Most-Picked Players: John Deere Classic

PARAMUS, N.J. — Tiger Woods failed to carry any momentum he had from his last tournament into the start of the FedExCup Playoffs. Neither did Sean O’Hair. That was only good news for one of them Thursday in THE NORTHERN TRUST. O’Hair missed the cut last week and saw his FedExCup standing slip to No. 121, meaning he has to play well this week or his season is over. His immediate goal is to advance to the third stage of events because the BMW Championship is at Aronimink outside Philadelphia, where O’Hair is a member. He drilled a 3-wood from 284 yards to 6 feet for eagle on No. 3. He hammered another 3-wood on the par-5 17th to 10 feet, settling for a two-putt birdie. That carried O’Hair to a 5-under 66, giving him a share of the lead with Kevin Tway, Jamie Lovemark and Vaughn Taylor. “I’m obviously very disappointed that I’m not in a better position, but I’m kind of in charge of my destiny,” O’Hair said. “If I play good golf I’m just going to work into the next week.” Woods, playing for the first time since his runner-up finish at the PGA Championship, had a pair of birdies, a pair of bogeys, a lot of pars and a 71. He was five shots behind and in a tie for 60th. After a rough start off the tee, Woods wound up hitting nine of 14 fairways. He just never got it close enough for good looks at birdie. “Just didn’t have the situations where I had the full club and I could go ahead and take a rip at it and start being aggressive and going after these flags,” Woods said. “I kept having to play a little defensive because I was taking more club, trying to shape it and take spin off. One of those days.” Woods is back in the FedExCup Playoffs for the first time in five years, and it was his first time at Ridgewood Country Club since 2010. Thousands came to watch him play, and they heard plenty of cheers from the group behind him. Dustin Johnson rimmed out a 6-iron on the par-3 sixth for one of his seven birdies to offset a triple bogey for a 67. U.S. Open and PGA champion Brooks Koepka ran off four birdies and an eagle for his 67. FedExCup champion Justin Thomas had four birdies in his round of 69. Johnson could tell his 6-iron was close to perfect from the flight of the shot, where it landed and the reaction of the fans behind the par-3 sixth green as the ball rolled around left edge of the cup. Or were they cheering because Woods teed off on the hole ahead of them? “I was kind of debating whether they were yelling for me or him,” Johnson said with a smile. O’Hair isn’t alone in the urgency to play well. The top 100 advance to the second stage next week at the TPC Boston, with the top 70 going to the BMW Championship and the top 30 making it to East Lake in Atlanta for the TOUR Championship. Tway and Lovemark are in the mid-80s in the FedExCup, while Taylor is at No. 112. Tway began his week playing in a charity event with good friend Morgan Hoffmann, who is coping with muscular dystrophy. Hoffmann is a reminder of how far players can go with the FedExCup points quadrupled in the playoffs. “Morgan Hoffmann came in at 124 and went all the way to The TOUR Championship,” Tway said, referring to 2014. “That’s kind of the plan, try to play as good as you can and go as far as you can.” Johnson had no idea where his tee shots were going until late in his round, yet he still managed to pile up birdies. One wild drive cost him at the 17th, where the ball went so far left it wasn’t even worth searching for in the woods. Johnson made triple bogey. “I hit that ball 70 yards left of where I was looking,” he said. “If I’m trying to hit a high cut, if anything I’m going to over- cut it to the right. And it came off low and hooked. So I just laughed. Wasn’t funny when I made triple, though.”  O’Hair doesn’t sound like he’s playing under a lot of pressure. He had knee surgery last year that kept him from most of the fall events, putting him behind. He decided to keep playing until he had his card locked up, and then he was runner-up at the Valero Texas Open. “After that, I kind of just checked out mentally because I knew I was safe and kind of lost my drive a little bit,” he said. He took off the month of June, which he had never done, and hasn’t played very well since then. But he’s back to work, first on his long game and late on his putter, and he found the right formula on a rain-softened course at Ridgewood. It was a good start, nothing more. And while he would love to play on his home course in two weeks at Aronimink, he’s not obsessed with it. O’Hair said he came into the Playoffs with one eye toward next year. “It’s not like, `Hey, I need to do this to play Aronimink,'” O’Hair said. “I’ll play Aronimink after the tournament. I think I’ve got a member-guest the following week.”

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NAPA, Calif. — Brendan Steele rallied to successfully defend his Safeway Open title, closing with a 3-under 69 on Sunday for a two-stroke victory over Tony Finau in the season opener. Phil Mickelson and Chesson Hadley finished three shots behind. Two strokes behind surprising leader Tyler Duncan entering the day at Silverado Resort and Spa, Steele birdied the par-5 16th and 18th holes — holing a 3-footer on 18. The 34-year-old Steele, from the Southern California mountain town of Idyllwild, finished at 14-under 273 for his third PGA TOUR title. He also won the 2011 Valero Texas Open. Finau, whose lone PGA TOUR victory came in the 2016 Puerto Rico Open, moved into a tie for the lead with Steele at 14 under with a birdie on the par-4 13th. But he double-bogeyed the par-4 14th. After pars on 16 and 17, Finau had a 40-foot eagle putt on the 18th and settled for birdie and a 69. Mickelson, who began the round four shots off the lead, birdied the 16th from 10 feet to move within one shot of Steele. But Mickelson, winless since The Open in 2013, bogeyed the 17th before birdieing the 18th for a 70. It was Mickelson’s 27th third-place finish in 27 PGA TOUR seasons. Hadley finished with a 73. He had a course-record 61 in the second round. Duncan, a PGA TOUR rookie who began the round with a one-stroke lead over Hadley, had five bogeys on the front nine and finished with a 75 to tie for fifth with Graham DeLaet at 11 under. DeLaet had a 72. John Daly, the two-time major winner who won on his first PGA TOUR Champions title in May, closed with a 79 to tie for 72nd at 5 over.

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Gary Player will get some competition for long drive amongst the Masters Tournament’s honorary starters. Fred Ridley, Chairman of Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters, announced today that two-time Masters champion Tom Watson will join Player and Jack Nicklaus as honorary starters beginning this year. The first round of the 86th Masters is set for Thursday, April 7. “I am honored that Tom has accepted our invitation,” Ridley said in a release. “I look forward to commemorating his love for the game and impact on the Masters with his millions of fans across the globe as he hits a tee shot alongside two of the Tournament’s other all-time greats, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player.” Watson won the 1977 and 1981 Masters and finished runner-up three times in his 15 top-10 showings at Augusta National. He is one of 17 players to win multiple green jackets, and his 72.74 scoring average ranks fifth in tournament history. He won eight majors in total among his 39 PGA TOUR titles, and later racked up 14 more victories on PGA TOUR Champions. After competing in the Masters as an amateur in 1970, Watson made 42 consecutive starts from 1975-2016, the fifth-longest streak in tournament history. His 58 subpar rounds are second all-time behind Nicklaus (71), and he holds the record for most consecutive years with at least one subpar round (21, 1975-1995). “Augusta National in April is one of my favorite places to be,” Watson said of his upcoming tee time with Nicklaus and Player. He noted that Nicklaus pushed him down the stretch in his two Masters titles, and when Player won the Masters for the third time in 1978, it was Watson who was there to help him slip on the green jacket. “With the many fond memories of both watching the Masters as a youngster and then competing in the Tournament for so many years, I am greatly honored to join my friends and fellow competitors, Jack and Gary,” Watson added. The tradition of honorary starters began with Jock Hutchison (1963-1973) and Fred McLeod (1963-1976). Others to perform the duties included Byron Nelson (1981-2001, non-consecutive), Gene Sarazen (1981-1999), Ken Venturi (1983), Sam Snead (1984-2002), Arnold Palmer (2007-2016), Nicklaus (2010-present), Player (2012-present) and Lee Elder (2021).

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