THE PLAYERS Championship Round 2 Review

Round 4 of the RBC Heritage takes place Sunday. Stewart Cink leads by five with Collin Morikawa, Emiliano Grillo, Matt Wallace and Sungjae Im among the chasers. Here’s everything you need to know to follow the action, including Featured Groups for PGA TOUR LIVE. Leaderboard Full tee times HOW TO FOLLOW Television: Thursday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. ET (Golf Channel/PGA TOUR LIVE Freeview). Thursday-Friday, 3 p.m.-6 p.m. (Golf Channel). Saturday-Sunday, 1 p.m.-3 p.m. (Golf Channel), 3 p.m.-6 p.m. (CBS) PGA TOUR LIVE: Thursday-Friday, 7 a.m.-6 p.m. (Featured Groups), Saturday-Sunday, 8 a.m.-3 p.m. (Featured Groups), 3 p.m.-6 p.m. (Featured Holes) Radio: Thursday-Friday, 12 p.m.-6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday 1 p.m.-6 p.m. (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com/liveaudio). TOURCast: Get shot-by-shot info in real time with shot tracks and video with TOURCast. TOUR Pulse: Get the PGA TOUR app to utilize TOUR Pulse, which provides users the ability to experience a mix of content, such as video highlights, written hole summaries and stat graphics on every player after every hole they complete. FEATURED GROUPS 9:40 a.m. ET: Ian Poulter, Charles Howell III 10:55 a.m. ET: Dustin Johnson, Cameron Davis MUST READS Cink maintains five-shot lead Win probabilities Behold the Carolina Swing Paul Casey’s journey to cross-handed putting Insider: How Fitzpatrick dives deep into stats to improve CALL OF THE DAY

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ORLANDO, Fla. – Should we really be surprised? After all he has done since shaking hands with Mike Douglas on national television at age 2, since playing an exhibition with Sam Snead at 5, and teeing it up at the old L.A. Open at 16, Tiger Woods always has delivered something special, has he not? His six consecutive U.S. Golf Association championships, 12-shot Masters win at age 21, 15-shot U.S. Open victory and 15 major titles among his 82 PGA TOUR victories … as Maximus asked his crowd inside the fight arena in “Gladiator,” Are you not entertained? To question Woods or his talents – perhaps once-in-a-lifetime talents, says Padraig Harrington – that’s not on Tiger. That’s on us. The calendar shows that winter is close, but December in central Florida brought unseasonably warm temperatures last week at the PNC Championship. Then Tiger Woods stepped in and dialed up the true heat, as only he does. The shots that he hit – the shaping of his drives, the towering irons that landed so softly, the dead-center makes on putts from inside 15 feet – it all was vintage material. No, this wasn’t Augusta National in April, but it was more than a dismissive “hit and giggle” as Woods stepped back into the spotlight at Ritz-Carlton Golf Club. He didn’t know what to expect, nor did we. Tiger being Tiger, he delivered. Are we surprised? He showed us that the golf portion of the exam he faces in the coming months looked to be in pretty good shape for a man who’d taken a year off from the game. World No. 7 Justin Thomas may have had 30 yards on him at times off the tee, but despite his self-deprecating jokes, Woods isn’t exactly short as he tries to build up his speed. Now he must wait for a badly damaged right leg, ankle and foot to get healthy enough to meet an often overlooked requirement of being a professional golfer – the walking of the courses. Pros hoof it over six or seven miles a day, and when Woods eschewed his cart and walked the final few hundred yards to the 18th green Sunday, perhaps making a statement, it looked like arduous labor. The road ahead for Woods, competitively, is the great unknown. He wisely deflects all questions about a return to the life he has led as a professional golfer. He’s quick to state he never again expects to play a full schedule. If he is to pick and choose, as Ben Hogan once did, when and where will he play? When will he be healthy enough to compete at hilly Augusta National, where he won in 2019? Could he be ready in May for the PGA Championship at Southern Hills, another difficult walk but a venue where he won Major No. 13 in 2007? Will a visit to Scotland’s Old Course at St. Andrews – he’s won there twice – for the 150th Open Championship in July deliver a larger main course than the Champions Dinner? Absent a Tiger appearance at those events, could we not see him inside the ropes again until next year’s PNC, when Charlie will be 13 and even stronger? These are all hypotheticals, and Woods is too patient, and smart, to indulge in any conjecture. Friend Matt Kuchar – who with his oldest son, Cameron, 14, was grouped with Team Woods on Sunday – was impressed and surprised by the state of Woods’ game. “Seeing what he can do just swinging a golf club makes me think that he will figure the other part out,” Kuchar said. “I think he’s got the hard part down.” Woods laughed off Kuchar’s suggestion that he appeared to be TOUR ready. “No, no, no, no,” Woods said. “I totally disagree. I’m not – I’m not at that level. I can’t compete against these guys right now, no. It’s going to take a lot of work to get to where I feel like I can compete with these guys and be at a high level.” Be that as it may, his PNC return was all about Tiger enjoying a few days of low-key golf with his son, Charlie, who, for a second consecutive year shined brightly. They wanted to have fun and avoid bogeys. Done and done. With Team Woods contending late Sunday, Charlie saved some of his best for last, hitting two superb iron shots into the 16th and 17th holes to set up their 10th and 11th straight birdies, respectively. You think that didn’t fill Pops with pride? As much as missing the competition in and of itself – his driving force for all of his nearly 46 years – Woods mostly has missed afternoons with Charlie playing golf at The Medalist. It’s where the two banter playfully and father teaches son to compete, just as his father, Earl, a tough Green Beret, once got young Tiger primed, jangling change during putts and ripping the Velcro of his golf glove during Tiger’s swings. Team Daly won, of course – John and his son, John Jr., who plays on the golf team at Arkansas – and they are a nice story unto themselves. We’ve watched the younger Daly grow up at the PNC, and at 18, his talent reached a level that it is he, not his father, batting second in the lineup on all the critical shots and putts. The elder Daly has battled cancer and remains one of golf’s fan favorites, but Tiger was here, and he casts a shadow longer than the tallest sequoia in the forest. If anything, the PNC shook us by the collar after a Tiger-less 2021, reminding us why we watch. Ian Poulter and his young son, Josh, followed Tiger and Charlie on Saturday. Baseball’s Ken Griffey Jr. walked with Tiger and Charlie on Sunday. “It’s incredible,” Padraig Harrington said Sunday afternoon. “I suppose it’s occasions like this that people on the ‘inside’ see how big Tiger really is. We’re on the inside. I played with him all these years, and you get somewhat used to it. I remember when he came back at Tampa (2018 Valspar Championship), and there was just a different noise, a different crowd. None of the younger guys would have seen that. “He completely upped it at the Masters,” Harrington continued, “and the TOUR Championship (which he won in late 2018), and he comes out here and there is a different excitement. … It’s amazing. Last year was the Charlie Woods Show, and Tiger figured a way to make it the Tiger Woods Show this year.” But not only did Woods show up, he delivered, too, as he always seems to do. Team Woods finished second, two shots back. Many chuckled when Woods turned up to the Masters as an amateur in 1995 and told anyone who would listen that he was there to win. Cute, we thought. But that was his mindset, we’d learn, and always has been. Woods used the word “thankful” several times last week. Thankful to be here after his harrowing SUV crash. Thankful to have his right leg, and not be learning to walk on a prosthetic. Thankful to be alongside his only son, competing as a team. The fans who watched? Well, Tiger was back, and they were thankful, too. They may have to wait for months to see him compete again. Maybe longer. Those are the new rules of where he is, and what he is capable of doing physically. We can wait. “I always think that golf is in a really good place, regardless of who’s around,” said Kuchar, 43, who is in his 22nd season on TOUR. “There’s a great crop of young kids who are really doing well. But look, we all know the Tiger Effect is real. It’s a massive needle mover. Just to see this event, the excitement, the buzz, it’s huge. Everywhere he goes, it follows him.” Where the spotlight follows him next, that’s a question for another day. For a weekend, anyway, golf was just happy to have Tiger Woods back. And he delivered, as he always does. Were you really surprised?

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LA QUINTA, Calif. — Phil Mickelson birdied four of his last five holes Friday in the Desert Classic to take a two-stroke lead into the weekend in his first event of the year. A day after matching his career-low score with 12-under 60 at La Quinta Country Club, the 48-year-old Mickelson had a 68 on PGA West’s Nicklaus Tournament Course to reach 16 under. “I struck the ball every bit as well, I just didn’t putt anywhere close to as well as I did yesterday,” said Mickelson, the tournament winner in 2002 and 2004. Lefty will play the final two rounds on PGA West’s Stadium Course. “I’m starting to drive the ball a lot longer and straighter than I have in a while and so that sets up nicely for that course,” Mickelson said. “I feel like I can play aggressively with the way I’m hitting it off the tee.” Curtis Luck was second after a 66 on the Nicklaus layout. The 22-year-old Australian rebounded from a bogey on the par-3 eighth with a closing birdie on the par-4 ninth. “Just like yesterday, very solid, lot of greens, a lot of fairways,” said Luck, the 2016 U.S. Amateur champion. “Just missed a couple of short ones today, unfortunately. But putting’s been great.” Adam Hadwin and Steve Marino were 13 under, and defending champion Jon Rahm was another stroke back with Wyndham Clark and Joey Garber. MUST READS: Round 2, Desert Classic Mickelson finishes strong to maintain lead Hadwin back in contention Luck two shots back going into weekend Mickelson birdied the par-4 fifth and sixth holes, the par-5 seventh and closed with another on No. 9 . On his opening nine, he birdied the par-5 11th and par-3 12th , then gave back the strokes with a double bogey after hitting into the water on the par-4 18th. “It really wasn’t as hard a shot as I made it look,” Mickelson said about his approach on 18. “I had a decent lie after dropping off the cart path, but I had the ball a little bit below my feet and a slight uphill lie, which the tendency on those shots is to pull it and I just didn’t adjust for that very well and I pulled it right in the water.” Mickelson is making his first TOUR start since early October and first competitive appearance since beating Tiger Woods in Las Vegas in November in a one-day, made-for-TV event. He won the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship last year for his 43rd PGA TOUR title and first since the 2013 British Open. “There’s two areas that guys tend to decline when they hit about mid 40s or so forth,” Mickelson said. “One is speed and one is putting. The last two years I’ve done a good job of improving my putting. I’ve actually putted better the last few years than I ever have in my career. The last thing is speed, because if I have speed with the driver then I can worry more about accuracy.” Hadwin had a 66 at La Quinta, the course where the Canadian shot 59 two years ago. “I’m playing some extremely good golf again here in the desert and just got to keep moving forward,” Hadwin said. Marino had a hole-in-one on the seventh hole at La Quinta in a 65. “There was like probably 15 people behind the green, but it was weird, they didn’t really go bananas,” Marino said. “So we thought it was in, but it wasn’t like a hundred percent sure and luckily we went up there and it was in the hole.” Rahm had a 66 on the Nicklaus Course. He also will play the final two days on the Stadium Course. “It’s still a very, very difficult golf course and you have to hit it good,” Rahm said. “Hopefully, I just keep the mojo that I had last year going.” Clark shot 67 on the Nicklaus layout, and Garber had a 64 at La Quinta. Defending FedExCup champion Justin Rose was tied for 28th at 8 under after a 68 on the Nicklaus layout.

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