Round 2 live scoreboard: Dell Match Play

Most fans who go to a PGA TOUR event like this week’s BMW Championship have a favorite player to watch. Maybe even get an autograph, too. Frank Yocum is no different. He’s hoping to see major champions like Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, Collin Morikawa and Justin Thomas, among others, play Wilmington Country Club in the second event of the FedExCup Playoffs. But he won’t just be watching the laser-like approach shots or the delicate chips the pros hit. “I want to almost take notes on how their caddies go about everything,” Yocum explains. “How they take reads on the greens, how they give advice, whether it be the club or how they factor in the wind. “And I want to also learn how quickly they get to know a course, because coming in most of them don’t know Wilmington.” Yocum does, though. For the past five years he has worked as a caddie at Wilmington CC, which is making its FedExCup and PGA TOUR debut this week. He estimates he’s got about 600 rounds looping there under his belt. That course knowledge should make him a valuable resource on Wednesday when he walks inside the ropes with Jordan Spieth and his caddie Michael Greller during the BMW Championship pro-am. Yocum is one of the 1,100 current Evans Scholars chosen by the Western Golf Association, which is the beneficiary of the tournament. The scholarships, which are valued at $125,000, are awarded to hard-working young caddies with financial need and cover full tuition and housing for four years. The program, which was founded in 1930, has 11,815 alumni. “It was a life-changing moment,” Yocum says of opening the letter with the good news. The WGA’s Caddie Academy also stands to benefit from the PGA TOUR’s Charity Challenge, a season-long fantasy competition to help distribute the $100 million the TOUR has earmarked for charities supporting diversity, equity and inclusion over the next 10 years. The tournament leading the competition, the Korn Ferry Tour’s NV5 Invitational presented by Old National Bank, supports the Academy, as does the BMW Championship, and a win would be worth $100,000. Yocum, who attends Penn State and is studying accounting, grew up in a bustling household. He is a quadruplet with two sisters, Claire and Judy, who are identical, and a brother, Jake, who is fraternal. The girls are attending Penn State, as well, majoring in speech pathology and supply chain management, respectively, while Jake is enrolled at Temple to study business management. “It’s crazy sometimes, but it’s also really great growing up with four people going through the same thing at the same time,” Yocum says. “You always have someone that you can relate with and make that connection. And you always have someone you can count on. “It’s been great having two sisters and a brother. It’s kind of the perfect mix.” The four were born 31 weeks prematurely and the medical bills were high. Their mother Claire had to go to Arizona to see a specialist, and the babies spent a month in the hospital after they were born. The family was able to return home to Garnet Valley, Pennsylvania, just across the Delaware border, shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2011. “Imagine getting four kids through all of the security right after 9/11,” Yocum says. “… And then growing up, we had so many different people in and out of the house, just trying to help take care of us because it’s a real hassle.” Putting four kids through college at the same time was another financial challenge That’s why the Platt Evans Scholarship was such a bonus for Yocum, who applied for the grant at the urging of members at Wilmington CC, who also provided letters of recommendation. He had to write an essay and the finalists were then interviewed by WGA representatives. When the letter came, Yocum’s parents, Frank and Claire, held onto it for several days. The big reveal happened on day when Yocum got home after officiating a basketball game and found some friends, his siblings and his grandparents gathered there. “I walked in the house, had some normal conversations and then they put the package in front of me,” Yocum recalls. “And without knowing whether I got it or not, they just said, all right, let’s see. “Luckily, I had received the Evans Scholarship and everyone kind of gave me hugs and went crazy.” Yocum, who played baseball and basketball in high school and calls himself a “striving” golfer, is one of about 100 caddies at Wilmington registered on its app. He has several regular bags and is usually booked at least a week in advance. Caddying has allowed Yocum to bolster his communication skills. He’s learned to be comfortable and confident talking with older members, as well as people with diverse backgrounds and interests. He’s learned the importance of commitment to the job – caddying on hot days or rainy ones when he might rather do something else. “Another thing is adaptation because all golfers are not the same and you have to figure out what that golfer wants,” he says. “And I think that can go into life because not every person’s the same. So, you have to figure out how you’re going to please a specific person and more specifically into business, how you’re trying to please the client. “That’s the adaptation part of it that you have to learn. I think learning these skills early has helped me so much and will help me in the professional world as well.” Yocum caddied for John Carney, the governor of Delaware, at the BMW Championship media day. It was a miserable and rainy day in June but Carney, Yocum and company forged on. “We were one of the only groups that played the complete 18 holes non-stop,” Yocum says. “We played right through the heavy downpour and made our way in. So, I think that was probably the worst weather-wise I’ve been out there.” Yocum also remembers the way he felt when he saw Wilmington CC on Aug. 8, 2020 after a tornado roared through the property. More than 300 trees were uprooted, some falling on greens, and every bunker on the North and South courses was destroyed. “It was so detrimental, but everyone did a great job rallying back and getting the course in it,” Yocum says. “It was a complete mess. I didn’t think that it could ever rebound from it, but in a short time they got it back into great shape.” And Yocum’s best day on a golf course? Well, there are too many to single out. In addition to the governor, he has caddied for club champions at Wilmington, including Buddy Marucci, a two-time Walker Cup captain and the winner 2008 U.S. Senior Amateur. “I’ve had the opportunity to do a lot of different, great things with caddying,” Yocum says. “So, I can’t say that there’s one best day because there’s been so many great days.” Something tells us Wednesday with Speith and Greller will make that list, too.

Click here to read the full article…

That loud, steady knocking you hear at the door? That’s the 2020-21 PGA TOUR season, or super season if you will, delivering some news: This is it. Last stop. We’ve reached our destination. As Sinatra might say, it’s the final curtain. Fifty events – six of them major championships – across the United States and beyond, giving us an overflowing bushelful of great storylines and winners. We had it all: some powerful resurgences, lots of bonus golf (playoffs), new faces hoisting trophies, and of course, history, like a 51-year-old winning the PGA Championship … all of it wrapped up with a bow and delivered to the front stoop at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta this week, where 30 elite golfers have made it to the finish line. Not since 1975 (51 events) had the TOUR staged so many tournaments in one season. The Covid-19 pandemic that halted the 2019-20 TOUR season for three months at THE PLAYERS Championship in March of 2020 would cancel some events and move others, and eventually spin us into a new season unlike any we have seen before. Golfers are creatures of habit, and the new jam-packed schedule threw some off their normal rhythm. Still, through it all, week to week, the golf delivered, from then-47-year-old Stewart Cink winning in Napa in September to Sunday’s stirring six-hole playoff between Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Cantlay to decide the second leg of the Playoffs at the BMW Championship. We have witnessed indelible snapshots we will not forget. Hideki Matsuyama became the first male player from golf-rich Japan to win a major championship, donning a green jacket at the 2021 Masters. That was only five months removed from a Masters played in November, another first, in which Dustin Johnson won. Interestingly, Rahm and Johnson would tussle much of the season to be World No. 1. (Currently, Rahm is on top, with Johnson second.) “It’s hard to categorize the year, just because of how much has been going on, especially in the last two months,” Rahm said at last week’s BMW Championship, the second of two FedExCup Playoffs events, and the penultimate tournament of the season. “It’s been a lot.” Rahm’s year, in abbreviated Cliff’s Notes: He twice tested positive for Covid-19 (once when leading The Memorial by six shots through 54 holes), collected his first major championship (the first Spaniard to win a U.S. Open), and had to sit out the Olympics in Tokyo. Rahm was the last person to arrive to the Masters in April, for good reason: He and his wife, Kelley, had just become first-time parents to a son they named Kepa. That’s a lot to jam into a single calendar; Rahm will not soon forget his 26th year on the planet. The events most would consider to be the eight largest tournaments of the 2020-21 season – six majors, THE PLAYERS and the Olympic Games – were divided nicely amongst eight different champions, ranging from 51-year-old Phil Mickelson (2021 PGA Championship) to 24-year-old Collin Morikawa (2021 Open Championship). DeChambeau brought rugged Winged Foot to its knees at a delayed U.S. Open in September. Justin Thomas sizzled on the weekend (64-68) to win THE PLAYERS in March. Fortysomethings such as Cink, Sergio Garcia and Lee Westwood showed renewed vigor in their games. Cink won twice, opening his campaign by winning the Safeway Open with his son, Reagan, on his bag. It was his first TOUR victory in 11 years. Garcia won at Sanderson Farms, stiffing an 8-iron tight for a winning birdie at the 72nd hole. Westwood, who was fast closing in on his 48th birthday, camped near the top of the leaderboard for two weeks in March, running second in two huge events: the Arnold Palmer Invitational (to DeChambeau) and THE PLAYERS. We had new faces winning, victories posted by such exciting players on the rise as Jason Kokrak (twice a winner), Max Homa, and Mexico’s tandem of Carlos Ortiz and Abraham Ancer. Six majors in the season, along with a PLAYERS, three World Golf Championships and so many other marquee events … it gave us a never-ending drumbeat of big-time golf. Not that it was all was easy, especially for those hitting the shots. They did what they could, and rested when they found windows to do so, but few players ever rested for very long. Instead of making the short trek from the opening FedExCup Playoffs event in New Jersey (THE NORTHERN TRUST) directly to the BMW Championship in Baltimore, Rory McIlroy, a new father himself, stole a day to fly home to Florida to see his wife and baby daughter. It helped him to refresh and recharge. From the start of the post-pandemic schedule in summer 2020 through this week’s TOUR Championship, McIlroy said he will have played in 34 events, which included his first Olympics start in Japan. (McIroy, playing for Ireland, fell short of a bronze medal in a wild seven-man playoff; C.T. Pan of Chinese Tapai took bronze.) The Ryder Cup (McIlroy’s 35th event) in Wisconsin awaits in a few weeks. McIlroy did manage to collect his first PGA TOUR trophy since late 2019 when he captured the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte, N.C. That was a nice moment. “All that in a space of 15 months, it’s a lot of golf,” McIlroy said at last week’s BMW. “It’s probably too much for me. I’ve played more than I probably should have and feel like it’s just sort of all caught up with me.” For international players on the PGA TOUR, attempting to travel in the era of Covid has proved very challenging. Adam Scott and his family (he has three young children) are based in Switzerland. At the conclusion of the Open Championship at England’s Royal St. George’s, Scott was unable to travel home, as the United Kingdom resided on Switzerland’s “red” list for travelers. So Scott spent his off-week week in Spain instead, his seventh consecutive week away from home. He said travel restrictions made it difficult to spend time in person with his coach in 2021. He didn’t even bother to try to get with his physical trainer. “I’m not complaining about anything,” Scott said at the Wyndham Championship, noting that not many of his fellow pros are playing the PGA TOUR out of Switzerland. “I’ve made a lot of these decisions and I’ll live with whatever it is, but yeah, from a golf side of things, if I just lowered my expectations a bit, I think the frustration levels would have been down. “I missed the boat on finding the right cadence for the ‘super season.’ It certainly feels like here in the States that a lot of things are returning to a bit more normal, you would say, and hopefully as we go into next season, (we can) fall back into so many old rhythms.” There was one player whose World Ranking qualified him to compete at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, but he was leaning against going in the months beforehand. With a major championship right in front of the Olympics and a World Golf Championships event (FedEx St. Jude) and FedExCup Playoffs lurking shortly afterward, going all the way to Tokyo might not be the most prudent move in pacing himself. In the end, however, that player opted to go; he simply didn’t want to live with the regrets he might harbor in his heart if he didn’t. Xander Schauffele was glad he went. He left Tokyo with an Olympic gold medal around his neck, fulfilling a dream he shared with his father, Stefan. It was one more big performance, big moment, inside a season that gave us so many. Yes, it has been a season like no other. And we still have one more big finish to go.

Click here to read the full article…

The World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play continues Sunday from Austin Country Club. Four competitiors remain. Dustin Johnson (8) will take on Scottie Scheffler (5), while Corey Conners (36) takes on Past Champion Kevin Kisner (29). Here’s everything you need to know to follow the action, including PGA TOUR LIVE and newly expanded and extended coverage on ESPN+. Click here for more details. Scores Full tee times Bracket HOW TO FOLLOW Television: Wednesday-Friday, 2 p.m.-8 p.m. ET (Golf Channel). Saturday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. (Golf Channel), 2 p.m.-6 p.m. (NBC). Sunday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. (Golf Channel), 3 p.m.-7 p.m. (NBC) Radio: Wednesday-Saturday, 2 p.m.-8 p.m. ET. Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m. (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com/liveaudio) For outside of the U.S., click here for GOLFTV powered by the PGA TOUR Semifinals Dustin Johnson (8) vs. Scottie Scheffler (5) Corey Conners (36) vs. Kevin Kisner (29) MUST READS Johnson, Scheffler, Kisner and Conners chase glory at WGC–Dell Technologies Match Play Match recaps from Saturday: WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play Scottie Scheffler, Kevin Kisner making Sunday a habit at WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play Everybody on the Bland-wagon! Five Things to Know: Austin Country Club What do the numbers say about match play?

Click here to read the full article…