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      Dustin Johnson Joins Field for League Looking to Rival the PGA Tour

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      The two-time major winner, who had pledged loyalty to the PGA Tour, is among 42 golfers set to play in the first event for a series whose major shareholder is Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund.Dustin Johnson, who in February pledged his loyalty to the U.S.-based PGA Tour, will be the top-ranked golfer in the inaugural event of a Saudi-backed rival tour next week at the Centurion Golf Club outside London. Phil Mickelson, who recently expressed some measure of support for the alternative circuit, was not among those listed in the field for the tournament.Mickelson’s absence is a mild surprise, though there were still six spots available on Tuesday, so he could change his mind. Johnson’s inclusion is a breach in the broad solidarity expressed by the PGA Tour’s elite men’s golfers over the last six months.Johnson, 37 and ranked 13th in the world, was one of 42 players listed in the field for the first event of the LIV Golf Invitational Series, whose major shareholder is the Public Investment Fund, the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. The upstart league offers no-cut tournaments with $25 million in total prize money at each, and guarantees top players millions in appearance fees regardless of their performance.Other players in the field were expected, with many — like Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood, Richard Bland, Graeme McDowell and Ian Poulter — older than 40. Overall, while there are 16 players in next week’s LIV Golf field ranked in the top 100, only two — Johnson and Louis Oosthuizen — are ranked in the top 30.The PGA Tour and the established European golf tour have denied releases for member golfers to play in LIV Golf, which is led by the retired major champion Greg Norman. PGA Tour officials have said that those playing in any of the breakaway circuit’s tournaments would risk punishment, which could include suspensions or a loss of tour membership.The next step in the clash may be in court. PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan has insisted that the tour’s lawyers believe any discipline handed to golfers who play for the rival tour will withstand legal scrutiny.Johnson, a two-time major winner who has accumulated more than $74 million in career earnings from the PGA Tour, said in February that he was “fully committed to the PGA Tour.” It was a sentiment echoed by every player in the top 10, and each of the leading golfers in a younger cohort that has dominated the PGA Tour in the last two seasons.Rory McIlroy, the four-time major champion, called the new rival league “dead in the water.”Johnson’s agent, David Winkle, issued a statement on Tuesday night: “Dustin has been contemplating this opportunity off-and-on for the past couple of years. Ultimately, he decided it was in his and his family’s best interest to pursue it. Dustin has never had any issue with the PGA Tour and is grateful for all it has given him, but in the end felt this was too compelling to pass up.”“Free agency has finally come to golf.,” Norman said in his own statement. “This is an opportunity to start a movement that will change the course of history by bringing new and open competition to the sport we all love. The desire shown by the players to participate in LIV Golf demonstrates their emphatic belief in our model and confidence in what we’re building for the future.”The LIV Golf series includes eight events from June to October, including one in Thailand and five in the United States. In late July, the host site will be the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.Saudi Arabia’s role in the new tour has already caused controversy. Mickelson set off a hailstorm of criticism in February after he acknowledged Saudi Arabia had a “horrible record on human rights” — including the murder of a Washington Post journalist — but said he viewed the new tour as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to apply pressure on the PGA Tour to increase player revenues. Mickelson later said his remarks had been “reckless.” More

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      At the U.S. Women’s Open, Michelle Wie West Reflects on an ‘Amazing Journey’

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      The golfer announced last week that she would play her last tournament for the foreseeable future at Pine Needles. “This week, I’m just soaking it all in,” she said.Michelle Wie West, one of golf’s most celebrated players since she was 10, had breakfast Tuesday morning in the player dining area at the U.S. Women’s Open at the Pine Needles Lodge and Golf Club in North Carolina.“I had someone come up to me,” Wie West, 32, said, “saying that they were named after me.”She gently rolled her eyes and deadpanned: “So that made me feel really young. I’m at that phase in my life.”Last week, Wie West announced she was stepping away from competitive golf after this week’s championship. She has no plans to play another L.P.G.A. tournament in 2022. The only other event she expects to enter is the 2023 U.S. Women’s Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links.She used the word “retire” only once when speaking with reporters on Tuesday and conceded that she could change her mind. But for Wie West, who contended for major championships shortly after her 16th birthday, won five L.P.G.A. events, including the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open, collected endorsements and prize-money earnings in the tens of millions of dollars and, notably, played eight times against men on the PGA Tour, there was the lilt of finality in her voice.“It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while,” Wie West said. “It’s been an amazing journey, and I’m very excited for what happens next.”The future, however, could wait for at least another 10 minutes as Wie West tried to summarize her career, which, because of her precocious introduction to elite golf, was lived under the obsessively bright lights of international stardom. Her career was also significantly disrupted by wrist injuries, which caused her to play intermittently or not at all for long stretches. In June 2020, along with her husband Jonnie West, she became a parent for the first time with the birth of the couple’s daughter, Makenna.“First off, I want to say I have zero regrets in my career,” she said. “There’s always that inkling of wishing I had done more. But no one is ever going to be 100 percent satisfied.“I have definitely had an up-and-down career, but I’m extremely proud for the resiliency that I’ve shown,” she said. “I’m extremely proud to have achieved the two biggest dreams that I’ve had — one being graduating from Stanford, and the other winning the U.S. Open.”Wie West was smiling, laughing and at ease. Among all the very public moments of her very public career, this seemed to be an easy one, and she was happy to be back in the setting of her signature on-the-course achievement.“I’m definitely giving myself some grace and enjoying this last week,” she said.For Wie West, whose presence, manifold skills and towering drives drew comparisons to Tiger Woods, what was left unsaid was her impact on women’s golf. She never addressed the topic directly nor did she acknowledge her own substantial influence on the sport’s popularity, but when asked what has changed in the women’s game in the last 20 years, Wie West was animated.“Oh, I mean, so much has changed,” she answered. “Huge kudos to the U.S.G.A. for really buying into the women’s sport and the L.P.G.A. for just growing and keep pushing the boundaries.“When doors get closed on us, we just keep pushing, and I’m just so proud of everyone on tour and the U.S.G.A. for really buying in and setting the level right,” she said.In January, the United States Golf Association nearly doubled the U.S. Women’s Open prize money to $10 million with the winner of this year’s championship earning $1.8 million, the richest single payout in women’s golf.A year ago, only three women on the L.P.G.A. tour earned more than $1.8 million. While the prize money for the men’s U.S. Open is $12.5 million, the U.S.G.A. chief executive Mike Whan has plans to bump the women’s purse to $12 million in a few years.The payouts of golf-industry sponsorship contracts awarded to top men’s golfers continue to overshadow most of those bestowed on women.But on that front, Wie West, who last year joined the L.P.G.A. board of directors and continues to serve in that capacity, had advice, from personal experience, for the golfers who will succeed her.Wie West playing from the 18th tee during the first round of the 2021 KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, where she tied for 46th.Adam Hagy/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“As female athletes, a lot of times we get told, ‘Oh, your sponsorship is only worth this much; you should only ask for this much,’ ” Wie West said. “We’re kind of in that mind-set, and I would encourage female younger athletes coming up to say, ‘No, I know my worth. I know what I deserve.’ And ask for more.”Asked if that was what she had done — successfully — she answered: “Yes, for sure.”Wie West is also an investor in a company, LA Golf, that she said was pledging to start new initiatives for women golfers with hopes of financially altering the sponsorship landscape.In the short term, Wie West still has a tournament to compete in this week, one that, given her other priorities, she has not prepared for as she might have 10 or 20 years ago.“Definitely haven’t had the practice schedule that I usually do leading up to U.S. Open,” she said with a grin. “This week, I’m just soaking it all in. Just seeing all the fans, seeing all the players, walking the walk. It’s pretty cool.”Being a past champion of the event helps Wie West enjoy the experience, perhaps more meaningfully than anyone would have expected. In what was something of a surprise, she said that without claiming the U.S. Women’s Open trophy eight years ago, there would not now be an end in sight to her competitive career.“It’s the one tournament I wanted to win ever since I started playing golf,” Wie West said. She then insisted: “If I hadn’t won the 2014 U.S. Open, I would still — I definitely wouldn’t retire. And I would still be out here playing and chasing that win. That win means everything to me.” More

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      Justin Thomas Wins the P.G.A. Championship With a Roaring Comeback

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      Thomas, who entered the final round seven shots behind the leader, beat Will Zalatoris in a playoff to win his second career major championship.TULSA, Okla. — The dominant story line before the 2022 P.G.A. Championship revolved around Phil Mickelson, who became the oldest major champion last year when he won the event at age 50 but chose not to defend his title. Then the focus of the tournament shifted to Tiger Woods, 46, who arrived at the Southern Hills Country Club to resume his stirring comeback from injuries he sustained in a horrific car crash 15 months ago. But Woods struggled physically, and mired in last place after three rounds, he withdrew before Sunday’s final round.What evolved instead on the last day of the P.G.A. Championship was a glimpse of elite men’s golf’s youthful future, not its aging past. On a nervy, topsy-turvy afternoon in eastern Oklahoma, there was yet another dramatic showdown between the dazzling, hard-swinging 20-somethings who have overtaken the game.In a taut, three-hole aggregate playoff after the 18-hole fourth round ended in a tie, Justin Thomas, 29, held off the 25-year-old rising star Will Zalatoris to win his second P.G.A. Championship. The last four winners of golf’s major championships, Thomas; Scottie Scheffler, at the Masters; Collin Morikawa, at the British Open; and Jon Rahm, the reigning U.S. Open champion, are in their 20s.Even in defeat, Zalatoris briefly laughed as he assessed how his generation had become dominant so quickly.“I kind of have to check myself sometimes because I feel like I’m playing junior golf and college golf all over again,” Zalatoris said, mentioning his longtime rivals Scheffler, Thomas and Mito Pereira, 27, who held the lead for most of the fourth round. “We’ve been playing together for almost 10 years. Now we’re at the highest level of golf.”Thomas, who began the final round seven strokes off the lead, did not figure to be celebrating a victory after his first eight holes Sunday when he was one over par. His final-round rally tied for the third-largest comeback in major championship history.“It was a bizarre day, no doubt,” Thomas, who also won the 2017 P.G.A. Championship, said. “But I said in a news conference before the first round that no lead would be safe here — too much wind and too many scary holes.”Mito Pereira’s double bogey on the 18th hole dropped him out of first place.Matt York/Associated PressPereira, the third-round leader, had appeared poised to become the first golfer from Chile to win a major golf championship. Stepping to the 18th tee Sunday evening, he was playing in the final group and needed only a par to clinch the title.But Pereira, playing in just his second major championship, sliced his tee shot into a small creek adjacent to the fairway. After a penalty shot drop from the water, Pereira’s approach shot found the thick rough alongside the green. His chip from there trundled far across the green until it stopped in the fringe on the opposite side of the green. Pereira made double bogey, and finished in a tie for third place with the American Cameron Young, a college teammate of Zalatoris’s when they were at Wake Forest.“It’s such a stressful situation,” Pereira said of the atmosphere on the 18th tee. “But I didn’t feel any more nervous than other shots today. I wasn’t even thinking of the water. But, you know, I wish I could do it again.”The playoff ended a streak of 19 consecutive majors, dating to the 2017 Masters, that did not require extra holes to decide the outcome.Thomas and Zalatoris began the playoff with birdies on the first hole, the 13th. On the reachable par-4, 302-yard 17th hole, Thomas drove the green and had a lengthy putt for eagle that came up 3 feet short. Zalatoris’s drive on the 17th hole was just off the green, and his flop shot stopped 8 feet from the hole. His birdie putt skidded past the hole, and Zalatoris tapped in for par.With the chance to seize the advantage, Thomas rattled in his birdie putt for a one-stroke edge heading into the third playoff hole, the 18th.Both golfers reached the 18th green in two shots. Zalatoris could not covert a birdie putt, and Thomas needed only two putts for a par that clinched the championship.For Zalatoris, it was his latest close call in a major. He finished second at last year’s Masters and was tied for sixth at that event last month. He was tied for eighth at the 2021 P.G.A. Championship and tied for sixth at the 2020 U.S. Open.Will Zalatoris after making par on the 18th green. A birdie on the 17th hole put him in position to set up the playoff.Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesBut on Sunday, Zalatoris, after an even-par front nine, was hampered by poor putting, which has plagued him all season. He bogeyed the 12th and 16th holes but rallied by draining an 8-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole. He also sank a 10-foot putt to save par at the final hole to shoot 71 for the final round and finish at five under par overall. At the time, though, it did not appear to be enough to catch Pereira.Thomas most likely finished his round with the same feeling. After his rough start to the day, he birdied the ninth hole and had a par at the 10th. Thomas then sank a 64-foot putt from just off the 11th hole for another birdie. At the par-4 12th, he sank an 18-foot birdie putt. Thomas missed consecutive manageable birdie putts at the 13th and 14th holes, but then splashed a shot from a greenside bunker at the par-4 17th hole to within 3 feet, a distance he successfully negotiated for his fifth birdie of the day. That would put him within one stroke of Pereira with one hole to play. A brilliant drive and courageous approach shot to the elevated 18th green stopped 11 feet behind the hole, but Thomas’s putt slid past the right edge for a par and a score of 67.“I was very calm in the playoff and very calm in the final holes before the playoff, which helped a lot,” Thomas said. “I was nervous, but it was a different kind of nervous, which maybe comes with experience. It was different than how I felt trying to win my first major in 2017. Whatever it was, it felt right.“To execute some of those tough shots when you really need to, it was full body chills.” More

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      Tiger Woods Withdraws from PGA Championship

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      Recovering from leg injuries from a car crash last year, he had struggled at the Masters and now again at the PGA Championship.TULSA, Okla. — Tiger Woods, struggling in his comeback from severe leg injuries sustained in a car crash last year, withdrew from the P.G.A. Championship on Saturday night.The decision came hours after shooting a nine-over par 79, the highest score he has recorded during 22 P.G.A. Championship appearances. Yet an unsettling scene of Woods trying to perform a simple pre-round exercise Saturday presaged the interruption of his celebrated return to competitive elite golf.As Woods walked down an incline alongside a common practice area bunker, his right leg, which was surgically reconstructed 15 months ago with a rod, pins and screws, buckled. Woods nearly collapsed into the sand, but quickly used a golf club and a half step with his left leg to remain upright.On the golf course, Woods continued to limp and move slowly and stiffly, descending into a tie for last place on the tournament leaderboard at 12-over par. Because his halting gait and deteriorating game was so striking, Woods was asked afterward if he still planned to play in Sunday’s fourth round.“Well, I’m sore,” he answered. “I know that is for a fact. We’ll do some work and see how it goes.”Earlier in the event, Woods described how his recovery from golf rounds now includes many hours of ice baths and physical therapy. Saturday, he did not address when he might enter another tournament. The U.S. Open outside Boston begins June 16.Long after Woods’s round was complete, it was the weather that proved most vexing to his colleagues.The last time the P.G.A. Championship was played at Tulsa’s Southern Hills Country Club in 2007 temperatures reached 105 degrees. But that was during August in Oklahoma.Tiger Woods’s Lasting Impact and Uncertain FutureThe star golfer, one of the most influential athletes of the last quarter-century, is mounting a comeback after being badly injured in a car crash.The 2022 Masters: After saying that he would step back from competitive golf, Tiger Woods teed off at Augusta once again.Four Days That Changed Golf: When Woods won the 1997 Masters, he remade the game and catapulted himself to stardom.A Complicated Legacy: Our columnist looks back at Woods’s stunning feats and shocking falls.His Enduring Influence: Even when Woods is not playing, his impact on the sport can be felt at a PGA tournament.The P.G.A. Championship is now contested in May and Saturday’s third round of the event brought temperatures in the 50s, blustery winds and a field unnerved by the taxing conditions.With shots made unpredictable by swirling gusts, a bevy of golfers jockeyed for the lead, including unheralded Mito Pereira of Chile, who charged to a commanding advantage at the midpoint of his round. But the second-round leader, Will Zalatoris, who has four top 10 finishes in his last five major championships, caught Pereira several holes later.Then Cameron Young, a young rising star on the PGA Tour, and Bubba Watson, a 43-year-old two-time Masters champion, charged within a stroke of the lead.When play concluded Saturday evening, Pereira, who is 27 and playing in just his second major golf championship, had confidently, even boldly, regained the top spot on the leaderboard. After a third-round 69, he will enter Sunday’s final round with a three-stroke lead over Zalatoris and Matthew Fitzpatrick of England.Pereira, after a mid-round stumble, vaulted past the other third-round contenders with consecutive birdies on the 13th and 14th holes. Then, with a packed 18th green grandstand cheering for him, he closed out his day by sinking a 27-foot birdie putt to move to nine-under for the tournament.While Pereira, who is ranked 100th worldwide, is not a household name in professional golf, he has had three top 20 finishes on the PGA Tour this year and won three times on the Korn Ferry Tour, the tour’s top minor league circuit.Zalatoris had a bumpy start Saturday, shooting a four-over 39 on the front nine but steadied himself by curing some of his putting woes to shoot a rocky 73.After bogeying his first two holes, Fitzpatrick was five-under for the rest of his round to shoot 67.Young, whose father is David Young, the longtime golf professional at Sleepy Hollow Country Club in the suburbs of New York, made a late charge when he eagled the 296-yard par 4 17th hole by driving the green and making a short putt. With four birdies in his round, Young shot 67 and was in fourth place at five-under overall.After a sparkling front nine, Watson, who knocked his ball into seven bunkers during Saturday’s round, faltered and shot 73 and was tied for seventh.Woods’s troubles on Saturday were not doubt exacerbated by the Tulsa weather. With a back that has been operated on five times, Woods has not enjoyed playing in cold, damp conditions for more than a decade because it reduces the flexibility and fluidity of his golf swing. He is also still adjusting to modifications to his game required since the operations on his right leg.Once his round began, it was obvious Woods’s reduced physical capabilities were going to dramatically affect his score. His tee shot on the second hole was driven into a creek and led to a bogey. He recovered with three pars but then bungled the 218-yard par 3 sixth hole. By then, Woods already looked in pain and he was especially having trouble hitting his irons the necessary distances. Several were not on line either.On the sixth hole, his tee shot was short and left and landed in a water hazard. After a penalty shot drop, his third shot was in the rough just off the green and a subsequent chip that needed to go about 30 yards traveled only half that distance. Two putts later, Woods had a triple bogey.He then bogeyed six of his next seven holes. Woods appeared to be alternatively embarrassed and exasperated, but marched on. Always the grinder, he rallied for four pars and a birdie in his final five holes to avoid shooting 80.“I didn’t hit the ball very well and got off to not the start I needed to get off to,” Woods said later. “I thought I hit a good tee shot down 2 and ended up in the water, and just never really got any kind of momentum on my side.“I couldn’t get off the bogey train there. As I said, I just didn’t — I didn’t do anything right. I didn’t hit many good shots. Consequently, I ended up with a pretty high score.” More

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      Justin Thomas Seeks His Second P.G.A. Championship Victory

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      He’ll have to get past several rising young players to win his second major title. Tiger Woods made the cut at the P.G.A. Championship but is a dozen strokes off the lead.TULSA, Okla. — Much of the late second-round drama on Friday at the 2022 P.G.A. Championship involved Tiger Woods’s desperate quest to remain in the tournament. In the end, a limping Woods rallied to make the event’s halfway cut by shooting a one-under-par 69 that left him tied for 53rd.But the overriding theme of the day was a surging youth movement that took control of the leaderboard. Will Zalatoris, 25, who has a top 10 finish in four of the last five majors he has entered, led the charge with a second round 65 that moved him to nine-under for the event. Mito Pereira, 27, shot 64 on Friday and trailed Zalatoris by one stroke.Overall, there were eight golfers under 30 in the top 10 at the tournament’s halfway mark.Will Zalatoris leads the P.G.A. Championship by a stroke after two rounds.Eric Gay/Associated PressThe first of that crew to take the tournament lead was Justin Thomas, 29. With a father and a grandfather who were golf instructors, Thomas has the genes for excellence in the sport. He rose to be a top junior player, appeared in a PGA Tour event while in high school and was named the nation’s top college golfer soon afterward.By 2017, when Thomas was 24, he won his first major golf title, the P.G.A. Championship. No one would have blamed the Thomas family for investing in a mammoth trophy case to house all the top prizes to come.Yet while Thomas has won his share of tour events, five years later he has not added to his collection of major championships, something he has called an underachievement. “I have not even close to performed well in my entire career in majors,” he said last month.Battling gusting, swirling winds at the Southern Hills Country Club, Thomas mixed patience and aggression to shoot his second consecutive three-under-par 67, which moved him into third place at day’s end.Thomas has contended at the halfway mark of other major tournaments since 2017 and failed to win, but he feels buoyed by a new mind-set this season, which has been aided by a new, experienced hand at his side in Jim Mackay, who spent 25 years as Phil Mickelson’s caddie.“It’s still golf, so it’s pretty hard sometimes,” Thomas said after his round on Friday. “But I’m very, very pleased with where everything is at and the frame of mind and the state of mind that I’m in.”He added: “We’re halfway through this tournament, so it’s still a long way from home.”Jim Mackay, left, joined Thomas after 25 years caddying for Phil Mickelson.Richard Heathcote/Getty ImagesMackay had occasionally caddied for Thomas in previous seasons after separating from Mickelson five years ago. Eight months ago, Thomas asked Mackay, whose nickname is Bones, to take the job full time.“Bones is one of the hardest workers I’ve ever seen,” Thomas said. “He never wants to be underprepared. He wants to make sure he does everything he can so that he makes it feel like we have the best chance we can to win. And that’s very comforting as a player, because I have all the faith in the world in my caddie.”Thomas began his round on Friday on the 10th tee and had two birdies and a bogey in his opening nine to make the turn at four under par for the tournament. With impressive length off the tee — he averaged 312.2 yards in driving distance Friday — he was able to par the challenging first two par-4 holes, which both measured more than 480 yards long. Two more pars followed at the third and fourth holes, and on the par-5 fifth hole, he sank a 24-foot birdie putt. After three routine pars, Thomas smashed a pinpoint drive on his final hole, and his approach shot from 92 yards to the uphill, plateaued ninth green stopped nine feet from the pin. Thomas then calmly rolled in his last birdie putt.“I’m just feeling very comfortable standing over the ball, which is a good feeling,” Thomas said. “The way I played the last hole, I couldn’t have really drawn it up any better. Leaving that gap wedge from the fairway just under the hole there and making that putt right in the middle. That was a nice way to end it.”Zalatoris, who was tied for sixth at the Masters last month and was the Masters runner-up a year ago, had five birdies without a bogey on Friday. Pereira had seven birdies with one bogey. Bubba Watson, who was the elder near the top of the leaderboard at 43, shot 63 in the second round and was in fourth place. Rory McIlroy, 33, shot 71 Friday and is tied for fifth overall with Davis Riley and Abraham Ancer.Tiger Woods on Friday made two birdies on the back nine and made the cut.Sam Greenwood/Getty ImagesWoods was four over par after the first round and played his opening nine holes on Friday in even par with a birdie on the fifth hole and a sloppy bogey on the eighth.After sinking a 10-foot birdie putt on the 10th hole, Woods dropped to three under for the tournament. He then made what appeared to be a devastating mistake on the par 3 11th hole when his tee shot landed left of the green and a delicate flop shot sailed over the green and trickled into a bunker. That blunder led to a double bogey, which pushed Woods to five over par — and outside the cut line.But Woods found the resolve for a spirited comeback. He rolled in an eight-foot birdie putt at the par 5 13th hole and made another birdie putt from four feet after a spectacular approach shot from 209 yards on the par 4 16th hole. He concluded his round with pars on the closing two holes.Afterward, Woods, who is three over par for the tournament, said he was just happy “to play golf again.” He added: “You can’t win the tournament if you miss the cut. I’ve won tournaments — not major championships — but I’ve won tournaments on the cut number. There’s a reason why you fight hard and you’re able to give yourself a chance on the weekend. You just never know when you might get hot.” More

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      Tiger Woods Limps Through a Disappointing Round at PGA Championship

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      Woods could make only wry jokes after a painful and disappointing first round at the P.G.A. Championship.TULSA, Okla. — Tiger Woods has a good sense of humor, though it is rare for him to use it in a public setting. But at 46, he is evolving. What was once unthinkable for him — playfully mocking his poor play on the golf course — is one of his new, winsome tools.On Thursday, six weeks after his stirring comeback at the Masters Tournament, Woods returned to competitive golf in the first round of the P.G.A. Championship. After a blazing start with two early birdies, Woods was limping a little on his right leg, which was surgically reconstructed after multiple serious fractures sustained in his horrific car crash early last year. A couple of holes later, Woods was limping a lot, even sometimes using a golf club like a cane to ascend or descend hills.Not surprisingly, his score soon reflected his infirmity as he shot a four-over-par 74 with seven bogeys in his final 13 holes. After he had hobbled to a rostrum for a news conference, he was asked about his rebuilt leg.“Yeah, not feeling as good as I would like it to be,” he said with a smile. Woods added that he could not put weight on his right leg in his backswing — known as loading — and he also struggled to push off his leg on the downswing, too.“Loading hurts, pressing off it hurts, and walking hurts and twisting hurts,” he said.Woods then deadpanned: “It’s just golf. If I don’t play that, if I don’t do that, then I’m all right.”“Loading hurts, pressing off it hurts, and walking hurts and twisting hurts,” Woods said.Michael Madrid/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“We’ll start the recovery process and get after it tomorrow,” he added, predicting that his evening would include ice baths and myriad efforts to reduce inflammation in his right leg.Tiger Woods’s Lasting Impact and Uncertain FutureThe star golfer, one of the most influential athletes of the last quarter-century, is mounting a comeback after being badly injured in a car crash.The 2022 Masters: After saying that he would step back from competitive golf, Tiger Woods teed off at Augusta once again.Four Days That Changed Golf: When Woods won the 1997 Masters, he remade the game and catapulted himself to stardom.A Complicated Legacy: Our columnist looks back at Woods’s stunning feats and shocking falls.His Enduring Influence: Even when Woods is not playing, his impact on the sport can be felt at a PGA tournament.And so, Woods’s ongoing return to elite golf is following the bumpy, irregular progression that even he forecast before the Masters when he said he expected a series of good days and bad days.“It’s a process,” Woods said.Part of that process, as Woods acknowledged on Tuesday, was that his right leg and his ailing back, which has been operated on five times, no longer allowed him to practice for long periods of time, which had been routine for him since he was a kindergartner. While watching Woods play on Thursday, it was easy to wonder if some of his troubles on the golf course were related to a lack of preparation off it, especially for someone like Woods who was once renowned for exhausting work habits.For example, one of Woods’s playing partners Thursday was Rory McIlroy, who is the first-round leader after a five-under-par 65. McIlroy successfully navigated the tricky sloping greens of the Southern Hills Country Club with deft chipping, bunker play and deadly accurate putting.Woods’s short game was once probably his greatest strength, but on Thursday it let him down repeatedly. Moreover, Woods appeared uncomfortable, or unsure, over those shots, which was startling. Woods with a wedge or a putter in his hands had always been commanding and cocksure.But on the sixth hole that Woods played Thursday, when he was still two under par for the round, he was in a greenside bunker with a fairly straightforward shot to the pin, which was 23 feet away. Shockingly, he blasted his shot 21 feet past the hole and made bogey.Three holes later, playing the 18th hole because his group began its round on the 10th tee, Woods was in another greenside bunker and again thumped his ball 20 feet past the hole for a bogey. Even after Woods rallied for a birdie three holes later, another bunker shot on the next hole sailed over the green and led to yet another bogey.Woods looked exasperated, and as often happens to any golfer, missteps in one facet of the game led to a lack of execution in another part of part of the game as Woods failed to convert several long- or medium-range putts. Keep in mind that some people think Woods was the greatest pressure putter of golf’s modern era.Asked about his difficulties from the sand, Woods said: “Yeah, all the bunker shots sort of came out hot.”Tiger Woods playing from the bunker near the eighth green during the first round of the P.G.A. Championship.Michael Madrid/USA Today Sports, via ReutersBut his bunker play was not the only way Thursday’s round seemed uncharacteristic for Woods. For more than 25 years, Woods was known as an aggressive golfer, and he all but invented the bombing-it-off-the-tee-with-a-driver style that has overtaken the sport.But on Thursday, as McIlroy and the third golfer in the grouping, Jordan Spieth, launched drivers far down the fairway, Woods was hitting long irons and playing for position. Sometimes he was more than 60 yards behind McIlroy off the tee, although as Woods later said, not being able to push off his right leg caused him to slice shots to the right.“I wouldn’t have been so far back if I would have hit the iron shot solid and put the ball in the fairway,” he said. “I was playing to my spots, and those guys obviously have a different game plan. The game is just different. It’s much more aggressive now, and I know that. But I was playing to my spots. If I would have hit the ball solidly on those two holes and put the ball in the fairway, I would have been fine.”He continued: “But I didn’t do that. I put the ball in the rough.”The smile that Woods brought to the beginning of his news conference was dissipating. The golf comeback that seemed unlikely only 15 months ago would continue Friday, Woods said. But before he walked away with a noticeable, lurching limp, Woods had a last comment.“It was a frustrating day,” he said. More

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      Tiger Woods Is on the Course at the P.G.A. Championship

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      In his first tournament since the Masters in April, Woods finished his first nine holes at even par but ended the round at a disappointing four over.Tiger Woods returned to a major championship on Thursday, and after a good start, things started to go awry.Playing in a star-studded group with Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy, Woods finished at four over par at the P.G.A. Championship. McIlroy was the early clubhouse leader at five under.Playing at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla., where he won the 2007 P.G.A. Championship, Woods at first showed few obvious signs of the severe leg injuries he sustained in a car crash in February 2021. Toward the end of his first nine holes, he appeared to start limping a little more.And though he got down to two under in the early going, his second-nine performance was poor.Woods had returned to the majors at the Masters last month after missing more than 500 days of top-flight golf following his crash. His one-under opening round raised the echoes of the past, but he struggled the rest of the way, making the cut but finishing 47th. At that tournament, he was limping and seemed to struggle to crouch fully to line up putts.Woods started on the 10th hole Thursday, and birdied it with a 3-foot putt after a flawless chip. He birdied the 14th as well with a 15-footer. But he found the rough and a bunker on 15 and could not get up and down, falling back to one under.On the 18th, a difficult hole, he found a greenside bunker with a poor iron shot and missed a 20-foot putt to fall back to even.That started a poor stretch, and he made two more bogeys, at No. 1 — a tee shot into the rough behind a tree was the culprit — and at No. 2, where he knocked a long putt from the fringe 10 feet past and missed the comebacker.Woods struck back with a birdie on No. 3, making a 10-foot-plus putt that got his big gallery going. But he gave that right back with a bad bunker shot on No. 4, which rolled over and off the green. He wound up with another bogey.He dropped another stroke on 8, finding a bunker on the challenging par 3, then blowing the next shot far past the hole and failing to make the long putt back.On the ninth, he seemed to get lucky when his tee shot caromed off a tree and landed in the fairway. But his second shot flew over the green, and he flubbed the chip, not reaching the green. Two more shots, and he had another bogey. More

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      P.G.A. Championship: Jordan Spieth Aims for Career Grand Slam

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      And why not? After a couple of years of uncharacteristically mediocre play, he sees an opportunity at the P.G.A. Championship to complete a career Grand Slam.TULSA, Okla. — Sixteen months ago, Jordan Spieth spent long stretches during post-round news conferences answering questions about what was wrong with him.Or what was missing from his once prized golf game.The world’s top-ranked men’s player for much of 2015-16 and the winner of three major championships in roughly the same period, Spieth had tumbled to 92nd in the world rankings by January of last year. His best finish at a 2020 major had been a tie for 46th.In this time, Spieth handled the almost weekly inquisition about whether he would ever regain his form with poise and sincerity. For the most part, he kept his smile. But that smile is far wider now. With a rally in 2021 that included a second-place finish at the British Open and a surge this year that has included a 13th PGA Tour victory and two second-place finishes, Spieth has climbed back into the top 10 worldwide.On Wednesday, one day before the first round of the 2022 P.G.A. Championship, Spieth met with reporters and happily spent most of his time answering questions about whether he might achieve a measure of golfing immortality this week.Jordan Spieth chipped to the green on Wednesday while practicing for the P.G.A. Championship in Tulsa, Okla.Matt York/Associated PressOnly five golfers — Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods — have won each of the game’s major championships. With victories at the Masters, the U.S. Open and the British Open, Spieth, 28, needs only a P.G.A. Championship title to join that gilded group.“It’s the elephant in the room for me,” Spieth said Wednesday with a small grin. “If you told me I was going to win one tournament the rest of my life, I’d say I want to win this one. Long term, it would be really cool to say that you captured the four biggest golf tournaments in the world that are played in different parts of the world and different styles, too. So you feel like you kind of accomplished golf when you win a career Grand Slam.”Tiger Woods’s Lasting Impact and Uncertain FutureThe star golfer, one of the most influential athletes of the last quarter-century, is mounting a comeback after being badly injured in a car crash.The 2022 Masters: After saying that he would step back from competitive golf, Tiger Woods teed off at Augusta once again.Four Days That Changed Golf: When Woods won the 1997 Masters, he remade the game and catapulted himself to stardom.A Complicated Legacy: Our columnist looks back at Woods’s stunning feats and shocking falls.His Enduring Influence: Even when Woods is not playing, his impact on the sport can be felt at a PGA tournament.Accomplished golf? As in mastered it? That’s an almost celestial ambition in a sport that keeps almost all of its devotees cruelly grounded on a regular basis. But Spieth can be forgiven. When his game was in an abyss, he endured many months muttering to himself as he marched off the tee on his way to the high rough. And no golfer mutters to himself so systematically, indeed professionally, with the zany zeal that Spieth exhibits.Even with his golf ball sailing straight and farther now, Spieth has not stopped his frequent self-commentary on the golf course, always with his forbearing caddie, Michael Greller, the former sixth grade math teacher, nodding silently as he walks alongside his boss.Greller’s role should not be underestimated given Spieth’s active brain (and mouth). Spieth acknowledged as much Wednesday.“I’ve been trying to really have some fun more, and Michael does a good job with that,” Spieth said. “If I wake up tomorrow a little on the wrong side of the bed, as we all do, he’ll try and talk to me about something other than golf. He’ll step in, and having kind of a friend on the bag that can keep it light can sometimes turn things in that direction.”Jordan Spieth handed a club to his caddie, Michael Greller, during a practice round leading up to the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club in April.Gregory Shamus/Getty ImagesSpieth will be tested in other ways in Thursday’s first round. He will play with Woods and the four-time major champion Rory McIlroy, a grouping that is likely to be followed by about 70 percent of the tens of thousands of fans on the grounds at Southern Hills Country Club. The atmosphere will be charged, and because a golf gallery does not remain seated as at other sporting events, it will become more like a noisy, chaotic, ever-moving wave.But Spieth, whose wife, Annie, gave birth to the couple’s first child, a son, Sammy, in November, had a different take.“I’ll get to tell my kid about this someday — I got to play with Tiger in a major,” Spieth said.He added that he had done it before, but as he acknowledged Woods’s near-fatal car crash in February 2021, he added: “Last year, you weren’t sure if that was ever going to happen again.”Spieth did concede that the massive crowd could be a distraction, but one he has gotten used to. When he nearly won the Masters as a 20-year-old and finished first at the tournament a year later, in 2015, Spieth attracted some teeming crowds himself.“Sometimes, when the crowds get big enough, it’s kind of just a color blur in a way,” he said. “But Tiger and Rory are great to play with. They’re quick. They’re positive. I think you have to embrace it and recognize that it’s cool and it’s obviously great for golf.”The grouping might even be a blessing, Spieth said, as a way to keep his mind off the opportunity to achieve the career Grand Slam of major championships.“If I can play well these next couple days, given the crowds that will be out there, then I think the weekend might actually feel a little like a breather in a way,” he said. “So that’s how I’m looking at it.” More