How the PGA Tour navigated its toughest week yet

CARNOUSTIE, Scotland — Francesco Molinari played a steady hand amid another crazy ending at Carnoustie and won The Open Championship to become Italy’s first major champion. Tiger Woods took the lead on Sunday at a major for the first time in nine years and lost it with one bad swing. Jordan Spieth cost himself another chance in a major by failing to make a single birdie. Seven players had a share of the lead at some point. Six were still tied on the back nine. Through all that suspense, Molinari never flinched. He closed with a 2-under 69, playing the final 37 holes on the toughest links in golf without a bogey. The clincher was a bold drive on the 18th hole that flirted with edge of a pot bunker, a wedge to 5 feet and a birdie putt that made him a major champion. Molinari, who finished at 8-under 276, raised his fist and shook it lightly before slamming it for emphasis. The first to congratulate him was Woods. They were together three weeks ago when Molinari closed with a 62 to win the Quicken Loans National, with Woods presenting him the trophy. The 35-year-old then had to wait to see if anyone could catch him. Xander Schauffele, the last one to keep alive the American streak of five straight majors, was one shot behind until he sent a long iron well to the right of the 17th hole and failed to convert a 15-foot par putt to fall two shots behind. Schauffele had to hole out a wedge on the final hole and checked up well short of the hole. “It’s been a tough fight,” Molinari said modestly in congratulating the four guys who finished second. “But there can only be one winner. This time, it’s me.” Schauffele had to settle for second place with Rory McIlroy, Justin Rose and Kevin Kisner, all of whom had plenty of reason to hope on a warm, windy afternoon that put plenty of bite back into Carnoustie. All of them made mistakes, big and small. The biggest blunder belonged to Woods, his red shirt blazing against the yellow grass of dry Scottish summer. The roars for his two birdies could be heard from all corners of Carnoustie. He looked like the Woods of old, and it felt like old times when everyone he was chasing began to collapse. Kisner, in a three-way tie for the lead with Spieth and Schauffele, took double bogey on No. 2. Spieth hit into a gorse bush and made double bogey on the par-5 sixth. Schauffele made double bogey on the next hole, leaving one in the wispy grass, another over the green. Woods was at 7 under, in control of his game and hitting shots that only he can. From a pot bunker on No. 10, he took a bold and vicious swing to get it over the lip, over the burn and to the front edge of the green. And then it all went wrong. He pulled his shot from the rough on No. 11 into the gallery, fluffed a wedge short of the green, ran it by 8 feet and missed the putt for double bogey. Another poor swing followed and led to another bogey, and just like that, Woods was two shots behind and reeling. “A little ticked off at myself, for sure,” Woods said. “I had a chance starting that back nine to do something, and I didn’t do it.” Molinari twice saved par with 8-foot putts on the 12th and 13th, and he took the lead for the first time with a short birdie on the par-5 14th. With another tough save from off the green at the 16th, he didn’t miss a shot the rest of the way. It capped off the best stretch of golf in his career. Over the last two months, Molinari has won three times and runner-up twice, and his first major moves him to a career-best No. 6 in the world.

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Jordan Spieth will make his first start of 2019, and first start as a married man, at the Sony Open in Hawaii this week.  The 2015 FedExCup winner and former world No. 1, who is trying to rebound from his worst season as a pro, wed longtime girlfriend Annie Verret last November and admitted Wednesday he expects to see some rust in his game at Waialae Country Club this week.  “This tournament was up in in the air, given I wasn’t in Maui this year,â€� said Spieth, who finished 31st in the FedExCup last season and missed the TOUR Championship for the first time in his six-year career. “I decided that I really wanted to come down here. I like the golf course a lot, the hospitality is fantastic, and the weather is perfect. “Really could come down and try out the very little work I was able to put in, but at least knock some rust off and gather some information about where I am at and hopefully make some adjustments going forward into the season.â€� Spieth slipped to 123rd in Strokes Gained: Putting in 2018, from 39th the year before and 2nd in 2016. He also struggled with his swing and said he wasted time working on the wrong thing. The result: His five top-10s in 23 starts were the fewest of his career. “I was certainly frustrated with last season results-wise compared to previous seasons,â€� he said. “It was also something I kind of embraced as an inevitable at some point in the career. “I almost took ignorance as bliss in a lot of parts of my game,â€� he added, alluding to the torrid start of his career, when he won 11 times, including three majors, all before turning 25. “I did things well, but I didn’t know why. I just did them. Then they got off, and so I had to figure out why I did them well and how to train it back.â€� Spieth said he’s now working on the right thing, but finding the time to get it grooved has been another matter. The off-season saw him spend less time on his game than on his wedding in Dallas and honeymoon in the Caribbean. As a result, he said, he’s not sure what to expect at the Sony. He was 3rd in 2017 and T18 a year ago, but returns to Waialae after “limited work.â€� “I think that was good for me,â€� he said. “I needed some time away from the game after being off and having to play through it at the end the season, and then in the fall kind of the same thing.â€� In a departure from his usual scheduling, Spieth finished T55 at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas, and missed the cut at the Mayakoba Golf Classic in the fall. He comes into this week at 191st in the FedExCup and 17th in the Official World Golf Ranking. “I’m a little bit behind,â€� he said, “which I can play catch up, I think, pretty easily.â€� One adjustment: What to do about that new wedding ring when gripping the club? “I’m fine with playing with it,â€� Spieth said. “It’s just my putting; when I’m cross-handed kind of jams into my grip.â€�  As a result, he said, he probably will take it off when he’s inside the ropes. “Unfortunately,â€� he said, “that means I’ll probably lose some rings, but I don’t think — as of now I don’t think I’m going to start playing with it on. Just it was putting that was the reason. Kind of odd.â€�

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ATLANTA – Patrick Cantlay will take a lead of anywhere between two (over Tony Finau) and 10 strokes (over five players) into the opening round of the season-ending TOUR Championship at East Lake, which will decide the winner of the FedExCup. All can agree on that. RELATED: How they’ll start at East Lake What is less clear is how significant that is. “I don’t know another format even remotely close to this,” said Cantlay, who in winning last week’s BMW Championship was +14.58 Strokes Gained: Putting, a PGA TOUR record. “I’m going to do my best to throw that out the window and try and treat it like any other golf tournament because the best chance for me succeeding is shooting the lowest score possible.” In other words, he’ll leave it to the rest of us to monitor his lead. How fast will he lose it? How much will he build it? Say this for the TOUR’s new Starting Strokes format, now in its third year: It elevates Thursday’s first round with a new kind of urgency and watchability. “I feel confident,” said Jon Rahm, who leads the TOUR with 14 top-10 finishes, including his win at the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in June. “This is a ball-striker’s golf course, and my ball striking has been very, very good, and I’m only four shots back, so it’s only a one-shot difference each day, and we all know that four shots can be gone very, very quickly.” Justin Thomas went in as the top seed in 2019 and finished third. That was the year Rory McIlroy started five shots behind but won by four over Xander Schauffele. Dustin Johnson was the top seed last year and went on to win it all. Asked if he felt like he was sleeping on the lead from Monday through Wednesday, Johnson said he came to think of it as a five-round tournament. In other words, he told himself he built that lead the day before play started. Hey, whatever works; you can’t argue with $15 million. This year brings a new mental hurdle, as he starts seven behind. “It’s a great challenge,” he said. “Obviously over one day would be a lot to ask, but over four days it’s not as big of an ask.” Like McIlroy, Harris English, who will start six back, believes East Lake is an ideal course on which to make up ground fast. Hit the fairways and you have a green light to go low, but with stray tee shots, balls sink to the bottom of the rough and the bogeys can pile up fast. “I like the format,” English said. “I don’t mind coming from behind.” Neither does McIlroy, who finished solo fourth at the BMW. He said winning a third FedExCup title, even from eight behind, is not outside the realm of possibility. Whether or not Cantlay will open the door for players like him, English, Rahm, Johnson or 2017 TOUR Championship winner Xander Schauffele, who also will begin the tournament eight back, remains to be seen. “That’s the goal for the whole season is to have that lead,” said Schauffele, who had the lowest 72-hole total at East Lake last year (FedExCup T2). “And at East Lake it’s not a very big one.”

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