Chatting with America’s Caddie: Josh Scobee on mulligans in football and golf

It was vintage Tiger Woods during the third round of The Open at Carnoustie as he fired a 5-under 66. This is the first major he’s started with three straight rounds of par or better since the 2012 Open at Royal Lytham.

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Neither Xander Schauffele nor Tony Finau – two of the PGA TOUR’s brightest young stars – have ever played with the legendary Tiger Woods during a PGA TOUR event. That will change this week at the Farmers Insurance Open. Schauffele (the current FedExCup points leader with two wins this season) and Finau (the highest-ranked FedExCup player without a win last season) will be paired with Woods in the first two rounds at the Torrey Pines South and North courses, the TOUR announced Monday. Woods will be making his 2018-19 season debut as he looks to build on his last official TOUR start – a win at the TOUR Championship. It was his first win in five years, and the 80th of his career, putting him two wins away from tying Sam Snead’s TOUR record. Woods has won the Farmers Insurance Open seven times, and also won the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, the most recent of his 14 major victories. Given his victory at East Lake in the FedExCup Playoffs finale in September, this is renewed optimism in 2019 that Tiger is on the verge of a big season. Schauffele, meanwhile, already is in the midst of a big season. He won the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions last fall, and then started 2019 by winning the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii. Finau is looking for his second TOUR win of his career after a 2017-18 campaign in which he contended in several big events. Finau has played with his idol Woods before … for nine holes during a practice round at East Lake. Two months later, Finau was invited to play in Woods’ 18-man Hero World Challenge in the Bahama, an unofficial TOUR event. “To be on TOUR now is really special because I think we’re going to have a few years to compete against Tiger when he’s playing good golf and is in a good mindset,â€� Finau said that week. “It’s going to be a cool thing and I look forward to these next few seasons to be able to tee it up with him and play with him and hopefully we have some really cool battles together. It’s something that I dreamed of as a kid and now it seems like more of a reality and a possibility than it ever has. To potentially have that opportunity to play against him and maybe play against him in the final group of a big tournament, the reality is there and it’s pretty exciting for someone like me who’s looked up to him since I was a kid.â€� Besides getting to play with Woods for the first time, the added benefit for Schauffele and Finau is that they’ll be able to show off for Woods, who is the U.S. Captain at this year’s Presidents Cup in Australia. Schauffele currently ranks second in points, with Finau in sixth. The top eight players in points through after this year’s TOUR Championship will automatically qualify for the team, with Woods making his four Captain’s Picks after that. “Big goal of mine to be on the Presidents Cup team, and especially to play for Tiger is going to be very special,â€� said Finau, a teammate of Woods at last year’s Ryder Cup. “We’ve got a full season ahead of us and a very important one at that.” Starting times, day (Thursday/Friday) and course (North/South) for the featured groupings will be announced when the official groupings and starting times for the entire 156-player field are finalized on Tuesday afternoon at approximately 3 p.m. ET. To watch the featured groupings on Thursday-Friday, fans in the United States can tune into the Golf Channel telecast (3-7 p.m. EST) and stream PGA TOUR LIVE via subscription on NBC Sports Gold and Amazon Prime Video Channels. Here’s a look at this week’s Featured Groups (current FedExCup ranking in parentheses): Xander Schauffele (1) — In early January, he blitzed the field with a final-round 11-under-par 62 and edged Gary Woodland by one stroke at the Sentry Tournament of Champions. Tony Finau (16) — Finished runner-up in a playoff to Schauffele at the WGC-HSBC Champions. Tiger Woods (N/A) – Woods has won eight times at Torrey Pines Golf Course, seven at the Farmers Insurance Open and once at the 2008 U.S. Open. Jason Day (35) – The defending champion of the Farmers Insurance Open and a two-time winner at Torrey Pines, having also won in 2015. He has qualified for the season-ending TOUR Championship eight of the last nine years. Rory McIlroy (82) – Tied for fourth in his first career start at the Sentry Tournament of Champions in January. Making his Farmers debut. Adam Scott (84) – Having played on eight straight International Presidents Cup teams dating back to 2003, Scott is targeting a ninth in December in his homeland of Australia at The Royal Melbourne Golf Club. Also making his Farmers debut. Brandt Snedeker (15) – A two-time Farmers winner, Snedeker is the last player to post a round of 59 on TOUR, having done so last August en route to victory at the Wyndham Championship. Jon Rahm (39) – Has 20 top-10 finishes in 53 career professional starts including a top-10 performance last week at the Desert Classic. Rickie Fowler (60) — A four-time PGA TOUR winner, Fowler will be making his 10th career start at the Farmers Insurance Open. Justin Rose (40) – The reigning FedExCup champ, Rose is in search of his 10th career TOUR title. Billy Horschel (56) – Won last year’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans team event with partner Scott Piercy and finished fifth in the FedExCup, his best finish since winning the FedExCup title in 2014. Jordan Spieth (T-203) – The 2015 FedExCup champ, Spieth made his professional debut at the Farmers Insurance Open in 2013.

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Don't call it a West Coast Swing - that'll come around again as usual in January and February - but the PGA TOUR will be spending the next three weeks in the Pacific Time Zone nonetheless. The stretch begins familiarly with the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, a fixture of the fall since 1990. Then, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, two of the three events on the canceled Asian Swing have been shifted temporarily to Nevada (THE CJ CUP @ SHADOW CREEK) and California (ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD). Of the trio, only the Shriners boasts a full field of 144 and includes a cut. The next two are 78-man invitationals with no cut. Scroll past the projected contenders for a breakdown of Kevin Na's improbable formula here last year, how TPC Summerlin sets up and more. RELATED: Inside the Field | Preview the course, storylines POWER RANKINGS: SHRINERS HOSPITALS FOR CHILDREN OPEN Jason Day, Rickie Fowler, Francesco Molinari, Sungjae Im and Will Zalatoris will be among the notables reviewed in Tuesday's Fantasy Insider Conventional wisdom and empirical data often collide at TPC Summerlin. As one of the most vulnerable par 71s on the schedule - it was the easiest of 10 par 71s last season and its scoring average of 68.859 was a record low since its debuted in 1992 - the game plan to hit greens and sink putts is as true here as it is anywhere. However, every worthy course makes available the possibility for the winner to have lapped the field with the putter. Kevin Na proved it before outlasting Patrick Cantlay in a playoff a year ago. TPC Summerlin tips at just 7,255 yards and the greens are on the larger size due to winds that often blow in these parts, but when they don't, the tournament develops into a putting contest due to the preponderance of scoring opportunities. Consider that Na averaged 13.5 GIR per round last year (to rank T46), and he was a hair under the field average for the week. Cue the flat stick, Na's primary weapon. En route to 23-under 261, he ranked second in putting: birdies-or-better and led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting, putts per GIR, fewest putts, total distance of putts converted, one-putt percentage and highest conversion percentage from outside 10 feet. Nine of the other 11 who finished inside the top 10 on the leaderboard ranked inside the top 10 in green hit, but only three cracked the top 10 in Strokes Gained: Putting. Scoring conditions will be favorable during the first two rounds this week before a cooling pattern arrives on the weekend. With it, the breezes will intensify from a prevailing direction out of the southwest, and then shift to push in from the north. Daytime highs will tumble from right around 90 degrees on Thursday to about 80 for the finale. No rain will fall. For the third straight year, the primary rough will be limited to two inches. (It previously was three inches.) The bentgrass greens are prepped to run at about 11-and-a-half feet on the Stimpmeter, further favoring aggressive putting. 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: Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Rookie Watch, Power Rankings TUESDAY*: Sleepers, Fantasy Insider * – 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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