B. Watson snaps driver, still near top of Travelers

He’s not in the Masters field, despite being sixth in FedEx Cup points and 13th in the world. His people reached out, and the folks at Augusta National didn’t say yes to a special exemption — but they didn’t say no, either.

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DUBLIN, Ohio – Tiger Woods is facing the possibility of missing the cut at the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide for the first time in his illustrious career. Woods, playing for the first time since February, stumbled from his T18 overnight position thanks to a 4-over 76 at Muirfield Village Golf Club on Friday morning. It left him 3-over for the tournament, just outside the current cut line that will keep the top 65 players and ties around for the weekend. The 82-time PGA TOUR winner has made the weekend in all 17 previous attempts at the tournament, winning five times at the Jack Nicklaus elevated status event. But he now must rely on the afternoon wave stumbling enough to allow his tilt at a record 83rd win to continue. “I would like to have the opportunity to play tomorrow, and hopefully the cut will fall one more and I’ll have the opportunity,” Woods said post round. RELATED: Full leaderboard | ‘Totally different’ Muirfield Village this week Woods will also be hoping his troublesome back, which has undergone multiple surgeries, will be a little looser. The 44-year-old confirmed he was a little tight in the second round after feeling stiff during his warmup. “I wasn’t quite moving as well as I’d like and couldn’t quite turn back and couldn’t quite clear. It was a bit of a struggle,” Woods said. “It started this morning during the warmup. It wasn’t quite as good as I’d like, and it is what it is. The last four or five years have been difficult as I’ve gone through procedures and have tried to come back. It’s going to happen more times than not. “Aging is not fun. Early on in my career I thought it was fantastic because I was getting better and better and better, and now I’m just trying to hold on.” Starting on the 10th hole, Woods was able to shake off missing a three-foot birdie putt on the par-5 11th hole by sticking his tee shot on the par-3 12th to two-feet. He knocked that in to be two under for the tournament and seemingly ready to make a move into serious contention. But instead of kicking ahead, Woods immediately started to retreat backwards. A three-putt bogey on the 13th was followed by a sloppy bogey on the par-5 16th and another on the par-4 17th when trouble in the rough plagued him throughout the hole. The birdie looks he had on 14, 15 and 18 wouldn’t drop to offset the mistakes leaving Woods making the turn two-over. Then things got even rougher. Woods missed the par-4 first green short and left leaving a tough lie for his chip shot. His attempt came out hot and ran into a bunker from which he was unable to get up and down. The double bogey was compounded by a bogey on the following hole when his tee shot sailed right and fell near a creek bed. Another bogey on the par-4 sixth seemingly put an end to his weekend chances, but Woods refused to give in. He birdied the par-5 eighth and then holed a 19-foot, 11-inch birdie putt on the par-3 eighth to claw his way back. A wayward tee ball on his final hole forced a pitch out and wedge approach before a clutch seven-foot par putt found the cup allowing a modicum of hope. “I finished birdie-birdie-par. That’s about the only positive to it today,” Woods said. “I three-putted two holes early, and whatever kind of momentum I was going to create, I stifled that early and fought it the rest of the day.”

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Early within the lineup of tentpole stops from March through July is a subset of something for everyone. It starts pre-Florida Swing with a World Golf Championship/additional event doubleheader, continues with another a month later – except the WGC is a Match Play – and lingers all the way to last week’s team event in New Orleans. It’s a harrowing stretch of competition, er, opportunity. The Valspar Championship represents the other side of it, but it’s not for the weary. Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club’s Copperhead Course perennially ranks among the most challenging courses every season. Scroll past the projected contenders for more on the brief history of the tournament, what’s new this year – other than its position on the schedule – and mre. RELATED: The First Look | How the field qualified POWER RANKINGS: VALSPAR CHAMPIONSHIP Sungjae Im, Joaquin Niemann, Abraham Ancer and Henrik Stenson will be among the notables reviewed in Tuesday’s Fantasy Insider. As a nascent event from 2000-2006, the Valspar Championship was contested later in the calendar year. It then transitioned into a fixture of the Florida Swing when the FedExCup was introduced in 2007. Like many other tournaments, it was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic and repositioned this season by more than a month later than when it was accustomed. Thanks to extended daylight hours at this time of year, the 2021 edition will host 156 golfers for just the third time in its history (2002, 2013). It’s the first of a dozen tournaments extending through the Wyndham Championship in which reservations are made for the maximum. The only individual event staged on one course with as many golfers earlier in the season was the Safeway Open in early September of 2020. As it concerns the test itself, Copperhead is unchanged. It’s a par 36-35—71 that tips at 7,340 yards. It has the full complement of four par 5s, and they’re challenging, but it has five par 3s, which are just as daunting. However, what’s primarily different this year is that there’s no overseed on the Celebration bermudagrass fairways. Overseed still exists elsewhere, including on the TifEagle bermuda greens. Where it’s transitional won’t be an issue. Because the greens average just over 5,800 square feet, golfers who are stronger tee to green than they are wielding the flat stick have the inside lane. Two-time defending champion Paul Casey proved this in 2019. He led the field in total driving and Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, but he finished a pedestrian 43rd in Strokes Gained: Putting. Sharpen the focus and you’ll find a winner who performed like any in a shootout, which this tournament most definitely is not. Casey ranked T5 in greens hit and second in converting those chances into par breakers. He also paced the field in par-5 scoring. All of that compensated for finishing T55 in par-4 scoring en route to his one-stroke title at 8-under 276. Leave it to the grizzled Englishman with the million-dollar smile to make it look easy. Copperhead averaged 71.981 in 2019, highest among all par 71s in non-majors that season. It was the third time in four season that it claimed that distinction. Moderate winds will contribute to the high scores again this week. They’ll start from a southerly direction early in the tournament before pushing in from the north on the weekend. A threat of inclement weather mid-tournament could cool the air, but daytime highs will reach the low- to mid-80s. The primary rough exceeds three inches and the putting surfaces can race to 12-and-a-half feet on the Stimpmeter. If you’re new to the tournament, you’ll be learning how unrelenting The Snake Pit can be. It consists of the closing par 4-3-4. In 2019, Nos. 16, 17 and 18 ranked a respective first, eighth and third in terms of difficulty on the course. Collectively, they averaged 0.611 strokes over par for the week. Casey scored 1-over on the trio during both victories. His only birdie on the stretch in 2019 occurred on the par-4 16th in the opening round. 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: Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Sleepers; Fantasy Insider SUNDAY: Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Rookie Watch * – 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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