Tiger Woods enters guilty plea, avoids jail

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KAPALUA, Hawaii – Cameron Champ knows the lessons learned from failure bring more than those from success. But it took him some time to realize it. Fair enough, too – failure in golf had never really been part of the Champ narrative as he blazed his trail through junior and amateur golf and hit the professional scene with similar gusto. But it is the lessons learned the last 12 months – where Champ had his first real sense of on-course adversity – that have given the now 24-year-old extreme confidence heading into 2020. Related: Power Rankings | Tee times | Storylines, course preview for Kapalua A year ago, Champ came to the Plantation Course at Kapalua for his first Sentry Tournament of Champions as the next big thing in golf. In the 12 months prior, he had won in his debut Korn Ferry Tour season to help earn his way to the PGA TOUR and then took out the Sanderson Farms Championship in just his second TOUR start as a full member (his ninth overall) during the fall. Champ had added two further top-10s in his following three starts, so when he came to Maui, it was almost like it had all been too easy. The hype surrounding him had been fulfilled. This kid was not just a big bomber… he was the real deal who can use brute force to overpower and finesse to outthink the competition. A year ago, he would finish a respectable T11 in his Kapalua debut and show no signs of what was about to come. A crash. In his next 20 starts to round out his rookie year, Champ missed the cut 11 times, WD’d in another, and failed to finish inside the top 20 anywhere. And a lot of it happened in the spotlight, given his earlier achievements. There was a back injury for a period, but the problems stemmed from much more than that. Champ was bringing excess baggage to the course. With early success comes almost impossible expectations. Not just from external sources, but from within as well. “Last year was a really good learning lesson for me with the way I played and what I struggled with,â€� Champ admits. “I took things way too seriously – I added pressure and frustration – and I really wasn’t being myself. With winning early… you get expectations. I ended up in the featured groups… basically being thrown in with the wolves when you are a little pup. “But I am glad it happened that way – I was blessed now that I look back on it. It was a good experience that I can use going forward. Going from winning to rock bottom basically – I think it’s like gaining three or four years’ experience in a year.â€� Sometimes it takes something much bigger than golf to put things back in perspective. And this was certainly true for Champ. His grandfather Mack taught him the game and put him on this path. His lessons about dealing with adversity, having faced racial prejudice throughout his life, had also been littered throughout. But in taking the game so seriously and getting bogged down in negativity, Champ was forgetting some of Mack’s, and his father Jeff’s, wisdom. As Mack fell ill with cancer, Champ was letting his emotions get the better of him. But as things became more dire, he was jolted back into reality. “Rory (McIlroy) even said it after one of the better statistical years in the history of golf. He says golf is sperate from your personal life and you have to separate it – but I was dragging it into both,â€� Champ says. By the time the Safeway Open was coming up – which was to be Champ’s second start of this new season – Mack was moved to hospice care and the young star wasn’t even going to play. He toyed with just staying with Mack in Sacramento instead. At the last moment ,he decided to head over and play knowing it was what his grandfather wanted. He won. “Obviously that changed a lot of things for me,â€� Champ said of the emotional second win that booked his ticket back to Kapalua and sees him sitting ninth in the FedExCup. “It was literally a last minute thing Wednesday night. Hadn’t hit a ball in three days and I just showed up to the tee and played. I took a lot from that and the whole year and now I am building off what I learned.â€� Those lessons are what gives him the confidence to not expect a repeat slump this time around. Frustration, he hopes, will be very minimal. While his goals are still lofty, he has tempered his expectations and knows patience in this game is key. He is also finding ways to manage his game when it is not fully firing – evidenced, he says, by results at the Houston Open (T23) and the Mayakoba Golf Classic (T33) following his win. Off the course he is compartmentalizing better. The death of Mack a few months back still stings – and always will – but the pain isn’t infiltrating his golf. And there is happiness also as Champ got engaged over this holiday break. “I have a clearer understanding now. For me it has always been a mental thing. When I am mentally clear I play extremely well. So it is really just trying to figure out how to get there more often,â€� Champ says. “I felt all the emotions last year… I hope to stick to one this year.â€�

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NORTON, Mass. - Difficult as it may be in these unprecedented times of spectator-less arenas to generate spontaneous electricity, Dustin Johnson came close late in Friday's second round of THE NORTHERN TRUST at a TPC Boston golf course enveloped in pulsating warmth. He said he tried to birdie every hole and, good gracious, for the better part of his round he succeeded. If the birdie, eagle, birdie, eagle, birdie start wasn't enough of an attention-grabber, there were two more birdies to make the turn in 9-under 27. Then, to put your interest in a headlock, Johnson birdied the par-4 10th and par-3 11th. It was officially silly, wildly impressive, and seriously historic stuff in the making. To be 11-under through 11 holes and using just 13 putts to cover a whopping 128 feet was taking this game to a level that it had never been. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Scheffler cards 59 at THE NORTHERN TRUST So, when Johnson rode home in seven consecutive pars to shoot 60 and push to 15-under 127 and into a two-stroke lead, he was asked "condolences or congratulations?" No surprise, given his ability to shake things off is on a world-class level equal to his uncanny ball-striking skills, but Johnson smiled, then laughed. Well aware of what had transpired earlier in the day with Scottie Scheffler posting the 12th 59 in PGA TOUR history, Johnson said of bid to match him: "I don't really care. It's a good score. I'm happy with it." Honestly, playing competitor Marc Leishman nailed it when he said that Johnson produced the "easiest 11-under through 11 that you could think of." Yes, there was the 41-foot eagle putt at the 542-yard, par-5 second, and a 20-footer for birdie at the 208-yard, par-3 third. But the eagle putt at the 298-yard, par-4 fourth was from 5 feet, but the other birdie rolls - at Nos. 1, 5, 7, 8, 10 and 11 - well, they were all done the old-fashioned stripe-show way. "I was striking it really well," said Johnson, offering a potential understatement of the year, "just giving myself really good looks." Having teed off at 12:44 p.m., Johnson was early in his round when he saw that Scheffler had birdied the par-5 18th for his 59. "Good round," Johnson said to himself. Then he told himself to go lower. He wasn't alone in that sentiment. "We were pulling for him," said Leishman. "Fifty-nine didn't even seem like a question there for a while. (I was) wondering what the lowest score ever anyone had shot." On the PGA TOUR it's 58, by Jim Furyk in Round 4 of the Travelers Championship in 2016, but if the people who were following Johnson along the back nine at TPC Boston would be honest, there didn't appear to be any doubt that Johnson would surpass that. Not when he managed to two-putt from 48 feet at the course's most difficult hole, the 510-yard, par-4 12th. And not when he striped drives at 13 and 14 to give himself birdie tries from 12 and 20 feet. But when those putts leaked wide, you could sense the roll slipping away from. Driving it wide right into thick rough at the 15th, Johnson could do no better than a two-putt par from more than 50-feet. Long and left into a stiff wind at the par-3 16th, it was another lengthy two-putt, this time from 43 feet. So, going lower than 58 was out of reach. But surely, matching Scheffler at 59 appeared a safe bet, given that the par-4 17th and par-5 18th are birdie holes. (They rank as fifth easiest and easiest, respectively.) Ah, but just when you take this game for granted, golf happens. So brilliant with the putter all day, Johnson at the 397-yard 17th missed a 10-footer. He was stuck at 11-under and needed birdie at 18 to shoot 59. He knew what was at stake and didn't run from the challenge. "I wanted to shoot 59. I've never done it." Never? As in ever, even in a fun, recreational round? "I don't think so," he said. "Not that I remember, and I think I'd remember that." Likely what he will remember is a decision that he promptly regretted - he hit driver at the 18th. It's roughly 325 to a swale that runs in the middle of the fairway, a grass bunker, if you will, and Johnson reached it. It necessitated a lay-up, which led to an 83-yard wedge shot that left him a 26-foot putt for birdie. As he had done consistently since the 11th hole, he missed. Johnson confirmed that driver was the wrong club, that he likely could have hit 3-wood and a 6-iron to reach the green in two. But a go-to money shot for him is a "chip driver," a weapon that he uses effectively time and time again, like earlier in the round when he drove the green at No. 4. This time, the shot failed him. That is, if you could say anything failed him on a day when he shot a career low . . . on a day when he pushed to 15-under 127 through 36 holes to seize a two-shot lead over Scheffler and unheralded Aussie Cameron Davis (65) . . . on a day when he made a case for 60 being better than 59 . . . on a day when he did the impossible and plugged excitement into an arena without fans.

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