Justin Rose finally starting to solve TPC Boston

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — Even with a tee shot into the water for another double bogey, Tiger Woods could see the big picture in the Honda Classic. He was four shots out of the lead going into the weekend. Luke List delivered a round not many others found possible in such difficult conditions Friday, a 4-under 66 that gave him a share of the lead with Jamie Lovemark (69). They were at 3-under 137, the highest score to lead at the halfway point of the Honda Classic since it moved to PGA National in 2007. So bunched were the scores that Woods was four shots out of the lead and four shots from last place among the 76 players who made the cut at 5-over 145. More importantly, he only had 13 players in front of him. “This is a difficult golf course right now,” Woods said. “Making pars is a good thing. I’ve done that, and I’m right there with a chance.” And he has plenty of company. Tommy Fleetwood, who won the Race to Dubai on the European Tour last year, scratched out a 68 and was one shot out of the lead along with Webb Simpson (72), Russell Henley (70) and Rory Sabbatini (69). Justin Thomas and Daniel Berger each shot 72 and were in a large group at 139. They were among only 10 players remaining under par. Fleetwood laughed when asked the last time he was at 2 under after 36 holes and only one shot out of the lead. “Maybe some junior event,” he said. “It’s good, though. These are the toughest test in golf. Generally, one of the best players prevail at the end of weeks like this. Weeks like this challenge you to the ultimate level. Whether you shoot two 80s or you lead after two rounds, you can see what you need to do and see where your game is. Because this is as hard as it’s ever going to get for you.” The difficulty was primarily from the wind, which blew just as hard in the morning when List shot his 66 as it did in the afternoon. More aggravating to the players are the greens, which are old and bare, firm and crusty. It’s a recipe for not making many putts. Defending champion Rickie Fowler had six bogeys on his front nine and shot 77 to miss the cut. “It’s unfortunate that the greens have changed this much in a year,” Fowler said. “They typically get slick and quick on the weekend because they dry out, but at least there’s some sort of surface. But like I said, everyone’s playing the same greens.” It looked as though List was playing a different course when he went out with a bogey-free 32 on the back nine, added a pair of birdies on the front nine and then dropped his only shot when he caught an awkward lie in the bunker on the par-3 seventh. “It’s very relentless,” List said. “There’s not really too many easy holes, but if you hit fairways and go from there, you can make a few birdies out there.” List and Lovemark, both Californians, have never won on the PGA TOUR. This is the third time List has had at least a share of the 36- hole lead, most recently in South Korea at the CJ Cup, where he shot 76-72 on the weekend. “It’s kind of irrelevant because there’s going to be 30 guys within a couple shots of the lead,” List said. “It’s going to be that type of week.” He was exaggerating — there were 11 players within three shots of the lead. And there was another guy four shots behind. Woods brought big energy to a Friday afternoon that already was hopping before he overcame a sluggish start and holed a 25-foot birdie putt on No. 9 to make the turn at 1 under for his round, and leaving him two shots out of the lead. Everyone knew it just from listening to the roars. Woods had his chances, twice missing birdie putts from inside 10 feet at Nos. 10 and 12, sandwiched around a 12-foot par save. His round appeared to come undone when he found the water on the 15th and made double bogey for the second straight day. Then, he hit out of a fairway bunker, over the water and onto the green at the dangerous 16th hole and faced a 65-foot putt. He misread the speed and the line, so badly that it was similar to a car driving from Chicago to Denver and winding up in Phoenix. A bogey dropped him to 2 over. The big moment was the 17th hole, 184 yards into the wind and over water. That’s where Rory McIlroy made triple bogey earlier in the day that ruined his otherwise solid round of 72, leaving him seven behind. Making it even tougher for Woods was that Brandt Snedeker hit 5-iron before him to about 6 feet. Woods got to the tee and the wind died, meaning 5-iron was too much and 6-iron wouldn’t clear the water. He went with the 5-iron. “I started that thing pretty far left and hit a pretty big cut in there because I had just too much stick,” Wood said. It landed 12 feet below the hole for a birdie putt. Thomas made 17 pars and a double bogey when he three-putted from 6 feet on No. 16. He felt the same way as Woods. “I’m in a good spot — really good spot — going into this week,” Thomas said.

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SOUTHAMPTON, Bermuda – Here was the lead in a wire services story 53 years ago: “Postman Eardley Jones in Warwick, Parish, Bermuda, is a father, a golfer – and more recently, a hero.” The story detailed how Jones jumped out of his mailman’s outfit and dove into rough water on Bermuda’s south shore to save a drowning man. After medics took the man to the hospital, the story goes that Jones nonchalantly slipped back into his work clothes and continued on with his route. “I have a picture somewhere, of my father that day standing in his skivvies,” says Nick Jones, the youngest of Eardley’s six children. It is that segment of the slideshow memory that makes him laugh. The next slide, however, brings a somber, yet respectful reflection. “I’ve met the man (my father) saved,” Nick says. “He’s still alive. It’s that connection that helps me remember my dad fondly. I miss him every day. He believed in me and was the driving force behind me. “There was no shaking his faith in me.” When Eardley Jones died at 73 in 2012, he was praised as “the Arthur Ashe of Bermuda golf,” a Black man who helped end segregation policies on this island. Until 1967, Black golfers could only play Ocean View, but Eardley Jones helped break down that barrier and open the door for Frankie Rabaid, Llewelyn Tucker, Keith Pearman, and so many others. Including, of course, Nick Jones, now 33 and beaming with pride as he prepares to play in this week’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship at Port Royal Golf Course. He earned one of three spots in a local qualifier (fellow Bermudians Michael Sims and Jarryd Dillas also got in) and embraces the opportunity before him. “I love that I’m here,” he says. “I love the chance to show what I’ve got.” What Nick Jones has is a story that is equal parts adventure, passion, and pride, with golf being the common denominator. The game took him from Bermuda to high school in Florida. He turned pro at a young age and showed immediate promise with victory in the 2011 Daytona Beach Open, then flew to England to chase minitours while living with extended family. “I can’t be in the United States for three months at a time because of visa (restrictions),” Jones, who has a British passport, says by way of explaining his allegiance to competitive golf in the U.K. By now it’s likely you have heard of those who were stranded somewhere during the beginnings of the COVID pandemic. But Jones can likely top them all. “I was stuck in Palau for almost two years,” he says. Palau is in the Western Pacific, part of an archipelago of hundreds of islands in the Micronesia region. Indonesia is to the south, the Philippines to the north, but Jones, whose wife’s job had moved them to Palau in late 2019, couldn’t leave once the lock-down began in the spring of 2020. “There was a range with a big net where I could hit balls, but during lock-down they down took the net,” Jones says, laughing at the memory. “I could chip and putt, but that’s it. I didn’t touch my clubs for more than a year. I just did a lot of diving and a lot of fishing.” When the lock-down was lifted in the fall of 2021, Jones followed his heart. “Bermuda is home,” he says, “and it’s the golf community here that I love.” Beyond rusty, Jones didn’t get through the local qualifier for the Butterfield Bermuda Championship in ’21. But he was so determined to be a part of the tournament that he caddied for a competitor in a Monday qualifier, then stuck around Port Royal to wash dishes at night and even tend bar. The sense of adventure still burns for Jones, who placed fourth in the Trinidad and Tobago Open in the spring and is signed on for the upcoming Jamaica Open. But his time back in Bermuda has returned him to his roots. It’s where he learned the game, and where his father’s legacy still is rich. “My ideal goal is to spend six-to-eight months here,” he says, “teaching kids and rebuilding and developing the junior program, which my father started years ago. Then spend a few months traveling to play in golf tournaments.” He has a soft spot for Spain, has family in the U.K., and says, not surprisingly, “I love all the islands.” His father and other Black golfers from Bermuda were trailblazers who overcame long odds. Rabaid played in the 1971 Open Championship. Eardley played in the Canadian Amateur and once brought Nick, then a young teenager, to caddie for him in the British Senior Open. “My father didn’t have much money, but he had a big heart,” says Nick, whose father played at an elite level while juggling two jobs, as a mailman and a maître d’ at that onetime bustling hot spot in Hamilton called Forty Thieves. On top of that, Eardley Jones led the fight against segregation. “He had to fight for his sport,” Nick adds. That battle won, Eardley Jones then brought kids, Nick Jones prominent among them, into his junior program right here at Port Royal. “He didn’t force me to play, but he made sure I wanted to play,” Jones says. “He gave me the freedom to fall in love with the game.” Mission accomplished, Eardley. Mission accomplished.

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