PGA TOUR in the process of reviewing pace-of-play policy

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – Clearly he’s not the 2000 version of Tiger Woods. But that doesn’t mean the 81-time PGA TOUR winner can’t claim the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach for a second time. Woods demolished the field 19 years ago on the iconic California coastal masterpiece, winning by 15 shots. He was the only player under par for the championship… some 12-under. It was an old-fashioned carve up of the course and of his competitors. Back then it was brawn supported by brain. Now the brain takes the top notch, but the brawn is still there despite back-fusion surgery. Woods believes the advances in technology have allowed his aging body to still get to the places at Pebble he did in 2000. Of course, the difference this time around is the rest of the field can get there too. “It’s not the same body that I had back in 2000. I don’t think any of us have the same body we had 19 years ago,â€� Woods said. Related: Tee times | Tiger’s Jedi mind tricks at 2000 U.S. Open | Koepka eyes three-peat | Power Rankings “The golf ball is going further than it did back in 2000, I’m slower than I was in 2000. Apples to oranges, I guess you could say. I am about the same distance. And so the golf course really doesn’t play that much differently for me. “It’s just a matter of putting the ball in the right spots. I missed the ball in the correct spots (in 2000)… you look at all my angles. I did not hit every green. I did not hit every fairway, but I always had the proper angle. And gave me the best chance to get up-and-down. I poured everything in. Hopefully I can have one of those weeks on the greens again.â€� Woods has proven he can win in his 40s. Since his return from the fourth back surgery, he has won the TOUR Championship and of course his 15th major championship at the Masters. He’s had great success on poa annua greens in his career – particularly at Torrey Pines, but this season, to an extent, they’ve had his number. Woods has had 20 three-putts in 26 rounds this season with his worst weeks coming at the Genesis Open, the World Golf Championships – Mexico Championship and the PGA Championship. Those venues had poa greens. He knows the small putting surfaces at Pebble will once again be key. As such, he was putting extra practice work in and had putting coach Matt Killen in attendance. “Putting on poa is very different than putting on bent. And so just trying to make sure that I’m rolling the ball like I need to for poa,â€� Woods explained. “It doesn’t take much to get off line on poa. It gets a little bumpy, you happen to catch those little seed heads start popping up, bent sits down, poa perks up. And good putts look like they should go in, don’t go in. And you may pull one or push one that happens to bounce back in the hole. “The trick to putting on poa is to make sure you’re always below the hole. If you’re putting downhill, it’s like a Plinko effect, you’re going to go every which way. The key is to be below the hole where you can take low lines and try and take the bumpiness out of play.â€� It’s unlikely Woods will win by 15 shots again, but if he masters the greens the record tying 82nd TOUR win is certainly in play. “I feel like I’m trending in the right direction,â€� he smiled.

Click here to read the full article…

Bryson DeChambeau was hoping he was on the mend after a fractured hamate bone in his left hand necessitated a two-month break from the PGA TOUR. Instead, he’ll have surgery. “Bryson will undergo surgery on his hamate bone in his left hand,” DeChambeau’s agent, Brett Falkoff, said in a statement. “We look forward to a smooth recovery and rehab process. Bryson looks forward to returning as soon as he is cleared to do so.” DeChambeau, an eight-time PGA TOUR winner, including the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot, said he first felt a “pop” in his left hand in the fall. He further injured his hand and left hip while playing Ping-Pong earlier this year. He was playing against Sergio Garcia and Joaquin Niemann on freshly wiped marble floors, he said, when he slipped. In discomfort as he missed the cut at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines – where he had contended at the 2021 U.S. Open – he shut it down for most of February and March, hoping rest would be enough. He missed his title defense at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, where his titanic, instant-classic drive cleared the lake at the sixth hole last year, and THE PLAYERS Championship. Alas, the wrist has continued to hamper his play upon his return late last month at the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play. He didn’t make it out of pool play, nor did he look comfortable in missing cuts at the Valero Texas Open (73-76) and Masters Tournament (76-80). “I’m probably around 80% right now,” DeChambeau said at Augusta National. “I can’t go all-out. I can’t do any speed training sessions. I can’t practice for excessive hours.” The time away from the game, he added, allowed him to appreciate other things besides golf. He also said that his doctors recommended against him returning to competition so soon. Although he had missed the cut at the Masters, DeChambeau was among those who stuck around to congratulate Tiger Woods for making it through 72 holes after a 2021 car accident that nearly cost him his right leg. As for what DeChambeau described as a minor labrum tear in his left hip, he said he suffered the initial injury two years ago, at the outset of his transformation into the longest driver on TOUR (and beyond), when he slipped on concrete while swinging at over 200 miles an hour.

Click here to read the full article…

Just last month, as the shadows were creeping over the Manhattan skyline, Peter Malnati took his little boy Hatcher out on the empty putting green at Liberty National. The almost-2-year-old struggled to hold his dad’s putter, which is taller than he is. Together, the two managed to sink a few putts, but when they didn’t the toddler took matters into his own hands, literally, and dropped the little white sphere to the cup. “I put ball in hole, I put ball in hole,” an excited Hatcher told his daddy, and it was hard to tell who was having the most fun. Malnati knows how fortunate he and his wife Alicia are to have a healthy son. He has done numerous visits to children’s hospitals across the country that benefit from the proceeds of PGA TOUR events and gotten to know families whose kids are patients in those facilities. That’s why Malnati was quick to say yes when asked to become an Ambassador for Play Yellow, a campaign by the Children’s Miracle Network – supported by Jack and Barbara Nicklaus – that is trying to raise $100 million to help the 10 million kids treated in hospitals each year. “We’ve dealt with little viruses and a fever here and there, but never anything that’s been serious with our little guy,” Malnati says. “But the dreadful thought of having a child be sick and needed to be hospitalized, I would want to know that every research dollar, every resource possible, was available if that was my son in the hospital. “So, to be able to be a very, very small part of contributing to that body of work that’s going into helping to keep our little ones safe and healthy and give them the best treatment possible; yes, that has taken on a whole new meaning for me since seeing how much my world really does revolve around that little guy.” Children’s of Mississippi in Jackson, where the Sanderson Farms Championship is being played this week, is one of those hospitals in the Children’s Miracle Network. The tournament is hosting a Yellow Out on Sunday where the iconic ceramic chicken tee markers will be painted yellow, and all fans and volunteers are asked to wear the same color. Yellow is the color Nicklaus used to wear on Sundays to honor Craig Smith, the young son of the minister at Barbara’s church who died at 13 after battling Ewing’s sarcoma. The teenager once told Nicklaus that he won a tournament because Craig was wearing his lucky yellow shirt. Malnati, who picked up his first PGA TOUR victory at the Country Club on Jackson in 2016, already has his shirt picked out for Sunday’s final round. But he laughs when asked if he plans to go head-to-toe in yellow – “No, no Rickie Fowler for me,” he says with a laugh. The 34-year-old Malnati first became aware of Children’s of Mississippi, which is the only all-pediatric facility in the state, early in his career when his wife attended a PGA TOUR Wives Association event there and helped patients paint the colorful tee markers. Seeing the kids had an impact on her and the couple has visited several times since, including when he was defending champion, and Malnati says his association with Play Yellow will be a “family affair.” “It’s a no brainer to be involved with something that just kind of furthers that impact that golf is able to have in the communities where we play,” Malnati says. In truth, though, Malnati has been preparing for this role since 2013 when he played in the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship in Columbus, Ohio. Prior to the start of the tournament, he was asked to do a junior clinic for some patient ambassadors at the hospital. Malnati, of course, said yes. He had basically locked up his TOUR card in the previous two-and-a-half months, starting with no status to winning the News-Sentinel Open presented by Pilot and eventually making the Korn Ferry Tour Finals. As he pointed out, Malnati was now in a “really good place. “The game of golf to me, it’s given me so much,” Malnati explains. “It’s just something that I so enjoy. So doing the junior clinic with children from the children’s hospital — it’s not about teaching them skills of golf, it’s about just sharing my love of golf with them. “And so that’s what I did.” Malnati was particularly drawn that day to one little girl who had what he calls an “infectious smile. “You could just see she was genuinely happy and appreciated being there,” he says. “And I felt like her smile kind of reflected the way that the way that I feel about just the fact that I get to go play golf and call it a job to see her be so happy.” He found out later that her name was Madeline Richardson and that she had missed her last two years of school while battling neuroblastoma. Her dad Craig has become one of Malnati’s closest friends, and the pro stays with Craig, his wife Carol and Madeline and her younger sister Elena whenever he plays in the Memorial Tournament presented by Workday. Madeline is a teenager now and doing well, and Malnati says her parents give all credit to the care she received at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. “So that’s a pretty powerful endorsement of the good that I’m hoping to be a part of,” Malnati says. Madeline was also selected to hit the opening tee shot at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Championship in 2013. Malnati happened to be teeing off No. 10 at the same time and was able to run over and watch. The entire experience that week moved him. “So that’s where I first even got the idea that this organization that I was about to be a part of — the PGA TOUR — is actually doing real good and having a real impact in the communities where we played,” Malnati says. “And so that was cool. “It was something that interested me then, and now to kind of take that interest farther and join the Play Yellow initiative is something that I’m really excited about.”

Click here to read the full article…