Mickey Callaway says his baseball knowledge expanded tremendously during his two seasons as the New York Mets’ manager, and the Los Angeles Angels will benefit from his Queens education as he returns to his familiar role as a pitching coach. ”I just think about the game more globally now
Thousands of fans gathered around Tiger Woods in the left rough to see if he could avoid yet another bogey Friday in a round that made a bid for his first victory at Riviera and the record 83rd of his PGA Tour career a lot tougher. Just beyond the green, hardly anyone noticed as Adam Scott faced a short
LOS ANGELES — Matt Kuchar made a mess of the easiest hole at Riviera. He couldn’t find the fairway and felt he was on the defensive all afternoon Friday in The Genesis Invitational. He was good enough with the short irons that Kuchar still managed a 2-under 69 and built a two-shot lead over Rory McIlroy and two others going into the weekend at Riviera. Related: Leaderboard | Scott starves himself of competition to stay hungry “It definitely wasn’t my best stuff today,” Kuchar said. “Two under was an awfully good score for the way I drove it.” Tiger Woods happily would have taken a score like that. Instead, he made his bid for a first victory at Riviera and a record 83rd title on the PGA TOUR a lot tougher. Two swings with a wedge wound up costing Woods three shots, and his 73 left him nine shots behind. “I made some pretty bad mistakes out there,” Woods said. He can’t afford any more, not with 44 players ahead of him, including past champions like Adam Scott and Dustin Johnson, and players who would desperately like to add their name to the list of winners at this historic club. McIlroy handled the par 5s and kept mistakes to a minimum in his round of 67, which puts him in the final group Saturday with Kuchar and Harold Varner III, who had a 68 in the morning. Kuchar was at 9-under 135. He began with a bogey on the par-5 opening hole, one of only two players in the 121-man field to not make par or better. Kuchar went long of the green, took two chips to get on the green and missed a 15-foot par putt. “You feel like you’ve already given up two shots on the day. Never a fun way to start,” Kuchar said. “But knowing there’s 17 holes to go, there’s still room to figure it out.” Wyndham Clark had a 68 and joined McIlroy and Varner in the group two shots behind. “I’m managing my game well,” McIlroy said. “I’ve hit a couple loose shots here and there, but I’m thinking my way around the golf course and that’s what this place is all about. You can hit a few squirrelly shots and get away with it as long as you miss it in the right places, and for the first couple days I’ve done that. I’m feeling pretty good about my game.” Scott has a trophy from Riviera. He won in 2005 when there was so much rain the tournament was reduced to 36 holes, and he won in a playoff Monday. He returned from a two-month break with a 7-under 64 that left him three shots behind. Scott hasn’t played since he won the Australian PGA Championship three days before Christmas. “You’re never quite sure coming off eight weeks how it’s going to feel, but I was really hitting the ball out of the middle of the club,” Scott said. “That gave me a bit of confidence to just kind of keep doing what I’m doing and it’ll all fall into place rather than go in search for what I’m doing wrong.” Woods didn’t have to search long to figure out his errors. He started well enough with a smart choice to hit iron on the reachable par-4 10th because of the back right pin position, a wedge into about 12 feet and a birdie. And he was never in too much trouble. The 15th hole did not appear to present any problems, especially after Woods crushed a 335-yard drive to the middle of the fairway. He hung his head immediately after a chunked pitching wedge that plugged into the bunker short of the green, leaving no shot to a front pin. He blasted that through the green, chipped back to 7 feet and missed putt for double bogey. “I just hit it fat,” he said. “Honestly, I was just trying to cut a little wedge in there and get it up in the air.” After two birdies on the par 5s around the turn — Nos. 17 and 1 — Woods gave away another shot with sand wedge from light rough into the front bunker on No. 3 for bogey. He bogeyed the par-3 fourth, and then he three-putted from about 50 feet up the slope on the par-3 sixth. Johnson, who won big at Riviera three years ago, bounced back from his opening 72 with a 66 and was among those five shots behind. Brooks Koepka had a 73 and was nine shots behind. Justin Thomas opened with a 74 and never got anything going in the morning. He didn’t make a birdie until his 16th hole and shot 71, missing the cut for the second time in his last three starts. Phil Mickelson, coming off a pair of third-place finishes in Saudi Arabia and Pebble Beach, shot 74 and missed the cut for the third time this year.
With a “disconnect” turning his relationship with the Colorado franchise icy, standout third baseman Nolan Arenado is just trying to get his chance to win.
The purse for the Indianapolis 500 will increase roughly $2 million to a record $15 million, and drivers trying to bump their way into the final three spots of the traditional 33-car starting field may get more than one attempt.
Tournament host Tiger Woods shot a 73 on Friday that left him well back of the leaders through 36 holes of the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club.
2020 The Genesis Invitational, Round 2 Top 10 win probabilities: Rory McIlroy (T2, -7, 27.7%) Matt Kuchar (1, -9, 15.2%) Adam Scott (T5, -6, 10.0%) Jon Rahm (T11, -4, 6.6%) Harold Varner III (T2, -7, 4.8%) Wyndham Clark (T2, -7, 4.4%) Dustin Johnson (T11, -4, 3.9%) Vaughn Taylor (T5, -6, 3.2%) Justin Rose (T11, -4, 2.4%) Sung Kang (T5, -6, 2.3%) Top Strokes-Gained Performers from Round 2: Putting: J.J. Spaun +3.8 Around the Green: Chez Reavie +2.7 Approach the Green: Charles Howell III +4.5 Off-the-tee: Talor Gooch +1.8 Total: Adam Scott +7.2 NOTE: These reports are based off the live predictive model run by @DataGolf. The model provides live “Make Cut�, “Top 20�, “Top 5�, and “Win� probabilities every 5 minutes from the opening tee shot to the final putt of every PGA TOUR event. Briefly, the model takes account of the current form of each golfer as well as the difficulty of their remaining holes, and probabilities are calculated from 20K simulations. To follow live finish probabilities throughout the remainder of The Genesis Invitational, or to see how each golfer’s probabilities have evolved from the start of the event to the current time, click here for the model’s home page.
PACIFIC PALISAIDES, Calif. – Tiger Woods has suffered from a late-round fade for the second day running at The Genesis Invitational, leaving his chase for a much wanted win at Riviera Country Club in a precarious spot. Woods produced three bogeys over his last seven holes to settle for a 2-over 73, pulling him back to even par for the tournament. He should still be set for weekend play though, as the cut was trending towards being one-over-par when the 44-year-old signed his scorecard. Woods is in the midst of a 13th attempt to win a tournament at the venue where he began his PGA TOUR career as a 16-year-old. He grew up some 40 miles away and now hosts the event which became an elevated Invitational status this season. Related: Leaderboard | TOUR pros: My first time with Tiger | JT admits Tiger carried him at Presidents Cup In Thursday’s opening round, he played his opening eight holes in four under before fading to two under. Friday, he opened on the par-4 10th with a birdie, but stumbled with a double-bogey on the 15th when he caught his approach shot fat and ended up in a bad bunker lie. However, the 82-time TOUR winner rebounded with birdies on the 17th and first holes to be within shouting distance of the leaders at the time. Unfortunately, the round unraveled from there. Woods was unable to get up and down from a bunker to save par on the third hole and missed a five-foot par putt on the next. A three-putt on the sixth hole was another dagger and contributed to losing over two strokes on average to the field in Strokes Gained: Putting. But Woods was more annoyed with his approach game as he aims to move out of a tie atop the all-time TOUR wins list with Sam Snead. “I made some pretty bad mistakes out there with balls in the fairway… one ball in the fairway with wedge in my hand and another one with a sand wedge in my hand and played those two holes in three over. Not very good,â€� Woods said. “You take those away and I’m near the top of the board. So it’s not that complicated, I just need to clean it up, but I’m now pretty far back and I have to make a lot of birdies this weekend. “I was not sharp today. I just could not get the ball close enough to the hole to give myself good putts. And then when I did, I was in the wrong spots, I was above the hole and had to putt pretty defensively.â€� It was the first over-par round of the season for Woods, including the four he played in his Hero World Challenge. After Thursday’s fade, Woods referenced a lack of preparation time as he juggled his dual roles as host and player. But with his early finish Friday, he hoped some rest would freshen his mind and game. “Hopefully I can get off to a quick start like I did last year, hot birdie run and maybe make an eagle in there like I did last year,â€� he said in reference to a third-round 65 that saw him move from 52nd to 10th in 2019. “I need a start like that tomorrow to get myself back in this thing. Everyone’s bunched. There’s so many guys that have a chance going into the weekend. The wind’s picked up. I don’t know if the guys will go quite as low this afternoon as they did this morning. I just can’t (drop any more shots), not where I’m at.â€�
Tiger Woods made the cut after shooting a 2-over 73 on Friday at the Genesis Invitational but he’s got work to do if he wants to get back into contention.
Michael Avenatti, the combative lawyer who gained fame by representing a porn star in lawsuits involving President Trump, faces up to 42 years in prison.
