Tiger Woods wins TOUR Championship, Justin Rose wins FedExCup

An anonymous veteran and inclement weather thwarted Tiger Woods’ first two opportunities to win on the PGA TOUR. He wouldn’t be stopped in Las Vegas, however, overcoming a muscle strain and an indifferent opening round to beat one of the TOUR’s top players. This year’s Shriners Children’s Open is being played at TPC Summerlin 25 years after Woods earned his first PGA TOUR title there. RELATED: Interactive timeline: 25 years of Tiger | Tiger’s 82 PGA TOUR wins | Remembering his early days as a pro The tournament was 90 holes back then, and Woods needed a 91st to beat Davis Love III after they tied at 27 under par. The mano-a-mano nature of the sudden-death playoff took Woods back to his amateur days – which had ended just a few weeks earlier after his third consecutive U.S. Amateur victory. Woods hit a 9-iron to 20 feet on the first hole of sudden-death, two-putted for par and could only watch from the side of the green as Love’s 8-foot par putt slid by the hole. No one knew that 81 more wins would follow, tying Woods with Sam Snead for the most in PGA TOUR history. At the time, Woods was in the midst of a furious sprint to simply earn his playing privileges for the following season. “It’s really hard to describe the feeling,” Woods told ESPN’s Andy North, who called the win golf’s biggest story since Jack Nicklaus at the 1986 Masters. “It’s been a hard struggle all the way, and then I got lucky and won it in the end.” Woods arrived in Las Vegas still outside the all-important top 125 on the money list with just three events remaining. By the end of the week, he’d earned a two-year exemption on TOUR and invitations to the following year’s Sentry Tournament of Champions and Masters, both of which he won. The win in Las Vegas was worth $297,000. Woods earned millions the moment he turned pro, but it was still a momentous sum for a 20-year-old who left Stanford after two seasons and still wasn’t old enough to gamble in Las Vegas’ casinos. At the trophy ceremony, the master of ceremonies tried to make light of Woods’ status as a young superstar who’d just earned a princely sum. “I was thinking of something clever to say,” longtime Las Vegas golf historian Jack Sheehan told the Las Vegas Review-Journal five years ago. “So we get to the ceremony and I said, ‘How about a round of applause for the wealthiest college dropout?’ … He comes over to me and whispers in my ear, ‘I think Bill Gates got me on that one.’” Sports Betting News’ Tim Dahlberg remembers returning from Love’s post-playoff press conference to find Woods sitting at his desk, reading over the story that would soon be released to papers around the world. “I said to Tiger, ‘Anything you like?’ Dahlberg told the Review-Journal, “and he pointed to the number in the story (the $297,000) and said, ‘I like that.’” Woods has admitted not knowing where all 82 of his PGA TOUR trophies are but the oversized check from his victory in Las Vegas still hangs in his office. The well-timed win also fulfilled a goal Woods had expressed just a week earlier. “He said, ‘One of my goals is to beat you down the stretch,’” Love recently told PGATOUR.COM. “I said, ‘Well that’s great kid. I hope you get the chance.’ Well, (a week) later it was a playoff and I didn’t finish him off. I always say I helped create the monster that beat us so many times over the years.” The two shared a swing coach in Butch Harmon and were frequent practice-round partners. Love was 32 when Woods turned pro and owned 10 PGA TOUR titles. The 1996 Shriners was Woods’ fifth PGA TOUR start after he turned pro by famously saying, “Hello, world,” in Milwaukee. He steadily improved with each start, from a T60 in his debut to an 11th-place finish in Canada before back-to-back top-5s at the Quad City Classic (now known as the John Deere Classic) and B.C. Open. Woods is golf’s greatest closer but he couldn’t convert the first 54-hole lead of his career. One shot ahead entering the final round in the Quad Cities, Woods made a quad and a double-bogey in a four-hole stretch on the front nine. The big numbers opened the door for Ed Fiori, 43, to win his fourth PGA TOUR title and first since 1982. Woods was in third place the following week before rain canceled the B.C. Open’s final round. Citing fatigue, he withdrew from the following week’s Buick Challenge, where he was scheduled to receive the Haskins Award as college golf’s top player. He returned to his new home in Orlando and didn’t touch a club for several days before departing for Las Vegas. “My mind has been carrying me and you can only do that so long before your mind gets tired,” Woods said in his pre-tournament interview in Las Vegas. “That’s what happened to me.” He started the tournament with a pedestrian 70 that left him eight shots off the lead and in a tie for 97th. A second-round 63, the low round of his nascent career, had him on the cusp of the top 10. “I’m still in the hunt, kind of,” he said. “I need a few more of these.” He aggravated a groin injury, first suffered at the U.S. Amateur, on the sixth hole of the second round, however, and spent much of Friday night receiving treatment for the injury. On Saturday, he ducked into the clubhouse to receive treatment at the turn and after finishing his round. “All the golf I’ve been playing, I never gave it a chance to heal,” said Woods, who had his groin wrapped for the final round. He said the injury may prevent him from playing in the next two events. He started Sunday four shots behind leader Ronnie Black, who looked to reprise Fiori’s role in Woods’ story. Black had last won 12 years earlier and was battling for his TOUR card, arriving in Las Vegas at No. 123 on the money list after just one top-10. Woods birdied Sunday’s opening hole, then made his fourth eagle of the week on the third hole. He reached the par-5 ninth hole in two with a 6-iron (from 230 yards) while playing partner Keith Fergus hit two drivers just to roll his ball into a bunker short of the green. “He was hitting some shots that you weren’t accustomed to seeing,” Fergus told GolfChannel.com. “At that stage, he was the best ball-striker I’d ever seen.” The birdie put Woods at 23 under par, and in the midst of a crowded race for the top spot. He made a 35-foot birdie putt at 11 that pulled him within one of the lead, which Love lost after taking an unplayable lie when his approach to No. 10 sailed over the green. Woods grimaced and grabbed his groin after reaching the par-5 13th in two with a 2-iron. It was an opportunity for Woods to display the toughness that he prides himself on. “It was hurting all the way in,” Woods said of the injury, “but being the son of a former Green Beret, I know those guys can suck it up. A strain is nothing.” He made a 6-foot birdie putt on 13 to tie the lead. A 12-footer for birdie on the next hole put Woods alone atop the leaderboard. ESPN commentator Frank Beard compared the scene to the enthusiastic galleries that once followed Arnold Palmer. “They are absolutely going crazy running down the fairways,” Beard said. Woods made an easy birdie on the par-5 16th – he played TPC Summerlin’s four par-5s in 5 under in the final round – before parring the final two holes. “Just do it? He might have just done it,” North said after Woods tapped in on 18 for a final-round 64. Love recovered from the miscue at No. 10 by making birdie on the next hole and going eagle-birdie on the drivable, par-4 15th and the reachable 16th. He bogeyed the first playoff hole, however, after pulling his approach into a greenside bunker. “We all knew he was going to win, but I didn’t want it to be today,” Love said. “We know how good he is. We know he’s the next force on TOUR.” He was, indeed, and it all started 25 years ago in Las Vegas.

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Dustin Johnson putted for birdie on every hole Friday and shot a 4-under 67, leaving him bogey-free for 36 holes and two shots ahead of Rory McIlroy and Matt Kuchar going into the weekend at the Mexico Championship.

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TULSA, Okla. – A Tiger Woods win at the PGA Championship would send shockwaves around the world and have an even bigger impact at the BetMGM Sportsbook. The betting operator faces its biggest loss in history if the 82-time TOUR-winning Woods repeats his 2007 heroics from Southern Hills and claims a fifth Wanamaker Trophy. Woods famously made his return to competitive golf at the Masters last month after recovering from a serious car crash in 2021 that almost cost him his leg. The resulting injuries continue to make it impossible for the veteran to play a regular schedule on the PGA TOUR, but Woods will tee it up in Oklahoma this week chasing a 16th major championship victory. Such a feat would be considered one of the greatest sporting achievements of all time given his injuries, age and five previous back surgeries, but plenty of bettors are on board with the possible fairy tale. It was only a year ago that Phil Mickelson became the oldest ever major champion at 50 in the 2021 PGA Championship. Having opened at +5000 (50-1) in December of 2021 at BetMGM Sportsbook, the now 46-year-old Woods tightened to +4000 after playing in the Masters before drifting back out to his current mark of +6600. “I feel like I can, definitely. I just have to go out there and do it,” Woods said Tuesday when asked if he believed he could win. “I have to do my work. Starts on Thursday and I’ll be ready.” It would not be a kind result for BetMGM. “Tiger Woods is our biggest liability to win the PGA Championship. If Tiger were to win, it would be the biggest losing result in BetMGM history,” VP of Trading at BetMGM Jason Scott confirms. “Tiger missing the cut would be a good outcome for the sportsbook.” While plenty of fans have backed the winning outcome, there is also some serious lack of faith amongst other sections of the betting public and as of Tuesday morning 97% of the handle in BetMGM’s Tiger to Miss the Cut market sat on the negative side. Woods is -125 to make the cut with BetMGM and +100 to miss it after one bettor placed a $13,000 wager that Woods would not make it to the final two rounds at +115. As it stands 58% of the tickets have Woods missing the cut, leaving 42% backing him to play the weekend but just 3% of the handle. In 21 previous PGA Championships Woods has made the cut 17 times. He hasn’t played in the event since a T37 in the 2020 title chase and all four missed cuts came in his last eight appearances at the championship. Woods won the title in 1999, 2000, 2006 and in 2007 at Southern Hills, the venue this week. He is 47-under par lifetime at the PGA Championship and leads the all-time money earnings at the event with $7,346,862. As for his more recent performance Woods opened with a 1-under 71 at Augusta National last month before fading with rounds of 74-78-78 to finish a respectable 47th.

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