Cameron Champ

The big hitter arrived on the heels of six straight missed cuts but he had good vibes at this week's host venue. Champ twirled a T6 at Vidanta Villarta last year in his tournament debut and found similar success this week. The Texas A&M alum gained 4.8 strokes off-the-tee (4th) and 5.1 strokes on approach (9th). Even with a top 10 this week, he is just 126th in the FedExCup race. This is an encouraging sign for Champ, though, and there are plenty of events sitll on the schedule for him to make up lost ground after a slow start to the season. This goes in the books as his 11th career top 10 in 112 PGA TOUR events played.

The big hitter twirled a T6 finish last year at the Mexico Open. He entered that week fresh off a T10 at the 2022 Masters. His lead-in play is not so appealing this time around. Champ has missed the cut in six straight events with an 8th-place finish at the ZOZO Championship being his lone payday this season (13 starts). A relatively large percentage of his cuts made end up being top-20 finishes but it's hard for gamers to trust him at this point in the season, given his run of recent missed cuts. 

Champ limped to the finish line with missed cuts in 11 of his last 14 starts to end 2022. He was able to take advantage of the good weeks, turning all three paydays into top-20 finishes. The California native will now head to La Jolla for his fifth attempt at the Farmers, arriving with two missed cuts, a 16th, and 46th-place finish. He has the length to tame Torrey Pines but the rest of his game will have to show up to the party, as well. 

Champ has gotten progressively better each of the three rounds at the Zozo Championship, highlighted by a bogey-free 64 Saturday that lifted the three-time Tour winner to 10 under and a tie for fifth. Champ made four birdies to go along with an eagle on the par-5 sixth, and he heads into the final round four shots behind Rickie Fowler who, like Champ, is playing this week on a sponsor exemption in the 78-man event. Champ missed plenty of cuts, including six of his last eight starts, but he usually makes the most of his chances to get in the mix. The other two results in his recent stretch both went for top-20 results, and he appears poised to tally something even better this week as he looks for his first top-10 finish since a T-6 showing at the Mexico Open in April.