Tiger Woods to grace cover of “PGA TOUR 2K23” video game

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Max Homa has said that the final event of the Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season carries some of golf’s most suffocating pressure, particularly for those on the top-75 bubble. Play well and you’ll have a chance to earn a PGA TOUR card via the three-event Korn Ferry Tour Finals. Falter, and your fate could be Q-School, with an uncertain career path. “You start spiraling on the negatives,” once explained Homa of the prospects of losing full Korn Ferry Tour status. Entering the final event of the Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season, Philip Knowles stood No. 87 on the Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season Eligibility Points List. He knew a good finish was required to keep a guaranteed job for 2023. He booked two flights. One was to Idaho for the Finals-opening Albertsons Boise Open presented by Chevron. The other was to his adopted hometown of Jacksonville, Florida, to begin preparations for Q-School. Knowles’ wife Olivia flew to Omaha on Sunday morning, unannounced, and was on the 18th green at the Pinnacle Bank Championship presented by Aetna to provide congratulations as Knowles cemented his first career top-10 finish (T10) to move to No. 67 on the Regular Season Eligibility Points List and cement a Finals berth. Not only was he exempt for 2023, no Q-School needed, but he would have a chance at a TOUR card via The Finals 25. “The fact that I’m going to Boise is incredible,” Knowles said shortly after signing his scorecard last Sunday in Omaha. “Still some processing to do there. First time having locked up full status out here, and having a chance at a TOUR card the next few weeks … it’s awesome.” Knowles accelerated his timetable, to say the least. The University of North Florida alum finished runner-up at the Albertsons Boise Open, carding a four-round total of 21 under at Hillcrest CC to match Will Gordon and MJ Daffue for the week’s low score. Gordon won with a par on the first playoff hole, but all three players have earned the Korn Ferry Tour’s ultimate prize. Gordon earns 1,000 Korn Ferry Tour points for his win; Knowles earns 490 points for a two-way T2. The fail-safe threshold for a player to secure a TOUR card via The Finals 25 is 220 points; both players comfortably surpassed that mark in Boise. (Daffue was already #TOURBound via a top-25 spot on the Regular Season Eligibility Points List.) Six players finished in a six-way T4, which allots 200 Korn Ferry Tour points. In addition to Erik Barnes and Taylor Montgomery, whose TOUR cards are secure via The 25, this group included Scott Harrington, Austin Cook, Thomas Detry and Dean Burmester; these four are seeking a TOUR card via The Finals 25. Although these players are not mathematically safe per the Korn Ferry Tour’s fail-safe threshold, they’ll head to next week’s Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship in Columbus feeling confident about their chances. For reference, in a three-event Korn Ferry Tour Finals series, the threshold for a TOUR card has been 186 points (2019) and 157.773 points (2021). Knowles arrived at the 72nd hole Sunday in Boise with a one-stroke lead, hit his second shot over the green and was unable to get up and down for par, vexed by Hillcrest CC’s severe back-to-front sloping 18th green. He then burned the edge on a 6-foot par try in the playoff; Gordon tapped in for a winning par shortly thereafter. In the annals of closing bogeys to fall short of winning a title, though, Knowles’ may go down as one of the least consequential. Less than two weeks ago, the native of Bradenton, Florida, was reasonably justified in planning for Q-School. He needed to deliver one of his career-best finishes to keep his season alive. He started the year with conditional status and took advantage of a sponsor exemption into his hometown LECOM Suncoast Classic, chipping in on the final hole and finishing T22, which allowed him to play a mostly full schedule for the remainder of the 2022 Korn Ferry Tour calendar. He had spent most of his career in the proverbial week-to-week grind. Conditional status, Monday qualifiers, mini-tours and the inevitable, instinctual questions of how long to keep going. The nomadic unknown. Now the 25-year-old, who met his wife Olivia when she competed on their high school’s men’s golf team, is headed to the PGA TOUR. “It’s really hard to put into words,” reflected Knowles on a tranquil Sunday evening in Boise. “Conditional life on the Korn Ferry Tour is miserable. It is nothing short of miserable. If you’re Monday qualifying, you’re fighting every week just to have a chance to play. If you’re playing in the events and you’re conditional, you are hoping you’re continuing to play well enough to continue to get starts. “I’m married, I’ve got a kid on the way, and that dynamic of trying to plan things … family vacations, vacations with friends … for a couple of years now, I haven’t been able to plan. Everything’s been spur of the moment, because I couldn’t ‘t tell you where I was going to be next week, or a month from now. “To have experienced that, to play well last week when I had to was incredible. It’s what I felt like was coming. Then to come out here this week … to stand here now and think that I’ve got a PGA TOUR card is crazy.” Crazy, perhaps, but reality.

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It’s a star-studded field this week at the Charles Schwab Challenge, but one of the most interesting players to watch will be a player whose recent struggles stand in stark contrast to his past performances at Colonial Country Club. It can be argued that no one has had more success at Colonial over the past few years than Jordan Spieth. In seven starts, he has a win (2016), two runner-up finishes and a pair of other top-10s. Twenty-one of his 28 rounds at Colonial have been in the 60s. Of players with at least a dozen rounds in the Charles Schwab Challenge over the last 30 years, Spieth’s scoring average leads all players (67.8). RELATED LINKS: 15th Club But before competition halted in March, Spieth’s ball-striking numbers were far from his peak. Spieth is 195th on the TOUR this season in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green and 198th in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee. For the fourth consecutive season, his greens in regulation rank has dropped – from fourth in 2017, all the way down to 221st so far in 2019-20. Spieth has hit less than 48% of his fairways this season – only four of 231 qualified players on the PGA TOUR currently have a lower percentage. Comparing Spieth’s career Strokes Gained statistics at Colonial with what he’s done the last two seasons on TOUR provides an even starker contrast. Spieth is 195th on the TOUR this season in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green and 198th in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee. For the fourth consecutive season, his greens in regulation rank has dropped – from fourth in 2017, all the way down to 221st so far in 2019-2020. Spieth has hit less than 48% of his fairways this season – only four of 231 qualified players on the PGA TOUR currently have a lower percentage. Comparing Spieth’s career Strokes Gained statistics at Colonial with what he’s done the last two seasons on TOUR provides an even starker contrast. Over the last 15 years, no player has averaged more Strokes Gained: Total (+2.41) and Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green (+1.83) per round at Colonial than Spieth. Spieth is ranked 82nd and 166th (of 205 players) in those two statistics since the beginning of last season. He has gained 1.28 strokes per round at Colonial in ‘long game’ – a statistic that combines Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and Strokes Gained: Approach. That’s fifth-best among players with 12 or more rounds at Colonial since 2005. Over the last two seasons, he’s losing -0.69 strokes per round in that stat, ranking 187th. Colonial could provide a great opportunity for Spieth to rediscover his best self on the golf course. Statistically speaking, the venue plays to Spieth’s strengths and masks the less glittering aspects of his performance. For one, missing fairways at Colonial is not as penalizing at other PGA TOUR events. ‘Missed fairway penalty’ is the difference in the field’s average when hitting the fairway versus missing it. Last year at Colonial, only one hole (the fifth) had a penalty of a half-stroke or more. Spieth is the all-time leader in scoring average at this tournament despite hitting just over 50% of his fairways at Colonial. Driving distance does not reap huge rewards at Colonial, either. Not that Spieth has ever been a short hitter off the tee – he’s always ranked among the top half of PGA TOUR players in driving distance – but the typical benefits reaped by the longest players just aren’t present at Colonial. A player outdriving the field average by 25 yards will gain one stroke less throughout the course of a tournament compared to the average PGA TOUR event. Throughout his career, Spieth has struck his approach shots better at Colonial than anywhere else on TOUR. Jordan’s average proximity to the hole in 28 career rounds at Colonial is 31 feet, 10 inches. To put that into perspective, that is about two feet closer, on average, than his proximity for the entirety of his FedExCup-winning 2015 season. Spieth has averaged +0.88 strokes gained approach per round at Colonial – fifth-best among all players over the last 15 years. Fans seemingly remember Spieth making every putt he looked at when he played his best – from the famous ‘Go Get That’ at The Open Championship, to the putts he made all over East Lake in his 2015 TOUR Championship win. But narratives, often punctuated by highlights, can mask the statistical reality behind performance. Such has often been the case with Spieth in his career. When Spieth was playing his best golf, it wasn’t because he was making every putt in sight. It was because he was outperforming the field with his irons. Consider his aforementioned halcyon season of 2015. That year, Spieth actually ranked better on the PGA Tour in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green (fourth) than he did in Strokes Gained: Putting (ninth). Colonial, a place where Spieth has had immense success, reflects that, too. Spieth is ranked 20th among all players at Colonial since 2005 in Strokes Gained: Putting per round – a worse ranking than any of his ball striking metrics in that span. Spieth has been putting better in regular PGA TOUR events the last two seasons (+0.73 strokes gained per round) than he has at Colonial in his career (+0.58 per round). It’s been Spieth’s exceptional performance tee-to-green at Colonial that has set him apart. Over the last decade, no player has averaged more strokes gained tee-to-green per round than the Texan has (1.83). If there’s one place best suited for Spieth’s on-course revival, Colonial just might be it.

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