TaylorMade Driving Relief match raises $5.5 million

PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico — Viktor Hovland was hitting it so well he had no trouble taking on a big risk, and it paid off Saturday with a big finish for a 9-under 62 and a two-shot lead in the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba. RELATED: Leaderboard | Viktor Hovland contending with borrowed driver in Mayakoba Hovland, the defending champion at this Mexican resort, hit driver just over the green on the par-4 17th and hit a dart into the closing hole at El Cameleon for the lowest score of his PGA TOUR career. That gave him a two-shot lead over fellow Oklahoma State alum Talor Gooch (63), and he was three clear of Justin Thomas (64). “That was fun today,” Hovland said. “Obviously, got off to a nice start and it was nice to have one of those rounds where you can kind of keep it going throughout the day instead of maybe slowing down towards the end there where, frankly, there’s some tough holes.” Matthew Wolff, who started the weekend with a two-shot lead, made a pair of bogeys early in his round to fall out of the lead and managed only one birdie in his round of 73 that dropped him out of contention. Scottie Scheffler had a good start and little else, and a double bogey on the 14th hole when he drove into a hazard led to a 70 that put him seven shots behind. Hovland was at 19 under as he goes for his third PGA TOUR title. The Norwegian star already had made up a three-shot deficit with seven birdies, along with tough pars on some of the holes into the steady breeze. The TOUR moved up the tees about 100 yards on the 17th hole, with mangroves right of the green and a small lagoon to the left. Gooch was in the group ahead of him and hit iron off the tee and wedge to tap-in range for birdie that gave him a share of the lead. Hovland went with driver and it landed about 15 feet beyond the pin and rolled just off the edge. He pitched beautifully to 6 inches for birdie. “I’ve hit it great and I thought it was the play,” Hovland said. “So if it’s the play, you pull outt the big dog and you try to hit it.” Then, Hovland peeled a low driver into the fairway and stuffed that one about 4 feet away for another birdie to widen his lead. Gooch had a birdie putt that spun out of the cup on the 18th. Even so, he will be in the final group on Sunday as he goes after his first PGA TOUR victory. He did his best work earlier on the back nine, rolling in a 30-foot birdie putt on No. 12, an eagle putt from about 35 feet on the par-5 13th and then chipping in for birdie from just off the green at No. 14. “You never know when your time is going to come,” Gooch said, speaking specifically to his burst of scoring, and possibly to finally hoisting a trophy. This is his 102nd start. “The game came easy today,” he said. “I hit a bunch of fairways, hit a bunch of greens. Nice when you get a chip-in, you make a 30-footer and those are the type of things you need to have happen to turn it from a 67 to 63.” Thomas had a 62 in the third round last year at Mayakoba to at least give himself a chance. This time, he started much closer to the leaders and his 63 left him only three back. He began the tournament at 3 over for his opening nine. Thomas couldn’t help but think of his pairing with Patrick Cantlay at the BMW Championship, when Cantlay started slowly and wound up winning in a playoff. “And I know this is a course you can get on crazy kinds of runs out here,” Thomas. “It feels good to know I haven’t really done anything special, but I’ve just kind of checked the boxes and done a lot of things I need to do and put ourselves in a good spot.” Carlos Ortiz of Mexico had a 67 and was five shots behind.

Click here to read the full article…

FORT WORTH, Texas – Jordan Spieth measures his progress in weeks, insisting that strides have been made on his swing, and that he’s now entering the precision stage of what seems like an inevitable return to winning golf. The rest of us seem to be measuring his progress in days – specifically the last eight. Last week, there were the four rounds he put together at the PGA Championship, resulting in a tie for third. It was his first top-10 finish of the PGA TOUR season, albeit still six shots behind winner Brooks Koepka. And on Thursday, there was the 5-under 65 in the first round of the Charles Schwab Challenge, placing him just a stroke off Tony Finau’s lead at Colonial. Related: Leaderboard | Spieth by the numbers | Finau uses claw grip en route to 64 Afterward, Spieth was asked if the last five rounds could be defined as “significantâ€� progress. Yet from his perspective, the uptick in performance has been brewing for much longer. “Probably the same as the previous four or five weeks before … since I’ve been really working on the right things and have the right moves for it, whether it’s the full swing or the putting,â€� Spieth said. “It’s just once you’re doing the right thing, repetition gets it closer and closer and gets you more precise.â€� That’s not to say Thursday’s round was a display of total precision. He hit just half of his fairways, and was 11 of 18 in greens in regulation. Trying to force a low hook with a wedge from the fairway at the par-4 18th (his ninth hole of the day), Spieth found Crampton’s Lake left of the green on the way to a double bogey. But thanks to a hot putter – he made 153 feet worth of putts – and a chip-in birdie from 73 feet at the par-3 13th, Spieth made the most of his round. Given how well he was putting Thursday, Spieth was second-guessing his decision with the approach shot at 18. “Considering I was 50 percent from 15 feet [putting], I may as well just keep giving myself 15 feet,â€� Spieth said. “If it’s any other pin, I probably birdie the hole, and I just tried to get cute with that one.â€� Spieth knows there is still work to be done tee-to-green. Six of his seven misses off the tee Thursday were left. That was in response – and perhaps an overcorrection — to his misses right that have plagued him this season. The fact he was hitting it where he wanted to hit it, though, is another sign of improvement. “I still had some scar tissue on shots today where I’ve had some foul balls to the right this year where that’s been my miss,â€� Spieth said. “… I played away from that shot because of the potential of what’s been there this year. “So, say, last week I probably trusted it 75 percent. Probably trusted it 90 percent today. Just trying to continue to when you trust it, pull off the shot. You know the feel and you know that the old ball is kind of out the window.â€� A year ago, Spieth finished T-32 at Colonial – a surprising result given his previous results in this tournament, including a win in 2016 sandwiched between a pair of T-2s. In retrospect, last year’s finish was an indication his game was out of sorts. Until last week at Bethpage Black, his only top-10 finish in the last 12 months was a T-9 at the Open Championship. It’s been a long, sometimes frustrating, climb back. While Spieth hasn’t been relying strictly on results to measure his progress, he realizes that’s what the rest of us have to go on. “Score-wise, it’s not necessary for me to feel good,â€� he said. “It’s more just I knew once I started to get the club back out in front of me, that the golf would start to be fun again – and it certainly is.â€� Professional golf, of course, is more fun when winning is involved. No one would be surprised if Spieth ends his two-year drought this week on a course that fits his game – especially if his hot putter continues to mask his work-in-progress swing. “Certainly could use hitting a few more fairways and a few more greens around Colonial the rest of this week,â€� he said. “But the putter blade is sharp.â€� He hopes the rest of his game will follow.

Click here to read the full article…

Click here to read the full article…