McIlroy emerges after 3-week swing reworking

HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. — Chalk up another victory for Friday the 13th. Kelly Kraft of Dallas was cruising inside the cut line at the RBC Heritage at Harbour Town on Friday when a freak bird strike potentially scuttled his chances of playing into the weekend. Kraft made what he described as clean contact at the 192-yard, par-3 14th hole only to watch his ball glance off a “giant, black bird� and plop into the water hazard in front of the green. The bird flew away.  “It cost me the cut, most likely,� Kraft said. “There was a helping wind, and I hit a 7-iron, caught it perfect. It was probably 30 yards off the tee box and this giant, black bird swooped in front of it and hit it and the ball fell 20 yards short in the water. It would’ve been in the middle of the green. It might have been close. I got screwed.� A bird strike on the course is so rare that Kraft, playing with Robert Garrigus and Michael Thompson, initially wasn’t sure what to do. None of them were. They needed a ruling. “Robert Garrigus came running up to me first,� said Mark Dusbabek, one of the PGA TOUR rules officials on site. “He said, ‘His ball hit a bird in flight! That’s a cancel-and-replay, right?’� It was not. The cancel-and-replay rule is invoked if a ball hits a permanent, elevated power line, but not a bird. “The big difference is a bird is a God-made object,� said Dillard Pruitt, another TOUR rules official on site. “Whereas a telephone wire is man-made. It’s just a stroke of bad luck. It doesn’t happen very often, but today is Friday the 13th. Freaky Friday.�  Dusbabek said Gary Woodland hit a bird at the CIMB Classic last fall, which turned out to be a good break as his ball landed on the green. Although a seagull once plucked Brad Fabel’s ball off the green and dropped it in the water at THE PLAYERS Championship, he was allowed to replace it thanks to Rule 18-1. “The difference there was the ball was at rest,� Pruitt said, “and this one you just don’t know where it would’ve gone. It could’ve gone in the water or it could have gone in the hole.� Kraft believes it was going on the green. He bounced back with birdies on the 17th and first holes, but bogeyed the seventh hole to wind up at 1-over, most likely one shot outside the cut line. “It’s kind of a dumb rule that you can’t re-tee there,� Kraft said. “If you hit a power line, you can re-tee, and if a bird moves your ball while it’s resting you can replace it. But there’s nothing you can do about this. This has got to be more unusual than a hole-in-one. Two moving objects colliding? I mean you hit balls all day long on the range and you don’t hit another ball in the air.�

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Stream live on Facebook Watch: Click here for Featured Groups coverage | Click here for Featured Holes coverage SILVIS, Ill. – Zach Johnson and Steve Stricker headline the Featured Groups for Sunday’s Facebook Watch coverage of the final round of the John Deere Classic at TPC Deere Run. Also featured in the coverage are Ryan Moore, Arjun Atwal, Nick Hardy, Hudson Swafford, Lanto Griffin and Andrew Landry. The broadcast begins at 8:30 a.m. ET and runs through 6 p.m. Moore and Atwal get things started with an 8:38 a.m. ET tee time. Both players shot 1-under 70 in the third round and are 4 under for the tournament. Hardy and Swafford tee off at 9:05 a.m. The long-hitting Hardy, who played the Deere as an amateur last year, made the 36-hole cut on the number before shooting a third-round 69 to get to 5 under. Final-round playing partner Swafford struggled to a third-round 72 and is at 4 under. At roughly 9:45 a.m. ET, we will transition to the following two groups: Stricker and Griffin will go off at 9:59 a.m. Three-time Deere winner Stricker, 51, who splits time between the PGA TOUR and the PGA TOUR Champions, shot a disappointing third-round 71, while Griffin had a 69. Both players are 6 under par. Tournament ambassador and Iowa’s favorite son Johnson and Landry tee off at 10:08 a.m. Both players shot 67 in the third round and are 7 under. All players are teeing off the first hole. At 1 p.m. ET, Facebook Watch transitions to the Featured Holes portion of the broadcast. We start with coverage of the par-4 first hole and par-4 14th hole. Once play has completed at No. 1, we will begin coverage at the scenic par-3 16th hole, adjacent to the Rock River.

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After flirting once again with a 59, Phil Mickelson settled Thursday for another portion of the PGA TOUR record book, as he became the first golfer to record three rounds of 60 or better in TOUR history (ShotLink Era). Mickelson shot a 12-under 60 in the opening round of the Desert Classic, as he torched La Quinta Country Club with 10 birdies and an eagle. He rolled in a birdie putt inside 10 feet on the par-4 18th to record his 60. Mickelson’s two previous 60s both came at the Waste Management Phoenix Open – in 2005 and 2013. Unlike those two 60s, the Thursday round at La Quinta was on a par-72 course. The 12 under total is Mickelson’s lowest round in relation to par in his World Golf Hall of Fame career. The only other TOUR players to shoot multiple rounds of 60 or better are Jim Furyk (who owns the TOUR record of 58, along with one of the nine rounds of 59 in TOUR history) and Zach Johnson (who has shot two rounds in the 60s). Mickelson’s round Thursday is the 37th time in TOUR history that a player has shot 60. He made the turn in 30 and promptly ripped off five birdies in his next seven holes. Needing to go birdie-birdie on his final two holes to shoot 59, he came up just short, making par on the par-4 17th before his birdie on the final hole. He walked off the 18th green with a four-shot lead over Curtis Luck, with several groups still in action at the Desert Classic, which uses three courses in the first three days. “It was kind of a lucky day for me in the sense that I did not feel sharp heading in,� Mickelson said. “I haven’t really had the intense practice sessions that I would like, but I felt that all parts were OK and it just clicked. Sometimes you have days where it just clicks. Bad shots that I hit, I got away with it … It was a fun day, but I certainly did not expect this to be the case.� With no expectations of shooting low, Mickelson said he was just staying more in the present “for the simple reason that I didn’t feel like I was firing on all cylinders.� But he did acknowledge that before making his 4-footer at the 16th for birdie, he realized that 59 was in reach. Using a sand wedge on his approach into 17, Mickelson said he didn’t hook it as much as he wanted, leaving him a much longer putt than he would’ve liked. Mickelson nearly shot 59 at the 2013 Waste Management, but a brutal lip-out on the final hole ended his chances. He was vying to become the 11th player in PGA TOUR history to shoot a sub-60 score in tournament competition. The last player to shoot 59 was Brandt Snedeker at the 2018 Wyndham Championship. The only 58 in PGA TOUR history was by Jim Furyk at the 2016 Travelers Championship.

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