Sagstrom leads women’s golf after first round

There’s a line of demarcation in Rory McIlroy’s 2019-20 season, and it’s the PGA TOUR’s three-month layoff in which the entire sports world paused for the coronavirus pandemic. Before the TOUR shut things down after the first round of THE PLAYERS Championship in March, McIlroy – the defending FedExCup champion and Player of the Year – had six straight top-five finishes, including a win at the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions. Since then? Five starts and just one top-30 finish, a T11 at the Travelers Championship. “Before the world sort of shut down, I was playing some really good golf, consistent,” McIlroy said from San Francisco’s chilly TPC Harding Park, where he is gearing up for this week’s PGA Championship. “And then yeah, having that three-month break, coming back, everything sort of changed. Everything feels different, in the competitive arena, anyway.” Not that McIlroy has faded into obscurity. Hardly. He’s fifth in the FedExCup, and had retained the No. 1 world ranking until losing it to Jon Rahm last month. (Rahm has since lost it to Justin Thomas.) No, the results for McIlroy have just been – flat. “My game doesn’t feel that far away,” he said. “I feel like I’ve played pretty well. I just haven’t got a lot out of my game. Haven’t scored as well as I was doing before the lockdown. … Haven’t been efficient as I was back then. Short game hasn’t quite been as sharp.” The question is why, and can he get it back. Coastal-adjacent TPC Harding Park, where he won the 2015 WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, beating Gary Woodland in the final, is one of his happy places on the schedule, so a return to form there this week would not be entirely unexpected. Maybe there’s still some McIlroy mojo hovering up there in the marine layer. Granted, the layout and routing are different, and the course is playing longer, and with narrower fairways. The damp conditions are more or less the same. The sweater weather remains. Also, as McIlroy noted, the PGA setup man is still Kerry Haigh, whom he likes. (The PGA is the lone major McIlroy has won twice, at Kiawah in 2012 and Valhalla in 2014.) As for his relatively lackluster results, the chattering class has speculated about the why, and McIlroy hasn’t denied it. Having noted a certain week-to-week sameness in golf’s (and other pro sports’) quiet new normal, he suggested he has struggled to play without galleries. “He draws a lot of his energy from the fact that fans of all nationalities pull for him,” said Golf Channel analyst and former world No. 1 David Duval. “He’s a world-favorite player. Being out here where there are so (few) people around can take some adjustment.” McIlroy wouldn’t deny that, but knows things aren’t likely to change overnight as the virus shows no signs of going away. And he knows he’s going to have to find his A-game on his own. “I’ve said in the last few weeks that I’ve struggled to adapt to it,” he said, “but it is what it is. You need to go out there and do the best that you can. We all wish that we were playing in front of fans and have it feel like a real major championship, but I think we’re just lucky that we’re able to play golf tournaments at this point and grateful to PGA of America and all the governing bodies for adapting and pivoting and being able to put on these championships.” And again: He’s not far off. “I shot a 63 at Colonial,” he said. “I shot a 65 to make the cut at Hilton Head; a 63 at Travelers, a couple of good scores last week in Memphis. So the good stuff is in there. I was just saying earlier, it’s just the sharpness and being efficient with my scoring. “Turning the 73s that I’ve shot into 70s,” he added. “That’s the sort of stuff that I think when you’re sharp and you’re playing a bit and you’re sort of in your groove you’re able to do that a little better, and that’s the stuff that I haven’t been able to do since coming back out here.”

Click here to read the full article…

Meet the Qualifiers American Jeffrey Kang finished at 13-under at the PGA TOUR Series-China International Qualifying Tournament No. 1 to edge Lucas Herbert by a stroke. In the process, Kang and Herbert joined 13 other players who will be fully exempt into every PGA TOUR Series-China tournament this season. Twenty-five additional players earned conditional exemptions after four rounds of play at Mission Hills Golf Club’s Sandbelt Trails Course in Haikou, China, with play concluding Sunday. Here is a brief look at each of the fully exempt qualifiers. Details Player Qualifying Tournament Finish: Won Career PGA TOUR Series-China Starts: 0 Career Mackenzie Tour – PGA TOUR Canada Starts: 11 Something Worth Knowing: Kang played at the University of Southern California with PGA TOUR Series-China veteran Yi Keun Chang, now on the Asian Tour, and T.J. Vogel and Rico Hoey, who both played on the Mackenzie Tour – PGA TOUR Canada in 2017 and are currently Web.com Tour players. Qualifying Tournament Finish: Second Career PGA TOUR Series-China Starts: 0 Career Mackenzie Tour – PGA TOUR Canada Starts: 1 Something Worth Knowing: He is emphatic when he says “pineapple doesn’t belong on pizza.� Qualifying Tournament Finish: Third Career PGA TOUR Series-China Starts: 0 Something Worth Knowing: One of Yuan’s earliest—and favorite—golf memories came when he was age 9 and his dad said he’d give him $100 if he could hole a chip, something Yuan did. Qualifying Tournament Finish: Fourth Career PGA TOUR Series-China Starts: 0 Something Worth Knowing: Sato’s first made cut on the Japan Golf Tour came at the 2012 Japan Open, where he tied for 61st. Qualifying Tournament Finish: Fifth Career PGA TOUR Series-China Starts: 0 Career PGA TOUR Starts: 1 Something Worth Knowing: The native of Gothenburg, Sweden, played collegiate golf in the U.S., at the University of Denver in Colorado, graduating in 2014 with a degree in international business. Qualifying Tournament Finish: Sixth Career PGA TOUR Series-China Starts: 0 Career Mackenzie Tour – PGA TOUR Canada Starts: 2 Career Web.com Tour Starts: 1 PGA TOUR Starts: 2 Something Worth Knowing: Kim was a first-team All-Pac-10 Conference selection in 2010 playing for UCLA. PGA TOUR Series-China veterans Eugene Wong (University of Oregon) and Eric Mina (University of California) were also first-teamers. Qualifying Tournament Finish: Tied for seventh Career PGA TOUR Series-China Starts: 0 Something Worth Knowing: Sluman, a native of Rochester, N.Y., made his only career hole-in-one at the par-3 sixth hole at Topwin Golf Club in Beijing. Qualifying Tournament Finish: Tied for seventh Career PGA TOUR Series-China Starts: 0 Something Worth Knowing: Loypur’s given first name is Daniel. Qualifying Tournament Finish: Tied for seventh Career PGA TOUR Series-China Starts: 0 PGA TOUR Starts: 1 Something Worth Knowing: Jung was born in Seoul, South Korea, but grew up in Toronto, Canada. He is fluent in both Korean and English. Qualifying Tournament Finish: 10th Career PGA TOUR Series-China Starts: 0 Something Worth Knowing: Zemmer has played on the European Challenge Tour in each of the last six seasons. Qualifying Tournament Finish: Tied for 11th Career PGA TOUR Series-China Starts: 0 Something Worth Knowing: Playing Tauranga Golf Club in his native New Zealand in July 2016, Toomey fired a 13-under 58, with two eagles, nine birdies and no bogeys. Qualifying Tournament Finish: Tied for 11th Career PGA TOUR Series-China Starts: 0 Career Mackenzie Tour – PGA TOUR Canada Starts: 3 Career PGA TOUR Starts: 3 Career Web.com Tour Starts: 29 Something Worth Knowing: Kitayama’s first hole-in-one came on a par-4. He used a driver. Qualifying Tournament Finish: Tied for 13th Career PGA TOUR Series-China Starts: 0 Something Worth Knowing: This will be his second consecutive season playing extensively in China. Qualifying Tournament Finish: Tied for 13th Career PGA TOUR Series-China Starts: 0 Something Worth Knowing: Ishihara is an accomplished surfer. Qualifying Tournament Finish: 15th Career PGA TOUR Series-China Starts: 0 Something Worth Knowing: At 6-2, he played high school basketball in Australia.

Click here to read the full article…

TULSA, Okla. — Mito Pereira skidded out of control just like so many other contenders in the wind and cold of Southern Hills. He got back on course at just the right time Saturday in the PGA Championship. Pereira steadied himself with three birdies over the last six holes, the final one from just outside 25 feet for a 1-under 69. That gave the 27-year-old from Chile a three-shot lead over Matt Fitzpatrick and Will Zalatoris. For Tiger Woods, his slide on a battered right leg seemed to last all day in what turned out to be his last round. Woods withdrew for the first time in a major as a pro. He limped around Southern Hills for a 79, his worst score ever in the PGA Championship. At stake for the 27-year-old Pereira is a chance to become the first PGA TOUR rookie to win a major since Keegan Bradley in the 2011 PGA Championship. “I was playing really good and suddenly I made four bogeys in five holes. It was a tough place to be at that moment,” he said. “But just found myself from 13 on. Those holes are pretty tough. So really happy how I ended up playing. The birdie on 18 was a bonus. “Just happy to be in this position.” There were missed opportunities for so many others on a rough day featuring a wind out of the north that made Southern Hills play entirely different. Former PGA champion Justin Thomas went 12 holes without a birdie, and then he gave it back with a bogey on the closing hole for a 74. Two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson looked shaky as ever on the greens, making three bogeys over his last four holes for a 73. They went from the cusp of contention to seven shots behind. Rory McIlroy had a six-hole stretch around the turn that he played in 6 over — and that even included a birdie — for a 74 to fall nine shots back. Zalatoris had his problems, too. He dropped four shots in the opening seven holes and went from a one-shot lead to a five-shot deficit until he crawled his way back into the game. “I was pretty frustrated with the start but I would rather have a frustrating start and good finish. It’s good momentum heading into tomorrow,” Zalatoris said. Pereira, the top player on the Korn Ferry Tour last year, was at 9-under 201. He will be in the final group of his first PGA Championship — and only his second major — with Fitzpatrick, who birdied his last two holes for a 67 to quietly sneak into contention. Zalatoris will be in the penultimate group with Cameron Young, the son of a PGA professional, who charged into the mix by driving the 296-yard 17th hole and making a 25-foot eagle. He wound up with a 67 and was four shots behind. What the leading four players have in common is inexperience at the highest level. None has won a major. None has even won on the PGA TOUR, the toughest circuit in golf, although Fitzpatrick is the No. 17 player in the world with seven titles on the DP World Tour. Pereira wasn’t immune from a slide. He became the first player to reach 10 under for the championship with a 10-foot birdie putt on the par-5 sixth, and he stretched the lead to five shots when Zalatoris made another bogey. But then the Chilean took bogey on the par-3 eighth, chunked an approach from the fairway on the ninth and made bogey, had a wedge spin off the front of the green at No. 10 and into the bunker for bogey, and went over the 12th green for a fourth bogey in five holes. Zalatoris briefly caught him with a 35-foot birdie putt on the par-5 13th. That only lasted as long as it took Pereira who match birdies from 18 feet, and the Chilean answered with a daring shot over the edge of a bunker to 6 feet for birdie on the par-3 14th. Woods was long gone and aching when all this action unfolded. He looked pained as ever in the morning after a half-hour delay from rain, making five straight bogeys, hitting two balls in the water and having to hole a 5-foot putt on the final hole to break 80. The only other time he withdrew from a major was when he injured his wrist in the 1995 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills when he was an amateur. Only 16 players remained under par at Southern Hills, a list that included Webb Simpson. On Friday, he had to save par from a bunker on his final hole to make the cut on the number. In a tie for 64th at the start of the third round, Simpson shot a 65 and moved into a tie for 10th. He was eight shots back, seemingly too far to catch Pereira, but so little is known about how he will be react to the Sunday pressure of trying to win a major.

Click here to read the full article…