By Joel Beall
Former European Ryder Cupper Thorbjorn Olesen was found not guilty Wednesday on charges of sexual assault, assault and being drunk on an aircraft.

On Monday, a London court heard that Olesen exhibited uncouth behaviour on a flight from Nashville to London following the 2019 WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational. The Danish golfer was said to have pushed a British Airways worker, kissed another worker’s hand, touched a woman’s breast and cried before falling asleep, later waking up and urinating on another passenger’s seat. On Tuesday, Olesen, 31, apologised for his actions.

“I felt absolutely horrible and I was very sorry,” Olesen said. “I could not believe what they were saying what happened. I was just embarrassed and felt horrible.”

Olesen explained he drank two hops and two glasses of grape on a private jet beforehand and had a vodka and cranberry juice before boarding the London-bound flight. He also took two melatonin pills to combat jet lag, along with two Ambein pills. Olesen said he would “never” have taken the pills had he known they were prescription-only or that sleeping walking could be a side-effect. Olesen denied remembering the events on the plane.

On Wednesday, a jury—after less than an hour of deliberation—cleared him of all charges.

Olesen, a five-time winner on the European Tour and member of the 2018 European Ryder Cup team, was originally suspended by the European Tour but given temporary reinstatement in July 2020 because of the delay in the hearing of his court case due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He made 17 starts on the Old World Circuit this season but struggled, his poor performance Olesen attributed this week to the incident and its fallout.

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By Shane Ryan
MEMPHIS, Tenn.—Sometimes, it takes the perspective of a third party for an accomplishment to settle in, and it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that for Xander Schauffele, a professional golfer, the historical significance of winning an Olympic gold medal would take a moment to register. What might be surprising is who opened his eyes: his grandparents.

Schauffele’s mother, Chen Ping-Yi, was born in Taiwan to Taiwanese parents, but moved to Japan at age 4 and was raised there. Her parents still live there, in a Tokyo ward called Shibuya, and one of Schauffele’s friends managed to get them a hotel room right next to his in Narita. It was the reaction of those grandparents—he calls them “agōng” and “amà,” Taiwanese terms of affection, but says he has no idea how to spell their real names—that first made him aware of what he’d done.

“It’s pretty hard to impress someone who’s almost 90 years old and has been on this planet for a long time,” he said Tuesday morning in Memphis, ahead of the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational. “They’ve seen a lot of things, and to see my grandpa and my grandma’s reaction when I pull out this gold medal, it really was surprising, it shocked me … that’s something I would want everyone, kids or my kids’ kids down the generational line, to sort of have.”

Schauffele laughed when remembering that he briefly considered not even going. When he spoke with his wife Maya Lowe, she reminded him of that hesitation, and said, “Can you imagine that there’s a little piece of you that almost didn’t show up?”

Once he arrived, Schauffele said it was a matter of “correcting his mindset” about the entire endeavor and focusing on the four-day tournament as he would at any tour stop. The significance of winning a gold medal—something that the world’s top athletes have dreamed of for more than one hundred years, but that wouldn’t especially have been on the radar of a golfer before 2016—started to resonate when he stood on the podium and listened to The Star-Spangled Banner.

In many ways, Schauffele is a perfect Olympic champion for golf because of his international pedigree. His mom has her Taiwanese-Japanese roots, his father Stefan is half-French and had dreams of competing for Germany in decathlon before an accident cost him vision in one eye. His paternal grandfather played soccer for the Austrian national team, and even Xander’s brother was born in Germany. Much has been made of silver medalist Rory Sabbatini’s Slovakian citizenship, but Schauffele boasts an equally diverse heritage.

In general, Schauffele was fascinated with the Olympics, and he and Justin Thomas joked about how their workout regimens don’t come close to comparing with what they saw on display among some of the other athletes.

“We play golf, which is obviously really hard and it’s a mental game,” he said, “but if you look at, sort of, how these people physically transform themselves to perform these crazy things, it really is impressive. Honestly, anything coming down the line is super interesting. I caught myself watching ping pong with my jaw on the floor for an hour because I love playing ping pong. I was like, holy smokes, this is what it’s like? I don’t know if I could score a point on someone.”

In terms of his own career, Schauffele is happy to have won with a lead, and he feels that he’ll have more freedom in his own mind the next time the situation arises. Winning a major remains a big goal, but in the near-term he has a chance to win his second WGC this week in Memphis, and will be eyeing the FedExCup title, where he currently stands 10th with two events remaining before the playoffs. As it happens, he also has a chance to play for his country again, this time in September at the Ryder Cup. He’s sixth in those standings, and with six automatic spots available, he wants to make sure not to rely on a captain’s pick. He was 12th in this situation in 2018, and barely missed the team.

“I remember it,” he said. “I got a call from [captain Jim] Furyk in the car … I was sitting there with my caddie and I put Jim on speaker. My caddie and I were talking about it; I think it was at Aronimink [host of the 2018 BMW Championship] … Tony [Finau] just outplayed me in the playoffs. It’s one of those gut things, deep down you know this phone call was coming and I knew it wasn’t going to be a good one. It’s one of those things that kind of knocks you down … like I said, this is sort of why I have this deep ingrained thing in my head, like, ‘just qualify for the team so none of this pick stuff is even questioned.'”

His chances look extremely good after his gold medal, whether he maintains his position or not, but Schauffele doesn’t want to leave anything to chance. He feels fresh for Memphis, which is remarkable in and of itself, but aside from a few drinks and a toast with some of the U.S. Olympic Committee members, most of his gold medal aftermath consisted of seeing his grandparents. He had a small celebration with a few players and caddies on the plane ride back to the states, landed in Memphis Monday morning, and now prepares to finish off what has become, courtesy of the gold medal he showed off on Tuesday, an historical season.

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By Brian Wacker
Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. Those are the only two players over the last 60 years to win at least 13 times on the PGA Tour at a younger age than Justin Thomas.

Good company to be in.

It wasn’t just that Thomas won the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational on Sunday, but rather how he did it. And that in doing so, he returned to No. 1 in the world—a position he first ascended to in 2018 but held for just four weeks.

“I feel like I’m a better player and I feel like I’m more complete of a golfer now than I was then,” Thomas said following a final-round five-under 65 to win by three over a quartet of contenders that included Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson.

It showed on Sunday.

Trailing by four strokes going into the final round, Thomas went out in 31, with four birdies and no bogeys in his first nine holes, to quickly chase down Brendon Todd. Then, with five players tied for the lead late in the day, Thomas took control of the tournament.

RELATED: The clubs Justin Thomas used to win the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational

Despite a few crooked tee shots down the stretch, he kept his composure and made a pair of birdies over his final four holes that proved pivotal. None more so than at the par-4 15th, where he double-crossed a 5-wood off the tee that somehow made it through the trees, bounced off a cart path and came to rest 50 yards from the green, leaving a clear shot to the flag. One hole later, Thomas flared a drive to the right, punched out, with his ball barely hitting the last of a few branches, and got up-and-down again, this time from 100 yards, for another birdie.

“I got unbelievably lucky,” he said. “But that’s the stuff that happens when you win.”

It didn’t hurt that he got a little help, too.

Koepka grabbed the lead by one after a birdie at 13 but made a sloppy bogey at the par-5 16th. Trailing by two when he got to the 17th green, he knew he needed to make birdie to have a chance and did—from 40 feet.

But a few moments later it all came unravelled for the defending champion when tugged his tee shot into the water off the 18th tee. Game over. Koepka went on to make double bogey to wrap up a one-under 69.

“You’re one back, you’ve got to take an aggressive line there,” Koepka said of the shot on 18. “I didn’t hit that bad of a tee shot, maybe just lined up a little bit left or what. Pleased with it. Why wouldn’t I be?”

RELATED: JT plays with fire, a brutal finish for Brooks and three other Sunday takeaways in Memphis

Thomas had more reason to be pleased, though. Of his previous dozen victories, most had come from in front. A Sunday rally, with Koepka breathing down his neck no less, is another step in the evolution of the 27-year-old.

“It meant a lot because it’s something that I hadn’t really done,” Thomas said of Sunday’s victory charge. “I was just strictly trying to make as many birdies as I could because I can’t control what everybody else does. And that’s what I tried to do today.”

Never mind that he also did it without the services of his regular caddie, Jimmy Johnson, who has been sidelined because of health issues in recent weeks. Instead, Jim (Bones) Mackay filled in, only adding to the intrigue.

Andy Lyons
Justin Thomas struggled off the tee on the back nine at TPC Southwind on Sunday, but still shot a 65 to win by three strokes.

Thomas also learned from recent mistakes. At the Workday Charity Open, he held the 54-hole lead but dropped two shots in his first three holes at Muirfield Village. Then, leading by three with three holes to play, he blew that, too, eventually losing in a playoff to Collin Morikawa.

Not this time. Thomas made just one bogey on Sunday.

“I just didn’t get ahead of myself anytime those last two, three holes, where I felt like my mind was kind of wandering and maybe thinking about winning,” he said. “I basically just told myself to shut up and figure out what you’re doing because I could lose that tournament just as easily as I won it today. I was really, really proud of myself to stay in the moment and get it done.”

And to return to being No. 1 again, a position that he admitted he struggled with the first time he’d gotten there and one he’d like to stay at a little longer this time.

“I would hope to have it, you know, a couple years by the end of my career,” Thomas said.

He’s on his way.

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By Tod Leonard
It might be light and airy. It might be awkward. It might be strictly business. We know this: When Phil Mickelson and his former caddie of 25 years, Jim (Bones) Mackay, come face to face on the first tee on Sunday at TPC Southwind in Memphis, it will be fascinating theatre.

Mickelson and Mackay, who parted ways three years ago after this tournament, the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, will be reunited on the golf course in a group for the first time since their breakup.

Mackay, of course, took an on-course commentating job with NBC and Golf Channel, though he has made cameo appearances of late on the bag of Matthew Fitzpatrick and now Justin Thomas, whose regular caddie,Jimmy Johnson, has been undergoing tests since becoming ill at the Memorial Tournament.

On Phil’s bag is his brother, Tim, who gave up being Jon Rahm’s agent to loop after Mackay’s departure.

At least on television, Mackay and Mickelson have crossed paths only by happenstance. Much of that might be due to Mackay working among the lead groups, of which Mickelson has not often been a part of in the last few years. The Hall of Famer has won twice since Mackay left the bag—they won 42 times and five majors together— but Mickelson has only one top-10 finish in 13 starts this season.

On the strength of a four-under-par 66 on Saturday, Mickelson moved into a tie for sixth place at seven under, five off the lead of Brandon Todd. After his second 66 of the week, Thomas is one shot ahead of Mickelson, alone in fifth.

With Mackay on his bag for two events at Muirfield Village, Fitzpatrick followed a tie for 27th in the Workday Charity Open with a solo third in the Memorial. Thomas is trying for his third win of the season.

The post It’s a must-watch reunion between Phil Mickelson and his former caddie at the WGC-FedEx St. Jude appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Joel Beall
Ten months ago Brendon Todd didn’t have tour status. He’s a round away from becoming the Player of the Year favourite.

Todd survived a four-bogey day thanks to five red figures, turning in a one-under 69 for a one-shot lead into the final round of the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational.

“I’m excited to be in this position and feel like if I can go out there and swing a little better and keep this putting momentum going, I’ll be in good shape,” Todd said.

That Todd remains up top is a testament to his short game. Already one of the shorter hitters on tour—he ranks 209th out of 216 qualified players in distance this season—the 35-year-old was struggling with his driver Saturday, finding the short stuff just half the time en route to a negative -0.613 strokes gained/off-the-tee mark. The approach performance (-.763 strokes gained) wasn’t much better.

“Today was a little more difficult, cooler, a little more moisture out there,” Todd said. “The winds were still up and swirling a little bit, so I thought the golf course still yielded great scores. But for me, made it a little more difficult and I was battling my swing a little bit.”

Yet Todd gained nearly two-and-half strokes on the field with the flat stick on Saturday, converting four birdies from outside 12 feet. On the week he’s up more than nine strokes on the greens over his competition.

“I put in some work with my mental coach on the greens earlier in the week and we just focused on—if I focus on fundamentals, good things will happen,” Todd said. “So for me that means staying steady over the ball, staying down on my putts and having good speed. So those are really the keys to putting and it’s been working really well for me this week.”

It is the fourth time this season Todd will enter Sunday with the lead, converting two of those leads into wins at the Bermuda Championship and Mayakoba Golf Classic last fall. To do so, he’ll have to hold off the likes of Ben An, Rickie Fowler, Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas. Of course, this is a man who battled the yips and contemplated quitting the game. He does not scare easy.

“I think we all, the best players in the world treat each final round like it’s just another day and they just go out there and try to execute and stick to their game and let the results fall as they do,” Todd said.

Brooks’ bounce back
The finger appeared to be on the eject button. Brooks Koepka started Saturday with a double at the second and added a bogey at the sixth. Given Koepka was coming off a rough Friday showing, it appeared whatever momentum conjured off of Thursday’s 62 was shot.

The lesson, as always: Never doubt Brooks Koepka.

Koepka caught fire Saturday afternoon, logging six birdies in an eight-hole stretch. He stumbled at the 17th but still finished with a 68—37 on the front, 31 on the back— putting him three back of Todd.

Despite the parade of birdies it was a par that saved Koepka’s tournament. Koepka’s drive on the 13th went into the native area, with his provisional rolling up against a fence. Koepka was able to find his first shot, which was plugged in the heather, thus bestowing a free drop. From there, Koepka muscled out his approach on the dance floor, saving 4.

In one sense, winning doesn’t necessarily matter for Koepka on Sunday. He is a man judged on four tournaments, and four tournaments alone. Conversely, he’s 30 spots outside the playoffs with 15 days left in the regular season and was coming off a brutal three-tournament stretch (CUT, T-62, CUT). Recapturing that swagger days before his pursuit of a third straight Wanamker Trophy begins is something Koepka, whether he’ll admit it or not, needed to happen. And a development that spells trouble for his competition.

Phil shakes off cobwebs
It has been tough sledding for Phil Mickelson. In six starts since finishing T-3 at Pebble Beach in February, Mickelson has not logged a top 20 and missed the cut three times. The strokes gained metrics aren’t kind, either: 155th in approach, 148th in putting, 115th total. Coupled with his 50th birthday this summer, it was fair to wonder how much gas was left in Lefty’s tank.

Plenty, it turns out. Mickelson, beginning his day eight shots back in a tie for 15th, reached as high as third place on Saturday before a taking a par at the par-5 16th and bogey at the 17th. Still, for a guy in desperate need of, well, something, Saturday’s 66 was a shot of life.

“I hit a lot of good shots, made a lot of good putts and played really well,” Mickelson said. “I let it—you can always look back and you feel like you let a couple go. I wish I would have finished the round off a little better. I wish I had birdied 16 and not bogeyed 17. Those two shots coming down, you’ve really got to close the round out a little better than I did today. But I hit a lot of good shots in the heart of the round, made seven birdies and really had a good day.”

Helping matters are Memphis’ friendly confines. Mickelson owns four top-10 finishes at the St. Jude Classic, and earlier in the week called TPC Southwind one of the more underrated tracks on tour. He’ll need that home cookin’ on Sunday.

“I’m going to have to shoot something really low, probably 63, 64 to have a realistic chance,” Mickelson said. “It’s certainly out there, I’ve shot it before.”

More importantly, it gives Mickelson—never a man short on confidence—conviction in his game heading into the PGA Championship.

Thomas provides update on caddie
Justin Thomas has Jim (Bones) Mackay on this bag for the next two weeks as his regular loop, Jimmy Johnson, is taking time off for his health. Johnson got overheated at the Memorial a few weeks back and felt his body wasn’t up for the task of Memphis and San Francisco. Following his third round, Thomas said Johnson recently underwent a stress test.

“The big thing is he’s fine when he’s inside and not in the severe heat like that,” Thomas said. “The big thing is we’re just trying to figure out what it is or if there’s something in particular, whether it’s some medicine he takes. More often than not it’s not something crazy major. It’s just like I told him and I think that he’s figuring out, it’s a lot bigger than caddying. It’s about his health. I love Jimmy to death, he’s part of the family and I want him over anybody else in the world on my bag for the rest of my careee. But if it means his health, then that’s what it is. So that’s what he’s trying to fix so that he can get himself better first and foremost, and then caddying is just a bonus.”

Thomas said they have ruled out coronavirus, and that Johnson has further tests, scans and X-rays scheduled.

“I told him I’ll be as helpful or as involved or uninvolved as he wants me to be,” Thomas said. “You know, whether he’s here this week or not, he’s still on the team and I’m still a part of his team as well. So I’m going to do and everybody else on my team is going to do what we can to help, but glad he’s home resting right now.”

Thomas shot a four-under 66 on Saturday. The FedEx Cup points leader will enter Sunday four back of Todd and will be looking for his third win and ninth top 10 in 14 starts this year.

The post Todd 18 holes away from three-win season, Koepka bounces back and JT provides update on caddie’s health appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Ryan Herrington
Every shot counts is a consistent refrain you hear in golf, particularly when talking about the pro game. At that level, of course, the shots count for more than just numbers on players’ scorecards but also dollars in the bank accounts.

But just how much do they count? And does one shot count more than another?

With the conclusion of the 2018-’19 PGA Tour season, we went through the results of every tour event to do some investigating and answer a few questions. The working query was this: If a tour pro shot even par in every round of golf the entire season, how would he fare? How about shooting one under par every round? Or two under par? We went a step further and looked at what might happen if you shot a ½-stroke under par or 1½ strokes. How would this change things?

In crunching the numbers, we left out the WGC-Dell Match Play and the Zurich Classic, because of their variance from individual stroke-play competition, and the three FedEx Cup Playoff events, in an attempt to simulate how players would do in the regular season. That leaves 41 tournaments, counting majors, World Golf Championships and events opposite the WGCs, to gauge how many dollars and FedEx Cup points tour pros would earn at the different levels of proficiency. That number is obviously higher than any PGA Tour member plays in a regular season; the average number of starts for the 125 players on the final regular-season FedEx Cup points list was 21.5. But allow us to use it as a starting point.

So here is what happens if a golfer played every tournament and shot even par in every round he played:

As you can see, shooting even par on the PGA Tour isn’t a bad thing—a golfer would keep his tour card by ranking 118th on the FedEx Cup points list and be able to boast that he cleared a million bucks in one year—but it isn’t going to turn anybody into a household name. The problem here, however, is that the data is skewed because even par at the PGA Championship left you in seventh place. The next best finish for the tour pro who shot even par in every round of every event was a 21st at the WGC-HSCB Champions. The PGA Championship becomes a bit of an outlier. Additionally, no golfer could play in two tournaments in the same week.

So let’s take out the majors and the WGCs, and keep the other events. This means we’re counting 34 tournaments, still well above the tour average but in the interest of our experiment, it’s a reasonable jumping-off point (we would rather not bias our results by randomly taking out other regular-season tour events). Here’s the new break down:

Not quite as impressive. Now a golfer is heading to the Korn Ferry Final series in hopes of getting back his PGA Tour for next year.

OK, so what if a golfer played incrementally better, shooting the equivalent of a ½-stroke under par each round rather than even par? Under this scenario, players would be sitting on one under par after 36 holes in every tournament (and hoping that was good enough to make the cut) then would finish at two under par in every 72-hole tournament. Here is how those golfers would fare, broken down by all events, then pulling out majors and pulling out majors and WGCs.

Understandably, majors and WGCs continue to prop up the overall numbers, given that these events are ones where the scores are highest so ½-stroke under par goes a lot farther than it does at the Desert Classic. But if you’re a rank-and-file member of the PGA Tour who isn’t necessarily eligible for all those tournaments in the first place, and you then play a healthy diet of regular-season events, shooting a shot or two under par every few rounds isn’t really going to cut it either. Ultimately, you’d still be outside the top 125 on the FedEx Cup points list and needing to figure out another way to get back on the PGA Tour. (And again, we’re working off 34 starts, which is higher than anyone played in 2018-’19; the tour leader was Sungjae Im at 32.)

Next up: What if a tour pro shot one stroke under par each round? The math is simple enough: This golfer is shooting a two-under total for Thursday and Friday and finishes four-under at the end of play on Sunday (if he’s made the cut). Here are the results:

The good news? You’re making more cuts. Where the even-par shooter was only playing on the weekend 35.2 percent of the time in non-major/WGC events, the one-under shooter does it at a 64.7-percent rate. There’s also a few top-10 and top-20 finishes now being recorded, allowing players to bank some money and FedEx Cup points. For the first time you’re comfortably keeping your tour card and even putting yourself in a position to play more than just one FedEx Cup playoff event.

So what happens if a tour pro is shooting 1½ strokes under par? This means he’s three-under through 36 holes and six under for the tournament. Here’s how the data breaks down:

In this case, you’d have posted top-10 finishes in three of the majors (only T-18 at the Masters), so the numbers counting all events put you in the top-10 in earnings and FedEx Cup points. Weed out the majors, and the WGCs as well, and you’ve still got nine top-20 finishes, three top-10s and are on the cusp of getting into the Tour Championship if you can perform well in the first two FedEx Cup playoff events.

Lastly, let’s look at what happens if a tour pro shoots two under par every round. The results shouldn’t necessarily be surprising.

First off: Congratulations are in order! If you shot eight under par in every tournament, you would have been a two-time winner on the PGA Tour in 2018-’19. And a major champion to boot, having taken the PGA Championship title at Bethpage in May. Once again, if we weed out the majors and WGCs, you’d still be a winner, as eight-under-par 276 won Paul Casey the title this year at the Valspar Championship.

As you can see, shooting two-under per round will allow you to finish in the top 20 more than a third of the time and in the top 10 in nearly a quarter of your starts.

So what are the biggest takeaways from all this? (And don’t be a smart aleck and say you win more money if you shoot lower scores!) Let’s take a look at two more charts. The first is the performances on tour broken down by stroke levels (even par, ½-stroke under, one stroke under, etc.). The second is money and FedEx Cup points earned, also broken down by the stroke levels.

[divider] [/divider]

What’s interesting is the non-linear way an extra ½-stroke helps as your scoring already is getting lower. Going from even-par shooting to ½-stroke under par lets you jump in earnings (about $300,000) and FedEx Cup points (roughly 130), but that extra ½-stroke if you’re already at one under par a round moves you up the earnings/points rankings by a larger margin (nearly $1 million and about 390 points). And another extra ½-stroke to go from 1½ strokes under to two under is worth $2.6 million and nearly 1,000 FedEx Cup points. This is a by-product of the fact the tour awards more dollars and FedEx Cup points for higher finishes, but it serves as a good lesson to all tour pros—and any fans who watch them compete.

Yes, every stroke counts, but the strokes and ½-strokes that take you from the good to the very good range on the PGA Tour “count” incrementally even more.

The post Shoot even par in every round on the PGA Tour and here’s how you would have done during the 2018-’19 season appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Brian Wacker
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Big Game Brooks vs. Rory the Resilient.

Sunday’s final round of the World Golf Championships-FedEx St. Jude Invitational isn’t to decide a major championship. But it is a major opportunity —especially for the 30-year-old Northern Irishman.

“It is exciting,” said McIlroy, who leads Koepka by a stroke through 54 holes at TPC Southwind after a sizzling eight-under 62 on Saturday. “He’s the number one player in the world, four majors in the last three years. He’s the man right now.”

It’s also chance for McIlroy to prove that he’s more than resilient. It’s a chance to prove that he can perform when the pressure is at its highest (or at least as high as it can be at a non-major).

After all, it wasn’t that long ago that McIlroy was the man.

Between 2011 and 2016, he won 19 times around the globe, including four majors to become the third player to win at least four majors by age 25 (Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods were the other two). He was the No. 1 player in the world, had the Golden Bear saying that he could win 15 or 20 majors and appeared to be the face of the sport for the foreseeable future.

In the years since, however, McIlroy has gone majorless. He has won other titles along the way, but he has also built up his share of scar tissue, too — from the final-round meltdown of the 2011 Masters, to the opening-round implosion at last week’s Open Championship at Portrush, and more than his share of gags in between.

One of them came right here at TPC Southwind. A stroke off the lead in the final round of the 2012 FedEx St. Jude Classic, McIlroy, needing to birdie the 18th, stepped to the tee on the par-4 and promptly yanked his 3-wood left and into the lake.

Then there was last week’s British Open, the first played in Northern Ireland in 68 years at a course where he’d shot 61 as a 16-year-old and an hour from where McIlroy grew up. Carrying the expectation of a nation, he stepped onto the first tee in the first round, felt his pulse quicken, his hands shake and watched helplessly as his tee shot with an iron inexplicably tumbled out of bounds. He went on to quadruple- bogey the hole, made triple at the last and shot a stunning 79.

That McIlroy bounced back the next day and nearly made the cut was hardly a surprise. He has a history of that, too — his win in Canada earlier this year came off a missed cut the week before at the Memorial and featured a final-round 61.

“The pressure, I guess the pressure’s off a little bit,” McIlroy said. “You’ve had a bad week and you go to the next week and you say, OK, I didn’t do this well. So you’re sort of trying to focus on that rather than winning the tournament.

“So for me, this week I wanted to focus on neutralizing my ball flight and trying to dial in my distances. All of a sudden, you know, those two little focus points, have made me play some good golf again.”

Now the question is does he have the mettle to hold off Koepka, and the rest of his pursuers? In addition to Koepka there are 11 more players within five shots of the lead going into Sunday.

None loom larger than Koepka, though.

Over the last two years, no one has been better when the lights have been the brightest. Koepka has won four of the last seven majors, which included this year’s PGA Championship at Bethpage Black. In the year’s other three majors, he finished T-2 (Masters), second (U.S. Open) and fourth (The Open).

Sunday will also mark the first time the two have been paired in the final round of a tournament and in some ways an opportunity for Koepka as well. If there’s a hole in his resume, it’s the fact that he has just two non-major wins on tour.

Throw in an extra $2 million to the winner of the Wyndham Rewards competition, and the stakes become that much higher.

“It will be a fun day tomorrow,” Koepka said. “There’s a lot, I guess, on the line and a lot to play for. Yeah, it will be fun duking it out with him.

“This is what you want. You want the best players coming down the stretch on Sunday with a chance to win.”

The post Brooks Koepka and Rory McIlroy, shake hands and come out fighting appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

The Englishman released his upcoming schedule on Tuesday and it’s one of the most bizarre three-week schedules you’ll ever see for a golfer of his caliber. Check out the Monday qualifier for the Genesis Open that’s sandwiched between starts at Pebble Beach and a World Golf Championship:

Upcoming schedule:

Week off

AT&T Invitational Pro-Am
Week off (Monday Qual for Genesis)
WGC Mexico

— Matt Fitzpatrick (@MattFitz94) January 29, 2019

When in Rome on this side of the Atlantic, right?

Of course, the oddest part is Fitzpatrick not being in the Genesis field despite being in the much, much, much more exclusive WGC-Mexico Championship. With no cut and big money along with big world ranking points at stake, the WGC events are a coveted invite, even one which Tiger Woods was shut out of until he returned to the top 50 of the OWGR last year.

So why does Fitzpatrick have to attempt the Monday qualifying route? It’s simple. He doesn’t have PGA Tour status and the annual tour stop at Riviera is very popular. Last year, Fitzpatrick joined the PGA Tour as a special temporary member, but he failed to earn his tour card for the 2018-2019 season through the non-member FedEx Cup points list. Fitzpatrick’s only PGA Tour start so far this season came in October at another World Golf Championship, the WGC-HSBC Champions, where he finished T-54.

Speaking of Woods, he’s the host of the Genesis Open. And this just happens to be Fitzpatrick’s Twitter cover image. . .

Guess Matt didn’t lobby hard enough for a sponsor exemption.

In any event, we wish Fitzpatrick good luck these next few weeks, but especially at the Monday qualifier. Those things are brutal.

The post Why Matthew Fitzpatrick has one of the oddest three-week stretches you’ll ever see for a star golfer appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Dave Shedloski
The new PGA Tour schedule that kicked in this year was designed to flow better, with the four majors lined up in consecutive months, but it also is more compact, which leads to some hard choices for players making out their itineraries for the year.

It’s not unheard of for a player to skip a World Golf Championship event. But Adam Scott currently is entertaining the notion that he might not play in any of the three remaining WGC events this season.

“In the end I just kind of took the simple approach and thought I’ll just play the ones I like and that make sense to play,” the former No. 1 player in the world said Wednesday at the Sony Open in Hawaii. “Any inconvenience, whether it’s a big tournament or not — I don’t know how everyone can define a big tournament differently — but at the moment I have not scheduled a World Golf Championship because they don’t fall in the right weeks for me.”

Scott, the 2013 Masters champion, finished T-18 at the WGC-HSBC Champions in October before taking a long break in which he also didn’t compete in his home country of Australia and didn’t touch a club for six weeks, perhaps the longest layoff since he turned pro. The next WGC is the Mexico Championship in late February, the last event on the West Coast and coming right after the Genesis Open at Riviera Country Club, one of Scott’s favorite venues. The WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play falls two weeks before the Masters. The season’s finale in the series is the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational, which not only replaced the Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio — where Scott won in 2011 — but also is scheduled the week after the Open Championship in Northern Ireland.

And at age 38, Scott, not surprisingly, said his goal at this stage of his careers is to win majors. WGCs are nice and all, but they are not close to majors in the big picture. “I would like to think most of my achievements are still to come. You can’t escape — for me it’s about winning major championships. That’s the measure of a career really in this game.”

As for the WGCs, Scott, ranked 41st in the world, might change his mind as the season progresses, but for now he seems set on there being no deviations from the plan.

“I feel like there are good tournaments right around them that are a preferred option,” he said. “It is tricky. I thought that was interesting for my schedule change. I wouldn’t have thought that was the case, but that is the case at the moment.”

The post Adam Scott might be eliminating the World Golf Championship events with new compact PGA Tour schedule appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Christopher Powers
The PGA Tour makes its first of five stops in Texas this week for the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, the third WGC of the season. For the third year the event is being held at Austin Country Club after a one-year stint at TPC Harding Park and a five-year stretch at The Golf Club at Dove Mountain in Arizona. It’s the fourth year of the tournament’s intriguing new pool play format, separating 64 of the top players in the world into groups of four and having them play round-robin matches, with the top 16 advancing into a single-elimination bracket.

The Match Play’s new format has produced some must-watch television over the last three years, most recently in 2017 when Dustin Johnson defeated Jon Rahm 1 up in an epic final match for his fifth WGC victory. Both players are back in this year’s field, Johnson once again the 1-seed and Rahm the 3-seed, as well as the event’s last two winners, Jason Day and Rory McIlroy. McIlroy is coming in fresh off his impressive win at Bay Hill, where he carded a final-round 64 en route to a three shot victory.

Also in the field this week is Jordan Spieth, who looks to get his season on the right track in his home state. The three-time major champion hasn’t had much success in this format though, having made it to the final 16 only once in the last three years, and failing to advance when he did in 2016. He faces a difficult task to get there this week, grouped with Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup teammate Patrick Reed as well as Charl Schwartzel and China’s rising star Haotong Li.

Related: Match Madness – Breaking down the 2018 WGC-Match Play groups

TV Coverage
OSN Sports 3 HD will carry live coverage on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday from 10pm UAE time. They’ll also carry coverage on Saturday and Sunday from 6pm UAE.

Wednesday Tee Times (NOTE: The UAE is nine hours ahead of the stated Texas tee times):
Group 1
12:48 p.m (9.48pm UAE time). — Dustin Johnson (1) vs. Bernd Wiesberger (52)
12:59 p.m. — Kevin Kisner (32) vs. Adam Hadwin (38)

Group 2
9:52 a.m. — Justin Thomas (2) vs. Luke List (60)
10:03 a.m. — Francesco Molinari (21) vs. Patton Kizzire (48)

Group 3
2:16 p.m. — Jon Rahm (3) vs. Keegan Bradley (63)
2:27 p.m. — Kiradech Aphibarnrat (28) vs. Chez Reavie (43)

Group 4
11:20 a.m. — Jordan Spieth (4) vs. Charl Schwartzel (49)
11:31 a.m. — Patrick Reed (19) vs. HaoTong Li (34)

Group 5
10:36 a.m. — Hideki Matsuyama (5) vs. Yusaku Miyazato (53)
10:47 a.m. — Patrick Cantlay (30) vs. Cameron Smith (46)

Group 6
1:32 p.m. — Rory McIlroy (6) vs. Peter Uihlein (57)
1:43 p.m. — Brian Harman (18) vs. Jhonattan Vegas (44)

Group 7
3:00 p.m. — Sergio Garcia (7) vs. Shubhankar Sharma (62)
3:11 p.m. — Xander Schauffele (20) vs. Dylan Frittelli (41)

Group 8
12:04 p.m. — Jason Day (8) vs. James Hahn (56)
12:15 p.m. — Louis Oosthuizen (25) vs. Jason Dufner (42)

Group 9
11:42 a.m. — Tommy Fleetwood (9) vs. Ian Poulter (58)
11:53 a.m. — Daniel Berger (26) vs. Kevin Chappell (33)

Group 10
2:38 p.m. — Paul Casey (10) vs. Russell Henley (51)
2:49 p.m. — Matthew Fitzpatrick (31) vs. Kyle Stanley (45)

Group 11
1:10 p.m. — Marc Leishman (11) vs. Julian Suri (64)
1:21 p.m. — Branden Grace (23) vs. Bubba Watson (35)

Group 12
10:14 a.m. — Tyrrell Hatton (12) vs. Alexander Levy (55)
10:25 a.m. — Charley Hoffman (22) vs. Brendan Steele (36)

Group 13
10:58 a.m. — Alex Noren (13) vs. Kevin Na (61)
11:09 a.m. — Tony Finau (29) vs. Thomas Pieters (39)

Group 14
1:54 p.m. — Phil Mickelson (14) vs. Charles Howell III (59)
2:05 p.m. — Rafa Cabrera Bello (17) vs. Satoshi Kodaira (40)

Group 15
9:30 a.m. — Pat Perez (15) vs. Si Woo Kim (50)
9:41 a.m. — Gary Woodland (24) vs. Webb Simpson (37)

Group 16
12:26 p.m. — Matt Kuchar (16) vs. Zach Johnson (54)
12:37 p.m. — Ross Fisher (27) vs. Yuta Ikeda (47)

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