Woods to skip Players Championship with back issue: report

Augusta National cofounder Bobby Jones once said, "There's golf. And then there's tournament golf." The greatest amateur golfer of all time understood the fundamental difference between playing for fun ... and playing for real. The nature of competitive golf is to simply get the ball in the hole in the fewest number of strokes. The player with the lowest score wins. But, as everyone who has ever entered a golf tournament knows, there's nothing simple about it. As soon as a player must putt everything out, as soon as you know a score will be posted by your name, the game is unforgiving. You got to get the ball in the hole. Somehow. Whatever it takes. Especially on the PGA TOUR where the quality of play is the best in the world. RELATED: Tee times, groupings | Determining where DeChambeau could drive it at Augusta | Pro long drivers discuss DeChambeau’s length Great putters, such as Jones himself, thrive on the greens. But for every Masters champion who is an outstanding putter, such as Jack Nicklaus, Ben Crenshaw, Tiger Woods or Jordan Speith, there are dozens of their contemporaries who could hit the ball well from tee to green, but couldn't keep up once they reached the putting surface. Players will go to great lengths to improve their putting. The Claw. Croquet. Left-handed. Eyes closed. Cross-handed. Bryson DeChambeau is the latest example. He is the hot topic entering this year's Masters because of his physical transformation, but a focus on his driving distance overlooks his drastic improvement on the greens. DeChambeau has become one of the TOUR's best putters with a unique arm-lock style, using an extremely upright putter that sits almost perpendicular to the putting surface. The narrative around DeChambeau is that he bludgeoned Winged Foot en route to winning the 2020 U.S. Open. Sure, he bombed it off the tee, but he didn't lead the field in driving that week. Rory McIlroy did. Bryson led the field in putting. He's steadily climbed in the rankings for Strokes Gained: Putting, finishing 10th in that statistic last season. He's also hitting more greens in regulation and his short game was spectacular at Winged Foot. That's the true narrative: Bryson has improved everything about his game. And that's why he's considered a serious favorite at this week's Masters. DeChambeau is the latest to experiment with a different or unique putting style in an attempt - sometimes a desperate attempt - to get the ball in the hole in fewer strokes. He's certainly not the first. Four-time U.S. Open champion Ben Hogan said, "There is no similarity between golf and putting. They are two different games; one played in the air, and the other on the ground." The legendary ball-striker would have been perfectly happy without the need for putting. "There shouldn't be any cups... just flagsticks," Hogan famously said. "And then the player who hit the most fairways and greens and got closest to the pins would be the tournament winner." Anyone who's ever four-putted has probably thought the same thing at least once. The competition on the PGA TOUR is so intense that even the slightest improvement on the greens can be a huge boost. We've seen right-handers putt left-handed. Langer is credited with bringing the arm-lock method into the spotlight after using it to win the 1993 Masters. Spieth has looked at the hole while hitting short putts. Johnny Miller putted with his eyes closed (he also won the 1976 Open Championship while focusing his eyes on a spot of red nail polish he painted on his putter). Here's a list of some of the unique styles we've seen, and photos illustrating them. • Left-arm locked - notables Bernhard Langer, Matt Kuchar, Bryson DeChambeau, Will Zalatoris • Eyes closed - Johnny Miller, Sergio Garcia • Looking at the hole - Johnny Miller, Jordan Spieth (on short putts) • Left-handed — Blaine McCallister (hit all other shots right-handed) • Left-handed and right-handed — Notah Begay (used a Bullseye putter and putted both right-handed (on putt that broke right-to-left) and left-handed (on putts that broke left-to-right) • One-handed - Mike Hulburt • Croquet style - Sam Snead (until USGA banned it) • Side saddle - Sam Snead • Long putter — Bernhard Langer, Adam Scott, Scott McCarron and many other PGA TOUR Champions players • The Claw - Chris DiMarco, Sergio Garcia, Phil Mickelson, Justin Rose Whatever it takes. At least for one week. Especially on the PGA TOUR.

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Kiawah Island is the longest course in major championship history so it should be no surprise that a new driver has been key to Phil Mickelson’s success halfway through the PGA Championship. Mickelson, 50, held the lead after Friday’s morning wave thanks to rounds of 70-69. He ranked first in Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green, in the top 10 of Strokes Gained: Off-the-Tee and averaged 298 yards off the tee. This is the first week that Mickelson is using a custom Epic Speed head that effectively has 5 degrees of loft. The shaft is 47.9 inches, pushing up against the USGA limit of 48 inches. “It’s like working with a long-drive competitor at that point,” said Gerritt Pon, Callaway’s senior club performance analyst. “He’s not using it for accuracy. He’s using it for distance. Interestingly enough, he’s the type of player who does not necessarily lose accuracy with the longer shaft. Some lose a tremendous amount, some actually gain a little bit, but he’s the type of player who doesn’t lose accuracy. But he gains speed. “To swing the longer shaft, he’s trying to hit up on the ball a little more than with a normal shaft. He’s creating a lot of loft at impact to launch it high, so the main things that had to be accomplished was making the driver low-spin and fast.” Mickelson’s new Epic Speed, which was built especially for him, features Callaway’s aerodynamic Cyclone head shape. A second screw was added to the front of the head to lower the center of gravity. “With faster swing speeds, you see more benefit from the aerodynamically-designed head,” Pon said. “He has a driver that is fast, easy for him to draw, mitigates the left miss (for a left-hander) more than some of our other models that are popular on TOUR, and is very low spin.” Mickelson tested an 8.5-degree model of the Epic Speed that was lofted down to 6.5 degrees but that head created too much spin. He wants his draws to spin under 2,000 rpms and his fades to spin under 2,400, Pon said. If Mickelson were right-handed, the increased number of offerings available may have made it easier to find a match for him. Making a head that fit Mickelson meant designing a new head in CAD and then working with the foundries to have it produced. That is typically an eight-week process, Pon said. “We started with a baseline of the Epic Speed, which was a long time in the making, and then modified it with Phil in mind,” Pon said. “This particular model of the Speed is pretty new. Even though it looks like the same Epic Speed, it’s a customized version for a left-hander who’s trying to swing a long shaft with low loft and low spin. “So basically Phil Mickelson.”

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PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. – Tiger Woods is still looking for a solution off the tee after the 79-time PGA TOUR winner opened the Genesis Open with a grinding 1-over 72. Having hit just 19 fairways over four rounds at Torrey Pines a few weeks ago, Woods was hoping for better accuracy in his first start at Riviera Country Club since 2006. And while the stat line of eight of 14 fairways reads reasonably – only four of those hit were with his driver. Unlike at Torrey – where he recovered to hit plenty of greens – Woods managed just seven of 18 on Thursday. It meant way too many holes grinding for pars than trying to make birdies. Making just his third tournament start since undergoing spinal fusion surgery last April, Woods chose to look at the glass half full. “It was a lot better today. The shaft is a little more stout, and the times I lost it to the right, a lot of the times I was just trying to smooth it out there,â€� Woods explained. “I can go ahead and hit this thing, I can be aggressive, and I can take out one side of the golf course, which is great.â€� The side he didn’t take out was the right. After opening with a birdie on the 10th hole at Riviera, Woods sent his first attempt with the driver right into the trees. A towering eucalyptus promptly swallowed his ball and had him hitting 3 from the tee. He had a handful of other wild misses to the right including on the par-4 ninth – his final hole – where he ended up in a bunker – on the 10th. “I guess he’s gone to a driver that’s a little longer, a little more loft, so that’s good. I said to him, ‘Make it as easy as possible for yourself, don’t try and complicate things,’â€� playing partner Rory McIlroy said of Woods’ driver. “But it looks OK. He hit some great drives coming in, he drove it much better … saw some good signs, just a better rhythm, a little bit better tempo from the top.â€� McIlroy pointed out the 7:22am tee time and crisp morning temperatures may have contributed. “It was cold and if you don’t quite release it that much, it can get away from you pretty easily. I had a couple get away from me and didn’t feel like I hit that bad,â€� he said. And the Northern Irishman is a firm believer that over time and more reps Woods will be a serious factor. “It doesn’t feel like five years ago that he won five tournaments and was the Player of the Year,â€� McIlroy said. “He remembers how to do this and his body’s allowing him to do this, and there’s no doubt in my mind that he’ll make a little bit of noise this year.â€� Sitting five back of the early clubhouse lead, Woods certainly didn’t feel out of the event he’s failed to win in 10 previous tries including his PGA TOUR debut as a 16-year-old in 1992. He did after all post five birdies, and a couple of his mistakes were basic errors – like hitting into long Kikuyu grass with an iron off the tee on the par-4 fifth hole and missing the par-4 seventh green with a wedge from just 137 yards. Needing just 25 putts was promising so if he eliminates the mistakes he could certainly press toward the weekend. “I’m not that far off to really putting some good numbers out there,â€� Woods said. “I’ve got to clean up my card … I made too many bogeys. If I can just clean that up, I can start making my way up the board.â€�

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