Keegan Bradley still confident game is trending up after squandering lead at Valspar Championship

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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ATLANTA – FedExCup leader Scottie Scheffler will begin Thursday’s opening round of the TOUR Championship with a two-stroke lead over defending champion Patrick Cantlay, who’s coming off a win in last week’s BMW Championship. It’s good to be No. 1 under the unique Starting Strokes format, even though a two-shot lead can disappear in one hole. Xander Schauffele, a three-time winner this season, will start 6 under, four back of Scheffler. Sam Burns, also a three-time winner this season, will begin at 5 under. One of those four will most likely be your next FedExCup champion, but anyone can win, all the way down to No. 29 Aaron Wise, who will start at even, 10 back. Here are Five Things to know before play gets underway at the TOUR Championship. 1. History hangs in the balance Scheffler didn’t have a single PGA TOUR win at the outset of this year. Now he’s got four and is looking to put a bow on a season that’s already been special. With a win this week, he’d be the first player to win the FedExCup with a five-win season since Justin Thomas five years ago. The complicating factors, though, are many. “Yeah, it’s definitely a bit different,” Scheffler said. “I think what’s going to probably work best for me is to look at it like a four-day event and really ignore the Starting Strokes deal and kind of go out there and do my thing and see where it puts me at the end of four days.” Hot on his heels will be Cantlay, 30, who knows what it takes to capture the FedExCup. As the top seed, he went into the TOUR Championship with a two-shot lead over Jon Rahm last year, held that lead all week, and edged Rahm by one to win golf’s ultimate prize. No player, not even Tiger Woods, has successfully defended his FedExCup title. Cantlay chalked that up to bad luck and injuries, and said he feels no special motivation to go back-to-back. That said, he added, “Two is a lot better than just one.” 2. Rory McIlroy could one-up Tiger Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy announced “a new tech-infused golf league” Wednesday, which promises a Monday-night team-golf concept set to begin play in prime time in 2024. No player, not even Woods, has won the FedExCup three times, but his new business partner could get it done this week. McIlroy, who has a lot of good vibes at East Lake, will start the tournament at 4 under par, six behind, but history suggests that might not be too far back. He was five off the lead through 36 holes and won the 2016 TOUR Championship, and (with Starting Strokes) began the tournament five behind when he won it again in 2019. He was nine behind through 36 holes when he won THE CJ CUP @ SUMMIT last fall. “I’ve had chances the majority of the times I’ve been here to win the FedExCup,” said McIlroy, who birdied the last three holes to finish T8 at the BMW Championship last weekend. “… I felt like I got my golf game together a little bit better in Wilmington last week and played OK. I need to make a few more putts this week to have a chance.” A victory this week would put a cherry on top of a remarkably consistent season, as McIlroy has finished in the top 10 in nine of 15 starts, including all four majors. 3. The top four are teams of rivals Top-seeded Scheffler regularly rents houses with fourth-seeded Sam Burns. Together they account for seven victories this season, and wound up in a playoff, won by Burns, to decide the Charles Schwab Challenge. They will most likely make up one of the pairings for U.S. Presidents Cup Captain Davis Love III at Quail Hollow next month. Second-seeded Cantlay, meanwhile, is besties with third-seeded Xander Schauffele. They combined to win the two-man Zurich Classic of New Orleans this season, with Schauffele also collecting wins at the Travelers Championship and Genesis Scottish Open. Cantlay hadn’t won an individual tournament this season until last week’s BMW. They have already formed a successful duo in the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup, and it was their debut in the 2019 Presidents Cup that strengthened their bond. Schauffele could have helped his friend by making a birdie putt from 7 1/2 feet on the last hole of the BMW. It would have left him alone in third place at 12 under, with Scheffler in solo fourth, one shot behind him. Cantlay would have (barely) become FedExCup No. 1 and taken the two-shot lead entering the TOUR Championship. As it was, Schauffele missed and he and Scheffler tied for third, and the subtle difference gave the Masters champ enough FedExCup points to nudge him past Cantlay heading into East Lake. “A lawyer,” Schauffele said when asked what Cantlay might be good at besides golf. “He’s really good at putting his thought into words, thinking to finality, and he’s very linear.” Thanks to Schauffele’s miss at the BMW, Cantlay will have to make his case for the FedExCup from two behind. 4. Will Zalatoris’ injury changed things It’s been an action-packed last month for Will Zalatoris, who made a caddie change, won the FedEx St. Jude Championship for his first PGA TOUR victory and suffered a back injury. He has two herniated discs and withdrew from the TOUR Championship after missing the BMW. The Zalatoris WD means that only two players are fewer than five back, which may or may not comfort frontrunner Scheffler. It means that the field is now only 29 players who will be sent off as 14 twosomes and a single each day. It also has Presidents Cup implications. At seventh in the Presidents Cup points standings, Zalatoris was all but a lock to be one of the six picks allotted U.S. Captain Davis Love III. It was widely assumed that Love would just pick Nos. 7-12, but now he has a decision to make that could impact anyone from No. 13 Tom Hoge to No. 30 Sahith Theegala, one of two rookies in the field at the TOUR Championship. “I think that there’s so much depth right now,” PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan said Wednesday. “You look at both teams, … I think both captains and both teams recognize that there’s a next-man-up philosophy. They’re prepared for that.” 5. Making the TOUR Championship just got even bigger Players have always made it a goal to reach the TOUR Championship. It sets up the following season, since by making it to East Lake they also punch their tickets to many of the game’s biggest events, including multiple majors. It was announced this week that, effective immediately, players who made it to the TOUR Championship will also get to play in the Sentry Tournament of Champions – historically a winners-only event – and also will receive a two-year exemption on the PGA TOUR, through 2024. The new rule will affect eight players at East Lake this week: Theegala, Cameron Young, Aaron Wise, Brian Harman, Scott Stallings, Adam Scott, Corey Conners, and Collin Morikawa. All can now book tickets to Maui. “It’s cool,” said FedExCup No. 29 Wise, who will go off as a single Thursday. “It kind of makes it feel like, even though you didn’t win, you got a win this season with the two-year exemption and trip to Maui.”

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