Jordan Spieth to play Shriners Hospitals for Children Open

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – Cameron Champ just wanted to make the cut in all of his starts this fall.   With a win and three other top-30 finishes, Champ has far exceeded that goal.   It was close in his first event, though.   He made the cut on the number after struggling with his ball-striking at the Safeway Open. Sneaking into the weekend gave him the opportunity to shoot one of those unnoticed rounds that changes a career.   He started the final round at Silverado in 66th place. His Sunday 68 in high winds set the stage for an impressive run that has made him this season’s must-see rookie.   Only two players beat Champ’s final-round score at the Safeway. He jumped 41 spots on the leaderboard and, more importantly, gained the confidence that helped him win in his next start.   “It was blowing 25 (mph), gusting a little more, maybe, and I was flighting the shots right, hitting the shots where I needed to, and then I made a few good putts,â€� Champ said Tuesday in his pre-tournament interview at The RSM Classic. “Things just kind of progressed from there.â€�   Yes, they have. Champ led after every round at the Sanderson Farms Championship. He birdied five of the final six holes to beat Corey Conners by four. Champ is ninth in the FedExCup and the early front-runner in the Rookie of the Year race.   In 12 rounds since the Safeway, he’s been inside the top 10 after nine of them. He has a 67.3 scoring average in that span, including four rounds of 65 or lower.   “I’ve just been playing with confidence, really,â€� Champ said. His outrageous length helps, as well. His average driving distance of 335.2 yards leads the TOUR. He’s nearly four yards longer than Luke List, who ranks second in that category, and 38 yards longer than the TOUR average.   He also leads in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, a statistic with outsized importance in today’s game. Eight of the top 10 in that metric qualified for last season’s TOUR Championship.   It takes more than long drives to win on the PGA TOUR, though. By being a consistent contender this fall, Champ has shown that he is more than a sideshow.   He had an opportunity to win his first start following his victory, at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, and at the Mayakoba Golf Classic. He stumbled with a final-round 73 in Las Vegas after starting the final round just three back.   A second-round 62 last week in Mexico got him into second place. He finished six shots behind Matt Kuchar despite two double bogeys on the final nine.   The RSM Classic is his fourth consecutive start. He’s trying to continue this impressive run and earn money for charity.   Champ has made birdie or eagle on one-third of his holes this season. He’s second in birdie average (5.9 per round) and has two eagles. His 96 birdies and eagles are second-most on TOUR, just one fewer than Gary Woodland.   With Woodland sitting out this week, Champ is the prohibitive favorite in the Birdies Fore Love race. That competition awards $300,000 to the player who finishes the fall season with the most birdies and eagles. Champ already has begun his own foundation. He has plans to bring after-school programs to the par-3 course that he grew up playing in Sacramento, California.   “Charity and giving back has always been a thing of mine and my family personally,â€� Champ said. “We didn’t come from much, but we always gave back as much as possible.â€�   That generosity can continue thanks to his strong start to the season.

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Tiger Woods’ comeback will hit another benchmark this week, regardless of the outcome. He’s playing consecutive PGA TOUR events for the first time since 2015. It’s a positive sign about his health. Now his game needs work. Woods arrives at one of the PGA TOUR’s most penal layouts on the heels of shooting 72-76 at the Genesis Open. He hit less than half his fairways and greens at Riviera. He missed the cut by four shots after shooting 39 on his final nine holes. Much of the enthusiasm that amassed after Woods scrambled his way to a top-25 finish at Torrey Pines was dampened by last week’s performance, which made it evident that Woods may be farther from contending than previously thought. He needs more “repsâ€� under tournament conditions to see how his new swing, and new body, respond under the pressure of tournament competition, he said. “I can’t create the same angles that I used to be able to create naturally, … and I’m still learning what that feels like under the gun,â€� Woods said after Wednesday’s pro-am. After taking last weekend off, he practiced Monday and Tuesday before playing the pro-am at PGA National. Woods, who isn’t working with a swing coach, didn’t change course after playing poorly last week. He worked on the same swing keys that have been his focus since his latest comeback began. “I just need to get better at (it),â€� he said. He’ll be challenged this week by a course that threatens to harshly expose the slightest miscue. Riviera and Torrey Pines aren’t easy, but they offer a more traditional test. PGA National’s Champion Course is one of those water-lined Florida courses where players can quickly rack up penalty strokes. Over the past two seasons, it had the third-most balls hit in the water (590) on the PGA TOUR. Excluding the majors, PGA National was the 12th-hardest course on TOUR in 2017. It was the second-hardest the previous year. Its infamous “Bear Trapâ€� has been the third-hardest three-hole stretch on TOUR over the past decade. “It’s a place that demands your full attention at all times,â€� said defending champion Rickie Fowler. The south Florida breezes are expected to blow all week, as well. Woods should know. Scanning the weather forecast has been one of the habits he’s resumed now that he’s back to competing on a regular basis. “I’m starting to get into that flow again,â€� he said. There have been promising signs with his short game and putting, but he has struggled with his full swing. He would rank 152nd in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green if he had enough rounds to be listed in the official stats. He’ll have to hit the ball better to have a chance this week. “It’s a ball-striker’s golf course,â€� said 2012 Honda champion Rory McIlroy. “You can’t up-and-down it around here and expect to win. You have to hit fairways. You have to hit greens and you have to just take your chances when they come along.â€� Woods first played The Honda Classic in 1993, when he was 17 years old. He played the Monday pro-am with a foursome of NFL quarterbacks: Dan Marino, Bernie Kosar, Phil Simms and Mark Rypien. Woods shot 72-78 to miss the cut. It would be 19 years until he returned, after he moved to nearby Jupiter Island. Woods played at PGA National for three consecutive years before back problems prevented him from playing. His 69.0 scoring average in limited action at PGA National is the lowest at the course since 2010 (minimum six rounds), though that won’t make this week’s task any easier. This will be his first start in this event in four years. He withdrew from the final round of the 2014 Honda Classic with a bad back. He had the first of his four back surgeries a month later. Two years earlier, Woods fired a final-round 62 to nearly earn his first victory after his personal scandal. Seeking his first win since 2009, Woods almost chased down McIlroy. Woods eagled 18 to put pressure on McIlroy, but ultimately finished two shots behind him. The 62 remains the low final round of Woods’ career. He never broke par the next year, finishing 37th. He was inside the top 20 entering 2014’s final round before walking off on the 14th green. This will be just his 20th TOUR event since. “I’m so happy I’m not in pain anymore,â€� Woods said Wednesday. Getting his game back is the next step.

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You’re standing on the 12th tee at Garzón Tajamares Golf. It’s a 10,000-acre piece of property on the Uruguayan coast, not far from the village of Garzón and the beach town of Jose Ignacio. To get there, it took a 175-kilometer drive from Montevideo, and scene is phenomenal. Surrounding you are groves of olive, almond and chestnut trees, lush green grass in front of you. The course is also home to seven tajamares, Spanish, essentially, for lakes—specifically low, topographical areas that collect and store water from rain runoff. They are blue, and crystal clear. You encounter the first tajamar on the tee shot that must travel over this body of water, and the second shot has to carry another lake, as well—whether you’re going for the green in two or not. If you decide to play it safe, your third-shot approach to the green, has to—you guessed it—go over another lake, this tajamar described as “massive,� which does adequately describe a 35-acre water expanse. Tucked in the middle of the lake is the green—an island green—that both excites and tantalizes you. You’ve never seen anything like this hole, and that’s the idea. Whether you bogey, birdied or did something else, it hardly matters since the scenery is simply breathtaking. That hasn’t changed since the course opened. How it’s presented to golfers has. In 2008, a decision was made to transform the 18 holes into a championship golf course. For this task, the club decided to hire Latin American golf legend Angel Cabrera, a three-time PGA TOUR winner who at the time was one of the world’s best players, with wins at the Masters and the U.S. Open on his resume. As a designer, Cabrera toured the property and decided he didn’t want to change the look of the course, but he did want it to more subtly fit the style of play he preferred. That meant changing some tee boxes, moving bunkers so they added challenge to the course and lengthening a hole, changing a par-3 and turning it into a drivable par-4. After the club and Cabrera finished re-designing it into a championship golf course, the other big change came when Garzón Tajamares Golf secured an affiliation with the PGA TOUR. “The main idea of the golf course and its relationship with the PGA TOUR is that we offer unique experiences to our members and their guests,� Nicolas Kovalenko, Golf and Hospitality Director of The Garzón Club added. One of those “unique� amenities is the food and wine available at the course, 500 acres of vineyards and a restaurant overseen by not only one of the most famous chefs in Latin America but in the world. Francis Mallmann, world-famous chef and restaurateur, who began his career working as a cook on a boat on Lake Nahuel Huapi in his native Argentina, is the head chef of Bodega Garzón’s restaurant, with a menu based on regional products and fish from the Atlantic Ocean offers in its main dining room a few of the town’s main square. Its wine cellars offers selections from a wide variety of grapes grown on the property. “We offer what you can’t buy anywhere else in the world,� Kovalenko continued. “With our food and wine, from Mr. Mallmann, to our golf course. This is a special place. Uruguay is a small country, but it now has a world-class golf course. I believe we have the best greens anywhere. I’ve never played better greens than these, especially when we can roll and cut them as we like. They are perfect. The course is perfect.� From the most emblematic winery of modern winemaking in Uruguay, to a world-class golf course and an extraordinary culinary experience, The Garzón Club has it all. Golf is a fundamental part of this project, and alongside the PGA TOUR and PGA TOUR Latinoamérica, The Garzón Club and Garzón Tajamares Golf continue to offer one-of-a-kind experiences to their members and guests.

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