If the U.S. wants to win the Ryder Cup, it needs to bench Phil Mickelson

KAPALUA, Hawaii — Gary Woodland made a 65-foot eagle putt and finished with a birdie for a 5-under 68 to keep his three-shot lead in the Sentry Tournament of Champions on Saturday. Rory McIlroy briefly caught him for the lead until the birdies stopped falling. He shot 68 and starts the new year playing in the final group. They were tied late in the third round when McIlroy missed a good birdie chance on two par 5s at No. 15 and No. 18. In the group behind him, Woodland reached the front of the 15th green and watched his putt up the slope and into the grain drop for eagle, with the pin still in the hole. He holed a 12-foot birdie putt on the toughest pin position at the 18th — front and right — to end the day where he started. Woodland was at 17-under 202, and would love nothing better than to secure another trip to Kapalua in the first tournament of the year. Marc Leishman, who made a double bogey in the opening round and a triple bogey on Friday, limited the damage to only one bogey. He had a 68 and was well in range, four shots behind. Xander Schauffele (68) and Bryson DeChambeau (70) were five back. The only downer for Woodland was learning that his grandmother in Kansas had died Friday night. This is a family vacation for most of the Woodland crew — for Christmas, he flew out 11 relatives. “She’s been downhill for a little while now,” Woodland said. “It’s been tough. And you try to prepare for that, but you never really can. Definitely will have a little extra emotion with me, but we’ll get through it.” It was a tough day of work on the course, as the trade wind returned stronger than expected. McIlroy managed to get through it without a bogey. He had a close call on the 16th, when he tried to atone for the missed birdie on the previous hole by going at the flag and landing just over the green. He faced one of the fastest chips on the course, down the slope toward the Pacific horizon, and left it 12 short. He made his par to at least stay in range. McIlroy spoke earlier in the week about playing in the last group six times last year. One of those was the Masters, when he started two shots behind Patrick Reed and never challenged. Another was the TOUR Championship, where he was three behind Tiger Woods and didn’t give him much of a fight. “I probably pushed a little too hard, and it didn’t really work out for me,” McIlroy said. “I just have to go about my business. I didn’t make a bogey today, so I’ll make that a goal tomorrow.” It still will depend on Woodland, a three-time winner on the PGA TOUR who wants more victories to show for his improved all-around game. His only mistake on Saturday was coming up just short of the green on No. 12 and missing a 5-foot par putt. Woodland was part of a crowded leaderboard Friday when he pulled away with five straight birdies. This time, all he needed was one big putt. He laughed when it dropped, though he says it had nothing to do with surprise. “I just saw somebody’s face in the background. They weren’t too happy that the ball went in, so it made me laugh,” he said. “I enjoyed that.” The last two winners at Kapalua, Dustin Johnson and Justin Thomas, needed something special Sunday. Thomas shot a 70 and was seven behind, while Johnson had 69 and was eight back.

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ATLANTA – Joaquin Niemann was 24 shots off the lead, and the tension was thick. Playing as a single and determined to beat Kevin Na’s speed record (1:59) for an 18-hole round at the TOUR Championship, Niemann had the clubhouse in sight, and he was flying. A group of 30 to 40 supporters, many of them college kids and younger, were running with him, witnesses to history. Na, waiting for his tee time on the practice putting green next to the 10th tee, kept up with the breathless commentary and the timed splits on his phone. “Oh, he’s breaking it,” Na said. He smiled. “He needs a ruling on 18.” There was no such hinderance. Niemann creamed his drive – about a foot or two from being too far and in the water – found the front greenside bunker with his second, blasted out to 6 1/2 feet, missed the birdie, and tapped in for a 2-over 72. Elapsed time: 1:53. He’d made history. “I’m tired,” Niemann said, out of breath and smiling at his ridiculous feat. Asked about the intrepid fans who legged it right along with them on the back nine, Gary Matthews, his caddie, said, “It felt like the Tiger Woods time here.” Andy Pazder, Chief Tournament/Competitions Officer for the PGA TOUR, met them in the scoring trailer and notified Niemann that he would be receiving a $10,000 fine for his conduct. Before a fuming Niemann could say anything, Pazder said he was only kidding. “I was like, ‘Oh, I hate you,’” Niemann said with a laugh. The rushed round required some preparation. “He had three golf balls,” said caddie Matthews, when asked if he’d strategically emptied out the bag. “He didn’t have the usual nine. He didn’t have a rain cover. He didn’t have any little instruments that we had. He only had one glove, five tees.” And if it had rained? “Umbrella was gone,” Matthews added. Niemann rubbed the caddie’s belly. “Didn’t have breakfast this morning so he was light.” Wesley Bryan has the fastest round on record on the PGA TOUR, 1:29 at the BMW Championship. The record-breaking round was a welcome diversion amid the tension of Patrick Cantlay and Jon Rahm trading blows with the $15 million FedExCup first prize on the line. It also won Niemann some fans. Brendan Reilly and Will Arsenault, students at the University of Miami who were in town for the Hurricanes’ football game against Alabama on Saturday, were sweating and out of breath on 18. “We saw him at 11 and realized he was only an hour into his round,” Reilly said. “He picked up the pace and next thing you knew he was on 14 already, and it was on from there.” Added Arsenault, “There were a good 30 to 40 kids like us running with him. Never in my life did I see myself participating in a Tiger moment like this. He really grew a following.” Tyler and Evan Henley, teenagers from Beaufort, Georgia, carried the scoring standard and were also exhausted and pushing fluids by the end of the round. “I wrestle,” said Tyler, 17, “so I’m probably in the best condition I’ll be in, and it still wore me out.” Did they know on the first tee what Niemann was going to do? “No,” Tyler said. “He was talking to his caddie; me and my and my brother heard the word ‘run.’ Then he kind of took off and then stopped, so we thought he was jokin’ around and he was gonna take it kinda slow. And then on 10 and he just took off.” Told at the turn he was off the pace; Niemann knew he had to step on it. He had double-bogeyed the eighth hole, a misadventure that seemed to take forever. It was time to blow off some steam. Although he professes to hate running since his school days, when he ran track, he took off down the 10th fairway, telling the brothers over his shoulder, “We’re beating this record!” The next five holes were a blur. When Niemann reached the watery, par-3 15th hole, Stewart Cink and Hideki Matsuyama, who’d started 10 minutes behind him, were teeing off at the eighth. Niemann and Matthews resolved to finish the round before Cink and Matsuyama finished the front nine. Niemann hit the 15th green and made a 29-foot birdie putt, his shot of the day. Really, though, it was the time that he would remember, and being on the clock – in a good way. “It’s been a long week, a long three or four weeks,” he said, “and I wasn’t playing my best golf this week. I was in last place and wasn’t going to win. I was pretty far behind from the guys in front of me, so I was like, let’s make it fun and have fun. It was a lot of fun.”

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