RBC Heritage, Round 2: Leaderboard, tee times, TV times

For the golfer who wants his resume to be the envy of his fellow professionals, there are certain venues that capture attention. Obviously wins at Augusta National come not only with a Green Jacket but yards of cache. Really, wins at any major, of which Mark O’Meara has a pair including one at the Masters, look good on a resume. But what about other venues? Where does it really matter if a guy has won outside of the four majors? Surely, TPC Sawgrass is on the short list. And so is Pebble Beach, home of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on the PGA TOUR and the PURE Insurance Championship on PGA TOUR Champions, otherwise known as O’Meara’s personal playground. O’Meara, 65, won an event at Pebble Beach in each of three decades beginning with the 1979 California State Amateur. He won the PGA TOUR event played at Pebble five times, including the last time it was called the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am and four times after AT&T became the title sponsor. “Sometimes you hear people say O’Meara won 16 times but five were at Pebble Beach,” O’Meara said Wednesday. “Well, with all due respect to the great venues out there, where would you rather win five? Unless you win a major or The Players Championship, Pebble is probably next on the hit list.” Phil Mickelson joined O’Meara in 2019 as a five-time winner at Pebble. O’Meara said he texted Lefty in the aftermath and said, “Congratulations but I think that’s enough, young man.” O’Meara has been hitting Pebble hard since his first trip to the Monterey Peninsula, for the California State Amateur in 1979, when he was a senior at Long Beach State. He was immediately taken by the beauty and mystique of the area. It also didn’t hurt that he won the 36-hole final match 8&7. O’Meara credits that first trip as being a cornerstone of his success at Pebble Beach. Before he had even turned pro, he had good vibes for the place. He also didn’t mind the poa annua greens. They can be very bumpy and tricky to read, but O’Meara grew up in Mission Viejo putting on poa annua. “It was a combination of factors that lead to my success at Pebble,” said O’Meara, who added that he’ll play about a dozen events on PGA TOUR Champions this season, including the PURE Insurance Championship. “First for me to go back there and have all the fond memories of the State Amateur. And a lot of great players won the California State Amateur. I also love to play so much in the natural beauty and growing up on poa annua greens that are very bumpy and knowing you have to be very patient. “You also have to be patient because being in the final group it can take almost six hours to play. You’re playing with amateurs. I love amateurs. My dad was a real people person, a sales guy. I had more fun playing with amateurs than I did my pros. They were an escape for me to not always worry about what was happening with Mark O’Meara on the golf course. It took my mind off what I was doing right or wrong on the course. Instead of just focusing on me, if I could engage with the amateurs it took my mind away. I just used them as a positive, not a distraction. Other guys don’t feel the same way about it. That’s why I had a lot of success at Pebble.” O’Meara won the tournament once with his dad as his amateur partner. He cited that as one of the most cherished memories of his life. The year was 1990. They had first played together in 1986, the year after his first victory at the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am. And they made the cut. After O’Meara won in 1989, he invited his dad to come play with him one more time. “I gave it to him as a Christmas present,” O’Meara said. “I flew him and mom out and then I won the tournament playing alongside my dad. I put that right at the top of the list of great things, winning at Augusta with a putt on the final hole, winning the U.S. Amateur. But to play with my father and coming up the last hole, the 18th hole at Pebble, you can’t do better than that.”

Click here to read the full article…

AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) — Billy Payne is retiring as chairman of Augusta National Golf Club and the Masters after 11 years of substantial change that included the club inviting female members and supporting the game’s growth with two international amateur tournaments. Payne officially retires Oct. 16 when the club opens for a new season. He will be succeeded by Fred Ridley, a former USGA president and U.S. Amateur champion who heads the Masters Competition Committee. Ridley will be the first chairman who played in the Masters. Payne was invited to join Augusta National in 1997, one year after he concluded his long-shot bid to bring the Olympics to Atlanta. He was appointed chairman nine years later, and he worked to move the club into modern times without losing sight of its traditions.

Click here to read the full article…

COLUMBUS, Ohio – There are very few people who can really truly comprehend what Tiger Woods has achieved since having back-fusion surgery. One of those is two-time Super Bowl champion and five-time NFL MVP Peyton Manning. Manning famously returned to the heights of the NFL after sitting out a season following neck-fusion surgery in 2011. Having won his first Super Bowl with the Colts before the injury, he won another with the Denver Broncos after having surgery. RELATED: Watch Tiger exclusively on PGA TOUR LIVE on Thursday morning Getting there was not easy and plenty doubted he could. Woods finally succumbed to back-fusion surgery after multiple previous surgeries failed to fully address the issue. Now Woods has two wins since the surgery (TOUR Championship, Masters). Manning joined Woods for a pro-am appearance at the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide on Wednesday, the second straight year they have played together. But this year came after Woods won PGA TOUR title No. 80 at East Lake and No. 81 at Augusta National Golf Club, replicating the amazing comeback success of Manning. “It’s hard to make comparisons. And I don’t think that anybody can speak to it from a physical standpoint, injury-wise. Only you know what it feels like. And I know how hard he worked,� Manning said of Woods, who will try to join Sam Snead with a record 82 PGA TOUR wins this week. “The most impressive thing is how he’s been able to adjust and be adaptive to playing in a new physical state. And that’s what I did. And maybe to use a baseball analogy … I couldn’t throw the 100 mile-an-hour fastball anymore, but you can still work the outside edges of the plate and you can still strike a guy out that way. “And he struck a lot of guys out down there at Augusta a few weeks ago and came home with the win. That to me is the most impressive thing, how adaptive he’s been. As a golf fan, like everybody, I liked watching that Sunday. It’s great having him out here watching him play again.� Woods’ chase for 82 has ramped up lately. While he missed the cut at the PGA Championship, this week he’s at a venue where success has come in buckets. There was a time that Muirfield Village was as much Tiger’s place as it was Jack’s. From 1999-2012, Woods finished no worse than T22 at the beautiful course Jack Nicklaus built near his Ohio roots. Woods won the Memorial Tournament five times and finished inside the top four on three other occasions. Three of his wins came in consecutive years between 1999-2001. So perhaps it would be somewhat fitting for Woods to claim his 82nd and record-tying PGA TOUR win this week. “To get into those numbers it takes longevity and it takes years. I think it’s been 10 years where I’ve won five or more tournaments. You need multiple win seasons like that and be able to do it for decades so that’s something I’m very proud of because it’s not something that happens overnight,� Woods said of his win chase. “To be able to come this close to get to one behind Sam Snead has been pretty amazing. It has been a pretty amazing run during my 20-some odd years out here. Hopefully I have a few more.� Woods was under the weather at Bethpage Black, but insists his health is fine this week. “I lost quite a bit of weight and wasn’t feeling my best, but I was able to put most of it back on,� he said. “I’m feeling a lot better. I just need to play a little bit more now. Hopefully it will be four solid days this week.�

Click here to read the full article…