Jason Day offers peek at TaylorMade’s yet-to-be-released P760 irons

In news that will certainly get 82-time PGA TOUR winner Tiger Woods fired up ahead of the latest edition of Capital One’s The Match, the super team of Woods and world no.1 Rory McIlroy have swung to underdog status ahead of their showdown with Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth. With Woods recently withdrawing from the Hero World Challenge thanks to plantar fasciitis, bettors at BetMGM Sportsbook have pounced on the Thomas / Spieth combo for the 12-hole head-to-head contest to be held under lights at 6 p.m. on Dec. 10 at Pelican Golf Club in Belleair, Florida. While McIlroy has recently taken back status as the best golfer in the world thanks in huge part to wins at the TOUR Championship and THE CJ CUP in South Carolina in recent starts, Woods is returning to playing action for the first time since The 150th Open Championship at St. Andrews in July as he continues to manage his body following his 2021 car accident. As such, the Woods/McIlroy combo have drifted to +100 to win after opening at -135 while Thomas/Spieth have moved from +110 at opening to -125 as of Thursday. “I can tell you one thing,” Woods said earlier this week on a media call, “I have the No. 1 player on my team, so I’m good.” Woods says his most recent injury setback will not hamper his golf swing, rather it affects his ability to walk without pain. The Match provides golfcarts for participants and can be watched on TNT, with simulcasts available on TBS, truTV and HLN. Woods and McIlroy have 105 PGA TOUR wins, five FedExCup’s and 19 major championships between them. By the same measures Thomas and Spieth have 28 TOUR wins, two FedExCup’s and five majors. But while Woods and McIlroy have been on opposing teams in Ryder Cups of the past, Thomas and Spieth recently combined for a 4-0-0 record as a duo for the U.S. at the Presidents Cup and have an 8-2-0 record together in all Presidents and Ryder Cup play. “He’s probably the best iron player that’s ever lived … probably the best golfer that’s ever lived. Period,” McIlroy said of his partner Woods. “I think if he can just get it out in the fairway, and get some looks in the fairway, I think we’re going to have a really good chance.” The Match will be played in a team best-ball format. Each player will play his own ball, and the best individual score from each team will count for the hole. But as has been the case in the previous six editions of The Match, several curveballs will be introduced through the contest as money is set to be raised for Hurricane Ian relief. The third and ninth holes will provide closest-to-the-pin competitions for up to $1.1million a piece while the fourth hole will be played as a one club challenge where each competitor must use just one club for the entire hole and can win up to $750,000. The fifth and eighth holes will also provide hole-in-one challenges where $2.5 million will be donated on the team’s behalf should an ace come to fruition. If no hole-in-one is made, $250,000 will be donated on behalf of the team that wins the hole. BetMGM Sportsbook has also set up special markets outside the winner of the contest and will provide live betting on each hole in legal betting states. Currently Woods/McIlroy are -105 to win the first hole (tie no bet) with Thomas/Spieth at -120 and the same odds are posted for the first team to go 1up. You can get +150 on Woods/McIlroy to be leading after six holes with Thomas and Spieth at +138 and a tie at +333. On Thursday Woods/McIlroy were +138 to lead after nine of the 12 holes, Thomas/Spieth were +120 and a tie was +450. Responsible sports betting starts with a game plan. Set a budget. Keep it social. Play with friends. Learn the game and know the odds. Play with trusted, licensed operators. CLICK HERE to learn more at HaveAGamePlan.org

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The Cal Bears had done fine, under the circumstances. Missing two players, one of them at Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada Q School and the other tending to a family obligation, the Bears finished fourth at a tournament at rival Stanford last March. The prevailing drift: Fourth wasn’t bad, all things considered. Collin Morikawa wasn’t having it. “He called me out on it,� recalls Cal men’s golf coach Walter Chun. “It was one-on-one, very respectful. He taught me a lot about being a coach. He’s so driven; it’s part of what made him the player he was, and what makes him the player he is.� To wit, Morikawa could have been content, upon getting his Business Administration degree at Cal last spring, to aim only for a spot in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals. Instead, he finished T2 at the 3M Open in just his fourth PGA TOUR start as a professional, earning Special Temporary Member status, and won the Barracuda Championship three weeks later, qualifying for the Sentry Tournament of Champions (T7 last week) and earning a two-year exemption on TOUR. Morikawa, who joined Cameron Champ, Adam Long and Matthew Wolff as players to win last season in their ninth career start or earlier, will be among the players to watch at this week’s Sony Open in Hawaii. His paternal grandparents were born in Maui, and he spent so much time in Hawaii growing up, on family visits and for other special occasions, he says he feels right at home. His control game might be a better fit for cozy Waialae Country Club than Sentry’s brawny Kapalua, and it speaks to his lofty reputation that no one would be shocked if he wins. That goes for this week, and most any other week, too. “There are no holes in his game – at all,� says Maverick McNealy, a rival when he was at Stanford, a teammate when they played in the Palmer and Walker Cups, and now a pal with whom Morikawa plays when home in Las Vegas. “He’s very nice, respectful, humble. But I think that humility comes from confidence.� How good is Morikawa? At the fall’s Safeway Open (T10), he shot a second-round 64 in which he made seven birdies from inside 10 feet. Had he played enough rounds to qualify for statistical rankings last season, he’d have led the TOUR in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green and also been in the top 10 in Driving Accuracy, Greens in Regulation, and Strokes Gained: Approach the Green. Says college coach Chun: “I think he’ll win at Torrey Pines or Riviera to start the year. He’s a West Coast kid, he knows poa annua greens, and he’ll be motivated to win. When he wants to accomplish something, he tends to do it.� Only occasionally do you remember that he’s only 22, and graduated just over six months ago. Asked why he was looking at his phone after round three of the Safeway, Morikawa replied, “I’m just looking for what my next pairing will be. It’s still exciting for me.� It might be the only time Morikawa has looked or sounded like a newbie. The head of a caddie J.J. Jakovac won two individual national championships for Division II Chico State. He turned pro, didn’t get through Q School, burned out, and took a job with Ryan Moore. They lasted 7-1/2 years, parting at the PGA Championship last May. Jakovac went home to Napa, California, where he bonded with his 1-year-old son, Bo, as his wife returned to work. He was in no hurry to get back on TOUR. Talents like Morikawa, though, come along all too infrequently. A three-time first-team All-American, he almost won a Korn Ferry Tour event as an amateur, losing a playoff at the 2016 Air Capital Classic. And by May he was ready to go pro. Figuring he was already too late to get the bag, Jakovac, 37, asked an agent friend to help him reach out to Morikawa’s nascent team. “I got very lucky,� Jakovac says. They met at the U.S. Open sectional qualifier in Columbus, Ohio. Morikawa advanced (he later finished T35 at Pebble Beach), and their partnership was born. “The best thing about him is his head,� Jakovac says. “I know the courses, but he thinks like a caddie out there, which is cool. He doesn’t play too conservative; he plays smart. He’s very methodical about the way he plots it around. “I was saying this to someone,� he adds, “and they said, ‘So he’s like a 10-year veteran.’ I said, ‘He’s better than most of those guys.’ In the mental aspect.� Morikawa was asked about this at Kapalua last week. How did he explain his early success, plus that of Wolff, Joaquin Niemann and others? “It’s just a lot of self-belief,� he said. “We believe that we can do it no matter where we are.� To make a food analogy – Morikawa calls out great meals on social media and carries wedges stamped with SOURDOUGH TOAST, BACON, HASH BROWNS and EGGS BENEDICT – if most new pros are a bunch of promising ingredients, then Morikawa comes hot out of the oven with everything baked in. “He was destined to do this,� says Steve Desimone, Cal’s longtime men’s golf coach, who helped recruit Morikawa before leaving the job for health reasons. Desimone, who was at Berkeley for more than 37 years, calls Morikawa “mature beyond his years� and, tellingly, “the easiest kid I ever coached.� Which begs the question: How did he get so golf-smart? How is it that his golf IQ recalls another product of the Southern California golf scene, Tiger Woods? To answer that, you have to talk to Rick Sessinghaus. An unusual path Morikawa’s younger brother, Garrett, 16, is into soccer, not golf. Their parents, Blaine and Debbie, weren’t accomplished players, either. “It’s kind of my own thing,� Morikawa says of golf. “My first lessons were at this mini junior camp at Scholl Canyon in Glendale, the city over from where I grew up. I was 5.� He got the basics from a married couple who taught juniors, but he always noticed the other instructor there, a man on the other end of the driving range. Sessinghaus. He taught better players, and soon enough, Morikawa was tabbed as one of them. “He had some good fundamentals coming to me,� says Sessinghaus, who has a doctorate in sports psychology and is the mental performance coach for UCLA’s golf team. “I work heavily on the mental side and course management and strategy. “With Collin, at an early age, we were doing a lot of our lessons on the course.� What was the percentage shot? Where was the best miss? How could he play to his strengths? More than mechanics, these problem-solving sessions became the focus. “There’s a lot of great swings out there but not many golfers,� Sessinghaus says. “He learned to play at a high level. Collin’s been wired that way; I’ve tried to cultivate it, raise his golf I.Q. by putting him in different situations. “He’s going to look at a golf course and create a strategy based on his capabilities. He’s not going to overpower it but can plot his way around based on his strengths.� From age 8 through high school, Morikawa met with Sessinghaus weekly. (When he went to Berkeley, they sometimes worked over the phone.) Morikawa’s swing was so fundamentally solid, they put even greater emphasis on the mental side. The on-course problem-solving wasn’t just a series of theoretical exercises; as much as he could, Sessinghaus tried to create the stress of actual competition. “I believe development has to be done on the golf course to learn how to compete, to deal with pressure, to learn how to think,� he says. “The competitions at the end of a lesson were, ‘Hey, you have one ball and one ball only, let’s see what you do.’ “It was a bunker shot,� he adds, “closest to the pin, a wedge off a downslope, a par 3. A lot of it was trash talk. You’d win and say, ‘OK, I got you.’ It was about the contest itself. That was a constant for us, competition. I probably won more at the start and then when he was 16 or 17, it turned quickly.� A prized recruit, Morikawa nevertheless got to Cal only to find out his short game was lacking. He worked on it until it was TOUR-quality. He became the No. 1-ranked amateur, turned pro, and won in Reno in just his eighth start, closing with three straight birdies to beat Troy Merritt in the modified Stableford format. Surprising? Not really. Sessinghaus has never seen Morikawa look out of sorts in the heat of battle. Well, almost never. When the new TOUR winner was tabbed to throw out the first pitch for his beloved L.A. Dodgers last Labor Day, he was edgy. His mom, dad, brother, girlfriend (Katherine) and manager waited patiently as he walked out to the mound. That caddie Jakovac, a devout San Francisco Giants fan, was probably going to give him the needle if he made a lousy throw probably didn’t help, either. “That was the first time I’ve seen Collin nervous,� Sessinghaus says with a laugh. “It was kind of fun to see that vulnerable side of him; this was totally outside his comfort zone. In warm-ups he was doing fine, but when the pitch came, he threw it into the dirt a little bit. We had fun with that.� For now, he’ll stick to the golf course, where Cal’s Desimone says he’s never seen Morikawa pick a wrong club, and never seen a player with better distance control. Where will he pick up win No. 2? With Morikawa’s mindset, it could be anywhere. “I think a lot of people aren’t embracing competing to be great and to win,� says Sessinghaus. “We’ve watered it down to, Let’s just try our best. I get that, but Collin has always believed he could win. Talking with J.J., his game sets up for 90% of the courses he’s going to play because he hits it so well. “There may be a couple bomb-and-gauge courses where there’s no consequences for a miss,� he adds, “and at those ones he might not have as good a shot, but other than that, he’s going to have a shot to win every time.�

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While Xander Schauffele finished off his last cigars, Harris English auditioned for Lee Corso’s job and Bryson DeChambeau launched drives into orbit, Sam Burns was busy winning his second PGA TOUR title at the Sanderson Farms Championship. The 25-year-old, who became somewhat notorious for a series of close calls before breaking through last season, continues to prove he can get the job done on Sundays. After this week, he is certainly not chicken (that’s a trophy joke). Sergio Garcia, the only player from the previous week’s Ryder Cup who made the trip to Mississippi, missed the cut in his title defense at the Country Club of Jackson, but his good friend Nick Watney represented the 40-somethings well against a leaderboard chock full of promising young prospects. Sahith Theegala, the consensus college player of the year in 2020, claimed his first career top-10, as did Cameron Young and Hayden Buckley. Here are five stories you might have missed from Mississippi: Sam Burns Saves His Lead For Sunday At No. 25 in the Official World Golf Rankings, Sam Burns came into this week as the top-ranked player in the field. He proceeded to deliver four rounds of 68 or better, including a 67 on Sunday, to win by one shot. Burns began the fourth round as one of four players trailing Theegala by a shot. A 2-under front nine kept Burns in the mix and, after a birdie on 11, he made three straight birdies on Nos. 13-15 to pull to the front of the field. Despite some fight from five-time PGA TOUR winner Nick Watney – who was seeking his first victory in nine years — and rookie Cameron Young, Burns found himself needing just a bogey on 18 for the win. After finding a greenside bunker with his approach shot, Burns would two-putt for the win. It’s time to start talking about Burns as a legitimate superstar. Last season, Burns posted eight top-10s, four top-3s and got his first win at the Valspar Championship. He was the TOUR’s leader in 36-hole leads (five) and tied with Jordan Spieth for 54-hole leads (four). His Sanderson win tied him atop the FedExCup standings with Fortinet champion Max Homa and moved Burns to a career-best 18th in the world ranking. “I think last year, having those experiences around the lead, I think those were really important for me,” Burns said Sunday. “Having that under my belt today, that experience was definitely helpful, and coming down the stretch, I felt a lot different than I have in the past and not necessarily more confident, but just in a better state of mind.” After last year’s Sanderson Farms Championship – a missed cut for Burns – he was ranked No. 168 in the world. His rapid rise in 2021 almost landed him on last week’s Ryder Cup team, making him one of the top candidates for U.S. Captain Steve Stricker’s half-dozen picks. “I think getting the call from Stricker … and hearing the news that I didn’t make the team was definitely very motivating and definitely kind of gut-wrenching,” Burns says. “I think it’s definitely motivated me to try to be on the next team and continue to try to improve and hopefully be on it the next go.” There is still a long way to go, but Burns jumped from No. 12 to No. 7 in the 2022 Presidents Cup standings. A Shreveport, Louisiana, native, Burns grew up just two-and-a-half hours from the Country Club of Jackson. He also is an LSU alum, and lifting that rooster trophy was probably the best distraction for his friends and family in attendance after a Tigers loss to Auburn on Saturday night. Sahith Theegala Backs Up Collegiate Stardom For three days, Sahith Theegala was the darling of the Country Club of Jackson. He opened with a 64 and followed with two 67s to hold at least a share of the lead through the first three rounds (despite a nasty lip-out on Saturday). He took a one-shot lead into Sunday, but the magic ran out as a 1-under 71 landed Theegala in a tie for eighth place at 19 under, three back of Burns. Golf fans have been hearing about Theegala for a few years now. A three-time All-American at Pepperdine, he won the Haskins Award, Ben Hogan Award and Jack Nicklaus Award in 2020. Theegala was just the fifth player to sweep all three NCAA Division I postseason honors, following Hunter Mahan, Bill Haas, Ryan Moore and Patrick Rodgers. This week, Theegala had just one bogey through his first 63 holes. However, on Sunday, he bogeyed Nos. 10, 11 and 13, dropping from 21 under to 18 under. He would recover with a birdie at 14, but pars on Nos. 15-18 would land Theegala with a T8 at 19 under. “I think I know what I need to work on and what I need to do moving forward,” Theegala says. “I did so much good stuff this week and I’ll just try and build off the really good stuff and keep learning. A lot of it was mental today. It wasn’t even my game at all.” His Sanderson finish was Theegala’s third top-10 in his last four starts on both the PGA TOUR and Korn Ferry Tour. He closed the Korn Ferry Tour Finals with a T4 and sixth-place finish to earn his TOUR card. Those finishes came after switching to a longer driver at the second event of the Korn Ferry Tour Finals, the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship. “I got a new driver after I missed the first cut at (Korn Ferry Tour Finals), went to Ping, did a little bit of work there and they set me up with a new driver,” Theegala said in Mississippi. “It’s a longer driver. I’m like, if I’m going to hit it off-line, I might as well hit it a little bit further and funny enough I’m hitting it way straighter.” Theegala was originally supposed to play a Monday qualifier this afternoon, but now, the Chino Hills, California, native is into the field at the Shriners Children’s Open thanks to his top-10 finish. He can take his time traveling west. Will Zalatoris Putts Up Course Record For a few hours on Friday, it looked like Will Zalatoris was playing a different course. The reigning Rookie of the Year opened with a 2-under 70 before delivering an 61 on Friday, a course record at the Country Club of Jackson. Zalatoris’ bogey-free round featured six birdies on the front and five birdies on the back. Much of Zalatoris’ magic came from the putter. Six of his 11 birdie putts were from 12 feet or farther, highlighted by a 26-foot make on No. 13. “The days where I make 20-footers, those are the days that I end up putting a great round together, because I’m always going to be the guy that’s going to hit 14-plus greens to give myself chances,” Zalatoris said after the round. He’s no stranger to going low, as he’s shot 59 in multiple casual rounds, including once when he was just 17 years old. The analytics agree. Zalatoris finished the 2021 PGA Tour season No. 7 in SG: Approach-the-Green, but 122nd in SG: Putting. And the putter slowed down over the weekend. Zalatoris shot an even-par 72 on Saturday and a 4-under 68 on Sunday to finish T14 at 17 under. Along with his T11 finish at the season-opening Fortinet Championship, Zalatoris is off to a solid start in his first year as a full PGA TOUR member. But Zalatoris did not end the week with Wake Forest bragging rights. His college teammate Cameron Young fired four rounds in the 60s to finish 21 under, tied with Nick Watney for second place. Nick Watney Capitalizing On Last-Chance Season In his prime, Nick Watney was a star on the PGA TOUR. He won five times from 2007-2012, reached No. 9 in the world and was part of the winning U.S. Presidents Cup Team in 2011. But now 40, Watney has been struggling. Last season, Watney made just six cuts in 25 starts, at one point missing 18 straight cuts. He finished No. 204 in the FedExCup, not even good enough to earn a spot in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals. But Watney had one last card to play. He could use a one-time exemption for being in the top 50 on the career money list. Considering Watney finished last season at No. 50 on that list, this was likely his last opportunity to use the exemption. Watney’s last-chance season is off to a red-hot start. After a T30 at the Fortinet Championship, he added a T2 at the Sanderson Farms Championship, capped off by a 7-under 65 on Sunday. Watney made seven putts from outside 10 feet as he rekindled some of his old form. “The most satisfying part of it is just how I was mentally,” Watney says. “I was able to keep it to kind of one shot and not get too wrapped up in where I was or I was this many behind or whatever and that’s probably the most satisfying part because I think the mental unlocks everything else.” Not a bad week for the World No. 660. A Gutsy T17 For Matthew Wolff Making his season debut, Matthew Wolff looked like his stay in Jackson would be short, as he sat at 2 under overall through 13 holes on Friday. But Wolff finished on a heater, with birdies on 14, 15 and 18, the last one a 35-footer to make the cut on the number. With new life, Wolff posted an early 65 on Saturday and came back with a 68 on Sunday. At 16-under, he finished T17. He was helped by a return to the irons he used last fall to finish second in both the U.S. Open and Shriners Children’s Open. The Sanderson Farms Championship was Wolff’s first made cut since the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational in early August. And it builds his confidence for his return to TPC Summerlin, where he shot a third-round 61 before losing a playoff to Martin Laird last year. Wolff reached a career-high No. 12 in the world after last year’s Shriners Children’s Open. He is now No. 47. COMCAST BUSINESS TOUR TOP 10 The Comcast Business TOUR TOP 10 highlights and rewards the extraordinary level of play required to earn a spot in the TOP 10 at the conclusion of the FedExCup Regular Season as determined by the FedExCup standings. The competition recognizes and awards the most elite in golf.

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