Stanford’s Heck reaches Women’s Amateur semis

AUGUSTA, Georgia – Tiger Woods was always told he was the chosen one but only now does he fully believe he’s a walking miracle. Less than a year after back fusion surgery finally released him from years of pain – Woods is not only back at Augusta National for the first time since 2015 – he’s firmly in the mix to win. That is according to all of his peers and the majority of pundits. Woods is the favorite in many circles. “He’s got a great chance. Look at how he’s played the last few weeks. He’s had four wins here. He’s very comfortable around this golf course, and his game is right there,â€� Rory McIlroy said. “Any time Tiger Woods is healthy and in this sort of form, he’s dangerous at any golf tournament. But given his history here, I think even more so.â€� In his last two starts on the PGA TOUR Woods was runner up and T5 – he felt the cauldron of contention in both. But can he claim PGA TOUR win number 80 on the major championship stage? With his swing speed at near unbelievable levels … anything is possible. It is easily the most amazing aspect of this version of his comeback – the force in which he’s been able to swing the club again. Woods has the fastest recorded swing on TOUR this season at 129.2 miles per hour and his average club head speed of 121.9 miles per hour is fourth on TOUR. It has some players joking with Woods that they need to go under the knife to fuse their own backs for more distance. “The reason why I say I’m a walking miracle is that I don’t know if anyone who has had a lower back fusion that can swing the club as fast as I can swing it,â€� Woods said. “That’s incredible. I went from a person who really had a hard time getting up, walking around, sitting down, anything, to now swinging the club 129. That is a miracle, isn’t it?â€� Woods admits he never expected this sort of result. He thought he’d have a nice comfortable life but was resigned to not being able to generate his old speeds. A year ago he could barely sit at the Champions Dinner. He was trying cortisone shots, epidurals … but in his own words his back was fried. “But all of a sudden I have this pop and my body and my speed’s back and my timing. I’m hitting speeds that I hit in my prime,â€� he continued. “That’s what’s the shocking thing, is I didn’t think I would ever reach north of 120, and I’m cruising at 120. “So that part is very exciting because I know that if I can maintain this, I can play out here for a very long time and be able to have the length to get around pretty much any of the golf courses.â€� This week’s course has always been kind to Woods. With wins in 1997, 2001, 2002 and 2005 and seven top-6 results in nine starts since his last triumph Augusta National is certainly a place he could rekindle the old magic and claim TOUR win number 80. Woods likened the hype to that in 2001 when he came to the Masters with three straight major wins and in search of the famous “Tiger Slamâ€�. “I have four rounds to play, so let’s just kind of slow down,â€� Woods smiled. “I got to go play and then let the chips fall where they may, and hopefully I end up on top. But I got a lot of work to do between now and then.â€�

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The European Tour’s season finale tees off this week in Dubai, but it’s a pair of Americans who have the best chance to win the tour’s top prize. The Race to Dubai – which concludes with this week’s DP World Tour Championship at Jumeirah Golf Estates – is led by Collin Morikawa, with Billy Horschel in the No. 2 spot. As the number of Americans competing in the Race to Dubai continues to increase, this could become a more common sight. Next year marks the beginning of a new era in the PGA TOUR and European Tour, which will be known as the DP World Tour in 2022. As part of their strategic alliance, there will be three events next year that are part of both tours’ season-long points race, the FedExCup and Race to Dubai. Morikawa earned the pole position in this year’s Race to Dubai with his wins at the World Golf Championships-Workday Championship at The Concession and The Open. Morikawa is trying to add the Race to Dubai to the two prizes he’s already taken from Europe this year, the claret jug and the Ryder Cup. Morikawa’s win in The Open was his second major triumph, and he followed it by securing the clinching point at Whistling Straits. Horschel finished second to Morikawa at Concession, then won his own World Golf Championship and, like Morikawa, a prestigious event in England. He claimed the Dell Technologies Match Play Championship in March and then became the first American since Arnold Palmer to win the European Tour’s flagship event, the BMW PGA Championship. “It’s great to be where I am in the standings,” Horschel said at the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba. “At the start of the year the FedExCup is No. 1, but I’m a member of the European Tour so you never know how things might pan out – because you have to play well at certain events to make it work, and I really did a good job of that for the first time in my career. “The goal is to become the first American to win the Race to Dubai.” To do that, he’ll have to go through Morikawa, who makes his return to Dubai after making his European Tour debut at the event in 2020. Morikawa finished T10 at last year’s DP World Tour Championship. “Winning The Race to Dubai would mean a lot because I want my game to travel,” Morikawa said in 2020. “I want to be a world player. I want to be able to bring my game anywhere, adapt to the different places I come to, and this is just the first step in doing that.” A little further down The Race to Dubai is another star American making his Dubai debut this week – Will Zalatoris. Zalatoris, the PGA TOUR’s Rookie of the Year, is 11th in the Race to Dubai. A runner-up finish at the Masters, and top-10s at the PGA Championship and World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational helped him attain his high standing. Zalatoris is based in Dallas, Texas (about 8,000 miles from Dubai) but has seen the blueprint laid down by golfers like Morikawa and said it’s likely more guys will be going back and forth between the European Tour and PGA TOUR. “In the future I’ll be planning on going (to Europe) a decent amount,” said Zalatoris. There will be plenty of guys with deep TOUR ties teeing it up in Dubai, as well, including WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational winner Abraham Ancer, Tyrrell Hatton, Shane Lowry, Ian Poulter, Garrick Higgo and two-time FedExCup Champion Rory McIlroy. Hatton, Poulter, Lowry, Patrick Reed and Christiaan Bezuidenhout are playing in Dubai after competing last week at the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Houston Open. Viktor Hovland, who earned his third PGA TOUR title two weeks ago in Mexico, will not be playing Dubai, nor will U.S. Open champion Jon Rahm. Both European Ryder Cuppers cited the need for rest after a long year. But in order for those other international stars to win the European Tour’s top prize, they’ll have to overtake a pair of Americans. Something that will likely become more commonplace moving forward. “It’s trending in that direction,” said Zalatoris.

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