Woods’ annual Hero World Challenge set for Dec.

GREENSBORO, N.C. – Thursday’s first round of the Wyndham Championship was a back-to-the future kind of day for Webb Simpson and Brendon Todd. The two childhood friends, each with a pair of PGA TOUR victories this season, were paired together alongside Sungjae Im at Sedgefield Country Club, which is about 90 miles from the greater Raleigh area where the two grew up. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Simpson, Tesori form bond beyond the course Simpson had the edge on Thursday, shooting 66 on a course where he won in 2011 and has finished third or better each of the last three years. Todd signed for a 68 that would have been one better had he not missed the green and bogeyed his final hole. “I love playing with Brendon,” Simpson said. “… I feel like we feed off each other and it’s always a good day.” There have been many battles over the last two decades, albeit without stakes as high as the FedExCup points and Wyndham Rewards payout the two are vying for this week. The 35-year-old Simpson is looking for his eighth TOUR title while Todd seeks win No. 4. The dream was always to get to this point, but as we all know life offers no guarantees. So even Simpson, who overcame an early double bogey Thursday with six birdies in his next 10 holes, admits that competing head-to-head now at the game’s highest level each week is “pretty cool.” “I think we could have imagined it then, but you know, to go on to professional golf and have the success that we’ve had, especially his success, you know, we would have pinched ourselves and signed right up for that career, for sure,” Todd agreed. Todd moved to Cary, N.C., a Raleigh suburb, from Pittsburgh when he was 11 years old and almost immediately the two started squaring off in junior events around the state and the southeast. They became good friends, as well as rivals, and pushed each other to succeed. “I think golf’s one of those games where whether you have a best friend you play against in tournaments or whether you’re just out there competing, tournament golf makes you better,” Todd said. “Strong work ethic is really important in this game and that’s something that both of us had from an early age. “With or without each other, I think we could have gotten to this point. I think right now it just makes it more fun to have a childhood buddy out there you’re kind of competing against, pulling for.” Simpson, who has a U.S. Open and PLAYERS Championship on his resume, will candidly say that early on Todd, a three-time state high school champ who went on to play at Georgia, got the better of him more often than the reverse. Todd, on the other hand, was quick to point out the 1999 N.C. Junior where his buddy beat him in the championship match. In recent years, though, Simpson, the former Wake Forest All-American, watched as not once but twice his friend climbed back from golf’s abyss. The seeds of the comeback were sown during the 2018-19 season after Todd finally steadied himself after the full-swing yips had led to a stretch of 38 missed cuts in 42 starts. Todd won twice, consecutively, last fall and finished solo fourth in his quest for three straight victories. He’s continued his solid play since the restart after the COVID-19 break, too, holding the 54-hole lead at the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational. Toss was the first-round pacesetter at last week’s PGA, as well. “I think it shows kind of what he’s made of,” Simpson said. “To be a great player and to go for quite a bit of time struggling and to come back and then, you know, get to the position he’s in now. Last fall having two victories, a chance to win the next week in Sea Island, it’s really admirable. “You take your hat off to these guys, these star players who are just really good and they’ve been good their whole career. I applaud them. But to see a guy go through what he went through, I feel like that’s a story that isn’t talked about enough out here or really in sports. “It’s hard to go from where he was to now on top of the world in the game of golf, or close to it. So, it’s really cool to see and I’m happy for him.” Todd appreciates his friend’s support – and his success. Simpson came into the week at the Wyndham Championship ranked third in the FedExCup and sixth in the world. He opened the season with top-10s in his first four starts, including a playoff victory at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and a playoff loss at The RSM Classic where Todd finished fourth. A win at the RBC Heritage in the second tournament after the COVID hiatus kept Simpson’s momentum on high. “We’re great friends and always have been,” Todd said. “He’s such a good player, you just kind of feed off his energy.

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PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. – Tiger Woods looked lost when he left Riviera. Now he looks capable of contending. What a difference six days and some 2,700 miles can make. Woods was a new player as he opened the Florida Swing with a solid 70 at PGA National. It tied the lowest score of this nascent comeback, but it undoubtedly was his best day on the course. “I feel like I’m really not that far off,� Woods said. “Today was a day that I’m really proud of because I missed the ball in the correct spots. I didn’t do that in L.A.� Woods’ stat line wasn’t overly impressive, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. He hit half his fairways and 10 of 18 greens Thursday. Most importantly, the majority of his misses were not far from his target. PGA National’s Champion Course is one of the toughest on TOUR, but Woods was able to keep even his worst shots out of the water hazards that have given the course notorious reputation. Riviera and Torrey Pines are not pushovers, but PGA National is one of those water-lined Florida courses where players can rack up penalty strokes in a hurry. Justin Thomas remembers taking nine penalty drops when he missed the cut here in his rookie season. Woods did have two big misses Thursday, both hit with the one club that continues to plague him: the driver. The rest of his game looked solid as he controlled his trajectory and shaped his shots through the strong south Florida winds that blew even early Thursday morning. His tee shot at the 12th hole, his third of the day, flew well left of the fairway and came to rest behind a lemonade stand that had to be moved before he could attempt his approach shot. On the sixth hole, his drive sailed so far right that even he had to laugh as he walked back to his bag. He saved par both times. Woods made only had two over-par holes Thursday, a bogey and double-bogey, but offset them with three. He was only four shots off Alex Noren’s lead after the morning wave completed play. Woods bemoaned the inconsistency of his game as he left last week’s Genesis Open, but this time he was on the right side of the variance that is inherent in this game. Woods said he didn’t make swing changes after he returned from California but continued to work on the same keys that he’s focused on since returning to the PGA TOUR. “I felt like I hit the ball really well, and it was tough out there,� Woods said. “I had to hit a lot of knock-down shots. I had to work the golf ball both ways and, occasionally downwind, straight up in the air. I was able to do all that today, so that was very pleasing.� The double-bogey, at the par-5 second hole, started when he hit his driver into a fairway bunker and was forced to lay far back from the green. He hit his 6-iron approach into a bunker, left that shot in the rough and then missed a 4-foot putt. Woods hit driver five times Thursday, finding the fairway just once. He hit 6 of 9 fairways when employing an iron or 3-wood off the tee. This was just the second time this season that he hit at least half his fairways and greens on the same day. It also was the first round that he was in the positive in all four Strokes Gained categories. He said it was “easily� his best ball-striking round of the season. Brandt Snedeker could offer perspective after playing with Woods in the third round at Torrey Pines, where he shot 70 despite hitting just three fairways, and Thursday. “His iron play was significantly better today than it was at Torrey. That’s what I expected to see,� Snedeker said. “This is way tougher (than Torrey), iron-wise. It’s not as tough off the tee. You don’t have to hit as many drivers around here, but the approaches are way tougher. He controlled his ball-flight really well, hit a bunch of really good shots that he wasn’t able to hit at Torrey because he was just kind of rusty. It was cool to see him flight the ball, hit some little cut shots and three-quarter shots and some stuff that I’m accustomed to seeing him do.� Woods’ first two birdies came after hitting something shorter than driver off the tee. After teeing off on No. 10, he birdied two of his first four holes and his name appeared atop the leaderboard. He made his only bogey on his front nine after hitting his approach shot at No. 16 into a greenside bunker. The double-bogey at his 12th hole dropped him to 1 over, but he hit a wedge shot close at the next hole to return to even-par. Woods had a chance to turn in a sub-par scorecard, but missed birdie putts of 14 feet and 20 feet on his final two holes. He couldn’t get it under par, but it was progress nonetheless.

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