. Big Papi is still a hitting machine. I wish the Boston brass could talk Papi into coming back another year next year and not retiring. He hits like a 25 year old still. It’s amazing.

The Sox won Friday and Saturday and lost yesterday, so it would be good to take three of four with a W today. Sox still up 1-0 top 6. 

David will go again this Thursday at 12:35 PM CT/1:35 ET at Fenway against his old team, the Tampa Bay Rays. He’ll face talented right hander Jake Odorizzi of the Rays, whom Dave was kind of a big brother too in Tampa. Love to watch DP compete. This is a good team he’s a part of that has a chance to be elite with good starting pitching from the other guys in the rotation. Everything else is in place for the Sox to have a big year. The bullpen is excellent with Koji Uehara and a revived Craig Kimbrel who brings it 98 and now looks unhittable. The Sox are still up 1-0 heading into the top of the sixth. Probably will need more than one run to beat the Jays, though Bucholtz is pitching well. That would be huge if Bucholtz could give the Sox a good year. He’s been an awesome pitcher in the past, and if he can find his old form, that would be a major boost to the staff. The BoSox are 6-5 and two games back of the 8-3 Orioles. David has walked only four this year and struck out 27 in 18 innings. That’s superb.

Sonny had a gutsy performance Saturday for the A’s in their 5-3 victory over the outstanding KC Royals. Sonny went a hard fought six, giving up seven hits, two runs, with only one earned run, one walk and six K’s. Sonny threw 114 pitches with 76 for strikes and 38 for balls. It was a typical courageous performance from Sonny who gives it everything he’s got every time out, just like David. Sonny’s fastball was 92-93 and he was locating it really well, to the lower corners. He had thrown 103 pitches going into the sixth, but got out of the sixth pretty quickly. Manager Bob Melvin said in the postgame that Sonny showed his typical high character effort coming out in the sixth because he knew there might be a short leash if he got in trouble. Melvin was highly complimentary of Sonny as a person and a competitor in his postgame. The bullpen, which had thrown 76 pitches the night before, really needed Sonny to at least give them six, and Sonny delivered. Proud for Sonny. The A’s beat the Royals yesterday and moved to 6-7 on the season, one game back of AL West leading Texas. The A’s go to Yankee Stadium this week and Sonny will pitch again Saturday against Toronto and solid left hander J.A. Happ. Sonny is 2-1, with a 2.33 ERA and a 1.24 WHIP.  Sonny has walked eight and struck out 17 in 19.1 innings. Sonny just battles. 

Pedro got a hit Saturday Night against the Rangers. First single of the season. It was a solid hit. He’s getting walked a lot. He’s getting it together. Manager Buck Showalter is not hitting Pedro against leftys right now as a DH, but if he gets in one of those zones that Pedro can get in, Showalter may turn him loose against leftys. Still think Pedro fell behind when he didn’t get to spring training till late in the spring training season because nobody picked him up amazingly until the Orioles did halfway through the spring, so he will keep getting better. Would love for him to get a shot at first to give Chris Davis a break every now and then. Still think he can play well in the infield. He got a bad rap by the media, and he did struggle some for a while, but at the end of last season, he was playing great first for the Pirates. I just think he needs another shot there at some point. He’s such a great athlete and he can definitely play there.

Ryan Flaherty is not getting much time yet for the Orioles because their lineup is so good. Hopefully Ryan can get some playing time as the season progresses. I’m sure he will. Curt Casali is playing a lot of catcher for the Rays and doing a good job behind the plate. Needs to get his bat going a little bit, but is solid behind the dish. Curt is a good hitter. He’ll get the lumber going soon. I saw Drew Verhagen pitch for the Tigers in the bottom of the eighth yesterday against the Astros. I was pulling for Houston in the game overall because they are my pick to win the World Series, but was pulling for Drew to get them out as the Astros were leading. Drew did a nice job allowing no runs and one hit. The Stros won the game though. Haven’t seen anything on Caleb Cotham for the Reds yet, but will keep an eye out for him and look for any of our guys who might get a shot to come up to the majors. Tony Kemp and Mike Yaz are our best candidates, though Tony and Mike, in the Astros and Orioles minors respectively, are trying to crack a tough 25 man roster as both of those teams are very good. But they’re great players and should get a shot down the road. Will keep an eye on Tony, Yaz, Carson, Dans, and our other guys in the minors and keep you posted. Man, has Corbs churned’em out. 

Baseball takes the series vs UK

Speaking of Corbs, we took two of three from Kentucky over the weekend. Jordan Sheffield was Awesome with a capital A on Friday Night at the Hawk. Sheff pitched a complete game, five hit shutout as we defeated the Wildcats, 3-0. Sheff allowed just five hits, walked two and struck out 14 Wildcat batters. He was bringing it 98, and his location was exceptional. Sheff was on fire. Sheff threw 124 pitches with 82 for strikes and 42 balls. His change up was dynamite and his fastball was superb. Sheff has all the tools. If he can get his control in good shape, like he did Friday Night, he’ll be unhittable. Pumped for Sheff. 

Saturday we were down 2-1 entering the bottom of the eighth, but the super clutch Bryan Reynolds stroked a sharp two run single to center and Ben Bowden closed the deal with his seventh save of the season. Kyle Wright gave us a solid start going seven, giving up five hits, one run, which was unearned, with two walks and six K’s. Matt Ruppenthal gave up an unearned run in the eighth, but Reynolds’ clutchness came through again, and Ben struck out two of the batters he faced in the ninth with his 95 MPH fastball. Kyle gave us a real quality start. We did commit four errors in that game, so we HAVE to get that cleaned up.

We lost 3-0 yesterday. Just couldn’t get the bats going, and while John Kilichowski gave us some pretty good work out of the bullpen and Patrick Raby gave us a pretty decent start, we just didn’t hit against some good Kentucky pitching. John didn’t get a great defensive play behind him when we dropped a pop fly out right near the seats which could have gotten John out of the inning. It wasn’t an easy catch, but could have been made. We loaded the bases in the bottom of the ninth with two outs, but Jeren Kendall, who usually thrives in those situations and will again soon, bounced out to third to end the game. We may see John K as our starter on Sunday in the near future maybe beginning this weekend.

We play Central Arkansas tomorrow, Tuesday, at home @ 5:30 PM CT/6:30 PM ET on the SEC Network+ on the computer. then we head to Tennessee for the weekend,. All three of those games will be on SEC Network+. Friday’s game is at 5 PM CT/6 PM ET, Saturday’s game is at 3 PM CT/4 PM ET, and Sundays’ game is at 1 PM CT/2 PM ET. Central Arkansas is 15-19 and 6-9 in the Southland Conference. Will have more on them tomorrow. UT is 4-11 in the SEC and 19-18 overall. They took the first game of their series at Auburn Thursday Night, 13-4, but lost the next two. Will have more on the Vols series after the Central Arkansas game tomorrow night. Will be interesting to see who Corbs throws tomorrow night. Would like to establish two or three good mid week starters as we’ll need them in the postseason. Need to take care of business tomorrow night and get ready for a tough weekend series at UT. They will be chomping at the bit to play us. Can’t overlook tomorrow night though. Need to keep playing well. We are now 9-6 in the conference and tied for third with UK in the East. Florida and South Carolina lead the East at 11-4. We are 28-8 overall. The rankings just came out and we’re fourth in the coaches and D-1 baseball.com polls. No.1 Miami, No.2 Florida and No.3 A&M are in front of us in both polls. Will have a write up Wednesday on tomorrow night’s game.

Women’s tennis finishes the regular season very strongly; readies themselves for postseason play

The girls outlasted No.12 Auburn Friday, 4-3, in a hard fought match that was decided when Courtney Colton clinched the victory at No.4 singles. Courtney won her match 6-0, 6-3, Georgina Sellyn won her match at No.5, 6-2, 6-3, and Fernanda Contreras won her match at No.6, 6-0, 6-0. Sydney won at No.1, 6-4, 6-1, and Frances and Astra had split sets when Courtney clinched it. That was Courtney’s fifth time this season she has clinched a match for us. She’s been super clutch. We also won the doubles point with Astra and Frances winning their match, 6-4, and Fernanda and Georgina winning their match, 6-3. It was a good match for us. It tested our mental toughness. I’m sure Geoff was pleased with how we competed and the clutchness of Courtney, Georgina and Fernanda along with our top three. 

We beat Alabama yesterday, 6-1, to finish the regular season 18-4 and 11-2 in the conference. After losing to South Carolina and Florida on the road early in the season, two very good teams, we went on to win 10 conference matches in a row and head to Baton Rouge on Wednesday for the conference tournament on a roll. We are presently ranked sixth in the country by the ITA. The new rankings will be released tomorrow. Georgia is No.3 nationally  and Florida is No.4. South Carolina is 11, Auburn is 12, LSU is 18, A&M is 19 and Kentucky is 20, so we have our work cut out for us in the SEC. Big day on Wednesday. Frances is still ranked No. 13 nationally, Sydney is 19 and Astra is 21st. With the new rankings out tomorrow, will let you know where we stand as a team and where Frances, Sydney and Astra are. There should be some sort of video for the SEC, so will check on that as well.

Men’s tennis with a huge weekend

Our men’s team upset No.23 Mississippi State on Friday on the road, 4-2, which was huge. Then we came back and defeated No. 34 Alabama and Lipscomb yesterday in a match at Tuscaloosa. We finished the regular season 16-12 overall and 6-6 in the SEC. We now head to the SEC tournament in Columbia, SC  this Friday, April 21st, for the entire weekend. We’ve got a lot of momentum now. In the State match, we won the doubles point, but lost at No.’s 1 and 2, but then came back at No. 3 as No.97 Cameron Klinger defeated No. 64 Rishab Agarwai of State, 6-4, 6-3. No.4 Baker Newman won his match, 6-0, 6-1, and No. 5 Kris Yee won his match, 6-4, 6-4. Huge victory for the guys. We are ranked No.45 in the country right now. Georgia is sixth, A&M is 11th, Arkansas is 12th and Florida is 13th, so we have some heavy competition heading into Columbia. David Valent, our No.1 player, is ranked 40th in the country. The Alabama and Lipscomb wins were good momentum builders for the conference tournament. Proud for Coach Ian Duvenhage and the team. Maybe we can do some damage at the conference tournament and get into the NCAA’s. We’ve definitely got a shot.

Men’s golf struggles at SEC tourney, but still right in the hunt for a really good NCAA showing; Brandt, Luke, John Curran

The guys finished eighth at the SEC Championship in Sea Island. Not our best, but Coach Scott Limbaugh says it’s important for us to keep a positive attitude heading into the regionals. We will actually host a regional, which will start Monday, May 16th. And we’ve had a great year so far. Georgia won the conference tourney at +13 and we were +34. We are ranked seventh in the country by Golfstat. So a lot to look forward to for the team. Matthias Schwab, Will Gordon, Patrick Martin and our other guys didn’t have their best weekends, but we won the Mason Rudolph in Nashville, we won the Schenkel Invitational in Statesboro, Georgia and won the four man Farm Links Match play in Sylacauga, AL. in March and April, so the guys are definitely capable. 

The women finished tenth at the SEC Championship and wait to hear from the NCAA on if they get a spot. Not sure we will, but we’ve had good success in the past, so maybe we’ll sneak in.

Brandt did not make the cut at the RBC Heritage this past weekend, a tournament that South African Branden Grace won. Luke made the cut, but had a tough Saturday and Sunday, and JC didn’t make the cut either. All three will be playing this weekend at the Valero Texas Open at TPC San Antonio. Glad to see Brandt competing so much. He still really wants that first major. Brandt finished T-10th at Augusta National shooting 71-72, 74, 72 in very difficult scoring conditions; there was a ton of wind. He finished +1 for the Masters. The U.S. Open is at Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, PA, just outside Philadelphia, June 16th-19th, so Brandt will be gunning for that. Also, the Players Championship is a huge tournament. The players call that tournament their “fifth major”, and it will be played May 12th-15th at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra, Florida, home of the PGA headquarters. So should be exciting. Brandt has some good opportunities left as do Luke and John Curran. Will be exciting to see how our guys fare.

The Bosox just lost to the Blue Jays, 4-3. That’s a bummer. Split a four game set with the Jays. We are now 6-6. Host Tampa Bay tomorrow through Thursday, then go to Houston for the weekend. We’re in second, two games back of the Orioles, who are 8-3.