By Christopher Powers
It’s hard to back up a low round anywhere on the PGA Tour, but some places are easier than others. Riviera Country Club is not one of those places, making what Matt Kuchar did on Friday all the more impressive.

Kuchar, 41, opened with a bogey-free, seven-under 64 on Thursday at the Genesis Invitational, one of a handful of bogey-free rounds on the day. Within minutes on Friday he already had his first blemish of the week, bogeying the easiest hole on the course, the par-5 first. He rebounded by playing the final 17 holes in three under, making only one bogey the rest of the way. Through 36 holes he sits at nine-under 133.

Two back is Rory McIlroy, one of the tournament favourites. McIlroy backed up his first-round 68 with a four-under 67, which featured six birdies and two bogeys. The Northern Irishman regained the No. 1 ranking in the world this past week, a position he had not held since the 2015 U.S. Open.

McIlroy is tied for second with Harold Varner III, who is still in search of his first PGA Tour victory. Adam Scott, who shot a seven-under 64 on Friday, is tied for fifth at six-under. Jon Rahm, Justin Rose, Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau are at four under.

Brooks Koepka, Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth made the cut at even par, but have work to do to catch the leaders.

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By Daniel Rapaport
PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — For the second straight day, a rough second nine saw Tiger Woods let a solid start fade away at the Genesis Invitational.

On Thursday, he still managed to get to the Riviera clubhouse with a two-under 69. On Friday, not so much–Woods posted a two-over 73 that included a double bogey from the middle of the fairway and three bogeys in a four-hole stretch.

It’s Woods’ first over-par round of the 2019-’20 season and highest score in relation to par since last year’s Northern Trust in August, including the unofficial Hero World Challenge event in December.

“I was not sharp today,” Woods said. “I just could not get the ball close enough to the hole to give myself good putts. And then when I did, I was in the wrong spots. I was above the hole and had to putt pretty defensively.”

At even par for the tournament, Woods looks safe to make the cut but will find himself well back of contention heading into the weekend.

Woods got things off on the right note again on Friday, albeit in less inspiring fashion. In Thursday’s first round, he drained a 24-foot, 8-inch eagle putt on the opening hole, bringing to mind the two jersey numbers the late Kobe Bryant wore during his Hall of Fame basketball career. On a frigid Friday morning—at least by Southern California standards—Woods birdied his first hole of the day after laying up short of the driveable par-4 10th.

He was cruising nicely until disaster struck at the par-4 15th. Woods piped his tee shot 335 yards down the center but fatted a pitching wedge approach, resulting in a plugged lie and an impossible up-and-down from a greenside bunker. He hacked out to just over the green but needed three from there for a momentum-zapping double bogey.

That poor shot with a scoring club was a bit of a theme. On Thursday, Woods struggled mightily with the driver, finishing 118th in the 120-man field in strokes gained/off the tee. He drove it reasonably well on Friday, but just as that part of his game tidied up, the iron play faltered. Woods missed the green six times from 150 yards or less in the fairway, including dumping a sand wedge into the bunker short right of the third green, leading to another bogey. After leading the tournament in strokes gained approach on Thursday, he lost over a stroke to the field with the irons on Friday.

“I made some pretty bad mistakes out there with balls in the fairway,” Woods said. “One ball in the fairway with a pitching wedge in my hand and another one with a sand wedge in my hand and played those two holes in three over. Not very good.”

Woods also bogeyed both par 3s on the front nine and scrambled for par at the ninth, his last hole of the day, to ensure he’ll stick around for the weekend.

He attributes the uneven play to a busy week of playing double duty, given his responsibilities as the host of this event.

“It’s not the first tournament I’ve hosted, I’ve been a part of. I’ve been doing this for a very long time. They’re challenging weeks in themselves, talking to the staff and sponsors and different obligations that a tournament host has. I’ve been involved in events, jeez, since ’99, so been doing this a very long time and this is no different.”

Next up for Woods is a likely early tee time on Saturday morning. After that remains a question mark—Woods declined to say whether he’s decided to play in next week’s WGC-Mexico Championship.

“I’ve been so busy with this event and trying to deal with all the little things that I haven’t really focused on next week,” Woods said. “I’ve had a lot to do this week and trying to get ready to play, try and balance both of those.”

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By Christopher Powers
In October, Brooks Koepka revealed that he had played through a knee injury for much of last season, one that required him to get a painful stem-cell injection following the Tour Championship. After staying off his feet for a few days, then rehabbing the knee, Koepka entered the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open feeling much better and insisted that he could “finally practice again, which is nice, without pain.”

The following week, Koepka withdrew prior to the third round of the CJ Cup, citing more issues with his knee. During his second round in South Korea, Koepka slipped on wet concrete, re-aggravating the injury. That was in mid-October. Koepka did not appear again competitively until the European Tour’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship in January.

An opening-round 66 in Abu Dhabi was a positive sign, but he followed with a second-round 75 and eventually finished tied for 34th. Two weeks later he teed it up in the Euro Tour’s Saudi International, tying for 17th and continuing to show signs of progress. Still, there was a bit of mystery on just how good his left knee felt.

Koepka cleared that up in an interview with Golf Channel’s Todd Lewis prior to this week’s Genesis Invitational, his first start on American soil since the Shriners. Lewis asked him how difficult the recovery process was, and Koepka’s response was illuminating.

“It was a lot worse than we let on,” Koepka said. “A lot of pain. I’m nowhere near 100 percent, I don’t know if my knee will ever be 100 percent. It’s one of those things where I’m just trying every day.

“To be honest with you, Monday [at Riviera] was the most pain I’ve had since I tore it. You have good days and you have bad days and you’ve just got to really watch it. Now it feels stable though. I don’t feel like my knee, when I’m walking, it’s going to go out to the left or go inside on me. It feels stable. It’s just strengthening things. But yeah, there’s still pain there.”

For someone who already went through a wrist injury, this doesn’t sound ideal. Of course, all he did after returning from that wrist injury was defend his title at the 2018 U.S. Open and then win the PGA a few months later. But, as Tiger Woods knows, knees are a different ball game, so it’ll be interesting to see how Koepka handles the pain as the season progresses.

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By Daniel Rapaport
PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — Tiger Woods began the Genesis Invitational with two perfect shots, easily reaching Riviera’s benign par-5 first hole in two. He then drained the eagle putt of 24 feet, 8 inches.

Seriously. In Kobe Bryant’s city, in Woods’ first tournament since learning of his longtime buddy’s shocking death, Woods’ first putt of the day corresponded with both numbers Bryant wore during his Hall of Fame career.

Sometimes, sports do the darndest things.

“No matter what we do, I think for a while we’re going to always remember Kobe and what he meant, and especially here in SoCal and the entire sports world,” Woods said after learning of the 24-8 measurement. “Like I said, very ironic that I happened to have those numbers on those holes and those exact measurements.”

Woods opened the first-ever Genesis Invitational with a two-under 69, getting his latest bid for a record-breaking 83rd PGA Tour victory off to a solid start. He’ll enter the second round five behind Matt Kuchar, who fired a bogey-free, seven-under 64 amid perfect scoring conditions early Thursday morning and is three clear of his closest chasers.

After the goosebumps-inducing eagle at the opener, Woods added birdies at 5 and 8 to make the turn in four-under 31. It was an exhibition in ball striking: he found six of seven fairways, seven of nine greens and, most encouragingly, needed only 13 putts. Woods has long struggled with his putting here at Riviera—the site of his first-ever PGA Tour event, as a stick-thin 16-year-old way back in 1992—and joked on Tuesday that after all these years, he can’t seem to believe that every putt breaks toward the sixth tee, the low-point of the course. Perhaps he’s learned his lesson.

“I got off to a nice start on the front nine and just didn’t hit many good shots on the back nine,” he said. “Made a couple loose swings and made a couple good saves on the back nine for par, but just wasn’t able to get any birdies on the back nine.”

In hindsight, the front-nine ball striking display was particularly impressive given Woods’ lack of preparation for the week. He said after the round that the only time he hit balls this week before Thursday morning was for 10 minutes, under floodlights before his 6:40 a.m. tee time in the pro-am on Wednesday. There’s simply too much on his plate this week, given his additional obligations of hosting the event in conjunction with his TGR Live venture. So Woods pieced together a move on the driving range this morning, but you wouldn’t have known it judging from the front nine.

As Woods indicated, the back nine was a completely different story. The first concerning shot came at the fickle par-4 10th, where he pulled a driver well left and had to grind out a par. At the dogleg left 13th, he yanked a drive into the trees left but managed to get up and down from 165 yards for par. There was another scrambling par after a right miss at the par-5 17th, but he couldn’t overcome a push into the trees down the right of 18, leading to a closing bogey.

The good news for Woods is he won’t have to wait long to flush away that uneven back nine. He’s off in his second round at 7:16 a.m. local time, when the wind should be manageable and the poa annua greens as smooth as they’ll be all day.

“Considering I’m still on East Coast time, I kind of like it,” Woods said of the early tee time and way-earlier wake up. “I’ve been getting up pretty early, so it will be a quick turnaround, get back at it. Hopefully we’ll have a little bit smoother greens out there on the golf course. Hopefully I can hit it as good as I did on that front nine to give myself a number of looks for the entire 18 holes, not just nine holes.”

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By Daniel Rapaport
PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. — As he struck perfect shot after perfect shot on a board-of-tourism day at Riviera, as he charmed his pro-am partners, and as he mused on digital minimalism and ADHD and global warming in his Genesis Invitational press conference, Rory McIlroy displayed the quiet confidence of man at the top of his profession, in the prime of his life.

He has every reason to be at peace with himself, and his game. The four-time major champion is teeing it up this week as the No. 1 player in the world, a spot he’s returned to after last summiting the rankings in 2015. It wasn’t he most climactic changing-of-the-guard, as both McIlroy and Brooks Koepka, now No. 2, didn’t play last week. Still, it’s nice to see your name atop any sort of ranking.

“Everyone keeps saying congratulations, but I said the work is only started,” McIlroy said. “Staying there is the hard part.

“Look, it’s a calculation based on how you’ve played over the last two years. I’ve played well and I’ve played consistently well. The mathematics add up that I’m at the top of the list right now and obviously I have a chance to stay there this week.”

He’s also the reigning PGA Tour Player of the Year, FedEx Cup and Players champion. He’s happily married and enjoys splitting his time between South Florida and Northern Ireland. In short: it’s good to be Rory McIlroy right now. As he said a few weeks ago at Torrey Pines: “I’m 30 years old, I have basically achieved everything that I’ve wanted to achieve in the game, like why would I be careful?”

Yes, the golf has been fantastic, even if he hasn’t won a major in nearly five years. But you get the sense that it’s his off-the-course pursuits that most fulfil him these days: Watching movies (he loved “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and all things Quentin Tarantino), applying lessons from books on 21st-century philosophy (he uses an app called “Freedom” that blocks him from visiting website on his phone), and being process-oriented rather than caught up in results (“I never look at it as ‘I want to win this, this and this’).

“I always write down goals. All the time. I write them down at the start of the year, I write them down at the start of weeks, I write them down at the start of the day. What’s going to make me better going into tomorrow?

“For me, it’s all about the process and the steps…I rarely set myself goals of ‘I want to win this and I want to win that’ because all of those goals are just a byproduct of doing the little things right. I’m a big believer in that. If you get the little things right day after day after day and you practice good habits and those habits become completely ingrained in what you do, the rest will follow.”

McIlroy was asked about a hotbed topic in golf, the recently released Distance Insights report that identified ever-increasing driving distance as a problem that needs to be solved. Instead of launching into an impassioned defence of club manufacturers or making a caustic remark about progress in sport, he used the opportunity to discuss…sustainability.

“The biggest thing that came out of the report for me, a lot of the stuff about the ball going too far and technology, it really pertains to 0.1 percent of golfers out there. So, look, if they want to contain what we do as touring professionals, I’m all for that.”

He continued: “I think of the best things that came out of it was the sustainability aspect and the fact that architects building these golf courses, and the people giving the architects the money to built these golf courses with grand ambition of maybe having a Tour event one day—building these on massive pieces of land, having to use so much water, so much fertilizer, pesticides, and all the stuff we really shouldn’t be doing nowadays, especially in the climate we live in and everything that’s happening in our world.

You look at what happened in Australia, you look at what happens in this state every August, September, October time with fires and global warming. I think golf has a responsibility to minimize its footprint as much as it possible can.”

He answered a few more questions before stepping away from the podium. The golf part of the day over, McIlroy was off to do who knows what—read, watch, or maybe just think. About anything but golf, of course.

“Honestly, anything to get my mind off this is a good thing.”

The post Rory McIlroy is back to No. 1 in the world, but at peace with more than that appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Alex Myers
Tim Mickelson announced on Wednesday he won’t be on his big brother’s bag at the Genesis Invitational when play starts on Thursday morning at Riviera Country Club. But don’t worry, there’s no internal strife among the siblings, just a bit of wear and tear on the looper.

Due to a couple lingering injuries, with Phil’s blessing and encouragement I’m taking this week off from caddying to rest and recover. Andrew Getson will be on the bag this week for me. Gotta be healthy for the ‘majors’ stretch coming up soon.

— Tim Mickelson (@goodwalkspoiled) February 12, 2020

Filling in for Tim is Andrew Getson, who has been Phil’s swing coach since the end of 2015. Here’s a photo Phil posted earlier this year that shows Tim (centre) and Andrew (back-centre):

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Awesome first day back. Dave and Eddie Pelz, Andrew Getson, and my brother Tim all together to help me build a solid foundation for my game this year. I am ready to work hard and play some great golf again. ?‍? #hitbombs #attackpins

A post shared by Phil Mickelson (@philmickelson) on Jan 6, 2020 at 6:43pm PST

Tim has been Phil’s caddie since the five-time major champ and longtime looper Jim (Bones) Mackay parted ways in 2017. Tim, who was Jon Rahm’s agent at the time after stepping down from head coaching duties at Arizona State the previous year, was originally a temporary replacement before being named his brother’s full-time caddie at the end of 2017.

After a rough start to 2020 with back-to-back missed cuts at the American Express and the Farmers Insurance Open, Mickelson finished T-3 in Saudi Arabia and third at Pebble Beach last week. Those two finishes have moved him up to No. 55 in the Official World Golf Ranking (from No. 86), but the 49-year-old still has work to do to qualify for this year’s U.S. Open and the four World Golf Championship events.

Regardless of who is on Mickelson’s bag, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him accomplish that this week. Mickelson has two wins and two runner-ups in 18 career starts at Riviera.

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The stars were out at Riv for a fun-filled day of golf at the #CelebrityCup.

A post shared by The Genesis Invitational (@thegenesisinv) on Feb 10, 2020 at 8:23pm PST

Pitting Team Woods vs. Team Watson in a knockdown, drag-out no-holds-barred battle for celebrity golf supremacy friendly seven-on-seven competition, the 2020 Celebrity Cup still hung in the balance when Michael Pena drained an eight-footer on 18 to claim the title for Tiger’s black-clad ballers. It was Woods’ second consecutive victory in the competition, driven in large part by his tough-love coaching style, on full display in this video of him roasting (or rather lightly toasting) the swings of his A-list teammates before the match.

See @TigerWoods roasting celebrity swings.

Yes please… pic.twitter.com/0pf8OZe7O2

— GOLFTV (@GOLFTV) February 11, 2020

It’s all encouragement and compliments until Oliver Hudson shanks one dead left, unleashing the dam of trash talk just waiting to burst loose inside of Woods. “Is that on camera? Did we get that one on camera?” he pleads.

Then it’s on to A-Rod, who showed up with no glove and FOUR 4-irons in his bag. There’s almost too much material to work with, so Woods starts small, suggesting A-Rod lose the lanyard, which is wise advice both on the range and in practically any social situation a human being can find themself in. Yes, this is the same man currently dating J-Lo. No, we do not understand it, either.

Finally it’s on to Chris Pratt, who brought his own coach to the Celebrity Cup, taking home hardo of the week honors in the process. Pratt—global superstar, Marvel superhero, new-age Indiana Jones—is almost sent running for the port-a-john by the mere sight of Woods, but he eventually settled down, even managing to pull it together for an impressive sand save down the stretch.

Tough shots, high fives and a lot of laughs.@PrattPrattPratt + golf = viewing gold. ? pic.twitter.com/NMHFNQriUg

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) February 11, 2020

All in all, there’s more entertainment value in these three minutes than in three hours of watching celebrities accept awards from each other and complain about milk. Just don’t go too hard on these guys, Tiger. As fun as it is to watch, a good captain always knows when to lay up.

The post Tiger Woods roasting his Celebrity Cup team’s swings is 100 times more entertaining than the Oscars appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Christopher Powers
When it comes to their head-to-head record, Justin Thomas owns Tiger Woods. Of the 14 rounds they’ve been paired together, Thomas has beaten Woods 10 times, tied him three times and lost just once in their most recent pairing, which came in the final round of the 2019 Hero World Challenge (Woods shot 69 to Thomas’ 70). Woods may have 14 majors on Thomas, but when it’s mano a mano, it’s been all JT.

Tiger will have another chance to cut into that deficit this week, as the two have been paired together for the first two rounds of the Genesis Invitational for the third straight year. In four rounds together at Riviera C.C., Thomas has shot a cumulative total of 271 to Woods’ 289. Those are big brother vs. little brother type numbers.

You’d think this would give Thomas the trash-talking edge, but that’s not been the case. In that department, Woods has been dominant. At the Hero World Challenge alone Woods outdrove Thomas and made sure he knew about it, and the following day he trolled him again with a lengthy first-tee announcement.

Apparently, Woods was just getting started. On Tuesday at Riviera, the 15-time major champion was asked about his latest pairing with Thomas, how their relationship has evolved and if he has any sense of how badly Thomas wants to beat him. Woods made sure to butter him up with compliments before dropping a fiery dagger on him regarding their Presidents Cup partnership.

“JT always wants to win. He’s highly motivated and extremely competitive and we compete in everything we do together,” Woods said. That’s one of the things that I loved about him when I exited the game for a little bit and he was kind of coming onto the scene. He’s so interested and thirsty for knowledge. We became really good friends and I got a chance to get to know him and Mike and Jenny [Thomas’ parents] really well. It’s an amazing family. “

Wait for it . . .

“From there, our relationship has blossomed, and I carried his ass in Australia.”

(Mike Breen voice) BANG!

Woods, who captained the American team to its eighth straight Presidents Cup victory in December, paired himself with Thomas in the first two sessions at Royal Melbourne. They went 2-0 together, which was particularly impressive given Thomas did not have his A game, hence “carried his ass.” Thomas did chip in quite famously on the 18th hole of their Friday match, holing a birdie putt to win 1 up and screaming “I love me some me!” in honor of Terrell Owens. But without Tiger’s all-world iron play in those matches, they could have just as easily gone 0-2.

Woods and Thomas will be paired with another familiar face in Steve Stricker this week. If Stricker wants a leg up on both of them, he might want to open with “Have either if you even won here?” on the first tee on Thursday.

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Given the difficult conditions—a disjointed week that included playing multiple rounds in the same day because of inclement weather at the start of the tournament, plus chilly temperatures and wind gusts upwards of 30 m.p.h. on the final afternoon—it was an impressive performance, even if Holmes was aided by Thomas’ lousy putting and four-over 75 on Sunday.

Hey, someone had to claim the title, and Holmes did enough to be the one holding the trophy at the end when plenty of others didn’t. A win is a win.

“Always thought that would have been a better chance for me,” Holmes said of the nasty weather. “Usually when the conditions are crappy, I do better.”

It didn’t hurt, either, that he took his time in doing so.

The final threesome of Holmes, Thomas and Adam Scott played in 5 hours, 29 minutes. Most of the slow-rolling came at the hand of Holmes, long considered one of the biggest culprits in the game of playing at a glacial pace.

Not that he seemed to mind.

“Well, you play in 25-mile-an-hour gusty winds and see how fast you play when you’re playing for the kind of money and the points and everything that we’re playing for,” Holmes replied when asked about the topic following the victory. “You can’t just get up there and whack it when it’s blowing that hard.”

On one hand, he had a point. The conditions were difficult, and Riviera is a difficult golf course.

On the other, Holmes’ group found itself a full hole behind the group in front of them for nearly the entire round. Still, they were never put on the clock, or so much as warned to pick up the pace.

“I’ll tell you my thing on slow play is it’s never going to change,” said Scott on Sunday night, reiterating a point he made earlier in the week in an interview with Golf Digest in which he admitted that he told the PGA Tour he’d be willing to intentionally take a penalty to make a point. “Until television and sponsors say ‘No more money,’ slow play ain’t going to change.”

He ain’t wrong.

That doesn’t mean it’s right, either.

Holmes had the support of members in the crowd, even if he took an awfully long time getting around the course on Sunday. (Stan Badz)

Pace of play has for decades been a topic of conversation, with many griping for the game to move faster. Yet in a recent anonymous player survey from Golf Magazine when players were asked if they played at an acceptable pace, laughably, 100 per cent responded yes.

But when an average NFL game is just past 3 hours, an NBA game around 2½ hours, and a Major League Baseball game 3 hours, golf is asking a lot when it comes to taking 5½ hours to play, even when it is the final group.

It’s not always as simple as move faster. And it’s not always better when players do—Jordan Spieth’s 30-minute bogey on the 13th hole during the final round of the 2017 Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, and Tiger Woods’ stalking of the 16th hole in the final round of the 2005 Masters before chipping in was great theatre. But in most cases it is.

“It was slow,” Thomas admitted of Sunday’s final round of the Genesis, adding that wasn’t the reason he didn’t play well.

It also wasn’t a good look, for the tournament, or Holmes. Why? Put it this way: Will you remember the final round of the Genesis Open more for Holmes’ or Thomas’ performances? Or for Holmes’ pace of play?

When slow play becomes the topic of conversation—on social media, on CBS’ telecast and among fans at Riviera—than the guy who won (or lost) the tournament, that is a problem.

Which is just as unfortunate as the fact that slow play is something that doesn’t appear to be improving or going away anytime soon.

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By Brian Wacker
Two days after playing 30 holes, Tiger Woods went another 28 on Sunday at Riviera Country Club. It proved a cold reminder that he is, after all, a fused-together 43 years old.

“Yeah, I got tired,” Woods said following a final-round one-over 72 to end his week at the Genesis Open at six under and tied for 15th. “I don’t know if I’m the only one, but I definitely felt it.”

He wasn’t. But Tiger was the only one playing to have undergone four back surgeries. Still, for a while, he put on a show.

Woods’ day began at 6:45 a.m.—or at 1:30 a.m., the time he said he woke up to get ready for the resumption of the third round. And after getting up and down from just short of the green to save par at the 17th when play resumed, he added an eagle at the par-5 first for his second eagle of the round.

It brought him within five of the lead with a lot of golf still to be played as he closed out a third-round 65.

Teeing off in the final round 40 minutes later, he kept the momentum going with three birdies in his first seven holes on Riviera’s back nine to climb into a tie for fifth.

The bad news was that he was still eight strokes off the lead. The worse news was that he followed with four bogeys in a six-hole span to quickly fade.

Harry How/Getty Images

It didn’t help any that the temperature dipped and the wind picked up throughout the afternoon, making the course as difficult as it had played the entire week.

Neither did some of the places Woods hit it. Or how he putted it.

On the par-4 second, Woods badly pulled his second shot from the right rough, going long and left of the green and leaving an awkward shot from a downhill lie that he wasn’t able to get up and down from.

Then came a long three-putt from 60 feet on the third and another from 30 feet on the fifth. Sayonara.

Woods called this one of the worst putting weeks he has had, which was true given he had round that included four three-putts (his opening round), and just 50 feet, 6 inches of putts made in the final round.

“I’m looking forward to tomorrow,” Woods said. “Those clubs aren’t coming out of the travel case.”

It won’t be long, though. Woods will head to Mexico City on Monday for next week’s WGC-Mexico Championship and his third start of the year.

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