Tiger talks ‘painful’ rehab, mum on return to golf

With the season’s final major championship right around the corner, only seven PGA TOUR events remain before the beginning of the lucrative FedExCup Playoffs. Several postseason stalwarts find themselves in precarious spots with less than two months to go in the Regular Season. As marquee names jockey for position down the stretch, Twenty First Group ran more than 10,000 simulations of how the rest of the PGA TOUR regular season would play out to project the likelihood of different points scenarios unfolding. The projection gives newly-minted major winner Jon Rahm the best chance at leading the FedExCup race entering THE NORTHERN TRUST (36.3%), with current FedExCup leader Patrick Cantlay right behind him (32.8%). RELATED LINKS: Twenty First Group | FedExCup standings The math says that currently, 100 of 125 spots in the standings are projected to be taken. The most intrigue lies with the remaining 20 percent of the spots still up for grabs. Here are some of the more interesting probabilities the mathematical projections unearthed: Rickie Fowler Current FedExCup position: 114 Probability of reaching Playoffs: 73.3% Strong finishes at the PGA Championship (T8) and the Memorial Tournament (T11) moved Fowler from outside the playoff picture to firmly inside the top 125. Twenty First Group probability models now have Fowler at a better than 73 percent chance to reach the FedExCup Playoffs. Fowler’s marked recent improvement can’t just be tied to one particular statistic. Entering the PGA Championship, he was averaging +0.22 Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green per round, and -0.39 Strokes Gained: Putting per round. In his last four starts, he’s gaining more than half-a-stroke per round in both statistics. Fowler has qualified for the FedExCup Playoffs every full season he’s been on TOUR (since 2010). Chesson Hadley Current FedExCup position: 116 Probability of reaching Playoffs: 55.8% Hadley’s season is a perfect example of how one week can change the narrative of an entire season. The lanky TOUR veteran has missed 13 cuts in 21 starts entering this week’s John Deere Classic, but a runner-up finish at the Palmetto Championship in June has him in a great position to make the FedExCup Playoffs for the fifth time in his career. More than 42% of Hadley’s FedExCup points for the 2020-2021 PGA TOUR season came that week in South Carolina. With just a few events left, can he turn an up-and-down campaign into a spot in the Playoffs? Tommy Fleetwood Current FedExCup position: 125 Probability of reaching Playoffs: 71.1% The man currently in the final qualifying spot in the standings, Tommy Fleetwood, is not in that spot due to the nature of his global schedule. On the contrary, his 15 starts this season are his most entering the month of July in his PGA TOUR career. Currently, Twenty First Group has Fleetwood at about a 71% chance to reach the Playoffs. Fleetwood has just a single top-10 finish in a stroke play event this season, a far cry from the previous three PGA TOUR seasons, when he was tenth or better in 38% of his starts. Fleetwood has not been as proficient with his driver in 2021, ranking outside the top 150 in Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee. Still, The Open Championship – where Fleetwood finished runner-up in 2019 – presents a great opportunity to accrue the points needed to lock up a playoff spot. Dylan Frittelli Current FedExCup position: 130 Probability of reaching Playoffs: 43.8% Sitting just outside the top 125 is this week’s defending champion, Dylan Frittelli. In his 2019 John Deere Classic victory, Frittelli was lights out on and around the greens, leading the field in scrambling percentage and ranking second in Strokes Gained: Putting. Those are two statistics Frittelli has struggled with in 2021, as he’s ranked 114th in scrambling percentage and 186th in putting. After seven missed cuts in his last nine starts, the friendly confines of Sylvis, Illinois, might be just what the South African needs to right the ship. Charles Howell III Current FedExCup position: 131 Probability of reaching Playoffs: 55.1% He is one of just nine players to qualify for the FedExCup Playoffs every season since its inception in 2007, but Charles Howell III has some work to do in the coming weeks if he wants to make it 15-for-15. This week’s John Deere Classic would be a good place to start a resurgence – he finished tied for sixth here in 2019 and has eight top-25 finishes in twelve previous career starts. Howell’s approach play, in particular, has betrayed him a bit this season, as he is on pace for a career-low finish in Strokes Gained: Approach (currently ranks 194th on TOUR). TPC Deere Run could be a place that turns around, through: In his last 16 rounds played at the John Deere Classic, he’s gained a strong four-tenths of a stroke on approach shots per round.

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Joe LaCava, who has caddied for Tiger Woods for the past 10 years, has reunited with former boss Fred Couples for the week at the PGA Tour Champions event.

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Justin Rose, who chased down Dustin Johnson a year ago to set his FedExCup-winning season into motion, makes his first start of the new PGA TOUR campaign when he defends his crown in at the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions in Shanghai. Johnson also is back for another shot at a second WGC-HSBC title, now five years after capturing his first. Newly crowned Player of the Year Brooks Koepka and fellow major titleholders Francesco Molinari and Patrick Reed also highlight the first WGC lineup of the 2018-19 TOUR season. FIELD NOTES: Rory McIlroy returns to Shanghai after a year’s hiatus, giving the field four of the top five in the current Official World Golf Ranking. McIlroy was fourth two years ago, but sat out the final three months of 2017 to let a rib injury heal. … In all, the lineup boasts 19 of the top 30 in the rankings. … Rose, McIlroy and the “MoliWood� duo of Molinari and Tommy Fleetwood headline a reunion of 10 members from last month’s winning European Ryder Cup squad. … Johnson and Koepka are among four U.S. Ryder Cup members headed to China, joined by Reed and Tony Finau. … Brandt Snedeker, winner at the Wyndham Championship two months ago, and Paul Casey are among 12 men set to play all three stops on the TOUR’s Asia Swing. … Snedeker, Chez Reavie and Emiliano Grillo are the only ones among that dozen who also teed it up at the Safeway Open to start the new season. … Haotong Li, winner of the Dubai Desert Classic last January, heads a faction of seven Chinese entrants. FEDEXCUP: Winner receives 550 points. STORYLINES: Johnson returns to the scene of last year’s staggering finish, where a closing 77 allowed Rose to overcome an eight-shot deficit entering the final day. Nonetheless, Johnson’s five career WGC titles are No. 2 all time behind Tiger Woods (18). … Rose, whose win last year was the first of three in the final 10 weeks of 2017, is heating up again. The FedExCup champ was no worse than fourth in each of the final three Playoffs events, a key contributor to Europe’s Ryder Cup triumph and eighth at the British Masters. … All but two of the previous 12 HSBC Champions winners have come from no lower than 30th in the world rankings. The exceptions: Y.E. Yang (77th/2006) and Russell Knox (85th/2015). … The HSBC Champions wraps up the PGA TOUR’s three-week Asia Swing and stands as the final stop in 2018 that brings together most of the top players from around the globe. … Three events follow on the TOUR calendar (Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, OHL Classic at Mayakoba, The RSM Classic), while the European Tour hits the homestretch of its Race to Dubai season pursuit. COURSE: Sheshan International GC (West), 7,261 yards, par 72. Set amid 1,000-year-old gingko trees, man-made waterways and a natural quarry, Sheshan International is one of China’s most exclusive clubs and has played host throughout the event’s 14-year existence except for a 2012 venture to Mission Hills. The Nelson & Haworth design, built in the shadow of Sheshan Mountain, opened in 2004 as the Shanghai region’s first golf club. Tiger Woods once praised the layout as “the crowning jewel of all of Asian golf.� To create the course’s drastic elevation changes, crews reportedly moved more than 2 million cubic yards of earth. 72-HOLE RECORD: 264, Dustin Johnson (2013). 18-HOLE RECORD: 62, Martin Kaymer (3rd round, 2013), Danny Willett (4th round, 2015). LAST YEAR: Rose became the beneficiary of Johnson’s stunning Sunday, as Johnson failed to make a birdie and watched his six-stroke lead dissipate to nothing. The English pro still found himself six shots behind with eight to play, but reeled off six birdies in that closing stretch on the way to a closing 67. A birdie at the par-3 17th, where his tee shot stopped 2 feet from the flagstick, pushed Rose to the front and left it for Johnson to answer. Needing an eagle at the par-5 18th to force a playoff, Johnson wound up hitting his second shot into the water. That left the world No. 1 to join Greg Norman (1996 Masters) and Sergio Garcia (2005 Wells Fargo Championship) for the largest final-round lead surrendered in PGA TOUR history. Rose prevailed for the first time since his Olympic gold medal in Rio de Janeiro, winning again a week later in Turkey and ending his year with victory at the Indonesian Masters. HOW TO FOLLOW TELEVISION: Wednesday-Thursday, 10 p.m.-4 a.m. ET (Golf Channel); Friday-Saturday, 11 p.m.-4 a.m. (GC). PGA TOUR LIVE: None. RADIO: None.

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