Joaquin Niemann's generosity helps family facing long odds

PALM HARBOR, Fla. – Jordan Spieth is having problems with his putting. Rory McIlroy is struggling with his full swing. Those are usually their strengths, but not this week at the Valspar Championship. Both players finished at 5-over 147 at Innisbrook’s Copperhead Course to miss the cut. Spieth finished 10 shots behind playing partner Tiger Woods after shooting 76-71. McIlroy fired 74-73. This was McIlroy’s sixth consecutive over-par round, the second-longest streak of his PGA TOUR career (he had eight consecutive over-par rounds in April 2010). McIlroy has finished 18 strokes behind Woods in six rounds since leaving Riviera. Spieth and McIlroy, winners of two of the past three FedExCups, find themselves farther down the standings than they’d like at this point in the season. Spieth started this week at No. 52, while McIlroy is 175th. McIlroy is scheduled to play next week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, while Spieth will take a week off before the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Championship in his college town of Austin, Texas. McIlroy began the year by shooting 40 under par in two top-three finishes in the Middle East. He has two missed cuts in four PGA TOUR starts and is coming off a T59 at The Honda Classic. He’s 14 over par in his past six rounds. “It’s hard because when I play my weeks off or practice, it feels pretty good,� McIlroy said. “When I get out on the course it isn’t quite the same.� He hit just half his greens through 36 holes and 14 of 26 fairways. “I’ve shown signs of good play this year already and I just need to see a couple of good scores and I think that will maybe give me a little boost going forward,� McIlroy said. Spieth thought he was making progress with his putting, but admitted that this week was a “step back.� It’s his first missed cut at the Valspar Championship. He won in 2015 and had finished no worse than T20 in his previous four starts here. He had finished in the top 25 in five of six starts this season; a missed cut at the Waste Management Phoenix Open was the exception. He made just three of 16 putts from 7 to 15 feet this week. “When I look up, I’m looking right of where my putter is pointed and therefore there’s just not much of a commitment and not much consistency,� Spieth said. He points to his win at last year’s Open Championship as inspiration. He was struggling with his setup but started rolling putts once he started addressing the ball properly. “I don’t want it to be streaky,� he said. “I’d rather be consistent but the good news is my confidence can flip into a pretty elite level once that kind of clicks. I’ve just been searching for that.� NOTABLES Corey Conners – The PGA TOUR rookie who unsuccessfully tried to Monday qualify for the Valspar Championship held onto the lead with a 2-under 69 on Friday. Conners, who got into the field after the qualifier, is two shots ahead of five players: Paul Casey, Brandt Snedeker, Tiger Woods, Ryan Palmer and Kelly Kraft. He made four birdies and a double-bogey (on the par-3 fourth hole) on Friday. Conners has made 10 of 11 cuts this season but has yet to record a top-25 finish. He is 133rd in this season’s FedExCup. Tiger Woods – He held the solo lead after a birdie on his 14th hole, but he made his lone bogey of the day at the last hole. He’ll start the weekend in a share of second place, two strokes behind Corey Conners. Click here for more on Woods’ round. Brandt Snedeker – The former FedExCup champion is having his best week since suffering a rib injury last July. He’ll start the weekend in second place, two shots behind Conners. Snedeker, No. 74 in the world ranking, needs a high finish to qualify for the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play. He also must crack the top 50 in the world ranking to qualify for the Masters. Snedeker will play with Woods in Saturday’s second-to-last group at 1:45 p.m. Justin Rose – The winner of this season’s World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions sits at 3-under 139 (70-69) after making just three bogeys over 36 holes. He’s in contention, despite hitting just 12 of 26 fairways and 19 of 36 greens through two rounds. Sam Burns – The Web.com Tour member got in the field with his T8 at The Honda Classic, where he outdueled Tiger Woods in the final round. Burns is back in contention, sitting in 12th place after two rounds. He could earn special temporary membership with a T3 finish this week. Five years ago, Jordan Spieth earned that status at the Valspar Championship. Burns also is in the field for next week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational. Patrick Reed – Three years after losing a memorable playoff here to Jordan Spieth, Reed finds himself in contention once again after shooting a second-round 69. Reed sits at 2 under par, four shots off the lead. He made just one bogey Friday. Tony Finau – The seventh-ranked player in the FedExCup missed the cut after shooting consecutive 74s. It’s just his second missed cut in 10 starts this season (Waste Management Phoenix Open). QUOTABLE I want him to win again because I want these kids to see what we dealt with for a long, long time. SUPERLATIVES Longest drive: 406 yards. Seamus Power on the par-4 10th hole. It was the day’s longest drive by 36 yards. Longest putt: 77 feet, 10 inches. Tyrone Van Aswegen holed that long birdie putt on the par-3 17th. He also made a 35-foot birdie putt and 32-foot birdie putt. Lowest round: 65, Van Aswegen. His bogey-free round jumped him 90 spots on the leaderboard into a tie for 12th. Hardest hole: The 456-yard, par-4 16th played to a 4.29 stroke average Friday. Easiest hole: The 571-yard, par-5 11th played to a 4.67 scoring average. Sam Burns made one of two eagles on the hole Friday. SHOT OF THE DAY

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ERIN, Wis. – The house shared by Rickie Fowler and Justin Thomas not far from Erin Hills was supposed to be the scene of someone’s breaking out party Sunday night… instead it served as the scene of post mortems. Heading to Sunday the U.S. Open was well and truly up for grabs with 16 players within six shots of the lead, none of whom had a major victory to their name. Of those, Fowler and Thomas were the ones most likely. Fowler had gone through enough near misses in majors to have learned from the experience with four previous top-5 finishes. He had since won THE PLAYERS in 2015. The 28-year-old had also claimed The Honda Classic earlier this season, knocking off the notion from some that he struggled to close although he opened the door to doubters again when he faded from one off the lead through 54 holes at the Masters in April to finish T11. Thomas had invigorated the tournament by terrorizing Erin Hills on Saturday for a record 9-under 63. He already had three wins on the PGA TOUR season and sat second in the FedExCup. Oh and the now 24-year-old joined the 59 club earlier in the year. Surely one of them would kick ahead. Starting two back, Fowler could only muster an even-par 72 to finish six shots back in a tie for fifth. Starting one back in the final group, the U.S. Open was effectively over for Thomas after just five holes and three bogeys. His 3-over 75 left him finishing in a tie for ninth. “I just didn’t have it today. Anytime you don’t win, it stings,â€� Thomas said. “It just sucks to not even have a chance on that back nine. To try to go out there and try to get in a top-5 or trying to get up near the lead is not what I play for, but, unfortunately, that’s really all I was dealt, so it’s what I had to try to do.â€� Fowler tried to take only positives away from the occasion. He only needs to look at his Zurich Classic partner Jason Day, who had nine top-10 finishes in majors before his win at the 2015 PGA Championship, to know he must forge ahead.
 “I feel like golf-wise I’m playing at the highest level. If you look at the negatives too much, you’re going to be stuck doing that the whole time,â€� he rationalized. 

“You have to measure success in different ways, not just by winning, just because that doesn’t happen a whole lot. I think Tiger had the best winning percentage of all time at 30%, and you’re lucky to even sniff close to 10.

“You kind of have to say, hey, it’s a major. We played well this week. I felt like I did a lot of good things, especially in the first round, executing my game plan. To finish in double digits, under par at a major championship, especially the U.S. Open, it was a good week.â€� Perhaps the writing was on the wall for Thomas from the opening tee shot as it sailed left into a hazard and it’s always tough to back up a super low score with another one. The three previous players to shoot 63 in an early round at a U.S. Open all struggled the next day. Jack Nicklaus shot 71 and Tom Weiskopf 75 after their opening 63s in the 1980 U.S. Open. Vijay Singh shot 72 in Round 3 after his second round 63 in 2003. (Johnny Miller shot 63 at Oakmont in 1973’s final round to win.) Only Nicklaus rebounded well enough to win. The gas tank on Thomas just didn’t fill up in time, despite having a long wait before his tee time. Too long he felt. “It was a lot of kind of laying around and just trying to stay off the phone and try to stay away from reading stuff just because there are so many things out there that are being said or written,â€� Thomas explained after he woke early Sunday ahead of his 2:54 p.m. tee time. “I just tried to stay away from it but it was hard to. I would like to think that’s not why I played how I did today.â€�
 The good news for the pair is perhaps this first-time majors thing is going to be a lasting trend. Going back to Day’s win at Whistling Straits, the last seven major winners have been first timers. Perhaps they will get their chance to continue the narrative at the Open Championship next month at Royal Birkdale. “I think it’s a great thing. It’s a lot of new blood, young guys. Kind of some of the younger crew is coming in,â€� Fowler said. “I’m not saying the older guys are out by any means, but I think we’re making our presence a little bit more known.â€�

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Thailand’s Jazz Janewattananond is itching to get back onto the tee and reignite his PGA TOUR dream. Fuelled by an unprecedented sporting shutdown which saw him seek refuge in Orlando over the past two months, the 39th-ranked golfer in the world will be amongst the stars returning to action at the Charles Schwab Challenge when the TOUR resumes play June 11. Janewattananond, 24, is slated to feature in other tournaments including the RBC Heritage, the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide and World Golf Championships-FedEx St Jude Invitational, appearances he hopes will help him secure membership on the PGA TOUR. He can also look forward to starts in three of the four majors in the reimagined schedule. “These next few events, it’s going to be great,� Janewattananond said in a recent interview. “I won’t really care what I shoot honestly. I just want to play tournament golf again. … I’m lucky we get to play golf again as every tour around the world is closed.� Janewattananond has been away from his close-knit family since late February after opting to stay in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. He has been living in Orlando, Florida, with former PGA TOUR winner Daniel Chopra and his family. “I’ve tried to keep the spirit up. It feels like you’re in a tunnel and I’m trying to get to the end of the tunnel. It’s tough when you’re far away from home,� he said. While he misses his family dearly, Janewattananond has found comfort through his ‘adopted’ family. Janewattananond and his caddie, Camp Pulit, have been staying with the Chopras since March. “When the shutdown happened, I didn’t want to go back to Thailand as we weren’t sure how long the break would last,� Janewattananond said. “And then, our country shut down and it was too late to get home. We had a hotel room booked for two weeks but (Chopra) made us stay with him. It was good to have some familiar faces around. It felt like family.� Janewattananond has enjoyed staying with Daniel, his wife Samantha and their two children. Janewattananond says he has found renewed vigor for the game and has so enjoyed Bay Hill that he took up a club membership. If he secures his PGA TOUR card, Janewattananond will not hesitate to consider setting up base near the iconic club. He’s spent his time with the Chopras playing basketball and wakeboarding. When golf facilities reopened, Janewattananond and Chopra participated in one-day events on local mini-tours to get the adrenaline flowing again. “I just miss the travelling and going out to play, meeting new people,� Janewattananond said. “One day, we got up at 5 a.m., drove for two hours to the course and teed up. I shot 1 ynder in the first event and didn’t make my money back and in the second one, I shot 2 under and tied Daniel for third place.� The 46-year-old Chopra, who is of Indian-Swede parentage, won his first PGA TOUR event at the 2007 Ginn sur Mer Classic and two events later claimed the season-opening 2008 Sentry Tournament of Champions, beating Steve Stricker in a playoff. “Daniel has a golf net at home and I’ve been grinding,� Janewattananond said. “We’ve played golf almost every day together and Daniel’s a great guy and a great golfer. He loves a side game and when he needs to make a putt, it just comes up for him. I guess that’s why he’s a PGA TOUR winner. Casper, who is 10, is a good golfer too. I wasn’t as good as him when I was his age and he would hit balls all day long. I consider myself a range rat but he’s out-practicing all of us. It kind of gives us a boost for our love towards golf. It’s a good reminder.� With international travel and requirements differing from one country to another, Janewattananond is looking at extending his visa to remain in the U.S. beyond its current expiration in August. With the U.S. Open slated in September and Masters Tournament in November, he is keeping his options open to staying on in the country for remainder of the year. “If I go back to Thailand, I don’t know if we’ll have to go through quarantine or if it’ll be easy to return to the U.S. I’m happy here so maybe it’ll be better to stay on. No one expected this to happen in our lifetime. You’re just moving along and then this happens. A lot of people are more united and helping each other out and I think humanity will come out on the better side of this. “For Daniel and Samantha to open up their home to me and my caddie, they have helped me out so much. You see the nicer part of people and the best of people coming out to help one another.�

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