As the LIV golf tour makes its debut in the United States, sportsbooks in various states have had different approaches to allowing betting action on events.
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KAPALUA, Hawaii – Dustin Johnson gave up his last 54-hole lead but he has no intentions of repeating the story this time around. After producing a sublime 7-under 66 on Saturday – his 20th round in the 60s at the Plantation Course – Johnson surged to 16-under for the week, two clear of Brian Harman (69) and four ahead of Jon Rahm (66). It appears the Sentry Tournament of Champions is his to lose given he’s clearly the most experienced player in the field – making his eighth trip to Kapalua. No one else here has more than four. But wait – we’ve seen this story not so long ago. The world No.1 Johnson took a seemingly insurmountable six-shot lead through three rounds at the World Golf Championships – HSBC Champions in late October only to shoot a 5-over 77 on Sunday to lose by two strokes to Justin Rose. Rickie Fowler, who will be one of the chasers on Sunday from five strokes back, playfully suggested Johnson wouldn’t remember his collapse in China. “I don’t expect him to necessarily do that again. All the times that he’s been in a position to win and having a lead, he’s taken care of that pretty well,â€� Fowler said. “D.J.’s a guy that forgets pretty quickly. I don’t think he remembers China. So that’s one of the reasons why he is the best player in the world right now. He quickly forgets, moves on. “There’s not necessarily a weak part of his game, so I’m going to have to go play well if I want to go chase him down.â€� When Johnson was asked if he had indeed forgotten – he claimed he had – until reminded of it by media as he finished his round. “It was a long time ago. It’s a completely different golf course. It was, what, two months ago or something,â€� Johnson said. “I’m going to try not to think about it tomorrow, hopefully I won’t. But I just need to go out and play my game and just see what happens.â€� For the record this is Johnson’s 14th lead/co-lead through 54 holes on the PGA TOUR. He has converted seven to victory, most recently at the Genesis Open in 2017. CALL OF THE DAY OBSERVATIONS BULLDOG HARMAN READY FOR FIGHT: Brian Harman has beaten Dustin Johnson before on Sunday – but he was the man in front. This time he will have to hunt the world No.1 down from behind. At the 2017 Wells Fargo Championship Harman overtook Patrick Reed, Alex Noren and Jon Rahm on Sunday for his second PGA TOUR win but it was a fast finishing Johnson, who had won his previous three starts, who was catching his attention. Johnson had started two back of Harman but had posted a nine-under total in the clubhouse. Harman knew he would prefer not to be in a playoff with the big bomber and had birdied the 17th to tie. He then nailed a 30-footer on the 18th for victory. “I’m just going to keep doing the same thing I’ve been doing and I’m going to try to put as much pressure on the golf course as I can,â€� Harman said Saturday. “I’m going to try to do the best I can on every shot. I can’t control what Dustin does, he’s a fabulous player, he’s going to be really hard to beat tomorrow, but trying to do something I’m not capable of is not the way to do it.â€� RAHM WANTS REVERSE RESULT: Jon Rahm remembers his battles with Dustin Johnson well. And they’re not all fond memories. Rahm had chances to win the World Golf Championships – Mexico Championship and THE NORTHERN TRUST last season only to be bested by Johnson. There was also their battle in the final round of the World Golf Championships – Dell Match Play that went the way of the American. He has another chance to best him in Maui, albeit a tough ask starting four shots back. “I do enjoy (going head-to-head with Johnson), but the outcome hasn’t been great for me,â€� Rahm said. “Hopefully I can play good down the stretch like I’ve been doing. Just start a little better on the front nine. If I can make a birdie before I get to the 5th I’ll be happy.â€� BONES RETURNS: FedExCup champion and defending Sentry Tournament of Champions winner Justin Thomas shot another disappointing 2-over 75 on Saturday to be 2-over and in 30th place. He tackled the Plantation Course without regular caddie Jimmy Johnson who succumbed to plantar fasciitis and has returned home for treatment. Thomas’ father Mike took over bag duties at Kapalua and will do the same on Sunday. Word is however that Jim “Bonesâ€� Mackay will make a cameo for Thomas when he defends the Sony Open next week. Mackay hasn’t caddied on the PGA TOUR since parting ways with Phil Mickelson. NOTABLES Jordan Spieth – A 3-under 70 on Saturday leaves Spieth sitting in a tie for ninth at 8-under, a distant eight shots back of the lead. Marc Leishman – The first and second round leader had a round to forget, posting a 3-over 76 to drop to 7-under and a tie for 12th. Hideki Matsuyama – The world No.5 and runner up last year could only muster a 72 on Saturday to sit 7-under and tied 12th. Patton Kizzire – Rounds of 72-72-69 have the current FedExCup leader at 6-under and tied 17th. QUOTABLES Seventh place doesn’t really do a whole lot for me at the end of the day, so the idea is to fire at flags and just putt aggressively. It’s one thing to say it, it’s another to be out there and then all of a sudden you just feel so uncomfortable trying to hit that hard and I struggled with that this week. So, I’ve just got to be really aggressive on the greensI don’t think there’s two guys that speak to the ball more than we do. It’s true. It’s fun because we both react similarly when we hit a shot. It’s great.It was tough. The putter was cold and if I putted half decent I’d be right up there.Coming off of getting that win a few weeks back (at the Hero World Challenge) I think we were seven shots back and we’re not that far back going into tomorrow. But it won’t be easy. No.1, someone’s going to have to earn it tomorrow, whether it’s DJ or anyone coming from behind. SUPERLATIVES Low round: 7-under 66 – Dustin Johnson and Jon Rahm positioned themselves nicely. Longest drive: 430 yards – Hudson Swafford on the par-4 7th. He then overshot the green and got up and down for par. Longest putt: 68 feet, 8 inches – Wesley Bryan drained a massive effort for par on the par-4 4th. Easiest hole: Par-5 5th – The reachable hole played at 4.235 with three eagles, 23 birdies, six pars, one bogey and one double bogey. Hardest holes: Par-4 10th – Uphill and into the wind it played at 4.412 with not a single birdie. There were eight bogeys and three double bogeys.
Phil Mickelson, “keeping it real,” drops 15 pounds prior to the Open Championship.
The magnitude of Tiger Woods’ win at the TOUR Championship cannot be understated. Last April, it was unclear the 14-time major winner would ever return to the course following L5-S1 spinal fusion back surgery that clouded the future of his golf career — one that had been marred by numerous back procedures over the previous three years. Just 17 months later, Woods, who called himself “A Walking Miracle earlier this year,” returned to the TOUR winner’s circle for the 80th time in his career. It was a win that not only validated all of the tireless work and preparation Woods put in behind the scenes to get his body in shape to compete again but the grind he underwent to find the perfect equipment setup — an important piece of the puzzle that took nearly a full season to figure out. For a player who’s used to making equipment changes at a glacial pace, this season forced Woods to get comfortable with the idea of undergoing wholesale changes when he arrived at Medalist Golf Club, his home course in Hobe Sound, Florida, last December for his first official testing session with TaylorMade since signing a 13-club equipment deal at the beginning of 2017. Woods worked through a myriad of clubs on that particular day, including different driver builds, a prototype 6-iron tailor-made to his specifications and a new utility iron. For someone who never embraced adjustable drivers — Woods always opted for a glued, non-adjustable hosel — the session felt like a crash course in acclimating to new equipment, technology and getting on the same page with TaylorMade reps. “One of the things I think I’ve really done over the years is that I’ve been pretty ardent about playing a product that is better than what I’m using, and all of the companies I’ve been with, they all know that,” Woods told PGATOUR.COM during an exclusive interview after the testing session. “I will give it my best efforts to try and put it in, but it’s going to take a little time sometimes.” When Woods resurfaced two months later at the Farmers Insurance Open, TaylorMade’s M3 driver was the newest addition to the bag. Woods continued using the driver during the season while making incremental changes to the two adjustable weights in the sole, before settling on a low spin and launch orientation with the weights centrally located in the center track. What started with minor changes to the driver weights quickly progressed to new TW Phase1 prototype irons at the Wells Fargo Championship and two Milled Grind wedges at the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide. Woods even tinkered with the shaft in his TaylorMade Tour Preferred UDI — along with briefly using a GAPR LO driving iron during The Open Championship — going from True Temper Dynamic Gold Tour Issue X100 steel to Mitsubishi Tensei White graphite and then back to steel, albeit in a higher-launching Dynamic Gold AMT package. The irons and wedges, for as tough as Woods is on new equipment during the testing process, weren’t all that difficult to figure out. Aside from a CG adjustment that needed to be made on the irons following the initial testing session at Medalist, former Nike master craftsman Mike Taylor — who now runs Artisan Golf but still grinds Woods’ irons and wedges on the side — was able to get the iron and wedge shaping to match up with his previous Nike set. Even a shift away from Nike’s ball line to Bridgestone’s Tour B XS didn’t seem to phase Woods. And the ball always seems to be a tricky part for most players. There’s no doubt Woods made strides on the course this season with new equipment and a different golf ball, but it seems fitting for a player who considers himself old-school when it comes to testing and equipment, that the two most important pieces of the puzzle were a putter that’s been by his side since 1999, and a driver shaft he used previously during the 2013-14 season. Outside of his struggles off the tee, Woods failed to find his stroke with the putter midway through the season, prompting to bench his Scotty Cameron Newport 2 GSS blade for TaylorMade’s TP Black Coper Ardmore 3 at Quicken Loans National. The mallet represented just the second time in Woods’ career that he’d used something other than an Anser-style blade. It felt like a move made out of desperation at the time, as Woods attempted to inject some life into his flat stick. But once the honeymoon period wore off, the mallet was benched in Boston during the Dell Technologies Championship for a TaylorMade TP Black Copper Ardmore 3 putter that looked eerily similar to Woods’ Newport 2. One week later, Woods shelved the putter at the BMW Championship for the Newport 2 and things suddenly started to click again. “I know the release point and I know how it swings and my body morphed into a position where it understands where it needs to be to release the putter,” Woods said. “I’ve hit hundreds of millions of putts. I’ve had it since ’99. I’ve hit putts with it. I just — my body just remembers it. When I go away from it — and, you know, when I was using the Nike putter I always bring it out and hit putts with it. Sometimes it works but it just feels very familiar to me.” The brief time away seemed to be exactly what Woods and his putter needed, as he finished the season ranked second in Strokes Gained: Putting at East Lake en route to taking home the TOUR Championship for the third time in his career. The driver shaft proved to be the final piece of the puzzle for Woods, who rotated between numerous models during the season before settling on a familiar profile in Mitsubishi’s Diamana D+ White Board. The move came on the heels of a significant change for Woods, who opted for a counterbalance Tensei CK Pro Orange part over a non-counterbalance part to gain more club head speed. What Woods found out, in the end, was that accuracy, in his case, mattered more than distance. With Diamana, Woods found the center of the fairway and still managed to average over 300 yards during the final event of the season while ranking no worse than T27 in driving accuracy during the FedExCup Playoffs. “It’s a feeling that I know and I used to use it for a number of years,” Woods said of the shaft. “I know the graphics have changed a little bit but it’s basically the same shaft. Went back to something that I knew and had success with, and it’s turned out pretty good.” From an equipment perspective, Woods’ season will be remembered for all of the changes he made over the course of 10 months — some many never expected to see from Woods (mallet putters and graphite driving irons). New technology no doubt helped Woods make strides on the course, but in the end, it was two reliable products from his past that helped push the 42-year-old over the top and produce a storybook finish for the ages.
