WGC-Mexico: Tee times and TV schedule

THE OVERVIEW By Cameron Morfit, PGATOUR.COM To say that last season was “a transitional yearâ€� for the former No. 1 would be cutting it a bit short. The four-time major winner McIlroy, 28, switched out his equipment in the wake of Nike’s decision to get out of the hard-goods business (more on that shortly); married former PGA of America employee Erica Stoll; changed caddies, parting with J.P. Fitzgerald in order to preserve their friendship; and bought Ernie Els’s old house at the Bear’s Club.  TOP 30 PLAYERS TO WATCH IN 2018: We’ll countdown our list with one new player each day in December. Click here for the published players. MORE: Top 30 explanation and schedule Otherwise, it was pretty much business as usual. Oh, and McIlroy was injured, a lingering back/rib ailment that came and went all season. More than anything else, that explains how, just one year after winning the FedExCup, McIlroy had six top-10 finishes but failed to add to his total of 13 career PGA TOUR victories. The trouble started early. McIlroy’s back was taped and he was running on anti-inflammatories as he lost a playoff to Graeme Storm at the BMW South Africa Open in January. A scan showed a stress-fracture in one of his ribs, which apparently was the result of testing out too much new equipment in the off-season, and he withdrew from the Abu Dhabi Championship. Another near-miss at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard, where a three-putt bogey on 18 left him with a T4 finish, seemed to suggest he was back to his old self, but that was misleading. Although he had two more T4s, including at The Open at Royal Birkdale, McIlroy wasn’t 100 percent all season, finishing 58th in the FedExCup after making just 14 starts.  Now 10th in the world, he will try to get off to a fast start in 2018 with a robust early-season schedule. He’ll start his TOUR season at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and at one point play five out of six weeks. He’s got some catching up to do. BY THE NUMBERS How Rory McIlroy ranked in Strokes Gained statistics during his last full season on the PGA TOUR. FEDEXCUP Current 2017-18 position: N/A Playoff appearances: 7 TOUR Championship appearances: 4 Best result: Won (2016) INSIGHTS FROM THE INSIDERS PGATOUR.COM’s Insiders offer their expert views on what to expect from Rory McIlroy in 2018. TOUR INSIDER by Ben Everill One of the most fascinating storylines of the season shapes to be how Rory responds from a so-so 2017. The last time he was winless on the PGA TOUR in 2013, he responded with a three-win season, including two majors. Injury was a legitimate excuse for much of the year, but if he’s healthy again, then the pressure will be on to push Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth and Co. and prove he’s far from a spent force. Pencil in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am for his TOUR season debut after his customary Middle East swing. Click here to follow Ben on Twitter FANTASY INSIDER by Rob Bolton One of the salary bargains ($2.43 million) of the season will have rested and recovered from lingering soreness from a rib injury for over three months before returning to competition in January. Looking ahead, gamers love that conviction because we can grow tired of one of our charges grinding to one forgettable finish after another with persistent discomfort. He doesn’t need any more motivation than to polish off the career grand slam at the Masters, but you know he’ll be hungry to contend early and often in 2018. It’s also a Ryder Cup year, which has proven to bring out his best as he finished inside the top three in the FedExCup in each of the last three even-numbered years. Click here to follow Rob on Twitter EQUIPMENT INSIDER by Jonathan Wall McIlroy made a surprise move to TaylorMade during the middle of the season at THE PLAYERS Championship. Complete bag overhaul saw him add TaylorMade M2 woods, including the more compact Tour 3- and 5-wood. Was the first staffer to use the P730 “Rors Proto” blade. Depending on the course setup and conditions, McIlroy will use a Tour Preferred UDI 1-iron he carries 280-plus. Rotated putters before settling on a TP Collection Juno. The No. 22 stamped on his TaylorMade TP5x golf ball is the day (4/22) he got married.  Click here to follow Jonathan on Twitter STYLE INSIDER by Greg Monteforte Rory is one of the fittest players on TOUR, making him a perfect fit for Nike’s golfers-are-athletes approach to golf fashion. He’ll continue to be outfitted in the latest and greatest from Nike in the New Year. In October, he laced up the new Nike Lunar Control Vapor 2 shoe, which will be his go-to shoe in 2018. Look for him to receive custom colorways and personal editions of the shoe for the majors. Click here to follow Greg on Twitter

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RIDGELAND, S.C. — Dustin Johnson got off to a fast start Thursday in his home-state Palmetto Championship at Congaree, shooting a 6-under 65 that left him a shot behind leader Wes Roach. RELATED: Leaderboard | Dustin Johnson starts fast with 65 at Palmetto Championship at Congaree Johnson, a South Carolina native, hadn’t played since missing the cut the last time he teed it up in the Palmetto State at the PGA Championship on Kiawah Island last month. Johnson appeared he might hold a share of the lead before Roach, a 32-year-old seeking his first PGA TOUR victory, rolled in a 19-footer for a go-ahead birdie on the 16th hole. Still, Johnson had a smooth, bogey-free round in the field’s first try at the Congaree Golf Club as the replacement tournament for the canceled RBC Canadian Open, called off a second straight season due to COVID-19 concerns. Roach, splitting time on the PGA TOUR and Korn Ferry Tour this season, shot his lowest PGA TOUR round since November 2019. He was a stroke in front of Johnson, Doc Redman, Chesson Hadley and South Africa’s Erik van Rooyen. Roach eagled the par-5 fourth, holing out from 105 yards on the 633-yard hole. Johnson was headed in the wrong direction at the Ocean Course three weeks ago, missing a major cut for the second time in as many months. But if anyone doubted his readiness for next week’s U.S. Open, Johnson easily brushed that aside with his stellar play over the firm fairways and curvy greens at the 4-year-old Tom Fazio course. At Congaree, he had four birdies in a seven-hole stretch, all on putts 10 feet or less including a two-putt birdie on the drivable, 370-yard third. Johnson chipped in from 82 feet away for his final birdie on No. 9 to tie Redman for the lead among the morning starters. Johnson was only thinking of a par save when he hit the shot and was overjoyed — well, about as overjoyed as the cool, calm Johnson can get — when it disappeared in the cup for his lowest round since shooting 65 in the second round of the Sentry Tournament of Champions last January. “I felt like I’ve been swinging well for a while now, just haven’t really seen the results or seen the scores,” Johnson said. “Made a few putts, but yeah, I mean just playing solid. Finally put a round together.” Redman was the first to reach 6 under with a run of four birdies over five holes on his back nine. Hadley’s approach on his next-to-last hole, the eighth, was 2 feet from the cup for his tying birdie. Van Rooyen was at 7 under through 14 holes. He made bogey on the sixth hole to fall back. Van Rooyen followed up his successful U.S. Open qualifying in Ohio earlier this week with a strong showing at Congaree. He had missed his last four cuts including the PGA Championship. He spent the past three weeks thinking about his performance and working his game. van Rooyen like what he saw Thursday. “I think I’m just sort of going forward,” he said. Brooks Koepka, playing for the first time since finishing second to Phil Mickelson at the PGA Championship, opened with a 72 and was seven shots behind the leaders. Koepka’s start wasn’t a good sign: the last four times he began a tournament over-par, he went on to miss the cut. A short time after Johnson finished, he was awarded the Order of the Palmetto from Gov. Henry McMaster on the club grounds. “It’s a special day for me and my family,” Johnson said of the state’s highest honor for a civilian. “I’ve always been a proud South Carolinian and I always will be.” Johnson said he was boosted by the strong crowd following him, not just here but at the RBC Heritage on Hilton Head and the PGA Championship this season. “I get a lot of support here in South Carolina, being a South Carolina native,” he said. “And, yeah, it’s been great” to play so much there. “Hopefully, I can keep it rolling for the rest of the week,” he said.

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GREENSBORO, N.C. – Will Zalatoris said it was the toughest decision he’s had to make in his golf career. But he knew that his working relationship with his caddie, Ryan Goble, who had “basically been my best friend for the last three years,” Zalatoris said, had become stagnant. So, after the two finished off a 66 in the second round of the Wyndham Championship, Zalatoris told Goble he was fired. “Ryan’s a brother for life,” Zalatoris said Saturday. “We’ve kind of had a rough month together and it was starting to affect our relationship. I know guys say that when they split, but it really was. We were guys that we would love to have dinner together and hang out and … what was going on on the course was starting bleed off the course and that’s not what you want. “He’s an incredible friend, I love him to death, and I told him I had to do what’s best for me.” Zalatoris asked his short game and putting coach, Josh Gregory, to fill in on the weekend, and Saturday’s result was a second-straight 66. The former Wake Forest All-American finished minutes before the second rain delay and will start the final round at 7 under. Zalatoris plans to have Joel Stock, who has caddied for Ben Crane, Kevin Tway and Cameron Tringale, work for him during the FedExCup Playoffs and beyond. The decision Zalatoris made was not a hasty one. He said that both he and Goble had “kind of sensed it for a little bit” and the frustration had carried over for the last month. He characterized Goble as “one of the funniest guys I know.” Zalatoris, who has runner-up finishes in three of the nine majors he’s played, including two this year, also left the door open for a future reunion. “Nothing’s permanent and we’ll kind of see how everything goes from here,” he said. Gregory, the former SMU and Augusta University coach who is based in Dallas where Zalatoris lives, called Saturday “one of the coolest days of my coaching career.” He knew how difficult it was for Zalatoris to fire Goble and he said the goal on Saturday was simply to have fun. “I feel awful, but Ryan Goble was first class the way he handled it,” Gregory said. “He’s been there with Will when Will was ranked over 1,000 in the world and now, he’s a top-15 player in the world and going to trend upwards. “So, (Ryan) will be very successful in the future, and he will land a great job and things are going to be good. And it’s going to be a win-win for both of them.” Playing well Saturday was a bonus, Gregory said, although the round started with a double bogey on the second hole after “one of the worst shots I’ve ever seen him hit.” Eight birdies followed, along with just two bogeys, and Zalatoris has another chance to pick up his first PGA TOUR victory. “I would guess that the lead’s probably going to be 13 or 14, maybe even higher, so I’m going to have to put up a pretty low one tomorrow to win this,” said Zalatoris, who came to Greensboro ranked No. 11 in the FedExCup. “Pretty good momentum obviously going forward to the next few weeks in the Playoffs.” Zalatoris called Gregory Friday evening to ask him to caddie on the weekend. The 47-year-old said he was glad to fill in and even happier he’d lost some weight recently – “otherwise I don’t think I would have made it in the heat,” joked Gregory, who toted the bag for another one of his students, Henrik Norlander, earlier this year at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Gregory said he hoped he was able to bring a smile to Zalatoris’ face on Saturday, along with some conviction and positivity – like when the Texan made double at No. 2 and his coach just said, “let’s go see how many bridies we can make.” “We’ve had an awesome few years, and this was a tough day, tough week for him,” Gregory said. “You heard in his interviews how much he loves Ryan, and their relationship was amazing. It was time. He needed to make a change and selfishly for me to be there for him and give him a hug and, and tell him I love him. Our goal this weekend was to have fun.”

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