Ryan Armour returns to defend breakthrough title at Sanderson Farms

We go through every hole, with a caddie who has spent most of his life at Pebble Beach, to offer the tips, warnings and strategies it’ll take to win this U.S. Open.

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PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – Tiger Woods is unlikely to be adding a second U.S. Open at Pebble Beach to his resume and Phil Mickelson’s dream of the career Grand Slam are all but over for another year after a rough day on the Monterey Peninsula. Related: Leaderboard Woods put together an even-par 71 on Saturday to remain even par for the tournament, currently well off the pace of Gary Woodland. His quest for a record-tying 82nd PGA TOUR win will likely have to wait. It was a rollercoaster effort from Woods, who had five birdies and five bogeys over the course of his round. “I got off to a crap start, 2-over through three, and those are the easier holes. And I had to try to fight back and claw out a round today, which I was able to do,â€� Woods said. The 15-time major championship winner was wearing kinetic tape on his neck throughout the round but played down any injury concerns. Woods withdrew from the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard earlier this season with a neck complaint. The precaution is a result of the four back surgeries and subsequent swing adjustments he’s had in his career. “When it’s cold like this, everything is achy. It’s just part of the deal,â€� Woods said of the tape. “It’s all the same. It’s been like that for years. The forces have to go somewhere. And if they’re not in the lower back, they’re in the neck, and if not, they’re in the mid-back, and if not, they go to the knee. You name it. “Let me put it this way, I feel every shot I hit. I think that’s always going to be the place from here going forward.â€� Mickelson had a chance to sit above Woods on the leaderboard heading to Sunday, having birdied the 12th hole to move to 2-under. However, bogeys on Nos. 14 and 17 put him under the gun to make something happen on the par-5 18th. Unfortunately for the six-time U.S. Open runner-up, he hit his tee shot into Carmel Bay and eventually walked off with a triple bogey. His 4-over 75 leaves him 3-over for the championship and needing nothing short of a miracle to become just the sixth man to win the career Grand Slam. “Certainly I’m disappointed. I felt like I played a lot better than I’m scoring. And certainly didn’t finish this round very well,â€� Mickelson said. “I’ll come out tomorrow and play as well as I can. But today was the day I needed to go low. I played well enough to do it. I had many opportunities. Didn’t putt well. Didn’t get them to go in. I left them short the whole time. And then I finished poorly.â€�

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JACKSON, Miss. - An inside agreement made Stewart Cink's final round at the Sanderson Farms Championship more consequential than most anybody realized. Cink, who won the season-opening Safeway Open with his son Reagan as his caddie two weeks ago, said Saturday the partnership would come to an end barring a miraculous round Sunday. Specifically, he said, he needed a top-five finish or Reagan was going to go back to his day job at Delta Airlines and Cink would go back to his regular caddie, Kip Henley. "Unless I shoot the fur off this place tomorrow, I'm going back to my regular caddie," Cink said. He made it interesting with a 7-under 65 on Sunday but finished at 13 under for the week. That means Henley, who was back home in Chattanooga, will rejoin Cink for next week's Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. "The traveling and living in a circus out here like I’ve done for my whole adult life is made tolerable by being a player," said Cink, who missed a 7-foot birdie putt on No. 17 and scrambled for par at the last. "If you’re playing, you’re kind of the top level of the wedding cake out here. "I just don’t envy a lot of the caddies," he continued, "and especially the ones that have families traveling out here. Media, you guys do understand that it’s not easy. I wouldn’t wish most of this life on any person that I love as much as I love Reagan." Cink laughed at the thought of Henley, his regular caddie for the last year, biting his nails as he watched on TV back in Chattanooga. "I’m sure Kip is sweating it out because I told him T5 or higher Reagan stays," Cink said. Added, Reagan, "You almost said top 10, too, remember?" Father and son had thought that the Safeway would be a one-off, but after winning felt they had to keep going. Cink and his wife Lisa took a trip to the Grand Canyon with her parents last week, and when Cink returned to action in Mississippi, he and Reagan made the top-five agreement. Reagan, 23, is a newly minted Georgia Tech graduate (industrial engineering) who has been working in the flight operations department for Delta Airlines. He's a scratch handicap. "Yeah, that’s the plan," he said, when asked if he would go back to his day job. "It’s been so fun out here. I really do enjoy it. But I don’t know. I’ve got a life to go get home and live." Stewart joked that Reagan already had offers from other players, then quickly said that wasn't true. No matter, Reagan sounded like he wasn't sure if he would have accepted one, anyway. "I’ve got a fiancé at home," he said. "I like to be home. It was fun. I mean, if (Stewart) had done it today, top five, I would have been super excited about getting out for next week." They'll always have the Safeway, a victory that evened the scales between Reagan and his brother Connor, who was Stewart's partner when they won the 2013 Father/Son Challenge. "Now they've both had a win with their pops," Stewart said.

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