The first round of the THE PLAYERS Championship, the flagship tournament of the PGA Tour and the second event of the season in the Ten Golf THE GAME calendar, is already underway. The search is on for the second finalist. The first was Jorge Ripa, who triumphed on Sunday at the Arnold Palmer Invitational with his team Fundador Team. He achieved a total of -26, three strokes less than Juan Gordillo and four less than Mario Chaparro.
Ripa excelled in the initial team selection, betting on players like Russell Henley, the eventual tournament winner, or Corey Conners, who finished third. However, the key move was the wise use of mulligans after the second round. Despite being well placed, though not at the top of the leaderboard, Ripa made a bold decision. He made two changes. He benched Chris Kirk and Will Zalatoris and brought in Michael Kim and MacKenzie Hughes. The masterstroke was the bet on Kim. He posted a weekend score of eight under, five strokes less than Kirk or Zalatoris, a decisive move.
Good management of mulligans can determine whether or not you reach the coveted grand final of Ten Golf THE GAME. Remember, you can make a maximum of two changes at the end of the second round, and for this, you need mulligans. Each mulligan costs one euro, except for annual subscribers of Ten Golf who have them all included for free. Click here to subscribe annually to Ten Golf now. Likewise, annual subscribers have four extra spots in the Final through the order of merit.
Precisely, the ranking of THE GAME after the first event is led by Mikel K Balonga and Javier Revenga with 49 points, followed by Jorge Ripa, Juan Miguel Jiménez, and José Luis Cuesta. These five, if THE GAME ended today, would be qualified for the Final. They would be joined by the next four annual subscribers of Ten Golf from the order of merit, who are currently Jesús Reyes, Koldo Cámara, Francisco Barragán, and Ángeles Martínez. These nine players would be joined by the 15 tournament winners. The first, and so far only, who already has his place secured is Jorge Ripa.
This week at THE PLAYERS, we will have the second official qualifier for the 2025 final. Remember that more than 5,000 unique players have participated in THE GAME, and we have nearly 100 private leagues.
