DJ pulls out of Hero World Challenge

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — Jordan Spieth holed out from 160 yards for eagle on the 16th hole at Pebble Beach, the start of a stunning turnaround that took him from two shots behind to a two-shot lead Saturday in the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. RELATED: Leaderboard | Mickelson smiles after tough finish at Pebble Beach These moments used to happen when Spieth was winning all the time. This was the second time this week he holed out from the fairway, and now he is on the cusp of ending more than three years without a victory. He shot 1-under 71 as he goes for a second victory at Pebble Beach in the last five years. A pedestrian round that included bogeys on two of the par 5s left Spieth two shots out of the lead with three holes to play. And then it all changed. His hard draw to a left pin on the 16th landed about 8 feet right of the hole and took the slope all the way to the bottom of the cup. Two holes later, Daniel Berger sent his drive well to the right, over the bunkers and onto the cart path. It settled next to the hedges, and was out-of-bounds by mere inches. Berger called over an official for a linear measurement, but it was out. That led to double bogey and a 72. Patrick Cantlay, whose third round began with such promise when he hit it to 8 feet for eagle, birdied the 18th for a 70 and joined Berger two shots out of the lead. Tom Hoge (68) and Russell Knox (69) also were two shots behind. Spieth was at 13-under 203. He was tied for the lead going into the final round last week in the Waste Management Phoenix Open, only to fall back when he couldn’t make any putts. He shot 72 and finished two back. Jason Day was very much in the mix, too, after a 68 left him in the group at 10-under 206. Paul Casey stayed three shots behind with a great break on the 18th when his tee shot tumbled down onto the rocks, but had a flat enough lie he could hit off the rock back into the fairway. He shot 71. Maverick McNealy had a 69 that included a penalty shot behind the fifth green when his ball moved right as he set the club behind the ball. Spieth didn’t have to contend with what he predicted to be a “mean” day at Pebble Beach. The rain in the forecast was gone by the time he teed off. The raging wind was more of a stiff breeze along the ocean holes that Pebble gets all the time. Spieth didn’t do anything great Saturday. He made bogey on the easiest hole at Pebble Beach from the middle of the fairway on the par-5 second hole, coming up well short of the green, pitching short of the putting surface and missing a par putt from 5 feet. He also bogeyed the par-5 14th when his lob wedge was too tentative and spun all the way off the front of the green. But there was enough good golf — and no wild shots that have cost him so dearly over the last three years — to keep him close enough to work a little magic at the end. He also needed some help, which Berger supplied. Even so, a dozen players were separated by four shots going into the final round at a tournament that moves much faster this year without amateur partners creating groups of four players.

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As the PGA TOUR settles into its annual hibernation for the holidays, we’re reminded immediately that the sport is global. There may not be a better example of it than this week’s ISPS HANDA World Cup of Golf. Two-man teams representing 28 countries from six continents have assembled at The Metropolitan Golf Club in Melbourne, Australia, for the biennial competition. Scroll beneath the ranking for details on the course, the format and more. WILD CARDS Belgium … Former University of Illinois teammates Thomas Pieters and Thomas Detry should have a blast. Detry is as much of a machine as any non-winner on the European Tour. Pieters’ profile as a bomber overshadows his phenomenal putting. China … Hao Tong Li and Ashun Wu surprised en route to sharing runner-up honors at Kingston Heath two years ago, so they’re back to go one better. Li recently connected five straight top-11 finishes. Mexico … Fresh off victory at the Emirates Australian Open, Abraham Ancer is one of the hottest talents in the world right now, but teammate Roberto Díaz is 742nd in the Official World Golf Ranking. As spring blooms Down Under, this international field gets everything it wants at The Metropolitan Golf Club. A cornerstone of the famed Sandbelt, its history and beauty rivals any other test on the planet. Metropolitan may be most familiar to longtime fans of the sport as the host of the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play in 2001, but it’s also served as the backdrop at times for all three of the events comprising the Triple Crown in Australia as well as the 2009 Women’s Australian Open. Presented at 7,308 yards for this week’s 72-hole, stroke-play contest, Metropolitan is a stock par 72, but three each of the par 3s and par 5s are situated on the outward nine. This won’t matter in four-ball in Rounds 1 and 3, but because all four of the par 3s are even-numbered holes – Nos. 2, 6, 8 and 12 – strategy will come into play in Rounds 2 and 4 when foursomes is utilized. (This is the opposite format from when Denmark’s Thorbjørn Olesen and Søren Kjeldsen rode a 12-under 60 in four-ball in the second round en route to a four-stroke victory at Kingston Heath Golf Club in 2016.) Unlike the majority of tracks outside the United States, Metropolitan’s greens are manicured to run fast. In ideal conditions, Stimpmeter readings exceed 12 feet on the bentgrass putting surfaces. Unfortunately, bad weather is forecast. After daytime temperatures climbed into the 80s through Monday, a cold front will limit reading to no higher than the upper 50s and low 60s throughout the tournament. What’s more, rain is all but guaranteed to fall on Thursday and Friday. And that’s still not all. Winds will howl steadily at approximately 15 mph and gust to 25 mph or more. As it concerns the challenges within the control of the competitors, the longest rough is trimmed to 2 inches, but the primary hazard are the striking bunkers that dominate the landscape. There’s zero margin for error adjacent to most of them as fairways and greens drop helplessly over sharp edges of numerous revamped faces. Of the 56 golfers in all, 33 competed somewhere last weekend, 25 of whom at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai. Seven acclimated at the Emirates Australian Open over in Sydney, while Zimbabwe’s Scott Vincent descended from the Japan Golf Tour’s Dunlop Phoenix. No doubt the champions of the World Cup entirely will feel like they’ve not only prevailed over the competition, but the elements as well. First place of the $7-million prize fund awards $2.24 million with $1.12 million going to each member of the winning team.

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AUGUSTA, Ga. — Dustin Johnson captured his second major title and 24th PGA TOUR win with a historic Masters victory. The reigning FedExCup champ set the tournament scoring record at 20 under after joining Tiger Woods (1997) and Jordan Spieth (2015) as just the third player to reach 18 under at Augusta National Golf Club. He began the final round with a four-shot lead, marking the fifth time he’s held the 54-hole lead at a major but just the first time he was able to convert. Johnson stumbled a bit in the middle of the first nine, making back-to-back bogeys at the fourth and fifth holes. That broke a stretch of 33 consecutive holes without a bogey going back to the second round. With his lead down to one shot, Johnson bounced back with a birdie at the par-3 sixth. He added another at the eighth and went to the back side with a 1-under 35 on the day, pushing his overall score to 17 under. He pulled away on the second nine with three straight birdies, sandwiching a three on the 14th with fours on the 13th and 15th after he laid up on both the par 5s.

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