Tiger Woods thrills the crowd at Farmers Insurance Open

MAMARONECK, N.Y. - Justin Thomas could have shot anything in the second round of the 82nd U.S. Open at Winged Foot on Friday. On a course where you must hit the fairway, he hit just three of them. The putts weren't dropping. He was 5 over for his first 10 holes. It was all slipping away. And then it wasn't. In a bounce-back that may have saved his chances for a second major title, Thomas birdied the long par-3 third hole and went 1 under the rest of the way for a 3-over 73 that left him 2 under, just two back. "Every single person in this tournament is going to go through a stretch where they get a bad run, especially here," he said. "... I wasn’t driving it well and then had a couple putts that easily could have gone in that kind of just stayed out. RELATED: Full leaderboard | Winged Foot fights back in Round 2 "But I just stayed positive" he added, "and kept fighting because I know that a 3 over is better than a 4 over, and today easily could have been a 6 or 7. I’m proud of myself for how I hung in." The second round brought significantly more wind, which sped the course up and made things considerably more difficult. Tiger Woods, one of Thomas' playing partners, struggled to a 77, and he wasn't even close to the worst of the casualties. Sung Kang shot 86, while Davis Thompson, the Georgia amateur who briefly held the first-round lead, shot 78 to miss the cut by one. It was that kind of day; the course bit back. Wayward with the driver, Thomas paid the usual price for inaccuracy at Winged Foot. He and his caddie Jimmy Johnson rolled with it, though, trusting that things would start to turn. "He knew and I knew that we were close to getting something and at least making some pars or throwing in a birdie or two," Thomas said. "He just kind of says to me, ‘Stay patient. Good things will happen. We’ve just got to keep playing our game.' And that’s what we did." Thomas found something with his tee shot at the third, his 12th hole of the day. He later called it the turning point. "I mean, that birdie on three was pretty sick," he said. "I mean, a 5-wood in there, 228 into the wind, and then just it was a really, really tough putt. I mean, I’m sure you could see with kind of the sun hitting the greens they weren’t exactly rolling true, but that’s how poa annua is and everybody has to deal with it in the afternoon. "That was a very quick double breaking putt," he added, "and that was nice. After playing No. 2 perfectly and just having it lip out, to birdie that hole almost feels like an eagle." Exhausted and out of daylight, he was due for some dinner and rest. He'll have some work on the driving range to do in order to straighten out the driver Saturday, but isn't overly worried. And at just two back, he likes his position. "It’s a better position than I’ve been in a U.S. Open before," he said. "This isn’t exactly a place where you go out and try to shoot 6 or 7 under to catch up."

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PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Dustin Johnson is using a new technique for his putting and he likes the results. Frustrated over not seeing enough putts go in over the last three months, Johnson tried the “AimPoint” method that some players use to help them read the greens. He opened with six birdies on the back nine, only once had a putt over 3 feet for par and wound up with a 6-under 66 to share the early lead at THE PLAYERS Championship. Alex Noren and Webb Simpson also were at 66 among the early starters Thursday. Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, playing together for the first time in nearly four years, were out in the afternoon when the light wind was a little stronger. Johnson and the early birds couldn’t ask for better scoring conditions at TPC Sawgrass. Johnson, whose No. 1 ranking is in jeopardy this week, made the putts he had been missing in Mexico and Riviera, at Augusta National and Hilton Head. So he had one of his coaches, Allen Terrell, teach the method to Austin Johnson, his brother and caddie. And then the world’s No. 1 player picked it up quickly, and they were on their way. “I was just not making enough putts,” Johnson said. “It’s definitely helped. Because I’m a feel putter, anyway, and so the way you’re doing it really is you’re just feeling. So it definitely works. I was pretty good the first time I switched. I had done it a little bit, like messing around with it. I’m very pleased with the way I putted today.” It involves a player holding up one or two fingers, depending on the length of the putt, to help determine. “The only thing I don’t like is holding up fingers,” Johnson said. “I make AJ do that.” The scoring was so easy that 43 of the 72 players who teed off in the morning broke par. Defending champion Si Woo Kim had the lead until two late bogeys. He had to settle for a 67, still a strong start considering that no one has ever won back to back in the PGA TOUR’s premier event. Also at 67 was Keith Mitchell, who only got into the tournament Wednesday when Paul Casey had to withdraw with an injury. Mitchell played nine holes of practice on Tuesday and Wednesday, and made his debut with four straight birdies at the start. All that ruined his day was a double bogey at the par-3 third hole, his 12th of the day. “I don’t want to say it was a surprise. I’ve been playing well lately,” Mitchell said. “I was surprised to be able to play, first of all, so that was more of the surprise, just to be able to tee it up. When we did, we just tried to take advantage of our opportunity.” Among those who didn’t take advantage was the feature group of the morning — Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and Jordan Spieth. They were a combined 3 over, and McIlroy had the best score of the group with a 71. “It could have been better. I could have been probably a little worse, as well. It was probably a fair reflection of how I played,” McIlroy said. “It looked like it played easy out there, but our group didn’t feel like that with what we shot.” Spieth hit into the water three times in his opening seven holes, leading to a pair of bogeys and double bogey. He also drove the 12th green to 10 feet for eagle. But he shot a 75, and he’ll have to work hard Friday to avoid missing the cut for the fourth straight year at THE PLAYERS. Johnson doesn’t have a great track record on the Stadium Course. The 66 was his best round by two shots, and only the fourth time he broke 70. The timing couldn’t have been better, especially with his No. 1 ranking on the line. He opened with simple birdies at the 11th and 12th (eagle chances at both), and made a 10-footer at No. 14 and a 20-footer on the par-5 16th. The bonus was on the 18th, when his 35-foot birdie putt had plenty of speed as it swirled into the cup. He also made a 10-foot birdie at the par-5 second, and then didn’t have many reasonable chances the rest of the way. But it was free of stress, too. His only brush with bogey was a 6-foot par putt on the island-green 17th. “I don’t think I putted very well around here as a whole,” Johnson said of his record at Sawgrass. “That’s one thing I’ve struggled around here with, and today I rolled it nicely.”  

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ERIN, Wis. – Ron Whitten is one of three co-designers of Erin Hills. He’s also the longtime architecture editor at Golf Digest magazine. Thus, he understands what makes a good story, a compelling hook, a headline grabber. So how about this one? Make Bunkers Great Again. OK, so those aren’t exactly the words Whitten is uttering at this week’s U.S. Open. Given the political overtones, he’s probably wise not to even go there (plus, he’d need a red cap). But in essence, that’s his hope for Erin Hills’ lasting legacy once the final putt drops Sunday afternoon. Bunkers in America, he said, have lost their way. They’ve gone soft. Too uniform, similar sand, flat-bottom lies. Rarely do they challenge the world’s best golfers. Once tough and foreboding, bunkers now are often warm and inviting – especially at U.S. Opens, where bunkers can be the preferred play instead of the thick rough that’s usually part of the tournament set-up. “Oh, my god – they’re pillows,â€� Whitten said Wednesday on the eve of the 117th U.S. Open. “Everyone wants the same fluffiness, the same consistency, rolling to a flat spot. “Somebody has to take a stand.â€� Enter Whitten and co-designers Dr. Michard Hurdzan and Dana Fry. When they began constructing Erin Hills more than a decade ago, they set out to make bunkers true hazards, with a significant penalty possible for any balls winding up in the sand. Radical thinking? Perhaps. But bunkers were, of course, originally created to be penal. As Gil Hanse, the architect of the Olympic golf course in Rio and an analysis this week for Fox Sports, said, “For the history of the game, bunkers have been a hazard. If they’re no longer hazardous to play or no longer extract some sort of penalty from a player, then they’re really just taking up space.â€� Yet many of the world’s best players do seem to make bunker shots easy like Sunday morning, and it’s been that way for the last few decades. Consider this: In 1980, the sand save percentage on the PGA TOUR was 42.64 percent. The percentage began to rise fairly rapidly after that, and in 1992, the average eclipsed 50 percent (50.52) for the first time and stayed that way for the next nine years. Just twice in the past 28 years has sand save percentage dipped below 48 percent – in 2005, when it was 47.99, and in 2011, when it was 47.77. Going into this week’s major, the TOUR average is back over 50 percent (at 50.31). “Especially for the best players in the world,â€� Hanse said, “it’s gotten to the point where … really the only difference between being in the bunker and being in the grass is the surface they’re hitting off of.â€� Jason Day, the world’s No. 3-ranked player, concurs. “Unfortunately I think we’ve become accustomed to having certain depth, sand, thickness in bunkers,â€� he said. “… But ultimately in the end, it’s a hazard and that’s what they’re there for – for you not to be in there.â€� The Erin Hills design team hopes their course sends out that message loud and clear this week. Utilizing the contours of the land — rolling terrain reflective of the Kettle Moraine area shaped long ago by converging glaciers – they carved out bunkers void of flat areas, essentially taking the same approach as they did with the undulating fairways. Players hitting out of Erin Hills’ bunkers could face an uphill lie, a downhill lie, a sidehill lie, perhaps a ball resting precariously on a crest or in a valley between mounds of sand. “You have awkward shots within the bunkers, shots you can’t advance forward,â€� Whitten said. “You have to play out sideways. Is that fair? Golf’s not a fair game. You’re not supposed to be in the bunkers.â€� Is he positive that none of Erin Hills’ 138 bunkers have a flat lie? “If there’s one out there,â€� he said, “it’s by mistake.â€� Sand, of course, could be smoothed out to make the lies more even. But Erin Hills has “finely granulated granite,â€� according to Whitten, with small pebbles that help the sand stay in its original formation and hold the contours. Although some have wondered that the pebbles might fall onto the putting surface when a player splashes out, Whitten has a solution – just use a towel to whisk away the pebbles. “They’ve got caddies to clear away loose impediments,â€� he said. “It’s legal.â€� Meanwhile, the designers were determined to include erosion bunkers as a key element of the design. Whitten traveled to the foothills of Kansas and took photographs of the water erosion in the land. He brought the photos back to Wisconsin and basically wanted to match that look. Thus, there are approximately 35 to 40 erosion bunkers, with little nooks and crannies – “fingersâ€� if you will – extending out into the rough. The areas are so small that using a rake is impossible; players or caddies will simply need to smooth out the areas with their feet after shots are taken. Depending on which direction the finger is pointing, a ball finding one of those areas could result in a bunker shot with no chance at the pin. Or perhaps even the green. Consider the par-3 ninth, with erosion bunkers around the green. In a USGA video this week, amateur Brad Dalke tried to maneuver a shot onto the green from one of those lies. He couldn’t. Whitten said he saw Daniel Chopra trying to do the same thing. Hanse estimates that just 10-15 percent of all shots in the bunker at the ninth hole will wind up in a crevice. But perhaps 100 percent of the players will be thinking about it off the tee because of the fingers. “The bunker will have expanded in your mind, the emphasis it has on the hole,â€� he said. Players will learn quickly that it’s useless to try a hero shot from certain spots. Instead, they’ll find it’s best to simply accept the consequences of their errant shot and move on. Or better yet, just avoid the bunkers altogether. “They accept it in Scotland,â€� Whitten said, referencing the deep-faced pot bunkers. “But in the U.S., it’s considered unfair.â€� It’s a noble objective, putting teeth back into bunkers. Making it painful to visit rather than a place of beachy tranquility, in which saving par is better than a 50-50 proposition. Will Erin Hills succeed? Whitten certainly hopes so. But there are no guarantees. “It’ll be interesting to see if our philosophy is rejected or copied,â€� he said. Perhaps he’ll know more once the tournament starts. If players start complaining about the erosion bunkers and the impossible shots they encounter, please forgive him for feeling a sense of satisfaction. Erin Hills will have brought back the bunker.

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