LPGA Tour to return to Malaysia with Oct. event

DUBLIN, Ohio – Tiger Woods is facing the possibility of missing the cut at the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide for the first time in his illustrious career. Woods, playing for the first time since February, stumbled from his T18 overnight position thanks to a 4-over 76 at Muirfield Village Golf Club on Friday morning. It left him 3-over for the tournament, just outside the current cut line that will keep the top 65 players and ties around for the weekend. The 82-time PGA TOUR winner has made the weekend in all 17 previous attempts at the tournament, winning five times at the Jack Nicklaus elevated status event. But he now must rely on the afternoon wave stumbling enough to allow his tilt at a record 83rd win to continue. “I would like to have the opportunity to play tomorrow, and hopefully the cut will fall one more and I’ll have the opportunity,” Woods said post round. RELATED: Full leaderboard | ‘Totally different’ Muirfield Village this week Woods will also be hoping his troublesome back, which has undergone multiple surgeries, will be a little looser. The 44-year-old confirmed he was a little tight in the second round after feeling stiff during his warmup. “I wasn’t quite moving as well as I’d like and couldn’t quite turn back and couldn’t quite clear. It was a bit of a struggle,” Woods said. “It started this morning during the warmup. It wasn’t quite as good as I’d like, and it is what it is. The last four or five years have been difficult as I’ve gone through procedures and have tried to come back. It’s going to happen more times than not. “Aging is not fun. Early on in my career I thought it was fantastic because I was getting better and better and better, and now I’m just trying to hold on.” Starting on the 10th hole, Woods was able to shake off missing a three-foot birdie putt on the par-5 11th hole by sticking his tee shot on the par-3 12th to two-feet. He knocked that in to be two under for the tournament and seemingly ready to make a move into serious contention. But instead of kicking ahead, Woods immediately started to retreat backwards. A three-putt bogey on the 13th was followed by a sloppy bogey on the par-5 16th and another on the par-4 17th when trouble in the rough plagued him throughout the hole. The birdie looks he had on 14, 15 and 18 wouldn’t drop to offset the mistakes leaving Woods making the turn two-over. Then things got even rougher. Woods missed the par-4 first green short and left leaving a tough lie for his chip shot. His attempt came out hot and ran into a bunker from which he was unable to get up and down. The double bogey was compounded by a bogey on the following hole when his tee shot sailed right and fell near a creek bed. Another bogey on the par-4 sixth seemingly put an end to his weekend chances, but Woods refused to give in. He birdied the par-5 eighth and then holed a 19-foot, 11-inch birdie putt on the par-3 eighth to claw his way back. A wayward tee ball on his final hole forced a pitch out and wedge approach before a clutch seven-foot par putt found the cup allowing a modicum of hope. “I finished birdie-birdie-par. That’s about the only positive to it today,” Woods said. “I three-putted two holes early, and whatever kind of momentum I was going to create, I stifled that early and fought it the rest of the day.”

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RIO GRANDE, Puerto Rico - Grand Reserve Country Club on the northern shores of Puerto Rico is one of those postcard-ready, oceanfront courses that can lead a man's eye to wander, and his mind to drift. There are choppy whitecaps crashing into the beach on one side, and the majestic El Yunque rain forest standing watch at the other. South African Branden Grace never did get distracted. Sunday at the Puerto Rico Open, he had blinders on during an incredible closing round of 6-under 66, going bogey-free in the wind. Grace's thunderclap eagle-birdie finish led him to a 19-under 269 total and his second PGA TOUR victory, his first since the 2016 RBC Heritage. Tied for the lead at 18 under headed down the par-5 18th, Grace reached a front bunker in two to set up one last magic shot from the sand. He flew his shot about halfway to the hole from 80 feet and watched it release over a ridge and roll out to 5 feet. Birdie. Grace clipped Jhonattan Vegas, his former International Presidents Cup teammate, by a shot. Vegas, who shot a course-record 62 on Sunday the last time he played in Puerto Rico, finished strongly with 65. Local favorite Rafael Campos, Puerto Rico's own, shot 70 and tied for third with Grayson Murray, three shots back. It was the third top 10 for Campos in Puerto Rico, and his highest finish. Considering that he didn't have his best stuff, he was pleased to post a score below par. "I really felt comfortable," Campos said. "I really liked it. It was unfortunate - the key on this course is try to get off to a good start … I just didn’t do it. I haven’t been in this position this far into the tournament, but I felt extremely comfortable." While others were peering around as the afternoon faded toward evening, the 32-year-old Grace was looking upward, to the sky, thinking of his father, Peter, whom he lost last month in South Africa to Covid-19 complications. Peter Grace, who ran a restaurant and shop in Knysna, was Branden's rock, the one who gave him his first set of golf clubs and got him on his way. Grace felt he had company with him when he holed his tricky bunker shot for eagle-2 at the drivable 17th hole, and he followed up with a sterling up-and-down from a front bunker at 18 to hold off Vegas. After a couple pedestrian years of play (for him) and life-changing events off the course, Grace said the triumph gets back on the his path to playing the big events again and controlling his schedule. Victory puts Grace back in the picture for another Presidents Cup berth, too. He didn't make the team the last time around, and it stung. When Grace's bunker shot trickled into the cup like a putt at 17 ("I knew it was going in 6 feet from the hole," he said), Grace raised his sand wedge in the air with his left hand, and when he retrieved his ball, his head and eyes turned to the sky. "Just give me that strength for one more hole," Grace said. "Just a couple more good swings ..." Grace and his wife had talked about Peter on the phone before the final round. Grace said the conversation brought tears to his eyes. The leaderboard in Puerto Rico was packed, and Grace started the day a shot out of the lead. The wind was blowing strongly, and it was going to be a day of patience. Six players either held or shared the lead on Sunday. Grace missed only one fairway and one green and was one of only two players in the top 10 (Brice Garnett the other) to steer clear of a single bogey. Vegas, 36 and seeking his fourth PGA TOUR victory (his last win came in 2017 RBC Canadian Open), birdied seven of his first 12 holes, the perfect start. And then the birdie faucet ran dry. He would reach the 600-yard 18th in two and two-putt for a a final birdie to get back to 18 under, but only after dropping a shot at the par-4 14th. He three-putted from just off the green at the par-5 15th for a disappointing par and failed to birdie 16 and 17, each playing short and downwind. "I shot 5 under on the front nine, which was exactly what I needed to do, and I birdied 10 and 12, which was absolutely perfect," Vegas said. "Overall, it was a solid day. I wish I had played the final four holes a little bit better. That's where it is. "It's been a couple long years for me, so it was good for me to get back in there with the feeling of winning again. This was a good experience." Grace, once ranked as highly as 35th in the world, entered this week's opposite-field event ranked 147th. The victory gets him into the 2021 PLAYERS Championship, the PGA Championship, select invitational events such as the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard and the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide, the 2022 Sentry Tournament of Champions, and makes him exempt through 2022-23. Best of all, after several very tough weeks of grieving, it gave him some peace. Winning was a terrific way to honor his father. "It was an emotional day," Grace said. "I thought about him a hell of a lot out there. The last tee shot, I was really struggling. I knew he was watching over me. I knew he was guiding me."

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