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09

Aug
Thu

Scott gets back on the major horse at Kiawah

By Bill Fields Follow @billfields1 !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"); KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. -- Get back on the horse. Get back in the game. However you want to phrase what Adam Scott needed to do in the first round of the 94th PGA Championship, he did it.Photo: David Cannon/Getty Images In his first major-championship round since losing the British Open last month in a hard-to-watch meltdown at Royal Lytham & St. Annes, Scott most importantly got back into contention. He shot a tidy, four-under 68 at the Ocean Course Thursday afternoon in the freshening breeze off the Atlantic Ocean to trail Carl Pettersson by two shots after 18 holes and position himself well for another crack at winning his first major title. Related: 10 burning PGA Championship questions Although Scott had last week's WGC-Bridgestone Invitational to help him decompress from the golf calamity he endured in England, this was, as Rickie Fowler might put it, truly "go time" to start moving on. "I think it was a pretty good round of golf," Scott said. "I wasn't feeling 100 percent with it all out there, but I controlled my game nicely, managed it well. My short game was sharp when it needed to be, which is going to be important because it's just a hard golf course and you're not going to hit every green." Related: Sirak: The train wrecks we can't help but watch Scott was buoyed not only by his solid start but also the vibe outside the ropes, where many are hoping Scott will redeem himself at a major, perhaps this week. "The support has been tremendous from the fans," Scott said. "Obviously I think all the golfers would have been watching the Open and it's nice to hear that support. It's nice that they want to see me play well, and I want to play well for them coming out and watching me."

09

Aug
Thu

Media: 'Ppl watch Phil to see what...he is gonna do next!'

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"); Ian Baker-Finch called the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, S.C., "a bucket-list course," though he should have provided a caveat: Only if the conditions are as benign as they were for the first round of the PGA Championship on Thursday. "I could blow in the anemometers and get more than what's blowing out here," Billy Kratzert said on the TNT telecast. The weather failed to cooperate, at least according to those of us who would prefer seeing it played under more penal conditions, particularly in a major championship. A sunny day with negligible wind might have made for a hum-drum afternoon of viewing were it not for Phil Mickelson's remarkable Houdini act. Phil, as he is wont to do, put the thrill into the telecast, somehow salvaging a round of 73 despite spending much of the day in places where hope goes to die. He hit only four fairways and seven greens. "I've seen a lot of really good illusionists," Gary McCord said after one of Mickelson's magical saves. "This is the best illusionist I've seen for a while now." Said Peter Kostis, when Mickelson saved par from an impossibly difficult lie on the 17th hole: "He's got so much talent and so much imagination in the short-game area. I don't know that anybody can play the repertoire of shots he has." Tour pro Parker McLachlin summed it up best via Twitter: "People watch Tiger because of the incredible things he can do with the ball... Ppl watch Phil to see what the hell he is gonna do next!"

09

Aug
Thu

An older (maybe even wiser) Daly resurfaces

By Dave Kindred Follow @DaveKindred !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");KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C.  -- Ye gods, he's an old man now, 46 in ordinary years, and who knows the number in John Daly years. And he's teased us before. So the 68 he put up in the first round of the PGA Championship may be just the usual prelude to meltdown. Here's the thing, though. This one felt different. Every drive big and dead in the middle. Every 3-wood, a missile flying where he looked. Made every makeable putt. Did nothing goofy, unless you count those screaming orange pants.John Daly hits his shot out of the rough on the 12th hole. (Photo by Getty Images) He said later that his most important shot of the day was his first. Killed that drive 300-something, leaving a lob wedge to the 396-yard hole. Set the tone for the long morning's work in the sun and steam of the Lowcountry by the Atlantic. "Grip It 'n Rip It." Those words are on his bag, right under "1991 PGA Champion" and "1995 Open Champion." Vestigial reminders of the artist once known as John Daly.Related: Comparing Jeremy Lin's meteoric rise to that of John Daly.He liked that first tee shot. I liked the drive at the 11th, the par 5 listed at 593 yards Wednesday. There, the man marking driving distance walked past the 280 and the 290 painted in blue in the rough, and past the 300 and past the 310 and stopped alongside Daly's ball."Whatcha got?" I said."From the tee? Or to the hole?" he said."Both.""Three-eleven. Two fifty-three."While his playing partners, David Toms and Shaun Micheel, laid up with their seconds, Daly waited for the green to clear, as he had waited on both earlier par 5s and would wait later on the last of the long ones. Daly has plush-toy head covers, a lion's head, a cartoon in sunglasses. He chose the lion's head, the 3-wood. And flat nailed it. To 20 feet. And made the putt for an eagle. He was four-under par, his name on the leader board, and for all the clown signs -- screaming pants, comic head covers, his surfer-boy bleached blond hair -- here was an earnest, skilled workman doing good stuff.Related: John Daly analyzes Bubba Watson's swingEven more than the eagle at the 11th, I liked the birdie at the 13th. At the 12th, he'd made a bogey after leaving a wedge shot short and three-putting from off the front. With Daly, there's always that question: is this the mistake that lights the fuse to the implosion? At the 13th, he answered with a wedge at the stick, 10 feet short. That shot caused me to advise Tweeters around the universe, "If he makes putt, I say he's playing his best in forever."He made it. But best in forever?Best in a while. His T-5 in the PGA Tour's alternate event last week -- the Reno-Tahoe Open opposite the WGC at Firestone -- was only his second top-10 finish on the tour in the last five years. However good the day's work was, Daly said it was only a continuation of what he'd been doing without being much noticed."It's kind of been building up for the last five or six weeks," he said.  Only one bad hole in Canada a couple weeks ago, he said. Best ball-striking all year at the British the week before, he said. Before that, finished fourth in Qatar, on the European Tour. "So I'm getting a lot of confidence," he said. "I'm just hitting the ball solid."A bogey at the impossible 14th -- a 238-yard par-3 with ocean breezes and a table-top green -- and a birdie at the 581-yard 16th -- driver, 3-wood to the edge -- brought Daly in at 68 and gave reporters another opportunity to ask the old man the resurrection questions, though in words such as, "How far are you, John . . ." And leaving it for him to figure out the end of the sentence."I don't think I'm that far," he said. "I don't think any of us are that are fighting to get our cards or fighting to win or whatever." He thinks of himself as a journeyman, not a star. He has lost his right to play on the PGA Tour and now depends on the kindnesses of strangers offering exemptions into their tournaments. "You sit by the phone," he said, and he said it without melancholy, without bitterness. A fact. He last mattered in a big way in another century. Now he plays in Qatar. "We're never ever that far," he said. "I just believe if I keep telling myself, I'll get where I want to be instead of being negative about it."He defined where he wants to be. "I want to be here, playing our tour. I want to be like everybody else, in the top 50 and getting that free money in the World Golf Championships, and be in all the majors and getting sponsors, big, big sponsors, and stuff like that." He did not say, perhaps because it hurt too much, perhaps because he knows he's 46 and on the wrong side of time -- he did not say, "I want what I used to have."What Daly has, even if it exists in some diminished measure, is a gift of hand-eye coordination that astonishes us all. Anyone else who took the driver around so far as to brush the clubhead against his left-hand pants pocket might wind up with a rash of orthopedic calamities. But Daly does it so smoothly, so swiftly, and with such power as to bring the breath in a gasp from any eyewitness. "Get IN THE HOLE!" a fan shouted in the wake of Daly's drive on the 16th.  At that moment, it seemed possible, though the hole was 581 yards away.On this day, he heard such encouragements around the course. For all that he has lost, he somehow has not lost the galleries. His has been a train wreck of a life, talent squandered in addictions to alcohol, gambling, and bad marriages. He says it's all better now. A real home life. A son he's home-schooling. Daughters living with him.  A "special lady," whose name is Anna, who walked with him yesterday, her shorts a short-short version of his orange pants. "I just feel like my whole family is a lot closer and I don't have to worry about them as much as I used to," he said. "When you've got everybody together, it just makes you feel more comfortable and more at ease in your own life."So, today, a 68.Tomorrow, who knows?"I just don't want to get too up or too down," he said. "It's just the first round. But I like where I'm at, and I like the way I'm playing, and I like the way I'm feeling. So just go out and just play and have fun."Stay tuned.

09

Aug
Thu

Zhang upsets top-seeded Kim at U.S. Women's Amateur

By Brendan Mohler Follow @BrendanMohlerGW !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"); CLEVELAND -- Nicole Zhang of Canada squeezed out a 1-up victory over Hyo-Joo Kim, the medalist and 3rd-ranked female amateur in the world, during the round of...

09

Aug
Thu

With some old short-game magic, Woods moves up the leader board

By Pete McDanielKIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. -- Tiger Woods' once-vaunted short game made a long-awaited (by Woods and his fans) reappearance in the opening round of the 94th PGA Championship Thursday at the Ocean Course. Woods saved shots five times after missing eight greens en route to a 69 that left him three shots off the lead of Carl Pettersson.Tiger escapes a greenside bunker on the 14th hole. (Photo by Getty Images)"I played well today, and anything in the 60s is going to be a good start in a major championship, and I'm right there,'' he said.Related: Try Tiger's drill for delicate pitch shotsTwo areas in particular -- putting (22 total) and bunker play (three sand saves)--seemed to be finally on the mend, perhaps a carryover from last week's final round at the Bridgestone Invitational when he shot 66 to gain a top-10 finish after struggling on the greens most of the week. Perhaps it's even a harbinger of things to come.    "I putted well on the weekend, made a few adjustments Friday night last week, and felt like I hit a lot of good putts,'' Woods said. "I started the ball on my start lines again and I think I made six putts over 20 feet out there or something like that on the weekend, which is good. I came here with the same thoughts, same feels, and I made a few today.''Woods had a little less luck hitting his start lines off the tee, finding just 9 of 14 fairways. Several times his ball wound up in one of the gazillion waste bunkers and once, on the tricky par-4 fourth hole, in a hazard. The latter was the result of an errant fairway wood that seemed to ride a right-to-left breeze off the ocean. Related: How Tiger's swing has changedExpectations were that Woods would be in a much more aggressive mode than last month at Royal Lytham, where he eschewed the driver for long irons and fairway woods from the tee. It appeared he hit driver most of the time on the long holes on a course softened by heavy rains earlier in the week and last night. Those out early were on full attack, including Woods' playing partner and defending champion Keegan Bradley, who opened birdie-eagle and finished with a 68. It definitely caught Woods' attention."Well, I mean, geez, I'm playing with Keegan and he's three-under through two,'' Woods said. "And you look up on the board, some guys are four under through six; a bunch of guys are three under through five and a couple of them were three under through three. So, it's one of those days where everyone's going to shoot six-, seven- or eight-under par, but the wind kicked up a little bit and it changed things quite a bit.''It did indeed. It forced Woods into his bag of greenside tricks again at the par-4 ninth (his final hole of the day) after his approach shot came up short of the green, leaving him an awkward pitch over the corner of a deep bunker. Laying the blade of his 60-degree wedge wide open, Woods nipped the ball perfectly and sent it flying toward the flagstick where it took one bounce and checked two feet from the cup."The lie was down grain ever so slightly on the down slope,'' he said of the shot. "And because it was down grain and it was soft, I could play the shot. If it had been into the grain, I would have pitched it to the right 15 feet and tried to make the putt.''Last week Woods spent most of his post-round practice sessions trying to discipline a putter with behavior problems. When he finished his brief interview Thursday, he said he was going to put in "a little work on the range, clean up a few things.''The short game didn't need to be one of them.

09

Aug
Thu

A new attitude goes a long way for McIlroy in first round

By Matthew Rudy Follow @ManifoldDestiny !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"); KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. -- It seems like ages ago, but Rory McIlroy actually was the hottest player on the planet in early 2012. Three straight top-three finishes to start the season, including a win, pushed him to No. 1 in the world, and the slight Northern Irishman was poised to challenge for his second major after two rounds at Augusta. But he vanished on the weekend, shooting 77-76 to tie for 40th. McIlroy then missed the cut at the U.S. Open, and disappeared again at the British after an opening 67, playing the last three rounds in 11-over to tie for 60th. Luke Donald and Tiger Woods have since passed him in the rankings. McIlroy spent the last month grinding on some full swing adjustments, but didn't start to see it come together until last week, before the Bridgestone, when noted short-game guru and two-time PGA champion Dave Stockton offered some advice almost as an aside to the work they were doing on McIlroy's putting setup and routine. "I told him he needed to smile more," said Stockton, who has worked with McIlroy for more than a year. "Physically, he's really good, and he's comfortable on the greens. He's not thinking too many mechanical thoughts. But I told him I wanted him to go out and enjoy it and keep a more even demeanor. The players out here are too good to give shots away by getting down on yourself. This is supposed to be fun." McIlroy responded, shooting 67-68 on the weekend to tie for fifth at Firestone, and he brought Stockton's brand of upbeat serenity with him to South Carolina. After low-key sessions with Stockton on Tuesday and Wednesday -- and taking a break from playing full 18-hole practice rounds to conserve energy in the thick low country heat -- McIlroy went out and shot a bogey-free 67 to sit one shot off the early lead. "It's definitely helped," McIlroy said. "I started to feel quite comfortable last week, and started to hit the ball the way I usually do. It gave me a good bit of confidence, and that was something I could take into here."

09

Aug
Thu

Close matches result in heartbreak at Women's Amateur

By Brendan Mohler Follow @brendanmohlergw !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"); Golf is a cruel game. This morning’s second round of match play at the U.S. Women’s Amateur was full of constant reminders that the game of golf,...

09

Aug
Thu

Sabbatini takes time to enjoy Kiawah surroundings

By Dave Shedloski 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"); Photo: Ross Kinnaird/Getty ImagesKIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. -- It's not always a good walk spoiled at golf's toughest tournaments. The pros do stop and smell the flowers -- or in this case, mine for sea shells. As he sauntered off the tee at the par-15 16th hole Thursday morning at Kiawah Island's Ocean Course, Rory Sabbatini suddenly stopped in the sandy walkway, bent down, and dug out a small oval sea shell. He brushed the sand off it and then handed it to his caddie, Mick Doran. Related: How to make the PGA Championship cooler "That's a great one," Sabbatini gushed. What made it so great? "It's just a really nice looking shell. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," Sabbatini, known for his edgy demeanor, said with a smile. This is the PGA Championship. "Glory's Last Shot" and all. But golf also is meant to be enjoyed, even if it is a major. "It's a beautiful day in a beautiful place. Might as well enjoy the walk," Sabbatini said.

09

Aug
Thu

David Fay: Tiger's Bonehead Move

In a year of major collapses, revisiting what could have been Tiger Woods' most regrettable decision

09

Aug
Thu

Thursday's Birdies and Bogeys

Who were the winners and losers on Thursday at the PGA Championship? Let's take a closer look with our first round edition of birdies and bogeys