PGA Tour sends memo encouraging vaccination

RENO, Nevada — During a post-round conversation on Thursday lasting slightly less than four brutally honest minutes, Bill Haas pulled no punches when describing the current state of his golf game. The sound bites included such things as: “I’m frustrated.� “It’s been a disappointing year in a lot of ways.� “This year I’ve been below average.� “I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.� Haas has every justification for feeling this way. Regarded as one of the PGA TOUR’s most consistent performers during the last decade, the 2011 FedExCup champ is experiencing his first sub-par season. Consider this: Just one top-10 finish in 22 starts, the fewest since his rookie season in 2007. Three top-25 finishes, the fewest ever since joining the PGA TOUR. Nine missed cuts, most since 2009. That year was the last time he did not play in the Masters and The Open Championship — until this year. It was also the last time he failed to qualify for the majority of the World Golf Championships events. As a result, Haas entered this week’s Barracuda Championship with his FedExCup Playoffs streak in jeopardy. He’s one of 13 players who have made the Playoffs in each of the first 11 years, but right now he’s 145th in points and needs a big move down the stretch to climb inside the top 125 following the Wyndham Championship. Just as alarming, Haas is in danger of losing his full status on TOUR. His five-year exemption for winning the FedExCup expired two years ago, and his exemption for his last TOUR win (in 2015) expired last season. Unless he makes the Playoffs this season, he’d have to play out of the Past Champion category — or he could try to regain his card through the Web.com Tour Finals. “My goal obviously is to try to make the Playoffs and do some good there,� the 36-year-old Haas said. “But I just haven’t played well enough to put myself in a good position to do that. That’s the reason I’m here. “Hopefully these next couple of weeks, I can figure something out.� He’s been trying to do that for quite some time now, alas with no success. Some may point to the mid-February car crash during Genesis Open week when Haas’ golf game started to suffer. Haas was a passenger in a car driven by a member of the host family in which he was staying that week. The driver, 71-year-old Mark Gibello, died on the scene, and Haas immediately withdrew from the tournament, to heal the physical wounds to his legs as well as the mental wounds from the tragic death of a friend. Haas returned a month later and soon posted his only top-10 of the season, a T-7 at the RBC Heritage. He said Thursday that his current struggles have nothing to do with the accident. “Nothing that certainly give me a reason I shouldn’t be able to play good golf,� he said. “I don’t think I was the same right afterwards physically, but I think I’ve worked my way through that.� In truth, his results had been trending poorly before the accident. He missed his last cut of the 2017 calendar year at The RSM Classic (perhaps a foreshadow, as he usually plays well in that event), then missed his first two cuts upon resuming his schedule in 2018. Generally a fast starter, he was already outside the top 125 bubble going into Riviera; never before in his FedExCup career had he been lower than 70 at that point of the season. As to what specifically has gone wrong in Haas’ game, well, pretty much everything. In Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, he currently ranks 107th. In the previous five seasons, he’s never ranked lower than 34th, and in his career, he’s previous low ranking was 75th. He also ranks 161st in Strokes Gained: Putting, again his career-worst ranking in that category. “The putting hasn’t been good, without question,� Haas said. “This year, I have not been sharp hitting the golf ball. If you don’t hit it good and you don’t putt well, then you’re not going to do well. It’s just something I’m trying to work through and figure out. But if I knew the answer, I wouldn’t do it. I would do better. “I’ve always been average at everything, you know? I’ve always been pretty good. But this year, I’ve been below average at my iron game, my putting, my chipping hasn’t been as good. I think there was one year my irons weren’t as sharp, but I was one of the top ones in scrambling. If you hit bad irons but scramble well, it doesn’t really matter. But when all facets of your game are struggling, it adds up to some missed cuts.� Adding to his frustration is that he’s not even seeing incremental improvement, despite all the time and energy he’s devoted to finding a solution. “I feel like I’ve worked harder this year than I’ve ever worked and I haven’t seen the results,� Haas said. “That’s been the hardest thing and that’s what I’m struggling with. I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, but that’s the reason I’m going to keep working at it today and tomorrow and hopefully something clicks.� Unfortunately, it did not click for Haas on Thursday. His round started out promising — two birdies in his first three holes, as he knocked his tee shot at the par-3 11th to 10 feet, then hit his approach at the par-4 12th to inside 6 feet. But he couldn’t ride the momentum, failing to capitalize on a couple of other opportunities. His round then stalled before losing steam completely at the finish, with two bogeys in his last three holes. On his last hole of the day, the par-4 ninth, he hit a terrific drive, 304 yards to the middle of the fairway. But with a sand wedge from 123 yards, he found a greenside bunker and failed to get up and down. Finishing with five points in the Modified Stableford scoring system, he’ll have to make up ground Friday in order to reach the weekend. Otherwise, he’ll leave Montreux with no FedExCup points and presumably drop a few more spots in the standings. All in all, Thursday pretty much reflected the entire frustrating, perplexing season for one of the TOUR’s most consistent and gentlemanly players. “It’s golf,� Haas said, throwing one last punch at himself, “and it’s beating me right now.�

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Landon Donovan is generally regarded as the best American male soccer player of all time, so accomplished the Major League Soccer's MVP award is named in his honor. On Wednesday, though, the 38-year-old steps outside his comfort zone to play with Tony Finau against Paul Casey and singer Jake Owen in the American Express Charity Challenge at PGA WEST in La Quinta, California. Donovan, who is co-owner and coach of the San Diego Loyal Soccer Club, took some time before the event to talk about how he got his start in golf and the particular skills he thinks set the game apart. PGATOUR.COM: You've been playing golf since you were in elementary school. What drew you to the game? DONOVAN: I believe it was in third grade. The reason I started was I was having some problems in school with my behavior and my parents told me that if I behaved well, they would take me on some sort of outing of my choosing. And I have no idea why one of the times I said I want to golf. And they were like, okay. So, I actually went out with my mom and started golfing. So, there’s a nostalgic piece of it. And then it’s kind of come and gone as I’ve been an adult — mainly based around my schedule and if I physically felt up to it or not when I was playing. But now that I’m coaching, there’s not a ton of time, but when I can I just love the sport. PGATOUR.COM: So how good a golfer are you? DONOVAN: Well, when I play a decent amount, I shoot in the low 80s. But I also don’t play from the tips. I don’t drive the ball particularly well, but my iron game and short game is OK by an average person’s standards. If I had to play from the tips at PGA WEST it probably would not be a pretty outcome, but I think they’re going to give us a little bit of leeway on some of the holes. PGATOUR.COM: Are you nervous? After all, it's going to be televised. DONOVAN: No, I’m not nervous. I’m excited. I hope nobody expects that I know how to golf. I just want to enjoy it. I mean, obviously it’s for a great, great cause, but more so, personally on the day, it’ll just be fun to get one, to get to play with Tony, and then just to see these guys up close and see how they hit the ball. I went to the Masters a few years ago. … Just to see the way they strike the ball and then listen to the sound is really remarkable. And you don’t realize that watching them on TV, obviously. So, when he gets to do it up close and then I just want to hear, I mean, probably the last thing Tony wants to do is talk about golf, but I just want to speak a little bit about like his process as he goes through lining up a shot and deciding how he’s going to play a certain hole and those kinds of things. I love learning, and that would be really fascinating to hear. PGATOUR.COM: You were such an awesome soccer player — the best of all time. Is it frustrating to play a sport that you haven’t mastered yet? DONOVAN: Yeah. I mean, that’s the beauty of all sports other than the one you played — and golf in particular. I play a lot of tennis, as well. And tennis is a sport where you can play a bad point and still win the point. You can actually play a relatively bad set or match and still win a match just based on how it’s going. In golf there’s nowhere to turn. There are no other variables. It’s just you on the ball. And that’s the daunting part because I’m so used to a sport where there are so many variables involved and so many players and referees and fans, the climate. What the beauty of golf is, you don’t have any excuses. It’s just you either did it or you didn’t. And so that’s what I love about it — but that’s also what’s very frustrating. I’m sure like everyone experiences the ability to hit a shot almost like a professional would hit, even though it’s once in a blue moon, it makes you feel like it’s a sport you can conquer. But then the reason why they are where they are is because they can do it every time or almost every time. Once in a blue moon, you can strike a ball like a professional, but you could never, ever, ever compete with them because you can’t do it twice in a row and they do it 200 times in a row over the course of a weekend. PGATOUR.COM: What frustrates you most about the game? DONOVAN: Honestly the level of respect I have for what they’re able to do is so high because in my opinion, tennis and golf are the two most mentally challenging sports. And I think golf is a little more than tennis because of what I just said. It’s a game and a sport that is far ahead of other sports in the way players mentally prepare. And if we could take that level of mental work and preparation and put it into other sports, athletes would be a lot better. And it’s still sort of the last plateau or I guess the last the last area to conquer in team sports because it’s seen as not macho or just toughing through it or get on with it, whereas in golf it’s like the mental side is you could say more important than the physical side. So, we can learn so much from that sport because they have no choice, but to get on with the next shot, regardless of what happened before and in soccer you’ll see guys who make a bad play or miss a shot and it affects them for the rest of the game and they can’t recover. And in golf you just have to learn no matter what happened — good, bad, ugly, indifferent — you have to get on with the next shot. That’s the only one that matters. And I think that’s a great metaphor for life and for other sports as well could be really helpful. PGATOUR.COM: And I also think the fact that a golf tournament is held over four days - not just a single game — makes it even more challenging mentally DONOVAN: That’s well said. And also, what people don’t realize is when amateur golfers golf, we all golf with the cart, right? At least a push-cart or most of us have like a motorized cart. If I walk seven or eight holes, I am exhausted. I mean, exhausted. And in the sun, right? So, you don’t realize how fit they are because that’s not easy. Yes. I know someone’s carrying their bag, but you just try walking 18 holes without hitting golf shots and without the mental strength. It’s really hard. It’s exhausting. So, it makes you realize what great shape they’re at. And then by Sunday afternoon, they still have the energy - it's really impressive. PGATOUR.COM: This may be a weird question because soccer is so fast paced but is there anything about soccer that helps you as a golfer? DONOVAN: It's actually a great question. Only since I stopped playing soccer did I realize in tennis and in golf, both, the value of just watching the ball when you strike it. And I never thought about it in soccer because I was so programmed to do it without thinking and it was just second nature for me. But in both tennis and golf, when I actually just watched the ball all the way to the racket or watch the club all the way until it hits through the ball, there’s a different outcome. And it’s so difficult because human nature is always to want to see where the ball is going. You always want to know where the ball is going. And so, in soccer, when there were times where I wasn’t scoring goals or something felt off with my shooting, I would always go back to, OK, just keep your head down and watch yourself, kick the ball all the way through the ball. And that’s exactly the same thing that happens in golf. Exactly. For me, it’s almost every time I watched myself swing all the way through the ball that I hit at least a decent shot. And when I don’t, I don’t. PGATOUR.COM: What's the funniest thing that’s ever happened to you on the golf course? DONOVAN: So, when I was with the under-17 national team, my coach at that time — and this was 20-plus years ago — he likes to tell this story. We were in, I think it was in Florida, and we were on a golf course and I hit a ball somewhere near the water and walked over and started lining up my shot. And without me realizing it, a gator or a crocodile had trickled his or her way up, like, really close to me. And then, my coach said, ‘Hey, Landon, you may want to check out what your surroundings are right now.’ And I looked out and needless said to say, I just left the ball. I was happy to lose a couple of dollars and get the hell out of there.

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U.S. Open and PGA champoin Brooks Koepka took a share of the Northern Trust lead after making an eagle and closing with three straight birdies for a 6-under 65.

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