Woods takes 3-shot lead into final round of TOUR Championship

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Brandt Snedeker’s daughter Lily came running down the stairs, full of excitement, on Tuesday morning of last week. It was her ninth birthday. A special day. Cake and ice cream was on the horizon along with ribbons and bows and presents. But as soon as she looked at her parents, Lily could tell something was wrong. Snedeker had been awake since about 4 a.m. when his phone started blowing up with text messages from friends and family. Were they OK? Had the brutal storms and tornadoes that roared through Tennessee in the wee hours spared them? “My wife and I were both just in shock,â€� he recalled Wednesday before heading out to play a practice round for THE PLAYERS Championship. “My little girl came downstairs. She was so excited because it’s her birthday. She turned nine and she’s like, ‘What’s wrong? Why aren’t you guys excited?’ We started showing her pictures, turned the news on and she realized oh gosh, this is really serious. “We started getting reports of how many people … I think 24 is the final total of people that had passed away from that. And that’s when it hits you. The stuff people lost; our city will recover. It’s the people who can’t recover, right? The people that lost their lives, it really hits you. … It was a tough day.â€� Surreal was another word Snedeker used, more than once, during the interview outside the massive clubhouse at TPC Sawgrass. The Snedekers live south of Nashville and were spared any damage. But they had friends who were hard hit, and the city where he was born and still resides will be in recovery mode for a long, long time.   “It was so sudden, so quick,â€� said Snedeker, whose G/FORE golf shoes will display the words: Nashville Strong this week. “It was not a big storm. Didn’t feel like it was one of the ones you really had to worry about. Then you wake up to the devastation we saw, and you realize that in a blink of an eye, everything changed for a lot of people.â€� Schools were reduced to rubble but thankfully, no lives were lost in those classrooms because the EF-3 tornado hit at night. Too many businesses and homes to count were destroyed, particularly in the East Nashville area, an up-and-coming neighborhood filled with trendy restaurants and the kind of cool stone houses people love to renovate. “What was crazy about it is you’d have one side of the street that was leveled, one side the street, not,â€� Snedeker said. “The randomness of the tornadoes is really hard for people to kind of take and grasp. From there, it just stayed on the ground forever. “And probably the worst images you’ll see are from Cookeville, Tennessee, which is about an hour east of town, where it just literally looked like a bomb went off. I mean it was severe damage and these are all brick homes, beautiful homes that just got leveled and so it’s going to be a long recovery effort.â€� In the short term, Snedeker is trying to help his friends get back on their feet. The roof to one’s apartment was blown off, the family’s belongings a total loss. So was their car in the garage under the apartment building. “They luckily made it out, but they lost everything inside,â€� Snedeker said. “Single mom that we’ve known forever. You hear those stories and you’re like, okay, I want to help her. I know her personally. We’re going to get her back and going. “But then you think about all the people I don’t know that have had something similar happen. What can we do for them?â€� Snedeker is trying to figure that out right now. He knows there’s an influx of people who have been doing the grunt work, clearing roads and property with chain saws, replacing roofs and drywall. Hotels have opened their doors to the displaced. People have donated water and clothes and food. “I was really kind of buoyed by that, knowing that Nashville is a community, we do care about people involved in it,â€� Snedeker said. “So, for me it’s been hard kind of figuring out where I fall in with this, how can I help? What can I do? It’s easy to write a check and just say, ‘Here you go, here’s a bunch of money.’ And go to the people you want. “I think we want to do more than that. I want to do more than that. The thing with these kinds of disasters is everybody gets really excited about them or wants to help out, over enthusiastic probably the week after. Then three months down the road, that’s when people really need you. So, we’re trying to figure out the best way to say, okay, how can we service people three months down the road who still don’t have a home, still don’t have a car, that need a job because their business place got lost, whatever it may be?â€� The Brandt and Mandy Snedeker Foundation that he and his wife started after he won the 2012 FedExCup is sure to be involved. Maybe they hold a charity golf tournament. Maybe they partner with some of Nashville’s many entertainers to raise funds for the relief. No matter what, they’ll find a way to make an impact. Snedeker said the celebration for his daughter’s birthday went on that night as scheduled. But it was muted after a day filled with a such a sense of sadness, mourning even. “You had a sickness in your stomach all day,â€� he said. “You couldn’t believe. You kept thinking it wasn’t real, and then you’d see the pictures coming online and you see people just lost everything. Everybody’s faces when you walked around town that day … it just looked like everybody was drained. “It’s still that way a little bit. There was a sense of pride afterwards, seeing everybody come together and get downtown and do some good work and try to help people get back. But it’s a long process. It’s such a long process. You see pictures of all these volunteers working all day long. “There’s no finality to it. Still a lot more to do, still a lot more rebuilding so it’s going to take that sustained effort over months and months and months to get back to here we need to be.â€�

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SYDNEY, Australia – American golf fans are clearly tickled pink right now given the youth movement on the PGA TOUR. As Tiger Woods faced his injuries over the last four years, the likes of Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas emerged into super-stardom, and the production line keeps churning out youthful stars. Last season on TOUR, 20-somethings Thomas (5 wins), Spieth (3), Xander Schauffele (2), Cody Gribble, Mac Hughes, Hudson Swafford, Rickie Fowler, Russell Henley, Wesley Bryan, Daniel Berger, Brooks Koepka, Kyle Stanley, Bryson DeChambeau and Grayson Murray all took home victories. Clearly, the future is bright in the good old U-S of A. In modern times, Australia has long had the next best representation of players on the PGA TOUR. Since Greg Norman blazed his way to the top in America, Australia has had a solid core of TOUR players bringing success down under. Ian Baker Finch, Wayne Grady, Steve Elkington helped lead in Norman’s time. Then others like Stuart Appleby and Robert Allenby emerged. Soon after, Geoff Ogilvy, Adam Scott and Aaron Baddeley were leading the charge. And then Jason Day took things by the throat. In all this time, you’d routinely find eight to 12 Australians at most TOUR events. But Day recently turned 30, officially taking him out of the “young gun” category. And as he, and others, age there is a real possibility other countries will come and take their mantle. South Korea’s and China’s numbers are strengthening. More English players tend to want to play both in Europe and the US. So who is ready to step up and become the next generation of Aussie stars? Cameron Smith is now the leader of the 20-something Australians. At 24 and with a Zurich Classic title (with Jonas Blixt) under his belt, he is paving the path. With two top-five finishes during the fall series, Smith appears set for another good year. But he’s the only Australian on TOUR under 30. Behind him, the hopes lie on the likes of former U.S. Amateur champion Curtis Luck, former U.S. Junior champion Min Woo Lee, highly touted teenager Ryan Ruffels, British amateur runner up Dylan Perry and the likes of Brett Coletta, Karl Vilips and Cameron Davis. They’ve shown plenty of talent, but have been unable to take the next step towards stardom. “We do have a lot of young talented players here that just haven’t blossomed yet and I think once they do, we will have a good stable of players on the PGA TOUR,â€� Day said after surveying the youngsters in the field at the Australian Open. And he’s counting on it for selfish reasons also. Day still remains driven to become Australia’s greatest ever golfer and the more competition coming through, the better. The 16-year-old Lee, the brother of LPGA winner Minjee, recently out drove Day at a junior clinic. The teenager joked Day might already be scared of him. With a laugh, Day admitted he might be. And talked of the plethora of kids on the range pounding the long ball out there. “Just the sound of the ball coming off, when I was a kid, you’d never really hear that too often and now you go down the range and you just hear every kid sounds like it’s going a very long way,â€� Day said. “When I hear that and look at that, I know that I’ve got to do a lot more to try and keep up or stay in front of them. That gives me extra motivation.â€� Luck had a shot at a TOUR card in the Web.com Finals this year, but was unable to convert. Ruffels has had multiple chances in TOUR events. but failed to garner enough non-member points to forge ahead. The 22-year-old Davis has played in one TOUR event and finished T15, contending throughout. He will attempt to breakthrough at Web.com Tour q-School final stage next month. “There’s me and at least another five or six guys that are really coming through strong at the moment,â€� Davis claims. “It’s really Golf Australia and all the state programs, the players are getting stronger and stronger. It’s just a matter of time before they step out into those waters and see how good they are, because the scores they’re shooting at amateur tournaments are awesome and they’re putting themselves up there in professional tournaments as well. “I don’t see why (Aussies) can’t (replicate the U.S. success),â€� he added. “I feel like their best golf will win tournaments over there.â€� Over the next season or two the others will slowly get their chances. Lee, Ruffels and Vilips are still teens and have time on their side. They all do really – except the standard has now been lifted thanks to the Americans. And of course, other international stars like Hideki Matsuyama and Jon Rahm. Vilips and Lee are already confident kids. Lee’s U.S. Junior win proved his pedigree as did his recent near miss at the Asia-Pacific Amateur. Vilips has been a standout in junior tournaments across the USA where he’s based. He is working with Spieth’s Australian coach Cameron McCormick. Day wants the young Aussies to back themselves. He famously came out saying he wanted to take down Woods in his early days and was handed some backlash. But he says you have to be confident to beat the best. “My biggest thing is if you have dreams and aspirations to do big things and do great things and you want to voice them, then go ahead and voice them,â€� Day, who is just the third Australian behind Norman and Scott to reach world No.1, said. “I’ve always been pretty honest with media and how I’ve been feeling, what I’ve wanted to achieve in my life, because to a certain degree, if I say it, then it kind of makes me accountable, and I need to work harder to try and achieve those goals.â€� The Australian Open has been a launching pad before. Norman was paired with Jack Nicklaus as a young man in the event with the Golden Bear telling him he should take his game to the USA. Aaron Baddeley went back-to-back in 1999-2000 to kick start his career. Perhaps the next wave of stars will emerge this weekend.

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