Barbasol Championship, Round 4: Leaderboard, tee times, TV times

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LEXINGTON, Ky. – David Toms didn’t know exactly what to expect this week. The 52-year-old had entered the Barbasol Championship because he wanted to stay sharp. Toms doesn’t plan to play the Senior Open Championship next week, and he didn’t want to take a four-week break before PGA TOUR Champions returns for its final 11 events of the season. His son Carter was playing in a tournament, too, so there wasn’t really time for a family vacation. So, Tom’s wife Sonya and their daughter Anna said they’d make the four-and-a-half-hour drive to Kentucky from their home in Shreveport with him. So far, it’s been well worth the trip. Toms fired a 64 on Friday that left him tied for third at 12 under, just three strokes off Jim Herman’s lead entering the weekend – with a chance to become the second-oldest winner on the PGA TOUR. Sam Snead, who won the 1965 Greater Greensboro Open at the age of 52 years, 10 months and 8 days, is the first. He has Toms by a matter of four months and nine days. “That would be kind of cool, but I’ve got a long way to go,â€� said Toms, who remembers spending time with Snead at the Masters. “See if we can play well enough tomorrow not to be too far back on Sunday and have a chance.â€� Toms, a 12-time winner on the PGA TOUR, has been his usual patient and steady self during the first two rounds at the Champion Course at Keene Trace Golf Club, a course he’s played several times before in U.S. Open qualifying. The 2001 PGA champion has hit 21 of 28 fairways and 29 of 36 greens in regulation. He’s made one eagle, 14 birdies – pitching in three times Friday from just off the green — and dropped just three shots to par, including on the last hole Saturday that kept him from a share of second. “My first goal was just to play Saturday and Sunday really, and then I started feeling good about it yesterday, the way I was playing, and obviously it carried over to today,â€� Toms said. “So, I’m in good shape. But I’ll have to go really low on the weekend like everybody else is going to have to do. “It’s a longer golf course for me, so it helps that it’s drying up a little bit. So, I don’t have as many scoring opportunities as some of the other players, but if I can take advantage of the ones I do have, I’ll be okay.â€� This is just the third TOUR event he’s played this season, tying for 31st at the Charles Schwab Challenge and missing the cut at the U.S. Open. Toms has three runner-up finishes on the PGA TOUR Champions, though, including in his title defense at the U.S. Senior Open and at another major, the Regions Tradition. “Had opportunities, haven’t been able to get it done,â€� Toms said. “But like I said, everybody out there are champions, all the guys that are playing, so they know how to win. “You have to go out there and do it and I haven’t been able to this year. We still have a lot of tournaments left.  Our fall is pretty important as a player out there, a lot of tournaments. So, I have some opportunities, I just have to get close and see if I can have something go my way.â€� He’s got a prime opportunity this weekend, too.

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PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico – Rickie Fowler calls his last five weeks “somewhat of an off-season.â€� It’s fitting, then, that Fowler will begin his 2017-’18 season with somewhat of a working vacation at this week’s OHL Classic at Mayakoba, where he is the highest-ranked player in the field (10) and perhaps the most anticipated first-timer in the event’s 11-year run. “I mean, I’m excited to be down here,â€� said Fowler, who with his girlfriend, Allison Stokke, got to the Riviera Maya on Saturday for some pre-tournament fun in the sun. “I want to play well and I feel like I definitely can play well. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t feel I could win. But I’m also enjoying the relaxation and getting some time in the gym and we’ll definitely be ready to go and really get the season going in January.â€� On TOUR, the off-season is where you find it, and while Fowler has been busy since he beat Emiliano Grillo 6 and 4 in the Presidents Cup on Oct. 1, he hasn’t been playing golf. Fowler served as Grand Marshal at alma mater Oklahoma State’s homecoming; went to Stokke’s homecoming at Cal-Berkeley; did a wine-tasting tour in the fire-ravaged Napa Valley; shot TV spots for Farmers Insurance in Los Angeles; swung through Scottsdale, Arizona; and squeezed in five rounds of golf. Oh, and he also sent his coach, Butch Harmon, video of his swing last week. (Harmon said it looked good if slightly laid off the top, according to Fowler.) It seemed almost rude to interrupt the relaxed Riviera Maya vibe and ask how Fowler might play this week. “I like the golf course,â€� he said of the 7,000-yard, par-71 El Camaleon Golf Club. “It’s a fun layout. I enjoy playing in windy conditions; I know it can get fairly windy down here.â€� Another thing he noticed in his first trip around the course Wednesday: It’s not very forgiving off the tee. “You have to hit the ball pretty straight to stay out of the native area, whatever you want to call it,â€� Fowler said. “Stay out of it.â€� In the big picture, Fowler, 28, is doing very well, with room for improvement. In 32 major starts he has seven top-five finishes, none of them wins. He led the U.S. Open at Erin Hills after shooting a 7-under 65 in the first round, but faded to a T5 finish. (He has never broken par in the final round in nine U.S. Open appearances.) He picked up his fourth career win at The Honda Classic, but had nine other top-10s. In one sense, Fowler says, last season was “arguably the best I’ve played.â€� That’s one way of looking at it. He also admits he had “maybe not as many wins as I would have liked.â€� Meanwhile, he keeps hanging around to congratulate his friends when they win. Jordan Spieth at the Open Championship. Justin Thomas at the PGA Championship, where Fowler again finished T5. Spieth has said that when Fowler himself wins, a whole world of friends will be waiting for him behind the 18th green. That’s not just karma; it speaks to Fowler’s likability.    If form holds, his major W is coming, perhaps with fate providing a nudge. Fowler won THE PLAYERS Championship in 2015 after a poll in Sports Illustrated tagged him as overrated. And while his critics once said he was too nice, pointing to all those halved matches in the tense, mano-a-mano theater of the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup, he went a sporty 3-0-1 at the recent Presidents Cup at Liberty National. He seems likely to figure out the majors, too. “It’s a fine line,â€� Fowler said Wednesday. “You know well enough, seeing guys and where they finish and how they play and understanding how much one putt or one shot can do, whether it’s coming down the stretch or even that one putt early in the week.â€� Patrick Reed, who is also making his first OHL start and also in search of his first major, echoed Fowler’s sentiments. “Nowadays the PGA TOUR is so deep, top to bottom,â€� Reed said. Whatever happens at lush, leafy El Camaleon this week, Fowler will spend some time at home in Jupiter, Fla., before starts at the Hero World Challenge, Nov. 30-Dec. 3, and the Sentry Tournament of Champions, Jan. 4-7. For those scoring at home, that’s the Riviera Maya to the Bahamas to Maui. “Not a bad little swing,â€� Fowler said. You can bet he’ll make the most of it.

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