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One of the game’s most historic runs was just beginning. A once-promising career, beset by injuries, was coming to an abrupt end. Those storylines collided 20 years ago at Torrey Pines’ South Course. The end result was Tiger Woods’ first win at a course that has come to define his career. He needed all 72 holes, including an eagle at the last, to dispatch Billy Ray Brown, who had just one top-10 over the previous five seasons. Woods has authored some of the most dominant performances in the game’s history, but he also has been taken to the wire by a random cast of characters. Players like Rocco Mediate, Bob May and Steve Scott. Brown, the son of an NFL tackle, was the challenger this time. But Woods used his unparalleled power to dispatch him, flying his tee shot over Brown’s ball and leaving himself just a mid-iron into the green on Torrey Pines’ famous finishing hole. For a player who learned the game on the public tracks around his hometown of Cypress, it’s fitting that a Southern California muni has played such a large role in his career. He attended his first PGA TOUR event at Torrey Pines – he remembers watching the SoCal pros who would later become his peers, like John Cook and Mark O’Meara – and won there as a junior golfer. Ten percent of Woods’ 80 PGA TOUR wins have come at Torrey Pines. This week, at the Farmers Insurance Open, he can pull within one of Sam Snead’s mark for most PGA TOUR wins. From 1998-2008, Woods won seven of 12 tournaments at Torrey Pines and never finished outside the top 10. He won five titles there in a four-year span, including his most recent major championship, that memorable 91-hole showdown with Mediate. Woods’ first victim at Torrey Pines has an interesting perspective on his success there. It’s about more than his deep ties to the course. Because of its oceanside locale, players can face a variety of conditions over the course of one round. Even though every hole is within a mile of the ocean, the air is heavier on the holes that are closer to the water, Brown said. That provides another variable to consider when calculating distances. It plays into the hands of Woods, who may be the best iron player in the game’s history. “He knew exactly how far he was going to hit those shots, and that is a crucial, crucial part of playing Torrey well,â€� Brown said. “And he is very good at formatting a gameplan on the tee depending on where the hole location is. You have to do that at Torrey.â€� If Brown sounds like an analyst, that’s because it’s the way he made a living after his playing career ended prematurely. His television career started the same year that he faced Woods, after one last wrist injury was too much to overcome. Brown was only 35, but he played just 15 TOUR events after 1999. His last start was in 2002. He only made two cuts, and never finished better than 70th, after facing Woods. “It helped me with closure,â€� Brown recalled. “That was my last shot and I got beat by the World No. 1. “If I didn’t have that, I don’t know if I would have tried to hang on.â€� He’d won an NCAA individual title (and played on three championship-winning teams) for the historic Houston program and finished just a shot out of the playoff that Hale Irwin won at the 1990 U.S. Open. Brown won in each of the next two seasons, but persistent wrist injuries sapped his skill and his desire. By 1994, his wrist was bone-on-bone and he was battling the driver yips. His only top-10 from 1994 to 1998 was a win at the Deposit Guaranty Classic in 1997, played the same week that Justin Leonard won The Open Championship. Brown broke down in the post-round interview as he reflected on the road back from surgery. It was his third and final win on the PGA TOUR. “I had no confidence and don’t know how many people I bombarded in galleries,â€� Brown said after the win. “I got to the point where I didn’t even want to go to the first tee.” When the 1999 season started, there were questions about the state of Woods’ game, as well. He’d won just once in the past 18 months while undergoing swing changes with Butch Harmon. “I told everybody it’s just a matter of time before everything clicks in,â€� Woods said back then. “I’ve been so close, for so many rounds now, a few months, actually, and nothing ever jelled.â€� It did after Woods sneaked into the weekend at Torrey Pines. He was nine shots back at the tournament’s halfway point. He played Saturday’s final six holes in 5 under, including an eagle at his 15th hole after his second shot bounced off a sprinkler head and onto the green. A course-record 62 on the South Course – before it was toughened in preparation for the 2008 U.S. Open – gave Woods a one-shot lead over Brown entering the final round. “It was Tiger’s tournament to lose,â€� Brown said afterward. “All I could do was go free-wheel, and he’s the guy who had pressure on him. And you see how he responded to the pressure.â€� Woods shot 65 on Sunday, but he was still tied with Brown when they reached the final hole. What happened next reminded Brown of when he first met Woods as a teen-aged amateur. Brown was the defending champion and Woods was still in high school when they played in the pro-am for the 1993 AT&T Byron Nelson. Woods wasn’t going to play the forward tees with the other amateurs, though. He had a tournament to prepare for. “The first hole at Las Colinas is really just a 2-iron or 3-iron and a wedge. It’s a dogleg right,â€� Brown said. “What does he do? He pulls driver out. I’m thinking, ‘This kid is playing with the defending champion, he’s not even out on TOUR yet, and he’s already forced my hand.’ “That’s what he did all along. He forced your hand.â€� Brown had the honor on the 18th tee. Jim Nantz and Ken Venturi gushed over his tee shot, which he squeezed into the fairway, just right of a sand trap. Woods and Brown, who stood 6-foot-3, were separated by just a few yards all day. Woods displayed a different gear on the final hole, though. “He hit a tee shot that made a different sound than it had made all day,â€� Brown said. Woods’ ball flew the bunker and went some 40 yards past Brown’s ball. “He reaches into his bag and pulls out any shot that he needs at any time.â€� Brown tried to hit 3-iron off a downslope. He fatted it. Woods, who watched Andy Bean hit 1-iron into the 18th green when he first watched the pros play at Torrey Pines, had just a 7-iron into the green. “I almost lost the ball. It was that high,â€� Brown recalled recently. “I walked past him and he just gave me a grin like, ‘You like that, don’t you old man?’â€� After Brown missed his birdie attempt, Woods poured in his 15-footer for eagle. The victory was the first of eight wins for Woods in 1999. He won nine times in 2000, including three majors. The following year saw the completion of the Tiger Slam and Woods’ first PLAYERS title. All told, Woods won 32 times from 1999-2003, including half of his 14 majors, before undergoing another overhaul of his swing. For Brown, the end was near. Wrist injuries had plagued him since hitting a tree root the week after he won the 1992 Byron Nelson. He rushed his comeback so he could play the TOUR Championship at the same course where he won the NCAA Championship, Pinehurst No. 2. The frustration about that decision can still be heard in his voice. “I wanted to play so bad,â€� he said. “Stupid. It was stupid. I was under strict orders from people saying, ‘You’re not ready to go.’ I can’t blame anyone but myself.â€� Brown made the last cut of his career just four starts after facing Woods. He could make just one swing on that Saturday in the third round of the Bellsouth Classic. “I hit a tee shot on the first tee and that was it,â€� he said. “I went in and packed my stuff, got on the plane and went home. “I knew that was it.â€� One last showdown was solace for his career’s unfortunate turn.

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CROMWELL, Conn. (AP) — Satoshi Kodaira and Kramer Hickok each shot a PGA TOUR career-best 7-under 63 to share the first-round lead Thursday in the Travelers Championship. RELATED: Leaderboard | Kevin Streelman right at home at TPC River Highlands Talor Gooch was a stroke behind Hickok after the morning rounds. Kodaira took the lead at 8 under in the afternoon after making the turn onto the front nine birdie-eagle-birdie, but a bogey on the par-3 eighth dropped him back into a tie with Hickok. Defending champion Dustin Johnson, who held the world No. 1 ranking until Jon Rahm passed him Sunday with his U.S. Open victory, stumbled at the start with a bogey on the second hole and then a double on No. 3. He finished with a pair of birdies to end the day at 70 at TPC River Highlands. Two-time Travelers champion Phil Mickelson sank a 64-foot putt for birdie on the par-4 ninth hole — his second-longest putt since the TOUR began tracking such things in 2004. The 2001 and ’02 winner then made a 40-footer for par on No. 10. “That long birdie putt, it’s just a bonus. You’re just trying to lag it up there close and it just felt in,” Mickelson said. “Same thing on 10, after making a mistake and having that long par putt. To make it was a nice little boost. Unfortunately, I didn’t advantage of that on the back nine.” Micklelson was 1 over on the back in a 69. “I let a good opportunity go after playing the front nine a couple under,” he said. “I was very close to hitting a lot of really good shots but they were just fractionally off.” Kodaira’s 63 matched his best score on the PGA TOUR, from the second round of the 2018 RBC Heritage — his only victory. He was helped when he holed out from the fairway for an eagle on the 348-yard, par-4 second hole. “I knew it was on target but didn’t see it go in,” he said. “I heard the applause, so I knew it went in.” Hickok’s top finish is a tie for eighth at the Bermuda Championship this year. He opened with a bogey on the par-4 10th hole, then rattled off eight birdies without dropping another stroke the rest of the way. He missed a 5-foot birdie putt on the 13th hole, but then birdied five of the next seven holes and he played the last four of the day in three under. “I really only hit one bad putt — on the par-5 13th. Other than that, I just felt like the holes looked awfully big today,” he said. “I made a lot of good putts today, and the greens says are rolling so good that just the holes look big.” Hickok said he had his worst warmup session of the year in the morning, spraying the ball all over the range. “So I really changed my strategy,” he said. “You just take a lot weight off your shoulders and you just go and simplify things … just saying, ‘I don’t have that shot today. I’m not going to try and hit it.’ Just go with what you got.”

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The 14th annual FedExCup Playoffs opens with a new but familiar backdrop. THE NORTHERN TRUST will be contested at TPC Boston for the first time. The par 71 was the only host of the Dell Technologies Championship when it was a staple in the 2-hole of the old four-event series from 2007-2018. Eight of the 12 winners on the course during the FedExCup era qualified for the 2020 Playoffs. As of midday Monday, all 125 who are eligible are committed. Scroll past the expanded ranking of projected contenders for the adjustments made for the Playoffs, details on TPC Boston and more. RELATED: The First Look | One-liners for every player in the Playoffs POWER RANKINGS: THE NORTHERN TRUST Tuesday’s Fantasy Insider will include reviews of Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Rickie Fowler, each of whom is a former winner at TPC Boston, as well as Brooks Koepka, Jordan Spieth, Justin Rose and Tommy Fleetwood among other notables. Nothing has seemed to evade the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, the FedExCup Playoffs included. About halfway into the three-month hiatus, it was announced that the Playoffs would be shifted forward a week on the calendar. In other words, THE NORTHERN TRUST originally was scheduled for last week. The other modification to THE NORTHERN TRUST and next week’s BMW Championship addressed the FedExCup Playoffs points earned. Instead of the usual quadrupling of the points versus what’s available during the regular season, they are tripled. For example, the winner of the first two events receives 1,500 FedExCup points instead of 2,000. This helps offset the elimination of 13 tournaments, including THE PLAYERS, three majors and the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. What you remember about last year’s introduction of the reduction to three Playoffs events hasn’t changed. At the conclusion of THE NORTHERN TRUST, the top 70 in FedExCup points will advance to the BMW Championship. It’s just that with the points up for grabs shaved by one-quarter, it could be more challenging to survive. (Tuesday’s special Power Rankings for the Playoffs will analyze this in greater detail.) TPC Boston’s position on the PGA TOUR schedule dates back to 2003, and it always hosted right around the first week of September. Of this week’s field, 86 have competed here before. Save a handful for whom it’s been a few years since they qualified, what they’ll see isn’t much different than how they remember it. TPC Boston tips at 7,308 yards. The field will average under par comfortably, but the trio of par 5s - Nos. 2, 7 and 18 - are just inside the top-half of the harder par 5s on any course, so capitalizing on them is at a relative premium and more valuable than usual. Distance off the tee in general will carry an additional benefit, but because greens are smaller than average at 5,200 square feet, course management will win the race. THE NORTHERN TRUST will be a borderline shootout during which hitting greens in regulation and connecting with pace and read on the putting surfaces should define the champion. Aside from combination fescue-bluegrass primary rough allowed to grow upwards of three-and-a-half inches, bentgrass serves as the shortest grass across the property. This includes the greens that are prepped to measure 12-and-a-half feet with a Stimpmeter. With favorable weather through the 36-hole cut - the last of the 2019-20 season - there is unlikely to be an imbalance in the draw - also the last of the season. Daytime temperatures will rise into the upper 80s on Saturday when winds are expected to freshen. A reasonable chance of rain if not storms elbows its way into the equation on Sunday. 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: Rookie Ranking, Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Medical Extensions, Power Rankings (THE NORTHERN TRUST) TUESDAY*: Power Rankings (FedExCup Playoffs), 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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