Monday Qualifiers: OHL Classic at Mayakoba

LAS VEGAS - Bryson DeChambeau knows some people consider him a one-dimensional player solely obsessed with distance. He thinks that is an unfair characterization of his game, however, and he used Friday's post-round press conference to defend his groundbreaking approach to golf. This week's Shriners Hospitals for Children Open is DeChambeau's first start since his six-shot victory in the U.S. Open. He shot a 9-under 62 in Thursday's opening round at TPC Summerlin and added a 67 on Friday to sit just one shot off the lead. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Fowler makes putter switch | Hole-out eagle has Garcia back in contention DeChambeau's incredible length has been on display again this week. No one had driven TPC Summerlin's seventh green in the ShotLink era until DeChambeau did it Thursday. He repeated the feat Friday and made eagle, then added another eagle at the par-5 16th, where he had just 148 yards to the hole. Distance isn't the only factor in his success at TPC Summerlin, though. He's third in greens hit (32 of 36) and 17th in driving accuracy (21 of 28). He also leads the field in driving distance, averaging 352.2 yards. Hitting it that far takes incredible strength. There's no denying DeChambeau has packed on the pounds in the past year. It was at this event a year ago that he announced his intentions to bulk up in a quest for increased length off the tee. But hitting a golf ball as hard as DeChambeau does, and keeping those tee shots in play, also takes skill. And while long tee shots help him shoot lower scores, there's more to the game than just hitting it far. That's something DeChambeau thinks his critics are missing. He replied to the latest round of criticism after being told that Matthew Fitzpatrick, a fellow former U.S. Amateur champion, said Friday that DeChambeau's play makes "a bit of a mockery of the game." DeChambeau responded, "I appreciate that comment. It’s a compliment to me honestly. I think he’s looking out for certain set of players, and I appreciate that. My whole goal is to play the best golf I possibly can, and this game has given me the opportunity showcase something pretty special. "A year ago I wasn’t hitting in anywhere near as far as I am today. It took a lot of work, a lot of hours to work through the night to figure out a lot of this stuff... from my perspective, I think it takes a little bit more skill to do what I’m doing, and that’s why there are only a few people doing it out here... and albeit my fairway percentages are a little bit down, I’m still believe I’m hitting it straighter than what I was last year with the distances that I was hitting back then. "I feel like I’ve started to go down a path that’s allowed me to have an advantage over everyone, and I think that is a skillset when you look at it. For me out there today, I was still able to hit a lot of fairways at 360 yards. That’s tough to do with drivers." Fitzpatrick is listed at 5 feet, 10 inches and 155 pounds. He finished 121st in driving distance last season but has won five times on the European Tour thanks in part to his incredible work on the greens. He was second on the PGA TOUR in Strokes Gained: Putting last season. He shares the 36-hole lead in this week's European Tour event, the BMW PGA Championship, with reigning Open Championship winner Shane Lowry. It was after his second round at Wentworth that Fitzpatrick made his comments about DeChambeau. "I'm biased because I'm not quite the longest. But in the U.S. Open at Winged Foot, fair play to Bryson, he won and shot six under. But the fairways were tight as hell. I drove it brilliantly and actually played pretty well but I was miles behind. He's in the rough and miles up and he's hitting wedges from everywhere. It just makes a bit of a mockery of the game," Fitzpatrick told reporters after getting into a tie for the 36-hole lead at Wentworth. "I looked at Shot Tracker yesterday, to see some of the places Bryson hit it (in Vegas). He was cutting corners. And when he's on, there's no point. It doesn't matter if I play my best. He's going to be 50 yards in front of me off the tee, and the only thing where I can compete with him is putting. Which is just ridiculous. "In my opinion, it's not a skill to hit the ball a long way. I could put on 40 pounds. I could go and see a bio-mechanist. I could gain 40 yards; that's actually a fact. I could put another two inches on my driver. But the skill is to hit the ball straight. That's the skill. He's just taking the skill out of it in my opinion. I'm sure lots will disagree. But it's just daft." But what Fitzpatrick and others have overlooked is DeChambeau adds finesse with his power game. Last season, he ranked 10th on TOUR in Strokes Gained: Putting and at Winged Foot he ranked inside the top three in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee (2nd), Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green (1st) and Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green (3rd) on his way to victory. He joined Vijay Singh (2008 WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational) as the only two winners who ranked inside the top three in these three categories since 2004. "I would love to have a conversation with him about it and say, Hey, man, I would love to help out. Why couldn’t you do it, too? You see Rory and DJ doing the same thing, too. They’re seeing that distinct advantage, and I feel like it’s great are for the game of golf," DeChambeau said. "I don’t think it takes less skill. I’m still putting it great; still wedging it mediocre, the same, maybe a little bit better. It shows out here that I’m still hitting fairways. "I do hit a couple errant shots like on 9 today, but I do hit a lot of fairways, I still hit great irons, and I make a lot putts. I still think there is a lot of the skill in that."

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Savannah Barker and Alexa Saldana won the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-ball Championship on Wednesday, surviving a 20-hole match in the semifinals and then pulling away late in the final.

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – It’s been a while. The last time Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson were in the same group at THE PLAYERS Championship was the third round in 2001, when Woods made his “better-than-mostâ€� putt at No. 17 on the way to victory. He would win his first of two PLAYERS trophies the next day, and the Masters two weeks later to hold all four professional major championship titles at once. “It was the most remarkable golf in the history of the game,â€� Mickelson said Tuesday at TPC Sawgrass, where he will play with Woods and Rickie Fowler on Thursday and Friday. This week’s PLAYERS features 50 of the top 50 players in the FedExCup, and the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking. There are 10 past champions in the field, and 20 first-time participants, and the winner could come from any of the 48 threesomes and 144 total players. Still, all eyes will be on past champions Fowler (2015), Mickelson (2007), and Woods (2001, 2013), who will tee off the first hole at 1:52 p.m. ET Thursday, and the 10th at 8:27 a.m. Friday. “This is just a dream pairing,â€� the Golf Channel’s Frank Nobilo said. Woods and Mickelson, together again. “Phil and I have a great banter,â€� Woods said Tuesday. “We give each other needle. We always have. But I think our relationship has certainly gotten a lot closer with me being a [Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup] vice-captain the last couple teams, and sitting there and having very lengthy conversations with him about things. Not just the pairings, but just about things in general.â€� According to ShotLink, Woods and Mickelson have gone head-to-head 35 times, with Woods carding the better score 16 times, Mickelson prevailing 15 times, and the two battling to a tie four times. They have 122 TOUR wins between them. For years, as Nos. 1 and 2 in the world they played on opposite sides of the draw for the first two rounds, seeing each other only on the weekends. Not this week. “I don’t know how it’s going to play out,â€� Mickelson said, “but I just know that we seem to be bringing out the best in each other.â€� Added Woods: “He’s one hell of a competitor, and it’s always going to be a challenge to try and beat him.â€� We’ve seen this show before, and it never gets old. Has Fowler heard the stories? Absolutely, and so have Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth, who also hadn’t started high school or even middle school during the peak Tiger era. “I haven’t even had to ask,â€� Spieth said. “People, in conversation with other people, players with other players, it’s come out dozens of times how dominant he was, how good he was.â€� You can hear that kind of talk in any sports bar about any legend, but golf and this PLAYERS offers a twist. Yes, Woods was good. He also IS good. At 42, he’s playing a full schedule for the first time in years after successful back fusion surgery. His high point was a runner-up finish at the Valspar Championship earlier this season, and he’s 54th in the FedExCup. “I didn’t know what to expect this year,â€� he said. “I’m just so thankful to be able to have this opportunity again, because I didn’t know if I’d be able to have it.â€� Mickelson, 47, won the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship in March, ending a nearly five-year drought. He comes here on the heels of a T5 at the Wells Fargo Championship, his sixth top-10 this season, one more than all of last year, and is third in the FedExCup. “I love that we’re paired together,â€� Mickelson said. “… It gets me thinking, why don’t we just bypass all the ancillary stuff of a tournament and just go head-to-head and just have kind of a high-stakes, winner-take-all match? “Now,â€� Mickelson continued, “I don’t know if he wants a piece of me (laughter), but I just think it would be something that would be really fun for us to do, and I think there would be a lot of interest in it if we just went straight to the final round.â€� Told of Mickelson’s early trash talk, Woods smiled and shook his head and urged people to remember the big picture, as in which player has 79 TOUR wins and 14 majors. The fact remains, though: Woods-Mickelson is still appointment viewing. “Oh, yeah,â€� Justin Thomas said. “Yeah, I’ll definitely—I play early Thursday, so I’ll probably be in the couch in my hotel room, watching that one in the afternoon.â€�   Fowler said “I’ve got the best seat in the houseâ€� for Woods-Mickelson. Just how good was Woods? For those who weren’t there, Mickelson said, it’s hard to explain. Woods won 14 times in 2000 and 2001. Mickelson, who racked up six victories in that stretch, said the low point, or high point, was the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, where Woods shot 12 under and prevailed by a major championship record 15 shots. A month later he won the Open Championship by eight, becoming the youngest to complete the career Grand Slam at 24. “It sucked to have to play against him,â€� Mickelson said. “It really did. You look at it, and you say, how are you going — how am I going to beat this? You know, there was a stretch there of a number of years that it was so impressive that it was hard to imagine that it was actually happening, that he was hitting some of the shots that he was hitting and playing that well.â€� Woods sometimes allows his thoughts to drift to that golden era. “I had all four major championships,â€� he said. “I had THE PLAYERS, I had two World Golf Championships, and all the biggest events I had won at the same time. To hold all those events concurrently was special. I mean, I played well, I thought well, I putted well.â€� Not surprisingly, his legend follows him even today. That he will be with Mickelson at THE PLAYERS will only add to the excitement. Fowler says he’ll try and putt out first, when he can, to avoid potential distractions. As for the level of excellence Woods reached when he set or tied 27 TOUR records in 2000, and when he owned nearly every important title in golf in 2001, Fowler can only listen to the stories and shake his head. The same goes for Spieth and Thomas. “The guys today look back, and they say, come on, how much better could he have been and so forth,â€� Mickelson said, “and it just goes to show you that they weren’t there to witness it.â€� When Woods and Mickelson go head-to-head this week, with Fowler rounding out the super-group, we’ll all be a witness. As threesomes go, you’d have to say it’s better than most.  

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