Woods’ playing partner on Day 3 at the Genesis Invitational, Matthias Schwab, summed it up best.

“This was pretty extreme,” the 28-year-old Austrian said of the enormous Los Angeles crowds who watched Woods shoot four-under 67 to better Schwab by three strokes and his other playing partner, Christiaan Bezuidenhout, by four. “I’ve played with Rory in Europe a few times and it was good crowds there, too. This was another level.”

Another level, indeed. Woods stands at three-under for the tournament, 12 shots back of 54-hole leader Jon Rahm. Woods playing weekend golf was a big enough lure that even a tour pro who’d missed the cut decided to walk inside the ropes for the entire round. That was Korea’s Yeong Su Kim, who earned an invitation for winning the Genesis Championship in his homeland last year.

Woods’ 67 was his best round on the PGA Tour since the second round of the Zozo Championship in Las Vegas in 2020. This week, Woods was making his return to competition after a seven-month injury hiatus that started after a missed cut at the Open Championship at St Andrews last July. Woods spent that time recovering from plantar fasciitis and an ankle injury stemming from his single-car crash in February 2021.

He has not played weekend golf since the Saturday of last year’s PGA Championship, when he made the cut at Southern Hills only to withdraw from injury before the final round.

He showed few signs of rust on Saturday, though. His 67 equalled the third best round on day three at Riviera, only bettered by Rahm’s 65 and Denny McCarthy’s 64. Rahm leads 2021 Genesis champion Max Homa (69), who sits at 12 under, while Keith Mitchell (69) is at 11 under.

“Well, the golf part I can do,” Woods said modestly. “It’s just a matter of whether I can get from point A to point B. That’s been the struggle part of it.”

Highlights of Woods’ round included birdies at the short 10th, his opening hole, and the par-3 14th where he drained a 25-footer from off the green. But the front nine (Woods’ back nine), the 15-time major winner showed glimpses of his brilliant best. On the par-5 first, Woods was 191 yards out for his second shot and carved in a flighted approach from left to right that settled to a tap-in eagle putt.

A roar nobody would've been ready for ?

The tap-in eagle putt moves @TigerWoods to T26 (-3) @TheGenesisInv. pic.twitter.com/PYZYNIuDva

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) February 18, 2023

At the par-5 fifth, a clever approach to 11 feet set up his third and final birdie of the day. Woods’ only bogey of the day came from a poor approach from 143 yards and a putt up the slope that had far too much pace.

Woods’ 67 was also the best score among the 12 rounds he’s played since the 2022 Masters, which was his first tournament in 17 months after severely injuring his right leg in that 2021 car accident.

“[Today] was the best I’ve played [since the 2022 return],” Woods said. Promising for Woods fans is that despite the ankle injury, he is driving the ball long and straight, freeing up the rest of his game. He has averaged 303 yards for week, ranking 12th in the elite field, and he hit nine of 14 fairways on Saturday.

“[Bezuidenhout] and I were talking about it. He outdrove us on almost every hole, which was a little bit surprising,” Schwab said of the third player in their group.

Woods put that down to a stronger core supplementing his weaker leg.

“My core is so much stronger than it was [in April last year]. That’s one of the reasons why I’ve got the speed that I have. I can’t use the ground, so I have to use my core.”

But the accuracy? That’s coming from a low fade Woods says he can rely on.

“I’ve been pretty one dimensional on how to hit my tee shots. I’ve gone to my stock shot, a flat cut,” he said. “It can go a very long way here, it’s so firm and fast, so I’ve been able to hit that shot. Then with the firm greens, I thoroughly enjoy that for my iron game, and finally made some putts.”

There were 27 putts for Woods on moving day, and he ranked 16th in the field for strokes gained/putting. This came after a Friday night adjustment to his putting that paid off. “I went back to releasing the putter blade more, more right hand, more release,” Woods said.

Woods wrapped up his news conference on Saturday night by refraining from revealing more about his schedule in the lead up to the Masters in April. Even he doesn’t know if he’ll play another tournament before Augusta.

“I don’t know about that. Right now I’ve got to recover for tomorrow [the final round],” he said. “I’m a little bit on the sore side, so let’s just recover, figure out tomorrow and hopefully shoot a low one. [After] this event, we’ll go ahead and reassess everything and see where we are, see how I recover from a full tournament. The last time I did it was at The Open Championship, so it’s been a while.”

Indeed, it has. But you would not know it from Saturday’s round.

The post How good was Tiger’s 67 on Saturday? ‘The best I’ve played’ since his car crash appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The defending Hero World Challenge champion is motivated to break his major streak in ‘19

By Matthew Rudy
Rickie Fowler turns 30 in two weeks, and based on conventional pre-Tiger Woods PGA Tour career wisdom, he should be entering his prime. But ever since Woods crammed three whole Hall of Fame careers worth of winning in his 20s — 46 wins and 10 majors, to be precise — the competitive clock has started ticking sooner.

Fowler is starting his 10th season on Tour, and measuring by cash he’s been wildly successful, with more than $34 million in career earnings on the course and at least that much off. Still, his 2018 season was a fair representation of his career. Fowler won the last Hero World Challenge with a spectacular final-round 61 but didn’t record a “real” victory the rest of the season. He even made his traditional appearances on major championship leaderboards at Augusta and the PGA and was counted on to be one of the leaders of the American Ryder Cup team.

“I had a fairly consistent season — put myself in contention a lot, put myself in great positions at the majors — I just never got t

He’s right, but his career record — four wins, including the 2015 Players Championship — is also starting to suffer in comparison to a pack of similar-age and similar-profile players at the top of the world ranking. Bryson DeChambeau just won his fifth tour event at the end of the 2018 season, while fellow 25-year-old Jordan Spieth has 11 wins and three majors to go with his 2015 FedEx Cup title. Patrick Reed is the same age as Fowler and has won six times including the 2018 Masters. They’re all chasing Rory McIlroy, who turns 30 in May and has 14 PGA Tour wins and three majors along with seven other wins in Europe.

Fowler says he’s coming into 2019 positive and primed to win majors — and more tournaments in general — but that wins aren’t his only barometer. “It’s about always seeing improvement,” he said. “Every year I’ve learned more about what we do out here playing week in and week out, and more about myself. My game has continued to get better and better. Yes, there’s probably been some years that probably weren’t as good as the year before, but it’s been a fun ride. I think the best is yet to come. I’ve always heard the 30s are your prime, so we’re just getting into it.”

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