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12

Aug
Sun

Sunday's Birdies and Bogeys

Who were the winners and losers on Sunday at the PGA Championship? Let's take a closer look with another edition of birdies and bogeys.

11

Aug
Sat

Media: The best way to get Tiger's autograph?

(Getty Images) By John Strege Follow @JohnStrege !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); One of the few highlights of Saturday's washed-out telecast of the third round of the PGA Championship was CBS' David Feherty's response to Tiger Two Gloves. Twice on the par-4 fourth hole on the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, Woods hit spectators with shots (the photo above shows him after one of those shots) and gave each of his victims a signed glove. When he nearly hit a third person at the seventh hole, Feherty said this: "He's signing more autographs on the course than he does off," Feherty said. Tiger no doubt would not have appreciated the remark, but surely viewers did. Related: An Insider's Guide to Getting Autographs McIlroy treed Another high spot was coverage of the search party looking for Rory McIlroy's ball on the third hole. CBS eventually put a slow-motion replay of the ball in flight. "It hit the tree, that little dead limb," CBS' Gary McCord said, referring to a dead tree in the middle of the third fairway. "Where'd it go after that?" "That tree's so rotten it may have embedded," Feherty said. They finally were able to ascertain that it stuck in a hollow atop a branch of the tree, about eight feet off the ground. "Somebody tell them," McCord said. Someone eventually did and McIlroy reached up and retrieved it. "I've never seen that," Feherty said. "I haven't," McCord said. They have now. How to weather the storm If you're a viewer, you reach for the remote. Here's how CBS filled the time: -- A recap of the day's play -- An interview with Kerry Haigh, managing director of tournaments for the PGA of America. -- A Tiger swing analysis from Peter Kostis, using the Konica Minolta Bizhub Swing Vision Camera. -- PGA Championship anniversaries. -- Final-round coverage of the 2009 PGA Championship at Hazeltine (Y.E. Yang beating Woods). Where's the video? Jim Nantz told this story at the top of the telecast on Saturday: "I'll tell you how intimidating this course is. We had these microphones that are on the tee areas. This morning on the 17th tee, an alligator popped out of the marsh and ate the microphone." On Twitter Luke Donald, after rounds of 74, 76 and 74: "Pete Dye 3, Luke Donald 0" Quotable "We're going to hunker down here in the 18th tower. It is grounded. They say it is. We're going to find out." -- Nantz when the weather delay that was to include lightning began

11

Aug
Sat

It takes just seven holes for Tiger to crash back to earth

By Dave KindredKIAWAH ISLAND,  S.C. -- Tiger is done.  Sing a soft song, killing him gently.We loved Tiger 1.0. We've been waiting for Tiger 2.0.Not happening. Not now, not next month, not ever.Oh, he can play. He can play brilliantly. So can a couple dozen other men. On his A game, he can win. But there's a difference between now and back in the day. Now he can lose with his A game. Just another guy who can win.Saturday afternoon, before clouds suggestive of Armageddon gathered over Kiawah Island and stopped play in the PGA Championship, Tiger began the day tied for the tournament lead. For two days, he had played well, showing grit and guile and a sure putting stroke. He had teased us at this summer's U.S. Open, tied for the lead after 36, only to come undone in the third round.  This time, at Kiawah, he seemed ready to finish the job.But no. On a day when the leader boards ran red with birdies -- three 67s already in, six guys with 32s on the front -- Tiger didn't make a birdie in his seven holes. He nearly came out of shoes slashing at a shot in the rough. Another time, the ball below his feet in a waste area, he stood on a berm, half-crouched to reach the ball, and tottered off-balance after an awkward swing. Once the most elegant of movers, Tiger this day resembled nothing more than a wire-walker in a high wind.He last won a major in 2008.  He's oh for 17 since -- since the hydrant and Elin and the bimbo eruptions and the bad Achilles and Hank's book and sex rehab and knee rehab and firing Stevie and not getting any damned younger and seeing lesser mortals -- Rory, Graeme, Keegan, Bubba -- win majors while he tried every kind of swing but Jim Furyk's and wondered if he'd ever make another putt when he needed it most.I remember Tom Watson, early on in Tiger's distress, saying, "Tiger used to have his head empty," meaning it was empty of all things other than golf. "Now," Watson said, "he's got a lot going on."  It takes no great imagination to conceive of Tiger's mind as a Rube Goldberg contraption with pulleys and levers and slides and gears all working at the direction of little men shouting over each other:  "Hit the stinger. No, a high fade. Wait, wind's up. What's Stevie think?  McIlroy'd be OK if he ever got a haircut. You think we can sell the boat?  Ah, hell, let's bag it and go to Perkins."I came into Saturday afternoon thinking Tiger could win this time. It would be his 15th major, it would jump-start his chase of Jack Nicklaus's 18.  He would be all over the teevee Sunday, every shot, every scowl, and, perhaps (cover the dog's ears), every oath uttered in protest of fate's unkindness.  For whatever you think of Tiger -- you may hope he commits a Calc Shank at the 17th and throws himself in the lake after it . . . you may wish him the triumphant creation of Tiger 2.0  -- whatever your antipathy or devotion, I reckoned Tiger would be the Sunday story.You don't have to be 85 years old to understand that. But if you are 85 and you're Bob Toski, a guy ought to ask you about Tiger. Maybe three hours before Woods teed off Saturday, I turned a corner in the Kiawah clubhouse and bumped into a little man in a Hogan cap."Sorry," I said, and then realized I'd bumped into Golf History Its Ownself. "Mr. Toski! Could I talk to you about Tiger?"Bob Toski, once a caddie and one of nine children of Polish immigrants, turned pro in 1949. He won five PGA Tour events. He was the tour's leading money winner in1954 ($65,820).  He was out there with Ben Hogan and Sam Snead and the kid Arnold Palmer. He retired from the tour at age 30 to begin a teaching career that became legendary.For all that, he said, he has never seen anything in golf to match Tiger Woods."He has been given a gift of talent that no man before or after ever had," Toski said. "What Michael Jordan had in basketball and Ted Williams in baseball, Tiger has that in golf. He has an intuitive and instinctive feel for the game, which, along with his mastery of the mechanics, and his athletic strengths make him unique for all time."Yes, yes.  But we haven't seen that Tiger for a while."Did you see the 11th yesterday?" Toski said.At the 11th on Friday, from a downhill line 165 yards out, Woods punched a low cut shot that landed on the left half of the green and rolled to the right, stopping six feet from a flagstick only four steps from water on the green's right side."How many guys," Toski said, eyes alight, "even try that shot?"Not many, maybe only Tiger."He's a shotmaker. Think about it. How many of his shots do we still talk about?"The long-iron bunker shot over water in Canada. The last-roll chip at Augusta. This summer's flop shot at the Memorial.A case can be made that the majors stand on their own, their measure fuller than any one man can provide.  Bubba Watson at the Masters, Webb Simpson at the Open, Ernie Els the British -- Tiger was there for all of them and was rendered a bit player by those heroes.  Toski, though, isn't buying that case."Tiger's presence changes everything," he said. "Arnold Palmer came along in my time -- the All-American boy. Now we have Tiger. He's, well, a different character, but he certainly has had the same kind of impact on the game as Arnold did. Any time Tiger's in a tournament, he's the focus. Good or bad."I asked the wise old man -- thinking of the Watson allusion -- if it were possible for Tiger to get his head right again."It's terrible, what happened in his marriage, and I hope he recovers," Toski said. "He does seem to be getting better, professionally and personally. Maybe this is the week."Or maybe not.

11

Aug
Sat

In focusing on one goal, Stricker moves closer to another as well

By Dave ShedloskiKIAWAH ISLAND, S.C.  Steve Stricker was almost too busy thinking about the Ryder Cup Saturday to realize he improved his chances of winning the 94th PGA Championship. Almost. (Photograph by Getty Images)"Yeah, it is on my mind," Stricker said of his push to earn one of the eight automatic berths on the U.S. Ryder Cup team, a two-year process that ends with the conclusion of the PGA at the Ocean Course. If he fell short on points, he could still make the team as one of four wild-card picks of U.S. captain Davis Love III. Stricker, 45, of Madison, Wis., certainly helped his cause either way with a solid five-under-par 67 that lifted him 30 spots into T-7 before severe weather caused a delay in the championship at 4:50 p.m. EDT. Related: Steve Stricker's tip for hitting more fairwaysStricker owned the low round of the day alone until fellow American Bo Van Pelt equaled it about 90 minutes later. Van Pelt was in the house at T-5 with 3-under 213 total. "My goal was to get back to even, and I did even a little better than that," said Stricker, who is coming off a T-2 at last week's WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. "It kind of gets me back in it. It all depends on what happens this afternoon." Well, nothing happened in the afternoon, not to any conclusion with the nasty weather moving in. Stricker left the grounds knowing only that he was in the hunt for his first major title and his fourth Ryder Cup team. Guess which one was weighing on his mind more. "If I don't make it on points, there's still time for other guys to play well. I don't want to leave anything to chance," said Stricker, 10th in the U.S. standings. "I want to keep playing well so that Davis has a legitimate reason to pick me and not just because of what I've done in the past." At the time he also was three off the lead. "Well, there's that, too," Stricker said, smiling. "It's one big day playing for two things. But I really can't be thinking about that tomorrow. I just have to think about playing as well as I can and everything takes care of itself. "I've had a great run on these teams. It's been a blast." Seldom does Stricker, one of the game's best putters, miss enough putts to lament ones that got away, and the 26 putts he had Saturday seemed like a reasonable performance to go with hitting 12 fairways and 13 greens in regulation. But the 12-time PGA Tour winner knew he'd let a startlingly low number get away. Related: Steve Stricker shares his putting secrets"I'm hitting it as good as I ever have, and now my putter is letting me down a little bit," he said. "If I can get that going ... today I had a bunch of opportunities it could have been 6-7-8 under pretty easily, that's how good I hit it." In last year's PGA at Atlanta Athletic Club, he opened with a 63 before finishing T-12. Since turning 40, he has been one of America's best players, rising as high as No. 2 in the world rankings. With Tiger Woods faltering early Saturday -- he was three over through seven holes -- Stricker and Van Pelt were the low Americans on the leader board. "Yeah, it's been 6 or 7 years of good, solid play. It's been a lot of fun, and I think I can keep it going," Stricker said. Follow @DaveShedloski !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");

11

Aug
Sat

Ko and Green to face off in U.S. Women's Amateur finale

By Brendan Mohler The world’s top-ranked amateur, Lydia Ko, will face Jaye Marie Green of Boca Raton Fla., tomorrow morning in the 36-hole match play final for the U.S. Women’s Amateur trophy. In wet...

11

Aug
Sat

After squeaking into weekend, Dufner makes most of opportunity

By Pete McDanielKIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. -- The heartbreaking playoff loss to Keegan Bradley in last year's PGA Championship is so far in the rearview mirror that Jason Dufner only thinks about it when someone else mentions it. Success can bury even the most painful memories. The ability to bounce back from disappointment without changing gears or expressions also helps."I had a pretty good day today,'' said Dufner, after taking advantage of softer, calmer conditions at the Ocean Course with a four-under 68 on Saturday that led the morning draw. "(I made) a couple of mistakes which I wish I had back but much better today than yesterday.''Dufner got the worst of the conditions Friday afternoon when the wind gusted up to 38 mph and golf balls were bouncing around like those in a lottery drawing. He shot 76 and made the six-over cut on the number."Obviously, the wind was down a little bit today and the rain we got last night made it a little bit softer,'' said Dufner, ranked eighth in the world and third in FedEx Cup points on the strength of two early-season victories. "So it was nice to get out early and kind of get off to a good start. It was good to make the cut hanging on yesterday and nice to come out and have a good round this morning.''One of the best ball strikers on tour, Dufner said the keys to taming windy conditions are creativity and control."You've got to be able to shape shots,'' he said. "You don't want to be riding the wind too much out here because the ball will just go forever off line or weird numbers or weird distances. You gotta really get comfortable working the ball into the wind and trying to use it as your friend. And kind of banking shots into it so you can get a little bit better control.''At two-over 218 through 54 holes, Dufner made up some early ground. Is it enough to trigger a final-round rally from a guy used to the underdog role? Depends on the wind."If it stays like this (relatively calm), I think the guys will have a pretty good go of it and take the lead a little bit lower than it is now,'' he said. "But if the wind picks up it could push them back towards me a little bit, so maybe I'll have a chance going into tomorrow.''

11

Aug
Sat

Five questions on Saturday at the PGA

By Sam Weinman KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. -- We are two days into this wild, wacky ride known as the PGA Championship. What should we look forward to on Saturday at the Ocean Course? Let's start right in with our five most pressing questions of the day.How about this time for Tiger?There are no locks in majors anymore, and given Woods' difficulty in piecing together 72 holes at the Masters, U.S. Open, and British Open, we are reluctant to say he is anything more than a promising contender heading into the weekend. But now that we've covered our you-know-whats, let's just say that there's a lot to like about the way Woods is playing. His putting has been brilliant, good enough for 23 one-putts through two days. And as a shotmaker, no player is better equipped to handle the myriad challenges the fierce Ocean Course winds present. Sure, a lot can go wrong on this golf course -- and quickly -- but given the steady progress Woods has made under Sean Foley, one has to think it's only a matter of time before Woods arrives at a 15th major title.What's the story behind the Tiger-Vijay pairing?Singh and Woods have a long and complicated history, and not only because they were at one point jockeying for the top spot in the world ranking (before Tiger's most recent struggles, Singh was the last player to supplant Woods atop the world ranking, in September 2004). By all accounts, they've never been close. There was the famous incident in 2000, when Singh's caddie, Paul Tesori, wore a hat that said "Tiger Who?" to the first tee of Singh's Presidents Cup singles match against Woods. Woods went on to win the match, and admitted later the gesture motivated him. If another Wood-Singh pairing at the Tour Championship a few years ago is any indication, the two probably won't chat much during waits on the tee. That day, as the story goes, Woods wished Singh luck before the pairing teed off. Singh response was brief. "Titleist 1," he said.Will conditions be as tough as they were on Friday?The early indications are no. Winds are down enough that a handful of players, including Luke Donald and Jason Dufner, are a couple under par (Thomas Bjorn is also two under, with five birdies against three bogeys), and forecast doesn't call for it to be much worse. A bigger concern is thunderstorms. There's a 30 to 40-percent chance for most of the day, which could lead to the first delays of the week. And with a 3 p.m. start, there's the question of whether the third round is even completed on Saturday.How's the battle for Ryder Cup spots shaping up?If you're Hunter Mahan (ninth on points list), Rickie Fowler (12th), or Brandt Snedeker (13th) all of whom needed a big week to qualify on points and ended up missing the cut, it wasn't a good PGA. If you're Steve Stricker (10th), Jim Furyk (11th), and Dustin Johnson (14th), you're at least in a position to strengthen your case over the weekend. On the European side, European captain Jose Maria Olazabal has to like what he's seeing from Ian Poulter, whose a shot off the lead at three under. The bigger question is Padraig Harrington, who hasn't missed a Ryder Cup since 1997, and probably needs a win or something close to it to merit consideration from Olazabal. He starts Saturday six strokes back, which on this course, isn't much...Will we ever come back to Kiawah?Not if it's up to the media, who have made complaining about the long shuttle bus rides from Charleston into something of a competitive sport. And if we have another repeat of Friday, when the scoring average of 78 was the highest in the PGA since the event went to stroke play, players won't be pining to get back here, either. But look beyond the logistical challenges and the high scores and the Ocean Course has plenty of upside. A leader board loaded with elite players indicates that the golf course is succeedding in separating the best from merely the very good. And with 10 holes pitched against the water, it all looks great on TV. In other words, come Sunday evening, if you can get Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy in contention on a breathtaking course, no one is going to care that the media lost out on an extra half hour at the hotel bar.Follow @SamWeinman !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");

11

Aug
Sat

Weekend Tip: How to Play Tiger's Two Bunker Shots

Tiger Woods had two distinctly different bunker shots in the PGA Championship at Kiawah's Ocean Course Thursday that illustrate improvement in his overall bunker play. My colleague Pete McDaniel, a Golf Digest Contributing Editor,...

10

Aug
Fri

What the stats project for Day 3 at the PGA Championship

By Brett Avery Six notable second-round stats that indicate how the PGA Championship might unfold Saturday at Kiawah Island's Ocean Course, provided by Golf World contributing writer Brett Avery, who compiles the Rank and File statistical sections for the magazine's coverage of the major championships and other significant events. Carl Pettersson ranks 19th on tour this year in scoring average, but 29th on Saturdays. Photo by: The State/Getty Images 1. For more than a decade it was a foregone conclusion that Tiger Woods (69-71) had the capacity to stun people with his weekend play in major championships. Saturday and Sunday have become the litmus test, however, since losing the 2009 PGA to Y.E. Yang and then suffering his one-car accident a few months later. Woods averaged 70.396 on weekends in majors as a professional through the '09 PGA. But since returning to competition at the '10 Masters, he has averaged 71.083 in majors and 71.750 after those cuts. Woods has broken par just once in his last 12 weekend major rounds -- a 67 in the '11 Masters as he placed T-4. In those same dozen rounds he's averaged 72.333. So far this season on the PGA Tour, Woods ranks fifth in scoring average before the cut (69.98), but 33rd in third rounds (70.18) and 24th in final rounds (70.20). 2. Vijay Singh has been saying to anyone who will listen (or read his Tweets) for the last few months that he's been close to form. Singh's 71-69 at Kiawah Island makes four straight rounds in majors at par or better, following his 68-70 conclusion at last month's British Open at Royal Lytham. That is Singh's best such run since a seven-round streak encompassing every round at the '05 British at St. Andrews (69-69-71-72, T-5) and three of the '05 PGA at Baltusrol (70-67-69-74, T-10). Singh has not had back-to-back major top 10s since the '06 Masters (T-8) and U.S. (T-6). Related: 10 burning questions from the 2012 PGA Championship 3. Carl Pettersson (66-74) bogeyed three of his last four holes, the Ocean Course's sixth through eighth, yet kept a share of the lead at four-under 140. It is the fifth time the Swede has led through 36 holes in a PGA Tour event. He failed to convert at the '04 Honda Classic (T-13) and '05 Children's Miracle Network Classic (T-15) but he was successful in the '06 Memorial and '08 Wyndham. This season Pettersson won the RBC Heritage down the coast at Harbour Town on Hilton Head Island after seconds in the Sony Open in Hawaii and Houston. Pettersson ranks 19th on tour this year in scoring average (69.79) but his weakest day has been Saturday (70.07, ranked 29th). 4. The field scoring average for the second round was 78.107 when play was halted at 8:16 p.m. with Joost Luiten the only player on the course. Regardless of how Luiten plays the 18th hole Saturday morning, the second round will rank as the highest day in a PGA since the first round in 1958 at Llanerch (76.8). It also will be the highest round in a major since the closer of the '04 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills (78.727), followed by the first round of the '99 British at Carnoustie (78.314). This year's second round also finishes slightly below the first round of the 1993 Buick Invitational (78.383). Related: America's toughest golf courses 5. Sixteen different players have won the last 16 majors, a streak that kicked off with Padraig Harrington in the '08 PGA at Oakland Hills. Only four contenders in the top 23 at sundown Friday night can prevent that streak from reaching 17: Rory McIlroy (-2/T-5), Phil Mickelson (E/T-12), Graeme McDowell (E/T-12) and Keegan Bradley (+1/T-15). Of those 23 at one over or better, only nine have won majors. And in that streak of 16 victories, only one was secured with an over-par total: Webb Simpson shot one-over 281 in this year's U.S. Open at The Olympic Club. 6. Unless someone withdraws or is disqualified during the last 36 holes, a dozen players will make the cut in all four majors this year. Adam Scott (987) and Graeme McDowell (990) are the only two beating par of 992 for the first 14 rounds. Closest to them are Ian Poulter (995), Tiger Woods (997), Padraig Harrington (998) and Jim Furyk (1,001). Those standings indicate a player from outside the United States will post the lowest aggregate total for the 15th time since 1960, but the fourth time in the last five seasons. Harrington won the unofficial title in 2008 (1,139) followed by Ross Fisher (1,138), Mickelson (1,130) and Charl Schwartzel (1,118). Two rounds of par 72 at Kiawah Island would put Scott at 1,131. Follow @BWAvery !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");

10

Aug
Fri

Semifinal matches set at U.S. Women's Amateur

By Brendan Mohler CLEVELAND, Ohio -- After a morning of thunderstorms and an afternoon of birdies, the semifinalists are set at the U.S. Women’s Amateur at The Country Club. Twenty-year-old Nicole Zhang, who took...