Photos: WGC-HSBC Champions, Final Round

Two months ago, Tiger Woods won the TOUR Championship, the 80th career title of his illustrious PGA TOUR career. The percentages are not in his favor that he’ll be able to defend that title next August at East Lake. In the five seasons since the TOUR introduced its wraparound schedule, just 21 players (out of 150) have advanced to the FedExCup Playoffs finale without accruing a single FedExCup point in the fall portion of the season. That averages to just about four players a season – or 14 percent of the 30-man field who reach the TOUR Championship. Of course, Woods’ greatness is such that historical averages and low percentages are things that usually don’t apply to two-time FedExCup champion. And to be fair, he did make the TOUR Championship last season without benefit of a start in any fall event. He’ll hope to do the same this season. Two more past FedExCup champs also reached East Lake last season without acquiring a single point in the fall – Rory McIlroy and Billy Horschel. So, it’s not impossible. It’s just much easier if you’re able to get a quick start. That’s what makes this week’s RSM Classic extremely important for those looking for the last chance this calendar year to make a move. The crosshairs are firmly on the likes of Zach Johnson and Kevin Kisner at Sea Island. Both players opened their seasons last week in Mexico but failed to make the cut, thus rendering this week’s result a little more important. They’re not alone. Fellow TOUR winners Sangmoon Bae, D.A. Points, Wesley Bryan, Retief Goosen, John Huh, Padraig Harrington, Sean O’Hair, David Lingmerth, Jim Herman, Cody Gribble, Freddie Jacobson, Tommy Gainey, Brendon Todd, Tim Herron, Eric Axley, Jason Gore, Will MacKenzie, and Chad Campbell are also in the field this week but are yet to open their FedExCup accounts. Of the 147 TOUR members in this week’s field, 25 are still seeking their first FedExCup point. That’s just the former winners, let alone the rest of those looking to get a wriggle on. Joining Woods as high-profile players certified to start January on zero are former FedExCup and PLAYERS champion Henrik Stenson; another former PLAYERS champ in Sergio Garcia; plus Bubba Watson and Daniel Berger. You can already see the talent trying to cram into those likely few open spots at East Lake. To make matters more interesting, there is one less Playoffs event this season, as the season was reconfigured to end the FedExCup Playoffs before Labor Day. There will now be just two Playoffs events prior to the TOUR Championship. “I don’t necessarily think it gives you a head start now, I think it’s more so you don’t go into January behind the 8-ball because if you don’t play in the fall, if you don’t play well, you’re so far back,â€� Rickie Fowler explained when describing his starts at the Shriners Hospitals For Children Open and the Mayakoba Golf Classic. “You might be playing catch-up the first few months, on the west coast and then Florida.â€� Even Jason Day, who managed to make the TOUR Championship in each of the first four wrap-around seasons without playing the fall, relented to playing in Asia last season and again this season. Jordan Spieth managed the feat in 2017 but this season decided on fall golf. With the introduction of the Wyndham Rewards Top 10 system where regular-season play is rewarded financially, Spieth saw added value. “No matter what anybody says, that’s a goal of every PGA TOUR member … to try and win the regular season and FedExCup playoff bonus,â€� Spieth said. Unfortunately, with just six FedExCup points to his name he hasn’t exactly given himself the big leg-up that he wanted. Still, it’s better than nothing. One man who does have a head start is CIMB Classic winner Marc Leishman. The Australian was sick of looking at his name so far down the list in Hawaii each January but also saw the value in playing to try to free yourself up for the remainder of the season. “It is definitely very important to get off to a good start. You don’t want to get to the Masters next year and still trying to get into that top 125,â€� the four-time winner said. “Having success early in the season … it just makes you think about winning more and you can take a few more risks, which sometimes you need to do to win. “Sometimes early in the season if you’re one or two back, you don’t want to do anything silly because you don’t want to go from second back to 12th. But once you’ve got a good early start, you can really just think about winning and that’s exciting.â€� Of course next season, with more events to come before the turn of the calendar, early success will likely become even more critical. You can’t win the FedExCup in the fall … but you can certainly lose it.

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Golf has been a common recreational thread among leaders of the United States, and George H.W. Bush, the 41st President, enthusiastically embraced the game most of his life. Bush endeared himself to fellow golfers with his brisk pace of play and contributed to golf in a variety of ways after leaving the White House. Bush, who died Friday evening at age 94, was inducted into the World Golf Hall in 2011 through the Lifetime Achievement category. Three years earlier he received the Bob Jones Award, the USGA’s highest honor, that recognizes the spirit and ideals of the nine-time USGA champion. “Golf has meant a lot to me,â€� Bush said in 2008. “It means friendship, integrity and character. I grew up in a family that was lucky enough to have golf at the heart of it for a while. My father was a scratch player, and my mother was also a good golfer. It’s a very special game.â€� Current PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan and previous Commissioner Tim Finchem each issued statements upon hearing the news. “We are all saddened by the news of President Bush’s death,” Monahan said. “While I had the privilege of knowing him through various golf activities and initiatives that he supported, Tim Finchem worked very closely with President Bush during his tenure as PGA TOUR Commissioner.” “As we join the world in mourning President Bush’s passing, the PGA TOUR and entire golf community share a deep appreciation for all that he meant to our sport,” Finchem said. “From his love of playing to his selfless dedication and support, golf held a special place for President Bush. … “Add it all up, and we truly are fortunate to have had such an esteemed and compassionate individual serve as a strong advocate for golf and be so generous with his time and skills to promote the game he loved. We owe him a great debt for shaping what golf is all about today. President Bush will be greatly missed.” For Bush, golf fit into a wide range of sporting pursuits. He played baseball at Yale, jogged, played tennis, liked to skipper a powerboat at high speed and hunted and fished. As President from 1989-93, he had an artificial-turf putting green and horseshoes pit installed outside the White House. “Sports are good for the soul,â€� Bush said to Forbes.com in 2010, “good for life.â€� Between his election in November 1988 and when he took the oath of office three months later, he mixed in many athletic activities at his retreat in Kennebunkport, Maine, as he prepared for the presidency. “It’s not a transition,â€� a Bush staff member joked to The New York Times. “It’s ‘The Wide World of Sports.’ â€� Former President George H.W. Bush and wife Barbara pose with the Presidents Cup in 2015. (Stan Badz/PGA TOUR) Although Bush didn’t play golf until he was in high school, his family was deeply rooted in the sport. His grandfather, George H. Walker, was USGA president in 1920 and the man for whom the Walker Cup—the biennial amateur competition between males golfers in the United States and Great Britain—is named. Bush’s father, Prescott, was USGA president in 1935. Like George Walker, Prescott Bush was a skilled golfer, an eight-time club champion at Cape Arundel Golf Club in Kennebunkport, Me., where he had the course record, 66, for many years. George H.W. Bush’s athleticism made him a capable player—he gave himself the self-deprecating nickname “Mr. Smoothâ€�—and he would have been much better if not for his putting woes. The longtime Cape Arundel professional and a frequent Bush golf companion, Ken Raynor, described Bush’s play to Sports Illustrated in 1988: “He’d rather face Congress than a three-foot putt. The rest of his game is very strong. His best score on the course is 76. He’d be an easy 11 handicap if he could get his putting under control.â€� Bush fought the yips, for which he found relief in the late 1980s from a long putter, a 52-inch model called a Pole-Kat that had an immediate impact on his game in the summer of 1989. “His first putt on the first hole was a 20-footer, and he putt it right in the jar,â€� Raynor told the Orlando Sentinel. “He got the big smile on his face, and for the rest of the day he sank putts from all over the place. He was delirious. He wound up shooting an 81, which was his best score in a long, long time. He came back out and played on Sunday and Monday. All of a sudden, he enjoys golf again.â€� In a letter the following spring to his friend Dan Jenkins, the author and sportswriter, Bush confirmed how the club invigorated his golf. “The long putter paved the way,â€� Bush wrote. “I don’t sink putts now but the long one has given me confidence to follow through, thus avoiding the automatic 4 putt greens. Now there is light at the end of the short-game tunnel. [But] I’m not ready for a guy that shoots 77 or ever shot 77.â€� Bush was a convivial but competitive on the course. “He would never give a putt. He makes you putt them out,â€� former Defense Secretary and Bush golf partner told The New York Times after Bush was elected President. “But a lot of people will be giving him putts from now on …â€� Although playing in front of galleries made him nervous, Bush did so a number of times. When he was President, he played in the Doug Sanders Kingwood Celebrity Classic pro-am in May 1990 in a group consisting of Sanders, then-PGA TOUR Commissioner Deane Beman and Bush’s oldest son, George W. Before he teed off, Bush told the spectators: “I would have but one request: Keep on being the points of light, keep on with the concept that it really is right for one American to help another, and please don’t laugh at the drive off the first tee.â€� John O’Connor, who caddied that day for Beman, recalled how Bush’s genuine, down-to-earth character was revealed. “Everyone else was uptight, but he made us feel loose,â€� O’Connor said to the Philadelphia Inquirer. “At one point, on the 15th tee, Beman asked him where he was going after Houston. Bush said, ‘Of course, I have that Gorbachev thing next week’ like it was nothing at all. Here he is talking about that ‘Gorbachev thing’ like he’s having a load of lumber brought in to fix his house or something.â€� After playing golf with Bush in 1990, Jenkins described the First Golfer in a Golf Digest article: “The prez played extremely fast but enjoyed himself,â€� Jenkins wrote, “ “even when he flubbed a chip shot, three-putted and heard an onlooker on the other side of a fence holler, ‘Does your husband play golf, too?’ He laughed.â€� One of Bush’s most notable rounds was at the pro-am for the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic in 1995. Bush played with President Bill Clinton, former President Gerald Ford, Bob Hope and the tournament’s defending champion, Scott Hoch. It was reported that Bush turned the tables on the 1992 presidential election, shooting a 92 to Clinton’s 93. If Bush’s golf wasn’t always exemplary, the pace at which he went at the game was. Slow play was anathema to Bush, for whom 18 holes that took more than three hours would have been worse than dental surgery. “It’s not what you make on a hole but how many ticks on the stopwatch it’s taken you to hole out,â€� Raynor told Sports Illustrated. “Cart polo, we call it. We’ve done 18 holes in two hours and 20 minutes.â€� “You put your track shoes on when you’re playing with him,â€� said Hale Irwin. Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and 2016 presidential contender, takes after his father, telling the Miami Herald that his fastest round (one hour, 36 minutes) was, no surprise, in the company of his father. “You can’t get much faster than that,â€� Jeb Bush said. The Bush family’s golf mantra, as the 41st President he told Don Van Natta Jr., author of First Off the Tee, was simple: “We’re not good, but we’re fast.â€� Bush’s involvement with golf extended well beyond his own rounds, particularly after he left the White House. He was the first Honorary Chairman of The First Tee—the youth outreach program that uses golf to teach life lessons—and promoted The First Tee when it launched in late 1997. “I’m very enthusiastic about The First Tee,â€� Bush said then, “and I believe it will expand interest in the game. We’ll be uplifting the lives of a lot of kids.â€� George W. Bush, the 43rd President, succeeded his father as Honorary Chairman in 2011. Bush was honorary chairman of The Presidents Cup in 1996 and attended each of the biennial competitions through 2009, the same year he was awarded the PGA TOUR’s Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding contributions to the TOUR. “Working with Tim Finchem and getting to know so many of the TOUR’s members has been one of the great joys of my post-White House life,â€� Bush said, “and my gratitude goes to all who were fully aware of my skills on the course and yet chose to support this welcome decision anyway.â€� The recipient of the PGA of America’s Distinguished Service Award in 1997, Bush received a distinction dear to his heart in 2011 when Cape Arundel Golf Club renamed its clubhouse “41 Houseâ€� in honor of one of its longtime members. “This golf course has meant a great deal to my family over the years,â€� Bush said, “and we all have many happy memories of golf games won and lost.â€�

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How it works: Each week, our experts from PGATOUR.COM will make their selections in PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf. Each lineup consists of four starters and two bench players that can be rotated after each round. Adding to the challenge is that every golfer can be used only three times per each of four Segments. The first fantasy golf game to utilize live ShotLink data, PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf allows you to see scores update live during competition. Aside from the experts below, Fantasy Insider Rob Bolton breaks down the field at this year’s World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship in his edition of the Power Rankings. For more fantasy, check out Sleepers, Rookie Ranking, Qualifiers and Reshuffle. THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN OUR EXPERTS? The PGA TOUR Experts league is once again open to the public. You can play our free fantasy game and see how you measure up against our experts below. Joining the league is simple. Just click here to sign up or log in. Once you create your team, click the “Leagues” tab and search for “PGA TOUR Experts.” After that? Pick your players and start talking smack. Want to represent the fans against our experts? SEASON SEGMENT

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