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FORT WORTH, Texas – Jordan Spieth measures his progress in weeks, insisting that strides have been made on his swing, and that he’s now entering the precision stage of what seems like an inevitable return to winning golf. The rest of us seem to be measuring his progress in days – specifically the last eight. Last week, there were the four rounds he put together at the PGA Championship, resulting in a tie for third. It was his first top-10 finish of the PGA TOUR season, albeit still six shots behind winner Brooks Koepka. And on Thursday, there was the 5-under 65 in the first round of the Charles Schwab Challenge, placing him just a stroke off Tony Finau’s lead at Colonial. Related: Leaderboard | Spieth by the numbers | Finau uses claw grip en route to 64 Afterward, Spieth was asked if the last five rounds could be defined as “significantâ€� progress. Yet from his perspective, the uptick in performance has been brewing for much longer. “Probably the same as the previous four or five weeks before … since I’ve been really working on the right things and have the right moves for it, whether it’s the full swing or the putting,â€� Spieth said. “It’s just once you’re doing the right thing, repetition gets it closer and closer and gets you more precise.â€� That’s not to say Thursday’s round was a display of total precision. He hit just half of his fairways, and was 11 of 18 in greens in regulation. Trying to force a low hook with a wedge from the fairway at the par-4 18th (his ninth hole of the day), Spieth found Crampton’s Lake left of the green on the way to a double bogey. But thanks to a hot putter – he made 153 feet worth of putts – and a chip-in birdie from 73 feet at the par-3 13th, Spieth made the most of his round. Given how well he was putting Thursday, Spieth was second-guessing his decision with the approach shot at 18. “Considering I was 50 percent from 15 feet [putting], I may as well just keep giving myself 15 feet,â€� Spieth said. “If it’s any other pin, I probably birdie the hole, and I just tried to get cute with that one.â€� Spieth knows there is still work to be done tee-to-green. Six of his seven misses off the tee Thursday were left. That was in response – and perhaps an overcorrection — to his misses right that have plagued him this season. The fact he was hitting it where he wanted to hit it, though, is another sign of improvement. “I still had some scar tissue on shots today where I’ve had some foul balls to the right this year where that’s been my miss,â€� Spieth said. “… I played away from that shot because of the potential of what’s been there this year. “So, say, last week I probably trusted it 75 percent. Probably trusted it 90 percent today. Just trying to continue to when you trust it, pull off the shot. You know the feel and you know that the old ball is kind of out the window.â€� A year ago, Spieth finished T-32 at Colonial – a surprising result given his previous results in this tournament, including a win in 2016 sandwiched between a pair of T-2s. In retrospect, last year’s finish was an indication his game was out of sorts. Until last week at Bethpage Black, his only top-10 finish in the last 12 months was a T-9 at the Open Championship. It’s been a long, sometimes frustrating, climb back. While Spieth hasn’t been relying strictly on results to measure his progress, he realizes that’s what the rest of us have to go on. “Score-wise, it’s not necessary for me to feel good,â€� he said. “It’s more just I knew once I started to get the club back out in front of me, that the golf would start to be fun again – and it certainly is.â€� Professional golf, of course, is more fun when winning is involved. No one would be surprised if Spieth ends his two-year drought this week on a course that fits his game – especially if his hot putter continues to mask his work-in-progress swing. “Certainly could use hitting a few more fairways and a few more greens around Colonial the rest of this week,â€� he said. “But the putter blade is sharp.â€� He hopes the rest of his game will follow.

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PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — On a windy day when par felt like a good score, that’s exactly what Tiger Woods got at The Honda Classic. Alex Noren was even better. Noren, who lost in a playoff at Torrey Pines last month, shot 31 on the front nine and finished with a 6-foot birdie on the ninth hole into a strong wind for a 4-under 66 that gave him a one-shot lead Thursday among the early starters at Palm Beach Gardens. PGA champion Justin Thomas, Daniel Berger and Morgan Hoffmann — all living up the road in Jupiter — opened with a 67. Thomas had a run four straight birdies around the turn, and then sandwiched a birdie around two bogeys at the end. Only nine players broke par from the early part of the draw. Woods looked as though he might be one of them, getting off to clean start except for one visit to the concession stands. He holed a 20-foot birdie putt on No. 11 and hit a wedge over the bunker to 4 feet for birdie on No. 13. His only wild drive was on the 12th, when he pulled it so far left that the ball came to rest next to two carts, one for frozen lemonade, the other for soft pretzel. Not a problem. The carts were moved, leaving him a good angle into the green and he came away with par. The only blunder — outside of a bogey from a bunker on the 16th, and those were bound to happen on a day like this — was on the second-easiest hole on the course. Woods drove into a fairway bunker on the par-5 third, laid up and put his third shot in a bunker. He barely got it out to the collar, used the edge of his sand wedge to putt it down toward the hole and missed the 3-foot par putt. He answered with a birdie, made par the rest of the way and shot 70. “I’m trying to get better, more efficient at what I’m doing,” Woods said. “And also I’m actually doing it under the gun, under the pressure of having to hit golf shots, and this golf course is not forgiving whatsoever. I was very happy with the way I hit it today.” This is his third PGA TOUR event since returning from a fourth back surgery. Woods tied for 23rd at Torrey Pines and missed the cut at Riviera. He has never missed consecutive cuts over 36 holes in his PGA TOUR career, and that could be on the line Friday because he faces the typically tougher afternoon conditions. His presence remains large, with thousands of fans following him in the morning, some waiting on the next hole for a good view. Woods played with Patton Kizzire, who already has won twice on the PGA TOUR season this year. Kizzire had never met Woods until Thursday, and he yanked his opening tee shot into a palmetto bush. No one could find it, so he had to return to the tee to play his third shot. Kizzire covered the 505 yards in three shots, an outstanding bogey considering the two-shot penalty. Later, he laughed about the moment. “I was so nervous,” Kizzire said. “I said to Tiger, `Why did you have to make me so nervous?'” Noren is a nine-time winner on the European Tour who is No. 16 in the world, though he has yet to make a connection among American golf fans — outside of Stillwater, Oklahoma, from his college days at Oklahoma State — from not having fared well at big events. The Swede spends time in South Florida during the winter, so he’s getting used to this variety of putting surfaces. That was the whole idea of taking up PGA TOUR membership. “I came over here to try to play some more American-style courses, get firmer greens, more rough, and to improve my driving and improve my long game,” Noren said. “So it’s been great. The second place at Torrey was a highlight, even though I wanted to win it.” Jason Day beat him in a playoff that ended the next morning on the sixth extra hole. Noren made a 30-putt on the par-4 second hole, his 11th of the round, and then had short putts the rest of the way. One of those was at No. 6, one of the two par 5s that are converted into a par 4 for The Honda Classic. From 186 yards away in a fairway bunker, he put it 3 feet away. For the locals, this isn’t much of a home course advantage except for a few extra family and friends. Hardly anyone plays PGA National the other 51 weeks of the year, mainly because the resort is busy and not in the same condition as it is for the tournament.

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The 2019 International Presidents Cup team could only laugh in amazement. It was Monday of tournament week at Royal Melbourne and the team was looking to get on the course and fine-tune their strategy. But wild winds meant practice might prove difficult. Given the forecast didn't call for similar conditions at any other stage during the week, the majority of the team figured playing might do more harm than good on the notoriously hard and fast layout. But not playing golf has never sounded good to Sungjae Im. "It was so windy that I certainly didn’t even think about touching any of the holes because I didn’t want to destroy my confidence," International Team veteran and spiritual leader Adam Scott recalls. "Sungjae was the only guy who went out there to play, so we ended up walking out and watching him play a few holes, and even in a 25 mile-an-hour wind at Royal Melbourne he was just fairway, green, fairway, green, and it was a bit like Iron Byron, like a machine." Im put on quite a show for his new teammates and continued to do so over the practice days. He'd adjust to hitting shots on demand when Captain Ernie Els suggested certain lines. Teammates started making requests - initially out of jest. But Im nailed them all. What they weren't fully aware of was that Im could imitate all of his new friends - on demand - if he wanted to. Im's rise at that point had already been meteoric. He'd gone from the Korean Tour to the Japan Tour to the 2018 Korn Ferry Tour in quick time and opened there with a victory that would help him stay on top of the Points List for the entire season - earning Rookie and Player of the Year honors. A year later he was the 2018-19 PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year after a trip to the TOUR Championship and he was a no-brainer for Els to compete in Melbourne at just 21. Scott predicted Im would be a "silent assassin" in the competition that week - a thought that proved on the money as Im went 3-1-1. Els knew Im would be methodically accurate and as such wasn't afraid to give him three different partners across the four days. Entering 2020, Im was riding high on confidence and at The Honda Classic he took a chance to grab his first TOUR win by the throat. Four birdies in his first five holes Sunday put him in the mix and then he brought out his machine-like precision when it counted - on the infamous Bear Trap. Im hit laser approaches right at the stick to set up birdies at Nos. 15 and 17, and on 16 he also took dead aim despite coming from a fairway bunker. It was as bold as it gets and helped him hold off the challengers for a one-shot win. He returns this week to defend his title. "When he is feeling his rhythm, it’s incredibly repetitive, and it doesn’t matter the conditions. He knows he can just point and shoot and get the result," Scott says. "It’s hard for his caddie to talk him into hitting it away from a pin ever because he thinks he can just pin-seek it all day." Im's rise was one he may have dreamed of, but it certainly was one he hadn't initially planned for. This was showcased by the fact he held no home base in the U.S. and just went from hotel to hotel with his parents - playing more TOUR stops than anyone else. It wasn't until late last year he finally purchased a home here. That's a move he can still scarcely believe. It wasn't really that long ago he was a plastic-club wielding toddler growing up on Jeju Island in South Korea with golf-mad parents. His father Ji Taek would watch a lot of golf on television and Sungjae would stare at the rhythmic swings of the pros. When he was a little older he'd head to the indoor range with his mother, Mi Kim, and watch the technique of golfers in real time. He was locking it all in and it was here his obsession with golf would grow. "Sungjae has a special ability to memorize, with his eyes, what he sees or screens... his ability to take a good look at something, put it in the brain, and re-imagine and then implement it... I think it is superior to anyone," Ji Taek recently told the TOUR’s International Media division for an upcoming in-depth PGA TOUR profile. "He watched a lot. It’s a little hard to describe but he was one of a kind in that area. And now he still reviews his swing in videos and watches other golfers’ videos a lot too." So Im had analyzed Scott's swing many times before. His favorite was probably Rory McIlroy. When McIlroy played the Korean Open, a 15-year-old Im actually got a lesson from the Northern Irishman as a perk of the Korean junior system. With all this information ingrained in his growing brain Im went about creating his own perfect swing in his childhood years. But while most kids want to learn to shape and curve the ball, Im was fixated on making it go straight. Dead straight. "When he was a kid Sungjae was very annoyed if he didn’t like the ball he hit. Every time he takes a shot, one by one, he always had to hit the high ball on the straight," his father adds. "From an early age. High ball, straight. If the ball draws or fades a little, he was very annoyed." It was this search for perfection that is part of the birth of his very slow and deliberate backswing. Im comes back slow before transitioning into higher speed on the downswing. The drills used to get a smooth tempo would eventually find their way to the course. "When he would go to the practice range, it’s always tempo. One, two, three. I kept putting it in his head. So, when swinging back, you have to say ‘one, two, three," Ji Taek says. "One, two, three... it must have been in his brain... I repeated it for one to two years. "But now it is slower than that. Originally, his swing tempo was at that level, but his swing seems to have been slower since the Korn Ferry Tour. That’s the rhythm that only he has kept on his own." In the fifth grade - Im began playing junior tournaments on the mainland. Jeju Island sits off the southern tip of South Korea's mainland with Seoul about an hour flight away. It was actually a wrong turn looking for the golf course one day that would change his trajectory. "One day, he participated in a competition held in Cheonan, and we went to the (nearby) driving range by accident," Ji Taek explained. "About 10 academy students are there training under a pro coach. Sungjae was very envious when he sees it. I asked him if he wanted to be in the academy. He immediately replied that he wanted so. So, after consulting with the pro and the academy director, I put Sungjae into the academy." From there he was able to put full focus on his golf. When he reached high school his coach was Hyun Choi - a mentor he continues to work with today. Im often sends video back to Korea for his coach to analyze, they discuss drills, and Im puts it into practice. During the COVID-19 pandemic break in 2020, Im flew Choi out to the U.S to keep their work going. A great swing is one thing - but a great competitive drive and mental game is another. It was the emergence of these traits that saw Im become one of the best young players in the world and had good judges suggesting the U.S. was the place for him. He turned professional at 18 and conquered every step put in front of him. Im's parents couldn't help but be amazed by their son’s quick progress through various Q-School stages in Korea and then in Japan. He held the fifth-best scoring average on the Japan Tour in 2017 and while his top finish was a runner-up - it was a ringing endorsement from a local legend that would have the Im family thinking of taking a run at something bigger. Shingo Katayama - a 31-time Japan Tour winner who also has two top four finishes in majors - played with Im that season. He walked away telling some of his friends he'd seen the future. In his opinion Im was perhaps the only player on that tour with PGA TOUR proficiency. One of those friends, Han Lee, passed on the information to Im's parents. "When we heard it, we were so excited. Sungjae, his mom and me. All of us. The legendary permanent seeded player, Katayama Shingo praised him!" Ji Taek beams even now. "Further, it was not just an ordinary praise, but specifically rate him as the only one who can go to the PGA (TOUR). That was when Sungjae was 18 years old and in the first year of Japan Tour. "We had never thought he had such potential. We just thought it would be nice if Sungjae played on the Japan Tour. When the legendary Katayama Shingo expressed about it, that’s what made a milestone for us. We should go to America!" The family gave themselves a three-year target to progress from the Korn Ferry Tour to the PGA TOUR. He needed just one year - winning in the season opener and the season ender - and the rest is history. In 2019 in his rookie TOUR season he played 35 times - gaining a reputation as an iron man for doing so. Hotel-to-hotel living was actually preferred. His parents in one room, he in another. Im played golf. His parents did the rest. They continue to act as a traveling team to this day and not a round goes by without seeing his folks watching his efforts. But after a few years of the same pattern the golfing nomads have recently put down roots - in Duluth, Georgia - buying a house near TPC Sugarloaf. They're still coming to terms with it but didn't make the decision lightly - canvassing many Korean golfers that came before them. "When I was on the Korn Ferry Tour three years ago, I practiced at Sugarloaf a lot," Im says. "At that time, after seeing this place and feeling the atmosphere of the course, I had already thought that I would definitely want to settle down here. I like the environment where I practice, and I really like it because the atmosphere itself is good." And so now the next step awaits. Im's goals have shifted to more wins and better efforts on the biggest stages. He has 16 career top 10s so far - but only one of these came at a major, THE PLAYERS, a World Golf Championships or in the FedExCup Playoffs. Im battled with Dustin Johnson but ultimately finished as runner-up last November in his Masters debut. Further to that, he likes to keep an eye on lists and his place on them. Like securing a Presidents Cup slot for a rematch against the U.S. in 2022 and climbing up the FedExCup standings and world rankings. "Currently, my President’s Cup ranking is at the top and I want to keep it there. I haven’t won this year yet, but I want to win once," Im says. "I want to get good results in the majors this year. Besides that, what I always want every year is to attend the last TOUR Championship and finish off with good results." Given he's continually exceeded all of his goals as his journey has evolved don't be surprised if in a few months he's a major-winning, Olympic-medal winning, FedExCup champion.

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