Spieth breaks from the pack at Northern Trust

With one more win, Tiger Woods will tie Sam Snead for most career PGA TOUR victories at 82. Each time Tiger tees it up, we’ll take a look at his chances for that particular week. Here’s a CHASING 82 preview entering this week’s ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP, the first time we have seen Woods in the 2019-20 season. RECENT FORM There is not really much form to speak of given this is Woods’ first PGA TOUR event since he was eliminated from the FedExCup Playoffs at the BMW Championship in mid-August. He tied for 37th in Chicago a week after he withdrew from THE NORTHERN TRUST Playoff opener in New Jersey with an oblique strain. Just days after Woods finished his season, he underwent an arthroscope on his troublesome left knee to clean out some cartilage issues before returning to play MGM Resorts The Challenge Japan Skins on Monday against reigning FedExCup champion Rory McIlroy, Jason Day and Hideki Matsuyama.  “Unfortunately, I’ve been down this road with my knee before,” Woods said Monday in Japan. “This is my fifth operation on it. I understand what it takes to come back from it. It’s been nice to have movement again and not having it catch and lock up.â€� Woods managed to claim five skins in the shootout, second to Day who had eight. His game was rusty, but he did not appear to be in discomfort. Going further back on his results, Woods made the cut in half of his six starts since his Masters victory last April. He finished T9 at the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide and T21 at the U.S. Open but missed the weekend at The Open Championship before his above-mentioned Playoff run. He finished 42nd in the FedExCup. This is his last scheduled start before the Hero World Challenge in December. There’s also the potential of being a player-captain for the U.S. at the Presidents Cup a week later in Australia. TOURNAMENT HISTORY This is the first time Japan has hosted a PGA TOUR event, meaning Woods – along with everyone else – is making his tournament debut. Woods last played on the Japan Tour at the Dunlop Phoenix Tournament in 2006 where he lost a playoff against Padraig Harrington having won the event in 2004 and 2005. He also famously played with David Duval at the 2001 World Cup in Japan where he produced a ridiculous chip in on the final hole to get the United States into a four-team playoff. COURSE HISTORY Woods had his first look at Accordia Golf Narshino Country Club – which is a par 70 playing at 7,041 yards – earlier this week at the MGM Resorts The Challenge Japan Skins. Woods was able to secure five skins and $60,000 in the shootout with Rory McIlroy (four skins, $60,000), Jason Day (eight skins, $210,000) and Hideki Matsuyama (one skin, $20,000). He unofficially hit just five of 13 fairways on the tree lined course and 10 of 18 greens with 26 putts. He makes two birdies on the round but would have finished over par after a couple of loose holes. Accordia is actually a composite course from the King and Queen Courses on the property and was designed by Kinya Fujita in 1965. Nine holes from the Queen course are to be used as the front nine and nine holes from the King course will be used on the back nine. TEE TIMES Tiger is grouped with Tommy Fleetwood and Satoshi Kodaira for the first two rounds. That threesome will tee off Thursday at 8:40 a.m. local (7:40 p.m. ET Wednesday) and Friday at 9:40 a.m. local (8:40 p.m. ET Thursday).

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ATLANTA – With one final event of the season left and $15 million on the line for the winner, the 30 TOUR Championship participants were making their final tweaks and adjustments to their game heading into Thursday. For most, their equipment setups were all but set in stone, but some players did make changes.  Most notably, Bryson DeChambeau, Xander Schauffele, and Dustin Johnson made equipment adjustments, which we cover more in-depth below.  Dustin Johnson’s driver Johnson has bounced back-and-forth between a TaylorMade M5 and M6 driver – sometimes playing both in the same event – and he’s used a few different shaft setups, as well. Ahead of the TOUR Championship, Johnson was spotted testing different heads and shafts again, but as of Wednesday afternoon, it appears he has settled on using a TaylorMade M.5 10.5-degree head equipped with a Fujikura Speeder 661 Evolution 2.0 Tour Spec X-flex shaft. Johnson has used that same shaft for years, but he used a Fujikura Ventus Black prototype for much of 2019.  Johnson made some tweaks to the sole weights in his M5 driver head, too. At the BMW Championship, the weights were configured in a high-forgiveness setting, but ahead of the TOUR Championship, they were in more of a low-spin and slightly fade-biased setting as seen in the photo above. Keep an eye on his driver shaft and head throughout this week to see if anything changes.  Xander’s sole Schauffele and the Callaway team noticed that because of the way Schauffele adjusted his hands before stroking a putt, the lie angle of his Odyssey Stroke Lab Tuttle putter was changing slightly. To combat this issue and garner greater consistency, the Callaway team grinded the front portion of the sole and added weight to the rear of the club head. Now, according to a Callaway representative, the sole sits flatter on the ground, even when Schauffele adjusts his hands before making a stroke.  DeChambeau goes back to the blade (and Cobra wedges) After extensive and thorough testing from Monday-to-Wednesday on the practice greens and on the golf course, DeChambeau is switching back into the SIK Golf — SIK stands for “Study in Kinematicsâ€� — blade-style putter that he’s won five times with on the PGA TOUR.  Throughout 2019, DeChambeau has bounced between different SIK (Study in Kinematics) Golf prototype putters; one of the putters is his familiar blade-style putter, and the others are mallet-style putters, called “Flow,â€� that have higher MOI (moment of inertia). Most recently, at the 2019 BMW Championship, DeChambeau used a mallet-style putter as pictured above. He referred to his blade putter as his “magic wand,â€� when talking with PGATOUR.COM on Wednesday ahead of the TOUR Championship, however.  Like DeChambeau himself, SIK Golf putters are different. The putters have four planar surfaces on their faces, basically meaning the loft is different on different spots on the putter face, rather than having a flat surface. The top of the putter face has more loft than the bottom of the face, which helps achieve greater consistency in loft at impact and therefore launch angle. DeChambeau’s blade-style SIK putter, according to company representative Greg Harrison, has 6 degrees of loft with 2-degrees of effective loft at impact due to DeChambeau’s forward-press and armlock putting style. His putter measures 43 inches in length.  Additionally, DeChambeau has gone back to a set of Cobra wedges after using PXG wedges during recent events. 

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Tiger Woods has engaged the help of Matt Killen to work on his putting after an unhappy start to the season on the greens.  Woods also declared himself fully fit to take his place this week at THE PLAYERS Championship after withdrawing from last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational Presented by Mastercard with a neck injury. Killen — who is known as part of fellow former FedExCup champion Justin Thomas’ team — is helping the 80-time PGA TOUR winner with his putting stroke. It comes after Woods produced six three-putts in each of his last two tournaments, the Genesis Open and the World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship, to quell any real challenge.  “I’ve seen Matt out here in the past year because he works with JT a lot, and I’ve played a lot of rounds with JT, either practice rounds here or at home, and Matt has seen my stroke enough,â€� Woods explained. “I had been feeling that my stroke has been off, but a lot of it is physically. I’m having a hard time getting into the different postures. As my body’s felt better, my stroke has come back a little bit, but also I wanted to see where was I off, what did he see. “I wanted him to take a look at it and see what he thought of where my setup looked like now versus all the times that I’ve putted well, and I’ve putted well with different postures throughout my career. … I’ve done different things … but I wanted him to take a look at it, and then he mentioned a few things.â€� Woods said the neck tightness, which started during the Genesis Open and flared up further in Mexico, certainly contributed to his putting woes. But with that concern in his rear-view mirror for now, and with the help of Killen, he believes his putting stroke has “freed upâ€�. “The longer you play we’re all going to have patches where we just don’t putt well and patches where we make everything,â€� Woods said. “For me personally, if I can see the line and I feel like I’m releasing this thing and that toe’s flying over, I feel good. That’s a good feeling for me.  “Other guys don’t putt that way, don’t feel that way, but I grew up in more of a feeling like Bobby Locke and Crenshaw and those guys of letting the putter go, and if I do that, I feel great.â€� Former rival and fellow PLAYERS Championship winner David Duval, who is now an analyst for the Golf Channel, believes there’s no reason to sound the alarm bells.  Despite history showing that putting generally declines with age, Duval believes the 43-year-old is just tuning himself up.  “There’s not a whole lot of scar tissue involving Tiger Woods’ putting over the years,â€� Duval said on the Golf Channel. “If anything I would imagine that he’s asking for help, more restorative work. Trying to get back to the setup he had. The flow of the stroke he had. The position of his hands at address. The position of the golf ball in his stance at address. Those are the little things that you need to pay attention to.  “I don’t see any problems with Tiger Woods’ putting, other than that you might go simply to the age factor that certainly does play into it. It’s just [another] set of eyes to get some comfort and get some stability in what he’s doing.â€� As for his neck issue, Woods said it’s not an issue this week, but it is something he must keep an eye on. He also intimated he would contend the World Golf Championships–Dell Technologies Match Play in two weeks for the first time since 2013 should he get through TPC Sawgrass unscathed. His withdrawal last week was more precautionary as he looks to continue to manage his body after four back surgeries.  “It’s not painful now. It was getting to the point where it was affecting my setup, my backswing, my through swing,â€� Woods said. “It was just gradually getting worse. That’s just because my lower back is fused, and so the stress has to go somewhere if I don’t have movement, and so it’s very important for me going forward since the surgery to keep pliable or else the stress is going to go somewhere else. “I’m 43 with four back surgeries, so just manage what I have and understand that I’m going to have good weeks and bad weeks and try and manage as best I possibly can and not push it. There are times when over the years I pushed it, pushed it through a few things, and I’ve won a few tournaments doing it that way, but also I’ve cost myself a few years here and there because of it.â€�

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