DeChambeau builds 4-shot lead at THE NORTHERN TRUST

POTOMAC, Md. — Tiger Woods used a new putter and got the same middling results Thursday in the Quicken Loans National. Woods battled back from a double bogey with five straight birdie chances from 8 feet or closer. He made only two of them and had to settle for an even-par 70, leaving him seven shots out of the lead in the opening round on the TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm. Andrew Landry set the pace on a difficult, but rain-softened course with a 7-under 63. J.J. Spaun matched him in the afternoon, playing in the group behind Woods without hardly anyone noticing that he played bogey-free while running off five birdies in a seven-hole stretch. Landry, who won the Texas Open in April for his first PGA TOUR title, also had a new putter in the bag. All the attention was on Woods, who had hoped a mallet-style putter might help him shake out of a putting slump. It didn’t. “I shot about the score I should have shot today,” Woods said. He never made a putt outside 10 feet, and the final stretch in the afternoon appeared to be a wasted chance to salvage a score under par. Woods also kept his round from getting worse with two big par saves to start the back nine, including an up-and-down from 147 yards on No. 11 after driving it into the trees. “This is a course that’s going to get tougher as the week goes on,” Woods said. It was plenty tough for him in his first competition on the TPC Potomac, and his first time playing the tournament since 2015. This also is the last edition, and the field is among the weakest on the PGA TOUR this year. Rickie Fowler is the only player in the top 10 in the world, and he also rallied for a 70. Even when he kept it in the short grass off the tee, Woods didn’t have a reasonable birdie chance until No. 5, and he missed from 10 feet. And then he ran into trouble on the par-4 sixth, starting with a tee shot he pulled left that caromed off a tree and landed in a the mown path that leads from the tee to the fairway. Woods tried to hit a 3-wood to the green and it came up short and into the hazard. He had to drop it in more rough, came up just short of the green and wound up making a 4-foot putt to escape with double bogey. Going with an iron off the tee at the par-5 10th, he pulled that into the hazard but at least was able to chop it back to the fairway, rip fairway metal around the green and chip it close to save par. On the next hole, he blasted a tee shot well right, over the gallery, and had to pitch out back into play again. He said the 6-foot par putt gave him momentum, and he was never under much stress the rest of the day. He just didn’t make anything. Woods missed from 10 feet and 6 feet on his next two holes. He made his first birdie on No. 14 with a 3-foot putt, only to badly miss from 7 feet on the next hole. “I didn’t really have anything going through the middle part of the round,” Woods said. “I hit some poor tee shots and didn’t really give myself a chance. I have to do a better job of getting more chances.” He had no beef with the putter, saying he rolled it well and hit plenty of good putts that didn’t fall. “Most of the good scores were shot in the morning,” Woods said. “Hopefully, I can go out there and do it myself.” The course was the fourth-toughest on the PGA TOUR last year, trailing only three majors, though it was soft enough and the wind was mild so that low scores were available. Kyle Stanley won at 7-under 273 last year. Landry and Spaun shared the lead at 7 under after one round. “I expect that if we don’t get any rain the next few days, the course is going to firm up, greens get firm, get a little bit quicker, but it’s not going to be like last year,” Billy Horschel said after his 64. “So you’re going to have to go out with the mindset that it’s a little bit different course, you can’t be as conservative, you’ve got to still try and make birdies.” Andrew Putnam also was at 64 while playing in the afternoon. Beau Hossler and Abraham Ancer were another shot behind. Woods has been at least six shots behind — and no better than a tie for 29th — after the opening round of his last six tournaments dating to the Masters.

Click here to read the full article…

Those of you with an attention to detail might already be confused. But no, Rob Bolton hasn't suddenly got rounder cheeks, a combover and a thick Australian accent. As loyal readers know, Power Rankings is Rob's domain, and will continue to be, except for this exception. The fact is... it is 2020... so it makes sense that a complete rookie in this space tells you all who are the most likely contenders for the FedExCup in this COVID-19 affected season. So as you read on keep in mind this could be like sending a college quarterback in for Tom Brady, or perhaps in baseball parlance (Rob does love his Cubs) it's like having Ian Happ pinch hit for Babe Ruth. And while Rob deals completely in cold hard numbers and facts, personally I add his most feared component... "feel". As an employee on the ground at many tournaments sometimes you just know what's coming. Remember the Playoffs are just three weeks and this season points have been adjusted to drop from four times value to three for the opening two weeks of Playoffs. More on that below the list of projected contenders... along with trends that help project the top 30. POWER RANKINGS: FEDEXCUP PLAYOFFS In a one off move thanks to the reduced season caused by COVID-19 cancelations, Playoff points this season for THE NORTHERN TRUST and the BMW Championship are tripled as opposed to quadrupled. Regular season points carry into the Playoffs but now winners of THE NORTHERN TRUST and the BMW Championship receive 1,500 points. A solo second is worth 900 points, third yields 570, and so on. This change will most certainly affect those who will make the top 30 come TOUR Championship time. The top 20 from the regular season are inside these power rankings by default - this is by design as I noticed Rob did the same a year ago based on the knowledge that for the 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 Playoffs the top 20 remained inside the top 30 after the first two tournaments in the Playoffs. (Prior to last season there were three Playoff events before the TOUR Championship). Looking at last season results we see the top 19, and 22 of the top 23 from the start of the Playoffs all made Atlanta. In total just seven players came from outside the top 30 as the Playoffs began. Three of those seven started in 31st, 32nd and 33rd place. The longest shot was Abraham Ancer who started at 67th but made his move with a runner up finish in week one of the Playoffs. Of course the triple points throws us into some unchartered territory. It was made to protect a good regular season. We might get even more of the current top 30 stay there but there is also a compaction of total points given less tournaments played. Wyndham Clark is in the 125 slot with 276 points. Cameron Smith is in the 30 slot with 807 points. In other words a 531 points gap. Clark could surpass Smith this week with a solo third place finish. A year ago the gap from 125 to 30 was 593 points. For someone to replicate Ancer, they will need to win or go close to it, in the opening two weeks. That starts at TPC Boston, a Playoff host course from 2007 through 2018. It will feature the standard 36-hole cut of top 65 and ties and once results are official, the top 70 in points will qualify for the BMW Championship. Since 2015, 27 golfers who started the Playoffs outside the top 70 played their way inside the bubble after one tournament. Last year had four players play their way in from outside 70th, but none of those kept it going to get to Atlanta. The BMW Championship this season is to be help at Olympia Fields outside Chicago. While it is not a regular TOUR stop it did play host to the 2003 U.S. Open won by Jim Furyk. The 1928 U.S. Open and the 1925 and 1961 PGA Championships were also at Olympia Fields and the precursor to the BMW Championship, the Western Open, was played there five times, but not since Bruce Crampton won in 1971. Outside of Furyk's win in 2003, modern day has seen the 2015 U.S. Amateur played at Olympia Fields where Bryson DeChambeau was victorious. Jon Rahm and Collin Morikawa are just some names that were also in that field. With no cut at Olympia Fields, it’ll be more difficult for the worst seeds to advance to the TOUR Championship, but it’s doable. Since 2015, 17 golfers who started the BMW outside the top 30 played their way in, nine of whom were outside the top 40. The longest shot was Roberto Castro in 2016. As the 53-seed entering the BMW, he finished in solo third and rose to 21st. Remember when we get to Atlanta the old mathematical equations are gone, instead we have the scoring system used for the first time last season. Once the top 30 is determined at the conclusion of the BMW Championship, FedExCup points no longer apply. The top seed entering the finale will begin the tournament at 10-under par. The 2-seed will start at 8-under, and so on down to those seeded 26-30 who open at even par. The winner of the TOUR Championship will be the FedExCup champion. He’ll be credited with an official victory, but there is no separate prize fund. Beginning with bonus money of $15 million to the winner, all earnings will reflect final FedExCup finish. East Lake has held the TOUR Championship since 2004 (and in 2002, 2000, 1998). It has served as the Playoffs culmination since its inception in 2007. But we only have one year of data for the new scoring system. Rory McIlroy won the FedExCup last season despite starting five shots behind Justin Thomas at the beginning of the TOUR Championship. Interestingly enough McIlroy's golf would have been good enough to beat the field had everyone started from scratch. Ok Rob... Come on back now.

Click here to read the full article…

When John Feinstein sits down to write a book, the best-selling author has a single focus in mind. “What I’ve always tried to do is not make headlines but explain headlines,â€� he says. And those headlines have been an extremely diverse collection. Feinstein has written about the two teams who played in the 1995 Army-Navy game (a book that is his personal favorite), as well as Bobby Knight and his 1985-86 Indiana basketball team, probably his best-known tome. He even delved into the December 1977 fight between the Houston Rockets and Los Angeles Lakers when Kermit Washington landed a punch that left Rudy Tomjanovich bleeding and unconscious. And that’s why when Rory tweeted when the book came out … that reading the book he felt like he was in both team rooms, that I thought it was kind of the ultimate compliment. And of the 26 non-fiction books he has written, nine have been about golf, including the most recent, “The First Major: The Inside Story of the 2016 Ryder Cup,” which was released in October. That’s more than any other sport Feinstein has researched and speaks to an enduring fascination with the game that began when he worked at Gardiner’s Bay Country Club on the eastern end of Long Island as a teenager. “I loved the esthetics of it,” he says. “I loved the fact that you could go out and practice and play on your own. I used to get off work in the summer at about 7 and would just grab a cart and go play nine holes by myself before dark, and I had the whole golf course to myself. “I always loved that.” The first person Feinstein told that he was going to write “The First Major” was Davis Love III. The conversation – the first of many over the next 18 months — came on the same day in 2015 when the soon-to-be-named World Golf Hall of Famer was selected as captain of the U.S. Team. “He said, ‘Oh, here we go again’ because he’s been involved in so many of my golf books, and that’s the great thing, though, (because) he completely understands what I’m doing and what I’m trying to do,” Feinstein recalls. So many, indeed. In fact, Feinstein’s first golf book, “A Good Walk Spoiled,” begins with Love standing in the 18th fairway at The Belfry, a bundle of nerves, knowing that his match with Constantino Rocca would decide the 1993 matches. Feinstein actually wanted to write his latest book two years earlier when Tom Watson was the U.S. captain. The two had become close when Feinstein wrote “Caddy for Life” about Bruce Edward’s struggle with ALS. As he pitched the book to Watson, Feinstein hoped to get access similar to what he had when he wrote “Season on the Brink” about the volatile Knight and his Hoosiers. Feinstein had essentially embedded himself with the Indiana team that year and he hoped to tell the story of Watson’s American team from the inside out, as well. “Tom is always honest,” Feinstein says. “And he said, I know it would be a great book, but if one guy on the team came to me afterwards and said, you know, having John in there was a distraction and we lost 14-13 1/2 or something, I’d never forgive myself, and I understood that.” So instead of focusing on the Americans in 2014, Feinstein decided to write about both teams at the 2016 event. Over the next two years he worked to develop relationships with as many of the players as possible, as well as both captains and their assistants. He’d let them take him inside the ropes and behind the scenes instead. “And that’s why when Rory tweeted when the book came out … that reading the book he felt like he was in both team rooms, that I thought it was kind of the ultimate compliment,” Feinstein says. The author was almost overwhelmed by the reception and cooperation he received in researching the book. Take his quest for a sit-down with Jordan Spieth, for example. “The first thing that happened actually that was funny and tells you a lot about Jordan, he had to postpone twice for legit reasons, and when we sat down, the first thing he did was he apologized for postponing, and I said, Jordan, come on, you’re doing me a favor giving me this time, and he said, well, aren’t you doing me a favor putting me in your book?” Feinstein says. “I’m like, really? Jordan needed to be in my book like I need to gain another 20 pounds. And so I laughed. And so then we sat and we talked for a long time, and at the end, like I said, I said, I’m going to need to circle back to you, and he said, yeah, yeah, let’s just make it simple, take my cell phone number and text me whenever you want to talk. You can’t ask for more than that.” From Oct. 2 of last year, when the matches at Hazeltine ended in a hard-fought U.S. victory, to that Thanksgiving, Feinstein estimates he touched base with 16 or 17 of the players to get their take on the event, as well as Love and his European counterpart, Darren Clark. He also interviewed all of Love’s vice captains with the exception of Tiger Woods. “But I had so much stuff from other guys on him, talking about how obsessed he became, and to me people always say, what was your biggest surprise,” Feinstein says. “My biggest surprise was definitely how into the whole thing Tiger became, especially given his past Ryder Cup participation when he was clearly just there because he thought he had to be.” Even as he was in the midst of those follow-up interviews, Feinstein started writing some of the background and historical chapters the week after he got back from Minneapolis. The 320-page book was finished on Feb. 1 of this year. “I’ve always said my newspaper training comes in because I can write fast and I can write on a deadline,” he noted. “I knew it was going to be a fast turnaround, but I was mentally ready to deal with it.” While the competition is at the center of the book, the anecdotes Feinstein gleaned from the coaches and players are what sets it apart. Two of his favorites involve Clarke and Phil Mickelson, two long-time friends as well as keen competitors. Clarke lost his first wife Heather to breast cancer shortly before the Ryder Cup matches in 2006. Mickelson’s wife Amy also has fought the disease, and among Clarke’s memories from that emotional year came at the opening ceremonies when members of the two teams walked in together. “That year it was wife, player, player, wife, two from each side walking side by side, and Darren was supposed to walk in with Amy and Phil, and of course he did not have a partner,” Feinstein says. “And so when the music started and they were about to walk in, Amy walked around Phil, got in between Phil and Darren, took both their hands and walked in with them that way. “And of course Darren never forget that, and Phil said that when Amy was diagnosed, the first phone call he got was from Darren saying, you know, I’m here for you.” Another favorite story in Feinstein’s book came from Love, who remembers seeing Clarke and Mickelson deep in conversation into the wee hours on Sunday night after the U.S. victory. “(He was) talking about sitting and watching Darren and Phil talking together at 2 or 3 in the morning and thinking, this is what Sam Ryder would have wanted the Ryder Cup to be, these guys who have been through so much more together than a golf match, coming back together after competing against one another for three days and sitting around and telling stories together,” Feinstein recalls.

Click here to read the full article…