Watch live: Tiger going wrong way on moving day

Statement from Augusta National Golf Club: On Wednesday, March 4, we issued a memo stating that our plans to host the Masters Tournament, the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and the Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals had not changed. Unfortunately, the ever-increasing risks associated with the widespread Coronavirus COVID-19 have led us to a decision that undoubtedly will be disappointing to many, although I am confident is appropriate under these unique circumstances. Considering the latest information and expert analysis, we have decided at this time to postpone the Masters Tournament, the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and the Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals. Ultimately, the health and well-being of everyone associated with these events and the citizens of the Augusta community led us to this decision. We hope this postponement puts us in the best position to safely host the Masters Tournament and our amateur events at some later date. We will continue to work with the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Office of the Governor, the Georgia Department of Public Health, the City of Augusta and all other local authorities. We are grateful to all of these entities for their exceptional efforts and guidance. We recognize this decision will affect many people, including our loyal patrons. Your patience as we make every effort to communicate effectively and efficiently is appreciated, and we will share any additional information as soon as it becomes available. As COVID-19 continues to impact the lives of people everywhere, we seek your understanding of this decision and know you share our concern given these trying times. Thank you for your faithful support.

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In conjunction with the 75th anniversary of Byron Nelson’s historic 1945 season, PGATOUR.COM’s writers responded to a couple of pertinent questions. Feel free to chime in via the message board at the bottom of this file. THE IMPACT OF BYRON NELSON During what would’ve been AT&T Byron Nelson week, PGATOUR.COM is celebrating the tournament’s legendary namesake and his impact on golf with a series of stories, including: • His impact on my life and career, by Tom Watson • His impact on the modern golf swing • His impact on winners of his event • His impact on charity with the Salesmanship Club • 11 things to know about Nelson’s 11 consecutive wins What’s more unbreakable: 11 consecutive wins or 18 in one season? BEN EVERILL: I’d say both might stand forever, but the 11 consecutive certainly will never be broken. The depth of fields these days and forever more will just make this downright impossible. Winning three in a row now is an incredible achievement. Anything more than that in today’s game is other worldly. JIM McCABE: Neither will be touched. But the one-in-a-million chance it could happen would probably be 18 total wins. Winning 11 straight is never-in-a-million. CAMERON MORFIT: Given that no one has come even remotely close since – Snead won 11 times in 1950 – I don’t think anyone will ever match 18 wins in one season. That number is so outrageous it seems like a typo. HELEN ROSS: I don’t see either being broken, to be honest. The most Tiger ever won in a single season was nine while Jack’s best was seven — and I’m hard-pressed to see that kind of talent and dominance anywhere on the horizon. But I’ll choose the 11 consecutive wins because that requires a steely mental focus to cast aside the distractions, as well as the abundant talent to get the job done. SEAN MARTIN: Can I say both? Neither can be broken and neither will be. MIKE McALLISTER: Initially, I was thinking 11 straight wins is the more daunting task. But I’ve reversed course. A dominant player could theoretically pick and choose his optimum schedule based on form and health, as well as the courses that fit his game – and remember, the record book is based on starts regardless of the season (hence, Tiger’s seven spread over two years). From that perspective, 11 straight over a longer stretch seems slightly more doable than 18 wins in a single season. And consider this: According to ShotLink, of the 937 players who have won at least one PGA TOUR event, just 49 have won 18 for their careers. To achieve that in just one season boggles the mind. Is Nelson’s 1945 performance the greatest single season in golf? BEN EVERILL: Statistically of course it is — 18 wins in 30 starts, 30 of 30 top-10s with seven runner-ups to go with the wins. Incredible. But the world is increasingly biased towards modern history and things we remember or have seen. My parents were still 10 years away from being born in 1945 and with the greatest amount of respect to Lord Byron, I’m not sure the events he played had the depth of competition we have today. For mine – the 2000 Tiger Woods season is the greatest. Nine wins, 17 of 20 top 10s, 20 of 20 top 25s. Won the last three majors of the year as part of his nine wins and outside of those was on winning Presidents Cup and World Cup teams. But if Nelson’s season got the majority nod, I wouldn’t be disappointed. JIM McCABE: Yes. He established not one, but three records that will never be sniffed – 11 straight wins, 18 in all, 30-for-30 in top 10s. I know about the depth-of-competition argument, but here’s what never gets treated properly: Travel was way more difficult, money was absurdly petty, and the character it took to survive was off the charts. As always, when wisdom is required, I turn to the greatest sage of ‘em all, Jack Burke Jr., who said of Nelson’s 1945 season: “I don’t care if he was playing against orangutans, winning 11 straight (and 18 in all) is amazing.â€� CAMERON MORFIT: Hard to judge two eras 55 years apart, and I’m no historian, but I’ll say Tiger Woods’ 2000 season was the best. His non-adjusted scoring average of 68.17 beat Nelson’s unofficial mark of 68.33. Woods also joined Hogan in ’53 as the only men to win three professional majors in a single season. Woods won tournaments by 15 (U.S. Open) and 11 strokes (WGC-NEC Invitational), which is insane. Yes, Nelson won more, 18 times to Tiger’s nine, but he also had 30 starts to Tiger’s 20, and golf was more of a global game, with a roster of more stars from more places, when Tiger had his magical season. HELEN ROSS: The only other season that would merit consideration is Tiger in 2000, and frankly, it seems like heresy to pick one over the other. It’s hard to compare strength and depth of field, but for purposes of the debate, I’ll go with Nelson, who played 30 times and won 18 of those while finishing second on seven other occasions. His unadjusted scoring average was 68.3, which certainly compares favorably to Wood’s 68.17 in 2000. That streak of 11 straight wins also strengthens the argument, although for many, Tiger’s three majors are the trump card, and I can’t disagree. SEAN MARTIN: I’m biased toward Tiger’s 2000 season. Three majors, including a 15-stroke win at the U.S. Open and 8-stroke margin at The Open Championship. Maybe it’s the bias of youth. He won nine times in 20 starts that year and finished outside the top 3 just six times. MIKE McALLISTER: Using Tiger’s three major wins in 2000 as the deciding factor is a bit unfair, considering only one major was played in 1945 – the PGA Championship, which Nelson won while playing 204 (yes, 204!) holes in the old format. The other three majors, canceled due to World War II, would’ve been played during Nelson’s 11-win streak. Same for lack of wartime competition – Hogan and Snead did make a combined 44 starts in 1945, so it wasn’t like Nelson was bereft of significant rivals. I actually think the most interesting comparison involves unadjusted scoring averages. Of the top 10 recorded scoring averages in TOUR history, nine belong to players in the last 20 years. The outlier is Nelson in 1945. To me, that’s pivotal in the argument of the better season. Yes, Tiger’s average was slightly lower, but Nelson’s was the more impressive in its era. You may argue the set-ups were harder, the courses longer in 2000; I’ll respond that the equipment was much better, the courses better manicured, the travel more demanding. Give me Nelson’s season as the best.

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RIDGELAND, S.C. – Max Homa is a lifelong California guy, so he is very familiar with the concept of riding a nice wave. He still is feeling the ripple effect of finishing a perfect 4-0 in last month’s Presidents Cup, his first foray into team cup competition as a professional. The week prior to that, he won his fifth PGA TOUR title, capturing the Fortinet Championship in jarring fashion with a miraculous chip-in birdie at the 72nd hole. At 31, he and his wife, Lacey, are about to be first-time parents. They are having a boy, due Nov. 2. This week at THE CJ CUP in South Carolina will pretty much be it until December, when he returns to play the Hero Challenge, Tiger’s event in the Bahamas. You could say Homa is in a great place, though on Thursday at Congaree Golf Club, in the first round of THE CJ CUP, he wasn’t. Not health-wise, anyway. Homa has been dealing with back tightness for a few weeks, since the PGA TOUR stop in Las Vegas, and in Thursday’s opening round, a number of factors – cool temperatures, walking 18 holes for the first time in a while, a shot from an awkward lie in a bunker at the par-4 11th – stiffened him up so badly he barely could retrieve his ball from the hole. Each time he slowly bent down, he looked like a man about to be knighted. So on Friday, he decided to just take care of depositing putts into the hole – he did so seven times for birdies – and leaving the fetching to his caddie, Joe Greiner, who was happy to do it. The scene – Homa knocking down a putt, then exiting the green – produced some lighter moments in his group, and wasn’t lost on one of his playing partners, Jordan Spieth. It was Spieth who poured in a long eagle putt at Royal Birkdale on Sunday on the 15th hole of the 2017 Open Champoinship who, in the heat of the frenetic moment, yelled to his caddie, Michael Greller, “Go get that!” “Jordan said he and Greller are going to do it (Saturday),” Homa said, smiling. Homa’s iron play has been spot-on for two days, and Friday he was able to add better driving to his repertoire, which produced a second-round, 6-under 65 that lifted him into a tie for 18th. He made two crazy scrambling pars to start his round, then settled in nicely, hitting approaches to 3 feet at the third, rolling in a 16-footer for birdie at the fourth, and hitting close irons into Nos. 5 and 7, a pair of par-3 holes. He at times moved a bit gingerly, but when he finally stood over the golf ball, he made the game appear easy. “For me, it all starts off the tee here,” Homa said. “All of a sudden I was playing out of the fairway and my irons feel really good. I found myself with a few kick-ins. It was just nice to get moving. I played so poorly yesterday. It was nice to feel I was going in the right direction for longer than two holes.” Homa will be riding the high of last month’s Presidents Cup for some time, saying it provided him a “highlight reel in your head of cool moments.” Week to week in regular tournaments, those meaningful moments can be few and far between. It is difficult to get into contention. But at Quail Hollow in his first Presidents Cup, every shot had something on the line, giving Homa the sense that every match felt like the back nine on Sunday. “This week, I have to play incredibly well the next two days just to be in position to where I could maybe have some sort of highlight moment where you feel that nervous,” he said. “Four matches-worth, that’s good for the future Rolodex of things you go through when, maybe at a major, or Sunday of a tournament, when you have a big moment you can sort of harken back to.” Scottie Scheffler, the World No. 1, knows the value of taking momentum earned in a team setting and using it to one’s individual benefit. It was last autumn that he was a captain’s pick on the U.S. Ryder Cup, and delivered a huge point on Sunday when he took down then-World No. 1 Jon Rahm in singles. A year on, Scheffler has won four times, including the Masters, and he is World No. 1. “I think those tournaments are some of the most pressure you can feel as a player, and so any time you can succeed in those conditions and play really well, you’re going to see a surge in confidence,” Scheffler said Friday at Congaree. “Max is a guy who has performed well out here for a number of years and won some tournaments. I’m sure you’ll see his trajectory continue to go upwards.” At 31, and having his paid his dues for a number of seasons, Homa is enjoying his view as he continues to climb the hierarchy of the game. When the PGA TOUR stages its elevated events beginning in 2023, Homa will have ample opportunity to climb even higher. Once his weekend ends at Congaree, Homa will be switching from a “making-birdies” mode into a “changing-diapers” mode. He cannot wait to meet his new son. What does he look forward to most? “Being able to mold a person, in a way, is a big responsibility, and it’s also very cool,” he said. “And I’m also excited for the things that I don’t even know that I’m supposed to be excited about … I’m excited for that.” Friday, he was excited that his back was good enough to get him around in 65 shots. He trails the leaders by six, but hopes to have a weekend good enough to be highlight-reel worthy.

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