Featured Group: Scott Stallings, Brendan Steele, Jhonattan Vegas

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Sep. 28, 2011
By PGATOUR.COM staff

At each PGA TOUR event this season, a featured pairing will be highlighted prior to the first round. Here is the featured group for Thursday and Friday at the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open.

Scott Stallings, Brenden Steele and Jhonattan Vegas are all rookies on the PGA TOUR this year, but all three have also won so their futures are secured for the time being and probably a lot longer.

Vegas has had arguably the best season of the three with a third-place finish at the Farmers Insurance Open a week after his win. But he's also cooled since. At one point, Vegas missed six of seven cuts this season and he hasn't had a finish inside the top 40 since a tie for 33rd in Hartford. In other words, it's been an exhausting year for the popular Venezuelan.

Steele hasn't exactly been a slouch of course. He has basically the same amount in earnings as Vegas -- just over $1.7 million -- and tied for 10th just a few weeks ago at the Deutsche Bank Championship. That should give him some momentum going into the desert.

Of the three in this group, Stallings' victory was the most recent when he captured The Greenbrier Classic in a playoff. Since then, he's missed two cuts and hasn't finished better than 29th, but he does have seven top-25s this season, which is more than Steele or Vegas.

PGA TOUR Season Summary

	Scott Stallings	Brendan Steele	Jhonattan Vegas
2011 Top-10s	2	2	2
Finish most recent start	62nd (BMW)	68th (BMW)	T49 (BMW)
Career at the JT Shriners Hospitals for Children Open
Appearances	0	0	0
Wins	0	0	0
Top-10s	0	0	0
Best finish	n/a	n/a	n/a
Last Appearance/Finish	n/a	n/a	n/a
Round 1 Scoring Avg.	70.96	71.84	71.79
Round 2 Scoring Avg.	71.62	70.84	70.46

Preview: Timberlake Shriners

The Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, where Jonathan Byrd is the defending champion, kicks off this year's Fall Series. Check out a preview. Watch