Tiger’s back against the wall after poor start

The FedEx Cup ends with the Tour Championship, a staggered scoring start and one winner. The change has received a lot of attention. Now, we’ll find out if it was all worth it.

Click here to read the full article…

Matt Fitzpatrick will reach for his wedge after missing a green, rehearse a few practice swings and pause for the predictable murmurs, mumblings and crowd chirps that inevitably will start circulating across the gallery ropes. He and veteran caddie Billy Foster will look at one another and have a laugh. They have come to expect some true gems. “I find it hilarious,” Fitzgerald said of the reaction he gets as he prepares to pitch or chip cross-handed. “I’ll hear in the crowd, ‘Oh, my God! What’s he doing?’ Really, it’s hilarious. But it’s worked really well for me. My chipping stats are 100 percent better from this year compared to last. It’s a good start.” It’s not as if Fitzpatrick, 27, a player with seven wins in Europe and ranked 23rd in the Official World Golf Ranking heading into this week’s RBC Heritage, was a terrible chipper when he utilized a conventional technique. He simply thought he could be better and save a few strokes. And he has. Fitzpatrick had used a cross-handed chipping drill for a number of years, and he always liked how his strike was so consistent when he did it. So why not put the technique into play during tournament rounds? He has been chipping predominantly cross-handed for a year or so, according to Foster. “People think he probably has the yips or something,” said Foster, who caddied for World Golf Hall of Famer Seve Ballesteros, during the recent Florida Swing. “He doesn’t. He chips brilliantly.” Foster said Fitzpatrick tended to “cut across” the ball just a bit when conventional (his path through the ball coming a fraction inside). Thus far in 2021-22, Fitzpatrick’s play around the greens has been a real asset. He missed 14 greens across his first three rounds at the Valspar Championship, and he got up-and-down 12 times, ranking as high as second in scrambling (he finished the week sixth). Fitzpatrick tied for third in scrambling at last week’s Masters. Overall in 2021-22, he ranks 15th in Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green and third in scrambling, getting his ball up and down 68.93% of the time. Two years ago, by comparison, he ranked 138th in Strokes Gained: Around-the-Green and 99th in scrambling (58.79%). Playing partners may do a double-take the first time they see Fitzpatrick go to work around the greens, but they should not underestimate him. In a group-play playoff against Scottie Scheffler at last month’s WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, Fitzpatrick had an all-world chip to set up birdie on the fifth playoff hole, nestling a slick, downhill tester (with a tree closely behind him) to a foot. Scheffler won the playoff on the next hole, en route to winning the tournament, and is the hottest player in golf. Fitzpatrick has been on a pretty strong run of late, too. With the exception of THE PLAYERS Championship – where Fitzpatrick was on the wrong side of the draw in terrible conditions and shot a pair of hard-earned 74s – his other five stroke-play starts in 2022 have all resulted in finishes of T14 or better. (He was T14 at last week’s Masters.) He tied for fifth at the Valspar Championship, tied for sixth at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am and tied for ninth at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. Last fall on the DP World Tour, Fitzpatrick also won the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters and was runner-up at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai. He enjoys the challenge of Harbour Town Golf Links, where the greens are very small and short game can prove pivotal to contending. A year ago, Fitzpatrick tied for fourth at the RBC Heritage. Why has the quality of his short game risen with his unorthodox technique? “I just found it more consistent,” Fitzpatrick said. “The ball comes off the face much more consistently. It’s the same every time. You know what’s coming. When I was chipping normally, it’s not like I had the yips. I was just getting a lot of inconsistency in the strike, and the release. I started doing it a couple of years ago in the rough, because I felt the technique really got the (club)head out. “To me, I can’t drag my hands across, because I’ll shank it if I go cross-handed. It helps me throw the head in, and I feel I have way more control over it. … I just got so comfortable with it, and now I really like doing it.” Fitzpatrick still uses a conventional grip when he is in the bunkers. (“Bunkers are no problem,” he said.) He generally uses his cross-handed technique from 30 yards and in. On certain shots – say, a flop shot, or a shot where he needs to generate high spin, such as a pitch he faced to a front hole location from behind the left-side pond at Augusta National’s 11th hole last week – he’ll still use a conventional grip. Fitzpatrick certainly isn’t the first player to chip cross-handed. TOUR winners Vijay Singh and Chris Couch have chipped and even hit bunker shots that way, and Korn Ferry Tour player Josh Broadaway played cross-handed from tee to green. Golf is a copycat sport. Could Fitzpatrick, given his new chipping prowess, start a new chipping trend with his cross-handed method? “Oh, I don’t know about that,” he said, laughing. “I’m happy with my start to the year; I’ve been playing really well. I think the changes that I made in the offseason have been positive. I think it’s a matter of time before I string it all together and hopefully knock a few (victories) off.”

Click here to read the full article…

ORLANDO, Fla. – Fathers and sons and golf? The three have been joined together since there were sticks and small rocks and lone crooked flagsticks protruding from barren fields in Scotland, while kings still ruled. This week’s PNC Championship, which begins Saturday at Orlando’s Ritz-Carlton Golf Club, will garner extra attention as Tiger Woods, partnered once again with his 12-year-old son, Charlie, makes his return to golf following a horrific single-vehicle crash in Los Angeles in February. The 36-hole event, featuring 20 teams and played using a relaxed scramble format, will be televised by NBC to a national audience over the weekend. Many interested golf fans (and Woods’ fellow competitors) are waiting to get some inkling of where he stands in his arduous rehabilitation 10 months after his frightening accident. He counts himself a lucky man. That Woods is walking, let alone playing golf again, just days before his 46th birthday on Dec. 30 says something about his resolve, work ethic, stubbornness and steely resiliency. It also serves up a statement for the event in which he is playing and the true reason he is here. Woods said in an interview at his own Hero World Challenge two weeks ago that he is a long, long distance from competing on the PGA TOUR once more. Take away this weekend’s TV cameras and bright lights, strip the competition down to its very core, and Tiger might be as human as we ever have viewed him. As he tweeted when he committed to play on Dec. 8, he is playing as a dad. That’s all. A dad looking forward to playing the game he loves alongside his son, who seems to love it, too. Acorn, meet the tree. Charlie Woods stole the show at last year’s PNC Championship, showing off incredible skills for an 11-year-old, not to mention so many of his father’s famous mannerisms. Tiger was nervous for him, understandably, but Charlie thrived in the spotlight, showing off his dad’s laser focus, the spinning club twirls, and even his dad’s trademark fist pumps. Charlie’s 5-wood from 175 yards to 3 feet to set up an eagle-3 at the par-5 third hole in last year’s PNC made the evening highlights of every media outlet on the planet. Along with PGA TOUR Commissioner Jay Monahan and Jay’s dad, Joe Monahan, longtime IMG executive Alastair Johnston – the creator of the Father-Son event born in 1995 – joined Tiger and Charlie for a pro-am round at the PNC a year ago. Tiger was clearly different, Johnston said, so filled with joy to watch his son in the arena. Johnston has had an interesting window into the life of Tiger, not only through his management company, IMG, but as his former next-door neighbor back when Woods lived in the tony gated Isleworth enclave in Orlando. In fact, Woods was awash in accolades upon returning to Florida following his mind-blowing, 12-shot victory at the 1997 Masters, the first of his 15 major championships. He went out to retrieve his mail one day, and Johnston wanted to offer his own congratulations. You know, Johnston told Woods, you now are qualified to play in the Father-Son. “He looked at me as if I had three heads, and asked, ‘What’s that?’” Johnston said via phone on Monday. laughing. “I said, ‘Oh, you’ll see.’” Johnston, who worked side by side with Arnold Palmer for many years, made a terrific discovery during a stroll through the locker room one day during the 1995 Senior PLAYERS Championship in Detroit. There were courtesy phones set up for players to use. On one phone was Jack Nicklaus. Raymond Floyd was on a phone in a different corner. On a third phone, Dave Stockton. All three men had played that afternoon, but seemed much more interested to check in with home to see how their sons were doing in various college and junior competitions. Johnston had an idea: What if there was a tournament, a real competition, in which fathers could compete alongside their sons? And to make the tournament field elite, each father needed to be a major champion (winners of THE PLAYERS later were added). Eventually, what began as the Father-Son at Vero Beach’s Windsor Club in 1995 would evolve into something much more inclusionary, hence the name change to the PNC Championship. Today, the qualifications are to be a major winner (male or female) competing with a family member. Fuzzy Zoeller, Jerry Pate and Bernhard Langer all would compete alongside their daughters, and last year, Annika Sorenstam competed alongside her father, Tom. This week’s field includes LPGA No. 1 Nelly Korda, who is playing alongside her famous tennis-playing dad, Petr. Players have teed it up with stepsons. Bubba Watson is playing with his father-in-law. “Adding grandfathers,” Johnston explained, “allowed Arnold (Palmer) to compete, and nobody was objecting to that.” Many major champions who’d like to compete simply aren’t able because daylight limits the field to 20 teams, which makes for some tough late-year phone calls for Johnston. It’s not so much telling the famous major winner the news, but envisioning the conversation that person must then have with his relative to break the news. Johnston starts thinking about fields two and three years in advance, and said he is driven by “great narratives.” It intrigues him to see Watson, a three-time major champion, able to compete with his father-in-law. The Cinks – 2009 Open Championship winner Stewart Cink and his son, Reagan – were invited to return after they successfully paired for two PGA TOUR victories last season, with Reagan on his dad’s bag. Of course, there is no bigger, or more attention-packed, ongoing narrative than Woods hitting shots once more. A year ago, he let Charlie, who plays from forward tees, take care of many of the drives for the team, and this week, that unquestionably will be a point of strategy. “This is Dad’s ‘Take Your Kid to Work Day,’” Johnston said. “And Tiger and Charlie epitomized that. Tiger was very nervous for Charlie (last year, in Charlie’s debut). This year he’ll be relying on Charlie. “Without having done it last year, I don’t think Tiger would be playing this year. But the way Charlie handled it all … I knew that if there was a way of doing it, there was a good chance that Tiger was going to play.” So away we go. It’s a late-season “hit-and-giggle” event, as Tiger may affectionately call it, but don’t think the shots won’t count. They will and they won’t, but on a bigger scale, represent an important milestone and tiny step forward as Tiger Woods moves toward the future that remains uncertain. When Saturday dawns at the PNC, Woods will be there not as the man trying to break Sam Snead’s record for TOUR victories or a man contemplating resuming his pursuit of Jack’s major mark. Tiger Woods will be hitting shots as a dad, like many of us do on Saturdays. And there always is great importance in that.

Click here to read the full article…