Tiger gets Cantlay, Snedeker, Wise at Match Play

As the calendar flips to a new year, and a new decade, PGA TOUR players such as Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson and Joaquín Niemann set goals to strive for in 2020. From charitable impact to multiple wins, check out what they hope to accomplish this year both on and off the course. RELATED: Players to Watch in 2020  Rickie Fowler • Multiple wins • Win a major • Make the Olympics • Start an event with our foundation • Help bring Challenge (Jarrod Lyle’s charity) to the USA to keep Jarrod Lyle’s name alive • Enjoy my free time Dustin Johnson • Return my wedge game (150 and in) to a higher standard • Improve putting inside 10 feet • Go fishing with my kids more Lanto Griffin • Buy Mom and brother a piece of land with a gardening pad • Help Mom start her own tincture business • Make it to East Lake • Enjoy the moments I’ve created Collin Morikawa • Keep improving across the board • Set new goals after achieving others • Make the Olympics • Make the Ryder Cup team Joaquín Niemann • Eat more avocados • Be more positive on short game and putting • Buy a house • Get stronger abs Sebastián Muñoz • Focus more on fitness • Learn how to meditate • Travel more without my golf bag

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FARMINGDALE, N.Y. — Brooks Koepka is turning a public golf course into his private playground in the PGA Championship. Staked to a seven-shot lead, Koepka never let anyone get closer than five shots Saturday as he powered his way to an ideal start and overcame a few sloppy mistakes for an even-par 70. For the first time this week, he didn’t touch any scoring records. That wasn’t the objective. Koepka kept his seven-shot lead going into a final round that feels more like a victory lap as he tries to join Tiger Woods as the only players to win back-to-back in stroke play at the PGA Championship. “I think we’re all playing for second,” Luke List said after bogeys on his last two holes knocked him out of the final group. History would agree with him. No one has ever lost a seven-shot lead in 159 years of the majors. No one has lost more than a six-shot lead in any PGA TOUR event. Dustin Johnson tried to make a run with six birdies, only to stall with five bogeys in his round of 69. No bogey was more damaging than the 18th. A drive into the fairway would have given him a reasonable shot at birdie. Instead, he sent it right into the bunker, came up well short into the native grass, left the next one in the bunker and had to scramble to limit the damage. That kept Johnson from joining his close friend in the final group. Koepka, who was at 12-under 198, will play the final round with Harold Varner III, whose week began with plans to play a practice round with Tiger Woods on the eve of the PGA Championship until Woods called in sick. Varner birdied the 18th to cap off a bogey-free 67 and lead the group at 5-under 205 that includes Jazz Janewattananond (67) and List, who holed two shots from off the green for a 69. Jordan Spieth did not put any pressure on Koepka at all. Playing in the final group on the weekend for the first time since the Open Championship last summer, Spieth didn’t have a realistic birdie chance until the sixth hole, and he missed that one from 8 feet. He shot 72 and was nine shots behind. There was simply no stopping Koepka, who is one round away from a fourth major in his last eight tries. Koepka also would become the first player to hold back-to-back major titles at the same time. He won his second straight U.S. Open last year 60 miles down the road on Long Island at Shinnecock Hills.

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After 46 years, the European Tour finally has its first round of 59. English golfer Oliver Fisher was sprayed with champagne beside the 18th green after two-putting for par from 40 feet to complete a 12-under round containing an eagle and 10 birdies on a par-71 course at the Portugal Masters on Friday. It was the first sub-60 round on the European Tour. There have officially been 10 on the PGA TOUR, with one of them a 58 by Jim Furyk in 2016 at the Travelers Championship. “I obviously knew I was in with a shout of shooting a low one when I made a good start,” said Fisher, who reached the turn in 28 after five birdies and an eagle at the par-5 fifth hole at Dom Pedro Victoria Golf Course in Vilamoura. “It was important to keep reminding myself that I was out there to have some fun, enjoy it, and not get too tentative. When you’ve got a good round going, it’s easy to do that.” He birdied Nos. 10-12, then No. 15, before saving par with a 20-foot putt at the 16th. He tapped in for birdie from three feet at No. 17 and held his nerve down the last, hitting his tee shot down the middle of the fairway and safely finding the green with his approach. “Very different to a couple of years ago on this green,” Fisher said beside No. 18, “when I was fighting to keep my card. I had that in the back of my mind, thinking, `You know what, things could be worse.’ It was fun, I tried to enjoy it.” There have been 19 rounds of 60 on the European Tour. Eighteen players have done so, with Darren Clarke achieving it twice. The 59 left Fisher leading the tournament midway through the second round. His only title came in 2011 at the Czech Open. “A special moment for such a special guy,” tweeted Thomas Bjorn, Europe’s Ryder Cup captain. “Couldn’t be prouder of you.”

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