Tiger Woods had a rough first round in the Bahamas — finishing with a 1-over 73 — and trails co-leaders Patrick Cantlay and Patrick Reed by eight shots.
Click here to read the full article…
| Do you like online slot and want to know more about the best payouts? Slots with the hightest payouts can be found here! |
Tiger Woods winning the Valspar Championship on Sunday? It wouldn’t surprise last week’s winner, Phil Mickelson. Mickelson appeared on the Dan Patrick Show on Thursday morning to talk about his victory last Sunday at the WGC-Mexico Championship, among other things. During the segment, the 47-year-old Mickelson discussed Woods and the possibility of Woods breaking a long victory drought of his own this weekend. It had been more than four years since Mickelson had won, dating to the 2013 British Open. Woods, 42, hasn’t won since the 2013 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, the final of his five victories that year. “We’ve become pretty close in recent years. … But he’s always one-upped me,� Mickelson
OWINGS MILLS, Md. – Phil Mickelson, a staple of every Ryder Cup team since 1995, is still trying to force his way into Steve Stricker’s line up but confirmed he’d accept a vice-captains role should he fail to make the squad. Mickelson sits 19th on the U.S. team points list with the top six automatic picks confirmed following the BMW Championship this week. Stricker will then select six more members to round out the squad after the TOUR Championship. After an opening round 4-under 68 at Caves Valley Mickelson needs a huge final three rounds to make a surge into Stricker’s thinking and even qualify for the TOUR Championship. The veteran came in as the last man qualified at 70th in the FedExCup and needs to finish in the top 3 to advance. As his second-round tee time approached he sat eight shots off the lead. “The only way for me to have a realistic chance of being picked is to get into the TOUR Championship and then play well in the TOUR Championship,” Mickelson said. “I’m certainly a long shot I would say, but I’m starting to play well, and if I can put together three good rounds, you never know.” Of course Stricker can pick anyone he likes and may yet still decide Mickelson’s experience, and the fact he proved his winning prowess by becoming the oldest major champion ever at the PGA Championship at Kiawah Island in May, should be part of his squad. Mickelson was on winning teams in 1999, 2008 and 2016 but has lost nine times and holds a 18-22-7 record in 47 matches which is the record for most played and most losses. When asked directly about taking up a position amongst Stricker’s captaincy team that includes Davis Love III, Zach Johnson and Jim Furyk at this time, Mickelson admitted he’d consider it. “I love being a part of the Ryder Cup in any way, shape or form, so of course. But I’m not thinking about that right now,” he said.
WILMINGTON, N.C. – Notes and observations from Saturday’s third round of the Wells Fargo Championship at Eagle Point Golf Club, where Patrick Reed shot a 5-under 67 to take the solo lead at 8 under par. Europeans Alex Noren and Jon Rahm each shot 69 and were one back, while FedExCup leader Dusin Johnson also fired a 67 and was still in contention, four behind. For more coverage from Eagle Point, click here for the Daily Wrap-up. REED KEEPS IT SIMPLE Patrick Reed has five PGA TOUR victories at age 26, so it’s not like he’s been struggling. But he wasn’t seeing the ball go in the hole as much as he wanted this season. He made cuts but didn’t contend, and was an early casualty at the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play. Then he started missing cuts, failing to make the weekend rounds three times in April alone. He decided to make a change. Rather than consulting with his caddie and his trusty green-reading book before every putt—a practice that may soon be outlawed, anyway—Reed decided to go back to the way he did it as a highly decorated amateur at Augusta State. See putt. Hit putt. “I decided just to be more of a kind of see and react guy rather than being so technical, and having Kessler [Karain, his caddie] in there and looking at the book and trying to get the perfect line,” said Reed, who is averaging 27 putts per round at Eagle Point this week. “Go back to how I putted in college, kind of just see the putt and go knock it in.” That simple plan paid dividends Saturday as Reed tied the low round of the day. The putter has been his friend as he tries to win for the first time since The Barclays last year, and has helped him get up and down 16 times in 19 chances, best in the field. He’ll need more of the same Sunday, what with 18 players within four of the lead—and the chase pack featuring the likes of Rahm, Johnson and Phil Mickelson (69, 4 under). WIND CHANGES YET AGAIN This week was always going to be about the wind at Eagle Point, which is serving as a one-year host while Quail Hollow preps for the PGA Championship in August. If it didn’t blow, Eagle Point would yield low scores, but boy, has it ever blown. “We’ve had three different wind directions now,” said Graeme McDowell, who shot a third-round 70 and is at 4 under par, just four off the lead. “It started a southeast, went to a southwest, and today was even a little northwest. On one, for example, I hit 3-iron to the green as opposed to wedge.” McDowell laughed. “That’s a pretty big difference.” The ninth hole no longer played into the teeth of the wind, and the green (or the adjacent pond) on 18 was easily reached in two shots. Still, while Eagle Point played the easiest it has all week, yielding 67s by Reed, Dustin Johnson and Seung-Yul Noh, it wasn’t easy. The best players in the world essentially fought the course to a draw, averaging 72.228 strokes in round three. “You come to a place like this that no one’s ever seen before, and you get three different wind directions in three days, I kind of like it when that happens,” McDowell said. “It makes everyone think; it makes strategy more important. Caddies are more important. Practice rounds are more important. This is refreshing, this week.” SHOT OF THE DAY MICKELSON MAKES MOVE Phil Mickelson has flirted with winning in North Carolina plenty of times. He finished second to Payne Stewart at the 1999 U.S. Open at Pinehurst, and second to Rory McIlroy at the 2010 Wells Fargo at Quail Hollow. His Wells Fargo record since then: T9 in 2011, followed by T26, 3, T11, T4 and T4. But he’s winless in 19 previous starts in the Tar Heel State. He’s still knocking on the door. “I enjoyed it, I played well,” Mickelson said after shooting a third-round 69 to get to 4 under for the tournament and onto the first page of the leaderboard. “I had a lot of opportunities to take it even lower and really move up the leaderboard, but it was a good solid day.” After failing to birdie any of the par 5s in the second round, Mickelson birdied two of them, and birdied two par 3s as well, in the third. His round could have been even better but for a few gaffes, the last of which coming when he left his third shot in the bunker on 18. He got up and down to salvage par, but will need an extra-special round Sunday to break the streak. “It’s probably not what I needed to get right where I wanted,” Mickelson said, “but at least if I get it going tomorrow I have a good chance.” CALL OF THE DAY MOLINARI’S UNLIKELY INSPIRATION Francesco Molinari shot an even-par 72 to fall from the outright lead into a tie for fourth place. At 6 under par, he is still just two behind as he chases his first TOUR win in his 99th start. If he wins, he might give partial credit to a highly paid soccer player he doesn’t even particularly like. Molinari and pal Gonzalo Fernandez-Costano were eating at Whole Foods when talk turned to a Wednesday-night Champions League game between Monaco and Juventus, which features an Argentinian player named Gonzalo Higuain. “I said, ‘There’s no way Higuain will score a goal,’” Castano said, “and funny enough he scored two goals. So now I keep telling him, ‘Francesco, there’s no chance you’re going to win this week.’” Castano laughed. “So hopefully he’s going to win this week.” Molinari has made 11 cuts in 12 starts on TOUR this year, with three top-10s. The best of these was a T4 at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. If he wins the Wells Fargo at Eagle Point on Sunday, perhaps his winner’s speech will make mention of the two Gonzalos, Higuain and Fernandez-Castano, and an odd bit of reverse psychology.
