McIlroy struggling at Scottish Open

JACKSON, Miss. – It was a simple fix. It usually is. Cameron Champ was unhappy with his ball-striking after the second round of the Sanderson Farms Championship. He FaceTimed his coach, Sean Foley, in search of an answer. “I just get really short with my backswing and I don’t allow enough time to lay it off at the top,â€� Champ said. “I get swiping it left.â€� He started Saturday with a solid warm-up session on the range. He ended it with a four-shot lead in just his second start as a TOUR member. “I was able to give myself a lot of chances,â€� he said. The kid from California who’s gained attention for his prodigious tee shots now has a chance to be known by a more meaningful title. “PGA TOUR winner.â€� His incredible length has already landed him on the cover of Golf Digest. No TOUR player wants to be a sideshow, though. They want to be known for shooting the lowest score. That’s what truly matters. “It’s great you can hit it far, but if other parts of your game aren’t good you’re not going to be able to play the game,â€� Champ said Thursday, after shooting a first-round 65 at the Country Club of Jackson. He has held at least a share of the lead after each round this week. He’s now four ahead with just 18 holes remaining at the Country Club of Jackson. Second-year TOUR player Corey Conners, who got married last week in Canada, is his closest pursuer. It takes more than long tee shots to amass such a large 54-hole lead. He’s missed just 10 greens this week while showing exceptional skill with the shortest club in his bag. He’s eighth in Strokes Gained: Putting, making nearly half of the putts he’s faced from 10-20 feet this week. He’s 4 for 7 from 10-15 feet. The advantage he has on the tee shouldn’t be underrated, though. He leads the field in driving distance, averaging nearly 307 yards on all tee shots. Nine of his 14 tee shots traveled longer than 310 yards in Saturday’s warm conditions, including six over 320. He confirms what the Strokes Gained stats have shown us. Length off the tee is an invaluable asset. Just look at the way he has decimated the par-5s on this century-old layout. He’s birdied 10 of the 12 he’s played. On Saturday, Champ hit iron into all four. Twice he hit 8-iron. His physical skills are obvious. He displayed internal fortitude, as well, on Saturday. He was clinging to a one-shot lead when he came to the par-4 12th hole, the hardest on the course in the third round. His wedge shot from the rough took a big bounce and stopped some 20 yards over the green. His ball was laying on a tight lie and he was staring at a lake on the other side of the putting surface. Champ opted for the safe play, a bump-and-run, but his chip shot stopped short of the green. He holed the next one for an unlikely par. He took control of the tournament with birdies on the next three holes. He parred the final three for a 64. The rookie matched the day’s low score while playing in the final group for the first time. He was still an amateur this time last year, preparing for the second stage of Q-School after helping the United States dominate the Walker Cup at Los Angeles Country Club. He successfully navigated Q-School, then won on the Web.com Tour in 2018. His first taste of the spotlight came at last year’s U.S. Open at Erin Hills. He was in the top 10 at the halfway point before finishing T32. “That was probably the most nervous I’ve ever been,â€� Champ said. “I feel like I’ve grown as a player and understand how to approach the game when you’re in this position.â€� His experience will help him in his pursuit of his first PGA TOUR title. His length won’t hurt, either.

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Jason Day led by three shots just four holes earlier, but now his advantage was gone. Back-to-back bogeys at 13 and 14 dropped him into a tie with 21-year-old rookie Aaron Wise. Day had talked throughout the week about the confidence he’d regained after his difficult 2017 season, but now he was in danger of losing a comfortable lead on the back nine. He responded with some clutch play that should only increase his self-belief as he makes the short trip south to TPC Sawgrass, where he won THE PLAYERS Championship two years ago. Day turned the Green Mile red, playing the course’s trying closing holes in 2 under par, to finish two shots ahead of Wise and Nick Watney, who collected his best PGA TOUR finish in three years. A final-round 69 gave Day his second win of the season and moved him to No. 2 in the FedExCup standings. “I felt like I went 10 rounds out there, just fighting against myself,â€� Day said. “Aaron played tremendous golf coming in. … I didn’t have the best day off the tee and even into the greens, but I had a really good day on the greens and around the greens.â€� Day led the field in Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green and was second in Strokes Gained: Putting. He ranked 50th in Strokes Gained: Approach this week and lost strokes off the tee Sunday. Day, who began the day with a two-stroke lead, made his first birdie at the second hole. He made back-to-back bogeys at Nos. 5 and 6, but responded with birdies at three of the next four holes. After failing to get up-and-down on the par-3 13th, he pulled his tee shot into the lake left of the short 14th. The situation got more precarious when he missed an 11-foot birdie putt on the week’s easiest hole, the par-5 15th. That hole represents Quail Hollow’s last realistic birdie chance. Unless you’re Day, apparently. After a 380-yard tee shot on the downhill 16th hole, he hit his 114-yard approach to 11 feet and made the birdie putt. It was one of nine birdies on that hole Sunday. Then he arrived at the day’s most difficult hole and hit the shot that defined this tournament. Day’s 7-iron tee shot on the 223-yard, par-3 took a big hop when it landed in the middle of the green, and was still rolling speedily when it struck the center of the flagstick and stopped a couple feet away. “It was on a cracking line, it was beautiful,â€� Day said. “Things like that are what you need to win golf tournaments.â€� A par at the last gave the 30-year-old his 12th PGA TOUR victory. WISE GUY Aaron Wise used his short game to keep pressure on Jason Day on the back nine. His par saves on the final two holes resulted in the best finish of his career. Wise jumped from 105th to 51st in the FedExCup with his first top-10 of the season. He was alone in second place until Nick Watney, playing alongside Day in the final group, holed a 59-foot birdie putt on the last green. Wise got up-and-down from the downslope of a greenside bunker to birdie the 14th and saved par after missing right of the 17th and 18th greens. He holed par putts of 7 and 8 feet on the final two holes. “Casey (Martin, his coach at Oregon) told me that if you ever want to play the TOUR, you have to have a good short game,â€� Wise said. “Ever since then I’ve really worked on it.â€� Wise won the 2016 NCAA individual while at Oregon and helped the Ducks claim the team title. He turned pro that year and won his second start on the Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada to finish fourth on the Order of Merit and graduate to the Web.com Tour. He won there last year to earn his PGA TOUR card. WOODS IS SHUT OUT Tiger Woods shot a final-round 74 after failing to make a birdie. It was just his 11th birdie-less round on the PGA TOUR as a professional. He finished T55 at 2-over 286 (71-73-68-74). “I didn’t putt well again,â€� said Woods, who lost 5.7 strokes on the greens. He finished in the top 15 in both Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and Approach-the-Green. Woods said all week that he was befuddled by greens that were firm but slow. Woods, who won THE PLAYERS in both 2001 and 2013, now moves on to his first start at TPC Sawgrass since 2015. “I know the golf course, which is nice, and I know what to expect there,â€� Woods said. “I’m very pleased with the way I’m swinging. It’s just a matter of making sure I get the right speed for those greens because it’s going to be a little bit quicker than it was here.â€� NOTABLES Phil Mickelson got up-and-down from the hazard on the final hole to extend his streak of top-five finishes at Quail Hollow. He has finished in the top five in eight of his 15 trips to Quail Hollow for the Wells Fargo, including his last three. Mickelson made just six pars in his final-round 69. After making the cut with just a shot to spare, he shot 9-under 133 (64-69) on the weekend. Mickelson, who won THE PLAYERS in 2007, will be third in the FedExCup standings when he arrives at TPC Sawgrass. Bryson DeChambeau finished fourth despite making triple-bogey on his third hole of the week. He closed with three consecutive sub-par rounds (65-66-70) after shooting a first-round 75. It’s DeChambeau’s third top-four finish in his last four starts. He now ranks 17th in the FedExCup. One day after shooting 62, Peter Uihlein shot 71 to finish fifth. His third top-10 finish of the season moved the first-year TOUR member to 62nd in the FedExCup. Masters champion Patrick Reed, playing his first individual tournament since winning at Augusta National, shot a final-round 69 to finish eighth. It was Reed’s sixth consecutive top-10 finish. He is fifth in the FedExCup standings. Reed finished runner-up at the PGA Championship at Quail Hollow. SUPERLATIVES Longest drive: Wise’s 383-yard drive on 16 was the longest tee shot of the week by three yards. The week’s four longest tee shots all came at No. 16 on Sunday. Jason Day, Tony Finau and Charles Howell III hit 380-yard tee shots on 16 in the final round. Longest putt: Rickie Fowler’s eagle putt from 76 feet, 1 inch on the seventh hole was the longest putt of the day. He shot 73 and finished 21st. Fowler is 18th in the FedExCup. Lowest score: Tony Finau shot a bogey-free 66 to jump 45 spots and into a tie for 21st. It was the lowest round of the day by two shots. He is ninth in the FedExCup. Hardest hole: The 223-yard, par-3 17th played to a 3.57 scoring. There were an equal number of birdies (3) and ‘others’ on the hole Sunday. Easiest hole: The 346-yard, par-4 eighth hole played to a 3.49 scoring average. There were two eagles and 36 birdies on the hole. No one made bogey and only one player made double-bogey. SHOT OF THE DAY CALL OF THE DAY For play-by-play coverage of the PGA TOUR, listen Thursday – Sunday on PGATOUR.com.

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