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PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. – Justin Thomas acknowledged “it was a little shocking� to see the USGA’s tweet that he’s cancelled every meeting regarding discussions about golf’s new rules, but he said he hopes to meet soon and still maintains positive relationships with several USGA officials. Thomas and the USGA went back-and-forth during a Twitter exchange Saturday that Thomas described as “unfortunate.� “It really hurt me,� Thomas said Sunday after shooting a final-round 71 at The Honda Classic to finish at even par in his title defense. “It was upsetting to me because … the information they put out there was inaccurate in terms of me cancelling meetings, and that doesn’t make me look good, and that’s just when I got a little upset. … “I’ve talked to them, and I’ve talked to them about the rules this year. We’ve all tried to communicate and tried to get better relationships with them. It is what it is, and all we’re looking is to better the sport and better the game.� Thomas was disappointed to see the two-stroke penalty assessed to Adam Schenk prior to Saturday’s third round due to the revised rule regarding caddie alignment. In a follow-up tweet, Thomas wrote, “I more so say things in hopes that the USGA starts communicating with the current players to better the game and the sport. The rules are rules, no getting past that. Just hoping going forward, communication is had and ALL GOLFERS benefit from any changes.� The USGA responded with a tweet that started, “Justin, we need to talk. You’ve cancelled every meeting we’ve planned with you, but we are reaching out again.� A follow-up tweet from the USGA noted that Thomas had connected offline with the organization, but Thomas said on Sunday that no meeting has yet been scheduled. “We’ve tried to get on a couple calls, and I was in the middle of this three-week stretch, so I was like, look, I’m sorry, this time isn’t very good,� Thomas explained. “But we’re definitely going to talk at some point, but we’ve had conversations this year multiple times with a couple different people. “It’s not like it hasn’t happened. It’s just, it hasn’t the last three weeks because I’ve been at a tournament, and that’s my main focus.� Regarding the specific penalty assessed to Schenk, Thomas said, “I just think it needs to be changed … Obviously he could back off, but he couldn’t back off. He was up against the lip [of a greenside bunker] and he couldn’t really go left, either. “All of us at some point in our career have been in that position where the caddie is behind you and you’re … talking through it and the caddie is kind of standing there and he’s like, ‘Yeah, I think you go over there,’ and it’s like, ‘OK.’ It’s very, very obvious when a caddie is lining a player up. Anything that can be changed rule-wise that can better the game, all of us are all for it.�

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Last year's ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP was Tiger Woods' record-tying 82nd victory on the PGA TOUR. This week, he defends that title in the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD. It will be the first time since August 2014 that he will play an event as the defending champion. This will be Woods' eighth attempt at his 83rd PGA TOUR victory, an achievement that would move him ahead of Sam Snead and into first place alone on the career wins list. RELATED LINKS: 15th Club | Tiger and Sherwood are a perfect match Of those first 82, which were the most impressive from a statistical perspective? What parts of Woods' game shined brightest in the biggest moments? Some answers were tougher to deduce than others, but I tried to answer those questions. Here are Woods’ best statistical performances from his 82 wins. Off the Tee: 2009 Memorial Tournament Woods' performance at the 2009 Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide was a statistical masterpiece off the tee. He led the field in Strokes Gained: Off-The-Tee, but didn't do it how you may think. Woods hit 87.5% of his fairways, tying his highest percentage as a professional in a PGA TOUR event. That included a run of 18 straight fairways hit to conclude a one-shot victory over Jim Furyk. Non-ShotLink division: 1997 Masters: To this day, partly because of the course changes that came after Woods’ 12-shot win, a 21-year-old Woods holds the Masters Tournament single-week average driving distance record, at 323.1 yards. Woods' advantage over the field average that week was an incomprehensible 46 yards per drive (277.1). For perspective, Bryson DeChambeau averaged 322.1 yards off the tee in 2019-2020, 25.7 yards further than the TOUR average for the season. Woods also hit 47 fairways for the week, one fewer than he hit two years prior as an amateur. Since statistical tracking began about 40 years ago, there are two instances where a player averaged 310 or more yards and hit 45 or more fairways in a Masters. Both were Woods (1995 and 1997). Approach Play: 2006 THE NORTHERN TRUST Woods' performance in the 2000 U.S. Open is the most dominant in the game's history, and his iron play was a huge part of it. We'll get to that tournament in a moment, but first we'll look at his best approach performance in the ShotLink era: the 2006 THE NORTHERN TRUST at TPC Boston. That week, Woods racked up a staggering 14.6 Strokes Gained: Approach, six strokes more than anyone else in the field (Robert Karlsson was second, at 8.31). It's the most Strokes Gained: Approach for Woods in any single event in his career. The 2006 season saw Woods reach iron play levels not seen by anyone since: he averaged a TOUR-best 2.07 Strokes Gained: Approach per round, a mark not bettered since. Non-ShotLink division: 2000 U.S. Open: During a week in which the field hit less than 50% of the greens in regulation (48.4%), Woods hit 70.8% for the tournament. His 51 greens hit in regulation were seven more than anyone else (Fred Couples and David Toms each hit 44) and translated to a field-best 21 birdies. Arguably the most dominating performance in pro sports history, Woods' 2000 U.S. Open victory is nearly impossible to top from a ball-striking perspective. Short Game: 2009 Arnold Palmer Invitational At Bay Hill in 2009, Woods lost strokes to the field on his drives and approach shots (-0.43 for the tournament), yet still got to shake Mr. Palmer's hand and lift the trophy that Sunday afternoon. He did it through sensational short-game play, getting up and down for par 24 times, his most across 79 stroke-play victories on TOUR. Woods led the field for the week in Strokes Gained: Around-The-Green, at 1.69 per round. Non-ShotLink division: 1999 Walt Disney World Classic: Honorable mention here goes to another Orlando-area win 10 years prior, at the 1999 Disney Classic. That week, Woods was a perfect 13-for-13 scrambling and claimed a one-shot victory despite seven three-putts. In the last 35 years, it's one of just four instances where a player had a perfect scrambling percentage for 72 holes (with ten or more attempts) and went on to win the tournament. Putting: 2013 Arnold Palmer Invitational Woods' legacy of clutch putts makes this category maybe the most difficult to lock down. From ‘Better Than Most' at the 2001 PLAYERS to ‘Expect Anything Different' at the 2008 U.S. Open (both victories, by the way), memories of big moments abound from Woods' halcyon days. The most complete putting performance, statistically speaking, might have come at Bay Hill in 2013. Woods had 11.2 Strokes Gained: Putting for the week, by far his most in a win since ShotLink tracking began in 2004. He led the field in approach putt performance (a stat that measures lag putting ability) and made nearly 100 feet of putts per round. Woods' 14 putts made outside 10 feet that week are tied for his second-most in any single PGA TOUR event. Best Comeback: 2000 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am While one triumph at Pebble Beach in 2000 has already been mentioned, what Woods did earlier that year at that same site was awe-inspiring, as well. At the 2000 AT&TPebble Beach Pro-Am, Woods trailed by seven strokes with nine holes to play. After a hole-out for eagle at 15, Woods birdied two of the last three to card a bogey-free 64 and win by two strokes. The previous year at Torrey Pines, Woods was tied for 36th place entering the third round, nine shots behind leader Ted Tryba. Woods shot 62-65 on the weekend to win by two strokes. It marks the only time in Woods' career he has won when outside the top 25 through 36 holes. Most Dominant: 2000 U.S. Open There are only two instances since 1900 where a player won a major championship by double digits. Both of those performances were turned in by Woods before he turned 25. Three years after the unthinkable 12-stroke runaway at Augusta National, Woods' 15-shot destruction of the field at Pebble Beach re-wrote the top lines in golf's record books, seemingly in uncrackable stone. While the 2000 U.S. Open (+29.21 Strokes Gained: Total) and 1997 Masters (+25.86) are easily listed as the two most dominant victories of Woods' legendary career, the intrigue comes when pondering what win is next on the list. By Strokes Gained: Total, it's the 2008 Farmers Insurance Open (+23.51), an eight-stroke romp at Torrey Pines where Woods led the field by a wide margin in Strokes Gained: Approach. By simply margin of victory, there are two others vying for the bronze: the 2003 Arnold Palmer Invitational and the 2000 WGC Invitational, both won by eleven strokes. Woods accounts for more than half of the double-digit wins on the PGA TOUR over the last 30 seasons (four of seven). In the 2000 PGA TOUR season, Woods had more wins by 11 strokes or more (two) than rounds of 74 or higher (one). How about the 2005 Open at St. Andrews? Woods won wire-to-wire (no ties after any round) and ended with a five stroke margin of victory - the only player to do both of those things at an Open Championship since World War II. For the most dominant player of his era, the choices seem endless.

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There were lots of amazing things about Tiger Woods’ 15-shot victory at the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, starting with the fact that no player has won by 15 or more shots on the PGA TOUR since 1948. Johnny Miller and Tom Watson were among those calling it the best golf ever played; others have argued it ranks among the most dominant sports performances ever, if not the most dominant. Woods beat the field average by a career-best 29 strokes for the week. But it was his putting, in particular, that still confounds those who were there. “He had some Jedi powers; he could pretty much will the ball in the hole,â€� says Jesper Parnevik, who played the first two rounds that week with Woods and Jim Furyk. “And sometimes I could swear he did because I would think the ball was going to miss or already had missed, and it would go in sideways. That’s some strong-ass, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Jedi stuff going on. RELATED: Tee times for Rounds 1-2 | Nine things to know about Pebble Beach | Writers’ roundtable: Bold predictions “It was almost as if he was making the putts with his mind instead of his putter.â€� Woods, then just 24, was at the height of his powers. He’d won 11 of his previous 20 starts on TOUR and would win not only this major but the next three (the so-called Tiger Slam). Still, there was nothing quite like what he did at Pebble, especially on the fickle greens. His putting that week has taken on an almost mythical quality as he returns to the fabled seaside course in search of his 82nd TOUR win, which would tie Sam Snead’s record, and 16th major title. It started with his marathon session on the practice green at Pebble on Wednesday night – he, ahem, didn’t like the way the ball was rolling into the hole – and paid immediate dividends.  Woods one-putted 12 times in his opening-round 65 (24 putts total) and would one-putt 20 of the first 38 greens despite surfaces that John Huston called the bumpiest he’d ever seen. Fans on site and at home watched in awe. And as with Brooks Koepka at last month’s PGA Championship at Bethpage Black, playing partners shook their heads in a combination of wonder and despair. Parnevik admits he was so overmatched, it became a running joke, he and Woods laughing as the lesser player scuffled his way around the course. The Swede already had won twice that year but was in considerable pain and about to go in for much-needed hip labrum surgery that would keep him out of action until the TOUR Championship. “I was pretty much crippled and couldn’t get onto my left side,â€� he says. “I hit it knee-high every shot. It was probably the best golf ever (by Woods), and I couldn’t make contact, so it was kind of funny trying to compete with this guy.â€� (Parnevik shot 73-80 and missed the cut.) Still, while the five-time TOUR winner Parnevik was a lost cause, he and his then-caddie, Lance Ten Broeck, marveled at what they were seeing from Woods.   “First of all, we were impressed with how he played, but what was really impressive was the complete certainty with which he holed out from everywhere,â€� says Parnevik, 54, who now plays on PGA TOUR Champions and won the 2016 Insperity Invitational. “You could tell he had zero doubts in his mannerisms, that he was going to make everything.â€�   After taking just 24 putts in the first round, Woods, in the fog-delayed second (69, 29 putts), made a 30-footer for birdie in the semi-darkness at the 12th hole just before officials halted play Friday night. He never had a three-putt. Jedi powers? Perhaps. The tournament predated ShotLink, so ball-position data is not available, but it has been reported that Woods didn’t miss a putt from inside 8 feet. Furyk said he made 8-footers like they were 2-footers. And while seaside poa annua greens are famously quirky, and more accurately a mix of different grasses (poa, bent, fescue) plus flecks of sand, Woods seemed to intuit every bump and wobble. The 2000 U.S. Open also predated the Strokes Gained: Putting stat, but you can guess who would have led it. Woods was sixth in the field with 110 total putts, but first in Greens in Regulation (51/72) by a mile. In other words, the five players with fewer putts – Nick Faldo, Lee Porter, Loren Roberts, Padraig Harrington and Lee Westwood – were more often chipping up close for one-putt par saves, the kind of thing that the SG: Putting metric exposes as smoke and mirrors. Woods, meanwhile, was putting for birdie 71 percent of the time. Next best that week: Fred Couples and David Toms at 61 percent. “The guy drives the ball better than anyone I’ve seen,â€� Faldo said back then. (Woods easily led the field in Driving Distance, averaging 299.3 yards.) “And he putts better than [Ben] Crenshaw. When you put that together, he’s hard to beat.â€� Runner-up Ernie Els was 10 behind as he and Woods teed off in the final round, and later acknowledged he knew he had no chance. He said Woods and the rest of the field were not even in the same ballpark. “If I played out of my mind,â€� Els said that Sunday afternoon at the media center, “I probably still would have lost by 5, 6, 7.â€� Someone then referenced the 1862 Open Championship when Old Tom Morris won by 13 strokes. That had been the previous biggest winning margin in major championship golf. “If you put Old Tom Morris with Tiger Woods, he’d probably beat him by 80 shots right now,â€� Els replied. “Hey, the guy is unbelievable, man. I guess he’s the first guy to ever go into double figures in a U.S. Open. As you say, to win by 15 strokes, biggest margin in a major. I’m running out of words. Give me a break.â€� Nineteen years later, the dominance that Tiger displayed that week still remains vivid in Parnevik’s mind. “Not only did he have all the shots but he hit all the shots,â€� Parnevik says. “He hit it high, low, right, left – every shot he hit was pretty much different from the shot before. “He was playing with full certainty about not only where his ball was going to go, but that he was going to win every week. That’s what so great about the younger guys and the new crowd getting a glimpse of it today. It’s not what it was, but they’re at least getting a tiny understanding of it, how he’s been able to come back.â€�

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