Tiger Woods ranking: Two-time FedExCup champ virtually assured spot in 2018 Playoffs

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Tiger Woods holed a 13-foot birdie putt on his final hole Friday to guarantee that he’ll stick around for the weekend at the Wells Fargo Championship. Woods shot 73 to finish at 2-over 144. That was his only birdie as he struggled with the putter for a second consecutive day. He lost 2.9 stokes on the green Friday and has lost more than four strokes with his putter over the first two rounds. “I have to go work on it, fix it, and try to get a little more hit in my stroke,â€� said Woods, who’s 55th in the FedExCup. He missed three putts from 3-7 feet Friday, and his birdie putt at the last hole was the only putt he made from outside 10 feet. He was 1 for 5 from 10-15 feet in the second round. Woods started the week ranked eighth in Strokes Gained: Putting (+1.08). He had missed his previous two cuts at Quail Hollow, in 2010 and 2012. He also is scheduled to play next week’s THE PLAYERS Championship, which he won in both 2001 and 2013. FRIENDS HELPING FRIENDS Justin Thomas was so upset with his putting that he switched putters after Thursday’s first round. How rare is such a move? He can’t remember the last time he switched to a new putter model in the middle of a tournament. The putter is one of Rickie Fowler’s backup Scotty Cameron 2s. When asked if he’d let Thomas keep the club, Fowler said, “He only lives a few hundred yards down the street, so it won’t be too far away. But if he keeps making putts, I might have to take it back.â€� The only deterrent for Thomas may be the fact that Fowler’s name is stamped on the back. His 69 was four shots lower than Thursday’s round, and kept alive his hopes of reaching No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking. He needs to finish solo 12th or better to assume the top spot. He already leads the FedExCup standings after winning last year’s Cup. Thomas admitted at the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play that he put pressure on himself to assume the top position in the Official World Golf Ranking. He said that he has a better outlook on the honor now. “Someone told me, and it was a great way to put it, I’m not trying to have it for a week, I’m trying to have it for a long time,â€� Thomas said. “I can’t put too much pressure on having it because it’s not like it’s just going to be once and it will be done.â€� Thomas also extended his streak of cuts made in individual tournaments to 17. He missed the cut in last week’s Zurich Classic, but that was his first MC since last year’s Open Championship. He has nine top-10s in those 17 events, including four wins. He’s finished outside the top 25 just twice. Thomas could take over the No. 1 ranking the day after his home state’s largest sporting event, the Kentucky Derby, and take it into one of his favorite events. He shot a 65 in each of his first two PLAYERS Championships and finished third in 2016. NOTABLES Sam Burns went eagle-birdie-birdie on Nos. 7-9 to shoot 31 and take the lead at 7 under. He bogeyed three of his final four holes to shoot 70, though. He’ll still enter the weekend in the top 10. He’ll earn special temporary membership if he can stay there by Sunday evening. Burns needs 80 points to earn that status, which will allow him to accept unlimited sponsor exemptions for the remainder of the season. If he doesn’t his time on TOUR will be limited, at least for the time being. He’ll use the last of his seven allotted sponsor exemptions at the Fort Worth Invitational, then will play the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide. He’s in that event as the winner of last year’s Nicklaus Award, which is given to the college player of the year. Burns has a TOUR card for next season all but locked up. He’s fifth on the Web.com Tour money list after winning the Savannah Golf Championship. Quail Hollow member Johnson Wagner shot even par on Friday after shooting a first-round 67 that included back-to-back eagles. “Playing late Saturday in my home tournament, I couldn’t be happier,â€� he said.

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The first draft of the script for “Caddyshackâ€� was 200 pages long – which was nearly twice the norm for Hollywood screenplays at the time. And believe it or not, the character named Carl Spackler, the wacky and wacked out assistant greenskeeper so central to the movie in its final form, was nowhere to be found. Oh, and what about that gopher? Well, Spackler’s nemesis started out as a mere sock puppet, appearing in just one scene where the rodent pops up and steals Al Czervik’s golf ball. Those are just two of the many interesting nuggets that can be found in Chris Nashawaty’s new book, “Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story.â€� Nashawaty’s book came out in April of this year. It was born of a six-page oral history he wrote about the cult classic for Sports Illustrated in 2010, three decades after its release. The book is meticulously researched – witness the 27 pages of notes at the end of the book – and pays homage to a film that tops nearly every list of funniest sports movies. But Nashawaty, who has been the film critic for Entertainment Tonight for the last 20 years, does more than just take his reader behind the scenes of an 11-week shoot filled with drama and debauchery in south Florida. Nashawaty’s book also sets the stage, so to speak, for the movie by examining the friendship between Harold Ramis, who directed the film, and his co-writers and co-conspirators, Doug Kenney and Brian Doyle-Murray. Their bond had been cemented about a decade earlier when National Lampoon was at its zenith and NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” was turning traditional comedy on its collective ear. Kenney and Ramis were fresh off the success of “Animal House,â€� which they had written with Chris Miller, when they pitched a series of irreverent comedies to Orion Pictures and Jon Peters, who was married at the time to Barbara Streisand. The one that got the greenlight became “Caddyshack,” which had its genesis in Doyle-Murray’s memories of his teenage years spent caddying at Indian Hill Club on the north shore of Chicago. Once Nashawaty turns the focus to the movie, which comes about 100 pages into the narrative, the book gains momentum. And with comic geniuses like Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Ted Knight and Rodney Dangerfield on board, there were plenty of stories for him to tell. When Murray was hired to complete the “foursome,â€� as Nashawaty puts it, his character still didn’t exist, despite numerous rewrites to the script. Not to mention, with SNL about to resume production, he only had six days to devote to “Caddyshack,” but his brother, Doyle-Murray, promised him everything would work out. Much of Murray’s oft-imitated performance was ad-libbed – most notably the iconic “Cinderella Storyâ€� monologue. All the script said was: Carl, the Greenskeeper, is absently looping the heads off bedded tulips as he practices his golf swing with a grass whip. After changing the flowers to mums at Murray’s suggestion, the cameras rolled. And he did the entire sequence in one take. “I was good back in those days,â€� Murray tells Nashawaty. “I could do something when they turned the camera on. I was wired into what I was talking about. Improvising about golf was easy for me.â€� Anyone who has seen his antics at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am would certainly agree. And while he only had that one scene with the gopher puppet, Murray was frequently filmed trying to flush the critter out with a firehose he dragged around the course. It wasn’t until after filming was complete that the gopher took on a life of its own – eventually being created by a special effects company and at Peter’s suggestion assuming a bigger “roleâ€� to help to tie together the movie’s many disjointed but funny scenes. Murray loved doing battle with the gopher. “It was a time when people were making movies like the Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now,â€� Murray recalls in the book. “And that was my Vietnam movie. The ridiculously inappropriate firepower I used to kill a small rodent.â€� Speaking of firepower, there was plenty at Bushwood, aka Rolling Hills Golf Club, in Davie, Florida when the final scene was shot. Peters had taken the unknowing high-ups from the club to dinner and on an evening cruise as a diversion – but the proverbial jig was up when the explosions made the TV news and prompted a pilot to radio the nearby Ft. Lauderdale airport to report a crash. The damage to the Rolling Hills — which once hosted the likes of Jackie Gleason, George C. Scott, Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath — was minimal, though. Nashawaty’s book also delves into the complicated relationships between Chase and Murray, highlighting a fight between the two at 30 Rock during the SNL days, and between Knight and Dangerfield. Knight, a decorated war hero who won two Emmys for his work on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” wasn’t exactly thrilled with being the straight man to Dangerfield’s ribald style of comedy. In the end, “Caddyshack,” wasn’t the comedic blockbuster Ramis, Doyle-Murray and Kenney had hoped, that distinction, instead, going to the movie “Airplane.” As the years have gone on, though, “Caddyshack” has more than found its niche and this book is a tribute to its popularity.

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Scottie Scheffler won't soon forget where he was when he was named the Arnold Palmer Award winner as PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year for the 2019-20 season. Quarantine. It wasn't exactly the celebration the 24-year-old had in mind, just prior to getting word of the win he tested positive for COVID-19 and had to withdraw from the U.S. Open and go into lockdown. Instead of competing at Winged Foot as one of the form players - Scheffler played in the final group at the PGA Championship before finishing T4, he had the same result at THE NORTHERN TRUST while shooting a 59 and was also fifth at the TOUR Championship - he was at home in a small bubble riding out the disease. His season included seven top-10s (six of which were top-5s) and 13 top-25s from 23 events. Now the Texan is ready to return this week at the Sanderson Farms Championship to kick off his encore performance. "I had plenty of time at home to digest and plenty of time to reflect on the year. I felt like I had a really solid rookie season," Scheffler said of his Palmer Award winning efforts as he sets up for a return at the Country Club of Jackson. "If you had told me that was going to be my results going in, I would have been pleased. I would have liked to have had a win last year, but I feel like that’s coming on the horizon, and game feels like it’s in a good spot for sure. I had a lot of solid finishes, gave myself a lot of chances to win, and I feel like I’m getting close to breaking through." Scheffler is trying to see the bright side of the enforced time off that gave his body a chance to rest up a little. He was lucky enough to not feel the heavy brunt of any symptoms despite his positive test. "I feel like I got a little break. Not a break I necessarily wanted, but I felt all right, so it’s good to be back out here feeling healthy again," he said. "It obviously stunk, catching COVID. But I felt all right, and only one person I knew was also infected, and so we kept our circle pretty small, and it paid off for us. "It definitely stunk sitting at home all week watching the U.S. Open, especially the way I was playing leading into it. I felt like I had a good chance of winning. It stunk, but it’s the world we live in. I felt okay, so very blessed to have felt good through all of it and came out on the other side recovered." Now he's ready to get back into his groove on a course where he has finished T45 and T16 over the last two seasons. "I feel my game is still in a good spot. I think there’s still a few areas that are a little rusty just from having not played tournament golf in the last three weeks ... but hopefully I’ll pick back up soon," he said. "A good finish this week would be nice. Not really going to look too far into it. Obviously I’m here to win and that’s the goal, but really just trying to go out in the first round and do as best I can."

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