Will Zalatoris withdraws from The Open Championship with injury

Tiger Woods will make his 2017-18 season debut at the Farmers Insurance Open, Jan. 25-28. It will mark the first time in a year that Woods has played an official PGA TOUR event. Woods made the announcement Thursday on his Twitter account, adding that he also plans to play the Genesis Open at L.A.’s Riviera Country Club three weeks later. Last season marked the first in which the Genesis benefitted the Tiger Woods Foundation. It will be Woods’ first appearance at Riviera since 2006. As an 16-year-old amateur, Woods made his first PGA TOUR start in 1992 at Riviera, competing on a sponsor’s exemption. “I’m very excited to be back at Riviera,â€� Woods said in a press release issued by the tournament. “I haven’t played at Riviera in a tournament in a very long time. To be able to play in an event that I used to come to as an amateur, as a junior and now as the tournament host, that is on one of the most historic sites in all of golf, it’s a dream come true.â€� The Farmers news was widely expected, given Woods’ success at Torrey Pines, where his nine total victories include seven at the Farmers (including four straight from 2005 through ’08); the 2008 U.S. Open in a playoff over Rocco Mediate; and the Junior World at age 15. “It’s awesome,â€� Farmers Insurance Open tournament director Peter Ripa told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “There’s a feeling that this comeback is different, with the eye test we got at the Hero World Challenge. He hit shots, he looked strong. There’s a national anticipation for this.â€� When he steps to the tee at Torrey, Woods will be making his first official TOUR start since shooting 76-72 to miss the cut at the 2017 Farmers. He has been limited by four operations on his back in just over three years, the last and most comprehensive of which was spinal fusion surgery last April. Woods returned to competition at the unofficial Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas, Nov. 30-Dec. 3, and tied for ninth in the 18-man field, turning heads with his competitiveness and distance off the tee. “I’ve never seen him happier with life, with everything,â€� reigning FedExCup champion Justin Thomas said recently. As fellow residents of Jupiter, Florida, Thomas and Rickie Fowler have been playing regular practice rounds with Woods. Thomas, 24, played with Woods, 41, in the first and last rounds at the Hero, and lost to him by one. Asked after that final round about Woods returning to TOUR competition, Thomas replied, “It’s just so weird to say that you’re excited for somebody else’s year, but it will be a fun year and I hope we duel it out a lot.â€� Fowler shot a final-round 61 to win and said Woods had, “sharpened me up a little bit.â€� At the Hero, as with so much of golf over the last two decades, all roads led back to Woods. The 79-time PGA TOUR winner showed almost no signs of the chipping problems that plagued him in 2015. He also outdrove younger pros like Thomas and Patrick Reed; briefly held the second-round lead; and looked so renewed that he got raves from even some of his toughest critics, including his former coach Hank Haney and Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee. “I like what I’m seeing out of Tiger right now,â€� Haney told SiriuxXM PGA TOUR Radio. “It is just good stuff. He looks healthy. He’s got great clubhead speed. He’s hitting phenomenal shots. He’s hitting as good shots as anybody.â€� Woods’ caddie Joe LaCava also was impressed. “I was a little bit surprised,â€� LaCava said midway through the tournament. “I think everyone was hoping for the best, but it was definitely better than we thought. The power and speed and length he’s hitting it – I didn’t think it would come this quick.â€� To be sure, Woods’ comeback promises to be a long climb, and there are no guarantees. He hasn’t been healthy enough to play in the Masters since 2015, and even LaCava warned against unrealistic expectations. Woods’ top-10 finish in the Bahamas moved him up in the Official World Golf Ranking, but only to 668th. And while he showed flashes of form at the 2016 Hero, too, and planned a big comeback in 2017, it never happened. The 14-time major winner never looked right at the Farmers, failing to make the weekend, then flew to the Omega Dubai Desert Classic and opened with a 5-over 77 before he withdrew prior to his second-round tee time. He abandoned plans to play in the Genesis Open and The Honda Classic, and underwent spinal fusion in April. “If he stays healthy, I really do think he’ll have a great year,â€� Thomas said. “We’re just going to have to wait and find out.â€�

Click here to read the full article…

What’s next for Brooks Koepka after just missing out on another major? Will Tiger’s game round back into form? We ask our experts the big questions coming out of the U.S. Open.

Click here to read the full article…

DUBLIN, Ohio – If this were a normal year, which is certainly isn’t, Dylan Frittelli would have been defending his title at the John Deere Classic this week. Instead, the 30-year-old South African found himself making headlines at another PGA TOUR golf tournament in a totally different city when he teed off with Nick Watney and Denny McCarthy on Thursday in the first round of the Workday Charity Open. Frittelli, Watney and McCarthy had tested positive for the coronavirus, the highly infectious respiratory disease that forced the TOUR to shut down in March and the John Deere Classic to be canceled last month. All three had quarantined for 10 days and had no symptoms but continued to test positive. On Wednesday the TOUR updated its protocols to so that a player or caddie who tested positive with symptoms and continues to test positive can return to competition as long as 72 hours have passed since recovery – which is defined as resolution of fever without the use of medication and improved respiratory symptoms. In addition, 10 days must have passed since those symptoms appeared. (Click here for full details) The clarification of the TOUR policy is in concert with the “Return to Work” guidelines of the CDC and was done in consultation with the TOUR’s medical adviser, Dr. Tom Hospel and other infectious disease experts. So Frittelli, Watney and McCarthy played together in the final group of the morning wave on Thursday at Muirfield Village. Frittelli and McCarthy each shot 73 while Watney, who was 2 under when he made the turn, finished with a 77. Frittelli described himself as “super happy” to be playing golf again. He originally tested positive in Hartford, Connecticut, during the Travelers Championship. He quarantined there for six days and spent next four in isolation at his agent’s house in New York. “It’s been pretty boring the last five or six days just sitting around doing nothing,” Frittelli said. “It was fun to get out there. Obviously, a few hoops to jump through yesterday. It was a little tricky situation that went on. “But that’s fine; life is full of surprises, so we’ll move on from there and hopefully get everything cemented in the coming weeks.” Frittelli, who said he felt “totally better” after the fourth day of quarantine, tested positive twice this week – taking a saliva test on Monday and another with a nasal swab on Tuesday. He wasn’t surprised. He said his doctor had told him that he might continue to return positive tests for up to a month. “I’ve got a friend in Japan who chatted to me, he said, dude, I’ve been testing for 28 days, I still haven’t got a negative,” Frittelli said. “I knew that was a possibility.” He didn’t know about the 10-day cycle of the virus, and the “Return to Work” guidelines that covered repeated positive tests without symptoms, though. “I still thought it had to come along with a negative test according to the TOUR, but obviously the TOUR is trying to monitor things as they move, and scientists and biologists are still figuring stuff out today, so this stuff is going to change all the time, and I’m glad the TOUR have kept their finger on the pulse,” Frittelli said. Frittelli said his symptoms were minor. On the Sunday night after he was originally tested in Hartford, he had some nasal congestion and some minor muscle aches for an hour or so. He also had two headaches in three days that lasted for 20 or 30 minutes each. “I did feel a little lethargic and slow, but that’s normally the case when I don’t work out or I don’t get outside or I’m not busy,” he said. Like Watney, Frittelli did lose his sense of smell about five days into his bout with COVID-19. “I was just eating regular plain meals and then all of a sudden I took some Vicks VapoRub and smelled it and I got a little burn in the nasal cavity, but I didn’t smell the menthol and I was like, that’s weird,” he said. “I was like, OK, this is the final piece of the puzzle that confirms that I had it. “But that subsequently has come back. Yesterday I finally started tasting food and smell seems to be back right now.” Frittelli, Watney and McCarthy are not allowed inside the Muirfield Village clubhouse and gym and the physical therapy trailers. But they do have a room underneath the old pro shop where the three of them can eat and “chill out together,” Frittelli said. The only negative is that he can’t work with his physiotherapist, who works with other TOUR pros. “I just drove straight in this morning actually,” Frittelli said. “I stretched at home. I ate breakfast in my hotel room and then straight to the parking lot and felt like Walter Hagen, just walked straight on to the driving range.” While Frittelli admitted the isolation made him feel a bit like an outcast, he understands the reasons. He said he hasn’t had much contact with other players but that many of the ones he’s talked to were “intrigued” by what he had experienced. “They were all asking me questions, hey, what’s going on, how did it happen, and I just explained,” Frittelli said. “I told them the truth, I told them what happened, and I tried to give them my best biology lesson that I could.” While he’ll have to wait another year for his John Deere Classic title defense, Frittelli has decided he is the “defending tournament week champion” at Muirfield Village. “I’m defending this time frame, I guess,” he said. “But no, I’m not getting any similar vibes to Silvis, Illinois, to be honest, but hopefully I can play well tomorrow and see some more golf hopefully.”

Click here to read the full article…