Power Rankings: Puerto Rico Open

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PUNTA CANA, Domincan Republic – Jhonattan Vegas has lots of reasons to celebrate these days, both on the golf course and off. Vegas – who shot a 3-under-par 69 Thursday in the first round of the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship and was just a few shots back of the early lead – and his wife announced via a video on Instagram just days before the tournament began they were expecting their second child (a boy). This, just a week after the three-time TOUR winner rocked the golf world with his across-the-green putt on the par-3 17th at TPC Sawgrass during THE PLAYERS Championship, en route to a T-3 – his best finish on TOUR since THE NORTHERN TRUST in August 2017. At 69 feet, 7 inches, Vegas’ long birdie putt on the island green was the longest in PLAYERS history. He admitted he didn’t realize how loud it was until after he watched the replays. “I was so tuned into the moment, to the putt,â€� he said. It was such an unreal moment, pretty much, that happened there at 17, that I didn’t notice people. I didn’t notice how loud it was.â€� Vegas said his result at THE PLAYERS two weeks ago gave him the confidence he needs – and made a big difference in his game – as he looks ahead to the Presidents Cup later this year. He said making the International Team captained by Ernie Els is his biggest goal for 2019. “It’s been on the radar since I got done in New York that Sunday,â€� he said. Vegas has made four of his last five cuts – and three straight – with both of his top-10’s on the season occurring in that span. He kept that momentum going Thursday in Punta Cana and was 3-under through his first seven holes. He made bogey on the par-3 9th before birdied the long par-5 12th. He had a short birdie try on the par-4 18th but it just slid by. Still, Vegas said he was pleased with his effort on the much harder back nine. “The back nine is really hard here… five holes on the back nine you’re just really happy to make pars (on). I tried to manage a birdie or two on the other ones. That’s kind of how the course is going to play all week,â€� he said. “The front nine, you have more gettable holes, which we did early, and played solid on the back and it’s a decent score.â€� But as Vegas looks to the second round in Punta Cana, he can’t help but be excited at the prospect of being a father for the second time. He says his daughter, who’s three, is already excited to be a big sister. He said, with a proud-papa smile, she’s already thinking about giving her baby brother a bottle and singing him a song if he cries. Vegas comes from a family of all boys, and although he said he would have been thrilled with another girl, he said he can’t wait to be the father of his own son. “I’ve had such an amazing experience with my daughter, but I think the boys are fun, too,â€� said Vegas. “We can push them more and kind of be athletes like we were when we were a kid, so it’s a way to live childhood through them.â€�

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Tiger Woods has undergone a fifth back surgery. He recently had a microdiscectomy to remove a pressurized disc fragment that gave him nerve pain during last month's PNC Championship, his TGR Foundation announced Tuesday. "I look forward to begin training and am focused on getting back out on TOUR," Woods said in the statement in which his doctors deemed the operation successful and predicted a full recovery. Woods' quest for a record 83rd PGA TOUR victory has been put on hold. He announced that he will miss next week's Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines and his own The Genesis Invitational, which he will host at Riviera Country Club on Feb. 18-21. Woods and Sam Snead are tied with 82 career wins, the most in PGA TOUR history. Woods has won eight times at Torrey Pines - seven times in the Farmers, and at the 2008 U.S. Open - but remains winless at Riviera, where he played his first PGA TOUR event. Woods will be at Riviera next month to serve as tournament host, according to Tuesday's release. Woods underwent his fourth back surgery, a spinal fusion, in early 2017. He returned in 2018, contending for multiple titles before winning the TOUR Championship at East Lake. He won The Masters Tournament and ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP in 2019, when he was also the playing captain of the U.S. Presidents Cup Team, leading a dozen of the best American players to victory at Royal Melbourne while also going 3-0-0 himself. Since then, however, he's gone largely quiet. His 45th birthday last month was an occasion to step back and appreciate not only his 82 victories, but also his 31 seconds, 19 thirds, and 199 top-10 finishes in 368 starts. He has an 11-1 career playoff record, and earnings of nearly $121 million. But his 1,322 rounds on TOUR have taken a toll. Woods, who has also endured multiple operations on his left knee, had but one top-10 finish in the 2020 calendar year - a T9 at the Farmers Insurance Open. Worn out by 2019, and experiencing stiffness in his back, he skipped the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard, which he's won eight times; The Honda Classic, his hometown tournament; and THE PLAYERS Championship (two-time champion). Then came the pandemic. Returning at the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide in July, he finished T40 and did not contend elsewhere, either. His T72 at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP @ SHERWOOD, a course where he'd won the Hero World Challenge five times, said it all. "I haven’t put all the pieces together at the same time," he said before the Masters in November. He didn't put the pieces together at Augusta, either. Tied for 10th after an opening-round 68, he faded to the finish, and his 10 at the 12th hole in the final round - where he hit three balls in the water — was the highest score of his career. Although he bounced back with birdies on five of the last six holes, he still shot 76 and finished T38 to cap a largely forgettable year. At the PNC Championship last month, he opted not to hit a tee shot on a handful of holes where his partner, 11-year-old son Charlie, was already in play well down the fairway. "He's a very young man, but he is predisposed to a few injuries, too, and we've seen that," Padraig Harrington, 49, said then. "Some weeks he doesn't look like he could be competitive, but the weeks that he does come out and is walking that bit better, he's a big contender." What he'll have left after stepping aside to heal once more remains to be seen.

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