D.J.

Trahan

Malnati has opened the new season with a missed cut, T45, and T72 finishes. He’s picked up just 12 FedExCup Points for his efforts and won’t be adding to that total this week in Bermuda. Malnati has played 61 total events over the last two seasons so we should expect him to be back in action sooner rather than later, but remove him from all weekly fantasy rosters for the Bermuda Championship.

Trahan is just 3-for-6 this season while also dropping down recently to miss the cut on the Korn Ferry Tour. In the fall, he failed to meet the terms of his medical extension, which means his lack of play will not impact his long-term status. He is stuck in the Past Champions category until he plays his way out. With nothing better than a T50 this season, gamers can leave him off the fantasy radar for the foreseeable future.

Replacing Lingmerth in the field will be D.J. Trahan, who’ll make his 14th start at Pebble Beach. It would have marked the sixth career start at Pebble Beach for Lingmerth, who last played the AT&T in 2020, where he missed the cut. He made just one cut in five starts there – finishing T-41 in 2015. The 34-year-old Swede, whose lone PGA Tour win came at the 2015 Memorial Tournament, made five cuts in 11 Tour starts last season, and he also went 9-for-20 in KFT starts. He kicked off his year last week at the Bahamas Great Abaco Classic at The Abaco Club and missed the cut. Trahan made two starts in the Tour’s fall series, missing cuts at the Fortinet and RSM Classic. Also withdrawing their names from the alternate list to play the KFT event are Fabian Gomez and Michael Kim.

Playing on conditional status, starts are tough to find for the Clemson product. He is 8-for-14 on the season while basically playing any event where he can find a spot. At press time he is 155th of 156 in the field this week in terms of priority, one of the last to find his way into the event. Highlights this season include a T14 at the Safeway Open and a T22 at the Puerto Rico Open, currently good for 167th in the FedExCup race. The South Carolina resident will be making his ninth appearance at the Wells Fargo Championship but first since the 2012 edition. Overall, he is 5-for-8 at this event with notable finishes of solo 9th (2005) and T14 (2006).

Piercy just capped off a T69 finish at TPC Sawgrass on Sunday but will now be sidelined after testing positive for COVID-19. The Las Vegas resident had a strong fall (three top 20s) but he’s landed nothing better than T50 in five starts since returning from the holiday break. Gamers should remove Piercy from consideration in all weekly formats.

Trahan was arriving with a 7-for-15 record at The American Express including a 2008 victory as the clear highlight. He has finished outside of the top 50 in each of his last 10 appearances at PGA WEST. For the season, the 40-year-old is 4-for-7 with a T14 at the Safeway Open the event he’d write home about. Gamers should remove him from all weekly lineups and hope he has a speedy recovery.

The 39-year-old, playing his first Safeway since T47 in 2012 at the former venue (CordeValle GC), will play out of the fifth-to-last twosome in the finale with Doug Ghim. He’s chasing his third TOUR victory in 325 events, first since the 90-hole 2008 Bob Hope 224 starts ago, where he came from four back (T2) with 7-under 65 to win by three over 72-hole leader Justin Leonard (72). On nine (of 14) fairways and 14 greens in regulation, the Clemson alum offset two bogeys at holes 1 (3-putt from 38'7") and 2, with four birdies at 5, 14, 16 and 18, three of those birdie-4s. He posted a -0.174 SG: Putting with 30 total putts, converting two scoring tries from between 11 and 31 feet, but whiffed on birdie at 12 from 4'6".

Trahan has been leaning heavily on the short game through two days of action at Silverado Resort. He ranks 86th in strokes gained off-the-tee and 43rd in strokes gained approach but top 5 in both around-the-green and putting this week. Today it was the putter that did most of the heavy lifting. Highlights included a 12'2" par-saver at the 14th and a 20'6" birdie blast at the par-3 second hole. Trahan ended his 2020 campaign with seven straight missed cuts but the new season appears to have lit his fire. Currently T3 on the leaderboard, that will be his lowest 36-hole position since The RSM Classic last November, an event where he’d finish with rounds of 67-71 to secure a T8 by week’s end. He’ll need to tidy up the driver if he wants to keep his name in the mix this weekend.

This was the 38-year-old’s fourth RSM, third cash and third top 25, joining a T4 in 2012 and T11 in 2011, the latter two when it was a one-course event. He improves to 4-for-5 on the season with two top 25s, two straight after a T24 at the opposite-field Bermuda in his last start three weeks ago. For the week, the Clemson alum carded rounds of 67-63-67-71, and totaled 21 birdies versus five bogeys and one double. In the finale, he outbalanced three birdies with two bogeys (one 3-putt) and a double, on 12 (of 14) fairways and 14 greens in regulation. The Atlanta native gained 2.202 strokes tee-to-green but lost 2.689 on-the-green. He converted two scoring tries from between seven and 15 feet, but missed two putts from inside of seven feet, and seven putts from inside of 13 feet.

The 38-year-old will play out of the penultimate threesome again in R4, this time with Kyoung-Hoon Lee and Ricky Barnes. He’s eyeing his third TOUR win in 312 events, first since the 90-hole Bob Hope Chrysler Classic in 2008 (211 starts ago), where he came from four back with 7-under 65 to win by three. The Atlanta native piped all 14 fairways and conjured 13 greens in regulation, gaining strokes off-the-tee (0.586) and around-the-green (1.398), but losing 1.085 on approach. He was bogey-free 5-under thru 11 holes, circling 2 and four straight at 7-10, but played his final seven in 2-over, squaring bogeys at 12 and 18 (failed scrambles). The Clemson alum registered 1.692 putts per GIR and 0.048 SG: Putting, converting two scoring tries from between nine and 16 feet, and also holed-out for birdie-3 at nine from 26'5" away.