Answering every big Tiger question as he starts Year 2 of the comeback

The Wyndham Rewards Top 10 reaches its conclusion this week at the Wyndham Championship. Thanks to last week’s win in Memphis, Brooks Koepka has locked up first place and the $2 million payoff. Rory McIlroy (No. 2) and Matt Kuchar (No. 3) also have their spots secured, while the next five players are guaranteed some sort of payoff from the $10 million total purse.  Still, there are plenty of scenarios possible this week at Sedgefield, with eight players currently outside the top 10 who could play their way into the bonus pool. In addition, Paul Casey – who’ll start this week eighth in the standings – will look to move up to a bigger payoff. Meanwhile, Jon Rahm (ninth) and Justin Rose (10th) are not in the field and both could be bumped out of the top 10 depending on the final leaderboard. Here’s a look at some of the Wyndham Rewards Top 10 scenarios entering this week: PAUL CASEY (8th) – With a win and the 500 FedExCup points, he could move up as high as fourth in the standings. There are scenarios in which he could drop in the standings, especially if he misses the cut, but he would not drop outside the top 10. WEBB SIMPSON (13th) – He starts 104 points outside of 10th place, so a solo fifth (110 points) or better could move him inside the top 10, depending on who finishes ahead of him. For instance, if Charles Howell III wins and Chez Reavie finishes solo second, both players would have more points than Simpson and move past him inside the top 10, even if Simpson finishes solo third. He projects to fifth with a victory. CHEZ REAVIE (14th) – He starts 123 points outside of 10th place, so a solo fourth (135 points) or better could move him inside the top 10, depending on who finishes ahead of him. For instance, if Howell wins and Reavie and Simpson share second, Howell and Simpson would move inside the top 10 but Reavie would not. He projects to fifth with a victory. CHARLES HOWELL III (17th) – He starts 178 points outside of 10th place, so a solo third (190 points) or better could move him inside the top 10, depending on who finishes ahead of him. For instance, if Simpson wins and Reavie and Howell finish T2, Simpson and Reavie would move inside the top 10 but Howell would not. Projects to sixth with a win. SUNGJAE IM (25th) – He starts 407 points outside of 10th place, so a victory (500 points) could move him inside the top 10, depending on who finishes behind him. For instance, if Im wins and Simpson and Reavie finish T2, then Simpson and Reavie would have more points than Im. SCOTT PIERCY (26th) – He starts 417 points outside of 10th place, so a victory (500 points) could move him inside the top 10, depending on who finishes behind him. HIDEKI MATSUYAMA (29th) – He starts 454 points outside of 10th place, so a victory (500 points) could move him inside the top 10, depending on who finishes behind him. LUCAS GLOVER (30th) — He starts 479 points outside of 10th place, so a victory (500 points) could move him to 10th, depending on who finishes behind him. COREY CONNERS (31st) – He starts 495 points outside of 10th place, so a victory (500 points) could move him to 10th, depending on who finishes behind him. Once play begins Thursday at Wyndham, our FedExCup projections will provide live updates for the Wyndham Reward Top 10 and the rest of the FedExCup standings. Click here to follow along.

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PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — Justin Thomas was playing well enough to want to keep going, with six birdies in a seven-hole stretch before it was too dark to continue Friday at the Genesis Open. It also was raining. It was cold. And he already had been slogging through Riviera for nine hours. “It’s hard playing 30 holes, but it’s really hard when it’s raining and it’s soft,” Thomas said after making 14 birdies on a long day that sent him home tied for the lead with Adam Scott at 10-under par. “My legs are tired, so I just need to go home and rest and get some food and try to go to sleep early as I can.” Thomas, who opened with a 5-under 66 in the morning, was 5 under for his second round through 12 holes. He had an eight-hole stretch when he didn’t make a par (six birdies, two bogeys), ending with a two-putt par on No. 3. Scott was in the group right behind him and just as efficient, also opening with a 66 and reaching 5 under. His only blemish was a long three-putt for bogey on the par-5 17th on a course he loves. Scott won at Riviera in the rain 14 years ago, a tournament that was cut short to 36 holes and decided in a playoff. “I just got the momentum going and I kept it going,” Scott said. Tiger Woods had a few big moments that didn’t last long. He had four straight birdies around the turn in the morning, a streak that ended with a three-putt bogey at No. 12. He had four three-putts in the first round for a 70. His highlight in the afternoon, as the temperatures and rain became steady, was a 45-foot eagle putt on the par-5 first to start his back nine. It really was an Instagram moment, for a fan screamed out, “Make this! It’s going on Instagram!” Woods delivered, only to bogey the next two holes to end his day at even par for the second round, 1 under for the tournament. “I’m stiff right now,” Woods said after playing the most number of holes in one day since his return from a fourth back surgery. “It got pretty chilly toward the end. The ball wasn’t going very far.” No need telling that to Thomas. He was in the right rough after hitting driver 260 yards, leaving him 222 yards to a back pin on an elevated green. He pounded 5-wood to 10 feet and made his last birdie of the day. J.B. Holmes was another shot behind at the turn. Holmes was the 18-hole leader thanks to a hole-in-one on the par-3 sixth hole, followed by a birdie that led to an 8-under 63. At the time, he was one shot ahead of Jordan Spieth, who played all of six holes on Friday to complete his bogey-free 64 in calm conditions. Spieth figured it would be like that all day. He was wrong. Light rain fell as Woods, Thomas and Rory McIlroy (3 under through 12) were finishing the first round. It never really stopped the rest of the day. The start of the tournament was delayed seven hours Thursday, so just about everyone who makes the cut will face long days at some point. The second round resumes at 7 a.m., and the other half of the field starts their second round at 7:40 a.m. The cut figures to be made Saturday afternoon, leaving no more than about two hours of play the rest of the day. Those in or around the lead after 36 holes can expect to go 36 more on Sunday. Dustin Johnson played 36 holes on Sunday when he won the Genesis Open two years ago. Long before it was getting dark, Holmes could see just fine when he hit 8-iron to the back pin at No. 6, located just to the left of the bunker in the middle of the green. “Hit it exactly how I wanted it and it went in,” Holmes said. “It looked good the whole time.” Spieth took advantage of the restart on Thursday. His opening shot on the par-4 10th hit the cart path twice and went into shin-high grass so thick that it would have been hard work just to get it out. The round was scrapped and he returned for a routine par. He made the rest look easy except for the 13th hole, where he hooked his tee shot into a eucalyptus tree, played a slice on the outer side of the trees and got up-and-down for par. “It was probably better than any of the birdies,” he said. He holed two chips for birdie, one of them on the toughest hole at Riviera on No. 12, birdied all three of the par 5s and made a pair of birdie putts from about 10 feet when he returned Friday morning. He said those six holes were the best the putter has felt in some time. “I was able to kind of figure out a way to feel some freedom in the stroke and I was able to roll a couple of those in,” he said. Woods is the tournament host with his foundation running the event he first played in 1992 as a 16-year-old amateur. Next year, the tournament gets elevated status on par with the Memorial (Jack Nicklaus) and Arnold Palmer Invitational by offering a three-year exemption to the winners, getting a 120-man field and offering $9.3 million in prize money. But the course has never been kind to him. Riviera is where Woods has played the most times as a pro (9) without ever winning.

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While Matt Kuchar – the current FedExCup points leader — is the man behind the recent resurgence in the arm-lock putting method, a couple of amateurs named Spider and the Ace Man also deserve a little credit. Little did those two beer distributors know that a casual round in Florida could help create the PGA TOUR’s latest putting trend. Kuchar started running a putter shaft up his left arm back in 2011. He switched despite finishing second in the previous year’s FedExCup standings. His first exposure to the arm-lock came more than a decade earlier, though. That was at the 1999 Walker Cup, when he was amateur golf’s golden boy. His teammate, John “Spiderâ€� Miller, used a putter with a ski pole for a shaft. It was so long that it ran under his armpit. He had to unscrew the shaft so it could fit in his travel bag. Miller used the unique method for three decades, including his two U.S. Mid-Amateur victories and subsequent appearances at the Masters. Miller got the putter from his friend, Azy “Ace Manâ€� Stephens, who found the extra-long club during his desperate quest to cure the yips. Its length prevented the left wrist from breaking down — the same reason that golfers today are using putters whose shafts rest against their left arms. “The putter was made to go outside your arm, and you wrapped your arm around it. The Ace Man didn’t last long with it and he gave it to me,â€� Miller said. “I instinctively put it under my arm and ran it up my left arm. “Of course, all my friends laughed at me. … I would stand on my head to putt if I could make them. The making fun never bothered me. That was part of the fun of it. It would go from, ‘What’s that thing?’ to ‘Let me see that.’ I’m sure Kuch got the same reaction when he started using it.â€� Peer pressure may explain why the arm-lock method experienced slow growth in its early years. Most professional golfers are traditionalists by nature. But the method’s recent success has been too strong to ignore. Webb Simpson and Keegan Bradley used it to end lengthy victory droughts last season, while Bryson DeChambeau won four PGA TOUR titles with it in 2018. They combined to win three of the four FedExCup Playoffs events and THE PLAYERS Championship. Several more players – including Bubba Watson, Adam Scott, Lucas Glover and Jason Dufner – have been spotted tinkering with the method this season. Two World Golf Hall of Famers who famously battled the yips, Johnny Miller and Bernhard Langer, experimented with a similar method decades ago. Miller used a putter with an extended grip in the 1980s. Langer used his right hand to brace his putter against his left arm. He putted that way in his second Masters victory, in 1993. A few golfers copied Langer’s grip, but it didn’t gain much traction. When Kuchar started tinkering with the new method, he called Miller for advice. “I always thought it was important to hold it firmly against your (left) arm,â€� Miller said. “It takes your wrist out of the stroke.â€� Kuchar has won six times since making the switch, including the 2012 PLAYERS Championship and 2013 World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play. For many years, it was simply called “the Kuchar methodâ€� because he was the only player using it. This year, he’s used it for two TOUR victories. Kuchar currently sits atop the FedExCup standings with 2,030 points, leading Xander Schauffele by 468 points. He has six top-10s in 13 starts, including victories at the Mayakoba Golf Classic and Sony Open in Hawaii. Those were his first wins since 2014. His success – and a change in the Rules of Golf – have helped the arm-lock spread. Simpson, Bradley and DeChambeau all switched to the arm-lock after their previous methods were declared illegal. Simpson and Bradley both won majors with the belly putter, before the USGA’s anchoring ban took effect on Jan. 1, 2016. DeChambeau’s side-saddle method was declared illegal in early 2017. Simpson’s improvement may have been the most dramatic. He was 177th in Strokes Gained: Putting in 2016. He finished fifth last season. Simpson gained 9.4 strokes on the greens during his record-setting performance in winning the 2018 PLAYERS. “I would have never done this as a junior golfer because you wanted to appear a certain way, but at this level I think guys are smart enough to try whatever gets it in the hole,â€� said Simpson, who switched in 2016. He added a claw grip at the 2017 PLAYERS, one year before he won at TPC Sawgrass. Bradley, who called Simpson “my idolâ€�, started using the method after seeing Simpson’s success. Bradley won last season’s BMW Championship, his first win in six years. Kuchar finished eighth in Strokes Gained: Putting in 2010, but he was still seeking more consistency on the greens. The unceasing quest for improvement is something golfers of all abilities can relate to. “The beauty about the game of golf … is there’s 1,000 different ways to get better,â€� Kuchar said. “No matter how good of a putter you are, how good of a chipper you are, no matter how good of a driver, you can be better. If I can get a little bit better, it’s worth a try.â€� He had a significant forward-press in his putting stroke during his stellar amateur career, which included a win at the 1997 U.S. Amateur and top-25s in two majors. In January 2011, Kuchar was giving a clinic at The Vintage Club in Indian Wells, California, when he realized that pressing the putter shaft against his left arm helped him recapture that feeling from his younger days. Dave Stockton, the 10-time TOUR winner who became one of the game’s top putting instructors, also was at the clinic. Stockton advocates for a forward press in the putting stroke. They started talking shop during some downtime that day. “At one point, I just gripped down on the putter so it went up to my wrist,â€� Kuchar said. “I had a big forward press but just started hitting beautiful putt after putt. It felt like how I was as a kid.â€� Scott used a similar drill during his college days at UNLV. That drill made him interested in the arm-lock method when he visited Scotty Cameron’s studio during the week of the Farmers Insurance Open. Scott finished second that week and then was seventh at the Genesis Open. He has since switched from the method, though, in his continued quest for a cure to his putting woes. For Kuchar, the early returns were promising, but he only adopted the new method on an experimental basis. “I told my wife, ‘I’m going to try this for a month,’â€� he said. “If it’s not better, and it’s only just as good as it was, remind me to not continue down this road, not to make a silly decision by changing my putting in a drastic way.â€� He finished in the top 10 in six of his first eight starts of 2011, though, and so the arm-lock was here to stay.

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