Historic NJCAA title run ends for beloved golfer

Dustin Johnson wins the Travelers Championship for his 21st PGA TOUR victory. Johnson has at least one win in 13 consecutive seasons. RELATED: Final leaderboard | Why DJ has two hybrids in his bag at Travelers Driver: TaylorMade SIM (10.5 degrees) Shaft: Fujikura Speeder 661 X 3-wood: TaylorMade SIM Max (15 degrees) Shaft: Project X HZRDUS Black 95 6.5 (42.75 inches, 59.5 lie, D4) Hybrids: TaylorMade SIM Max (19, 22 degrees) Shafts: Project X HZRDUS Black 105 6.5 TX Irons: TaylorMade P730 DJ Proto (4-PW) Shafts: True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 (soft stepped) Wedges: TaylorMade MG2 (52-09SB @54, 60-10SB) Shafts: KBS Tour Custom Black 120 S Putter: TaylorMade Truss TB1 Grip: SuperStroke Pistol GT 1.0 PT Ball: TaylorMade TP5X (#1) Grips: Golf Pride Tour Velvet

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ALBANY, Bahamas – FedExCup champion Justin Thomas set the over/under market at four questions. Turns out the over won when there were five Tiger Woods questions before his own exploits were asked about in Albany. He might have plumped his cash on the under as he playfully asked if anyone wanted to know about him just as the fourth Woods verbal volley came his way. And his press conference finished with another on Woods taking the total to six, just under half those thrown at him from the assembled media. It’s possibly a new dawn for Thomas and the rest of the youth brigade that combined last season to dominate the PGA TOUR. There were 18 wins last season by players 25 and under. 18. That’s eight more than the previous best of 10 which came in a year when a young Woods won nine of them. Never before has Thomas, or Jordan Spieth, or Daniel Berger, or Hideki Matsuyama, or Jon Rahm, Xander Schauffele and the like actually really seen the real Woods in action. They know of him. Heck, half the reason they play the game is because they grew up watching him. “I’m probably just as excited to watch it as you are,â€� Thomas told the media while revealing he still YouTube’s Woods highlights.  “I just get a front row seat to it on Thursday, but I’m also looking forward to trying to kick his ass, to be perfectly honest.â€� His final comment came with a smile and was indicative of the “newâ€� Tiger. Woods has befriended many of the young players, often having a hit with Thomas or Rickie Fowler or others. And they constantly needle each other. “There’s nothing wrong with that. It goes both ways,â€� Woods said when told of Thomas’ jibe. The young guns haven’t had to face the steely Woods of old. The one who wouldn’t turn his head on the range or course to acknowledge you. He’d only move his eyes – and they’d look right though you. And they may not ever see it. But, if Woods does start becoming a regular presence on the TOUR again and if he does start putting himself into contention once in a while, they will feel a whole new level of pressure. “If he gets back to that point every week he’ll be the favorite and he’ll win a lot of tournaments,â€� defending Hero World Challenge champion Matsuyama said.  “So I’m really excited to see what happens and also to be able to compete and hopefully get better and be right there with him.â€� Veteran Rod Pampling recently said he was extremely hopeful Woods could return to his heady days just for the drama it could create for the youth. He’s not sure they know exactly what they’re wishing for. “I want to see him stare down a few of these young guys so they can experience what it’s like when the hairs stand up on the back of your neck or when he’s the guy you have to chase,â€� Pampling grinned. “They’ve seen his dominance as kids, but they’ve never felt it. Realistically if he got to 75 percent of where he used to be he’d still be able to win a couple of times a year.â€� But Spieth and Thomas aren’t deterred. They want to see Woods get to that level. Not only do they want to see it first hand, instead of on YouTube, but they also want to test themselves against the best – not an injured version of it. Spieth has in fact played with Woods on seven official TOUR rounds and has never been beaten by the 79-time winner. But this was not Woods at his best. “Growing up watching him kind of dominate and then idolizing and now having gone through similar situations, it makes him underrated,â€� Spieth explained. “Just the mental toughness he had is still underrated even though it’s rated pretty high. It’s rated best ever. “I certainly hope he becomes healthy enough to get rounds in, to get tournaments in to where he can kind of get back into where he’s competing week in and week out and if that’s the case, then as long as we stay healthy, I imagine paths will cross at some point.â€� And while they’ve been enjoying the limelight for their amazing success, will they find any frustration in being dwarfed by the Woods media and fan juggernaut? Will they be able to handle the focus constantly being on someone else? They are after all millennials who – at times – are prone to crave affirmation. Adam Scott once talked of how when he was in his early 20s, and Woods was dominating, it was almost impossible not to feel like you were playing for second. And when you entered the Woods arena, with the fans going mental… well trying to stay in your own game was near impossible. The modern-day youngster is without this fear. And the experience they already have will put them in good stead. But it doesn’t make them immune. While Woods is all friendly now – are the youngsters prepared to handle him on the heat of a Sunday if he turns hard core? “I never played against that person,â€� Thomas says. “I’ve watched him on TV but until you’re there and you stand and you watch the golf shots, you hear the sound it makes, you watch the putts, chips, then you really get an idea, but I guess we’ll just wait to have to see.â€� We are certainly still in the wait and see bracket – but it would be something special if in six months from now the old and the new are both knocking down flags and climbing leaderboards.

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The field list that day in 2013 in South Florida included the world’s 32nd-ranked player, Welshman Jamie Donaldson, who would earn an automatic spot on the Ryder Cup the following year. It also included another future European Ryder Cupper, Alex Noren, ranked 59th in the world. And another top-100 player, Shane Lowry, who later than year represented Ireland in the World Cup. Lowry, of course, was still several years away from claiming the 2019 Open Championship, but a couple of his fellow competitors – Lee Janzen and Rich Beem — already had major titles to their names back then. Now add a few multi-time PGA TOUR winners in Billy Mayfair, Chris DiMarco and Vaughn Taylor, and the field suddenly had serious credentials. You might not be surprised to learn that it was the week of The Honda Classic, the annual PGA TOUR stop in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. You might be surprised that it was Monday of tournament week. RELATED: Who Monday qualified this year? | Knox’s win after Monday qualifying | Go low or go home But really, you shouldn’t be surprised. The Honda Classic has the deepest field of all Monday qualifiers for any regular PGA TOUR event. It’s the Super Bowl of Monday qualifiers, with more notable names and more high-end resumes than other qualifiers throughout the season. Perhaps its closest rival are the sectional qualifiers for the U.S. Open, especially the one held near the PGA TOUR event completed the day before, as non-qualified TOUR pros take one last shot at getting into the field. Some of the names that appeared in that sectional qualifier last year in Columbus, Ohio, can be found in this week’s Monday qualifier field at The Honda Classic. The Honda’s 2013 Monday qualifier was indicative of the strength of field, and other Monday qualifiers have included the likes of Steve Stricker, Jason Dufner and Ryan Palmer and European starts such as Thomas Levet, Robert Karlsson and Jesper Parnevik. Year after year, the Monday qualifier has numerous players in the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR), major champions, and multiple PGA TOUR winners. Names you expect to see on Sunday, not Monday. Take a look at the 2019 Monday qualifier at The Honda Classic: 24 players with at least one TOUR win; 11 players with more than one; a combined 47 total TOUR wins. Two players had made more than 500 career TOUR starts; three others had more than 400; and 11 had more than 200. From a career earnings standpoint, three players had made more than $20 million; six had made more than $10 million; and 13 made more than $5 million. This year was no different. Thirteen different PGA TOUR winners were in the field at Banyan Cay, along with a combined 23 European Tour wins, and 41 total Korn Ferry wins.  The field’s total PGA TOUR earnings was in excess of $212 million. Along with the United States, a dozen other countries were represented. Some of the names you might recognize – TOUR winners Jonathan Byrd, David Lingmerth and Arjun Atwal; veteran Australians John Senden and Robert Allenby; 2016 Olympian Seamus Power of Ireland; and Arnold Palmer’s grandson Sam Saunders. That’s a lot of horsepower for an event that you must play just for the opportunity to play the regular event three days later. (Of the names above, only Atwal was among the four qualifiers to earn spots; click here for full story.) “It’s a great litmus test of where you stand,â€� said Blayne Barber, who shot a 66 at Banyan Bay to get through in 2019. “Knowing you beat a bunch of players that are basically in middle of their PGA TOUR season is a great feeling.” But a deep qualifying field like the week of The Honda Classic also comes with a dose of reality. “Expectations are low in any Monday,â€� said Aron Price, who successfully qualified in 2010. “They are even lower in the Honda Monday.â€� Why does The Honda Classic have the premium Monday qualifier of the TOUR season? It’s a confluence of several reasons. The tournament itself often has an exceptional field, filled with many of the top players in the world.  The strong field leaves a lot of players with world-class resumes on the outside, looking in. Meanwhile, sponsor exemptions aren’t as easy to come by for players that in some other events might get one. This is especially true for European Tour members that aren’t members of the PGA TOUR.  In some other TOUR events, they would often be able to grab one of the sponsor exemptions, but without securing an exemption, the last resort is the Monday. The Honda is also one of the few events that attracts one of the best fields of the year and has a Monday qualifier. For instance, there are no Monday qualifiers for THE PLAYERS Championship, the four majors, the World Golf Championships events, the FedExCup Playoffs or the three elevated events — The Genesis Invitational, the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard and the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide. Those fields annually have premium fields. It’s also the first Monday qualifier to start the Florida swing, making it the closest Monday qualifier in the new calendar year for European players. The Honda’s move to PGA National in 2007 also is a significant factor, according to Geoff Lofstead, Executive Director of the South Florida PGA section, who runs the Honda Classic Monday qualifier. “The move to PGA National really moved the event to elite status and therefore helped make the Monday qualifier such a quality field,â€� Lofstead said. The same year the event moved to PGA National, the South Florida PGA section began holding pre-qualifiers. Before that, they limited the Monday Qualifier field to 312 players (two courses, two spots at each). The pre-qualifiers gave the opportunity to move the Monday to one course and try to limit the field size to finish on Monday. The reason for the schedule adjustment was simple. “Darkness has always been our biggest enemy,â€� said Brett Graf, tournament director for the South Florida PGA. The pre-qualifiers not only helped ensure an actual finish on Monday, it also increased the number of participants. This year, a total of 458 players teed it up for the four pre-qualifiers and Monday qualifier. Geography also plays a massive role in the qualifier being such a high-caliber field. According to a Golf.com story in 2018, 35 PGA TOUR pros live in the Jupiter, Florida area, about 15 miles away from PGA National. The most celebrated local pro, of course, is Tiger Woods and he’s joined by other big names such as Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Brooks Koepka and Rickie Fowler. Of course, those guys don’t have to worry about Monday qualifying, but for the local pros still grinding and seeking better TOUR status, being able to Monday qualify without worrying about travel demands is huge. Veterans that might otherwise not chase qualifiers and instead wait to get into events based on their status, will choose to play the Honda Monday because of its proximity to their home. Consider Ryan Armour, who moved to Jupiter in 2003. He attempted to Monday qualify for The Honda Classic nine times before finally getting through in 2017, shooting a 67 at Mayacoo Lakes Country Club. “It wasn’t just another Monday,â€� said Armour, who later that year broke through with his first PGA TOUR victory at the Sanderson Farms Championship. Florida also is home to a large portion of the nation’s developmental tours, and the Monday qualifier creates an opportunity for developmental tour players to fight for one of the four spots in the Honda Classic without the expenses of traveling. One of those tours is the Minor League Golf Tour, based in Stuart, Florida, about 30 minutes away from PGA National. Armour, in fact, was one of those MLGT veterans, having won eight times on that TOUR. This year, of the 338 players who participated in the pre-qualifiers, 28 of those were MLGT players. Seventeen qualified to play in the Monday qualifier. Going to a pre-qualifier and a Monday qualifier for a player with no status can cost upwards of $1,500.  With the event in their backyard and minimal travel costs, many players sign up for the opportunity to rub elbows with the best golfers in the world. “Why not take a chance?â€� said developmental tour player Joseph Gunerman. “It’s not often you are 36 (pre-q and Mon q) holes away from playing in a great event for millions of dollars. “That is the reason we are all playing mini-tours anyway, to get to the big tour. When it was in my backyard, I thought I had to try.” Since 2013, there has been no Korn Ferry Tour event the same week as The Honda Classic, allowing many of those players to try gaining entry through Monday qualifier during an off-week. Plus, Korn Ferry members pay just $100 for the entry fee and don’t have to play in pre-qualifiers. In 2015, then-Korn Ferry Tour member Mark Silvers was one of the four qualifiers to get through to the Honda Classic. He called it “the ultimate badge of honor.â€� This year’s schedule is different, though, with the Korn Ferry Tour playing in Mexico this week. But what’s not different is the depth of field for the Honda Monday qualifier. Playing well enough to gain a tee time on Thursday is an accomplishment in itself. After all, the Super Bowl comes around only once a year.

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