Brooks Koepka says Sergio Garcia acted ‘like a child’ during outburst

On Tuesday afternoon in the locker room of the CareerBuilder Challenge, Zach Johnson made an observation aloud to no one in particular. “I’ll tell you what’s crazy,â€� Johnson said. “A lot of guys I’ve been paired with on Thursday and Friday have gone on to win that week. Either I’m incredibly motivating or they’re just incredibly good.â€� In Rounds 1 and 2 of last week’s Sony Open in Hawaii, Johnson was paired with Patton Kizzire. On the sixth hole of sudden death, the longest in Sony Open in Hawaii history, Kizzire emerged victorious over James Hahn. The win at Waialae Country Club, his second on the PGA TOUR, came in his 66th start and came just three starts after his maiden victory at the OHL Classic at Mayakoba. As such, Kizzire became the season’s first two-time winner and jumped to No. 1 in the FedExCup standings. A towering figure that strikes the ball with the smooth style and grace of Ernie Els, Kizzire’s Tuscaloosa, Alabama roots lend to a deep and slow Southern drawl and demeanor that parallels his effortless swing. Until this season on the PGA TOUR, Kizzire’s ascent into golf’s upper echelon was more of an amble than a stride. It could be said that contentment trumped commitment. After graduating from Auburn University with a business degree in 2008, Kizzire lacked the tenacity and discipline a career in professional golf requires. “Yeah, I was a little bit stuck in college, but I think that was all part of the deal,â€� Kizzire said. “I kind of got a little bit of that out of my system and was able to move on and start being a little bit more serious about the profession and I think it all kind of just gelled together at the right time.â€� In order to resurrect the fire he displayed in college that resulted in top honors at the 2007 SEC Championship, Kizzire relocated to Georgia to place serious focus on his game. “I guess it was just maturity kind of coming into play there,â€� Kizzire said. “I was living in Auburn and decided to move to St. Simons and really take it seriously and take advantage of the resources we have down there. I have my management group, great coaches, Davis Love III, Zach Johnson and Jonathan Byrd and all the other guys down there. We have a lot of competition amongst ourselves. So, I decided to take advantage of that. I was kind of kicking myself for not doing it sooner, but I think the time was right.â€� After making just one cut in six starts on the Web.com Tour between 2009 and 2014, Kizzire finished T21 at the 2014 Qualifying Tournament, good for fully-exempt status onto that Tour in 2015. In 23 starts, two victories highlighted 12 top-10 finishes and the money list’s No. 1 spot. In his rookie year on the PGA TOUR in 2015-16, Kizzire claimed five more top-10 finishes, including a tie for second in his first start of the season at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. He posted a final-round, 8-under 63 to claim the runner-up finish. In his next start, he finished T4 at the Sanderson Farms Championship. Responsibility was paying off handsomely. “The accountability factor was absolutely there in Sea Island,â€� Kizzire said. “I can’t say I do a whole lot of really tough stuff, but I stay on top of it. I try to stay in golf shape, I’m no physical specimen or anything, but my coaches and managers really hold me accountable. There’s also my wife. She’s a planner. I was never much of a planner, but I’ve learned that you’ve got to make a plan and execute it, and that’s been big for me.â€� That season, Kizzire advanced through the first two of four events in the FedExCup Playoffs, before finishing 82nd in the FedExCup standings. Kizzire began his sophomore season on the PGA TOUR in 2016-17 as he did his rookie year. At the Safeway Open, he finished just one stroke back of Brendan Steele at 17-under 271, good for solo second place. He would again advance through the first two FedExCup Playoffs events, before finishing 99th in the final FedExCup standings. Even though he finished lower in the FedExCup standings his second year on the PGA TOUR than his first, he knew he was burning. Stronger than ever before, the fire was back. “I knew I needed the kind of reigning in I get in Sea Island,â€� Kizzire said. “But, I guess I wasn’t disciplined enough to do it on my own. Just to have a taste of that…for them to give me a taste of that and make it part of me made all the difference. I started holding myself accountable after a while and that led to the progression.â€� On the PGA TOUR this season, that newfound, but rooted resolve has elevated Kizzire to unprecedented heights that not even he felt he was ready for. A week after finishing T10 and T4 at the Sanderson Farms Championship and Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, respectively, in his second and third starts of the season, Kizzire reached a mountain top. At the OHL Classic at Mayakoba, he made 10 birdies en route to an opening-round, 9-under 63 and the 18-hole lead by two strokes. With ensuing rounds of 70-66-67 to finish at 19-under 265, Kizzire held off a hard-charging Rickie Fowler to claim his first PGA TOUR title. “Yeah, to win in that fashion, with Rickie Fowler breathing down my neck, gave me a nice big head. It was pretty cool,â€� Kizzire said. “He’s obviously a world-class player, so to have it come down to he and I was what I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve always wanted to beat the best.â€� Three starts later, second- and third-round, 6-under 64s resulted in the eventual win in Honolulu. The Mexico win gave me the confidence to do it again at Sony,â€� Kizzire said. “The first win was like a big hurdle for me and the second win was a little bit more validation. I don’t really think anybody deserves wins, I think you just have to work for it and it just happens. It has all just been a part of the process.â€� So, now, with two wins in four starts and the No. 1 spot in the FedExCup, a lot more people are paying a lot more attention to the man who previously preferred to remain unaccountable and in the shadows. Anything else went against his grain. On Tuesday of this week’s CareerBuilder Challenge, Kizzire arrived on site at PGA WEST staring at a schedule that included a Titleist photo shoot, a clothes fitting, media obligations and time for practice. As smooth as is his swing and Southern drawl, Kizzire responded accordingly. After all, that’s precisely what commitment calls for. “I imagine I’ll be pulled in certain directions and have to manage that, but that comes with the territory and I’ll welcome that just like I welcome any part of being a professional golfer,â€� Kizzire said. “I’m just going to keep working hard. I want to get the third win. That’s all I want to do. I love playing golf. I love trying to get better and putting myself in uncomfortable spots. That’s all I want to do is just to be somewhere that I’ve never been because that gets me uncomfortable. That’s when I know I’m doing something right.â€� Although Zach Johnson is quite the motivator, he was clearly onto something when he suggested that it takes an incredibly good player to win on the PGA TOUR. But, the thing is, the most significant ingredient to being good is being dedicated.

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The guy with a swoosh on his shirt and a Tiger head cover on his driver looked pretty good. So did Tiger Woods. RELATED: Full leaderboard Charlie Woods, the 11-year-old son of the 15-time major champion, is playing in the PNC Championship for the first time. And according to his dad, he played just like he does at home. Never mind that he had some 250 people following along, more than his dad had watching him at the Masters. Charlie confidently twirled his club before shots, quickly picked up the tee on his drives and even pumped his fist on the par-5 third hole with a 3-wood into 3 feet for eagle. They finished the scramble format at 10-under 62, four shots behind Matt Kuchar and son Cameron. "I don’t really care about my game," Woods said. "I’m just making sure that Charlie has the time of his life. And he’s doing that." Charlie Woods is the youngest to play in this 36-hole event that began in 1995 and their sons, and now includes all family members. He loves the game enough to start playing in a few junior events, and he had no qualms playing before a crowd or the cameras. A television camera was positioned some 15 feet away to the right of Charlie on the opening tee at The Ritz-Carlton Club at Grande Lakes, and he was a little quick with his swing, pulling it to the left. They used his father’s tee shot and wedge into 2 feet — Charlie made the birdie putt. That was the last time Team Woods used Tiger’s tee shot on a long hole until No. 15. It helped that the 11-year-old was able to use a forward tee, 100 yards ahead of the PGA TOUR players on some holes. Woods was not surprised from what he’s seen at home. This was different — a tournament with pros, a scorecard that had to be signed, a television audience. But it sure looked the same. "I’ve seen this all along. Probably not a lot of people have," Woods said. "A lot of the shots he hit, I’ve seen them back home at The Medalist this entire year. The junior events he played in, he hit a lot of these. It was a matter of stringing these out for 3 1/2 hours. It’s a totally different deal." The swing was smooth. The mannerisms were familiar. Charlie belted one on the par-5 fifth hole, bending over to grab his tee while the ball was still in flight. Justin Thomas, playing in the group with his father Mike, smiled and said, "God, you are so much like your dad." Waiting for Thomas to putt, father and son stood side-by-side, right leg crossed over left ankle. The Woods’ were 8 under through nine holes, capped off by Charlie making an 8-foot birdie putt on No. 9 and walking it in when the ball was a few feet away. Just like Dad. The kid had game in other ways, too. During the pro-am, Charlie hit one through the fairway into the trees. Mike Thomas, a longtime club professional whose specialty is working with juniors, was in the group ahead and playfully left a note next to Charlie’s ball that said, "Draw Hole!" On Saturday, Mike Thomas hit his drive into a bunker on the short par-4 13th. "In typical Woods’ fashion, he kept the paper," Justin Thomas said. "My dad hit in the bunker, and he took that exact paper and put it behind the ball. So a little karma there." Justin Thomas spends a lot of time with them at home, so he knew how the kid could play. Even so, Thomas said he has a different kind of nerves — for his dad and for Charlie. "I knew he was going to wow a lot of people," Thomas said. "It was cool to see him shape the ball both ways and hit great shots. We feel probably what our parents felt growing up watching us play. You want them to do well, but you can’t do anything about it. "It was competitive, it was joyful, it was memorable and we had some banter." And they get one more day. They finished with a birdie on the par-5 18th — across the water left of the fairway, a small group of people posted a banner on the bridge that said, “Charlie Woods Fan Club — and were tied for sixth. "The kid’s a gamer. He’s a grinder. He’s competitive. But he’s so young," Justin Thomas said. “I’m pulling for him. I want him to keep it fun, keep it light. It can get nasty out there with what people say. Expectations are going to be high, but I hope it remains manageable for himself. I hope he stays within himself. "There’s 11-, 12-, 13-year-olds sitting on their couch at home that can’t hit those shots on the range. And he’s doing it in front of a crowd and on national TV."

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They’ve had a while to let it sink in. The historic significance. The bond they’ll always share. Charles R. Drew Charter School in Southeast Atlanta, which last May became the first all-black high school team and first public school in the city to win the Georgia (public-school) state boys’ golf championship, opens defense of its title as the season begins this month. Optimism abounds. “We’re looking strong,� says Nyre Williams, a Director at The First Tee of Metro Atlanta and an assistant coach at Drew. “We lost three seniors, but we’ve got a pipeline here.� He would know; Williams also coaches Drew Charter’s middle school golfers. After taking state last May, the Drew high boys basked in their accomplishment and filed off the bus and into the embrace of joyous and proud family members. They received rings they helped design themselves at a ceremony in November. “Seeing the kids just so happy,� fifth-year head coach Joe Weems says of his personal highlight. “Coming back to the school and seeing the families, seeing everybody so overjoyed and relieved that we had won. Putting on that championship ring was an amazing experience.� The whole world, it seemed, took notice. The Drew kids were recognized by the government of DeKalb County, and were practically celebrities at the TOUR Championship in August, meeting stars such as Tony Finau and Kevin Kisner. Attending the ceremony for 2019 Calvin Peete Award recipient Harold Varner III in October, their jaws dropped when Varner’s manager told them the HV3 Foundation would be donating $5,000 to the program. “This is just the beginning of my relationship with those kids and coaches,� Varner told Golfweek. “… I can’t wait to create a bond with them.� It’s heady stuff, but this week they open the new season, and everyone starts at zero. Anthony Ford, Drew’s No. 1 last year and one of 78 members of The First Tee to play in the PGA TOUR Champions PURE Insurance Championship in September – which, like this week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, uses Pebble Beach Golf Links as the host course – returns for his senior year. He recently signed for a full scholarship to play golf at North Carolina A&T. Sophomore Miles Richardson returns, as do senior Connor Mason, who can play both lefthanded and righthanded, and others. Enough team members shoot in the 70s and 80s to fuel hopes of a repeat. “I really like our chances again this year,� Williams says. Weems doesn’t disagree. “That’s the attitude I definitely would want us to have,� he says. Starting from scratch Not long ago, the Drew Charter School couldn’t field a full team of players who could compete over 18 holes, and other schools sometimes balked at the idea of scheduling a match. Now look at them. “We are like pioneers,� Mason told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last summer. Indeed, the Drew Eagles beat the two-time defending state champions by an audacious 15 strokes. From there, they represented Georgia at the High School Golf National Invitational at Orlando’s Disney World in June, when they finished 20th. Solomon Dobbs, who now plays golf for Morehouse College, says being a member of the state-title-winning team last year has forever changed his life. “I think about the power of connections,� says Dobbs, who hit the ceremonial first tee shot at the TOUR Championship last summer and imagines returning to Drew one day to coach golf. “I’ll get calls from my teammates asking if I want to go play somewhere, and I still talk to Coach Nyre and Coach Joe. How’s it going? Do you need any help? The bond is so strong.� Weems marvels at all the things that fell into place to make it happen, starting with the photo of himself with his arms around his first bag of clubs when he was 8. His late father, Joe Sr., who drove 18-wheelers and owned his own trucking company, gave the clubs to him out of the blue. “I was so new to it I didn’t even know how to hold them,� Weems says with a laugh. He sometimes shows the photo to Drew parents in order to cultivate buy-in. Look what can happen when you put your child into golf. In 1980, Weems’ great uncle, Miles Craddick, then a caddie at Athens (Georgia) Country Club, taught the boy how to build a nine-hole backyard course using Styrofoam cups with the bottoms carved out. It was the year that gave us PAC-MAN, the Rubik’s Cube and Atlanta-born CNN. No one was shouting the praises of East Lake, then a go-at-your-own-risk type of area, but that began to change in the mid-1990s when the East Lake Foundation started revitalizing the neighborhood. Golf was central to the effort, and when Drew opened in 2000, it was conveniently located within walking distance of East Lake Golf Club – former home of Bobby Jones and host course for the TOUR Championship – and the nine-hole, par-30 Charlie Yates Golf Course. Drew began offering the sport in P.E. classes through The First Tee – there are now three certified instructors at the school – and Dobbs started taking golf in the second grade. Ford, who broke the back window of his family’s Jeep Cherokee with one of his first swings, started the same way. Kids continue to learn the fundamentals, plus etiquette and caddie protocol. (If you play East Lake, you just might get a Drew player on your bag.) Success didn’t happen overnight, but some kids took to it and pulled their peers up with them. “We try to mentor these kids, too,� Weems says. “It’s not just golf, it’s about having someone they can go to throughout the day just in general. I’m real big on culture and climate. The culture is having a winning attitude, but the climate is about family and taking care of one another.� The pipeline was born. Looking ahead Could this be a dynasty? Perhaps. Although African American representation in golf has been historically low, Drew continues to make the most of some unique advantages. “Having two golf courses in between our school has helped,� Weems says. “Charlie Yates being our home, kids can walk right to the course. And East Lake, these kids have access to see things that a lot of kids don’t, and that’s a real advantage.� Things like the annual TOUR Championship, with 30 of the best golfers on the planet. “Every kid in our program either volunteered or was out in the course with their parents,� Weems says. “We make sure the conversation about golf is happening year-round, with clinics and tournaments and workouts. I want them to be around it as much as they can.� How’s this for golf immersion? Williams once took four First Tee kids to Scotland, where they stayed on the University of St. Andrews campus and played some of the game’s most famous courses. The highlight: a surprise tee time at the Old Course. Not a bad field trip. What Drew has accomplished continues to resonate on TOUR and beyond, no place more loudly than the hallways of the school itself, where the state championship hardware lives in a trophy case. Not surprisingly, interest is up. “I expect more than 35 kids to try out this year,� Weems says. “We started out with 21 my first year, and we’ve been growing ever since.� For the boys’ team, the differences going into this season would seem to be small. Two local chapters of The First Tee merged to form The First Tee of Metro Atlanta last summer. There will be a dedicated junior varsity team this year. And one of Drew’s returning players, senior Mason, has decided to go back to lefthanded this season after one season as a righty.     “I kept telling him I thought his scores were better as a lefty when he was a sophomore, when he shot in the mid-80s,� Weems says. “Last year he was in the 90s as a righty.� Historic. Dynastic. Ambidextrous. There seems to be no limit to what Drew can do. Oh, there’s one other big difference now that Drew is the reigning state champ. Weems has no more trouble scheduling other teams to play his own. (Go figure.) “We try to play the programs who were always willing to play us, which we didn’t always have,� he says. “We want programs like Maynard Jackson (a nearby high school named after the city’s first black mayor) to keep growing because it’s better for all of us, so we invest into those other programs in the community and make sure they’re doing great, too.� Can Drew repeat? Maybe, but that’s not the point. Maybe it’s more about access and opportunity. Maybe it’s about that bond and getting into a game you can play for a lifetime. Weems, who began his coaching career in football – Drew has no football team – sometimes thinks about Joe Sr., who died about 10 years ago. What would he say? “He loved to watch Calvin Peete on TV, and Tiger, of course,� Weems says. “He said, ‘Son, there are a lot of things that happen out on the golf course. You’ve got to be able to interact with people.’ He would always say to me as a football coach, ‘One day you’re going to coach a champion.’ Little did I know that he could see that far ahead.�

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