Rory McIlroy rebounds from incredible odds to win FedExCup

The final round of the Puerto Rico Open begins today. Here’s everything you need to know to follow the action from Grand Reserve Country Club. Round 4 leaderboard Round 4 tee times HOW TO FOLLOW Television: Thursday-Friday, 10:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). Saturday, 2:30 p.m.-5:00 p.m. (Golf Channel). Sunday, 2:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m. (Golf Channel). FEATURED GROUPS (ALL TIMES ET) Patrick Rodgers, Sam Ryder Tee time: 12:05 p.m. ET Josh Teater, Emiliano Grillo Tee time: 12:15 p.m. ET Viktor Hovland, Martin Laird Tee time: 12:25 p.m. ET MUST READS Hovland in position in Puerto Rico to join fellow phenoms with win Hovland shoots 64 to take Puerto Rico Open lead The First Look Brotherhood of the slump: How pros fight through No joke: Trainer dabbles in sitcom writing

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CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The U.S. Team has a juggernaut in Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas that moved them closer to another victory in the Presidents Cup on Saturday. The International Team has a spark plug in 20-year-old Tom Kim, who delivered the emotion and big putts that made it clear the Americans will have to work for it. The day started with the Americans having a mathematical chance to clinch the cup. It ended with them holding an 11-7 lead, with 12 singles matches left on Sunday. Spieth and Thomas became only the second U.S. partnership to win all four team matches in the Presidents Cup, handily winning their Foursomes match in the morning and their Fourballs match in the afternoon. The International Team split the morning matches, and the way this Presidents Cup has gone for them, not losing ground felt like a win. And then it got better. They rallied over the final hour in two matches to turn deficits into 1-up wins, taking the afternoon session by winning three of the four matches. The star was Kim, the youngest player at Quail Hollow and perhaps the biggest personality. He started the comeback with a 55-foot eagle putt on the par-4 11th hole against Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele. They were all square going to the last, Si Woo Kim already out of the hole, and Tom Kim facing a 10-foot birdie putt for the win. He took a few steps back as the ball neared the hole, dropped his putter and slammed his cap to the ground in a raucous celebration. “I wanted that putt more than anything in the world,” Kim said. Moments later, Adam Scott and Cameron Davis rallied from 1 down with three holes remaining when Davis made a 12-foot eagle putt on the 16th and a 15-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole to go 1 up. On the final hole, Sam Burns hit his approach to 4 feet that gave him and Billy Horschel a chance to earn a halve. And then Davis made a 10-foot birdie for another point. The Americans are still very much in control, needing only four wins and a halve from the 12 singles matches in the final session. Spieth and Thomas have led the way. The only other U.S. tandem in a Presidents Cup to go 4-0 was Tiger Woods and Steve Stricker at Harding Park in 2009. The International Team had Louis Oosthuizen and Branden Grace do the same in South Korea in 2015. Thomas and Spieth have been close friends for 15 years, dating to junior golf and international outings. This is the first time in a Presidents Cup that they have been paired together, and both are on their games. It a lethal combination. Even so, the end of the matches gave Spieth pause. “We’ve got to go get the job done tomorrow and win two more points for our team,” Spieth said. “I’d love to get a singles win, and I know Justin would, too. We’re going to be close enough where our two would be obviously extremely important.” Kim won both his matches Saturday, teaming with K.H. Lee in morning foursomes to beat Burns and Masters champion Scottie Scheffler, 2 and 1. Scott is playing on his 10th team — eight losses and one tie — and was shut out until he and Hideki Matsuyama took down Collin Morikawa and Cameron Young in the morning, and Scott and Davis proved to be a great Australian duo in the afternoon. “Any victory against the U.S. Team has got to be really hard fought,” Scott said. “So this feels good.” Max Homa is still having the week of his life. After his late heroics the night before, he partnered with Tony Finau in a 4-and-3 victory over Si Woo Kim and Davis. Homa sat out the afternoon session. He is 3-0 in his debut playing in a Presidents Cup. Schauffele and Cantlay lost for the first time in three matches this week. They were 2 up after 10 holes and were 3 under the rest of the way, with Schauffele making a 40-foot birdie putt from short of the 15th green for a 1-up lead that looked like it would carry them to another point. Instead, Si Woo Kim made a 4-foot birdie putt to square the match on the 16th, and a 5-foot par putt to keep it tied on the 17th. Tom Kim was so nervous he covered his eyes and was peaking through his fingers, pumping his fist when the putt dropped. And then the 20-year-old Korean had the stage to himself at the end, and he delivered a winner. Left to be seen is what one putt — one point — can do for an International Team that still has a four-point deficit to overcome.

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SAN DIEGO – Tiger Woods was playing six days per week to prepare for his 2018 debut at the Farmers Insurance Open, unencumbered by the quotas that have limited his practice time over the past few years. “Now it’s just, hey, want to go play 18, want to go play 36? Sure. That to me is fun,â€� Woods said in his pre-tournament press conference. After years of struggling with back pain, Woods has enjoyed the camaraderie of playing with his friends at his home club. Fellowship has never been Woods’ first priority on the golf course, though. A thirst for competition has driven him to 79 PGA TOUR titles and 14 majors. All the casual golf in the world can’t replace the emotions that tournament golf elicits. “I want to start feeling what it feels like to be out here and hit shots (and) grind out scores,â€� he said Wednesday. The first round of the Farmers Insurance Open gave him that opportunity. He played Thursday’s first 13 holes exactly how a reasonable witness to last month’s play in the Bahamas would expect. His clubhead speed was high, and his iron shots sailed higher. But for every impressive shot that harkened back to Woods’ better days, there was a miscue that reminded us that Woods has played just one official PGA TOUR event since 2015. Tap-in birdies on Nos. 6 and 10 were offset by three bogeys and several pars that were saved only by deft short-game work. He seemed headed in the wrong direction toward the middle of his back nine, dropping his driver in disgust at the par-4 12th hole and making a sloppy bogey at the next hole after dumping a short wedge shot into a greenside bunker on the par-5. “I was probably a little bit rusty,â€� he said. The slide stopped there, though, as Woods fought to salvage an even-par 72 that kept his hopes of spending the weekend in San Diego alive. He hit his final five greens in regulation, including an impressive tee shot on the par-3 16th that was the defining highlight from his first round. Patrick Reed, his playing partner, described it as “6-iron that came out like a pitching wedge.â€� The shot landed softly on the green before curling within 6 inches of the hole. On the next hole, Woods choked down almost to the steel of his 7-iron, digging the ball out of the rough to hit a high cut to the elevated green. He parred the par-5 finishing hole after missing the fairway and laying up short of the pond. “It was cool to see him fight today,â€� said Reed, who shot 68. After hitting four greens on the front nine, Woods missed just one on the back. He hit 8 of 14 fairways while averaging 314.1 yards off the tee. Woods, whose mobility has been hindered by his back fusion, seemed to rely primarily on fades, even on dogleg-left holes like Nos. 14 and 15. Hitting a fade didn’t decrease the distance of his drives, though. “Some of those cuts today were insanely long,â€� Reed said. “A cut isn’t supposed to go that far, and he’s hitting a flat cut out there 30 yards past your driver.â€� He ranked 14th out of 78 players in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee, but was 50th in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green (ShotLink stats are only available on the South Course). Despite hitting two-thirds of the greens in regulation, Woods lost 0.6 strokes with his approach play because he struggled to get the ball close to the hole. Of the 12 greens he hit, just two of those approach shots ended up within 18 feet of the hole. His average proximity to the hole on greens hit was 28 feet, 6 inches, but that number was skewed lower by approach shots knocked stiff at Nos. 10 (2 feet) and 16 (1 foot). “I need to clean up my iron game for tomorrow and give myself a lot more looks at it,â€� Woods said. He admitted Wednesday that he is still searching for a swing that works best with his physical limitations following back-fusion surgery. “I’m still learning it,â€� he said. For all the gushing over the numbers he’s producing on Trackman, great golf is a product of consistency over weeks, months and years. Woods exhibited the unsteady play characteristic of a man who’s still trying to learn his swing and has played just 12 competitive rounds since 2015. He will start his second round on the North Course in a tie for 84th place. The shorter of Torrey Pines’ two courses used to play a couple shots easier than the South, but that changed last year after Tom Weiskopf’s renovation. On Thursday, the North Course was just three-tenths of a stroke easier than the South Course. Woods was 2-over par for his first five holes Thursday, looking like he was overmatched by Torrey Pines’ tougher South Course. He missed the fairway and the green on the first hole, then went bunker-to-bunker on No. 5. Then he walked after his 238-yard second shot on the par-5 sixth, two-putting for his first birdie of the day after hitting the green with a long-iron. He dumped a short-iron into a bunker from the seventh fairway, then missed the green on the short par-3 eighth hole, but saved par both times with deft short-game shots. An approach shot knocked stiff at the par-4 10th hole got him back to even par. He made an easy par at the 216-yard, par-3 11th hole before hitting a long drive on 12 that he was unhappy with and making a sloppy bogey at the next. He played the final five holes in 1 under and showed enough positive signs for him to receive passing grades for the first round. “It was fun to feel that competitive rush again and have a scorecard in my hand and try and post a number,â€� he said. A fighting finish gave him a score that did not damper the optimism surrounding his latest comeback.

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