Tiger Woods Chasing 82: All of Tiger’s wins

CROMWELL, Conn. — We pause now to fondly remember Bubba Watson’s neon pink driver, which broke apart mid-swing on the second tee in the Travelers Championship on Friday. RELATED: Leaderboard | Win probabilities: Travelers Championship | No lead safe at Travelers Championship And, if the three-time Travelers winner is going to have luck like this over the weekend, please spare a thought for the rest of the field at the TPC River Highlands, too. Watson recovered after snapping his driver to make birdie at No. 2 on his way to a second straight 66 that left him at 8 under, one stroke behind 36-hole leader Jason Day. “It was a perfect tee shot right down the middle. Chipped it in there and made the putt for birdie,” Watson said wryly. “Ho-hum.” Day shot 62 for the day’s low score and a chance at his first top three finish in more than three years. The former world No. 1 missed three straight cuts before he tied for 44th at the PGA Championship, then withdrew from the Memorial with a back injury and did not qualify for the U.S. Open. Day seemed to fidget with his back on the course Friday, but still had eight birdies in a bogey-free round. “Sometimes when you do have sort of an injury or stiffness, even if you’re sick, sometimes you can come out and play some good golf,” he said. “I was fortunate enough to not really get in my own way today.” First-round co-leader Kramer Hickok was at 10 under before flying the green on the par-3 16th hole and then three-putting from 18 feet for a double bogey; he finished with a 69 to tie Watson for second. Justin Rose and Kevin Kisner each shot 63 and were among seven player tied for fourth at minus-7. Satoshi Kodaira, who was 7 under after the first round, shot a 2-over 72 in the second. A total of 79 players made the cut at minus-2 on the 6,841-yard, par-70 course outside of Hartford. Just squeaking in on the number: defending champion Dustin Johnson and two-time winner Phil Mickelson. Watson, who won the tournament in 2010, ’15 and ’18, started at No. 10 on Friday morning and was 1 under for the day when he arrived at the par-4, 350-yard second hole. That’s when his driver fell apart — but he didn’t. After making contact with the ball, Watson’s clubhead came hurtling off the shaft, landing short of the gallery to the right and leaving him with a broken shaft in his hands. “Luckily … it didn’t reach the crowd so nobody got hurt,” he said. “Nobody in my group knew were the ball was. Once you hit, you’re focused on where the driver head goes.” Despite a fairly pronounced fade, the ball landed in the fairway, about 50 yards from the pin. Watson pitched to 11 feet and holed the putt. Watson said it might have been the travel, going from hot to cold, or overuse that caused the club to break right above the hosel where the shaft connects to the head. His caddie, Ted Scott, tried to pry out the remnant of the shaft so the head could be reused; Watson had a spare driver in his car trunk in case of just such an emergency. Rule 4.1 allows Watson to replace the club. After hitting a 3-wood on the 437-yard, par-4 third, he had his backup in time for the 479-yard, par-4 fourth. “It’s one of those things that happened before and I always have a backup. They brought me the backup two holes later and I played with that the rest of the day,” he said. “I knew there was only a couple drivers left, so really wasn’t too big a deal.” Watson added birdies on the fifth and sixth holes before holing a 50-foot birdie putt on No. 7 to take the lead at 9 under. He gave that shot back with a missed 3-footer on the final hole. “I was trying to get some extra ones if I could,” he said. “Just one of those things that went the wrong way.” Bryson DeChambeau shot 66 on Friday and was at minus-5, one shot better than Brooks Koepka, who had a 67 in the second round. Koepka’s brother, Chase, who qualified for the tournament last year but withdrew because of COVID-19 protocols, shot 73 and missed the cut at 3 over.

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RENO, Nevada — During a post-round conversation on Thursday lasting slightly less than four brutally honest minutes, Bill Haas pulled no punches when describing the current state of his golf game. The sound bites included such things as: “I’m frustrated.� “It’s been a disappointing year in a lot of ways.� “This year I’ve been below average.� “I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.� Haas has every justification for feeling this way. Regarded as one of the PGA TOUR’s most consistent performers during the last decade, the 2011 FedExCup champ is experiencing his first sub-par season. Consider this: Just one top-10 finish in 22 starts, the fewest since his rookie season in 2007. Three top-25 finishes, the fewest ever since joining the PGA TOUR. Nine missed cuts, most since 2009. That year was the last time he did not play in the Masters and The Open Championship — until this year. It was also the last time he failed to qualify for the majority of the World Golf Championships events. As a result, Haas entered this week’s Barracuda Championship with his FedExCup Playoffs streak in jeopardy. He’s one of 13 players who have made the Playoffs in each of the first 11 years, but right now he’s 145th in points and needs a big move down the stretch to climb inside the top 125 following the Wyndham Championship. Just as alarming, Haas is in danger of losing his full status on TOUR. His five-year exemption for winning the FedExCup expired two years ago, and his exemption for his last TOUR win (in 2015) expired last season. Unless he makes the Playoffs this season, he’d have to play out of the Past Champion category — or he could try to regain his card through the Web.com Tour Finals. “My goal obviously is to try to make the Playoffs and do some good there,� the 36-year-old Haas said. “But I just haven’t played well enough to put myself in a good position to do that. That’s the reason I’m here. “Hopefully these next couple of weeks, I can figure something out.� He’s been trying to do that for quite some time now, alas with no success. Some may point to the mid-February car crash during Genesis Open week when Haas’ golf game started to suffer. Haas was a passenger in a car driven by a member of the host family in which he was staying that week. The driver, 71-year-old Mark Gibello, died on the scene, and Haas immediately withdrew from the tournament, to heal the physical wounds to his legs as well as the mental wounds from the tragic death of a friend. Haas returned a month later and soon posted his only top-10 of the season, a T-7 at the RBC Heritage. He said Thursday that his current struggles have nothing to do with the accident. “Nothing that certainly give me a reason I shouldn’t be able to play good golf,� he said. “I don’t think I was the same right afterwards physically, but I think I’ve worked my way through that.� In truth, his results had been trending poorly before the accident. He missed his last cut of the 2017 calendar year at The RSM Classic (perhaps a foreshadow, as he usually plays well in that event), then missed his first two cuts upon resuming his schedule in 2018. Generally a fast starter, he was already outside the top 125 bubble going into Riviera; never before in his FedExCup career had he been lower than 70 at that point of the season. As to what specifically has gone wrong in Haas’ game, well, pretty much everything. In Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, he currently ranks 107th. In the previous five seasons, he’s never ranked lower than 34th, and in his career, he’s previous low ranking was 75th. He also ranks 161st in Strokes Gained: Putting, again his career-worst ranking in that category. “The putting hasn’t been good, without question,� Haas said. “This year, I have not been sharp hitting the golf ball. If you don’t hit it good and you don’t putt well, then you’re not going to do well. It’s just something I’m trying to work through and figure out. But if I knew the answer, I wouldn’t do it. I would do better. “I’ve always been average at everything, you know? I’ve always been pretty good. But this year, I’ve been below average at my iron game, my putting, my chipping hasn’t been as good. I think there was one year my irons weren’t as sharp, but I was one of the top ones in scrambling. If you hit bad irons but scramble well, it doesn’t really matter. But when all facets of your game are struggling, it adds up to some missed cuts.� Adding to his frustration is that he’s not even seeing incremental improvement, despite all the time and energy he’s devoted to finding a solution. “I feel like I’ve worked harder this year than I’ve ever worked and I haven’t seen the results,� Haas said. “That’s been the hardest thing and that’s what I’m struggling with. I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, but that’s the reason I’m going to keep working at it today and tomorrow and hopefully something clicks.� Unfortunately, it did not click for Haas on Thursday. His round started out promising — two birdies in his first three holes, as he knocked his tee shot at the par-3 11th to 10 feet, then hit his approach at the par-4 12th to inside 6 feet. But he couldn’t ride the momentum, failing to capitalize on a couple of other opportunities. His round then stalled before losing steam completely at the finish, with two bogeys in his last three holes. On his last hole of the day, the par-4 ninth, he hit a terrific drive, 304 yards to the middle of the fairway. But with a sand wedge from 123 yards, he found a greenside bunker and failed to get up and down. Finishing with five points in the Modified Stableford scoring system, he’ll have to make up ground Friday in order to reach the weekend. Otherwise, he’ll leave Montreux with no FedExCup points and presumably drop a few more spots in the standings. All in all, Thursday pretty much reflected the entire frustrating, perplexing season for one of the TOUR’s most consistent and gentlemanly players. “It’s golf,� Haas said, throwing one last punch at himself, “and it’s beating me right now.�

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