Can the John Deere Classic favorites break through for next win?
By Tom Johnston  Quad City Times (TNS)  SILVIS  Daniel Berger has only played in two John Deere Classic tournaments and comes into the 2021 event as the betting favorite. Russell Henley isn't far behind as one of the favorites. Those veterans appear to be the ones a lot of people are pointing toward as the players to watch this week in the $6.3 million PGA Tour event at TPC Deere Run. Berger, 28, is 16th in the Official World Golf Rankings and No. 23 in the FedExCup race. The four-time Tour winner is the odds-on favorite because he is the highest ranked player in the field in both of those categories. Henley, 32, has three career wins and comes in ranked No. 53 in the world and No. 44 on the FedExCup list. He has two third-place finishes this season among four Top 10s and seven Top 25 finishes. He was among the leaders at last month's U.S. Open before finishing T13 and comes in off a T19 at the Travelers Championship. Neither put much stock into that talk, although both were confident about their chances this week. "I think anybody can win," Berger said. "That's the beauty of the game of golf. I definitely feel confident if I play my game I'll have a chance to win on Sunday. ... It's so tough to go out there and say that I'm going to go win that golf tournament, but if I prepare the way that I've been preparing and I play the way I'm capable of playing, then I feel very good about my chances." Henley finished the 2019 tourney with a flourish. His final-round 61 catapulted him up the leaderboard into a solo second-place finish behind defending champ Dylan Frittelli. He can only hope his good play here continues. "I have great memories for a lot of reasons," Henley said. "Obviously, finishing second is a tough thing to do on the PGA Tour and that was awesome. It was my lowest round in a PGA Tour event on a Sunday, and to finish that way is awesome. To have a chance to win is cool." That finish also secured his Tour card for the 2019-2020 season, which carried over to this season as well because of COVID-19 issues. "It kept my job. That was the best part," Henley said. "It was a little bit of a turnaround for me, and I felt like I got a little confidence from that and have been more confident since then." Confident youngsters on Tour, though, have made it tough on the veterans to get back into the winner's circle. Brian Harman, 34, won here in 2014 and added his second crown at the 2017 Wells Fargo Championship. However, he has found himself trying to break through that huge pack of great golfers populating the Tour, finding it a battle to score those elusive wins and Top 10s, of which he has five of the latter in 20 starts this season. "The winning scores every week aren't vastly different than they always are," said Harman, noting the 20-under mark is usually the JDC standard. "... It's just the middle part has gotten harder. It's harder to  I don't think it's any harder to win, but it's harder to top 10, top 20, top 30, where you used to be able to kind of scrape it around and have a little better finish than you can now." With so much depth on the Tour, it seemingly takes catching lightning in a bottle to leave a tournament with a trophy. "It's just so hard to win," said Henley, whose last win came at the 2017 Shell Houston Open. "I had a great year (in 2017) and was pretty consistent. But I feel like I'm definitely playing better golf now than I was then for sure; I just had a real hot week that week. I definitely feel like I will win again. Who knows." That's the best perspective to have. Nobody knows what it will take to win on Tour. Some weeks everything aligns and works out. "You look at some of the guys that have the best winning percentages and they're at like 5 or 10%," joked Berger. "It's very tough to win. But that's what we strive for. That's what we work so hard for. When you get yourself in those positions to win, that's what makes it worthwhile for all those hours of practice."