Furyk douses cold water on Tiger-Phil pairing

FedExCup leader Scottie Scheffler headlines the field at the AT&T Byron Nelson, which features seven of the top 15 golfers in the Official World Golf Ranking. K.H. Lee, who won at TPC Craig Ranch last year for his first PGA TOUR title, returns to defend. FIELD NOTES: Scheffler returns to action after a two-week break. He followed up his Masters victory with a T18 finish alongside partner Ryan Palmer at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans… RBC Heritage champion Jordan Spieth, twice a winner in his native Texas but never at the Byron Nelson, also returns after a break… Justin Thomas is looking for his first victory of the season. The 2017 FedExCup champ has six top-10 finishes in 11 starts this season… Brooks Koepka and Hideki Matsuyama are teeing it up on TOUR for the first time since the Masters. Koepka missed the cut at Augusta National while Matsuyama finished T14 in his title defense… Dustin Johnson is in action for the first time since his wedding to Paulina Gretzky… Xander Schauffele is making his AT&T Byron Nelson debut. Other notable first-timers include Tommy Fleetwood, Francesco Molinari, and Bubba Watson… Past champion Justin Leonard, 49, will come out of the broadcast booth for his first PGA TOUR start since the 2017 Valero Texas Open… McClure Meissner, 2021 Byron Nelson Collegiate Golf Award winner, is making his second TOUR start… The 2011 Korn Ferry Tour Player of the Year, J.J. Killeen, earned a spot in the field via his win in September at the Joyce Crane-Veritex Bank Section Championship, his first time teeing it up with the Northern Texas PGA. FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 500 FedExCup points. COURSE: TPC Craig Ranch, par 72, 7,468 yards. The course, which hosted the Korn Ferry Tour Qualifying Tournament plus events on the Korn Ferry Tour, made its debut as a PGA TOUR host in 2021. Designed by Tom Weiskopf (with D.A. Weibring as consultant), it opened in 2004. The course boasts Zoysia fairways and bentgrass greens. Rowlett Creek crosses the course 14 times. TPC Craig Ranch will host the AT&T Byron Nelson for the next four years. STORYLINES: TPC Craig Ranch is in the Dallas suburb of McKinney and there will be plenty of Texas guys looking for some hometown love. Count Spieth, Scheffler, and Harry Higgs in that group along with Ryan Palmer (who told GolfWeek he has the course record at TPC Craig Ranch) and Will Zalatoris (who has played it “hundreds” of times)… This marks the third and final event for Morgan Hoffmann in his quest to earn 238.42 FedExCup points and regain full TOUR status via his medical extension. He missed the cut at the RBC Heritage and the Wells Fargo Championship… This is the final tune-up before the PGA Championship, the second men’s major of the year. K.H. Lee earned the last spot in the PGA Championship field last year thanks to his win at TPC Craig Ranch… The Byron Nelson is a sell out for the first time since 2008. 72-HOLE RECORD: 259, Steven Bowditch (2015 at TPC Four Seasons). Aaron Wise and Sung Kang’s 23-under-par 261 in 2018 and 2019, respectively, are the lowest against par; Bowditch was 18 under after heavy rain turned TPC Four Seasons into a par 69 for the final three rounds. TPC Craig Ranch record: 263, K.H. Lee (2021) 18-HOLE RECORD: 60, Arron Oberholser (2nd round, 2006 at Cottonwood Valley GC), Keegan Bradley (1st round, 2013 at TPC Four Seasons). TPC Craig Ranch record: 62, Sam Burns (2nd round, 2021) LAST TIME: K.H. Lee shot 66 to beat 54-hole leader Sam Burns by three. There was a weather delay of more than two hours in the final round. Lee missed a par putt on 16, but two closing birdies were enough for the win. Burns fired the low round of the week, a 10-under 62, on Friday but couldn’t keep up the momentum through the weekend. He was the only golfer in the top five not to break 70 on Sunday. Patton Kizzire shot the round of the day Sunday, a 9-under 63, which moved him into a tie for third alongside Daniel Berger, Scott Stallings, and Charl Schwartzel. Defending champion Sung Kang finished tied for 47th. Lee’s win marked the second in a row at the AT&T Byron Nelson by a golfer of Korean descent. HOW TO FOLLOW Television: Thursday-Friday, 4 p.m.-7 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). Saturday, 1 p.m.-3 p.m. (Golf Channel), 3 p.m.-6 p.m. (NBC). Sunday, 1 p.m.-3 p.m. (Golf Channel), 3 p.m.-6 p.m. (NBC). Radio: Thursday-Friday, 1 p.m.–7 p.m. ET. Saturday-Sunday, 1 p.m.–6 p.m. (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com/liveaudio) For outside of the U.S., click here for GOLFTV powered by the PGA TOUR PGA TOUR LIVE PGA TOUR Live is available exclusively on ESPN+ • Main Feed: primary tournament-coverage featuring the best action from across the course • Marquee Group: new “marquee group” showcasing every shot from each player in the group • Featured Groups: traditional PGA TOUR LIVE coverage of two concurrent featured groups • Featured Holes: a combination of par-3s and iconic or pivotal holes

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Kathy Whitworth set a benchmark in golf no one has ever touched, whether it was Sam Snead or Tiger Woods, Mickey Wright or Annika Sorenstam. Her 88 victories are the most by any player on a single professional tour. Whitworth, whose LPGA Tour victories spanned nearly a quarter-century and who became the first woman to earn $1 million for her career on the LPGA, died on Christmas Eve, her longtime partner said. She was 83. Bettye Odle did not disclose a cause of death, saying only that Whitworth died suddenly Saturday night while celebrating with family and friends. “Kathy left this world the way she lived her life — loving, laugh and creating memories,” Odle said in a statement released by the LPGA Tour. Whitworth won the first of her 88 titles in the Kelly Girls Opens in July 1962. She won six majors during her career and broke Mickey Wright’s record of 82 career wins when Whitworth captured the Lady Michelob in the summer of 1982. Her final victory came in 1985 at the United Virginia Bank Classic. “Winning never got old,” Whitworth once said. All that was missing from her career was the U.S. Women’s Open, the biggest of the women’s majors. Upon being the first woman to surpass $1 million in career earnings in 1981, she said, “I would have swapped being the first to make a million for winning the Open, but it was a consolation which took some of the sting out of not winning.” Sorenstam referred to her on Twitter as the LPGA’s all-time victory leader and a “total class act” who will be dearly missed. “Thanks for setting the bar so high, Kathy,” she wrote. Whitworth was the AP Female Athlete of the Year in 1965 and in 1967, when she easily beat out Wimbledon singles champion Billie Jean King. Whitworth was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1982. She was the LPGA player of the year seven times in an eight-year span (1966 through 1973). She won the Vare Trophy for the lowest scoring average seven times and she was the leading money winner in eight seasons. But she was identified by one number — 88. Snead was credited with a record 82 wins on the PGA TOUR, a total Woods has since matched. Wright won 82 times on the LPGA Tour, while Sorenstam had 72 wins when she retired after the 2006 season at age 36. “I think Mickey had the best swing, and was probably the greatest golfer,” Betsy Rawls once told Golf Digest. “But Kathy was the best player of the game that I have ever seen.” Whitworth was born in Monahans, a small West Texas town, and learned to play golf in New Mexico. She started at age 15 in Jal, New Mexico, on the nine-hole course built for the El Paso Natural Gas employees. She soon was a two-time winner of the New Mexico State Amateur. After briefly attending Odessa (Texas) College, she turned pro at age 19 and joined the LPGA Tour in December 1958. “I was really fortunate in that I knew what I wanted to do,” Whitworth once told Golf Digest. “Golf just grabbed me by the throat. I can’t tell you how much I loved it. I used to think everyone knew what they wanted to do when they were 15 years old.” Wright had the more aesthetically pleasing swing. Whitworth was all about grinding, and about winning. Whitworth won eight times in 1963 and 1965, and she had 11 victories in 1968. In none of those years did she earn more than $50,000. All these years later, the LPGA Tour total prize fund for 2023 will top $100 million. Whitworth continued to conduct junior clinics and stay active in the game. “I don’t think about the legacy of 88 tournaments,” she once said. “I did it because I wanted to win, not to set a record or a goal that no one else could surpass. I’m not some great oddity. I was just fortunate to be so successful. What I did in being a better player does not make me a better person. “When I’m asked how I would like to be remembered, I feel that if people remember me at all, it will be good enough.”

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RENO, Nev. – Thanks to a sizzling final round Sunday at the Barracuda Championship, William McGirt sealed his spot in the upcoming FedExCup Playoffs. He’ll hope to make the most of it, since the eight-year PGA TOUR veteran soon will be sidelined for perhaps as long as a year. McGirt revealed that he will undergo hip surgery following the conclusion of his Playoffs run. He’s suffering from a torn labrum in his left hip, as well as a femoroacetabular impingement that prevents him from making a normal rotation. McGirt said he will undergo surgery “a week or twoâ€� after his season is over. Doctors told him to “expect four months without even hitting a ball. Two months on crutches. So it’s probably going to be a year.â€� Said the 39-year-old McGirt: “It sucks but life. It’s part of getting older.â€� Playing at Montreux for the first time since 2011, McGirt posted a 20-point final round that included one eagle, eight birdies and a bogey. His 35-point total put him in position to record his first top-10 of the 2018 calendar year (depending on how the leaderboard shakes out the rest of the day) and projected him closer to the top 100 in FedExCup points The hip issues have led to a frustrating season for McGirt, the 2016 winner of the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide. He entered this week with just two top-10 finishes, both coming in the fall portion of the schedule. He was 121st in FedExCup points, dangerously close to slipping out of the top 125, which is why he put the Barracuda on his calendar. He said the hip problem had been bothersome all year – he was having difficulty sleeping whenever he had to roll over — but really became an issue at the Valero Texas Open in late April when he found it difficult to work. The following Monday, he met with Dr. Thomas Byrd at the Nashville Hip Institute. X-rays were taken, and Byrd immediately recognized the torn labrum. An MRI confirmed the diagnosis. McGirt said they also had a discussion about why it happened. “He said, ‘OK, tell me about your sports history growing up,’â€� McGirt recalled. “I said I played baseball for 10 years. He said, ‘OK, what position?’ I said catcher. He said, ‘For 10 years?’ I said yeah. He said, ‘No wonder. I’m kind of surprised you made it this long without this happening.’â€� The injury, said McGirt, is not painful but simply restricts what he can do because the internal rotation turns into bone on bone. It doesn’t impact every shot but crops up from time to time – such as his second shot Sunday into the par-5 18th. With an awkward lie from 265 yards, his ball sailed to the left and ended up on a cart path. He eventually had to settle for par when a birdie would have tied the Modified Stableford course record. “If I get a ball that’s below my feet or a lie that’s severely uphill where my left foot is above my right, it’s bone on bone,â€� McGirt said. “And I just run out of room. My hips can’t rotate anymore. So they push back and then I either hold on to it or I flip it. “That one on 18, I just flipped it. That has been part of the frustration from this year is the fact that my body won’t let me do what it needs to do.â€� His golf career is not the only concern – an observation his wife Sarah made several months ago when she told him, “You just got to have it fixed for a way of life. You’ve got a 5-year-old and a 2 1/2-year-old. You can’t be trying to crawl around the house and do stuff with them.â€� Added McGirt: “Who cares about golf. It’s just about getting it done for a way of life.â€� But for the next few weeks, golf will be on his mind. McGirt’s next start is the Wyndham Championship, the final tournament of the regular season. He’ll look to improve his positioning going into the first Playoffs event, THE NORTHERN TRUST. Having made the Playoffs in each of the last seven years, McGirt has never failed to advance to at least the second event. He’d like to keep that streak going this season. Once he’s done, though, he’ll go under the knife, not knowing when the next time he’ll get to hit a shot at a PGA TOUR event.

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