Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy ready to partner at The Match

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – THE PLAYERS Championship is the signature event on the PGA TOUR, and golf fans will plenty of options to follow all the action this week on the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. PGA TOUR LIVE Available on PGATL.com and PGA TOUR apps, PGA TOUR LIVE will provide live streaming coverage not only on competition days but also key events leading up to Thursday’s first round. TUESDAY: Live coverage of the Military Appreciation Ceremony and Sam Hunt concert, 6-8 p.m. ET WEDNESDAY: Live PLAYERS preview show from Noon-2 p.m. ET will include a live broadcast from the Stadium Course, as well as player interviews at the range, expert analysis of the field and course, and an overview of the additions and renovations to the course, as well as a look at the new practice facility, Nickelodeon’s presence at the Kid Zone and other fan-centric features. THURSDAY/FRIDAY: Featured Groups coverage starting at 7:30 a.m. ET, and Featured Hole coverage of the par-3 17th and renovated par-4 12th starting at 9 a.m. ET. Coverage scheduled until 7 p.m. ET. SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Featured Groups coverage starting at 8:30 a.m. ET, and Featured Hole coverage of the par-3 17th and renovated par-4 12th starting at Noon ET. Coverage scheduled until 7 p.m. ET. TWITTER Featured group coverage on the PGA TOUR’s official Twitter account, @PGATOUR, will be available for the first two rounds. THURSDAY/FRIDAY: Live coverage from 7:30 a.m. to approximately 9 a.m. ET of two Featured Groups through their first two holes. LIVE VR/360 VIDEO Fans will have the unique perspective of virtual reality and 360-degree video coverage of the island-green 17th hole during all four rounds. The live VR experience can be viewed on Samsung Gear VR headsets on a global basis through the PGA TOUR VR Live app available on the Oculus store. For fans without the headset, a 360 video streak will be available exclusively on Twitter and Periscope @PGATOUR, using any smartphone.  (For more information on this exciting feature, click here) THURSDAY/FRIDAY: Live 17th hole coverage from 9 a.m.-7 p.m. ET SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Live 17th hole coverage from Noon-7 p.m. ET PGA TOUR EXPERIENCE on DIRECTV For the first time at THE PLAYERS Championship, DIRECTV will offer fans four distinct channels of coverage – the GOLF/NBC Simulcast, Featured Group, Launch Pad and SHOTLink. THURSDAY/FRIDAY: 1 p.m. – 7 p.m. ET SATURDAY/SUNDAY: 2 p.m. – 7 p.m. ET TELEVISION NBC will broadcast THE PLAYERS Championship for the 30th year and will offer 22 hours of live tournament coverage on NBC and Golf Channel during the four rounds of competition, with limited commercial interruptions. THURSDAY/FRIDAY: Coverage on Golf Channel will be from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Coverage on NBC will be from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET. RADIO PGA TOUR Radio’s live audio coverage is available on XM 92/Sirius 208 and free online at PGATOUR.COM. THURSDAY/FRIDAY: Noon – 7 p.m. ET SATURDAY-SUNDAY: 1 p.m. – 7 p.m. ET

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This is an important time in history for golf in Japan. The inaugural edition of the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP this week reflects a commitment – at least six years to be exact – of the PGA TOUR visiting and growing with the country. After an extended hiatus, the PGA TOUR Champions returned to conduct events in 2017 and 2019, almost as a soft reopen for what’s coming. The renewed focus in the landing of the rising run includes next summer’s Olympic Games. The Japan Golf Tour is among the preeminent circuits around the world, but there hasn’t been a men’s event eligible to all since the World Cup of Golf in 2001. That was held in the afternoon shadow of Mount Fuji at The Taiheiyo Club in Gotemba City. The co-sanctioned ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP is hosted by Narashino County Club in the Chiba Prefecture east of Tokyo. Scroll past the projected contenders in the field of 78 for details on the tournament, the course and more. POWER RANKINGS: ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP Tiger Woods, Jason Day, Marc Leishman, Ian Poulter and THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES runner-up Danny Lee will be included among the notables covered in Tuesday’s Fantasy Insider. ZOZOTOWN is the apparel company responsible for making the PGA TOUR’s first-ever annual tournament in Japan possible. The ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP debuts with a prize fund of $9.75 million and there is no cut. The winner will receive $1.755 million, 500 FedExCup points and fully exempt membership through 2021-22. The field reserves space for 60 golfers in order of final position in the 2019 FedExCup Playoffs. As of midday Monday, Kevin Streelman (75th) was the last man in the field via that conduit. Ten spots are reserved for members of the Japan Golf Tour. Eight sponsor exemptions complete the field. Fifty golfers from last week’s THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES made the trip to the ZOZO. Narashino CC is a 36-hole facility. A composite course has been routed for the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP. It’s a par 34-36—70 stretching 7,041 yards. The five par 3s range from the 141-yard 13th to the 191-yard fifth. The longest of the trio of par 5s is the 608-yard 14th. The closing hole is a par 5 tipping at 562 yards, so the opportunity for walk-off heroics is in play. Golf courses of some age in Japan were built with two greens on every hole. At the time, it was a solution to present different strains of healthy grass no matter the season. Today, bentgrass blankets most greens primarily because advances in agronomy have allowed for improved conditioning where possible year-round. Narashino opened in 1965 with two greens per hole. They remain today. Those utilized for the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP have been prepped to run 11-and-a-half feet on the Stimpmeter. To honor the tradition of two greens in Japan, both the A and B greens on the par-4 fourth hole will be used at some point during the tournament. It’s possible that another hole or holes also will use alternate greens. As usual, targets in play for every round will be determined when hole locations are posted. If a golfer lands an approach on the incorrect green, the “wrong green” local rule will be enforced. It will allow the golfer relief off the green no closer the hole. No penalty will be assessed. Just like last week’s stop in South Korea, Japan has been hit by significant rain in recent weeks, so the greens will be receptive. Primary rough extending as high as three-and-a-quarter inches defending them and the Korai zoysiagrass fairways will be lush. More rain is on the way during the tournament. It’ll fall on Friday for sure and it can’t be ruled out on any of the other days. Strong winds will protect scoring during the first two rounds. It’ll abate on the weekend, which will allow the potential for a shootout to develop as ball-strikers tend to emerge on unfamiliar greens. Daytime highs will flirt with 70 degrees throughout. ROB BOLTON’S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM’s Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton recaps and previews every tournament from numerous angles. Look for his following contributions as scheduled. MONDAY: Rookie Ranking, Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Sleepers, Fantasy Insider * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM’s Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, which also publishes on Tuesday.

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ATLANTA – The season finally complete, the FedExCup trophy sitting beside him, Justin Thomas could finally reveal the goals that had driven him this season. He pulled out his cell phone, opened the list he’d created at 9:21 p.m. on Feb. 21 and read the 13 items listed under “16-17 goals.� Some of the benchmarks were about technical aspects of his game, while others focused on tournament results. He exceeded all of the latter with an impressive season that featured five wins. The checklist in his iPhone’s Notes app showed that Thomas wanted to win at least one tournament this season, play in the final two groups of a major, win one of the four majors, qualify for the TOUR Championship and make his first Presidents Cup team. He did all of those. Sunday’s achievement, winning the FedExCup, wasn’t on the list. Not because the season-long race wasn’t important to him, but because he recognized the difficulty of the task. “One week versus an entire year is tough,� Thomas said. “There’s a lot of great players out here. … If someone said, ‘You may not win one of these for eight years,’ it would (stink) but I could see it.� He doesn’t have to worry about that. He was the PGA TOUR’s best player from start to finish, and he confirmed that by winning the FedExCup. Most importantly, Thomas established himself as a closer. That’s a title that can be harder to earn than the FedExCup. All five of Thomas’ wins this season were by two or more shots, including three three-shot victories and a seven-shot win at the Sony Open in Hawaii. He broke 70 in the final round of all five of his victories, shooting 64, 69, 65, 68 and 66. “You just have to want to be there,� Thomas said. “You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. I just enjoy that rush, the goosebumps you get.� Thomas fell one shot short of Xander Schauffele on Sunday at the TOUR Championship, but birdies on the 70th and 71st holes clinched the FedExCup. If Thomas didn’t birdie two of the last three holes, he was at risk of losing the larger prize to Jordan Spieth. That’s why his FedExCup victory, even if it came after he fell short in the season finale, was another example of Thomas’ clutch play this season. “The guys know if they’ve got it inside,� said Jim “Bones� Mackay, the longtime caddie for Phil Mickelson who now works as an NBC commentator. “Phil said to me very early on in his career, ‘Hey man, I’m going to win a lot of tournaments.’ I don’t think that’s something that you’re necessarily going to hear a ton out here, (but) Phil knew that he had ‘it.’� Thomas has shown a similar confidence on Sundays this season. His success started at the CIMB Classic in Malaysia, where a year earlier he’d won his lone PGA TOUR title. This time, he started the final round in second place, four shots behind leader Anirban Lahiri. Thomas shot a final-round 64 to earn his second PGA TOUR victory. Birdies at Nos. 16 and 17 gave him a three-shot win over Hideki Matsuyama. Thomas, who’d struggled during the final holes of his first win, said he felt “extremely comfortable� this time. It was a harbinger of things to come. Two starts later, Thomas took a two-shot lead over Matsuyama into the final round of the Sentry Tournament of Champions. Thomas birdied the final two holes at Kapalua for a three-shot victory. He was dominant one week later in Honolulu, putting on a record-setting performance in the Sony Open in Hawaii. Playing alongside Spieth, he shot a 59 in the first round, becoming the youngest player to do so. A final-round 65 gave him a seven-shot win and the lowest 72-hole score in TOUR history, 253. During those two weeks in Hawaii, Thomas displayed a “a tenacity, a confidence that it takes experience in order to build and to have,� said Spieth. “I really saw it at Sony. He was out in front of the field and really just kept himself out there.� With wins in three of his first five events, Thomas took a large lead in the FedExCup. With 1,614 points, he was 437 points ahead of Matsuyama and 860 ahead of Pat Perez, who was in third place. “After the Sony is when I felt like it had the chance (to be special) because of the three different ways that I won,� Thomas said. “I was able to experience three things that I hadn’t experienced before.�  His season hit a lull as he had to cope with the new demands that come when your career enters a new stratosphere, though. “I think it just threw me off a little bit,� Thomas said. “It set some expectations a little higher for me.� He was winless over his next 15 starts, with more missed cuts (six) than top-10s (four) in that span. He had fallen to fourth in the FedExCup standings when he arrived at Quail Hollow for the PGA Championship. Victory didn’t seem likely after a first-round 73, but he closed with three consecutive rounds in the 60s (66-69-68) for a two-shot victory. He said his third round may have been the most important of the week because he was able to grind out a score on a day when his swing was off. He exhibited the patience that was missing earlier in his career. “What he did there shows that he has that confidence no matter what the stage is, no matter where it is,� Spieth said. Thomas chipped in on the 13th hole, then made birdie at Quail Hollow’s difficult par-3 17th to all but end the tournament. He showed little emotion as he hit a 7-iron more than 200 yards onto a green encircled by water, then made the 15-foot birdie putt. Mackay called the tee shot “arguably the shot of the year.� “I thought that was a real show-stopper,� Mackay said, “and it spoke volumes for how tough and just great that guy is.� The final victory of the season came at the second event of the FedExCup Playoffs, the Dell Technologies Championship, where Thomas held off Spieth with a final-round 66.  Thomas had won once in 58 starts over his first two seasons, falling short several times on Sunday. Not this season. Jay Seawell, Thomas’ college coach at Alabama, drove to East Lake on Sunday to watch Thomas play his final round of the season. He remembered watching Thomas shoot a 30 on the final nine to win his collegiate debut. “He loves to win. Yeah he’s nervous, but this is what he loves. It’s a gift. His gift is that he loves this moment,� Seawell said. “His greatest attribute is that he wants to win. If something gets in the way of that, if it’s him or a shot or a lack of being able to do something, he always will adjust and get better at that.� He did, allowing him to accomplish goals that even he couldn’t imagine.

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