One & Done: Barbasol Championship

If you've followed the PGA TOUR for a few years, every year at this time, there's a handful of golfers for whom it appears strange to see them outside the top 125 in the FedExCup standings. Then, as if on cue, a few go to work and climb comfortably inside the bubble. One or two even have our attention as potential One & Dones.

If he didn't withdraw from the Barbasol Championship early in the week, Russell Henley likely would have been the most owned at Keene Trace Golf Club. After going the entire season without a top-10 finish, he was the outright runner-up at the John Deere Classic. With it, he rose from 165th to 83rd in the FedExCup. Not a surprise.

Since the Barbasol is an additional event with 300 FedExCup points going to its champion, you're encouraged to entertain a pick in the sample size that no longer includes Henley because someone of note is going to be the latest to secure his job.

This is where I turn to Bill Haas. Like Henley at this time a week ago, Haas isn't yet fully exempt for 2019-20. At 142nd in the FedExCup, he's a seventh-place finish away at the Barbasol from the current line of demarcation for the top 125. While not every story that presents an opportunity for the heart to be fulfilled is realized, this is as good a time as any to piggyback his sound form (T10, John Deere Classic).

After starting the season on a Minor Medical Extension – Haas eschewed burning a career earnings exemption; at just 37 years of age, it made sense – he's played out of the conditional status category throughout. Thanks in part to the predictable extension of numerous sponsor exemptions, he's totaled 20 starts.

Troy Merritt is the defending champion, and it wouldn't be surprising if he contends again, but consider stretching your muscles and having more fun than usual in the absence of chalk.

Jhonattan Vegas (68th in the FedExCup), J.T. Poston (76th) and Brian Gay (106th) are in play, but none are under pressure to perform per se. Still, regardless of your position, investment in any is sensible.

Because Jason Dufner won the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide in 2017, his card is safe for 2019-20, but he's 127th in the FedExCup standings, so I love that he's fighting for a spot in the Playoffs. With a couple of top 10s as visible objects in his rear-view mirror, I dig the play.

Two-man gamers should feel good about a Haas-Dufner ticket, but any combination of the aforementioned should be considered.

FUTURE POSSIBILITIES

NOTE: Select golfers committed to the tournament are listed alphabetically. Future tournaments are sorted chronologically and reflect previous success on the courses on which the tournaments will be held in 2018-19. The numerical values in parentheses represent the order of relative confidence of where to use each golfer if multiple sites are listed (e.g. 1 for strongest, 2 for next-strongest and so on). To present weighted confidence in real time, numerical values will not change all season no matter how many tournaments remain listed for each golfer. All are pending golfer commitment.

Jason Dufner … Wyndham (8); TOUR Championship (10)

Bill Haas … Wyndham (6)

Martin Laird … Barracuda (2)