By Brian Wacker
We’re used to the Jordan Spieth experience by now. Saturday, it was in peak form at Bay Hill.

And for the third time in his last four starts, the 27-year-old will have a chance to end a nearly four-year winless drought after a three-under 69 that leaves him two back of leader Lee Westwood through three rounds of the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Of course, when it comes to Spieth it’s never just about what he shot, it’s how he did it—the birdie-ace start; a snipe into the water on the third and 32-footer to save par anyway; a hole-out from the bunker for birdie on the seventh, to name just a few.

But he was hardly alone. Bryson DeChambeau finally took on the sixth hole, Jazz Janewattananond also made a hole-in-one and a 47-year-old Brit who hasn’t won on the PGA Tour in over a decade has the lead. Moving day is a lazy trope for Saturdays on tour but there really was a ton of action on a wild Saturday at the house The King built. Here are our observations from the third round.

Is THIS finally it for Jordan Spieth?
Eddie Pepperell really nailed it when he so eloquently put it to the Twitterverse, “It helps when your putting IS A F***ING JOKE!!!” More subtly, he also noted how Spieth is using the low fade off the tee, particularly on holes where he’s not necessarily comfortable.

As for the putter, it eventually cooled, but what a show it was, especially through the first seven holes when Spieth took just seven putts. On the par-3 second, he didn’t even need the flat stick, holing a 5-iron from 223 yards for an ace.

He hit just three greens and one fairway during that stretch, and he wasn’t much better off the tee the rest of the day, but when you make over 140 feet of putts it almost doesn’t matter.

There were hiccups—a miss from four feet for bogey on 14 and another from six feet for bogey on 17—but Spieth still picked up more than a stroke-and-a-half on the field on the greens on the day. And he did it playing most of the day solo after playing partner Justin Rose withdrew on the fourth hole because of a bad back.

It’s one thing to play a round without a playing partner, it’s another to have to do it when in contention on the weekend. There are some players who like playing alone. Spieth is not one of those players.

“The pace was really good for a while, until we got into kind of the middle of the back nine,” he said. “I want to say like 12 I started to kind of catch up and then I think it really—I have never been in this situation before, so I didn’t really know what to do. But it’s kind of hard when you get to a spot and wait a long time.

Mike Ehrmann
Rory McIlroy prepares to putt on the 11th green during the third round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

“I’ll go out on the course to hit shots sometimes at home, but I end up throwing two balls down and trying to play a game but then I just end up kind of bailing on it. I don’t enjoy playing by myself.”

Being—and staying—in contention certainly helped.

Ror(E) still hanging around
With so many fireworks throughout the afternoon, it was easy at times to forget that Rory McIlroy was even playing, never mind hovering near the top of the leader board.

Making just one birdie through his first 15 holes didn’t help. Neither did his wedge play. Just 135 yards out on the first hole, McIlroy missed the green left. Talk about foreshadowing.

Poor wedges on the 10th and 15th holes ruined any chances for birdies there, while another led to a bogey on 11. Then a final dagger for McIlroy when he missed a five-footer to save par on the last.

The even-par day leaves him five strokes back—hardly insurmountable—but he’ll need to be a lot sharper after hitting just half his greens and losing more than a stroke to the field in putting.

Sam Greenwood
Bryson DeChambeau smiles as he tosses his golf ball on the 16th hole during the third round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

“Any of the shots that I hit today that weren’t what I was looking for was just indecisiveness or not fully committing to what I’m trying to do,” he said. “I think that’s sort of the goal [Sunday], just to trust it a little more and if good shots come, they come and if not, then at least I gave my best chance.”

Bryson finally did it!
After teasing us all week, Bryson DeChambeau finally pulled driver and went for it on the par-5 sixth hole. He missed the green, with his tee shot landing about 70 yards away, then he left his pitch short of the putting surface, but who cares?

It was great theater and great fun, as evidenced by DeChambveau throwing his arms up like he’d just hit a game-winning homer at Yankee Stadium.

“I felt like a kid again,” he said. “It was exciting. It was almost like winning a tournament.

“I got the same chills and feeling when I saw it clear and there was no splash, it was like, Yes. I gave the fans what they wanted.”

The roar was almost as loud as the one Spieth got for his ace. Golf is supposed to be fun, after all. The rest of DeChambeau’s day wasn’t so bad, either. A four-under 68 and no shortage of entertainment along the way.

Most importantly, his bomb on the sixth led to birdie and he’s just one shot back.

Can an American win at Bay Hill?
It’s been six years since an American has won at Bay Hill (Matt Every, who successfully defended his title in 2015) and if you take Tiger Woods out of the mix you have to go back to 2005 to find the last one who did before Every.

Meanwhile, an Englishman (Tyrrell Hatton), Italian (Francesco Molinari), Northern Irishman (McIlroy), three Aussies (Marc Leishman, Jason Day, Rod Pampling), a Scot (Martin Laird), a South African (Ernie Els) and a Fijian (Vijay Singh) have all won there.

That speaks to the course, conditions or sometimes both. It’s not simply a bomber’s paradise.

But the drought for the U.S. could end Sunday with a handful of Americans lurking close behind.

Perhaps most surprising, though, is the Brit who is leading. Westwood, a former World No. 1 who will turn 48 next month, weirdly has just one career top-10 at Bay Hill. That came 15 years ago when he tied for fifth.

He was brilliant on Saturday, though, brandishing the kind of iron play that long ago vaulted him to No. 1 in the world and has led to a slew of titles around the globe in what has been an illustrious career. The eagle-par-birdie finish capped a 65, a career-best at Bay Hill, and now the only question is whether he can hold off the bevvy of challengers behind him that include DeChambeau, Spieth, McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood, defending champion Hatton and Day.

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Bryson DeChambeau has been toying with the idea of trying to drive the green on the par-5 6th hole at Bay Hill all week. He attempted the straight-line carry—to the front edge from the tee box, it’s about 340 yards in the air—in the practice round but hit two balls in the water. The wind was slightly into him that day, and he said he’d only go for it during the Arnold Palmer Invitational competition if he got the right wind.

He got it on Saturday. With a 10-ish mph wind directly at his back, DeChambeau unleashed a 370-yard bomb on an ultra-aggressive line—not quite on line with the green, but just right of a bunker not far from it. His ball easily carried the water and ran through the fairway into rough. It was the longest drive on the hole since 2003.

370 yards. ??

The longest drive on the 6th hole since 2003.#QuickHits pic.twitter.com/zkL2jlU8S3

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 6, 2021

Another look at the line @B_DeChambeau took over the lake at No. 6.

TOURCast: https://t.co/To4aYMMkXU pic.twitter.com/coLrRHOOTa

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 6, 2021

He then pitched just short of the green, leaving himself a 40-footer for eagle that he cosied up to tap-in range. One of the easiest birdies you’ll ever see.

It was an electric moment—directly after impact, DeChambeau put his arms up in the air like a slugger celebrating a walk-off homer. He then leaned forward to make sure the ball found dry land, then threw his hands up one more time for good measure.

DeChambeau had been taking some heat on social media for talking about going for it and then not doing it in either of the first two rounds. Now, there’s not really much for the haters to say.

The post Watch: Bryson DeChambeau (sort of) tries to drive green on par-5 6th at Arnold Palmer Invitational appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Daniel Rapaport
ORLANDO, FLA. — Oh, how we’ve missed the Jordan Spieth roars.

The three-time major winner still hasn’t won in nearly four years, but that could well change this week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational—especially if he keeps delivering electric moments like he just did at Bay Hill.

Spieth, who is playing this event for the first time in his career, started the day with a rather conventional birdie—drive in the fairway, approach to 20 feet, putt finds the bottom.

He then prompted what might be the loudest roar on the COVID-era PGA Tour.

The ace took him to eight under, just one back of the lead, setting himself up for another huge week and a chance to get back in the winner’s circle for the first time since the 2017 Open Championship.

Good start to Moving Day for @JordanSpieth. pic.twitter.com/YTHHRgMnFS

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 6, 2021

He proceeded to snipe his next shot left into the water on 3, only to make a 31-footer to save par.

You can deny it all you want, but the man is back.

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By Dave Shedloski
The last full measure of what we might consider “normalcy” on the PGA Tour occurred a year ago at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando, where England’s Tyrrell Hatton asserted himself as a world-class player just a few days before the world stopped turning.

The term “business as usual” truly applied to the events that unfolded last March at Bay Hill Club & Lodge. There were smatterings of talk about the spread of the COVID-19 virus, which hadn’t yet earned its insidious reputation as a pandemic. But it was moving in that direction. There was an undercurrent of uncertainty wafting throughout the property, but it was keeping a low profile. No one really knew what to think. No one knew what to believe.

When tournament week commenced exactly one year ago, on March 2, 2020, there were only 100 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the United States and nine reported deaths from the virus—though the numbers were likely far greater but not detected because of a scarcity of adequate testing. Casualties worldwide were 3,300, predominantly in Asia. “We’re dealing with clearly an emerging infectious disease that has now reached outbreak proportions and likely pandemic proportions,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that day.

That same day, the PGA Tour issued a statement saying that officials were “closely monitoring all available information related to the continued spread of the Novel Coronavirus COVID-19” and that it was “establishing additional protocols to promote the health and safety of all participants and fans at our tournament.”

The following day, Augusta National Golf Club joined the chorus of concern, though club chairman Fred Ridley, in a memo to the media, asserted that there was not yet any change in status of the Masters Tournament or the accompanying preliminary events, the Augusta National Women’s Amateur and the Drive, Chip and Putt National Finals.

Golf already had taken a hit, however. Three LPGA events in Asia had been cancelled, as were the first four events of the PGA Tour’s developmental circuit in China. Also, two April European Tour events were being postponed.

But at Bay Hill, the band played on. The grounds were teeming with patrons. They bought food and beverages and perused apparel and souvenirs in the merchandise tent and thought nothing about the person who was serving it to them. They asked for autographs and players obliged. People shook hands. They talked freely in close quarters. They took pictures by the 13-foot bronze statue of Arnold Palmer that shadows the first tee. No one wore a mask. No one thought to do so. Or felt the need.

Keyur Khamar
An excited Sunday crowd on 18 at Bay Hill watches as Tyrrell Hatton gets set to win his first PGA Tour title.

As usual, the media quizzed players about the first major of the year. The Masters might not begin until the back nine on Sunday, but discussion of it begins in earnest when the tour moves into Florida. Phil Mickelson was quizzed about his possible interest in the proposed high-dollar Premier Golf League. Brooks Koepka was searching for his golf game, which had gone AWOL, scuttled by injuries.

Still, there was something on the wind.

The Olympic Golf competition, impacted in 2016 by the Zika virus that prompted a slew of top players to skip golf’s return to the Summer Games in Rio, was on more than a few players’ minds. (And, of course, the Tokyo Olympics eventually would be postponed until 2021.)

Rory McIlroy, ranked No. 1 in the world at the time and one of the players who skipped the Rio Games, said, “It’s something that we’re trying to stay on top of. If the organizers and the Olympic Committee believe it’s safe enough that athletes can go and compete in the Games, then you have to take their word for it.”

“It seems a bit overblown at the moment,” Adam Scott added, though he, too, was among the players who did not compete in 2016. “We don’t know which medical experts in the field to believe. It’s just, we’ll have to wait and see.”

Scott wasn’t trying to deny the dangers of the virus. But in early March, there wasn’t much known about the coronavirus, and some of the information being disseminated was conflicting.

Zach Johnson was one player who knew people who were starting to worry. He had given Bay Hill tickets to longtime family friends, but on the eve of the tournament they cancelled, citing fears of the virus. He understood. They are in their 60s and at a higher mortality risk.

Michael Reaves/R&A
Days before COVID-19 would turn the U.S. upside down, Brendon Todd and other players were still giving fans autographs and high fives.

There were others on the grounds unsure of just how to feel. “Air” handshakes were offered by a few acquaintances, jokingly, nervously, as a way to acknowledge that, yes, there might be something to all this coronavirus talk. Call it the first gestures of social distancing.

Overall, though, there was very little of that, very little worry, very few hints of what was to come for golf, for America, for the world. The game was still the thing. The tournament and the competition went on without a hitch, and the atmosphere was by almost all accounts, strikingly normal—at least in the context of what we know now.

Again, there was something, subtly, on the wind. Oh, and also there was just wind. A lot of it. Dry, gusting, turf-toughening wind. It was present from the start of the tournament, but nature jacked up the fans to frappe on the weekend, and scores got scrambled. Hatton’s four-under 284 total was the highest winning score in tournament history, and he became the first player since Geoff Ogilvy in the 2006 U.S. Open to win despite failing to break par in each of the last two rounds. There was one round in the 60s over the weekend, by Matthew Fitzpatrick, who shot a final-round 69.

As is tradition, media members shared a toast of Ketel One vodka—Arnie’s preferred beverage—with the new champion. The Players, the PGA Tour’s lucrative flagship event, was days away. So was the world being turned upside down.

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By Dave Shedloski
Rory McIlroy converted a meaningless birdie Wednesday morning on the 18th hole at Bay Hill Club on the eve of the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Of course, what birdies are ever meaningful before a tournament, unless it secures a victory in the pro-am?

As it stood, the birdie resulted in McIlroy shooting a 2-under 70 on the Bay Hill’s Championship Course. His pro-am team finished well off the pace.

But McIlroy, the No. 1 player in the world, was keeping track all the same. Because he needed a 68.

That was the target score that his caddie, Harry Diamond, set for him when their pro-am round began at 6:50 a.m. It’s part of a regular bet the two friends have from week to week. It keeps McIlroy focused as he prepares for the start of an event instead of just slapping it around while entertaining his pro-am partners.

“I always try to play a game with Harry, my caddie. He sets me a score to shoot that day and says, right, If you shoot four-under or better I’ll buy you dinner, and if you don’t get to that, you have to buy me dinner,” McIlroy explained. “And we do that every Wednesday and it just, it keeps me concentrating on every shot and over every putt and it’s something that I need to do because as you see out there, it’s very easy to get distracted and talk to people and basically hit the ball everywhere. So it just keeps me sort of on the straight and narrow.”

McIlroy, who won the Arnold Palmer Invitational two years ago after a final-round 64, thought he had shot 69, but he made five birdies and three bogeys on Wednesday for 70. Thus, he was buying Diamond dinner Wednesday night. No word on the winner’s choice of eatery.

Nevertheless, McIlroy enjoys the challenge and that it proves useful to his preparations.

“Yeah, Wednesdays are pretty hard to concentrate at times because you’re trying to find that balance between treating it like a practice round and trying to get something out of the day, instead of just being a host for your amateurs and sort of trying to get them around,” he said.

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By Dave Shedloski
With a blazing 8-under-par 64 in the final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational last March, Francesco Molinari was riding the biggest wave of his career. His come-from-behind victory was his fourth in a 10-month span, a run that included his first major title, the 2018 Open Championship at Carnoustie.

A month after blitzing Bay Hill Club’s Championship Course to overcome a five-stroke deficit to Matthew Fitzpatrick, Molinari appeared poised to add an even bigger prize – a green jacket. The Italian standout took a two-stroke lead into the final round of the Masters, and he still led with eight holes to go.

Then he found disaster, as many would-be Masters contenders have done in the past, dumping a tee shot into Rae’s Creek at the par-3 12th to suffer a double bogey. Yet another watery mistake at the 15th ended his bid as Tiger Woods, playing in the same group, took advantage of the errors and went on to win his fifth Masters.

Back to defend his title at Bay Hill, Molinari, 37, is in search of the form he displayed 12 months ago. It has not been easy. Not that it ever is.

“Yeah, I’m a little bit behind where I was planning to be, obviously, at this time,” he said Tuesday at Bay Hill. “The start of the season has not been as good as I hoped for, but it’s only the start. There’s been a few physical things and technical things, but I’m working through it. I think I’ve got some good planning for the next few weeks building up to Augusta and some good direction to work towards. And, yeah, just looking forward to being out, play 18 a day and hopefully getting sharper day by day.”

Ranked 26th in the world – after leaving here last year No. 7 – Molinari, it’s not unfair to say, has struggled since he stumbled at Augusta National. He said it himself. The start of the season hasn’t been what he hoped for.

His best finish this season is T-22 at the WGC-HSBC Champions in China. In his last four starts, he missed three straight cuts before finishing T-53 at the WGC-Mexico Championship, which doesn’t have a cut. He currently ranks 168th in the FedEx Cup standings.

It hasn’t been all bad since the Masters, though. He made the cut in the following three majors with a tie for 16th in the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach and a T-11 finish in his title defense in the Open Championship at Royal Portrush, in Northern Ireland.

Perhaps a return to Bay Hill, where he’s finished in the top-10 in four of seven appearances, will ignite his game. He enjoys the course, even though he considers it more of a bomber’s paradise. Ball striking, he said, has largely been his problem the past few months, and the fact that he is 206th in driving accuracy and 210th in greens in regulation validate the assessment.

“I try to be honest with myself,” he said. “I think in golf it’s never too easy because there’s a part of you that always makes you think you’re close even when you’re not. I wouldn’t say I’m particularly close right now. I would be, my expectations going into the next few weeks are really to build up some momentum and get better day by day and not really thinking too far ahead of myself. There’s work that I need to do to be physically better and fitter than I am right now and technically to be sharper. So that’s the plan for the next few weeks.

“But not always results in golf are directly linked to where you are exactly in a certain moment,” Molinari added. “So, results might come earlier than I think, but the plan is still no matter what the results are going to be, to work hard the next month and get better.”

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By Dave Shedloski
Bay Hill Club in Orlando and Latrobe (Pa.) Country Club were the twin golf homes of the late Arnold Palmer. In honour of what would have been his 90th birthday on Tuesday, friends, acquaintances and everyday fans of the legendary golfer will gather on the practice ranges of the two golf facilities to hit ceremonial shots at precisely 7 a.m., the time of Palmer’s birth on Sept. 10, 1929.

That’s just one of several events planned to commemorate the life and career of arguably the most beloved figure in golf. Palmer died Sept. 25, 2016, at 87, but his immense legacy as a golfer and philanthropist continues to inspire.

On Sunday and Monday, the Arnold and Winnie Palmer Foundation hosted The Latrobe Classic, which benefits the Central for Fetal Surgery at Arnold Palmer Medical Center. The two-day event featured 18 holes of golf at Bay Hill on Sunday before participants boarded a chartered plane for Latrobe. Another 18 holes followed at Latrobe C.C., where Palmer learned the game while his father for many years served as superintendent and head professional.

A reception followed on Monday night at the club, where former PGA Tour pro and longtime Bay Hill member Robert Damron, now with Golf Channel, sat down with fellow tour player Sam Saunders, Palmer’s grandson, to reminisce on Palmer’s life and his impact on the game. Doc Giffin, who for 50 years served as Palmer’s right-hand man, also was present to offer his remembrances.

Giffin, who served as club chairman for several years, planned to hit a shot Tuesday morning in his friend’s honour. “I’ll swing as hard as I can, which isn’t saying much,” said Giffin, who celebrated his 90th birthday in November.

There will be other gestures both in Latrobe and Orlando, including a choreographed display of 90 lit umbrellas on the athletic field at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe. On a grander scale, the Empire State Building in New York will be lit in Arnold Palmer’s official umbrella colours of red, yellow, white and green in honour of, according to a press release, “the impact Palmer continues to have across the world.”

“My dad always said it was the greatest privilege to give back when possible, and the Arnold & Winnie Palmer Foundation is a testament to that,” said Amy Palmer Saunders, Palmer’s daughter and chair of the Arnold Palmer companies and the foundation. “That the Empire State Building is honouring his efforts with lighting on what would have been his 90th birthday is a tremendous honour, and one that he would have enjoyed.”

Golf Channel is planning a day of programming on Tuesday dedicated to Palmer, who was the co-founder of the 24-hour network.

The Palmer family will mark the occasion privately.

On that score, any visitors to Latrobe will have to be satisfied with seeing glimpses of Palmer’s boyhood golf course. Palmer’s office and the barn on the club grounds that serves as a warehouse for most of Palmer’s memorabilia have been closed for nearly a year.

Now retired, Giffin looks in on the office every so often, just in case. Most everything in Palmer’s office and workshop was as The King left it before he died.

Giffin misses his friend, of course, and he finds that many of his dreams include the man with whom he worked beside for five decades. “I seem to dream a lot more these days, and Arnold is in a lot of them,” he said. “Some of them make sense and some of them don’t. But they’re always good dreams.”

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He wasn’t going to be ceremonial, and he most definitely wasn’t going to countenance any trace of incompetence. He wasn’t going to put himself out there under the microscope to be dissected and picked at again like a cadaver. The last-ditch attempt to re-ignite his stalled and atrophying career with a Hail Mary spinal-fusion surgery was either going to make him whole or make him quit.

He can hedge and demur all he wants—and he has—but you can’t blame him for that when the journey has been so awkward and bumpy and, yes, mystifying. And even uncomfortable, for us as well as him, when you think back to that unfortunate traffic stop last May that resulted in his DUI arrest, truly a bottoming out for a man with so many gifts, so much ability and charisma.

Woods has said repeatedly he didn’t know what to expect in this latest comeback, how his body would hold up. Perfectly logical. But as Ernie Els said earlier this week, “Talent doesn’t leave people. Talent and grit and determination, that comes from inside.”

And Tiger knows this, too. Which is why he left the grounds of Bay Hill Club on Sunday night not hopeful or satisfied, but “a little agitated.” He was in this tournament, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, for 69 holes, striping irons, stalking the golf course, making a charge that electrified the swell of patrons who had come to see magic and were getting a fair dose of it.

Woods reacts to narrowly missing a birdie putt on the 15th green on Sunday. (Ryan Young)

“If I can play with no pain, and I can feel like I can make golf swings, I’ll figure it out,” he said after signing for a 69 that possessed far more effervescent elements than previous outings this year. “I’m starting to piece it together, tournament by tournament, and each tournament’s gotten a little crisper and a little bit better.”

And yet, he didn’t author the finish he wanted. A tie for fifth at 10-under 278 isn’t going to bring a copious amount of satisfaction to a man with 79 PGA Tour titles. He was, after all, closer to winning the week before, when he left a tying putt two feet short at the Valspar Championship.

On this steamy day, in a tournament he has won a record eight times, Woods finished eight strokes behind a rejuvenated Rory McIlroy, who is making a comeback himself, though not from the same depths of doubt and debilitation. But the performance Woods submitted at Bay Hill seemed more consequential, more dynamic than the week before at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course when he appeared to be spinning his wheels. He was managing his game, more or less, and not yet ready to let it flow through his hands and eyes and instincts.

Seven days later, in his former hometown, Woods had become comfortable and confident enough to attack, to go for the win, go for broke, if you want to conjure memories of Arnie.

“Overall I thought it was a clinic of ball-striking today except for two tee balls,” said Joe LaCava, Woods’ caddie.

LaCava was referring to a flare to the right that cost him a bogey at No. 9 and a double-cross left at 16 that cost him any chance to win, both with the driver in his hands. The second one, born of indecision, was the killer after he had rallied within a stroke of McIlroy and third-round leader Henrik Stenson after back-to-back birdies at 12 and 13. Woods knew what to do. He simply lost track of how he should do it, perhaps one of the only traces of rust from his nearly two-year hiatus.

“I didn’t decide what I was going to do,” he explained. “If I hit driver, I’ve got to fit it, I’ve got to cut it in there. And I was, in the back of my mind, I said, ‘Why don’t you just bomb it over the top [of the right corner]?’ And it was like a 315, 320 carry. And I bailed out and hit a bad shot, and that’s on me for not committing.”

Though Sunday was just his 18th competitive round of 2018, Woods wouldn’t blame it on lack of reps. He couldn’t. Woods has played four of the last five weeks, and in each of the last two, he climbed within a stroke of the lead. In the end, he didn’t have enough of a scoring kick, though he now knows without a doubt he has enough firepower.

Woods finished closer to first in Tampa, but at Bay Hill, he put together a comeback more reminiscent of the Tiger of old. (Ryan Young/PGA Tour)

And now the Masters awaits the first jewel of the season, the tournament he has been building towards methodically. Sure, he wanted to win a record ninth API. But his appetite is for the majors, or why else would he do this? Give this man four more majors, and he ties Jack Nicklaus with 18 for his career, and he passes Sam Snead for the most all-time tour titles. Nifty package all rolled together.

Woods plans to visit Augusta National Golf Club in the next two weeks before Masters week arrives. He hasn’t putted on bentgrass greens, he said, in two years. His last two trips to Augusta were dyspeptic episodes, to say the least: a meal and small talk at the Champions Dinner and then the agony of having to forego a bid for a fifth green jacket.

“I miss playing there. I’ve been there for the dinner and as great as that is, it’s frustrating knowing that I’m, I would have to say, young enough to play the event, where some of the other champions are not, and I just have not been able to physically do it,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of success there, too, so really looking forward to getting up there and doing a bit of work and getting a feel for the golf course and basically feel for playing that style of golf again.”

More hedging, which again is understandable given his absence from the tournament the last two years and three of the last four. Then there’s the fact that his last Masters’ win was 13 years ago.

But make no mistake, having played his last tournament before the year’s first major, he is better prepared for this challenge than he could have ever imagined or hoped for when he opted to return to the golfing grinder.

“If you would have given me this opportunity in December and January, I would have taken it in a heartbeat,” he said. “Everything was an unknown. I didn’t know what I was going to feel like, what I was going to do, what swing I was going to make. Especially Torrey Pines, was the rough going to be the same pain I was going to feel like I felt last year? I don’t know. But coming through that I’ve gotten a little better, a little bit sharper and I worked my way up there into the leaderboard back-to-back weeks and had a chance, which is nice.”

Nice? Sure. But this comeback is in no way an exercise in niceties. As he signed autographs after his media obligations, Woods smiled but also seethed. And that is a good thing.

“It is a good thing,” he agreed. “It means I care. And I do.”

Of course, he cares. He’s capable of more, and he knows it.

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By Dave Shedloski
ORLANDO – Tiger Woods ended his day with a low fist pump that he held for an extra few seconds. He was savouring the birdie putt he sank at the 18th hole at Bay Hill Club and what it meant.

Don’t count him out of the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

“That was a nice one to get. I figured that would probably get me within five or six of the lead,” Woods said after posting a 3-under 69 on the Championship Course at Bay Hill. “Right now, it’s four back, but those guys will make a couple birdies coming in. So, I’m within reach if I shoot a really, really low round tomorrow.”

Yes, he can. But, hey. Goals.

On a warm and breezy Saturday afternoon, Woods kept himself within hailing distance of the lead heading into Sunday’s final round with what is becoming a usual formula of uncanny scrambling interspersed with six birdies, including that 12-footer at the last. At 7-under 209, he is tied for 10th and trails Henrik Stenson by five shots after the Swede carded a 71.

Yes, Woods will likely need to find a deeper red than his traditional Sunday shirt if he hopes to win for a record ninth time in this event. Yes, he will have to blow past not only Stenson but also the likes of Rickie Fowler, Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose – the latter who was paired with Woods Saturday and bested him by two strokes. In all, Woods is one of 18 players within six shots of the lead.

Not the greatest odds, but at least his chances are within the realm of possibility.

“I’ve got a chance,” he agreed.

By the way, Woods has just one come-from-behind win after 54 holes at Bay Hill. It came in 2009 when he fired a closing 67 and edged Sean O’Hair by one stroke. He trailed by five strokes going into Sunday.

Well, what do you know?

He has a chance because his short game is bailing him out while he continues to struggle off the tee. Woods ranks fifth in strokes gained around the green and 12th in putting. Off the tee, he ranked 47th out of 77 players in the third round and is 67th overall, even though he hit nine of 14 fairways.

Woods seems to produce a SportsCenter highlight daily. This time it came at the par-5 16th hole, where he has yet to hit the fairway this week but continues to score. He drove into the right fairway bunker and very close to the lip. It appeared that laying up was his only option. But Woods grabbed a 5-iron and just cleared the lip, sending his ball to the back fringe, 19 feet from the cup. The eagle didn’t fall, but the gallery was swooning.

He derived more enjoyment, however, from some of his par saves. I think that my entire career I’ve always loved making those par putts and today at 14 it was a nice par putt. I don’t like making bogeys, I don’t like dropping shots because then I have to get it back.”

In general, he had few complaints. His back is holding up. He’s finding his scoring form, albeit the low round still eludes him.

“For me I’m just happy to be back playing again, competing, grinding out there and trying to work my way up the board, work my way around the golf course,” he said. “It feels good to be able to finally understand and feel that I can get a round again. I’m not really thinking as much as I was initially. I’m just playing shots, playing the holes, playing angles, where to miss the golf ball, all these things are becoming more intuitive, which is great. Because if you look at the last two days, I’ve missed the golf ball in the perfect position on almost every single shot. Sometimes maybe more conservative like I was yesterday because I wasn’t on, but I felt I missed in the correct spots on just about every single shot and today was the same thing.

“Like I said, I’m going to have to shoot a low one tomorrow and probably get a little bit of help,” he added. “But my responsibility is to go out and shoot a low one first.”

Hey. Goals.

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