Nicklaus: Tiger Woods can still break my record

2021 PGA Championship, Round 1 Scoring Conditions: Overall: +2.77 strokes per round Morning wave: +2.33 Afternoon wave: +3.22 Current cutline (top 70 and ties): 76 players at +2 or better (T62) Top 3 projected cutline probabilities: 1. 4 over par: 41.8% 2. 5 over par: 28.0% 3. 3 over par: 20.4% Top 10 win probabilities: 1. Corey Conners (1, -5, 16.1%) 2. Viktor Hovland (T2, -3, 10.0%) 3. Collin Morikawa (T8, -2, 5.6%) 4. Keegan Bradley (T2, -3, 4.8%) 5. Jon Rahm (T31, E, 4.5%) 6. Cameron Davis (T2, -3, 3.2%) 7. Brooks Koepka (T2, -3, 3.1%) 8. Tyrrell Hatton (T16, -1, 2.7%) 9. Sungjae Im (T8, -2, 2.7%) 10. Will Zalatoris (T16, -1, 2.6%) NOTE: These reports are based off of the live predictive model run by @DataGolf. The model provides live “Make Cut”, “Top 20”, “Top 5”, and “Win” probabilities every 5 minutes from the opening tee shot to the final putt of every PGA TOUR event. Briefly, the model takes account of the current form of each golfer as well as the difficulty of their remaining holes, and probabilities are calculated from 20K simulations. To follow live finish probabilities throughout the remainder of the PGA Championship, or to see how each golfer’s probabilities have evolved from the start of the event to the current time, click here for the model’s home page.

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Like the 143 other players in the field, Spain’s Rafa Cabrera Bello came to THE PLAYERS Championship last month only to see it canceled after one round due to the coronavirus pandemic. Unlike those other players, Cabrera Bello has yet to return home. For now, he and his family remain in the area. Accidental Floridians, if you will. “We’ve only been able to make decisions with the information we had at the time,� Cabrera Bello, who shot a first-round 68, said in a phone interview from his rental home in the Ponte Vedra Beach area. His wife Sofia and their 8-month-old daughter Alva Margareta are with him, as are his manager Richard Rayment plus Rayment’s wife Gabby and their daughter Nikki. The six, who normally live in the same apartment building in Dubai, have been scrambling like many others to shelter in place after many travel options became unavailable to them amid the COVID-19 crisis. “After THE PLAYERS,� Rayment said, “we thought, OK, what are we going to do?� The idea of getting on an airplane for the long trip back to Dubai was unappealing, and travel restrictions were going up fast. Where to go? What to do? Bernd Wiesberger of Austria, one of Cabrera Bello’s fellow competitors, caught one of the last flights back to Europe. “We decided to rent a place for two weeks,� Rayment said, “and then things changed quickly. The UAE closed its borders, so we had to find another home and got the one we’re in now for a month and possibly one more. So really we’re just here, on lockdown a long way from home. It’s crazy, what’s happening. “I’ve made so many calls I could be a travel agent here,� he added with a rueful laugh. Not that he’s complaining; he knows they’re among the lucky ones. Like all touring pros, Cabrera Bello, who stayed at the Sawgrass Marriott for tournament week, is used to being on the move. He had planned on going from THE PLAYERS to the Valspar Championship in Tampa, the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play in Austin, Texas, then the Masters in Augusta, Georgia. Rayment’s daughter, a lawyer, was going to be at Augusta National for the first time. Then everyone’s plans fell apart. Since THE PLAYERS was canceled, Cabrera Bello hasn’t played much golf. He may go out for a quick nine or hit balls around dinner time to limit contact with others in this social distancing environment. The news from Spain and in America is grim, but Cabrera Bello checks it regularly. Sometimes he puts a piece or two into a puzzle. He’s twice driven to Orlando to see his coach, David Leadbetter. When he must go shopping for groceries or other necessities for the family, he always takes precautions. It’s the new normal, and it’s how he’d want others to behave around his 89-year-old maternal grandmother, Egda. His only surviving grandparent, she lives with his parents back home in Gran Canaria, Spain, and all are doing well, he said. So are his siblings, and his friends. “I speak with them every other day, and send texts,� he said. “My brother is in Malaga, my sister in London. My wife’s family, her mom lives in Portugal, and her dad in Sweden. They are all safe and healthy. It’s more a concern for our grandparents who are high age and higher risk.� His mother, he added, is a doctor in a dialysis clinic, and has been told by the authorities in Spain to stand by in case she’s needed. So far, Gran Canaria has not emerged as a hot spot. Back in Ponte Vedra Beach, Team Rafa plan to stay for the rest of April and into May, at which point they might have enough information to decide what to do next. Maybe Cabrera Bello, who made the first-ever albatross at the 16th hole at THE PLAYERS in 2017, will even know enough to begin to formulate a schedule for what’s left of 2020. Meanwhile, he’s taking it slow and reconnecting with family and friends. He checks in with other Spanish golfers such as Sergio Garcia and Jon Rahm via What’s App, and has especially appreciated his extended time with new daughter Alva Margareta. “I like to set up routines like a normal family instead of seeing her for a week and then being away for a week,� Cabrera Bello said. “I’ve seen her for like 2-1/2 months straight right now, and it’s absolutely beautiful to watch the little improvements that she goes through every day. You try something with her and she can’t do it, and a week later she’s doing it. “We’re going to learn to enjoy every single day because in the blink of an eye things can change so dramatically,� he added. “The hardest thing is to see so much suffering and worrying about loved ones. I know the end of the tunnel is somewhere, but I just don’t know where it is.�

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – History does not favor Si Woo Kim this week. No champion of THE PLAYERS Championship has successfully defended in the 44 years of the tournament. The best result by a defending champ are the T-5s posted by Jack Nicklaus (1977), Tom Kite (1990) and Hal Sutton (2001). More to the point, the defending champ rarely finds himself in contention, and is more apt to miss the cut. Since Sutton’s result, the last 16 results by the defending PLAYERS champ includes four missed cuts, a WD, a DNP and just one top-10 finish – by Adam Scott, who tied for eighth in 2005. A year ago, Jason Day tied for 60th after shooting a final-round 80. Meanwhile, Kim became the youngest champ in PLAYERS history, winning by three strokes. It was an unexpected victory – and Kim continued to produce the unexpected Thursday. His 5-under 67 is the lowest opening score by a defending champ since the tournament moved to TPC Sawgrass in 1982. Had he not stumbled down the stretch with bogeys in two of his last three holes, he would’ve been the first-round leader. “I played great,� said the 22-year-old Korean, who began his round off the 10th tee and was a bogey-free 7 under for his first 14 holes. “… I liked the score in the first round, but I can hit it better.� Day arrived at TPC Sawgrass in 2017 still dealing with issues involving his mother’s battle with cancer. It did not leave him in the proper frame of mind to defend, but he also acknowledged that it’s difficult to defend in a tournament that produces the best field of the season. “This tournament is heightened,� he said. “The level of it just goes up every single year. I think it gets closer and closer to a major championship feel every single year that we play, and I feel like a lot of the guys think that it’s a major championship.� And just like a major, there are few successful defenses. The last one came at the Open Championship in 2008 when Padraig Harrington won at Royal Birkdale. Since the end of World War II, a total of 289 majors have been played – and the defending champ has won just 14 times, a success rate of less than 5 percent. Of course, that’s still better than the zero percent for defending PLAYERS champ. Asked after his round Thursday about what it would mean to be the first player to achieve that feat, Kim replied, “I feel like it would be dreaming, but that’s too hard. This is just the first round. I’m going to keep working hard.� Probably a wise move. Not only is he battling the best field in golf, he’s battling history. Notables Bubba Watson has made 10 starts at TPC Sawgrass. His best result was a T-37 in 2013. But his opening 68 – which ties for his lowest score in his last 21 rounds here – has him on personal-best pace. “Every time I come here, I’m just trying to beat 37,� Watson said. “I’m no good around this place. It’s very difficult for me because of the sights off the tee, some of the trees. It makes me fear hitting shots that I want to hit.� On Thursday he hit a respectable 10 fairways and 13 greens. Rule, Britannia? The English group of Justin Rose (68), Tommy Fleetwood (69) and Ian Poulter (70) combined for 9 under. Neither Poulter nor Rose, the two veterans, could ever remember playing in an all-English threesome at a PGA TOUR event. “I was alerted by the TOUR maybe last week some time that they were thinking about that group,� Rose said. “It was exciting to hear it.� It’ll be even more exciting if at least one of them can remain in contention Sunday, especially since no Englishman has ever won THE PLAYERS. Webb Simpson was among the attendees for a dinner local resident Jim Furyk hosted at his house Wednesday night for Ryder Cup hopefuls. Simpson is 23rd in the U.S. standings, but his 6-under 66 no doubt caught the captain’s attention. “I’ve still got a lot of work to do to get on the team, but it was nice to be there,� Simpson said. Jordan Spieth opened bogey-bogey-eagle-double en route to a 3-over 75. It wasn’t as bad it looked, though. During one three-hole stretch, he said he “lost three strokes with a total of 6 feet in the landing zone� and added that other than two bad swings, he “played good golf and just didn’t get rewarded for it.� Brooks Koepka, who recently returned to action after missing most of this year with an injured left wrist, re-aggravated the problem when he stopped in mid-swing during a practice session Wednesday in order to avoid a cart driver who had accidentally driven in front of him 15 yards away. “It’s the first time my strength actually backfired, to be strong enough to actually stop it,� said Koepka, who was hitting 3-iron stingers to practice for shots needed at the 18th hole. “He would’ve been dead. It was perfect timing.� Koepka iced the wrist overnight, then shot a bogey-free 2-under 70. Quotables My cut-to-top-6 ratio is pretty good.It’s hard not to have a smile on your face when you shoot 5 under at this place.I really don’t think I have anything to work on this afternoon. I think it’s time to go to the beach with the kids.

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