ESPN predictions on who takes home the green jacket

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Tiger Woods got off to a bad start but averted disaster. After making four bogeys in his first five holes Friday, the five-time Masters champion steadied himself to sign for a 74 and is nine off the lead, tied for 19th place going into the weekend. “Well, it was windy,” Woods said. “It was swirling. Balls were oscillating on the greens. We got a couple of bad gusts. I hit a couple of bad shots. I hit a decent shot at 4 that ended up down in a divot, and it was just like – there were so many things that were not going my way. “It was partly the conditions,” he added, “and partly me.” Woods, 46, is making his first official PGA TOUR start in a year and a half, since his career was slowed by a fifth back surgery and nearly ended by a single-car accident in Los Angeles. He said surgeons contemplated amputating his right leg, which is a constant source of pain. Although he has walked with a limp at Augusta National, he’s still here. He easily made the cut for the 22nd straight time, which is one shy of the record held by Fred Couples and Gary Player. “It was a good fight,” Woods said. “I got back in the ball game.” And with a fused back and a weakened right leg, no less. After stumbling out of the gate, he told his caddie, Joe LaCava, that the goal was to get back to even par for the round. Woods had a chance after hitting a series of more characteristic shots, none better than his approach to kick-in range at the par-4 10th hole. But he failed to get up and down at the 15th hole and missed another birdie attempt from roughly 12 feet at the 16th. Still, the way he looked at it, he was just four shots out of second place. He also noted his excitement for the forecast Saturday – cold, windy – which could shake up the leaderboard. “I haven’t played a lot of tournaments of late,” Woods said, “so it’s been a little bit rusty, but I’m starting to come around. I felt good about how I fought back today and got myself – I could have easily kicked myself out of the tournament today, but I kept myself in it.” Joaquin Niemann (74, 1 under total), who played with Woods for the first two days, was impressed. “I think today, he hit it way better than yesterday,” Niemann said. “He looked great – amazing tee shots, some amazing iron shots. On 10 today, he was amazing. So, yeah, he’s still got it.”

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NAPA, Calif. – The first thing Bud Cauley remembers after the accident is seeing the paramedics who had pulled him out of the back seat of the BMW. The car had veered off the road, hit a culvert and gone airborne before striking a tree, then three others. The BMW finally came to rest in a ditch. Cauley, who was one of four people in the car, was having trouble breathing because he had a collapsed lung. He also had a concussion, six broken ribs and a fracture in his left leg. “It was really scary, first waking up,â€� Cauley recalls. “Obviously, first in your mind is your quality life going forward. And then I thought about … golf and was I going to be able to play again and play the same way. All those things I worried about for a while.â€� At 1 p.m. PT on Thursday at Silverado Resort, Cauley will tee it up in the Safeway Open. It will mark his first start on the PGA TOUR since the accident on that Friday night in June in Dublin, Ohio. Cauley, who had just missed the cut at the Memorial Tournament, has spent the last four months regaining his strength as well as his swing. He’s anxious to test his game and grateful for the support he’s received along the way. “Being out at the course these past couple days in Napa and all the guys that have come up – players, caddies, rules officials, people from the TOUR, just saying they’re happy to see me back,â€� he says. “It’s been really great.â€� Cauley says he wouldn’t have come to California if he didn’t think he could  be competitive. He thinks his biggest challenge won’t be managing his game around the scenic North Course, though – it will be keeping his emotions in check.  “I’ve put in all the work at home to practice and get my game ready, and I have done everything I can (with) workouts, to get my body in shape,â€� he explains. “But I think a big thing for this week will be to manage my excitement and my nerves to go out there and kind of get back in the flow of it. Obviously having been four months since I teed it up is a long time for playing on TOUR.â€� And Cauley has been through a lot. Doctors inserted a tube to re-inflate the lung and another later to drain fluid from his chest that kept him in the hospital for several extra days. “I was awake for the first tube they put it, so that was not very much fun,â€� Cauley recalls. On the Sunday after the crash, Cauley also had surgery to attach titanium plates to four of the ribs to stabilize them. Those are a permanent addition – but luckily he didn’t set off any alarms as he went through airport security this week. “I was kinda worried about that when I flew out here,â€� Cauley says with a wry laugh. “But luckily, they didn’t stop me and I didn’t have to go through the whole spiel about why there were these things in my chest.â€� Turns out the broken bone in Cauley’s leg was the least of his worries. It was non-weight-bearing so it simply healed with rest. Once the fluid had drained, Cauley was able to leave the hospital. But he couldn’t fly so his parents came and took him to their home in Tennessee where he stayed for several weeks. Once he was well enough, his mother drove him to Florida. “I just sat in the back seat surrounded by pillows for the drive,â€� Cauley recalls. “And then once I got to their house they have a recliner in their living room, so I just put some more pillows in there, got a blanket and sat in the recliner.â€� At first, any kind of moment sent a searing pain into his chest. He had trouble sleeping and even taking a deep breath was problematic. “To watch some movies, if I ever laughed it hurt,â€� Cauley says “It was about as uncomfortable and as much pain as I’ve ever felt.â€� At first, the doctors couldn’t tell Cauley whether it would be a month, two months or three months before he healed enough to get back to playing golf. As it turned out, he hit his first ball, with a wedge, during the second week in August. Cauley took it slow, working his way through the bag, while listening to his body and taking days off when needed to heal. He consulted a doctor in south Florida and came up with a plan of attack. By early September Cauley’s golf game was starting to feel “familiarâ€� again. He put the pain in his rear-view mirror and was able to go about his business like he did before the accident. “Just to be able to go out there and work on my game and not be worried about it was kind of when I took a little bit of a breath was like … we’re going to be okay,â€� Cauley says. Good friends like Justin Thomas and Harold Varner checked in almost daily. And once Cauley started playing 18 holes regularly with buddies like Kevin Tway, Peter Uhlein, Rickie Fowler and Tom Lovelady, he knew he had turned the corner. Cauley still experiences occasional soreness in his chest and ribcage. He can manage the inflammation with ice, though, so he’s ready to go. “From where I was a couple of months ago to now is night day as far as how, how good it feels,â€� Cauley says. And it will feel even better on Thursday when Cauley gets his 2018-19 PGA TOUR season under way.

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PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico — Matt Kuchar ended more than four years without a PGA TOUR victory Sunday by closing with a 2-under 69 and holding up through a few nervous moments down the stretch to win the Mayakoba Golf Classic. Kuchar had a four-shot lead going into the final round. But after making two bogeys over the first 67 holes in the tournament, he made two bogeys in two holes on Nos. 14 and 15, and his lead shrunk to one shot when Danny Lee made a 20-foot birdie putt from the fringe on the 16th hole. Lee finished with two pars for a 65. Kuchar still wasn’t entirely in the clear. His 15-foot birdie attempt rolled about 3 feet by the hole on No. 17 and he had to make that for par. And on the 18th, he left his 30-foot birdie putt about 3 feet short and had to roll that in to win by one shot. “I didn’t want a 3-footer on the last hole,” Kuchar said. “I was hoping to have a three or four-shot lead for some wiggle room. But man, that felt awfully good.” The 40-year-old Kuchar had gone 115 starts on the PGA TOUR since his last victory in the RBC Heritage at Hilton Head in April 2014. It comes at the end of what had been a disappointing year in which Kuchar finished out of the top 70 of the FedExCup standings for the first time since 2007, and he failed to make the Ryder Cup team for the first time in 10 years. “My 2018 wasn’t what I wanted,” Kuchar said. “This is a high note. It’s amazing thing to get a win. I go from `Hola’ to `Aloha.’ I’m pretty excited about that.” Kuchar qualifies for the Sentry Tournament of Champions to start next year at Kapalua. He finished at 22-under 262, breaking by one the 72-hole record at Mayakoba previously held by Harris English. Lee was the only player to make a sustained run at Kuchar, who had a four-shot lead to start the final round. PGA TOUR rookie Cameron Champ had a 12-foot eagle attempt on the 13th hole that would have brought him to within two shots, but he missed the putt and sent his next tee shot into the mangroves, making double bogey. Lee had six birdies in 13 holes, but missed a 6-foot par putt on the 15th, unaware that Kuchar made a bogey behind him. J.J. Spaun (66) and Richy Werenski (67) tied for third. Kuchar won for the eighth time on the PGA TOUR in a career marked more by consistency than trophies. This year, he had neither. He had only four top 10s — his best finish was a tie for fifth in Phoenix — and was coming off a tie for 57th in Las Vegas. He added Mayakoba at the last minute, and with his regular caddie having previous plans, Kuchar hired a local caddie from El Camaleon. He referred to the week as a “working vacation” because of the beaches and amenities at Mayakoba, though it felt like work at the end. “Golf is such a funny game,” Kuchar said. “It’s hard to predict when it’s going to come around.”

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