Koepka builds seven-shot lead at PGA Championship

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Five things you may have missed amid the history-making excitement of Tiger Woods’ fifth Masters Tournament, 15th major, and 81st PGA TOUR victory. 1. The Masters juju was in full effect. When Woods won his historic first Masters title, in 1997, he played alongside Costantino Rocca in the final round. Rocca was arguably golf’s most prominent Italian touring professional until—Francesco Molinari, with whom Woods played in winning his fifth Masters on Sunday. While that was probably just a coincidence, nowhere is the Masters juju in greater effect than at the 12th hole, and once again there were strange, spooky happenings there. How could not one but four players in the last two threesomes find Rae’s Creek at the shortest par 3 on the course? Answer: the famous swirling winds at pretty-but-deadly Golden Bell.  “I played exactly how I wanted to play,â€� said Brooks Koepka, one of those who found the creek and double-bogeyed the hole on the way to a final-round 70 to finish 12 under, a shot back and in a three-way tie for second. “Didn’t really miss too many shots. Even the one on 12, I hit it exactly where I wanted to and the wind can kind of make you look stupid on that hole.â€� After ranking no harder than the 10th most difficult hole the first three days, the 12th was the hardest hole Sunday, with nine double bogeys and a 3.385 stroke average. 2. Woods hit the big shots in the clutch, but he got away with some. We can debate about whether or not this was the greatest comeback in sports history, but not whether, as usual, the win required a little luck. Because while Woods managed his game better than anyone and hit several terrific shots, he admitted he got away with some clunkers. “The tee shot at 11 was awful,â€� he said. He was talking about Sunday, but could have just as easily been talking about Saturday. Both times, though, he was far enough right to get lucky and be afforded a clear shot at the green—albeit a frighteningly narrow gap in the trees in the final round. (You couldn’t have drawn it any better with the ShotTracer.) Also, Woods got away with a left miss off the tee at the par-5 13th hole Saturday, his ball kicking out of the trees and into a playable spot in the grass. Golf is about not just great shots but also managing your misses, and with a little luck, Woods did that. Like many others, he never really figured out how to play the newly-lengthened, par-4 fifth hole, making bogey each day, but cited his 22 Masters starts as helping him get across the finish line. “It helps to be experienced,â€� he said, speaking of the devilish 12th hole, where everything changed. “That’s all I was concentrating on. Don’t be fooled. The other guys ended up short.â€� 3. It was age before beauty, but the kids are alright. Woods joked about the stress of trying to win causing his hair loss, but the reality is he was hardly the first person with male pattern baldness to slip on the green jacket. He was the second oldest Masters champion after Jack Nicklaus (46 in ’86) and the seventh player in his 40s to win. The others: Ben Crenshaw (43 in ’95), Gary Player (42 in ’78), Sam Snead (41 in ’54), Mark O’Meara (41 in ’98), and Ben Hogan (40 in ’53). What’s more, Woods broke the record of years between Masters victories (14, ’05-2019), previously held by Player (’61-’74). Bernhard Langer, 61, made the cut. Still, the kids and newcomers acquitted themselves well. Four amateurs made the cut, led by Oklahoma State’s Victor Hovland, who shot 72-71-71-71 to finish T32 and win low amateur. Meanwhile, newcomer Justin Harding of South Africa, a relatively unknown Presidents Cup hopeful, birdied the last hole to tie for 12th, which means he gets to come back next year. And while Xander Schauffele (68, T2) didn’t succeed in becoming the fifth straight first-time major winner at Augusta (Patrick Reed, Sergio Garcia, Danny Willett, Jordan Spieth), he led the field with 25 birdies and looks like a big-game hunter. Of course, we already knew that about Koepka, who has three victories and a T2 in his last eight majors. He also has made 19 consecutive cuts in the majors after missing his first two, at the 2012 U.S. Open and 2013 Open Championship. This marked his second T2 of this season (The Honda Classic), which he began by winning THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES.    4. Bryson’s ace was nearly a bookend, and he called it. In the course of shooting an opening-round 66, Bryson DeChambeau (70, T29) came within inches of making a hole-in-one on 16. He spoke afterward of never having made an ace. His disappointment lasted all of three days, though, because DeChambeau made one of two aces at 16 on Sunday, the other authored by Justin Thomas. “I knew back three years ago,â€� DeChambeau said after the final round, which he began with double-bogeys on 10 and 11. “I said to my caddie and to everyone in my camp, it was like, ‘I’m going to make a hole-in-one here one day, and sure enough it was my first one three years later.â€� 5. McIlroy and Spieth saw silver linings at T21 Jordan Spieth shot a front-nine 40 and an opening-round 75, but rallied with scores of 68-69-71. Not particularly memorable for a guy who won the tournament in 2015 and was in the mix to do the same in ’16 (T2) and ’18 (solo third), but Spieth is trying to crawl out of a long slump. “Positives,â€� he said, when asked what he took from the week. “I’m proud of kind of the progress I made, sticking to kind of the process,â€� he continued. “And I felt like I got to a position today that’s felt better than it’s been, tee to green, and even on the greens, in quite a while. So I’m just going to stick with it and hopefully get off to a little better start (at the RBC Heritage) next week, keep the consistency and have a chance to win.â€� Meanwhile, McIlroy, who won THE PLAYERS Championship last month and was going for the career Grand Slam at Augusta National, said he wasn’t far off but faulted his play on the par 4s. “And that’s just putting myself out of position off the tee,â€� he said after going 7 over on the par-4 holes for the week. “And then once you get yourself out of position it’s very hard to put yourself back in position. You miss greens, trying to get it up and down, you put pressure on yourself.  “So my driving accuracy wasn’t quite as good this week as it has been the last few weeks,â€� he added. “And that was probably the main reason why I didn’t contend this week.â€�

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Jason Day ground through a rainy day to shoot a 3-under 67 for a 3-shot lead heading into the weekend at the Wells Fargo Championship.

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SAN DIEGO – Earlier this week, Justin Gilbert took his first airplane ride, which was a tad bit scary at first but ended up being tons of fun for the rambunctious 6-year-old. He got up-close-and-personal with sea lions, too. But what he really wanted to do was see his buddy, Rickie Fowler, who had made a surprise visit to Justin’s Houston home last year to help his parents rebuild after Hurricane Harvey. And on Tuesday at Torrey Pines, Fowler rolled out the red carpet for his young friend at the Farmers Insurance Open. Fowler, who is a Farmers ambassador, first met Justin and his parents, Daniel and Yessica, last March. He was part of a team from the global insurance company and SBP Americorps deployed that day to help with the on-going project to resurrect the Gilbert’s home from damage caused by floodwaters when Harvey hit. Not only did he pick up a paintbrush and get to work that day, Fowler came equipped with golf clubs to give Justin, who got an impromptu lesson from the golfer ranked No. 11 in the world outside the house. And he gained a lifelong fan in the process. “He’s my favorite character,â€� Justin says simply. His parents agree, although they had never heard of  Fowler before that encounter at their home. “With the way he was and the way he approached us, we definitely looked into him and how he really does help,â€� Yessica says. “He’s really big with kids and that’s lovely about him.â€� “It really gave us hope back in how he humbled down to come and help us,â€� says Daniel, who has played golf once in his life. “Ever since then, you can see my son, Justin, he enjoys it. “That one day of support that he showed us, he’s got fans for life.â€� Fowler and Farmers decided to bring the Gilberts to San Diego for a reunion. He was given his own locker near Fowler’s that was full of Puma gear and also got a behind-the-scenes tour of Cobra truck. He was among about 50 kids at the youth clinic Tuesday afternoon where he met Ben Crane, Billy Horschel and Brayden Thornberry. “I was doing golf with Rickie,â€� the breathless 6-year-old says. Wednesday saw Justin inside the ropes with Fowler during the pro-am. And he’ll undoubtedly be in his gallery the rest of the week. “It’s great to reconnect here,â€� Fowler says after signing every hat and towel thrust his way when the clinic was over. “I’ve had contact with Daniel off and on since when I spent time with them at their house and they’ve been super appreciative of us going over there. We were only there for half a day or so, but we were just going over there to show that we cared and wanted to help out.â€� Like many Houstonians, the Gilberts certainly needed that help after the destructive Category 4 storm dumped more than 3 feet of water over parts of Texas in four days, a year’s worth of rain in Houston alone. Daniel, Yessica and Justin were out to dinner when the rains began. Instead of going home during the onslaught, they headed to Daniel’s mother’s home. It would be days before they could return to their house to survey the damage. “You still needed like a jet ski to go into the neighborhood,â€� Yessica recalls. “The current was real bad,â€� Daniel says. “The streets looked like rivers. The freeways looked like boat ramps. I’ll never forget it.â€� Their home, which the Gilberts had bought six years ago shortly after they got married, was flooded. It smelled, too. Their furniture was soaked and had to be thrown out. But the full extent of the damage wasn’t evident until the soggy drywall and sheetrock was torn down. The electrical wiring needed to be replaced, and there was extensive termite damage and mold inside the walls. “If we wouldn’t have seen (the mold) how long would that have been there,â€� Daniel wonders aloud. “It would have slowly creeped without us knowing it. We would have just been breathing it in. The mold hides. It was an eye-opening.â€� The biggest concern, though, was Justin, who has a congenital heart defect and had already undergone four surgeries. Yessica says there was a 50-50 chance of a fifth on the horizon and having a safe home was definitely a priority. “You can’t tell from his energy, from his past,â€� Daniel says of his cousin and adoptive son. “But he’s a strong little kid.â€� “It was big for us because … we were committed to Justin and giving him a better life and a better environment because of his heart condition,â€� Yessica says. “We adopted him and with that environment not safe, we felt, not that we’d failed but it was more like, okay, now you have to work twice as hard because this is for him and this is what he needs to be in for a better environment.â€� Fortunately, that summer the couple found out that Justin wouldn’t need another operation. The family, who was living with Daniel’s mother, turned its attention to trying to figure out how to make the repairs necessary to return home. Daniel saw on social media that the JJ Watt Foundation had given $8 million to SBP Americorps to help families like his, who had no flood insurance. So, he made the call and volunteers from SBP and Farmers responded, working on his home for two months to get it livable again. The workers came from all over the country; in fact, all over the world – Puerto Rico, Australia, even China. College students. Families. Businessmen. Just people called to help. “It meant a lot,â€� Daniel says. Daniel, who was there working every day as well, says the couple even has a map with pins noting where the volunteers came from – “places we didn’t even know the name of,â€� he says. They have been safely in their home since last May, and couldn’t be more appreciative of the help they received. “It was just so much pressure lifted,â€� Daniel says. “How can I say, just something real heavy, it just felt like a relief. A real big relief. Where, I guess, you’re able to breathe better. You’re happy. “It just took a big load off of us. It’s unexplainable.â€�

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