Presidents Cup 2022: Best moments, sights and sounds from Quail Hollow

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – Taking a three-shot lead into the final round of the year, knowing that your first PGA TOUR win, the lead in the FedExCup and a Masters invitation are at stake? RELATED: Leaderboard Talor Gooch doesn’t consider that pressure. Sunday at Sea Island could be a life-altering day for the 30-year-old, but he doesn’t expect it to be more stressful than what he faced five years ago. Gooch will start Sunday with a three-shot advantage over Seamus Power and Sebastian Munoz. His spot on the PGA TOUR is secure no matter what happens in The RSM Classic’s final round, though. He’s already on the cusp of the top 50 in the world ranking – which is why he doesn’t even need a win Sunday to qualify for his first Masters – and in the top 20 of the FedExCup standings. It was in 2016, after two consecutive years on the Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada, that Gooch found his career at a crossroads. He was considering worst-case scenarios during the final round of Q-School’s second stage, after a rough start put his chances of advancing in jeopardy. “I’m going to have to go work at Best Buy,” he recalls thinking. “I’m going to have to go do something to make a few bucks unless (I) get it together.” He rallied, advanced to the final stage and earned Korn Ferry Tour status for the first time. He won that following year, graduated to the PGA TOUR and has been on TOUR since. “If I could do it then, I could do it at any time,” he said. Sunday would be the perfect time for Gooch to call upon that experience. It will be the first time he enters the final round of a PGA TOUR event with the lead. This nascent season already is shaping up to be the best of his career. He arrived at Sea Island after finishing no worse than T11 in his first four starts. The highlight was a final-round 62 in THE CJ CUP @ SUMMIT that threw him into the mix on a leaderboard that also included Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa and his fellow Oklahoma State alum, Rickie Fowler. Gooch’s presence among such company may have been a surprise to everyone but himself. He has the self-confidence that some may consider delusion but is requisite for a professional athlete. Take his freshman year for the Cowboys, where the Midwest City, Oklahoma, native was competing against some of the best players in the country for a spot in the starting lineup. Some questioned Gooch’s decision to join the premiere collegiate golf program, fearing for a lack of playing time. Not Gooch. “It’s hard not to have that chip on your shoulder and want to overcome that, you know?” Gooch said Saturday. “Like I remember in recruiting, everyone was like, man, Oklahoma State’s pretty good, you don’t know if you’re going to crack the lineup your first year. I started every time my first year and that’s all I wanted to do was to go there and start every time and prove people wrong. “As a sportsman, if you don’t have that little bit of grit to go prove people wrong, you’re not going to make it long.” His Oklahoma ties came in handy on another windy day along the Atlantic coast. Tournament host Davis Love III, who also played Saturday after making the cut at age 57, called it a “heavy wind” that was exacerbated by the fact that Sea Island’s Seaside Course is exposed to the ocean. “People said to me, ‘What’s the big deal? it’s only 25 mph,’ but it’s different because it’s wide open,” Love said. “We don’t think the weather is that bad here in November because when it’s like this, we don’t play.” Only three players bested Gooch’s 67 on Saturday. He shared the lead with Power on 14, but Gooch’s two birdies on the final four holes, combined with Power’s bogey on 16, allowed Gooch to seize control of the top spot on the leaderboard. He birdied 17 after hitting a 7-iron to 13 feet, then hit a drive on 18 that flew so low that the one of the caddies in his group turned his head and asked, “Where’d you grow up, dude?” It was the sort of tee shot he used often growing up in the winds of Oklahoma. “For me, my creativity is just hitting it this high and hitting it low, not let the wind get it,” Gooch said. His short game has come in handy this week, as well. He’s missed just 10 greens and gotten up-and-down eight of those times, leading the field in Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green. He’s seventh in Strokes Gained: Putting, as well, highlighted by a 66-foot eagle putt he made on the seventh hole Friday. Seven players are within five shots of Gooch’s lead. Tom Hoge is alone in fourth place, four strokes back, while Luke List, past RSM winner Mackenzie Hughes and Scott Stallings are another stroke back. Webb Simpson, a perennial contender who’s lost two playoffs at Sea Island, is among the players who are six back. Simpson holed out a 95-yard wedge shot in his Saturday 66. He leads the field in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green but has lost strokes on the greens. They’re all playing their final official round of the year. Sunday’s result will determine where Gooch plays next, however. His childhood friends have a January golf trip planned for Scottsdale, Arizona. “I’m hopeful that we’re going to have to adjust that,” he said. A trip to Hawaii, where the Sentry Tournament of Champions will be played, would take precedent.

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ATLANTA — The crowd at East Lake was larger and louder than it has been in five years, which was the last time Tiger Woods was at the TOUR Championship. It was no coincidence. Woods played one of his best rounds of the year in his return to the FedExCup finale and caused the biggest cheer of a sun-baked Thursday afternoon by making an eagle putt from just over 25 feet on the par-5 18th for a 5-under 65 and a share of the lead with Rickie Fowler. It was the second time in as many FedExCup Playoff events that Woods was tied for the 18-hole lead. He shot a 62 at Aronimink in the opening round of the BMW Championship two weeks ago on a rain-soaked course that allowed just about everyone to go low. This felt even better on a dry, tougher East Lake course. “This was by far better than the 62 at Aronimink,” Woods said. “Conditions were soft there. This, it’s hard to get the ball closer. If you drive the ball in the rough, you know you can’t get the ball close. You just can’t control it.” Fowler, who missed two Playoff events recovering from an injury to his right oblique, putted for birdie on all but two holes for his 65 as he tries to avoid ending the season without winning. Justin Rose, in his debut as the No. 1 player in the world, got up-and-down from the bunker for birdie on the 18th for a 66 and was tied with Gary Woodland. Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Rory McIlroy, all of whom will be in France next week for the Ryder Cup, were another shot behind. Woods already considers this a successful year just by making into the 30-man field at East Lake for the FedExCup finale, where everyone has a mathematical shot at capturing the $10 million bonus. He started the season in January after a fourth back surgery that limited him to only 16 PGA TOUR events in the previous four seasons. “To be able to play golf again and to earn my way back to this level is something that I was hoping I would do at the beginning of the year, but I didn’t know,” Woods said. “And I’ve done it?” What would winning mean in this comeback? “It would enhance the year,” he said. Woods still has 54 holes remaining. Two weeks ago, he went from a share of the first-round lead to five shots behind on a course where attacking flags on soft greens was the only option for low scoring. This was more about precision, and Woods felt in total control. He opened with a three-putt bogey from 25 feet, and he twice ran birdie attempts farther beyond the hole than he would have liked. But after making birdie putts from 25 feet on No. 5 and from 15 feet on No. 6, he figured out the speed of the greens and was on his way. “I hit so many quality shots all day, whether it was tee-to-green or it was putts,” Woods said. “I didn’t really mishit a single shot today. The only shot I can honestly say that I necked pretty bad was the tee shot at 17. Hit a 3-wood there, and with an iron, I probably would have shanked it. But ended up in the fairway and made par.” Woods will play in the final group Friday with Fowler, who has seen plenty of him at home in Florida in the months before Woods returned to golf. He had finished his round and was doing interviews when he heard the head-turning roar of Woods making eagle. They will be teammates next week at the Ryder Cup. Fowler has other objectives at East Lake. “The biggest win for him is just staying healthy and being out here all year consistently,” Fowler said. “Definitely happy for him. It’s obviously great for our sport. It’s great to have him as part of the team next week. We hope he continues to play well. I just want to play a little bit better and beat him.” Sixteen players in the 30-man field broke par on a hot afternoon with only a light breeze, and Thursday was all about staying in the game, especially as it relates to the chase for the FedExCup. Bryson DeChambeau, the No. 1 seed after the points were reset, had to birdie two of the last three holes for a 71. For someone like Woods or Fowler to win the FedExCup, they would need the top five seeds to falter. Rose and Thomas didn’t go along with that with strong opening rounds. Finau overcame a pair of early bogeys for his 67. The key for Woods could be Friday. Only once this year, at the Valspar Championship at Innisbrook, has he stayed consistently in the thick of it all tournament. He figures to have plenty of support. Houses along the side streets outside East Lake, and even one funeral home, offered parking and their yards were packed. It hasn’t been like that in several years. “I hadn’t played this tournament in five years, and some of the people said they haven’t been out here in five years,” Woods said. “That’s kind of nice that they’re coming out and supporting this event and supporting me, as well.”

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HONOLULU, Hawaii – Andrew Putnam might become a beekeeper on the side after his opening round at the Sony Open in Hawaii. The Barracuda Championship winner was unable to practice in the lead up at Waialae Country Club thanks to a bee sting suffered in Maui a few days ago. Making the adjustment from the greens at the Sentry Tournament of Champions that have significant slope and fast speeds especially down grain and downhill to the slower, flatter putting surfaces at Waialae can be tough. But Putnam went out blind Thursday and made 174 feet, three inches of putts to gain an incredible 6.844 strokes on the field in the greens. The 29-year-old was 12 from 12 inside 10 feet and also made birdie putts from 27, 21 and 28 feet during his round. “The putter was hot … it was getting a little ridiculous out there,â€� Putnam said post round. “The hole was very large and the ball was going in. It was fun.â€� Putnam suffered the bee sting on his foot moving a chair by the pool in Maui before his flight to Oahu and the swelling prevented him from playing in the pro-am or practicing. “I actually putted really well last week at Kapalua. I think I was second in putting so I think it’s just carryover. Hitting my lines,â€� he said. “Funny thing was I didn’t get a practice round out here, so I was a little bit up in the air with the speed of the greens. For some reason it just felt right.â€� Oh and for the record, Putnam did not leave the flagstick in for any of his putts. “I’m still scared of doing that,â€� he smiled.

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