Don’t forget that there is a great alternative to all that pre-Super Bowl hoopla on television Sunday. It’s the best-attended event on the PGA Tour, the Waste Management Phoenix Open, where over 700,000 spectators will drop in sometime during the week, if last year is any indication. They have brought together another nice field, including Justin Thomas, enjoying his first week as world no. 1 in the Hawley Ratings.

Thomas has been playing steady golf at a very high level going all the way back to last year’s British Open. In 12 events since late July, he has one win (Bridgestone), five top-10s, three top-20s, a 4-1 record in the Ryder Cup, and mid-pack finishes in the other two appearances. This year he made the top-20 in the Sony and was third in the Champions.

Also in the field are three others from the Hawley Ratings top 10 – Rickie Fowler, Webb Simpson, and Tony Finau – and three more from the top 20 – Jon Rahm, Phil Mickelson, and Xander Schauffele. Altogether the field includes 27 of the top 50. Rahm has five straight top-10s, including the win at the World Challenge. Simpson comes in with five top-10s in his last six appearances. Finau has played eight times since the Tour Championship last fall and has two runner-up finishes (World Challenge and HSBC Champions), one other top 10, three other top-20s, and was 2-1 in the Ryder Cup. Schauffele has two wins in the last five times out.

Undoubtedly there will be plenty of TV coverage of the par-three 16th hole on the Stadium Course. As you probably already know, it is the only fully enclosed hole on the PGA Tour. The grandstand surrounding the 16th has a capacity of 20,000, and many of those sitting there know the fastest route to the beer tent.

The best 48-year-old in the field must be Mickelson. The 2013 winner here was fifth last year and in the top 20 the two years before that. He was second in the Desert Classic two weeks ago.

The statistic most closely correlated with success on the TPC of Scottsdale course in the last eight editions of this event is scrambling, and by a good margin. Driving distance, greens in regulation, and putting are next, in that order, per the Hawley course fit statistics. Mickelson (no. 1 in putting, top 10 in scrambling, top 20 in driving distance) is the player whose game best fits that set of statistics, and it’s not close. Mickelson’s course fit number is 68.13, and next at 68.53 is Lucas Glover. Also within one stroke per round of Mickelson in course fit are Finau, Abraham Ancer, Matt Kuchar and Kevin Tway.

A first-time Euro Tour event, the Saudi International powered by SBIA, has siphoned off a few of the big names. U.S. players Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, and Patrick Reed, all of whom have appeared in Phoenix within the last two years, are in the Middle East, as is Dustin Johnson, whose last appearance in this event was 10 years ago. There was some criticism of them and of the Euro Tour related to a sporting event in Saudi Arabia after the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a Saudi embassy in October. Per ESPN.com, Rose responded by saying, “I’m not a politician, I’m a pro golfer.” In the same vein, EPSN.com quoted Johnson with this: “I’m going over there to play a sport I’m paid to play. It’s my job to play golf. Unfortunately, it’s in a part of the world where most people don’t agree with what happened, and I definitely don’t support anything like that. I’m going to play golf, not support them. I’m not a politician. I play golf.”

2016 and 2017 winner Hideki Matsuyama showed vast improvement last week when he was third in the Farmers. He hadn’t had a top 10 finish in six other events since the Tour Championship in September. A guy who had a mostly miserable last 12 months but who always plays well here is Brendan Steele. He’s been out of the top 50 two-thirds of the time since finishing third here last year. In this event, he has three top-10s and three top-20s in the last seven years.

The possible longshots include Aaron Baddeley, who is a good fit for the course and playing at a higher level recently. Also among those on the upswing are Sung Kang, Ted Potter, Michael Thompson, and Patton Kizzire.