Puerto Rico Open Preview

The Puerto Rico Open makes an official return to the PGA TOUR schedule after a one-year hiatus to recover from Hurricane Maria. Native Puerto Rican Rafa Campos welcomes D.A. Points to defend his title from 2017 and is joined by former PLAYERS champion David Duval, Daniel Berger and Hall of Famer Retief Goosen. Here's everything you need to know for Round 1.

Round 1 Tee Times

Round 1 Leaderboard

HOW TO WATCH/LISTEN (ALL TIMES ET)

TELEVISION: Thursday-Friday, 10:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). Saturday, 2:30-5 p.m. (GC). Sunday, 1:30-4:30 p.m. (GC).

On Thursday of the 2019 WGC-Mexico Championship, Miura, a high-end Japanese club manufacturer known for its hand-crafted irons, announced that it signed Mexico’s Abraham Ancer as the first brand ambassador on the PGA TOUR in the company’s history, which started in 1957. As part of the agreement, Ancer, who’s currently 42nd in the FedExCup standings, “will work directly with the Miura family in Himeji, Japan, to craft his custom-designed forged irons, and will don the trademark Miura hat at TOUR events,” according to the company.

“I switched to Miura irons well before any partnership; I just wanted to play the best forged irons available,” Ancer said in a press release.

Although Ancer already plays Miura irons, it sounds as though he will have the opportunity to be more involved with the design process going forward.

Miura’s Master Fitter Genaro Davila originally custom fit Ancer two years ago into a set of Miura irons. Now, as part of Ancer’s new deal, the 27-year-old will team up with Davila, and entrepreneur Gerardo Benavides, to form Dead Solid Perfect (DSP) Golf Mexico, which is a fitting studio and club assembly facility located in Monclova, Coahuila, that will be fully stocked with Miura products.

RIO GRANDE, Puerto Rico – After a one-year hiatus, the Puerto Rico Open is back on the PGA TOUR.

After Hurricane Maria caused catastrophic damage to the island in 2017, tournament organizers decided to host a Pro-Am in 2018 that ended up raising more than $500,000 for relief efforts.

The Pro-Am featured past PGA TOUR winners and stars of the LPGA Tour and Web.com Tour, but this year the tournament is back, and so is the island.

It’s recovered well from one of the worst natural disasters on record and the Puerto Rican people are eager to welcome the world’s best once again. 

D.A. Points captured the last Puerto Rico Open in 2017. At 20 under par, he won by two shots over Bryson DeChambeau, Retief Goosen and Bill Lunde.

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From 1999-2013, Tiger Woods amassed 18 wins in World Golf Championships events in nine different locations, including seven victories in the tournament now known as the WGC-Mexico Championship.

Fred Couples, the World Golf Hall of Fame member who won the 1992 Masters, was once discussing the overuse of the word “great” when categorizing athletes. “I’m not great,” Couples said, setting up a classic Freddy finish to a thought. “I’m good. But good’s not bad.” That Couples-ism could well be used to describe Amy Yang.

Yang, 29, enters her eleventh full season on the LPGA having racked up the kind of numbers that scream solid play. But her only occasional visits to the winner’s circle – a hallowed place she has yet to enter in a major championship – leaves her just this side of greatness.

But, oh, how a victory or two – in just the right places – could change all that. And this week’s Honda LPGA Thailand, where Yang has won twice, is not a bad place to start. A few more victories, especially in a major, would change the way her resume is viewed, elevating near-misses to impressive consistency.

Quite simply, Yang has been one of the most reliable players of her generation, a name quite accustomed to being on the leaderboard. In eight of her 10 LPGA seasons, Yang’s been in the top-20 in scoring and has never been worse than 37th. In nine of those 10 seasons, she’s been in the top 25 on the money list and in all but one season has had at least five top-10 finishes, totaling 64 top-10s overall.

But even more impressive is what Yang has done in the majors. Even though she has yet to win one, she has finished in the top 10 a remarkable 17 times, with 10 of those being top-fives. Until last year, Yang had at least one top-10 finish in a major every year since joining the LPGA full time in 2009.

Yang likely wears the double-edged title of being the best player of her generation without a major championship.