Winner’s bag: Sung Kang, AT&T Byron Nelson

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€�

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Christian Blyden says he wasn't so sure he was going to like "chasing a ball around a field of grass." The 13-year-old didn't have a lot of options when it came to sports, though. He's a hemophiliac, which means his body has trouble making the clots that stem the bleeding when he's cut or injured. Kids like Christian bruise easily and have an increased risk of bleeding around the joints. So, kickball and softball and soccer and other contact sports weren't exactly on the agenda. But Larry Bonner, the man who would eventually become his stepfather, suggested to Christian's mom, Sarah, that he might enjoy golf. "Have you ever heard of First Tee," he asked her. She hadn't but Sarah did the research that night, immediately enrolled her son, and the following weekend, she took Christian to buy some golf clubs. He's been hooked ever since. In fact, the entire family now plays golf. They even have a practice area in the backyard where Christian, who has also been diagnosed with ADHD and depression, can work on his putting and chipping - even at night under motion sensor lights. "And if they’ve had a rough day at school or at work, they’ll just go outside and chip and putt," Sarah says. "They don’t have to go to the golf course. They just go outside and just joke and laugh." But as much as he likes golf, Christian, who lives in Pensacola, Florida, has never been to a PGA TOUR event. He wanted to see the game he watches almost constantly on the Golf Channel played up-close-and-personal - and maybe even get a chance to see his favorite player, Dustin Johnson. That's where Dreams Come True, a non-profit based in Jacksonville, Florida that grants wishes for kids with life-threatening illnesses, stepped in. Partnering with the TOUR, it arranged a VIP experience for Christian on Wednesday at THE PLAYERS Championship. And while he's at TPC Sawgrass, Christian hopes to get to meet Johnson, who sent a surprise video message with the invitation last week. Christian watched the screen of his tablet intently, without saying a word so as not to miss anything, as Johnson talked. When it was over, his face broke out into a big smile. "Dat be the DJ," Christian said excitedly, as he turned to his parents, who were filming the interaction. Christian has always liked Johnson because of his unflappable demeanor. The teenager says he's been raised to look for the good in life, so he is drawn to players like the world No. 1 who don't get rattled by errant shots and missed putts. "I used to get really upset when I would hit into the trees," Christian said in an email. "My dad would tell me, son, it’s OK, we will call that a mulligan and not count it. You’re still learning. It’s not a big deal. Remember it’s just a game and we are out here to have fun and learn the game. "So, it took me a little while to get over not getting upset at myself when I made a bad shot and to see DJ not get upset at all, I want to be like that. So, I have been working hard. Sometimes I do good, other times not so good. "But when I watch DJ play golf I he is always calm and never upset about any trouble shots, and that’s why I like him." Looking for the good in life hasn't always been easy for Christian and his family, though. He was born 27 weeks early and weighed only 2 pounds, 9 ounces at birth. He stayed in the neonatal ICU at Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola for three months. At the time, Sarah lived in Fort Walton Beach, which was about an hour away from her only child. She drove to see Christian every day after work and stayed "until they kicked me out," she says. She'd spend the weekends in the Ronald McDonald House near the hospital. "I would bring all my laundry and everything, all on my laundry soap, anything I had that I needed to get done," Sarah recalls. "I would pack it in my car, and I would drive an hour and get everything done whenever he was napping or whenever the doctors had to do their stuff. … "So, it was definitely a juggle. That was an interesting three months for sure." Small wonder, Sarah battled postpartum depression. Making matters worse was the hemophilia, although as it turned out, Christian would not be diagnosed for nearly a year. He had his first blood transfusion at two weeks, though — luckily his biological father was a match. But the signs were there all along. Sarah remembers walking into his room one day and seeing an IV line sticking out of Christian's head. "I was like, what is he doing to my kid?" she says. "And they were like, well, hold on, hold on, mom. It’s okay. He just lost too much blood. That’s the only place we could get an IV." At nine months, Christian had grown enough that he was able to be circumcised. The bleeding continued for several days and despite multiple trips to the urologist, bloody diapers in hand, and even to the emergency room, Sarah's concerns kept being dismissed. "I was like, okay, well I guess I’m just crazy," Sarah recalls. The next red flag appeared when Christian started cutting teeth. The people who worked at the day care he attended put Christian in a plexiglass crib and separated him from the other children because of the mouth bleeds he got. Sarah became a fixture at the pediatrician's office. "They eventually got tired of seeing us," Sarah says. "They did lab work and they sent it out to Pensacola, and that’s whenever we found out that he had hemophilia. I was like hemo, what? I had no idea what hemophilia is. And they sent us out here to speak to hematologist." Hemophilia is a rare blood disease that generally affects males. According to the Hemophilia Federation of America, approximately 400 babies with the condition are born each year and roughly 20,000 people like Christian, who has the severe form, are living with it in the United States. The condition is caused by a deficiency in the clotting protein factor VIII, which is manufactured by the liver. At first, Christian was treated with a factor replacement therapy that was administered through an IV by a home health care worker - but only after considerable physical gyrations. "I would have to hold him in my lap and have to put one leg over his legs and one arm over his forehead and then hold his other arm down and have one arm shoved behind my back because he would kick and scream and fight," Sarah recalls. "Mommy, why are you letting them do this to me this hurts? And he would just scream and cry. And, and it’s like, but you need your medicine. You just bleed without it — without this medicine, the bleeding doesn’t stop." But even though he needed to take precautions, Christian was still a kid. He'd go out and play with his friends at recess and roll his ankle or trip and fall and he'd have an ankle bleed. When that happened, his ankle would swell up three of four times its normal size. "So, there’s no weight bearing," Sarah says. "There’s no running, there’s no walking, there’s nothing. So, he would just spend the whole year in a wheelchair." Christian ended up having two surgeries on his ankle, performed by Dr. Cynthia Gauger, who is a pediatric hematologist oncologist at Nemours Children's Specialty Center in Jacksonville, Florida, and has formed a strong bond with the teen, who sees her every three months. He had to repeat first grade because of the class time lost during his three-month recovery period. "By the time he got back, they were on adverbs and pronouns and he didn’t know what they were talking about," Sarah says. "So, he just kind of shut down and fell into depression." Christian has been through nine different clotting agents, but the most recent one appears to be working well because he hasn't had a bleed in two years. He can give it to himself with an epi-pen. If he has an active bleed, there is another medication that is given through an IV - and while it makes him "extremely nervous," Sarah says, Christian can administer that, as well. And Larry is a nurse - "How lucky did I get," laughs his wife, who had sold her house and moved to Pensacola, where she met her future husband, with Christian to be closer to a pediatric emergency room. The social environment at school has been good for Christian, who his mom describes as super shy and super quiet. Golf has had a similar affect on the dark-haired teenager. Larry suggested it would be a good outlet to get a kid with ADHD to focus and slow down. "He’s not the kid that’s rushing downstairs, first thing Christmas morning and surprised to see what Santa brought," Sarah says. "He’s your very laid-back, quiet kid. So, so whenever he took an interest in golf, his stepdad and I were like, hey, he’s interested in golf. Let’s feed this golf energy because that’ll get him to socialize more. That’ll get him out of his shell. "And it has, because whenever he’s on the golf course, he’ll make small talk with the other people behind us like at the tee box waiting for the people in front of us. And before he wouldn’t talk to anybody." Sarah says Christian was concerned about playing golf at first. What about my ankles? What if I have another bleed? She told him he could learn at his own pace and stop if he needed to. They went and got clothes, clubs, shoes, even a Garman watch to measure distance. "Then he hit it off with some of the other boys at the First Tee," Sarah says. "And then next thing I know here we are. Every weekend I’m taking him out to go play golf with the other kids. He absolutely loves it." And Dustin Johnson, of course.

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The 2022-2023 PGA TOUR Regular Season begins this week at the Fortinet Championship at Silverado Resort & Spa in California’s wine country. Play was suspended due to darkness late Thursday night. Justin Lower leads the tournament at 9 under, two ahead of defending champ Max Homa with Byeong Hun An, S.H. Kim and J.J. Spaun three back. Here’s everything you need to know to follow the action, including Featured Groups for PGA TOUR LIVE. Leaderboard Full tee times HOW TO FOLLOW (ALL TIMES ET) Television: Thursday-Sunday: 6 p.m.-9 p.m. ET (Golf Channel) Radio: Thursday-Friday, 3 p.m.–9 p.m. ET. Saturday-Sunday, 4 p.m.-9 p.m. (PGA TOUR Radio on SiriusXM and PGATOUR.com/liveaudio) PGA TOUR LIVE FEATURED GROUPS FRIDAY Featured Groups 10:33 a.m. ET: Jason Day, Gary Woodland, Webb Simpson (10th tee) 10:55 a.m. ET: Max Homa, Cameron Champ, Michael Kim (10th tee) ESPN+ AFTERNOON COVERAGE 3:54 p.m. ET: Hideki Matsuyama, Cam Davis, Corey Conners (1st tee) 4:05 p.m. ET: Joel Dahmen, Harris English, Rickie Fowler (1st tee) MUST READS The First Look Power Rankings Expert Picks Insider: How Suh’s optimism fueled path to PGA TOUR Ten Korn Ferry Tour grads to watch Five Things to Know about new season

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