Asian Tour to return after 18-month hiatus

How it works: Each week, our experts from PGATOUR.COM will make their selections in PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf. Each lineup consists of four starters and two bench players that can be rotated after each round. Adding to the challenge is that every golfer can be used only three times per each of four Segments. Aside from the experts below, Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton breaks down the field at this year’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship in this week’s edition of the Power Rankings. For more fantasy, check out Rookie Ranking, Qualifiers and Reshuffle. THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN OUR EXPERTS? The PGA TOUR Experts league is once again open to the public. You can play our free fantasy game and see how you measure up against our experts below. Joining the league is simple. Just click here to sign up or log in. Once you create a team, click the “LEAGUES” tab. Then click on “FEATURED,” and then on the PGA TOUR Experts league that populates. SEASON SEGMENT

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MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Cameron Smith just needed a sense of urgency to hit him right in the face. Complacency can be a killer in all sports, and for the second season running, Smith had let a solid start to a season fade away with a quiet middle. Last year, Smith opened by making 10 of his first 11 cuts with five top-10 finishes. His next nine starts, however, yielded just four weekends, with a best finish of 23rd. But Smith thrives under the gun. With the FedExCup Playoffs approaching, Smith fired up and made his last four cuts of the year, including two top 10s. This season, Smith made his first nine cuts, with three top-10 results. He also defended his Australian PGA Championship title. But then, he missed five of his next 11 cuts, with a 29th place the high mark. The 25-year-old Australian then saw he’d slipped outside the automatic selection zone for the Presidents Cup at Royal Melbourne in December – where he hopes to make his International Team debut. He also noticed his FedExCup rank sliding ominously closer to the dreaded 125 mark. Cue the uptick in his performances. At The Open Championship Smith, finished 20th, but threatened the top 10 until wild weather hit Sunday. Proving it was no fluke, the former Zurich Classic of New Orleans winner opened the World Golf Championships – FedEx St. Jude Invitational on Thursday with a 5-under 65 to be tied second. He’s on pace to finish strong once more. “I like having a motive. Something to play for,â€� Smith admitted. “It has been a bit of a frustrating year. I’ve had a long middle of the season there, couldn’t really get much rolling. I was working hard and nothing was kind of going my way. “That’s just golf sometimes, you never really know what it’s going to throw at you. Keep grinding through it and the results will always be around the corner.â€� Smith’s finish a week ago moved him back to eighth in the Presidents Cup standings with just five weeks before the top eight secure spots for Melbourne. His destiny in his own hands. “My destiny has been in my own hands all year, but it is certainly a huge goal of mine to be on the Presidents Cup team,â€� Smith said. “I think I’ve played well enough to be on it. But now it’s up to me to make sure if it.â€� Sitting with Smith in a tie for second, three shots behind leader Jon Rahm, is Japan’s Shugo Imahira. Imahira sits 12th on the International team standings and also has desires to make it to Melbourne. The two-time Japan Tour winner has placed in the top 10 in his last five starts on his home Tour. “I haven’t been watching the standings too closely but I know a good performance this week could help my goal of making the team,â€� Imahira said through a translator. “It would be an honor to make it.â€�

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ST. LOUIS – Tiger Woods was 3 over par through two holes at the 100th PGA Championship at Bellerive Country Club on Thursday, but battled back to shoot an even-par 70. He was five behind the early first-round leader, Rickie Fowler, and feeling good about turning a potentially terrible day into a not-so-bad one. “It kept me in the golf tournament,â€� said Woods, who started on the back nine. “I could have easily gone the other way, being 3 over through two. A lot of things could happen. Not a lot of them were positive, but I hung in there and turned it around.â€� After being sidelined for years by various ailments, including four back surgeries, Woods is in the midst of a comeback season that has seen plenty of highs. At the Valspar Championship in just his fourth start this season, he shot four under-par rounds for the first time since THE NORTHERN TRUST in 2013. At The Open Championship at Carnoustie last month, he briefly seized the lead before struggling on the back nine and ultimately finishing T6. The top-10 finish nudged him into the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking and got him into last week’s World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone South, where he’d won eight times. He got into contention but shot 73-73 on the weekend to finish T31. Woods was not at his best again at Bellerive on Thursday. Of his 118-yard approach over water at the 11th hole, he said, “I stuck it in the ground,â€� coming up some 12 yards short on the way to a double-bogey 6. Still, he minimized the damage by making three birdies and no bogeys over his last 10 holes. He hit 9 of 14 fairways and 11 of 18 greens, and took 27 putts. “This is a long run,â€� he said, pleased to still be within five of the early first-round leader, Rickie Fowler. “These are marathons. These are four long days. They’re slow rounds.â€� Woods had the same score as playing partner Rory McIlroy (70) and was one behind the third member of the group, Justin Thomas (69), the defending PGA champion who is coming off a victory at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational last weekend. Being grouped with two stars from the next wave had Woods in a reflective mind, and he recounted a story about playing with Jack Nicklaus at the 2000 PGA at Valhalla, which he had told at the PGA Champions Dinner here earlier this week.   “Jack at Valhalla, 18 years ago, that was his last PGA, and he was telling me the story that he played with Gene Sarazen in his last PGA,â€� Woods said. “It’s interesting what this game of golf can do, how we can basically last for so many different generations. “… The reason I was telling the story is because J.T. invited me to speak a little on behalf of himself and PGA of America, and J.T. was 7-years old when we were at Valhalla, and he was in the clubhouse when I made that putt on 18. So, kind of trying to tie in Gene Sarazen, Jack, and little J.T. there, and now he’s PGA champion for the last year, 17 years later. So, it’s pretty neat.â€�

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