Qualifiers for majors, WGCs and THE PLAYERS

ST. LOUIS – Tiger Woods was 3 over par through two holes at the 100th PGA Championship at Bellerive Country Club on Thursday, but battled back to shoot an even-par 70. He was five behind the early first-round leader, Rickie Fowler, and feeling good about turning a potentially terrible day into a not-so-bad one. “It kept me in the golf tournament,â€� said Woods, who started on the back nine. “I could have easily gone the other way, being 3 over through two. A lot of things could happen. Not a lot of them were positive, but I hung in there and turned it around.â€� After being sidelined for years by various ailments, including four back surgeries, Woods is in the midst of a comeback season that has seen plenty of highs. At the Valspar Championship in just his fourth start this season, he shot four under-par rounds for the first time since THE NORTHERN TRUST in 2013. At The Open Championship at Carnoustie last month, he briefly seized the lead before struggling on the back nine and ultimately finishing T6. The top-10 finish nudged him into the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking and got him into last week’s World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone South, where he’d won eight times. He got into contention but shot 73-73 on the weekend to finish T31. Woods was not at his best again at Bellerive on Thursday. Of his 118-yard approach over water at the 11th hole, he said, “I stuck it in the ground,â€� coming up some 12 yards short on the way to a double-bogey 6. Still, he minimized the damage by making three birdies and no bogeys over his last 10 holes. He hit 9 of 14 fairways and 11 of 18 greens, and took 27 putts. “This is a long run,â€� he said, pleased to still be within five of the early first-round leader, Rickie Fowler. “These are marathons. These are four long days. They’re slow rounds.â€� Woods had the same score as playing partner Rory McIlroy (70) and was one behind the third member of the group, Justin Thomas (69), the defending PGA champion who is coming off a victory at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational last weekend. Being grouped with two stars from the next wave had Woods in a reflective mind, and he recounted a story about playing with Jack Nicklaus at the 2000 PGA at Valhalla, which he had told at the PGA Champions Dinner here earlier this week.   “Jack at Valhalla, 18 years ago, that was his last PGA, and he was telling me the story that he played with Gene Sarazen in his last PGA,â€� Woods said. “It’s interesting what this game of golf can do, how we can basically last for so many different generations. “… The reason I was telling the story is because J.T. invited me to speak a little on behalf of himself and PGA of America, and J.T. was 7-years old when we were at Valhalla, and he was in the clubhouse when I made that putt on 18. So, kind of trying to tie in Gene Sarazen, Jack, and little J.T. there, and now he’s PGA champion for the last year, 17 years later. So, it’s pretty neat.â€�

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Tiger confused, unsteady in dashcam video

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Nicholas Thompson was on daddy duty, playing with his two young children, when the text messages started arriving last Wednesday. Had he heard? Did he know there had been a shooting at his alma mater, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, that afternoon? Stunned, Thompson turned on the TV. The news video of those terrified teens running out of the buildings with their hands over their heads was haunting. The death toll was staggering. “I was beyond shocked,â€� Thompson recalls. The rest of the afternoon, Thompson and his wife, Christen, who, like her husband, is a 2001 MSD graduate, took turns watching the non-stop TV coverage or playing with the kids. They wanted to shield the oldest, who is 4, from the terrible news. “But pretty much everything that was published online, I read about it,â€� says Thompson, who grew up and lived about 5 miles from the school for nearly three decades. So once the children were asleep that night, Nicholas and Christen  finally were able to process what had happened. And they knew they had to do something. The Honda Classic, which is being played this week at PGA National in West Palm Beach just minutes from their home, offered the perfect opportunity. So the PGA TOUR veteran talked with executive director Ken Kennerly and a plan was hatched. The tournament is providing maroon ribbons for its 1,600 volunteers to wear to show support for the victims. Thompson and his wife bought another 500 — maroon and silver with the letters MSD on them – for the players, caddies and wives. On Thursday, less than 24 hours after the shooting, Thompson also ordered 3,100 maroon rubber bracelets with the words “Eagle Pride #MSD Strongâ€� written in silver. He plans to distribute them at the tournament in exchange for donations to help the victims and their families. Thompson has also set up a GoFundMe page – the Support MSD Shooting Victims’ Fund – that funnels any money raised into the Stoneman Douglas Victims Fund page. The Broward Educational Foundation fund already has raised more than $1.8 million. Stoneman Douglas graduates, like Thompson, nationwide have embarked on similar projects – not just to raise money but also to effect change. There’s even a private Facebook page called Mobilizing MSD Alumni that was created Wednesday after the shootings and already has more than 10,000 members. “There are people doing t-shirts, there are people doing decals for cars, other people doing different types of wristbands,â€� Thompson says. “Everybody’s just trying to help as much as they can. They’re doing a like town hall, things with CNN, a concert, just everything to help not only raise money and funds but to get awareness out of what occurred and how people feel and all of that.â€�  Thompson doubts many of his friends on TOUR know he graduated from Stoneman Douglas. (His sister, Lexi, a nine-time winner on the LPGA Tour, and brother, Curtis, who competes on the Web.com Tour, both were home-schooled.) He actually went to school with one of the shooting victims, football coach Aaron Feis. The 37-year-old Feis, who was one of 17 killed that afternoon, died trying to shield students from the gunman. “I didn’t 100 percent know him, but we had plenty of mutual friends,â€� says Thompson, who was two years behind Feis in high school. “And I knew of him.â€� The building, which housed the freshman class, where the shooting occurred wasn’t there when Thompson attended MSD. But he remembers when it was built, and the other views from campus broadcast nationwide over the past week brought back vivid memories. “I’m not much of a crier, but it was a very, very sad moment,â€� Thompson says. “To see on TV, the pictures of the school that I went through for four years and the area where it occurred was terrible.â€� Thompson now lives about 45 minutes away from Parkland where MSD is located. While he had hoped to be playing in The Honda Classic in his backyard this week – Thompson fell short in Monday qualifying – he has new purpose for the week. “Now I’ll be able to help out more with this,â€� Thompson says. The excitement in his voice is palpable and the sense of purpose strong. Just like all the teenagers at his alma mater who are trying to turn this tragedy into something positive, too.

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