Live blog: Tiger Woods Rd. 1 at The Honda Classic

Round 2 of the RBC Canadian Open takes place Friday from St. George’s Golf and Country Club. Wyndham Clark leads by one at 7-under over Matt Fitzpatrick. Here’s everything you need to know to follow the action, including Featured Groups for PGA TOUR LIVE and newly expanded and extended coverage on ESPN+. Click here for more details. Leaderboard Full tee times HOW TO FOLLOW Television: Thursday-Friday, 3 p.m.-6 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). Saturday-Sunday, 1 p.m.-3 p.m. (Golf Channel), 3 p.m.-6 p.m. (CBS) Radio: Thursday-Friday, 12 p.m.–6 p.m. ET. Saturday-Sunday, 1 p.m.-6 p.m. (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com/liveaudio) For outside of the U.S., click here for GOLFTV powered by the PGA TOUR PGA TOUR LIVE PGA TOUR Live is available exclusively on ESPN+ • Main Feed: primary tournament-coverage featuring the best action from across the course • Marquee Group: new “marquee group” showcasing every shot from each player in the group • Featured Groups: traditional PGA TOUR LIVE coverage of two concurrent featured groups • Featured Holes: a combination of par-3s and iconic or pivotal holes FEATURED GROUPS FRIDAY Marquee Group 7:13 a.m. ET: Scottie Scheffler, Sam Burns, Cameron Smith Featured Groups 7:24 a.m. ET: Tyrrell Hatton, Justin Rose, Harold Varner III 7:35 a.m. ET: Cameron Champ, Parker McLachlin, Sebastian Munoz Featured Holes: No. 3 (par 3), No. 6 (par 3), No. 13 (par 3), No. 16 (par 3) MUST READS Wyndham Clark holds one-shot lead at RBC Canadian Open Mackenzie Hughes aims to break Canadian drought at RBC Canadian Open Five Things to Know: St. George’s Golf and Country Club Best Canadian golfers ever

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The 15th edition of the FedExCup Playoffs to conclude the PGA TOUR season has arrived. There will be math and there will be a test, three of them in fact, but it’s all to determine who is crowned the 2021 FedExCup champion. The format is exactly how it was introduced in 2019 but the last four years have taught a lot in terms of projecting who advances to the TOUR Championship. This annual Power Rankings for the FedExCup Playoffs examines the structure, the recent history and this year’s set of host courses. A projected ranking of 30 to reach the finale gets you started. POWER RANKINGS: FEDEXCUP PLAYOFFS It always seems that just when we’re settling into the latest format of the FedExCup Playoffs, it changes. Sometimes it’s because of the reduction to three tournaments. That’s what happened in 2019. Other times, unfortunately, a pandemic influences the points distribution. Of course, that was last year’s experience when points were merely tripled due to playing time lost midseason. However, a recommitment has been made to quadruple FedExCup points for the first two tournaments of 2021. Last year’s adjustment didn’t alter the course of history, however; that is, in time, it won’t appear as an anomaly. Since the current points structure was implemented in 2017, all top-19 opening seeds advanced two tournaments. In 2017 and 2018, and when points were quadrupled, that meant to the third leg of what was a four-event series. Since 2019, it’s meant a trip to the TOUR Championship. This is why all of this year’s top-19 opening seeds are found in the ranking of 30 above. Baked into that is an acceptance that every FedExCup ranking is different no matter the seeds because points totaled in the Regular Season carry forward into the first two events of the Playoffs. Only THE NORTHERN TRUST that opens the Playoffs will have a 36-hole cut of low 65 and ties. There is no cut in the last two tournaments. And because the opening field of 125 (actually 124 because 8-seed Louis Oosthuizen is resting a sore neck) will be whittled to 70 for the BMW Championship, the series opener is the most volatile. When this slice of 55 debuted in 2019, four seeds outside the opening top 70 advanced. The worst finish among them was recorded by 74-seed Joaquin Niemann, who finished T30 at THE NORTHERN TRUST at Liberty National, also the cite of this year’s edition of the same tournament. Last year, six from outside the top 70 survived, but it took no worse than a T13 (by three golfers) to do it. In fact, 111-seed Charley Hoffman also placed T13, but he rose to just 77th, thus submitting the best finish in the series opener that didn’t propel him forward. Monday’s Power Rankings for THE NORTHERN TRUST presents the usual breakdown of the host course among other information, and there will be stand-alone Power Rankings for the last two tournaments, but no matter who advances to the BMW, he will be competing as a professional for the first time at Caves Valley Golf Club in Owings Mills, Maryland, so there is no recent history on which to rely. It’ll truly be a neutral field. Caves Valley has hosted a number of marquee events, including the 2002 U.S. Senior Open, the 2005 NCAA Division I Men’s Championship, the 2007 Palmer Cup and the 2017 Bridgestone Senior PLAYERS Championship. The Tom Fazio design will be set up for the BMW as a stock par 72 capable of stretching to 7,542 yards. Like it’s relatively near partner in these Playoffs, Liberty National, Caves Valley also boasts bentgrass greens. The top 30 in the FedExCup standings at the conclusion of the BMW Championship will advance to the TOUR Championship at East Lake in Atlanta. It will challenge familiarly as a par 70 at 7,346 yards with bermuda greens. In 2019, seven golfers who opened the Playoffs outside the top 30 advanced to East Lake. Last year, only two converted. The lowest seed in either edition to survive was Abraham Ancer. As the 67-seed in 2019, he was the runner-up at Liberty National and climbed to eighth for the BMW. By merely reaching the Playoffs finale, the golfers are set with traditional exemptions into the 2022 editions of the Masters, the U.S. Open and The Open Championship among many other invitations if not already equipped. Seeding upon arrival will determine all Starting Strokes, which doubles as the leaderboard position at the beginning of play. The top seed opens at 10-under, the 2-seed at 8-under, and so on. To be clear, the winner of the TOUR Championship will possess the lowest score in relation to par combined with his Starting Strokes. For example, if the top seed, who opens at 10-under, scores 10-under 270 for 72 holes, his total score will be 20-under. Meanwhile, if the 5-seed, who opens at 5-under, scores 14-under 266 for 72 holes, his total score will be 19-under. Last year, although Dustin Johnson opened as the top seed at 10-under, his 72-hole score of 11-under 269 was good for just T3 overall in aggregate scoring, but he prevailed by three strokes in combined scoring because of the opening advantage. The FedExCup champion is credited with official victory, but neither FedExCup points nor official earnings apply to the TOUR Championship. Only the leaderboard with the influence of Starting Strokes and bonus prize money will be applied. The winner at East Lake also secures a five-year TOUR membership exemption (through 2025-26). In the history of the FedExCup, six golfers have won a Playoffs event as the top seed entering the tournament they won. Dustin Johnson was the most recent when he prevailed at the 2020 TOUR Championship. The Playoffs also have been a haven for momentum and piling up victories. On 10 occasions, including twice in 2008, a golfer has won exactly two Playoffs events, including consecutively six times. Rory McIlroy has done it twice (2012, 2016), but he’s one (2012) of four who didn’t win the FedExCup in the series in which he recorded multiple victories. His second of two FedExCup titles occurred in 2019 when Starting Strokes was introduced. Of course, there also are the tough-luck experiences. In 2019, Kevin Tway opened as the 41-seed and posted respective results of T24 and T11, yet finished 31st in the FedExCup. Last year, Brian Harman (69-seed) went T11-T12 to place 37th, Jason Kokrak (90th) went T13-T6 to finish 42nd, and Russell Henley (101st) went T8-T25 to settle at 56th. However, just making it to the Playoffs means that a PGA TOUR member has had a successful season. It also means that his job is secure for the next. ROB BOLTON’S SCHEDULE PGATOUR.COM’s Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton recaps and previews every tournament from numerous angles. Look for his following contributions as scheduled. MONDAY: Power Rankings (THE NORTHERN TRUST) TUESDAY*: Power Rankings (FedExCup Playoffs); Sleepers; Fantasy Insider SUNDAY: Qualifiers, Reshuffle, Rookie Watch * – Rob is a member of the panel for PGATOUR.COM’s Expert Picks for PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf, which also publishes on Tuesday.

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Stranded in his vast and barren surroundings, the pilot told his young traveling companion, a prince, of his love of the desert. “One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing,� he said. “Yet, through the silence something throbs and gleams.� Clearly, the iconic French author Antoine de Saint-Expuery, writing in his classic novella “The Little Prince,� had a more romantic notion of the desert than did Gary McCord, whose view of the arid Arizona landscape in 1983 left him admittedly less inspired. “I mean, I stood there near a burn, looking out at the only thing I could see, Scottsdale airport, and there was nothing. No matter where I looked, nothing but tumbleweeds,� McCord recalled. He thus returned to PGA TOUR executives who had dispatched him on this scouting mission of their new purchase with this: “You guys are nuts.� Nearly 35 years later, McCord can laugh. “Thankfully, I wasn’t the futuristic leader the TOUR was looking for.� That’s because PGA TOUR officials respectfully brushed aside that blunt assessment by McCord, then a member of the Player Advisory Council. The massive chunk of property in the Scottsdale, Arizona, desert would go forth as the future site of TPC Scottsdale and the annual Phoenix Open. Deane Beman – then the PGA TOUR commissioner with impeccable visionary skills – was convinced there was great promise in this desolate land. In all due respect, Beman did not imagine what TPC Scottsdale has become during the week of the Waste Management Phoenix Open – a veritable magnet for hundreds of thousands of fun-loving people and a multi-million-dollar provider to local charities. Nor did the golf course architects, Tom Weiskopf and the late Jay Moorish, draw up the par-3 16th as it currently presents itself – a hole enclosed by grandstands where fans generate the sort of madness and frivolity that is part college football, part comedy central and part rock concert. “The only credit I can give myself,� Weiskopf said, “is where I located the hole.� So, to whom do we offer thanks for all this entertainment, commotion and uncanny craziness? How about a civic-minded group formed more than 80 years ago – the Thunderbirds. Their care of the Phoenix Open, which dates to 1932, is unequivocal and like the pilot in “The Little Prince,� the desert doesn’t unsettle them. They also feel “the throbs and gleams.� Before it became “the greatest show on grass� and before Padraig Harrington kicked footballs into the crowd and James Hahn brought down the house by dancing Gangnam-style and before Tiger Woods ignited a 5.5 on the Richter scale with his 1997 hole-in-one and McCord’s robot – named “Eldrick� – aced the 16th during the pro-am 19 years later and before the hillside gathering spot gave way to some grandstands that morphed into a dozen or so corporate boxes that transformed into a one-hole stadium enclosed by three stories and 278 suites . . . there was Clarence Rose and total serenity. “I’m guessing there were less than 50 people watching – and that’s including the volunteers,� said Rose, who was the first to play the 16th in competition when the Phoenix Open debuted at TPC Scottsdale. It was the morning of Jan. 22, 1987, “and it was chilly – and quiet,� he said. Then in the sixth year of a PGA TOUR career that stretched from 1982 to 1999, Rose was paired with Johnny Miller and Lon Hinkle and had the honors at 16. All three made par at the 162-yarder and Rose assumes they all hit the green, though it doesn’t matter; there wasn’t any booing back then for missing the green, something that’s a huge part of the levity that envelopes 16 now. Forgettable. That’s pretty much how Rose and others describe the 16th, which was squeezed between a par-5 15th that players loved and a tough but exciting risk-reward par-4 17th. “It was just desert with a few fans,� longtime caddie Jim “Bones� Mackay said. “At 16, you’d have to look through a cloud of dust to find the pin if the wind was left-to-right.� In those early years, there was another view from the 16th tee – if you looked back. “There was a (TGI) Friday’s behind the tee,� said Mark Calcavecchia, who in 1987 made the first of 27 starts at a tournament that was arguably his favorite. “That’s where everybody got their drinks. It was a happening spot, fans got a little rowdy, they’d even boo – but it wasn’t like it is today.� What fans gravitated to at the 16th was a hillside area behind the green, the sort of manufactured viewing spot that Weiskopf and Moorish were instructed to build all over TPC Scottsdale. “Beman’s concept was to eliminate the need to build bleachers,� Weiskopf said. “He said to (give people) mounding to watch from.� Working with land that “was flatter than a pancake,� Weiskopf and Moorish moved tons of desert and gave Beman his “stadium golf course,� with a plethora of great viewing areas. But when it came to the 16th, Weiskopf said the only consideration was “I needed a second par 3 on the back, I wanted it going in an easterly direction, and I intended it to be the shortest of the four par 3s.� He settled on what it still is – a 162-yard shot with four bunkers guarding the green – and while TPC Scottsdale is a very good golf course and holes 15, 17 and 18 provide for a thrilling finishing stretch, no one would ever nominate the 16th as one of golf’s greatest par 3s. And yet, here it is, arguably golf’s wildest and most unique hole. “All it needs is Cirque du Soleil to enclose it and you’d have a Las Vegas act,� McCord said. “I never was consulted, I had no input,� laughed Weiskopf. “It was not my idea to build a stadium around the hole so 15,000 people could make noise.� The 1973 Open champion played in just four Phoenix Opens (1987-89, 1992) before his playing days ended. He didn’t make a cut on his design but played the par-3 16th in 1-under, two birdies against one bogey and five pars. Of course, those appearances came before the grandstands went up three stories and the noise level went even higher, which prompted the question: Known for his competitive fire, would a 1970s Tom Weiskopf have liked today’s 16th hole environment? “I would have tried it one time, but probably not again,� he said, laughing. Ah, but a 75-year-old Weiskopf is mellower and more accepting. He’s quite OK with it and thinks today’s players are, too. “Who benefits? Fans, the (Phoenix, Scottsdale) area, players. There are so many positives,� said Weiskopf. “You have to give credit where credit is due. (The Thunderbirds’) job is to give to charity, and they do.� In other words, Weiskopf only built the hole. The Thunderbirds built the phenomenon. Golf is a game of numbers, right? So here they are for the 16th hole at TPC Scottsdale during Waste Management Phoenix Open week: The enclosed stadium goes three stories high in some sections, features 278 suites and 3,700 general-admission seats, all of which accounts for 16,000 fans just at that one hole. How the 16th contributes mightily to a bigger picture is eye-opening stuff – last year, 200,000 fans attended on Saturday alone, more than 600,000 for the week, and $10.1 million was given to charity. “We’re the fourth largest city in Arizona for that day (Saturday, when crowds reach 200,000),� said Jim Frazier, chairman of the 1983 Phoenix Open and longtime executive director of the Thunderbirds. Digest and savor the numbers for a moment. Even long-time members of the Thunderbirds do, with humility. “I don’t think if you asked our members you’d find many who would say, ‘Yeah, I knew it would turn into this,’ � said John Lewis, Thunderbird chairman of the 1995 tournament. “But we’ve discovered the ‘Power of 16.’ � It was a process that did not come without hiccups, a few bumps, and most definitely a sense of dare. After all, from its debut in 1932, the Phoenix Open was a staple at Phoenix Country Club in the downtown area, but if the Thunderbirds wanted to remain caretaker of the event, they needed to go along with Beman’s plan to move to TPC Scottsdale. “We were naked on that deal,� said Frazier. “We didn’t have a sponsor. We put family money into the deal.� Truth is, “we were very comfortable at Phoenix CC.� Michael Kennedy, who served as chairman of the 1994 tournament, reminds people “this move wasn’t done without risk.� Frazier, Lewis, Kennedy and the rest of the Thunderbirds likely would have agreed with McCord, who returned from his scouting mission to see tumbleweeds and told PGA TOUR officials: “How in the world are you going to leave downtown Phoenix where we get 25,000 people a day, everyone’s having a ball, and come out (to Scottsdale)? No one will show up.� But Beman’s vision wasn’t foolhardy; fans did come out, perhaps not in droves right away, though enough to give the Thunderbirds hope. Lewis said Calcavecchia has great recall; there was a TGIF tent behind 16 tee and “fans were drinking way more Long Island Iced Teas than they should have.� It got the Thunderbirds thinking. You know, throbs and gleams. “Around 1992, a couple of us looked at 16 and talked about the possibility of putting (corporate) boxes there,� said Frazier. Like that, 11 were built. “And the fun part was, all 11 sold immediately.� A few more went up in 1993, then in 1994 some grandstands were added to the mix. Then, in Round 3 of the 1997 tournament, something happened that “totally put 16 over the top,� said Calcavecchia. He was on another part of the golf course when he heard thunderous roars. Woods had made his hole-in-one. “There’s never been a scene on a golf course like that one,� said Calcavecchia. “Beer cans came down like it was the Fourth of July,� laughed Frazier. “It was absolutely nuts.� By 2006, it was estimated that the tournament in its 20 years at TPC Scottsdale had had a $175 million economic impact to the community and in 2009 the Thunderbirds introduced the first fully enclosed hole in professional golf. The 16th was officially iconic by now and fans flocked there be the thousands. True, they came for the “adult beverages,� but so, too, did they come to turn the tables on the players and try to entertain them. “They do their homework,� said McCord. “They know each guy’s dog’s name and who their next-door neighbors are. It’s hilarious.� Sometimes, even players can’t help but laugh, like the time Pat Bates, who wore his hair long and flowing, hit a wildly errant shot at 16. “They kept calling him Fabio,� said Calcavecchia. “I admit, I laughed.� But give the Thunderbirds credit. First, because they took on millions in cost to build all these structures, with no guarantee they would realize a return on their investment. And two, they listened when players voiced concerns – like in 2000 when Phil Mickelson was upset with what he heard directed toward David Duval. “I’m going to challenge the Thunderbirds to get rid of the (trouble spots),� said Mickelson. The Thunderbirds found an answer where others may not have looked. “Going up (two and three) decks was a solution,� said Kennedy. Having those fans who flock to 16 seated and not squeezing in behind ropes has helped cut down on the rowdiness, while at the same time enhancing the unique arena atmosphere. It’s hard to argue, because in recent years, players have embraced the 16th with more warmth than ever before. Offering a sentiment that a long line of PGA TOUR members would second, Steve Flesch told reporters several years ago that “if you don’t want to play, don’t come, but I think it’s an awfully cool way to advertise the PGA TOUR, showing people having fun.� Kennedy said he agrees that a guy like Weiskopf and those from his era wouldn’t have understood or accepted this stadium hole. But he loves that today’s young stars such as Rickie Fowler, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas and Jon Rahm “are all in on this.� So, too, are other dates on the PGA TOUR schedule. “The energy of our 16th is found in other tournaments today,� Lewis said. “Sponsors want this energy on their courses. They’re not directly copying us, but it’s nice to see and it’s good for golf.�

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