Featured Groups: THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK

The PGA TOUR announced Monday the four Featured Groups for the opening rounds of THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK in Las Vegas. The tournament, which has been staged on Jeju Island in South Korea since 2017, was relocated to Shadow Creek for 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and plans to return to Korea in 2021.

RELATED:FULL TEE TIMES, GROUPINGS

HOW TO FOLLOW

Television: Thursday-Sunday, 5 p.m.-8 p.m. ET (Golf Channel)

PGA TOUR Live: Thursday-Sunday, 12:45 p.m.-8 p.m. ET (Featured Groups)

Radio: Thursday-Friday, 2 p.m.-8 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, 3 p.m.–8 p.m. (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com/liveaudio).

FEATURED GROUPS

Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka, Sungjae Im
Notable: In the event’s three-year history, Justin Thomas (2017, 2019) and Brooks Koepka (2018) have won; at No. 23, Im is the highest-ranked Korean player in the Official World Golf Ranking
• Four of Thomas’ 13 wins on the PGA TOUR have come in the fall portion of the schedule; no other player has more than two wins during the fall since the TOUR went to a wraparound season in 2013-14
• Koepka will compete for the first time on TOUR since the 2020 Wyndham Championship after an eight-week break to recuperate from injuries
• Im, who grew up playing The Club at Nine Bridges on Jeju Island, won his first PGA TOUR event at The 2020 Honda Classic

Tyrrell Hatton, Jon Rahm, Matthew Wolff
• Rahm has two top-five finishes in the FedExCup (5th/2016-17, 4th/2019-20) and has won in each of the last four seasons on TOUR, with 2019-20 his first multi-win season
• Wolff has finished runner-up in each of his two starts in the 2020-21 season, including the U.S. Open; at last week’s Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, he posted a career-low 61 (R3) en route to his first playoff appearance on TOUR (won by Martin Laird)

Rory McIlroy, Sergio Garcia, Si Woo Kim
Notable: All three players have won THE PLAYERS Championship – Rory McIlroy (2019), Si Woo Kim (2017), Sergio Garcia (2008)
• An 18-time PGA TOUR winner, McIlroy earned his first TOUR victory in the fall portion of the season in 2019 at the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions in Shanghai, China
• Garcia won his 11th PGA TOUR title and first since the 2017 Masters Tournament two weeks ago at the Sanderson Farms Championship
• By winning the 2016 Wyndham Championship and 2017 PLAYERS Championship, Kim made history as the first player from Asia to win twice on the PGA TOUR before the age of 22

Collin Morikawa, Xander Schauffele, Viktor Hovland
• Morikawa entered the 2019 CJ CUP ranked No. 73 in the Official World Golf Ranking and No. 53 in the FedExCup; this year, he enters the tournament No. 6 in the OWGR and finished sixth in the FedExCup standings in 2019-20
• In his last two starts on TOUR, Schauffele finished T2 at the TOUR Championship and fifth at the U.S. Open
• In his rookie season on the PGA TOUR in 2019-20, Hovland finished 20th in the FedExCup following a win (Puerto Rico Open) and two additional top-10s