Tiger’s day turns south on Day 1 at Sherwood

They wanted to be there in person. They wanted to hug their son, their big brother, but instead Patrick Reed’s parents and sister hugged each other at the family home so close, yet so far from the site of his biggest professional achievement.

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In the final round of the 2018 BMW Championship at rain-soaked Aronimink Golf Club, Keegan Bradley shoots 64, then beats Justin Rose with a par on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff. Welcome to the Monday Finish, where Bradley—who hadn’t won on the PGA TOUR in over six years—notched his fourth win to break into the FedExCup Top 30 and secure a return to the season-ending TOUR Championship. FIVE OBSERVATIONS 1. Bradley’s final round was a miracle. At the start of his TOUR career, Bradley won three times, including the PGA Championship, in 2011 and 2012. He hoisted enormous trophies, played in the Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup, and was teammates with Phil Mickelson. Then it all went away. Over six years and 160 starts, Bradley didn’t win anything. He fiddled with his swing, and his putting stroke, and had a baby boy, Logan, with his wife, Jillian. The only cups he that remained were sippy cups. Now, though, after acing the BMW Championship’s final round, which was scuttled for rain Sunday and played Monday thanks to what Billy Horschel and others called a miracle, Bradley is sixth in the FedExCup. “It was the weirdest couple of days,â€� said Bradley, who was projected 30th in the FedExCup and into the TOUR Championship after the third round. “I knew in the back of my mind if we didn’t play, I was in Atlanta. It was my goal to start the year. It was difficult to get ready to play because I was like, man, if they call it, I’m good, but then I can go out — I’m only three back. So thankfully we got out here and played, and I made it to Atlanta and more now.â€� Just over two weeks ago, Bradley went into the final round of THE NORTHERN TRUST with an outside chance four back, but shot 78 alongside eventual winner Bryson DeChambeau. Bradley was 14 shots better this time, reigniting his career in the rain. 2. Rose won for losing. Despite running his record to 4/15 at converting 54-hole leads/co-leads into victory, Justin Rose took home a nice consolation prize: he ascended to No. 1 in the Official World Golf Ranking. “There will be next week to win tournaments, but to get to world No. 1 is unbelievable,â€� Rose said. “It’s something I can say now in my career I’ve been the best player in the world. I’ve been to the top of the game. That’s definitely some consolation. “I just wish I could have enjoyed the moment maybe,â€� he added after the runner-up finish, which left him second in the FedExCup. “This just slightly dampens it. But tomorrow or the next day, the week after, I’ll look back at this and think it was amazing, an amazing moment in my career.â€� 3. Rain helped Horschel cool it. Billy Horschel (64, T3) is one of many successful TOUR pros who admits he may sometimes burn too hot. He knows what he’s capable of, having won the 2014 BMW, TOUR Championship and FedExCup, and so it’s hard when he sees himself come up short. He had won the Zurich Classic of New Orleans with partner Scott Piercy, but hadn’t won an individual event this year. His 19-under total at the BMW was just a shot shy of the playoff. “You know, we’ve done a lot of good work with Todd Anderson, Brett McKay, a sports psychologist, some really good work with me,â€� Horschel said. “My team has done an unbelievable job to stick through some tough times that were bad, not that bad. Not being able to play to my ability I get very frustrated, very easily.â€� The long rain delay, he said, may have helped him cool the fire. “I sort of play well when we have delays and this and that,â€� he said. “Calms me down. I don’t know when we’re going to go play so I can’t get myself worked up.â€� 4. Week off could help Woods. Several players admitted to fatigue after a long BMW week. Then there was Tiger Woods, who already had reason to be tired owing to the fact that with his four back surgeries he hadn’t played this much golf in years. “I’m going to take a long break after the Ryder Cup,â€� said Woods, who won the TOUR Championship at East Lake in 1999 and 2007, and will return for the first time since 2013. “We’re going to evaluate things. But, more importantly, I need to start really lifting and getting after it and getting stronger in certain areas because playing every single week seems like every single day is maintenance at this point, war of attrition. “What you do in the off-season is what allows you to maintain it through the year,â€� he added, “especially on the backside of the year, and I really didn’t train for all this. Because I didn’t know how much I was going to be playing. I was just trying to play. “So, next year I have a better understanding of what I need to do and this off-season will be very different than it was last year.â€� 5. Aronimink was defenseless. The rain-soaked course gave up birdies in bunches. Four players shot 62: Tommy Fleetwood, Rory McIlroy, Kevin Na and Tiger Woods. Fleetwood did it twice, Friday and Saturday, and McIlroy signed for that number despite bogeying two of his last three holes Thursday. Then there was this odd bit of trivia: Amongst the top five guys on the leaderboard through the first three rounds—Rose (-17), McIlroy (-16), Schauffele (-16), Fleetwood (-15) and Fowler (-15)—it represented the career-low 54-hole score for all five. FIVE INSIGHTS 1. Bradley led the field in Strokes Gained: Putting (+1.790); he was 186th in that stat going into the BMW, although he’d had a few good putting weeks here and there. He was one of 10 players to take 100 or fewer putts in a tournament this season, doing so at the RBC Canadian Open (solo 4th). His 28 birdies were the most of his career by five (2012 WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational). 2. Xander Schauffele, who came into the week 41st in the FedExCup but played his way to Atlanta with a T3 at the BMW, could impact an obscure stat. Two players, Brendan Steele at the Safeway Open and Brooks Koepka at the U.S. Open, have successfully defended their titles this season. Schauffele is heating up and has just 29 players to beat to become the third. 3. Four rookies made the 70-man BMW Championship: Aaron Wise, Austin Cook, Peter Uihlein and Keith Mitchell. Two of them had already won on TOUR this season and were in the driver’s seat for Rookie of the Year: Wise (AT&T Byron Nelson) and Cook (RSM Classic). But only Wise (67, T16, 21st in FedExCup) advanced to the season-ending TOUR Championship. 4. Tommy Fleetwood’s middle rounds of 62-62 made him just the 10th player with a 36-hole total of 124 or better in consecutive rounds. Troy Matteson tops that list, taking just 122 strokes over consecutive rounds at the 2009 Safeway Open. 5. Monday gave us the 12th playoff this season, and the first since Bryson DeChambeau won the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide. It was also the 17th event with a suspension or delay of play, and the third unscheduled Monday finish. (The Dell Technologies Championship always ends on Labor Day.)

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PALM HARBOR, Fla. – Paul Casey drove into Innisbrook and saw his picture on posters and programs, just what he needed to forget the cut he missed last week. He played Friday as though he wants those photos to stay here. Casey holed a 30-foot eagle putt on the 599-yard fifth hole and made short birdie putts on the other three par 5s on his way to a 5-under 66, giving him a share of the lead with Austin Cook among the early starters Friday in the Valspar Championship. No one has ever won back-to-back at the Valspar Championship since it became a PGA TOUR event in 2000. “I’ve never defended a professional event. I would love to do that,” Casey said. “Mentally last year I was hoping I would win, wanting to win. This year, knowing that I have won around here, I have a slightly different approach to it, and I played today quite aggressively and tried to take advantage of the golf course that I knew was going to get very, very tough this afternoon.” Casey and Cook, who shot a 67, were at 6-under 136. Scott Stallings (68) and Sungjae Im (67) were one shot behind, while Dustin Johnson overcame a rough patch early in his round with five birdies on the front nine to salvage a 69. Johnson was two shots behind on a Copperhead course he hasn’t seen in nine years. Joel Dahmen and Sepp Straka, who shared the 18-hole lead at 5 under, were among those playing in the afternoon. Casey last year ended eight years without winning on the PGA TOUR when he closed with a 65 and had to wait to see if Tiger Woods and Patrick Reed could catch him. It was the centerpiece of a resurgence for Casey, a 41-year-old from England who is back among the top 16 in the FedExCup standings.  He opened in the morning calm with a 10-foot birdie putt and did the rest of his damage on the par 5s. The eagle putt followed a blind shot over a hill on the longest hole at Innisbrook. He went bunker-to-bunker on his final hole at No. 9 and made bogey to slip into a tie with Cook. “Everybody is going to make bogeys. If you can just minimize those, it puts you in a good position,” Casey said. He spent the opening two rounds with Johnson, who had to maximize his birdies after his start. Johnson thought he might have had too much club on the par-3 13th and was stunned to learn that it had come up short enough to catch the slope and roll down toward the water, leading to double bogey. On the next hole, a par 5 where he had to lay up from the rough, Johnson had a 104-yard wedge for his third shot that traveled only about 50 yards. There was a reason for that. “As soon as he hit it, he said, `Just don’t go in a divot,'” said Austin Johnson, his brother and caddie. It found a divot. “It was big,” Johnson said, holding his hands about a foot part, which might have been a slight exaggeration. “I mean, it was long. It was deep. It wasn’t … I don’t think it was from a professional.” He managed to get that up-and-down by making a 5-footer to avoid losing another shot. Johnson started the front nine with four birdies in five holes, including one birdie putt from 35 feet on No. 3, and is back in the game. Gary Woodland also played with them and three-putted from 7 feet for double bogey on his last hole for a 71 that was almost certain to miss the cut. Woodland had the longest active cut streak on the PGA TOUR at 22, last going home on the weekend at THE PLAYERS Championship last May. On the other side of the course was 17-year-old Akshay Bhatia in his PGA TOUR debut. Playing on a sponsor exemption, he was at 3 under for the day and even par for the tournament through eight holes until a muffed chip and a missed putt led to double bogey at No. 9 that killed his momentum. Bhatia bogeyed his last two holes for a 72 and finished at 4-over 146 to miss the cut. He plans to turn pro later this year after the Walker Cup if he makes the team. The cheers he heard in some corners of Innisbrook were inspiring, especially behind the 12th green, where the rowdy fans chanted his first name to make it sound like the “Ole” cheer at the Ryder Cup. “It was sick. That was dope,” Bhatia said, adding that he hopes he can hear that at the Ryder Cup “in five, six years down the road.”

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