By Joel Beall
You don’t see matches end after two holes often, but that’s how many holes it took Corey Conners to grab a win Wednesday at the WGC-Dell Technologies Matchplay.

That’s because Conners’ opponent, Paul Casey, conceded the first match of round-robin play. Casey actually won his first hole against Conners, his par besting Conners’ bogey. However, Casey hit two balls into the hazard on the second hole and soon withdrew from the match, citing injury. Casey’s agent told Golf Digest’s Shane Ryan that Casey is experiencing back spasms; following the match Casey went to the locker room to receive treatment.

While he pulled out of the match Casey has not officially dropped from the tournament, meaning he still plans on attempting to play his scheduled Thursday and Friday matches.

Casey was in contention at the Players Championship two weeks ago, ultimately finishing third at the weather-wrecked event at TPC Sawgrass. He was a pre-tournament WD from last week’s Valspar Championship—a tournament that accounts for two of his three career PGA Tour wins—but that was chalked up to the toll of contending at the Players rather than an injury-related decision.

Casey has an exceptionally solid record at the WGC-Match Play, reaching the Sweet 16 seven times in his last 11 starts here and finishing runner-up twice. Casey is scheduled to face Alex Noren at 9:31 a.m. on Thursday, with Coreys taking on Louis Oosthuizen at 9:20 a.m.

The post Paul Casey concedes after two holes due to injury in opening round of WGC-Dell Match Play appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
There are a number of players missing from this Open Championship, but—with all respect to those not making the trip to Sandwich—most of the game’s marquee names remain in the field at Royal St. George’s, and a pack of them will be paired together during the Open’s first and second rounds.

Before you ask, no, Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau are not in the same group. As discussed at Torrey Pines; this is for the best; better to let that rivalry manifest over the weekend when it matters most rather than during the fleeting nature of a Thursday or Friday. So as we wait and pray for that heavyweight battle to come to fruition, here are 11 pairings to keep us entertained during the first two rounds of the Open Championship.

7:41 am local Thursday/2:41 am EDT — Viktor Hovland, Ryan Palmer, Thomas Detry

Hovland is making his Open debut, and historically this is a tournament that favors—and arguably requires—experience. Conversely, what has made Hovland so good so early in his career is a blissful disregard to his surroundings, beholden to an inner command known only to him. Better yet, compared to the other majors, lights-out putting is not a prerequisite for contention, pacifying one of Hovland’s few weak spots. Throw in Palmer’s continued late-career revival and a red-hot Detry (two T-2s in past four starts) don’t be surprised if these names are on the early board.

8:03 am/3:03 am — Brooks Koepka, Jason Kokrak, Garrick Higgo

There’s a “weapons of mass destruction” joke in here, but these three are more than muscle. Kokrak is fighting like hell for a U.S. Ryder Cup captain’s pick and a top-five finish would move him from the “charming story that, realistically, doesn’t have a shot” category to “about to burst some star’s bubble” list of contenders. … Higgo is in a bit of a slump with three missed cuts in his last four starts; he’s also won three times since late April so maybe we should keep an eye on him, yes? … As for the third player, let’s save our words for later in the week. Because this is a major and this is Brooks Koepka, so you better believe we’ll be talking about him in greater capacity come Saturday.

9:25 am/4:25 am — Jordan Spieth, Bryson DeChambeau, Branden Grace

Aspiring gamblers could find a worse dark horse than Grace, who is back from the wilderness with a win earlier this year along with a fourth-place finish at the Memorial and T-7 at the U.S. Open. … Augusta National is his playground but the Open has been just as kind to Spieth, and Royal St. George’s profile and past point to that providence continuing this week. The only thing keeping him from contending come Saturday will be finding himself in the wrong weather wave. … As for Bryson, this week ends with DeChambeau winning by three, forcing the R&A to convene an emergency session to declare persimmon and balata will be mandated at next year’s Open at St. Andrews OR Bryson becomes so flummoxed by the wind and ground game that he walks off the course and into the sea. There is no in-between.

9:58 am/4:58 am — Shane Lowry, Jon Rahm, Louis Oosthuizen

No matter what happens on the score card, this will be a long-overdue victory lap for Lowry. … Rahm will be treated with just as much love coming off his U.S. Open conquest. And amidst that parade Louis will very quietly put together two solid rounds to find himself near the lead because apparently that’s a bylaw for majors now.

David Cannon/R&A

10:20 am/5:20 am — Dustin Johnson, Will Zalatoris, Justin Rose

With two months to go before Ryder Cup rosters are finalized, Rose is shockingly on the outside looking in. He also has top-10s at the Masters and PGA, and a third this week can justify a captain’s pick against a blah record the rest of the year. … Speaking of Zalatoris, despite his strong season he’s trending to be snubbed for Whistling Straits. Yet if he contends at Royal St George’s, that would be four top-10s—highlighted by the Masters runner-up—in his past five major starts. And that is a hard, hard line to bypass. … Sticking with the theme, Johnson has his Ryder Cup spot locked up. He also hasn’t finished better than T-10 since February, which by DJ standards is a drought. Royal St. George’s is the site of one of Johnson’s major misses; can his putter wake up from its slumber (71st in putting this season) to give the 37-year-old his long-awaited payback?

1:04 pm/8:04 am — Patrick Cantlay, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Ryan Fox

Cantlay has finished no better than T-15 in his last eight major starts. Fitzpatrick hasn’t logged a major top-10 finish in his last 21 outings. Both are too talented for these streaks to continue.

1:26 pm/8:26 am — Collin Morikawa, Corey Conners, Sebastian Munoz

Morikawa leads the tour in SG/approach by a mile. Conners ranks top 10 in the category (eighth). Munoz is a fine player coming off a strong performance (T-4 at the John Deere Classic) but legitimately worried the poor guy is going to quit after watching Morikawa and Conners pepper flagsticks for two days.

2:48 pm/9:48 am — Phil Mickelson, Tyrrell Hatton, Kevin Kisner

In one sense it’s unfair to Mickelson to view what happened at Kiawah as proof the man can still get it done, rather than recognize what he did defied all we thought we knew about age and sport. In other words, to treat that moment for just that, a moment, instead of extrapolating what is next for Phil. HOWEVER, experience matters at the Open. Creativity matters. Understanding bad breaks are inevitable and possessing the fortitude it takes to bounce back from them really, really matters. In short there’s a decent chance the magic from Kiawah comes alive again in Kent, where Mickelson finished T-2 the last time the claret jug visited Royal St. George’s … As for Hatton and Kisner, our only wish is that Kisner pays tribute to Hatton with his own disgusted club toss at some point. Game recognise game, after all.

GLYN KIRK

2:59 pm/9:59 am — Xander Schauffele, Robert MacIntyre, Rickie Fowler

With Rahm capturing the U.S. Open Schauffele is now the best under-40 player to not have a major. That he’s ditching his ill-fated arm-lock experiment should help the cause … Fowler has shown signs of life over the past six weeks, and did contend at the 2011 Open (T-5). Fowler’s success in the wind is a bit overstated but it’s also not wrong, which is why this week could be the turning point so many hope comes … The Euro cognoscenti desperately wants MacIntyre to be the next big thing. He’s not far away from such status, proving his mettle at the 2019 Open (T-6) and playing well at a number of venues this year. His game is not necessary pretty, yet it’s at its best when things get ugly, the type of game that so often decides who grabs the claret jug.

3:10 pm/10:10 am — Justin Thomas, Tommy Fleetwood, Adam Scott

I know the golf gods are not just but it seems criminal these three men have a combined two majors.

3:21 pm/10:21 am — Rory McIlroy, Patrick Reed, Cameron Smith

Rory McIlroy is an Open champ. He is the fulcrum of the European Ryder Cup team. He is everything a fan could want in a player avatar. So we have no idea what McIlroy did or who he betrayed to get thrown into the crossfire of Reed and Smith, two players who have an interesting past. (Smith called out Reed for his penalty for moving sand at the Hero World Challenge in 2019, then the two exchanged words shortly after at the Presidents Cup.) But if McIlroy traverses this minefield without incident, no one is stopping him from snapping his seven-year major slump.

The post DeChambeau-Spieth, a trio of bombers and a bad-blood pairing highlight our 11 favourite groups at Royal St. George’s appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Mike Stachura
In the early weeks of the PGA Tour’s new driver testing program for the 2019-’20 season, a handful of players appear to have had drivers tested that have exceeded the speed limit. According to a story from Reuters, five tour pros at last week’s Safeway Open were found to have drivers whose spring-like effect was outside the USGA limit.

The tour’s new protocol uses the pendulum test that measures the Characteristic Time (CT) of driver faces to determine whether they flex too much. The Reuters story named five players it says are “believed” to have drivers that did not pass the test: Corey Conners, Jason Dufner, Mark Hubbard, Robert Streb and Michael Thompson.

The tour’s driver testing program grew from concerns expressed over the last year that driver faces are getting springier through use. The issue drew headlines when the R&A selectively tested drivers at the Open Championship at Royal Portrush in July and several clubs were found to be over the limit, most notably that of Xander Schauffele.

Tyler Dennis, PGA Tour senior vice president and chief of operations, told Golf Digest earlier this year that the testing program is an effort to investigate whether drivers that were conforming at initial use can be worn into a nonconforming state over time.

“We really want this to be about the driver models currently being played on the PGA Tour, not the players,” Dennis said earlier this month. “We have seen evidence of some models that over time are starting to creep over the limit. The only way to understand what’s happening is to test drivers that are actually being played on tour.”

The protocol calls for random player testing to be conducted during non-competition days at unannounced tournaments. Dennis would not specify how many players would be tested at events or how many events would have testing implemented. According to the Reuters story, 30 drivers were tested in Napa.

Dennis did not immediately return a request for comment on the report of drivers failing the CT testing at the Safeway Open. A tour spokesman told Reuters the tour would not be commenting on the testing program or its results.

Under the testing protocol, drivers receive either a green light for those that measure under the CT limit of 239 microseconds, a yellow light when they measure within the CT test’s tolerance zone of 240-257 microseconds and a red light if the measurement is above 257 microseconds. The testing on the PGA Tour is conducted by representatives of the USGA.

Most insiders agree on two things with regard to the CT testing: First, there are extremely few drivers on the tour that would measure green on the CT test. Most are likely to register yellow, at least. Second, the difference in terms of distance is negligible, and that even if every driver on the tour suddenly measured green, there likely would be no effect on the driving distance average on the PGA Tour.

Driving distance on the PGA Tour was down for the 2018-’19 season by 2.2 yards in 2019 versus 2018. Through the early part of the 2019-’20 season, driving distance is 304.4 yards. That would be 10 yards longer than last year through a similar number of events, and almost 11 yards longer than 2017.

After the 2017 season, golf’s ruling bodies expressed concern about driving distance and announced a Distance Insights research project. The project’s initial report is due later this year.

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Golf is highly unpredictable, even when it seems completely predictable. Sometimes there’s not much rhyme or reason to it. Just hanging in and knowing (if not hoping) there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

Take Corey Conners.

In his second start of the 2018-’19 season last fall, he finished second at the Sanderson Farms Championship. His two starts before and after? Missed cuts.

Conners really has this roller-coaster act down to an art, though.

In March 2018, then a wide-eyed rookie on the PGA Tour, he held a one-stroke lead over Tiger Woods, Justin Rose and Brandt Snedeker after 54 holes at the Valspar Championship. But he shot a closing 77, the finish, in part at least, costing him full status for the 2018-’19 season after he’d ended the year 130th in the FedEx Cup standings.

This year hasn’t been much different. The 27-year-old Canadian native has managed to scrap together eight starts but has missed the cut five times. And yet he also had a tie for third at the Sony Open in Hawaii. And on Sunday he did even better, winning the Valero Texas Open for his first professional victory anywhere.

In doing so, Conners became the first Monday qualifier to win on the PGA Tour since Arjun Atwal at the 2010 Wyndham Championship and just the fifth player to do it since 1980.

(Did we mention that he also emerged from a 6-for-1 playoff in Monday qualifying just to earn a spot in the field in San Antonio?)

“I will not be playing in Monday qualifiers, which is pretty awesome,” Conners said after a final-round 66 to finish his week at TPC San Antonio at 20 under par and two strokes clear of runner-up Charley Hoffman.

More awesome? A trip to Augusta National for the Masters, which he’ll play for the second time this coming week after missing the cut as an amateur in 2015 following a runner-up at the 2014 U.S. Amateur.

“I don’t think it’s sunk in,” he said after a spirited embrace with his wife Malory. “It just doesn’t seem real. It’s pretty amazing.”

Making it even more amazing was how Conners survived yet another roller coaster.

Early in the final round at the Valero, it looked like he’d run away with the tournament thanks to four birdies in his first five holes to break away from playing partners Hoffman and Si Woo Kim. Then came four straight bogeys, which included blowing a bunker shot across the green on the par-3 seventh as well as a bogey on the par-5 eighth.

But the ride wasn’t over for Conners. He rebounded by stuffing his approach shots tight to set up easy birdies on 10 and 11, then added another with a 34-foot bomb on 12. Three more birdies followed over his next five holes, including on 16 and 17, and the closing 30 proved the difference.

And made for a change of plans.

Conners and his wife were scheduled to fly back to Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., and relax at home during Masters week. Not so fast.

“It’s funny, we were in the hotel room here [Sunday] morning and my wife got the email to check in for our flight home [Monday] morning,” Conners said. “I was like, ‘Don’t check in for that quite yet. I’ve got different plans.’ ”

Next stop: Augusta, Ga.

The post Corey Conners is off to bigger things (Next stop: the Masters) after a wild finish in San Antonio appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

But Conners survived, and then had the week of his life at TPC San Antonio, where he carded rounds of 69, 67 and a pair of weekends 66s to grab his first career win on the PGA Tour. With it comes a last-minute Masters invite, giving him a second look at Augusta National after missing the cut there as an amateur in 2015, plus a two-year exemption on the tour, which might be just as sweet as the trip to Augusta. His Monday qualifying days are over for the time being.

Early on Sunday, the 27-year-old from Ontario, Canada looked poised to run away with the tournament, as he made birdies on four of his first five holes to separate himself from playing partners Si Woo Kim and Charley Hoffman. But Conners stumbled late on the front nine, bogeying four straight holes to drop all the way back to even par for the day.

He recovered in a big way, carding an absurd back-nine 30 to win by two strokes. Conners made just four pars on his final 15 holes, including one at the 72nd hole to close it out. He’s the first player to win after Monday qualifying since Arjun Atwal did it at the 2010 Wyndham Championship, and he’s only the fifth player to do it on the PGA Tour since 1980.

Hoffman, 42, finished alone in second thanks to a birdie at the final hole that capped a Sunday 67. It is Hoffman’s best finish of the 2018-’19 season, and his first inside the top 10 since the 2017 WGC-Bridgestone. That’s a somewhat shocking fact given how consistent Hoffman was not too long ago. But he’s picked a good time to snap out of a slump with the Masters looming, an event Hoffman as had recent success in, finishing inside the top 30 each of the last four years.

Ryan Moore, who matched the low round of the tournament with a final-round 64, finished alone in third. Brian Stuard tied for fourth with Kim, who led after each of the first three rounds, but struggled on Sunday, posting a 72.

The post Corey Conners grabs first career win and last-minute Masters invite with final-round 66 at the Valero Texas Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By E. Michael Johnson
Corey Conners had the ultimate up-and-down final round at the Valero Texas Open, but it was a pair of up-and-downs (followed by a timely staked 7-iron shot) that secured Conners his first PGA Tour win and provided him with the golden ticket: a last-minute invitation to the Masters.

Of course, it was fitting there was some turbulence along the way. The tournament was contested at the Westin La Cantera Resort from 1995 to 2009 and the course sat in the shadows of a large roller coaster from the nearby Six Flags amusement park. That describes Conners’ round perfectly. He birdied four of the first five holes before riding the bogey train on holes six through nine. His fortunes reversed again with three birdies to start the back nine. Then, on the par-5 14th, Conners—who was a paltry one for nine in sand saves for the week—hit a nifty bunker shot to tap-in range for a birdie to stay ahead of his pursuers, then converted another up-and-down from sand on the next hole for par, albeit courtesy of a 12-foot putt. Then on the 175-yard, par-3 16th Conners stepped up and nailed a 7-iron shot to four feet, seven inches and made the putt for another birdie to stretch the margin to two. Yet another birdie on 17—his 29th plus an eagle for the week—let him cruise to the clubhouse.

Conners’ used Ping’s Glide Forged 60-degree wedge for his key bunker shots and the 7-iron is the company’s iBlade model with Golf Pride’s New Decade Multicompound grip, an iron with an extremely thin face along with a large area from heel to toe on that thin face with an elastomer insert. The elastomer is wedged into the pocket cavity behind the face, but the material in the insert allows the face to give at impact while filtering vibrations for a softer feel. According to Ping, his irons are 1 degree upright with Project X 6.0 shafts.

For the week, Conners ranked first in greens in regulation with 52 of 72 (72.22 per cent) and first in strokes gained/approach the green, picking up more than 11 shots on the field in that stat. Conners then made the most of those opportunities by also leading the field in putts per green in regulation.

Which all added up to a lot of green—both money and Masters—that more than made up for the roller coaster ride along the way.

What Corey Conners had in the bag at the Valero Texas Open

Ball: Titleist Pro V1

Driver: Ping G400 LST (UST Elements Gold 6), 8.5 degrees

3-wood: Ping G400, 14.5 degrees

Hybrid: Ping G400, 19 degrees

Irons (4-PW): Ping iBlade

Wedges: Ping Ping Glide 2.0 Stealth (50, 56 degrees); Ping Glide Forged (60 degrees)

Putter: Ping PLD Anser 2

The post The clubs Corey Conners used to win the Valero Texas Open appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Christopher Powers
If his play at Colonial is any indication, Justin Rose has made himself one of the favourites to win a second U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills in three weeks time, if he wasn’t already. The Englishman has been a machine, carding rounds of 66, 64 and Saturday’s four-under 66 to take a commanding four-shot lead into Sunday at the Fort Worth Invitational.

Rose, 37, had yet to tee off as Jon Rahm and Corey Conners each made a huge move, with Rahm eventually finishing off a six-under 64 and Conners a seven-under 63 to get into a tie for fourth at eight-under 202. Rose was able to distance himself from them immediately, making three consecutive birdies to open his round. With a chance to really do some damage though, he made just two more birdies and a bogey the rest of the way, putting him at 14-under 196.

“It was nice to get going, nice to sort of build up that lead,” said Rose. “No one seemed to do too much behind me today, so it felt like it was in my hands to try and get as far ahead as I could. Obviously, that’s the only thing, I kind of struggled toward the end. It was so hot out there I really felt I was battling the golf course and my concentration.

“It was kind of tough to finish that off in that heat I found today. All in all, happy to be in the clubhouse, good day’s work.”

Rose will have to beat the heat again on Sunday in Fort Worth, with temperatures expected to be in the high 90s again. For the 14th time in his career, he holds a 54-hole lead or co-lead, something he’s converted on just three times.

“You’re kind of caught between trying to play great and also go out there and not make mistakes,” he said. “For me it’s just going to be about one shot at a time, to make birdies here. I feel like there’s a score in this golf course. So I’ve got to expect the chasing pack to go out there and play well, I don’t think I can just rest on my laurels and shoot even par tomorrow.”

Among that chasing pack is the reigning U.S. Open champion Brooks Koepka, who will play in the final group with Rose on Sunday after posting a three-under 67, a round made all the more impressive by Koepka’s ability to bounce back after a double-bogey at the par-5 11th. Birdies at 12, 14 and a 16-footer at the 18th saved his round, and have him tied for second with Emiliano Grillo at 10-under 200.

Rahm and Conners are joined at eight under by Louis Oosthuizen, J.T. Poston and Ryan Armour.

The post Justin Rose in control at Colonial, leads by four after third-round 66 appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

“I am excited,” Woods said after a four-under 67 Saturday that has him one stroke off the lead going into the final round of the Valspar Championship. “I feel good.”

Eleven months ago, he felt anything but that after undergoing spinal fusion surgery, the last of four procedures on his battered back in a three-year span. It was nothing short of a medical Hail Mary.

Then came an ugly, made-for-TMZ arrest on suspicion of DUI in South Florida last May (the charges were later reduced), followed by a stint in rehab for Woods to better manage his pain and sleep medication.

After all the physical and mental trauma Woods had endured, he had become a shadow of his former self, an incongruent and to some extent an irrelevant figure as the game seemingly passed him by with new stars emerging. Even as recently as last fall Woods himself wasn’t sure if he would ever be able to play golf again.

Yet here we are. The Hail Mary was completed, and a 42-year-old Tiger has come out the other end of the tunnel, too. After just 13 rounds this year, he is on the precipice of one of the greatest comeback stories in all of sports, not just golf.

Related: Who is Corey Conners and could he really be the one to stop Tiger Woods winning on Sunday? 

Impressively, Woods displayed an assortment of shots off the tee on Saturday. A stinger 2-iron on 10, a hard cutting 3-wood on 16, a big, low drawing BB of a drive on 14, where his clubhead speed was clocked at 129.2 mph, the fastest of any measured drive on tour this year. He followed it with a “smoking” 4-iron onto the front of the green on the par 5.

Ryan Young/PGA Tour Tiger signs autographs after a solid Saturday 67 puts him just one off the lead at Innisbrook Resort.

“I’m starting to see him get into a pretty good groove out there and hit the shots he’s trying to hit,” said Joe LaCava, Woods’ caddie. “Shots he’s trying to hit, he’s pulling them off.

“I don’t want to get carried away from one good tournament, but you could see signs of him playing well and hitting it better, so, no, I’m not surprised.”

There were birdies (five), a chip-in, a walk-it-in putt, fist pumps and club twirls. There was a swagger. The crowd swelled to eight deep, and it was vocal.

Rookie Corey Conners, who has led after every round this week, could practically count the number of people following his group playing behind Woods on one hand. Not that he minded.

“It was really cool,” the wide-eyed, smiling Canadian said. “Obviously, I grew up watching Tiger and kind of idolized Tiger, and seeing that today was really cool. Couple big roars and put a smile on my face.”

He wasn’t alone.

Brandt Snedeker got a kick out of watching Woods chip in for birdie from a squirrelly lie behind the green at the ninth. He’ll be paired with Woods again on Sunday in the second-to-last twosome. It will be the fifth time they have played together this year.

“It’s just him to a tee,” Snedeker said. “I see him do stuff like that, let’s you know he’s back enjoying it and having fun. Just kind of vintage Tiger.

“He’s getting better every round. He’s driving it 10 times better than he was at the start of the year.”

Ryan Young/PGA Tour
This is Tiger’s 70th time he’ll go into the final round within at least one stroke of the lead. He has gone on to win in that situation 62 times.

Still, Woods is trying to temper expectations, as he has all year.

“There’s a packed leader board,” said Woods, who is tied with Snedeker and Justin Rose at eight under, with Patrick Reed and Sam Burns tied for fifth two strokes back. “There’s so many guys who played their way back up into this tournament.”

None, though, loom as large as Woods.

Sunday will mark the 70th time that he has been within at least one stroke of the lead going into the final round on tour. He has gone on to win 62 times, and 89.8 percent conversion percentage. To put that in perspective, since 2013, which is the last time that Woods won, the rest of the tour with a one-shot lead has gone on to win just under 25 percent of the time.

“I’m excited,” Woods said again. “I’ve been ready to go. I’m excited to play. It’s going to be fun.”

And is shaping up to be one hell of a comeback story.

The post Tiger Woods is 18 holes away from turning his comeback story into an epic tale of redemption appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

“It’s something that I just find really cool,” Conners said with a smile. “Obviously, he did something.”

But so did the 26-year-old Canadian rookie, who stuffed his wedge on the same par 4 to within a foot to set up a tap-in birdie of his own just a few minutes later.

“That was nice to kind of settle down from that,” he said.

That’s one way to put it.

Conners added birdies at Nos. 11 and 12 and finished with a three-under 68 to take a one-stroke lead at nine-under 204 into the final round over Justin Rose, Brandt Snedeker and Woods.

“You can’t ignore it, I guess,” said the former Kent State All-American of the looming presence of Woods and the chaos that goes with it. “But [I] just try to stay focused on my game. I think I’ve been doing a good job of that throughout the week so far and just keep that going.”

Related: Tiger Woods is 18 holes away from turning his comeback story into an epic tale of redemption

Indeed. Conners, who finished six strokes out of Monday qualifying but got in the field anyway as the third alternate when Kyle Stanley withdrew from the event, has led after every round this week at the Valspar. Not bad for someone who previously had made just 16 PGA Tour starts and never finished any round better than T-21.

Michael Reaves/Getty Images
Conners has played in just 16 previous PGA Tour events, and never finished better than T-21 at the end of any round until this week.

Playing behind Woods on Saturday didn’t seem to faze him, either. Conners opened with birdies on three of his first four holes and made three more around the turn before saving par from the sand on 17 and staying calm when his ball moved slightly on the green on 18, requiring a word from a rules official.

“I got into the field late, and kind of came in here with nothing to lose,” he said. “Just go and take advantage of a good break, and I felt really good about my game for the last little while. I ust wanted to get another opportunity to play, and fortunately I was able to get that opportunity this week and had a good week so far.”

Now comes the hard part, with Woods, Rose and Snedeker breathing down his neck. Arguably the most pressure packed moment previously in Conners’ golf career was playing in the final of the 2014 U.S. Amateur, where he would fall to Gunn Yang at Atlanta Athletic Club.

Come Sunday, Conners will be paired with a major-championship winner Rose for the final round and will play in front of Woods again.

“The last two days, I think draw on those experiences and yeah, just try to stay calm, stay with the process and be patient like I have the last few days,” Conners said. “I was thinking about that when I finished the round, that felt nice to kind of keep myself in the lead most of the day and the same thing [Sunday].”

Easier said than done.

The post Who is Corey Conners and could he really be the one who keeps Tiger Woods from winning on Sunday? appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.