R&A officials don’t mind if Open is 4th major

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – History does not favor Si Woo Kim this week. No champion of THE PLAYERS Championship has successfully defended in the 44 years of the tournament. The best result by a defending champ are the T-5s posted by Jack Nicklaus (1977), Tom Kite (1990) and Hal Sutton (2001). More to the point, the defending champ rarely finds himself in contention, and is more apt to miss the cut. Since Sutton’s result, the last 16 results by the defending PLAYERS champ includes four missed cuts, a WD, a DNP and just one top-10 finish – by Adam Scott, who tied for eighth in 2005. A year ago, Jason Day tied for 60th after shooting a final-round 80. Meanwhile, Kim became the youngest champ in PLAYERS history, winning by three strokes. It was an unexpected victory – and Kim continued to produce the unexpected Thursday. His 5-under 67 is the lowest opening score by a defending champ since the tournament moved to TPC Sawgrass in 1982. Had he not stumbled down the stretch with bogeys in two of his last three holes, he would’ve been the first-round leader. “I played great,� said the 22-year-old Korean, who began his round off the 10th tee and was a bogey-free 7 under for his first 14 holes. “… I liked the score in the first round, but I can hit it better.� Day arrived at TPC Sawgrass in 2017 still dealing with issues involving his mother’s battle with cancer. It did not leave him in the proper frame of mind to defend, but he also acknowledged that it’s difficult to defend in a tournament that produces the best field of the season. “This tournament is heightened,� he said. “The level of it just goes up every single year. I think it gets closer and closer to a major championship feel every single year that we play, and I feel like a lot of the guys think that it’s a major championship.� And just like a major, there are few successful defenses. The last one came at the Open Championship in 2008 when Padraig Harrington won at Royal Birkdale. Since the end of World War II, a total of 289 majors have been played – and the defending champ has won just 14 times, a success rate of less than 5 percent. Of course, that’s still better than the zero percent for defending PLAYERS champ. Asked after his round Thursday about what it would mean to be the first player to achieve that feat, Kim replied, “I feel like it would be dreaming, but that’s too hard. This is just the first round. I’m going to keep working hard.� Probably a wise move. Not only is he battling the best field in golf, he’s battling history. Notables Bubba Watson has made 10 starts at TPC Sawgrass. His best result was a T-37 in 2013. But his opening 68 – which ties for his lowest score in his last 21 rounds here – has him on personal-best pace. “Every time I come here, I’m just trying to beat 37,� Watson said. “I’m no good around this place. It’s very difficult for me because of the sights off the tee, some of the trees. It makes me fear hitting shots that I want to hit.� On Thursday he hit a respectable 10 fairways and 13 greens. Rule, Britannia? The English group of Justin Rose (68), Tommy Fleetwood (69) and Ian Poulter (70) combined for 9 under. Neither Poulter nor Rose, the two veterans, could ever remember playing in an all-English threesome at a PGA TOUR event. “I was alerted by the TOUR maybe last week some time that they were thinking about that group,� Rose said. “It was exciting to hear it.� It’ll be even more exciting if at least one of them can remain in contention Sunday, especially since no Englishman has ever won THE PLAYERS. Webb Simpson was among the attendees for a dinner local resident Jim Furyk hosted at his house Wednesday night for Ryder Cup hopefuls. Simpson is 23rd in the U.S. standings, but his 6-under 66 no doubt caught the captain’s attention. “I’ve still got a lot of work to do to get on the team, but it was nice to be there,� Simpson said. Jordan Spieth opened bogey-bogey-eagle-double en route to a 3-over 75. It wasn’t as bad it looked, though. During one three-hole stretch, he said he “lost three strokes with a total of 6 feet in the landing zone� and added that other than two bad swings, he “played good golf and just didn’t get rewarded for it.� Brooks Koepka, who recently returned to action after missing most of this year with an injured left wrist, re-aggravated the problem when he stopped in mid-swing during a practice session Wednesday in order to avoid a cart driver who had accidentally driven in front of him 15 yards away. “It’s the first time my strength actually backfired, to be strong enough to actually stop it,� said Koepka, who was hitting 3-iron stingers to practice for shots needed at the 18th hole. “He would’ve been dead. It was perfect timing.� Koepka iced the wrist overnight, then shot a bogey-free 2-under 70. Quotables My cut-to-top-6 ratio is pretty good.It’s hard not to have a smile on your face when you shoot 5 under at this place.I really don’t think I have anything to work on this afternoon. I think it’s time to go to the beach with the kids.

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NAPA, Calif. – Maverick McNealy is making his professional golf debut at this week’s Safeway Open. This is significant because: 1. He attended Stanford University, which has a habit of churning out a few decent players every now and then. In fact, two of the top 12 all-time winningest players on the PGA TOUR attended Stanford – Tiger Woods is No. 2 on the list; Tom Watson is tied for 11th. Speaking of victories, Maverick won 11 collegiate events while at Stanford, which ties Woods and Patrick Rodgers for the most in school history. 2. He doesn’t have to be here. His father is Silicon Valley billionaire Scott McNealy, who co-founded Sun Microsystems. Maverick – who graduated with a degree in Management Science and Engineering — seriously contemplated remaining an amateur and pursuing a business career. He didn’t make his intentions to turn pro until a few months ago. 3. He just might be the next big thing in golf. Not only does he have a catchy first name – his dad named him after the Ford Maverick, a compact car produced in the 1970s – but his resume screams of potential. He spent significant time ranked as the No. 1 amateur player in the world, won the Haskins Award in 2015 as best amateur golfer, has already played the U.S. Open and Open Championship, and is one of three U.S. golfers to post a perfect 4-0 record in the recent win at the Walker Cup. It’s no wonder brands such as Callaway, Under Armour, KPMG and Discovery Land have signed him to sponsorship deals, all of which he announced this week. He’s not exactly sneaking up on anybody. Of course, with that kind of resume comes a higher level of expectations. McNealy doesn’t have status on TOUR – he’s playing this week on a sponsor’s exemption and has five more already lined up, and also hopes to play in the second stage of Web.com Q-school – so it could be slow going for the next few months. Of course, it could also be a fast-moving process, too. “It’s funny – I almost feel like I’m starting college all over again,â€� McNealy said Wednesday when asked about his expectations. “Obviously these next six months are crucial for where I start, but [I’m] looking forward to a long career. I’m going to have a lot of opportunities and a lot of chances. “But it’s hard to have any expectations because I really don’t know. I feel like it’s every bit as likely that I don’t have status [or] that I could win the next couple months. I just don’t know. Golf’s a funny game. You can miss four cuts in a row and win the next week. So I think it really comes down to being patient and sticking to my process and doing what I know works.â€� Even at age 21, it’s apparent that McNealy knows a lot. He ran the gamut of expectations during his college career. As a freshman at Stanford, he simply wanted to qualify for a couple of tournaments, intent on proving his worth more with his work ethic while soaking up as much knowledge as possible. Then in 2015, he won seven times in 12 starts, a breakout performance he called “kind of a magical year for me.â€� He won four more times in 2016 and rose to world amateur No. 1. It was a reward for his success but also a good chance to learn – how to handle expectations, how to be a leader. Those were challenging times. He was the No. 1 golfer at Stanford, “something that was very new to me, and having to try and lead the team in some ways.â€� He won just one college tournament this year, and was a non-factor at the NCAA Championship, finishing tied for 76th as Stanford failed to make the 54-hole cut. But his Walker Cup performance indicates that he’s back on track, just in time to launch his pro career. “I learned so much more about my game and about myself and how I handle those expectations and those pressures and what I can do,â€� McNealy said. “There’s earning years and there’s learning years, and I had a great two learning years – and hopefully I can play well from those experiences.â€� Having previous experience at PGA TOUR events should help. He made eight starts as an amateur, including the 2014 U.S. Open. The next year, he played The Greenbrier Classic, shooting 67 in the first round. “I was not comfortable over a single shot and actually played really well,â€� he recalled. “I said, at this point, I probably have the lowest career scoring average of anyone on the PGA TOUR at 67 – but that didn’t last unfortunately.â€� He realizes he’s well behind on the learning curve, and thus soaking up more knowledge and depositing it into the memory bank will be a key goal this week. Seeking advice has never been a problem for him. As a freshman, McNealy was paired up with Rodgers for 36 holes at The Western at Pasatiempo. On the bus ride home that week, he asked, “Patrick, what did you think? What do you think I could do better?â€� Rodgers replied that he’d think about it. The next morning, McNealy woke up, checked his email, and saw a lengthy response from Rodgers, “basically saying you’ve shown you’re good enough to compete, you’ve shown you’re good enough to win – now you just need to believe you’re good enough to win,â€� McNealy recalled. “And that just went right over my head.â€� But he saved the email and read it again the next year as a sophomore. “I said, ‘Wow, he’s right.’ It was just a flip in the mindset.â€� That same year, Woods was at the Stanford campus right after his first back surgery, just hitting balls that morning after an early workout at the gym. Someone on the Stanford team finally approached Woods and asked a question about hitting a stinger. Eventually, McNealy and his other teammates stood in a semicircle, with Woods showing them shots, telling stories and answering their questions. “What I took away from that weekend is that Tiger didn’t do anything crazy different in terms of his golf preparation that I had never heard of before,â€� McNealy said. “It was just that he did everything really well and more disciplined and better than anybody else I had ever seen. “So I took a lot of confidence in that, that if I just do what I know I need to do and do it better, that I’ll probably be in a good spot.â€� Whether this turns into a learning year or an earning year for McNealy remains to be seen. Of course, there’s no reason it can’t be both.

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