Tiger Woods falls back in chase for No. 83 at Riviera

Three rookies fresh off the Korn Ferry Tour, and one former amateur star who hasn’t competed in an official event in three years, were the four Monday qualifiers for this week’s Shriners Children’s Open. Jared Wolfe was Monday’s medalist by coming within one bad break of breaking 60. He was 12 under when he hit his tee shot into the fairway on the final hole. His approach shot hit the bottom of the flagstick, however, and rolled 30 feet away. His putt for 59 stopped 3 inches short of the hole. Still, he was more than satisfied with shooting 60. “The goal is to make it in (the event) this week, and that was just a little cherry on top to try and shoot 59,” Wolfe told PGATOUR.COM. Former Stanford All-American Brandon Wu, winner of last year’s Korn Ferry Tour presented by United Leasing & Finance, earned the second qualifying spot with a bogey-free 62. The final two spots went to Alex Smalley – who was teammates with Wu on the United States’ victorious Walker Cup team in 2019 – and Jin Jeong, who both shot 63. Jeong may be the story of the week. He will play his first PGA TOUR event in seven years after qualifying Monday. Jeong was 20 years old when he won the 2010 British Amateur and finished T14 in that year’s Open Championship at St. Andrews. He won on the European Tour three years later but has endured a rocky road since. He suffered a hip injury in 2015 and went on to miss 32 consecutive cuts. Jeong, 31, has not held a card on any worldwide tour in five years and his last start in an event offering Official World Golf Ranking points was a lone event in 2018. Jin Jeong Q&A PGATOUR.COM: What have you been doing the past couple of years? Jeong: I was on the European Tour for a few years, and then I got injured and my game was in a bad place. I took a break. Now I am trying to come back and play any tour. For the last couple of years, I have been teaching. While I am teaching, I try to play in as many tournaments as I can. This year I’ve started to play better so I’m trying to play more. PGATOUR.COM: How do you feel your game is right now? Jeong: Recently my game started feeling really good. I’ve been hitting it pretty solid off the tee, and my irons and putting have been pretty good. Today everything was solid and I didn’t make many mistakes. PGATOUR.COM: What are your goals at this stage in your career? Jeong: The first goal is to get back on tour. If it is the PGA TOUR, that would be the best. PGATOUR.COM: What would getting a start on the PGA TOUR do for your confidence? Jeong: It’s huge. Especially after a few years of taking a break. Earlier this year, I didn’t know which tour or tournaments I was going to play. Today, I shot -9, and that was good for me to see some results. If that gets me a PGA TOUR start, that would give me a lot of confidence. PGATOUR.COM: Did you think about not pursuing professional golf, and if so, how long was that a thought? Jeong: I always wanted to come back. To me, it didn’t matter how long it would take. I try to work on small things, achieve small goals, and focus on the process. QUALIFIERS Jared Wolfe (60) Age: 33 College: Murray State Turned pro: 2010 PGA TOUR starts: 2 Cuts made: 0 Notes: Qualified for this season by finishing eighth on the Korn Ferry Tour’s Regular Season Points List, including two wins… Missed the cut in the first two events of this season (Fortinet Championship, Sanderson Farms Championship)… Won three times on PGA TOUR Latinoamerica between 2017-19. Member of Murray State’s 2010 Ohio Valley Conference championship team… Says he started playing golf because he couldn’t jump high enough to play basketball and was too slow for other sports… Ranked 340th in the Official World Golf Rankings. Brandon Wu (62) Age: 24 College: Stanford Turned pro: 2019 PGA TOUR starts: 13 Cuts made: 6 PGA TOUR earnings: $264,112 Notes: Finished 13th on the Korn Ferry Tour Regular Season Points List, making 21 of 28 cuts and winning the Korn Ferry Tour Championship presented by United Leasing & Finance… Has missed his first two cuts of the season at the Fortinet Championship and Sanderson Farms Championship… Made nine PGA TOUR starts between 2020-21, with his best finish at last year’s Houston Open (T17)… Played four years of college golf at Stanford, going 3-0 in match play to help the Cardinal to the 2019 NCAA team title… While still an amateur, qualified for both the 2019 U.S. Open (T35) and Open Championship (MC); he was the first amateur since Joe Carr in 1967 to qualify for both championships. Because he missed his graduation to play in the U.S. Open at nearby Pebble Beach, received his degree on the final green Sunday… Also was the U.S. Amateur’s the stroke-play medalist in 2019 and was a semifinalist at 2018 Western Amateur… Won the 2017 Porter Cup… Was ranked 60th in the high school class of 2015. Led Deerfield Academy (Mass.) to 2013 New England Championship in golf and swimming. Ranked 258th in the Official World Golf Rankings. Jin Jeong (63) Age: 31 Turned pro: 2011 PGA TOUR starts: 8 Cuts made: 4 PGA TOUR earnings: $175,250 Notes: Will make his first PGA TOUR start since the 2014 World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions… Played three events during the 2014 PGA TOUR season, with his best finish coming at the WGC-HSBC Champions (T18)… Won his first event as a professional on the European Tour at the 2013 ISPS Handa Perth International in a playoff against Ross Fisher… Tied for second with Tyrrell Hatton in the 2014 Joburg Open, three shots behind George Coetzee… Won The Amateur Championship in 2010. Took advantage of his British Open exemption that year by finishing T14 as an amateur… Reached No. 1 in the world amateur ranking, holding the spot for five weeks… His last PGA TOUR start was the WGC-HSBC Champions in November 2014. He shot 85-79-75-80 to finish last by 13 shots. Alex Smalley (63) Age: 24 College: Duke Turned pro: 2019 PGA TOUR starts: 6 Cuts made: 3 PGA TOUR earnings: $135,788 Notes: Birdied the final four holes of the Wyndham Championship in August to clinch his spot in the Korn Ferry Tour Finals. Then made the cut in all three Finals events, including a T4 finish, to earn his TOUR card… Finished T31 at the Sanderson Farms Championship last week… Made the cut in all four PGA TOUR starts last season, including three top-30 finishes… Had two top-5 finishes in four starts on the Forme Tour this year… Was a four-year letterman at Duke and was named 2019 Duke Scholar-Athlete of the Year… Was a member of the 2019 U.S. Arnold Palmer Cup team and the Walker Cup team. Ranked 411 in the Official World Golf Rankings… Medalist in the 2016 U.S. Amateur… First player since Rickie Fowler to win the Sunnehanna Amateur in consecutive years. NOTES Notables who missed qualifying: D.J. Trahan, Beau Hossler, Austin Eckroat, John Huh, Paul Barjon, Jonathan Byrd, Justin Suh, Spencer Levin, Eric Axley, Aaron Baddeley, Robert Garrigus, Andrew Loupe, Bo Hoag, K.K. Limbhasut, David Lipsky, Braden Thornberry, Sangmoon Bae, Bob May, Ricky Barnes, Tain Lee, Scott Harrington, Patrick Rodgers, and Dylan Wu. 2021-2022 Monday Qualifiers statistics Last event’s qualifier results (Sanderson Farms Championship): Grant Hirschman (T17), Sam Saunders (MC), Quade Cummins (MC), Kyle Reifers (T35). Total money earned by Monday qualifiers on TOUR this season: $137,976 Best finish of the 2021-22 season by a Monday qualifier: Grant Hirschman (T17, Sanderson Farms Championship). Next qualifier: Butterfield Bermuda Championship at Port Royal Golf Club in Southhampton, Bermuda (Oct. 18, 2021)

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AUGUSTA, Ga. - All week it wasn't just the Masters, it was the stripped-down acoustic version of the Masters. You could hear the biophany of bird life chirping, unseen golf carts motoring, the train whistles coming in on the breeze. The only other audio was the regular thwack of a golf shot and the hissing vapor trail of a ball flying through the air. The clubs did almost all the talking. It was a Dustin Johnson kind of week. In a game obsessed with youth, Johnson, 36, is just coming into his prime, a reminder that great careers are revealed over decades, not social media hot takes. After carrying a four-shot lead over three players into Sunday, Johnson, whose languid strut and taciturn nature recall an Old West cowboy, started slowly but steadied himself to shoot 68 and win by five. His 20-under total breaks the Masters record of 18, shared by Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth. RELATED: Final leaderboard | What’s in DJ’s bag? Sungjae Im and Cameron Smith shot 69 to tie for second at 15 under. Johnson hugged his brother/caddie Austin on the 18th green, and Austin started crying first, the emotion soon spreading to his brother. They grew up an hour away, close enough to know all about Augusta National but not close enough to actually play it. "Well, as we’ve all seen, he’s an amazing athlete," said Woods, whose title defense ended with a 76 that featured a 10 at the par-3 12th hole. "He’s one of the first guys to ever bring athleticism to our sport. DJ has just an amazing ability to stay calm in tough moments ... and we all know as past champions how hard it is, the emotions we have to deal with out there." The day featured only fleeting suspense. Im cut the lead to one after Johnson made back-to-back bogeys, but Johnson restored order at the par-3 sixth, converting a short birdie putt. Smith made things interesting with a front-nine 33, including wild birdies at Nos. 7 and 9, but Johnson was always going to have to come back to the chase pack, and instead went the other way. There were polite claps amongst the 100 or so members - retired NFL greats Peyton Manning and Lynn Swan among them - plus wives and girlfriends and others following the final group. Absent the context you might have thought it was the club championship. By the time Smith, marching up the 15th fairway, looked back and saw that it was Johnson who was close to the pin on the 14th green, it was all but over. Smith frowned and looked down at the grass, Johnson made the six-foot putt, and the lead was five strokes with four holes remaining. This rain-delayed, pandemic-delayed Masters was essentially over. Was Johnson's arrival on this stage, the green jacket ceremony in Butler Cabin, also delayed? Not really. Before Woods, it was widely accepted that golfers peaked in their 30s. By that metric, Johnson is right on time. This is what he had in mind all those years ago when he honed his game at Weed Hill driving range in Columbia, South Carolina, just an hour or so from Augusta National. Johnson knew of the special tournament just down the road, even if he never had the connections to actually play here until he qualified for his first Masters in 2009. "Obviously growing up in Columbia, in high school, I hit a lot of golf balls at Weed Hill," he said in a rare reflective moment. "So definitely remember hitting up there in the dark. They had lights on the range, and most nights I would shut the lights off when I was leaving." It paid off. Johnson was twice a first-team All American at Coastal Carolina, where he won seven times, and his immediate success on TOUR was not unexpected. He won the 2008 Turning Stone Resort Championship and kept winning each year like clockwork from there. He had major championship type game, but the majors eluded him, sometimes gruesomely. All anyone wanted to talk about at Augusta was his 0-for-4 record closing them out when he had at least a share of the 54-hole lead - the gum on his shoe since the 2010 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, when he lost his three-shot lead with a second-hole triple bogey, shot 82, and finished T8. He almost atoned for his mistake at the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits two months later, but unintentionally grounded his club in a bunker on the 72nd hole. The ensuing two-stroke penalty kept him out of a playoff with Bubba Watson and eventual champion Martin Kaymer. Johnson had one hand on the trophy at two other U.S. Opens, but couldn't keep the lead there, either. A fellow player, of all things, mentioned these lapses when Johnson took the lead into the final round of the PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park in August, and it happened again. The snakebit leader shot a solid 68 only to lose to 23-year-old Collin Morikawa (64) by two. But good luck asking Johnson to get worked up about any of this. "That stuff doesn't bother me," he has said more than once. He just keeps on giving himself chances. The Masters marked the fifth time in his last seven TOUR starts that Johnson had held the 54-hole lead/co-lead, a run in which he'd already won THE NORTHERN TRUST and TOUR Championship to take the FedExCup. He also lost a wild head-to-head showdown with Jon Rahm at the BMW Championship. "I think I’ve got a good game plan," Johnson said from the stately, wood-paneled interview room in Augusta's cavernous press building Saturday night. "I’m not going to change it." And he hasn't. Instead of getting into a war of words over his major letdowns, the Johnson way has been to answer with blistered drives, laser-like approaches, and an improved putting stroke built with input from his caddie/brother Austin, and a lesson from World Golf Hall of Famer Greg Norman. And now he's gone and converted a 54-hole lead at the major players covet most just three months after his fitness for doing so was questioned more publicly than ever. Norman, of course, never did win here. He bled away a six-shot advantage and more to lose to Nick Faldo in '96. Rory McIlroy collapsed on the back nine and carded a final-round 80 in 2011, and Jordan Spieth quadruple-bogeyed the 12th hole to lose in 2016. Both lost four-shot leads. There are no guarantees at Augusta, or anywhere. At the 2017 World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions, Johnson shot 77 and became the second player in TOUR history to lose a six-shot 54-hole lead. He won the Sentry Tournament of Champions in his next start, five weeks later. Johnson is like the metal man in "Terminator 2" who keeps moving ever forward even as he keeps getting holes blown through him. He forgets quickly. He's a fast healer. This was Johnson's second major (2016 U.S. Open) and 24th TOUR win. He pulls even with Woods for most consecutive seasons with a win to start a career with 14, and moves from 17th to first in the FedExCup, which is where he ended last season. We are seeing the peak years of perhaps the most gifted golfer of his generation; Johnson's best may be better than anyone else's. The Weed Hill driving range closed in 2015, sold for development. But Bobby Weed, who built it when he was in high school to work on his own game, has gone on to a successful golf course design business. Johnson, meanwhile, glides and strides ever forward into the golf history books. His clubs have never spoken so loudly.

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McIlroy misses cut again at Irish Open

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