Jim ‘Bones’ Mackay returns to Muirfield Village with Matthew Fitzpatrick

The final stop in Florida of the 2017-18 PGA TOUR season is 45th edition of THE PLAYERS Championship. THE PLAYERS Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass has hosted this event since 1982 and during the month of May since 2007. TPC Sawgrass will host this event for the last time in May this week as it will switch back to its original calendar position of March in 2018-19. Si Woo Kim posted 10-under-par 278 to win by three shots last year and become the youngest winner in history. TPC Sawgrass, which underwent multiple changes before last year’s event, will welcome 144 of the world’s best players including all of the top 50 in the OWGR. The top 70 and ties will play the weekend and the winner this year will pocket $1.98 million, 600 FedExCup points and a five-year exemption on TOUR. The argument continues as to whether or not this is the “fifth major” on the calendar. From a gaming standpoint, the purse ($11 million), first-place money and the FedExCup points to the winner (600) answers that question quite easily. This is not the week to “save” players for down the road in any format. TALES OF THE TAPE Si Woo Kim became the youngest winner at 21 years and 10 months surpassing Adam Scott in 2004. Fred Funk is the oldest winner at 48 in 2005. He’s also the last Jacksonville-area resident to win if that’s an angle you were checking. Kim’s final round was a bogey-free 69 that saw him come from three-shots off the lead of 54-hole leaders J.B Holmes and Kyle Stanley. Dating back to 2007, 54-hole leader(s) have won exactly twice with Martin Kaymer (2014) and Jason Day (2016) turning the trick. Holmes fired 84 to finish T41 and Stanley 74 to cash T4. Day shot 80 in the final round last year proving again that this course can reward and ruin players all in the same round. Day had the last laugh in 2016 as his wire-to-wire victory was only the fifth occurrence in history and first since Hal Sutton in 2000. He tied the course record of 63 in Round 1 and never looked back eventually winning by four shots. The interesting part of 2016 to me was Ken Duke, Colt Knost and Matt Kuchar all sharing a piece of T3 along with Justin Thomas. Day, runner-up Kevin Chappell and Thomas obliterate the golf ball off the tee while Duke, Knost and Kuchar don’t. Fred Funk has also never been accused of teeing it high and letting it fly! Other known bomber Graeme McDowell was T9. The first and second rounds were the easiest played in the history of the tournament. Day didn’t come close to scaring the tournament record of 264 set by Greg Norman in 1994 as the weather on Saturday didn’t cooperate. Day’s four-shot victory is the largest since the move to May. Fowler’s unbelievable finish in 2015 included the lowest four-hole score in history as he closed birdie-eagle-birdie-birdie TO FORCE A PLAYOFF. The three-hole playoff saw Sergio Garcia eliminated but Kevin Kisner had one more chance to knock Fowler out in sudden death. Fowler held his nerve again on No. 17 and stuck it to less than five feet for the winning birdie. Kisner had a noble showing for his first PLAYERS reinforcing that course history isn’t a requirement at TPC Sawgrass. Justin Thomas also made his debut and was T24 and co-led the field with 21 birdies. He also made 10 in one round. Fowler’s comeback was so entertaining folks forgot 54-hole leader Chris Kirk shot 75 to finish T13. Day shot 81 in the second round. The last three winners, as shown above have added to the complexity of cracking the code this week. This reinforces the belief that there is more than one way to solve Dye’s riddles at TPC Sawgrass. I’ve have reached back into the winning trends from the ShotLink Era (2004-now) to see the what parts of the game were essential to the May winners. Since 2004, 13 of the 15 winners have finished in the top 24 GIR. The only two that haven’t have won two of the last three trophies! I’m leaning on the longer trend this week. The trend I like even better is eight of the last 15 winners have finished in the top three in GIR. Similarly, eight of the last 15 winners have finished first or second in SG: tee to green. Of those 15, only two (Tim Clark, 2010 and K.J. Choi, 2011) finished outside T11. Players that don’t hit GIR better be able to get up-and-down. Of the last nine winners, eight were in the top 10 in scrambling. Since the Par-5 holes aren’t 660 yards most will score well and make hay. It will be the Par-4 scoring that separates the field as eight of the last 15 winners have been either first or second in this category. NOTE: Golfers inside the top 20-ish in each statistic on the 2017-18 PGA TOUR are listed only if they are scheduled to compete this week. * – Finished inside the top 10 at THE PLAYERS since 2013 or is a former winner. Greens in Regulation Rank  Golfer 1  *Henrik Stenson 2  *Kyle Stanley 3  *Jordan Spieth 4  Pat Perez 5  Gary Woodland 6  *Brendan Steele 6  *Kevin Streelman 8  Bubba Watson 9  *Rafael Cabrera Bello 10 *Rickie Fowler 12 Emiliano Grillo 13 Dustin Johnson 14 *Brian Harman 14 *Justin Thomas 16 Charles Howell III 17 Keegan Bradley 18 Chez Reavie 19 Patrick Cantlay 20 Scott Piercy SG: Tee to Green Rank  Golfer 1  Dustin Johnson 2  *Jordan Spieth 3  *Sergio Garcia 4  Luke List 5  *Justin Thomas 6  *Henrik Stenson 7  *Francesco Molinari 8  Paul Casey 9  Tommy Fleetwood 10 Keegan Bradley 11 Scott Piercy 12 *Brendan Steele 13 Patrick Cantlay 14 Bryson DeChambeau 15 Tony Finau 16 *Hideki Matsuyama 17 *Tiger Woods 18 *Kevin Chappell 19 *Kevin Streelman 20 Byeong-Hun An Scrambling Rank  Golfer 1  *Jordan Spieth 2  Webb Simpson 3  *Louis Oosthuizen 4  *Henrik Stenson 5  *Rickie Fowler 6  *Kevin Na 7  *Brandt Snedeker 9  Cameron Smith 10 *Kevin Streelman 12 *Justin Thomas 13 *Jason Day 15 Brian Gay 16 *Phil Mickelson 17 *Justin Rose 18 *Ben Crane 19 Chez Reavie 20 Chris Kirk Bogey Avoidance Rank  Golfer 1  *Henrik Stenson 2  *Jordan Spieth 3  *Rickie Fowler 4  *Kevin Streelman 5  Dustin Johnson 6  Webb Simpson 7  Cameron Smith 7  *Justin Rose 9  Chez Reavie 10 Charles Howell III 11 *Brandt Snedeker 12 *Justin Thomas 13 Zach Johnson 15 Emiliano Grillo 16 William McGirt 17 Bubba Watson 18 *Matt Kuchar 19 *Phil Mickelson 20 *Hideki Matsuyama Par-4 Scoring Rank  Golfer 1  *Henrik Stenson 2  *Justin Thomas 3  Dustin Johnson 3  Jon Rahm 5  *Rickie Fowler 5  *Jason Day 5  *Jordan Spieth 8  *Justin Rose 9  *Phil Mickelson 9  Chez Reavie 9  *Marc Leishman 14 Patrick Reed 14 Bubba Watson 14 *Brian Harman 14 Cameron Smith 14 Scott Piercy 14 Zach Johnson 20 Webb Simpson 20 *Matt Kuchar 20 *Brandt Snedeker 20 Emiliano Grillo 20 Pat Perez 20 *Kevin Chappell There is nowhere for the bombers to miss as the two-and-a-half inches of Bermuda rough doesn’t allow accurate recovery. There aren’t many places to easily get up-and-down for the inaccurate as the greens are just 5,500 square feet on average. The TifEagle Bermuda greens, not even two years old, will probably fluster and frustrate the best putters. The way to crack the code this week is impossibly simple: miss it in the right spot or hit it in the perfect spot. Great shots are rewarded while marginal shots suggest anything can happen. Target golf combined with indecision, weather, false visual clues and the pressure of dealing with the world’s best field will also be part of the examination. Pete Dye’s design will test every club in the bag and every will in the soul of the world’s best. This is one of the most challenging tournaments to win for golfers and gamers alike. The pedigree of winners here has varied greatly over the years as have the contenders. In the 36 previous years as host, no player has repeated and frankly, nobody has been close. Before last year Pete Dye expanded four greens to add extra pin placements that had never been seen before and also had all of the surfaces regrassed. Once the guys think they have it figured out around here, something else changes. Holes No. 12 was turned into a drivable Par-4 and has even more changes this year. Players will have their second test at navigating the pond between Holes Nos. 6 and 7 this year as well. Even though it has four Par-5 holes (Par-72) and plays to only 7,189 yards it is one of the toughest tests on TOUR as Dye challenges the players to work the ball both ways off the tees and both ways off the fairways and sometimes on the same hole. Don’t forget the weather is an important factor as well as no two holes play consecutively in the same direction. The wind is always being calculated and re-calculated and is part of the Dye master plan. As with one of the most difficult courses anywhere, I will lean on the best-of-the-best to handle my fantasy business this week. I’ve learned over the years that TPC Sawgrass rewards GREAT golf. Guys who are in current form and are in the categories above will populate my rosters across all formats. As you’ll see below, some are just getting things figured out here while others haven’t figured it out in a while. Gamers are going to be faced with some difficult decisions because the talent pool is deep, the course is Dye-ian and the stakes are massively high. Good luck! Rob Bolton’s Power Rankings will give you more juice for the week so make sure you stop by. It’s also who I trust with the weather each week so pay attention! NOTE: The groups below are comprehensive to assist in data mining. Inclusion doesn’t imply automatic endorsement in every fantasy game as all decisions are specific to your situation. CONFIDENCE MEN BUILDING CONFIDENCE OTHER SIGNS OF CONFIDENCE

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Tiger Woods remembers the crowd noise. It wasn’t the roar elicited by a clutch birdie or eagle putt; he knows that noise all too well. No, this was something else, and it was hard to place. “All of a sudden it gets really loud behind us,â€� Woods says of the 72nd hole of last year’s TOUR Championship at East Lake, where he was about to win for the 80th time to break a five-year victory drought. “And I look back and there are people coming under the ropes and the cops are trying to organize people so they don’t rush us.â€� Roger Maltbie, NBC’s on-course reporter who always follows the final pairing, was up ahead, on the lower of the hole’s two levels. That’s where the longer hitters’ drives end up, and when he looked back up the hill at Woods and Rory McIlroy, people were already in the fairway behind them. “I happen to be standing next to a police officer,â€� Maltbie says. “And he says, ‘Oh, man, what are we gonna do now?’ I gave him the quote that Dave Marr used to say years ago, which was, ‘Once a dog gets out from under the porch, it’s real hard to get him to go back under there.’â€� The moment was one part history in the making, Woods getting his long-awaited 80th, and one part Pamplona. Call it the Running of the Fans. Or, as Woods would later put it, “All hell broke loose.â€� Here’s an eyewitness account from those who experienced the delirium at the ground level. Woods took a three-stroke lead over McIlroy and Justin Rose into Sunday. Needing to make something happen, McIlroy (74, T7) and Rose (73, T4) struggled. Still, a Tiger win was not a foregone conclusion. Billy Horschel had shot 66 to get to 9 under, and Woods bogeyed 15 after his tee shot cleared the water by inches, and 16, too. His lead was cut to just two strokes, and he looked shaky on 17, too, but made a par-saving putt from just inside 4 feet. McILROY: “I told him he was doing his best not to win, but when he hit his tee shot up 18, and he striped it, I said, ‘OK, the tournament is pretty much done at this point.’ It was cool, we were walking down and I said, ‘Geez, that’s the first one you didn’t squeeze out there today. You turned it over.’ (Laughs) I was like, ‘Oh, you finally hit one! Good for you!’ And we’re walking down and the Tiger chant started, right? They hadn’t broken the ropes at this point. But I said to him, ‘This reminds me of Jack in 1980 at Baltusrol.’ Like, ‘Jack is back, Jack is back.’ And he said something like, ‘Yeah, but I’m not wearing yellow pants,’ or something like that.â€� JOE LaCAVA, Woods’ caddie: “Once he piped a drive on 18, I kind of knew he had it, which was kind of a nice feeling as we’re coming down the hill there.â€� RICKIE FOWLER: “We were up in family dining, and after Tiger was making his way toward the green, that’s when we were walking down to scoring. J.T. (Justin Thomas) was with us, and Zach (Johnson), I think.â€� Rose birdied 18 to win the FedExCup. Woods needed only to bogey 18 to win his 80th TOUR trophy, which became a no-brainer as his second shot reached the greenside bunker. That’s when the drip, drip, drip of fans coming under the ropes became a tidal wave. WOODS: “It gives me chills almost every single time I see it. At the time, it didn’t seem like that because I didn’t really look back. I only looked back a couple of times over my right shoulder.â€� LaCAVA: “Probably 50 yards after he hit his second shot I could sense the people coming into the fairway behind me. I looked at one of the cops, and he said, ‘What do you think?’ He was just looking more for approval of what Tiger might think about it. These people are so jacked up; they want to be part of history. I said, ‘Let ’em go. Why not?’ Not that it was my call. I thought it would be like charging the field after a big college football or basketball win. But I didn’t realize how many people were already out there on the fairway.â€� FOWLER: “As soon as we got down to scoring that’s when we saw the crowd coming in.â€� MALTBIE: “After the second shots were played, the people on top of the hill started to follow behind Tiger, and when the fans down by the green saw that, they said, ‘The heck with this, I’m going under the ropes, too.’â€� DANIEL LATERZA, Assistant G.M. East Lake: “I was outside the door to the locker room and all the sudden the players started coming out – Tommy Fleetwood, Paul Casey. They had their phones up as well, taking pictures like everyone else. They’d never seen anything like it. As soon as everybody was rushing up the fairway, we were all, ‘OK, what are they going to do to stop it?’â€� It soon became apparent that there was no stopping it, just as there is no unscrambling an omelet and no stuffing the genie back in the bottle. Although it was a happy throng, everyone thrilled to see Woods about the enter the winner’s circle again, it was also a very large throng. WOODS: “After the second shots that we hit down there, there’s a natural bottleneck at the lake there, and once we hit that part, everyone just busted loose behind us and all hell broke loose.â€� ALLISON FILLMORE, TOUR Championship Executive Director: “I was standing there with our social media person and I saw this massive crowd coming toward me; all of a sudden I started to get really nervous. I’m not in control of the situation. I was completely losing my mind.â€� JACK LABADIA, student and standard-bearer: “The police were holding people back; I got pushed back five or six times by the same police officer, and then he saw that I was holding the sign and let me through. He was just trying his best to protect Tiger.â€� CAMERON McLEOD, second standard-bearer: “You could just hear everybody running. It was crazy. They were like 10 yards behind me, and the police started escorting everyone up to the green. Turning around and looking at just thousands of people cheering – that was pretty real.â€� McILROY: “I don’t want to be in the way; I want him to have this moment. So, we’re having a nice chat or whatever, and the line breaks. I’m sort of like, well, there’s security coming for us, but they’re only going at one person; they’re not coming for me. (Laughs) So I’m like, right, well, I need to get out of here. I ran ahead and tried to get away from it because it was unbelievable.â€� LABADIA: “I started picking up the pace, but I’d walked 17 holes, and these guys were hungry, so I got passed by a lot of people, and that’s how I ended up behind the police officers. A couple years before that I remember getting autographs, standing in the front of the line, and the crowd that mobbed him there, I felt claustrophobic and like I was getting pushed. The situation on 18 felt a lot different because the energy felt very positive. It was people pushing, but it was to see him win. I was caught up in the whole energy of it; it was a really cool feeling.â€� LaCAVA: “We were walking up the skinniest part of the fairway, next to the lake, and Tiger turned around and said, ‘You don’t realize what’s going on behind you. You’re about to get run over. You better get your ass up here.’ There were people passing me at that point because they’re trying to get to the green to get the best view.â€� Ian Lindsey, Manager of Tournament Operations, was with members of his team and preparing for the closing ceremony. Crucially, they had rope, which was going to be used for the writers and photographers. Now it needed to be used for something else, and fast. Lindsey screamed to mobilize his team to form a line, and as he held one end of the rope, a marshal held the other, and they stopped the advancing fans some 50 yards short of the green. Woods and McIlroy, plus their caddies, standard-bearers and walking scorers, were allowed through. LINDSEY: “I ran straight to where Tiger and Rory were coming out. My main concern was Tiger getting closed in by fans. Thankfully, he moved a little quick and got out of there just in time. All of our operations leadership, all of our security guys, police, APD, all of them were out there, kind of just pacing back and forth and we were – my adrenaline was pumping pretty high. I look over, and we just had everyone, everyone in the line, everyone was taking pictures.â€� FILLMORE: “I was so amazed that as quickly as the group came forward, they were so respectful when that line came up, and everyone stopped. I was very happy to see that.â€� McILROY: “It took him and Joe a while, especially Joe, to get through the crowd and get to the 18th green. I was there for a couple minutes before they actually got there.â€� LaCAVA: “It’s a little different going through all those people with a bag on your shoulder. I think Tiger enjoyed it, he had a little smirk on his face. He and Rory each had a local cop, so I think they felt pretty secure, and I went past them to get ahead of the crowd.â€� WOODS: “I got on the green, I looked, and I’m like, Holy cow, there’s a lot of people out there.â€� Woods splashed out of the bunker to about 8 feet, but missed his birdie putt. It didn’t matter. When he tapped in for par, he had won by two, and the crowd erupted. Bobby Jones IV, grandson of the great Bobby Jones, was in the clubhouse grill with his wife, Mimi. JONES: “Now bear in mind this building is a very thick, solid brick building. The roar was so loud that this building actually vibrated, you could actually see water kind of move just a little bit on top of the glasses. And to be present for such an event … I can actually say something that people probably on the course couldn’t: I could actually feel the roar.â€� Those who were there to witness history began to absorb what had just happened, a process that continues to this day with the aid of cell phone photos and videos. MALTBIE: “There’s old footage of that happening in The Open Championship, but I’ve never seen anything like that in America before. To call it a euphoric crowd would be an understatement.â€� LaCAVA: “You see the old photos of maybe Arnold and Jack with the crowd around, but for people to go under the ropes, I’ve never seen anything like that. We all know the backstory of people thinking Tiger wasn’t going to win again. I think that played into it. I think the crowd was probably bigger than it normally would have been. People wanted to be there to witness it. I didn’t appreciate the full effect of what was going on until I got to the clubhouse and Adam Hayes, who caddies for Jon Rahm, showed me pictures.â€� LINDSEY: “About 10 minutes in, or maybe five minutes after Tiger hits that last putt, we were just praying that they weren’t gonna try to push any further.â€� LABADIA: “Afterward, since there was such a large crowd, they pulled us into the little scoring tent with Tiger. We were kind of too scared to talk to him; it wasn’t really our place. He was talking to his caddie, but he was definitely pretty happy in there. He signed his card, and he signed our standard-bearer placard that had his name on it, and a couple balls. I’ve got that in my room; I’ll show it to my grandkids. A lot of my friends saw me on TV, it was cool.â€� McLEOD: “He gave me a ball and then signed a few things for me. He signed my hat, and his name from the score thing that we kept. We have it framed up in my room.â€� FOWLER: “I think part of being the TOUR Championship, the venue, end of the year, I don’t think you would see that happen at a normal TOUR event. Obviously, there was a great fan turnout, and when you have everyone who’s there all on one fairway, it makes it look massive. It was almost a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see and have that happen.â€� LINDSEY: “I’ve worked a lot of golf tournaments and that was – never seen anything like that. I went to school in Florida and it reminded me of an SEC football game.â€� McILROY: “I didn’t fully appreciate it because I was pissed off at how I played, but even as he’s tapping in to win and I’m looking back up 18, to see the people, it was unbelievable. It was nice that I was the one to play with him when it happened. We’ve had a great relationship for a long time now, and I know what he’s been through. For it just to manifest like that, and to see the amount of good will. Everyone was so happy for him. People need external things to make themselves happy and remind themselves of the good old days or whatever, and that’s what it was like; Tiger was winning a golf tournament, and it was the good old days. It was just an unbelievable atmosphere. It was really cool to be a part of it.â€� WOODS: “I really didn’t have it in drive; I just had it in neutral all day. … The rush and the commotion … I’ve experienced things of that nature, but not that energy.â€�

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Tiger Woods made birdie at his final hole to make the cut on the number at the Farmers Insurance Open, reaching the third round of a PGA Tour event for the first time since 2015.

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