Live leaderboard: Tiger makes a move

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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The 14th edition of the Presidents Cup is upon us. Top players from around the globe have convened at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, for this thrilling team competition between the U.S. and International teams. To get you prepared for the matches, here’s everything you need to know about how the Presidents Cup works. WHAT IS IT: The Presidents Cup began in 1994 at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Prince William County, Virginia. This team competition between the U.S. and International teams is held every two years (except for one-year delays caused by 9/11 and COVID-19). The International Team is comprised of players from outside the United States and Europe. Each team is made up of 12 male players. This year’s match is being played at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Sept. 22-25. NUMBER OF MATCHES: The Presidents Cup consists of 30 matches played over four days. There are 18 team matches – nine apiece using the Foursomes and Four-balls formats – followed by 12 Singles matches on Sunday. Foursomes, or alternate shot, consists of a two-man team playing one ball. Teammates alternate hitting shots until the ball is holed, and the team with the lowest score on the hole wins. In Four-balls, both members of the team play their own ball. The lowest score between the team’s two members counts as the team’s score for the hole. The United States’ Davis Love III, as the host Captain, chose to begin the Cup with Foursomes matches Thursday morning. The format for each round will then alternate accordingly. There will be five Foursomes matches Thursday, five Four-ball matches on Friday and two rounds of four matches apiece on Saturday. There will be four Foursomes matches Saturday morning and four Four-ball matches in the afternoon. POINTS: All matches are worth one point apiece, for a total of 30 points. There are no playoffs, with each side receiving a half-point for matches tied after 18 holes. WHO WINS?: The first team to reach 15.5 points wins the Cup. If the competition is tied, 15-15, at the end of Singles play, the competition will be deemed a tie and the teams will share the Presidents Cup. This is inspired by the 2003 Presidents Cup, which was deemed a tie after a memorable playoff between Tiger Woods and Ernie Els was halted due to darkness. RESULTS: The United States has won 11 of the 13 Presidents Cup. The 2003 edition ended in a tie, while the International Team won in 1998 at Royal Melbourne. The United States is the defending champion after winning, 16-14, at Royal Melbourne in 2019. WHO PLAYS?: World Golf Hall of Famer Davis Love III is the U.S. Captain this year, while former Masters champion Trevor Immelman is the International captain. Each team is comprised of six automatic qualifiers and six captain’s picks. The U.S. Team’s automatic qualifiers were based on FedExCup points earned over the previous three seasons. Each FedExCup point earned in the 2019-20 season was worth a half-point for the U.S. Presidents Cup standings. In 2020-21, each FedExCup point was worth one Presidents Cup point, and FedExCup points were tripled for the 2021-22 season. The top six players in the U.S. standings after the BMW Championship on Aug. 21 qualified for the team. Love made six captain’s picks on Sept. 7. The International Team qualification period ran from the 2021 Open Championship through the 2022 BMW Championship. The International Team’s points system operated similarly to the Official World Golf Ranking, except it used a proprietary calculation to determine field strength and the quantity of points awarded per event. International Team points earned from this year’s PGA Championship through the BMW Championship were given a 25% premium. The ranking was determined by the average points per start in the qualifying period (minimum 15 events). LINEUP CARD: Pairings for Thursday Foursomes will be made at 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Sept. 21 from the Interview Room within the Media Center. The captain of the defending team (U.S.) will choose who goes first to start the draw, and the captains will alternate for the remaining sessions, i.e. if the U.S. chooses first for the first round, then the International Team will choose first for the second round. Captains set their lineups for each session one match at a time, alternating in a snake format. For example, if the U.S. Team chooses first, Davis Love III will announce his two-man team for the first match. International Captain Trevor Immelman will then choose which two-man team he will send out in the first match and announce his team for the second match. Love will then respond with his team for the second match and choose his team for the third match. The same process will be used for Singles. Each player is required to play a minimum of one match prior to the Singles session. Prior to 2019, players were required to compete in two matches prior to Singles. TROPHY: Created by Tiffany & Company, The Presidents Cup trophy weighs a total of 28 pounds. The trophy is spun by a spinner from five sterling silver circles into five different shapes. The spun components then are put together by a silversmith to create a cup. The smith runs a roller die to create the beaded embellishment that goes around the cup and the foot of the trophy. The oval logo is etched and applied on the cup. Labor dedicated to creating the trophy totaled 80 hours (spinning, smithing, finishing). The entire trophy is vermeil in 24-carat gold, and the original trophy is housed at the World Golf Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, Florida.

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As we hit the last event of the regular season and get ready to ride the rollercoaster of the FedExCup Playoffs, it seems an apropos time to check in on our bold predictions that came way back from last October. It has been another brilliant season full of highlight moments. We’ve seen the resurgence of some stars like THE PLAYERS champion Webb Simpson. We’ve seen Brooks Koepka become a major force. We’ve seen some newcomers emerge with the likes of Austin Cook, Aaron Wise and Satoshi Kodaira leading the rookie race. We’ve seen T.J. Vogel become a Monday king – getting through qualifying an incredible eight times. And we’ve seen some bigger names slide. But they’ve still got time to round back into form. Were we able to predict it all? Let’s see. 18. THE PLAYERS champion Si Woo Kim finds his consistency and becomes a regular threat on the PGA TOUR. Last season Kim shocked the world with his dominant PLAYERS win because for the remainder of the season he was virtually irrelevant. He made 14 cuts in 30 starts with six WDs. While he has certainly been much better this season with 20 made cuts and five top-10s from 27 starts it would be a stretch to claim he’s been a regular threat. We’ll be generous and give ourselves half a point here. 0.5/1 17. Phil Mickelson breaks his win drought. Mickelson arrived at the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship having not tasted victory since 2013. But he was able to hold off a red-hot Justin Thomas to finally return to the winner’s circle. Thomas holed out for a dramatic eagle in regulation play to be part of a playoff but Mickelson held his nerve. 1.5/2 16. Three players will have a taste at World No. 1. Oh we were so close. And it could still come true during the last five weeks of the season. Dustin Johnson has continued to be a pretty good mainstay at the top, holding court for all but four weeks of 2018 so far. Justin Thomas was given his first view from the top in May. Justin Rose had a handful of chances to get to the top and still might, and Brooks Koepka is now breathing down Johnson’s neck. 1.5/3 15. Rose will bloom, and win, among the azaleas. As mentioned above Justin Rose has had a couple of chances to climb to No.1 in the world in what has been a pretty decent season. Wins at the World Golf Championships–HSBC Champions and the Fort Worth Invitational. He also won the Turkish Airlines Open and Indonesian Masters and was inside the top 25 of all four majors and THE PLAYERS. But he did not go one better than his 2017 runner-up at the Masters, finishing T12. Half a point. 2/4 14. Hideki Matsuyama wins a major. Can’t hide behind it. This one was wrong. After winning plenty of tournaments in 2016-17 it seemed a decent gamble on Japan finally getting a major champion. But instead, Matsuyama has seen a significant drop in form. He has just two top-10 results on the PGA TOUR this season. His best major result was T16 at the U.S. Open. Perhaps we should have seen it coming. Most players have a small dip in results after the birth of a first child. But they also bounce back the season after so let’s watch this space. 2/5 13. Rookie of the Year Xander Schauffele will keep on going. This kid is the real deal, so we were right about that. But we also said he’d win again this season, and so far, the trophies have eluded him. Two runner-up finishers. A third. A total of five top-10s and just four missed cuts from 23 starts. Who knows, he may just defend his TOUR Championship title and prove us fully right yet. 2.5/6 12. Tiger Woods plays again on TOUR. What a difference a year makes. This was considered a BOLD prediction last October. We had no idea if Woods would ever return to competitive golf as he recovered from a fourth back surgery, this time a fusion. Of course he has and he’s been amazing. His recent runner-up finish at the PGA Championship was his second of the season. Five top-10s in just 12 starts. Not only has Woods played, he could win this season. If he doesn’t get a trophy, you can be sure the prediction next season will be about claiming an 80th title. And some. 3.5/7 11. Someone will play late Sunday with the career Grand Slam on the line. This was true at the first major of the season as Rory McIlroy moved into the final group behind Patrick Reed at Augusta National. The problem for Rory was he never really threatened from there with a final-round 74 dropping him into a tie for fifth. Phil Mickelson was never a threat at the U.S. Open, and Jordan Spieth needed a late Sunday charge at the PGA Championship to finish T12. 4.5/8 10. Sangmoon Bae makes the FedExCup Playoffs – and so does a Chinese player. Well, we were off the mark with Bae as he returned to the TOUR from his Korean military duty. In 16 starts he has just one top-25 finish and ranks 201st in the FedExCup. And our history-making Chinese players haven’t fared much better. Zinjun Zhang sits 165th in the standings and Marty Dou is way back in 227th. 4.5/9 9. Justin Thomas will keep narrowing the gap between himself and Jordan Spieth. This has certainly happened, but just as much for Thomas’ great play as Spieth’s lack of it. The FedExCup champion has a huge chance to the be the first player to go back-to-back and win the FedExCup again after three wins already. His career win total sits at nine, while Spieth has stalled on 11 after a winless season to this point. Spieth has five top 10s – it certainly has not been a terrible season – but by his own standards he has dipped. The good news? There is still time to turn it around in the Playoffs. 5.5/10 8. Expect two or three wins from among this quartet: Maverick McNealy, Beau Hossler, Aaron Wise and Cameron Champ. Well, Wise held up his end of the bargain with an impressive win at the AT&T Byron Nelson, showing great poise down the stretch on Sunday. He’d been runner-up his previous start. Hossler has threatened often, twice a runner-up including a playoff loss at the Houston Open are part of five top 10s. Champ and McNealy have spent the majority of their time on the Web.com Tour where Champ has a win and a locked-up TOUR card for next season. McNealy has been fair without being great but will have a chance to advance from the Web.com Tour Finals. 5.5/11 7. Anirban Lahiri will use the Presidents Cup as a springboard to win on TOUR. Not yet he hasn’t. The Indian national has four top-10 finishes this season without being a serious threat. Still has the potential to be a superstar. 5.5/12 6. Jason Day and Adam Scott return to winning form. This one is already half true and might become full reality. Both players had been winless last season but Day certainly has returned as a TOUR threat. Wins at the Farmers Insurance Open and Wells Fargo Championship proved it. Scott, however, appeared to be heading for a long-term funk until lately. Scott led the PGA Championship with four holes to play before Brooks Koepka stepped up. His third-place finish was just his second top-10 of the season. Maybe he can push through the FedExCup Playoffs with a win. 6/13 5. U.S. Team will win the Ryder Cup in France. This seemed an obvious statement after their demolition of the International Team in the 2017 Presidents Cup, but as we head toward the contest, the European Team looks very strong. Players like Francesco Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood bring fresh form and Ian Poulter has his fire back. It should be an epic contest. 4. We will have a three-peat winner. Nope. Justin Thomas missed his chance at the CIMB Classic (T17). Hideki Matsuyama was a WD in his dual title defense in Phoenix, and Daniel Berger couldn’t keep pace with a dominant Dustin Johnson at the FedEx St. Jude Classic. 6/14 3. Justin Thomas will win THE PLAYERS Championship. Not this time. Instead he settled for T11. No one really competed with the resurgent Webb Simpson, who lapped the field with an incredible putting performance over four rounds. 6/15 2. There will be another first-time major winner along with Matsuyama. We did get two first-timers at the majors with Patrick Reed winning the Masters and Francesco Molinari taking Italy’s first major title at The Open Championship. But as Matsuyama was not one of them, we can only claim a half point. 6.5/16 1. The 25-and-under brigade will equal if not better their numbers from 2017. While Justin Thomas has kept winning and others like Aaron Wise and Jon Rahm have helped him out, reaching the incredible 18-win total from last season has remained out of reach. 6.5/17. Final Verdict: Currently 6.5/17. Bold predictions are meant to be just that. But we were still hoping for a better than 50 percent record! With that in mind…we’re hoping to earn more points with win from the U.S. Team at the Ryder Cup, and wish Scott, Hossler, Schauffele, Lahiri and Koepka the best in coming weeks.

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