COMMITS ALSO INCLUDE 2019 ROOKIE OF THE YEAR SUNGJAE IM, 2020 ROOKIE OF THE YEAR SCOTTIE SCHEFFLER

Tournament Chairman Scott Jenkins announced today defending champion Webb Simpson, five-time PGA TOUR winner Jon Rahm and 15th-ranked Matthew Wolff are the latest to commit to the Waste Management Phoenix Open field, which will tee it up February 1-7 at TPC Scottsdale. Additionally, 2019 PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year Sungjae Im and 2020 PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year Scottie Scheffler also committed to play in “The People’s Open.”

All five players are currently ranked in the Top-50 of the Official World Golf Rankings (OWGR), with Rahm leading the way at No. 2, followed by Simpson (6), Wolff (15), Im (18) and Scheffler (31).

“We are so excited to have our 2020 champion Webb Simpson back to defend hit title, along with a great list of top-ranked players like Jon Rahm and Matthew Wolff,” Jenkins said. “We are nearly 30 days out from ‘The People’s Open and like how our field is already starting to shape up, and we expect more big names to come in over the next couple of weeks.”

Simpson is coming off a career year in 2020 that included wins at “The People’s Open” and RBC Heritage, eight Top-10 finishes and a T12 result at the season-ending TOUR Championship to finish 12th in the final FedExCup standings. He is off to a hot start this year as well, finishing T-8 at the U.S. Open and T-10 at the Masters, along with a T-13 at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open and T17 at the

ZoZo Championship. Simpson has made the cut in 8 of his 10 starts, and has finished in the Top-10 five times; including his win in 2020 and a runner-up finish after four playoffs holes in 2017.

Rahm is coming off a spectacular 2020 season where he carded two wins (The Memorial, BMW Championship) and eight Top-10’s on his way to a fourth-place finish in the FedExCup Standings. A collegiate standout at Arizona State, Rahm is making his sixth appearance at the WM Phoenix Open and has never finished worse than 16th in any of his previous appearances, including his T-5 in the 2015 tournament playing as an amateur on a sponsor exemption.

Wolff – who turned professional in 2019 after a NCAA National Title victory in the same year – picked up his first win in just his fourth start on TOUR at the 2019 3M Open. Wolff put together a solid sophomore campaign on the PGA TOUR in 2020, carding a runner-up finish at the U.S. Open and a T4 finish at the PGA Championship. This will be Wolff’s third career appearance at the WM Phoenix Open.

Im has been impressive in his young sting on the PGA TOUR, earning a win, two runner-ups, three third-place finishes and a total of 15 Top-10’s while making the cut in 55 of 71 starts. He finished 11th in the final FedExCup standings in 2020 thanks to his first career win at The Honda Classic, and he currently ranks 21st in the current FedExCup standings thanks to a T2 finish in his Masters debut in November.

Scheffler is quickly making a name for himself on TOUR after an outstanding first year in which he carded seven Top-10 finishes in 23 starts on his way to a fifth-place finish in the FedExCup standings and Rookie of the Year honors. The Texas native is currently ranked No. 31 in the OWGR and will make his second start at the WM Phoenix Open in 2021.

Currently the field has 12 players ranked in the Top-50 of the Official World Golf Rankings, led by Rahm who sits second in the standings. The rest of the top-ranked players include Simpson (6), Xander Schauffele (8), Wolff (15), Im (18), Hideki Matsuyama (21), Louis Oosthuizen (22), Jason Kokrak (26), Cameron Smith (27), Ryan Palmer (30), Scheffler (31) and Bubba Watson (44).

The field also includes 18 of the Top-30 in the current FedExCup standings, along with eight players who finished in the Top-25 in last year’s FedExCup race.

A field of 132 players will vie for the $7.5 million purse, the $1,350,000 first-place check and 500 FedExCup points. PGA TOUR members have until 5 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 29, to commit to play in the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Eligible players are assigned one of 34 PGA TOUR priority ranking categories based on their past performance on TOUR. The field will continue to change as players with higher priority rankings commit to play in the Open.

The 2021 WM Phoenix Open will be held at TPC Scottsdale February 1-7. “The People’s Open” was named the Tournament of the Year by the PGA TOUR four times in the past six years (2014, 2015, 2018, 2019) to acknowledge the tournament’s legendary status as one the most unique events in golf. The 2021 edition will mark the 86th playing of the event (one of the five oldest events on the PGA TOUR) and the 12th as the WM Phoenix Open.

The Thunderbirds were founded in 1937 with the mission of promoting the Valley of the Sun through sports. The Thunderbirds consist of 55 “active” members and more than 280 “life” members. The Thunderbirds raised a record $14 million for charity from proceeds from the 2020 WM Phoenix Open and have eclipsed $161 million in charitable giving since its inception in 1932. For more information on The Thunderbirds, visit www.thunderbirdscharities.org.