Woods, Mickelson to stage TV match with Brady, Manning

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NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) — Henrik Stenson delivered the biggest shot on a back nine filled with them, a 5-wood within inches on the 15th hole for eagle that carried him to a 6-under 66 and a one-shot victory Saturday in the Hero World Challenge. Tournament host Tiger Woods was among five players who had a chance to win on the back nine, four of them with at least a share of the lead at some point at Albany Golf Club. RELATED: Final leaderboard Woods fell out with a chip that didn’t make it up the slope on the 14th hole, and he had to scramble for bogey. Justin Thomas had a pair of 12-foot birdie putts burn the edge. Defending champion Jon Rahm, in his final event before getting married in Spain, appeared to seize control with a birdie-eagle-birdie stretch to take the lead. And then Stenson struck the decisive blow. From 259 yards away on the par-5 15th hole, he hammered 5-wood and couldn’t see beyond a dune as it bounced onto the green, tracked toward the hole and settled about 8 inches away for a tap-in eagle. That took him from one shot behind to one shot ahead, and he closed with three pars. Rahm had to settle for two pars to close out his 66. Stenson won for the first time in 50 tournaments worldwide, a drought dating to the Wyndham Championship in August 2017. His world ranking plunged from No. 6 to No. 40. But after wrapping up the European Tour season in Dubai last week, he worked with swing coach Pete Cowen and took some momentum to the Bahamas. Patrick Reed, who took a two-shot penalty on Friday after a Rules violation, shook that off for a 66 to finish alone in third. Woods hasn’t won his holiday event since 2011, and he put himself in position with timely birdies while playing alongside Thomas. It looked like quite a battle with Woods setting the pace early, and Thomas catching and passing him with an 8-foot eagle putt on the 11th hole. But that was as good as it got for both of them. Woods tried to drive the par-4 14th hole and wound up in the waste area with a bad lie. He sent that over the green, and his chip up the slope wasn’t hard enough and came back down the hill. His fourth shot barely made it onto the green and he holed a 15-foot putt to escape with bogey. But he spent more time in the waste area on the par-5 15th and had to scramble for par, and that was the end of his chances. Woods closed with a 69. The only victory — a hollow one — was finishing with a lower score than Thomas for the first time in some 15 pairings together. Even that required a double bogey by Thomas on the last hole, giving him a 70. “I don’t think that’s how we wanted it to end up,” Woods aid with a laugh. “If I was going to get him, it would have been nice for either of us to have a chance to win the tournament.” U.S. Open champion Gary Woodland, who started the final round with a one-shot lead, ran into trouble chipping up the slope on the par-5 third hole and made double bogey. He never recovered, shot 73 and tied for seventh. The Hero World Challenge was just the first stop for 11 of the Americans in the field. They had a few hours to get changed for a charter flight from the Bahamas to Australia for the Presidents Cup, which starts Thursday with Woods as the first playing captain in 25 years. Stenson wants to patch back his game, and this was a big step. After five straight years in the top 10, the 43-year-old Swede is eager to get back. “It’s down, but it’s not a disaster,” Stenson said of his ranking. “I can compete with the best, and I guess I showed that.”

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FORT WORTH, Texas — Phil Mickelson kept hearing congratulatory words as he made his way around Colonial, and there was a huge roar from the crowd when the PGA Championship winner made a long putt to finish his round. Jordan Spieth kept making birdies in the same group. RELATED: Leaderboard | Jordan Spieth rolls to bogey-free 63 at Charles Schwab Challenge Spieth shot a 7-under 63 on a breezy Thursday and was tied for the first-round lead at the Charles Schwab Challenge with Sergio Garcia, who had a 15-foot birdie attempt on the 18th hole that circled the edge of the cup but didn’t go in. Both former Colonial champions had bogey-free rounds. The 50-year-old Mickelson, only four days after becoming the oldest winner of a golf major, was 10 strokes back after a 73 that ended with the 22-foot birdie while playing with local favorite Spieth and defending Colonial champion Daniel Berger (68). “Yeah, I didn’t play well,” Mickelson said. “But I won the PGA, so.” Garcia matched the closing 63 he had at Colonial when he got the first of his 11 PGA TOUR wins 20 years ago at age 21. He was 5 under on the four-hole stretch right in the middle of the round. He birdied holes No. 8-10 before an eagle at the 620-yard 11th, where he blasted out of a greenside bunker on the course’s longest hole. “It was quite breezy. It was gusty, so it wasn’t easy to pull some of the clubs,” Garcia said. “There were some tough holes out there, but I was able to hit really good shots on those holes, and a couple up-and-downs when I needed them.” Right after Mickelson’s final putt at the 387-yard ninth, Spieth had a tap-in for his third birdie in a row, and seventh overall — and right after a 71-foot chip-in from the rough at the par-3 eighth. The 2016 winner and two-time runner-up had his best score in 33 career rounds at Colonial, one of two local events for the Dallas native, after rolling in a 12-foot birdie putt to start the day. “It’s hard to go any lower,” Spieth said. “That’s what I talked about before the tournament. If I could get a couple to go in early in the first round, and the confidence, and the work I’ve been doing on my stroke the last few days … I thought that would exude just a little bit of confidence into the rest of the round on greens where I’ve been very successful on before.” Erik Compton, the two-time heart transplant recipient who got into the field on a sponsor exemption, and Jason Kokrak had 65s. The 41-year-old Compton played bogey-free after birdies on the first two holes of his second PGA TOUR start this year. He missed the cut at the Honda Classic. Mickelson, the 2000 and 2008 Colonial champion, missed nine of 14 fairways — some with irons off the tee — in a scrambling early-starting round that followed an emotionally draining few days. After winning Sunday at Kiawah Island in South Carolina, Mickelson flew home that night to California, then allowed himself a couple of days to relish his historic accomplishment. Lefty said he never considered skipping Hogan’s Alley, a tree-lined course he considers perfectly suited for his game because he doesn’t have to keep hitting drivers. But the rough is thick after a lot of rain recently, and there is a good chance of more Friday. Mickelson, playing his last tournament before the hometown U.S. Open at Torrey Pines next month, went into the rough on his first swing of the day. While saving par at the 407-yard 10th, he quickly had the first of his five bogeys at No. 11, where he hit two shots into the rough and another into a greenside bunker. He finally made a birdie at the par-3 16th from inside of 5 feet, then immediately gave that stroke back at No. 17 with the first two shots into the rough before a 44-foot shot into a bunker. “It was almost like I was trying a little too hard, and I wasn’t just calm and let it happen, and I was a little bit antsy,” Mickelson said, then adding the term unsettled. “Like I just couldn’t quite get calmed down in that same frame of mind.” Mickelson said the course was very playable, even with the 15-20 mph winds, because of receptive greens. But he couldn’t keep the ball in the fairway. “You can’t play this course out of the rough because then you have tree trouble, which I had repeatedly, and I didn’t putt well,” he said. “But I won the PGA, so I’ll see if I can get it turned around for tomorrow and get a little better focus, a little better energy.”

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