Tiger off to encouraging start in lead-up to Open

IRVING, Texas – The PGA TOUR returns to Texas this week for the AT&T Byron Nelson, which is being played for the last time at the TPC Four Seasons Las Colinas, the tournament’s host course since 1983. Next year, the event will move to its new home at Trinity Forest Golf Club near downtown Dallas. “Celebrating our 35-year partnership with the Irving community and the Four Seasons is the big theme of this year’s tournament,” said Tim Costello, 2017 AT&T Byron Nelson Tournament Chair. “The best part of our longtime partnership is the impact it’s had on our community, helping raise more than $150 million for Momentous Institute, impacting over 100,000 lives.” The celebration includes a strong field, with four of the world’s top six players – No. 1 Dustin Johnson, No. 4 Jason Day, No. 5 Sergio Garcia and No. 6 Jordan Spieth, the local resident. Garcia not only is the defending champion, but a two-time winner of this event (he also won in 2004). This will be the first time Garcia’s fans in Dallas will have a chance to watch him as the reigning Masters champ. PGA TOUR LIVE will have 42 hours of live coverage during the four-day event. Coverage of the first two rounds will be from 8 a.m. ET to 7 p.m. ET, while the final two rounds will be 8 a.m. ET to 6 p.m. ET, with a mixture of morning Featured Groups and afternoon Featured Holes (the par-4 14th and the par-3 17th). The broadcast also will be available on Twitter from 8 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. ET on Thursday and Friday. Here’s a look at the Featured Groups (current FedExCup ranking in parentheses): Thursday Brooks Koepka (14), Jason Dufner (57), Ian Poulter (58). Dufner won here in 2012, draining a 23-1/2 foot putt on the final hole. Koepka lost in a playoff to Garcia last year. Poulter is making the most of his recent exempt status change, coming off a tie for second at THE PLAYERS Championship that elevated him 117 spots in the world rankings. Tee time: 8:40 a.m. ET. Jordan Spieth (7), Brandt Snedeker (43), Matt Kuchar (52). Spieth’s best result in his hometown event remains his first one, when he finished tied for 16th as a 16-year-old, having entered the final round in contention to win. Kuchar generally plays well here; his solo third last year was his third-top-10 finish in his last six starts at TPC Four Seasons. Snedeker’s tie for sixth last year was his best here. Tee time: 8:50 a.m. ET. Friday Dustin Johnson (1), Louis Oosthuizen (32), Cody Gribble (47). While Johnson, the FedExCup points leader, hasn’t won in his last two starts after reeling off three straight wins, he’s still playing well, as he tied for 12th last week at TPC Sawgrass. He’s also played well at TPC Four Seasons, with six straight top-20 finishes, including four top 10s. Oosthuizen was in contention last week at THE PLAYERS, finishing tied for second. Gribble, another Dallas native, is making his second start here. Tee time: 8:40 a.m. ET. Sergio Garcia (13), Patrick Reed (84), Jason Day (106). Garcia and Day are past winners of the AT&T Byron Nelson; Day won his first TOUR event here in 2010 and followed with two more top-10s. He’s making his first start here since 2013. The Texas-born Reed is also playing here for the first time since 2013. Garcia is the only multiple winner of this event in which both wins were at TPC Four Seasons. Tee time: 8:50 a.m. ET.

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Phil Mickelson has never been afraid to experiment, even after the age of 50. His tinkering has continued into this new season, where he unveiled some tweaks to his putter in this week’s season-opening Fortinet Championship. Mickelson used the new flatstick to gain nearly a stroke on the greens in his first-round 70 at the Silverado Resort in Napa, California. He is still using the same prototype head – a blade-style similar to the classic Wilson 8802 — that he unveiled when he began experimenting with arm-lock putting at the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational. The prototype, which has a similar appearance to the Odyssey PM Blade that he has used for years, is built to rotate less throughout the stroke. This week, Mickelson added loft to the putter while using a longer grip and shaft. He said Thursday that he’s been messing with the grip extension for approximately six weeks. “It takes a little getting used to, but it seems like I’ve had moments where I just start rolling it in from everywhere,” Mickelson said. Callaway Senior Club Performance Analyst Gerritt Pon, who works closely with Mickelson on his equipment, said the SuperStroke WristLock on Mickelson’s putter is now 17 inches, which Pon said is “a little longer than previously.” “The putter is extended to 41 inches with a little more loft than his normal blade specs,” Pon said. “The longer grip allows him to grip down a little more than the original wrist-lock grip.” The putter Mickelson used in Memphis, Tennessee, was 40.75 inches. By adding a quarter-inch to the putter and extending the grip, Mickelson is effectively “choking down” on the putter more. “I did putt well, so I thought it was good,” Mickelson said Thursday. “I’m hitting them solid, online. So tomorrow I need to get a good round, I need to shoot something (in the) mid-60s. I’m playing well enough to do it, I believe, and I’m certainly putting well enough.” Mickelson’s second round at Silverado is scheduled to begin at 4:05 p.m. Eastern.

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The phone call, as Brendon Todd likes to say, was "extra special." After all, it's not every day he gets to tell the person on the other end of the line that he's making a $50,000 donation to their organization. And in this case, the group was "Extra Special People," which aims to create transformative experiences for people with developmental disabilities near his home in Watkinsville, Georgia. "It was a new life experience," Todd says, the satisfaction in his voice palpable. "And the first time I’ve been able to contribute that much money to a certain foundation. So, it was really neat and definitely was something that touched my heart and made me want to do it again." Todd's donation was made possible after he won the RSM Birdies for Love competition at last year's Bermuda Championship - a tournament he also happened to win overall, the first of two consecutive victories for the former Georgia Bulldog in what became the season's most compelling comeback story. Ashley Stewart, the director of development for ESP, happened to answer the phone that day. "I remember being so, so honored," she says. "I just really couldn’t believe it. It was an incredible phone call to receive and just so cool to hear how he was able to be so moved and just to feel so connected to our agency. … To provide such a gift, it was really awesome." ESP's marketing manager Katarina Christmann was sitting across from Stewart and couldn't help but listen in as her co-worker spoke with Todd. "She was like, oh that's great, you want to make a donation," Christmann remembers. "Do you want to write a check? And then I remember her being like, oh, wow, $50,000? Not your average phone call for sure." Todd first became aware of ESP about two years ago when he played in a charity pro-am with several former Georgia football players. One of ESP's newest programs is Java Joy, a non-profit where coffee carts are staffed and managed by the disabled, and Todd was impressed by their enthusiasm and energy. "It was just so neat to see these special disabled people starting their own small business and thriving and enjoying it," he says. "And that was just something that you don’t see every day that I think we probably need to push a little bit more in our society." True to their names, the Joyristas dance and hand out smiles and hugs - virtual these days, of course, as well as cups of coffee. Not only do they staff the cart, they get other kinds of vocational training and learn how to do things like write resumes and proper interview technique. "I just kind of got to know some of the kids, some of the people that are involved and some of the special people that are recipients of the money," Todd says. "They just touched my heart. And it was one of those local charities I thought I could really support. "So, when I had the opportunity to last fall, it was the first one I thought of." Java Joy, though, is just one of the programs ESP offers to service kids, teenagers and adults with developmental disabilities. There are afternoon programs, summer camps and weekend activities to help develop confidence, social skills and relationships, as well as family support programs that include counseling, family dinner and other resources. There is no upper or lower age limit for participation, either. Todd's donation, though, was earmarked for the younger kids that ESP serves. He made the grant early this year, at a time when Stewart says the organization was deep into planning for its summer camp program, which is open to anyone, regardless of a family's ability to contribute to the cost. Then came March and COVID-19 upended life. Suddenly, the money Todd donated made "even a bigger impact," Stewart says. With quarantines and shutdowns and unemployment rising, ESP was called upon to provide financial and food assistance that wasn't in the budget "but it was something our parents told us they needed in the spring," Stewart says. At the same time, staff was thinking ahead about how to safely hold summer camp when restrictions were lifted - splitting what would have been done at one location into six smaller ones. "Where Brendon’s donation was so significant is that we had about triple the amount of scholarship requests than a normal year this past summer," Stewart says. "And we didn’t really know how we would be able to serve our families, but we knew that we needed to serve them. So, we went forward in courage and in faith that this program is important, and we need to serve every single family and we’re not going to turn them away. "So, having the donation from Brendon really helped us keep that promise to our families that we would serve them no matter what. … It really came at a perfect time that we didn’t even know about at the beginning of the year. So, it was really, really powerful and significant in not closing our doors and being able to serve every type of family this summer." Erica Andrews, who is the national expansion manager for the Java Joy program, says 87 percent of adults with developmental disabilities are unemployed right now although most are capable of working. They just haven't been given the opportunity. Programs like Java Joy, which started with a janitorial cart, minus the mops, and now is active in four cities with coffee trucks, as well as carts, help not only employ the Joyristas but also show businesses what these adults are capable of. Adults like Donna, a 55-year-old ESP participant who lives with her sister and who started working as a Joyrista last year. It was the first job she'd had in her life. Or adults like Hannah, who is in her 30s and can be headstrong at times, but she loves Java Joy so much that she puts her clothes out and sets her own alarm clock on the days she works. "It doesn’t surprise me that Brendon was impressed by them because it is so fun to be around," Andrews says. "The name joy honestly, doesn’t do it justice. We were at an event this afternoon, just serving coffee dancing the whole time. … "These adults that we hire have something that I don’t have and that you don’t have. They bring joy to people. And I’m so sad that we cannot give hugs right now because it really is super remarkable — just the interaction that you get when you break the physical barrier of what we’re able to do." Andrews says having Todd show an interest in ESP and Java Joy means a lot to everyone associated with the non-profits. "For us and for our participants and for those that do attend ESP, it feels like a celebrity status — knowing that someone who they can find on TV and who they may never meet giving to them, it feels like a dream come true for most of them," she says. "And we do have a few male Joyristas who would geek out pretty hard if they had the chance to meet him."

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