Jazz finds refuge in TOUR winner’s home during pandemic

Tiger Woods will make his highly anticipated return to action, teeing it up at the PNC Championship alongside son Charlie for the second time. This is the first time Woods will be competing since the 2020 PNC Championship and since he suffered a myriad of lower-body injuries in a February car crash. Justin Thomas and his father, long-time PGA of America professional Mike Thomas, will defend their title from last year. FIELD NOTES AND STORYLINES: Twenty golfers will tee it up for the two-round tournament in Orlando… Tiger and Charlie, who is now 12, finished seventh last year after back-to-back 62s… Thomas and his father, Mike, look to become the first back-to-back champions of the PNC Championship since Larry Nelson. Mike Thomas was an all-conference player at Morehead State in Kentucky before becoming a club professional… Olympic gold medalist Nelly Korda will tee it up with her father, tennis star Petr. Korda, the lone woman in the field, had a career-year on the LPGA Tour. She won four times, including her first major title, and captured the top spot at the Tokyo Games… Past FedExCup champions Jim Furyk (with son, Tanner), Vijay Singh (with son, Qass), and Henrik Stenson (with son, Karl) are all teeing it up. Woods and Thomas also are past winners of the PGA TOUR’s season-long points race… Thomas also is the reigning THE PLAYERS champion. Past PLAYERS champions also in the PNC field are Woods, David Duval, Henrik Stenson, Matt Kuchar and Nick Price… European Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington is in the field alongside his son, Paddy… The Harringtons aren’t the only similarly-named pair. John Daly and his son, John Daly II, are back in action. Daly II is now a freshman at Arkansas – his father’s alma mater… Along with Woods and Thomas, other former World No. 1s in the field include Tom Lehman, Nick Faldo, Duval, Price and Singh… Legendary multi-time major winners Faldo (son, Matthew), Tom Watson (son, Michael), Lee Trevino (son, Daniel), Price (son, Greg), and 85-year-old Gary Player (Grandson, Jordan), will be teeing it up at the PNC Championship along with two-time major winner Mark O’Meara (son, Shaun), two-time Masters winner Bubba Watson (father-in-law, Wayne Ball)… Rich Beem, who won the PGA Championship in 2002, slid into the field along with his son, Michael, as the second-to-last pair to commit (the Woods’ rounded out the field) after Retief Goosen and his son, Leo, withdrew. COURSE: Ritz-Carlton Golf Club, par 72, 7,106 yards. The Ritz-Carlton GC in Orlando, Florida has hosted the PNC Championship every year since 2002. The course boasts generous landing areas on wide fairways, strategically placed hazards, and subtly contoured greens while meandering through wetlands and natural marshes. 72-HOLE RECORD: 118, Davis Love III/Dru Love (2018) 18-HOLE RECORD: 56, Davis Love III/Dru Love (Second Round, 2018) LAST TIME: Making their tournament debut, former FedExCup Champion Justin Thomas and his father Mike Thomas topped Vijay Singh and his son Qass by one. The Thomas duo birdied the opening seven holes in Sunday’s finale and finished with a 15-under 57. The pair – Mike Thomas, a PGA of America professional from Kentucky, is the only coach son Justin has ever had – finished at 25-under for the tournament. Tiger Woods and son Charlie, another pair of tournament debutants, finished 7th, five shots back of the Thomas’. Charlie Woods, 11, and Tiger wore the traditional ‘Sunday Red’ shirts and finished 6-under for their closing six holes in the final round. HOW TO FOLLOW Television: Saturday, 1:30 p.m.-2:30 p.m. ET (Golf Channel), 2:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m. (Golf Channel). Sunday, 12:30 p.m.-1 p.m. (Golf Channel), 1 p.m.-4:30 p.m. (NBC).

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The 2017-18 FedExCup season is now past the halfway point of the regular schedule. Twenty-one weeks are in the books; 19 weeks are left before the top 125 players in the standings advance to the FedExCup Playoffs. At the very top, nothing really has changed since last year’s FedExCup Playoffs ended. Justin Thomas won the 2017 FedExCup crown, and he’s atop the current standings for the seventh consecutive week. But with a half-season still to be played, there are no guarantees. A few FedExCup observations:  Don’t be surprised if there’s a generous amount of turnover in the next 19 weeks. Of the top 30 players a year ago at this point, 10 fell outside the top 30 by the time the FedExCup Playoffs started. Only one of those 10 players managed to play his way back inside the top 30 and advance to the TOUR Championship – Justin Rose, who posted top-10 finishes in each of the four Playoffs events. Fourteen players who made the TOUR Championship last season are currently outside the top 30, including defending East Lake champion Xander Schauffele. The reigning Rookie of the Year finished third in the FedExCup Playoffs last year but is currently 46th and has just two top-10 finishes in 11 starts. Another notable, reigning U.S. Open champ Brooks Koepka, is currently 97th and has been sidelined since late January with a wrist injury. Just four players have been atop the FedExCup standings this season – Thomas for seven weeks, Patton Kizzire for eight weeks, Pat Perez for four weeks and Brendan Steele (winner of the season-opening Safeway Open) for two weeks. Thomas currently leads Kizzire by 440 points – that’s the biggest margin between No. 1 and No. 2 in the FedExCup standings entering the RBC Heritage since 2009.  Thomas, incidentally, has now been No. 1 this season for the same number of weeks (7) he was all of last season. And get this: Since the start of the 2015-16 season, there have been 106 weeks of tournament competition. Thomas has been inside the top 15 of the FedExCup standings a total of 104 weeks in that span. The only times he was outside the top 15? The first two weeks of this season. He didn’t play the opening week, and he was 33rd after the second week. Thomas not only has the most FedExCup points, he’s also making the most of each start. Thomas leads in FedExCup points per event with an average of 176.9 in his 10 starts. The next five are Dustin Johnson (161.3 avg.), Justin Rose (144.8 avg), Jason Day (130.6 avg) and Bubba Watson (128.1 avg). If Tiger Woods can maintain his pace, he’ll be in excellent shape to make a run at his third FedExCup title. Woods currently ranks 42nd in points, averaging 79.3 points per start. A year ago, any player who averaged 70 points or better per start in the regular season found himself inside the top 12 starting the FedExCup Playoffs. Woods won the inaugural FedExCup title in 2007 and won it again in 2009. Chesson Hadley has made the biggest one-year improvement in the standings. A year ago, he ranked 217th entering the RBC Heritage; he now ranks 26th, a jump of 191 spots. In fact, seven players have made jumps of 100-plus spots – Hadley, Ryan Armour (190 to 40), Tom Hoge (180 to 48), Ryan Palmer (201 to 76), Ian Poulter (149 to 25), Bubba Watson (124 to 3), and Brian Gay (151 to 47).

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