Golf

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Golf

      Here Are the Players to Watch at the HSBC Championship

      by

      There are three seasoned pros to keep an eye on and one teenage amateur.The Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship in the United Arab Emirates, which starts the 2022 European Tour schedule this week, typically attracts a strong field. This year’s tournament is no exception. Among the participants are the former winners Paul Casey (No. 27 in the world), Lee Westwood (39), Tommy Fleetwood (41) and Shane Lowry (48).One thing, however, is different: the venue. For the first time, the event will be held at Yas Links. It had been staged at the Abu Dhabi Golf Club since 2006.Here are four players to watch.Rory McIlroyWhich McIlroy will we see in 2022: the inconsistent McIlroy of the last two years, with only two victories since November 2019, or the former No. 1 with four major titles through 2014 who seemed destined to win at least a few more?Here is an encouraging sign for him: In October, he shot a six-under 66 in the final round to capture the CJ Cup in Las Vegas for his 20th PGA Tour triumph. A pivotal moment was the 35-foot eagle putt from off the green that he made on the 14th hole. He held on to win by one stroke.Before the victory, he was ranked outside the top 10. He is now No. 8. McIlroy, 32, came in third last year in Abu Dhabi.Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesTyrrell HattonHe won this tournament in 2021, recording his sixth European Tour win.Hatton, paired with McIlroy, birdied three holes on the front nine to seize a two-shot advantage. On the 10th hole, when it appeared that McIlroy might narrow the lead, Hatton converted a 35-foot birdie to maintain his margin. He won by four.However, he clearly did not have the year he was hoping for. His best finish in the majors was a tie for 18th at the Masters; he missed the cut at the United States and British Opens. Still, he secured a spot on Team Europe in the 2021 Ryder Cup, his second appearance in that event.Hatton, 30, is ranked No. 22 in the world.Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesViktor HovlandOnly 24, Hovland recently reached a career-best No. 6 in the world rankings. He is currently No. 7.His last several months have been very impressive. He tied for fourth at the Tour Championship in September, and he won the World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba in November and the Hero World Challenge in December.Hovland was a member of Team Europe in the 2021 Ryder Cup. He finished 0-3-2, which included the half point he earned in singles against Collin Morikawa.In 2018, Hovland became the first Norwegian to win the U.S. Amateur Championship and in 2020 was the first from his country to be victorious on the PGA Tour, capturing the Puerto Rico Open.He certainly makes his share of birdies, finishing sixth on the PGA Tour last year with an average of 4.4 per round.Oliver Hardt/R&A, via Getty ImagesJosh HillJosh who?A fair question. Hill, who was born in Dubai but represents England, is only 17 and still an amateur. Yet he has already accomplished a lot.In December, registering 12 birdies and an eagle over three rounds, he won the Abu Dhabi Amateur Championship, earning an invitation to this week’s tournament, which he also played in 2020. He missed the cut but the week was not a total loss. In an eight-hole practice round, he outdueled the world No. 1 Brooks Koepka.In 2019, Hill captured the Al Ain Open in Dubai and became the youngest winner of an Official World Golf Ranking-recognized pro event.No one is predicting that Hill will win in Abu Dhabi or even contend. Even so, it will be interesting to see if he can make it to the weekend. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Golf

      In Abu Dhabi, Turning the Desert Into a World-Class Golf Course

      by

      At the Yas Links, water management is vital, as is the type of grass used. It must tolerate saltwater.Yas Links Abu Dhabi, which is hosting the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship starting this week, is no mirage. Like other courses in the Middle East, it is a testament to man overtaking nature in harsh conditions.What players and fans will see is a course, ranked among the top 50 in the world by Golf Digest, that appears to have been unearthed from the desert sand, but, in fact, was the handiwork of the architect Kyle Phillips. The course was built on land bordering the Persian Gulf, and Phillips worked to make that coastline look like, well, a coastline.“The idea was to protect the large mangrove area by dredging away from it and maintaining it,” Phillips said. That was accomplished by making the channel (by the course) wider and more open between the mangroves and the ocean, then building land forms that echo those of the original links courses in Scotland.But the biggest challenge, Phillips said, was working in the heat. Summer temperatures regularly hit more than 100 Fahrenheit (38 Celsius), but the humidity can reach about 86 percent. Sandstorms, like something from a movie, also appear he said. He also noted that the golf course was a speck in the total development of Yas Island.“This went from a barren island to seven hotels, the marina, the Ferrari theme park and the Formula 1 track, too,” Phillips said of the development that began in 2006 and finished in 2018.Clinton Southorn, director of construction and agronomy of Troon International, which manages the course, said it was a “literal oasis.”But that oasis takes maintenance, and the high salinity of the water used to help the grass grow, Southorn said, makes the impossible happen.“From an agronomy point of view, you can’t grow grass here,” he said. “But this tells you about Mother Nature and how it can adapt and how with technology and tools, and the right skills in place, you can sort of change that.”Southorn also said the consistency of the weather helped.“We can put an application down, such as an herbicide, we don’t need to worry about a storm coming through and washing it all away. On the flip side, there’s no rain.”In that climate and environment, taking care of the turf is complicated by the use of water in Abu Dhabi, said Corey Finn, the course manager. He said the potable water of the United Arab Emirates was acquired through desalination, but the golf course uses the recycled water of the nearby hotels and buildings.This poorer quality water poses challenges for Finn, but the entire process relies on six specialists who ensure that pipes are not leaking, sprinklers are not blocked and that the system shuts off as asked by its computer system.That system also allows Finn and his team to measure the amount of water the course receives. Measurements are taken each morning, and the data is sent to a cloud server that overlays the usage on a map of each green, allowing them to adjust the usage.To aid in this endeavor, the course uses paspalum, a type of grass that thrives in salty water. Because of how Yas Links must take care of its turf, its strain of paspalum suffers when it rains.To maintain high-quality turf, Finn said, they often have to add more water to flush the salt and minerals from the soil, and this sometimes allows them to wait a week before watering again.The challenge for the tournament, which moved across town from Abu Dhabi Golf Club after 16 years there, is twofold. Southorn said paspalum was a sticky grass that could grab the ball and posed a challenge to golfers who did not often play on this type of surface. And for the club, while the greens and fairways are all paspalum, making mowing easier, the tournament arrives during winter and at the height of tourist season, when the course receives its most play, putting added stress on the grass.“So we’re doing 150 to 200 rounds a day, which is 100 golf carts rolling over the grass,” Southorn said.Courses that hold professional tournaments must balance a one-week showcase event versus the 51 weeks they host guests, but it’s not often those courses hold tournaments when their grass is its most vulnerable. But Finn said the grass would be where it needed to be for the tournament.“Everywhere you turn on a golf course there is a challenge one way or another. What our team goes through every summer is pretty amazing,” he said about working in the heat, “and we have to manage, and not just the grass. We have to manage ourselves as well.” More

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in Golf

      For Collin Morikawa, a Young Career Full of Firsts

      by

      He became the first American to win Europe’s Race to Dubai last year, and the 24-year-old is now ranked No. 2 in the world.Collin Morikawa enters this week’s Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship fresh off an accomplishment no other American golfer has matched. He was the first to win the Race to Dubai, the season-long points race on the European Tour, now the DP World Tour. The HSBC kicks off the tour’s new season.But the Race to Dubai accomplishment is just one of his trivia-worthy firsts. He won the P.G.A. Championship in 2020 and the British Open in 2021 on his first try in both tournaments, making him the first player to win two major championships on his first attempt.He claimed the DP World Tour Championship in November by three strokes, cruising to victory in the tournament and claiming what was previously known as the European Tour’s Order of Merit.“To put my name up there is big,” he said, noting great European players like Colin Montgomerie, Seve Ballesteros, Lee Westwood and Rory McIlroy, whose names are on the Harry Vardon Trophy. “If you are the first to do something, you open up people’s eyes. Hopefully, it’s a pathway to focus on this.”Keith Pelley, chief executive of the DP World Tour, said Morikawa was an incredible talent.“To win the Open Championship in his first attempt was an amazing achievement, and to follow that by becoming the first American to win our Race to Dubai after his victory in our season-ending DP World Tour Championship was truly something special,” Pelley said.Morikawa, who turns 25 next month, tries to put his accomplishment in the context of he is only just beginning. He pointed out that he might be entering his fourth season playing on the elite professional tours, but he has been a professional golfer for only two and a half years since he started in the middle of 2019 after graduating from college.Morikawa with the claret jug after winning the British Open last year at the Royal St. George’s Golf Club.Paul Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“It doesn’t really add up when I look at it like that,” he said. “When people said at the end of the season, how do you follow up on what you did last season, it’s not about following up. It’s about how do I add more goals. How do I keep raising the roof and the ceiling? If I check off one goal, I’m adding two more.”His goal this season is straightforward: to move up just one spot in the world rankings. But as the current world No. 2, moving into the top spot requires Morikawa to overtake Jon Rahm, a young player from Spain.“To get to No. 1 in the world, I’ve put myself in a position to possibly do that,” he said. “The short-term goals are to work on my body and the mental stuff. But the big goal is to get to No. 1 in the world, and not just to get to No. 1 in the world but to sustain it and stay up there.”At the season-opening tournament on the PGA Tour earlier this month, the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii, Morikawa did not shy away from what he needed to work on to accomplish his goal. After nearly driving the par-4 14th hole, Morikawa had the type of chip that many professional golfers relish: just off the green and uphill, an invitation to chip it in or at least leave a short tap-in putt for birdie.As he stood over the ball, the TV commentators noted how much Morikawa had been struggling with this aspect of his game — something he acknowledged he needed to improve. In certain chipping and putting statistics, Morikawa is outside the top 100 players on tour, statistics that are incongruent with him as an elite player. However, he did hit that shot close.“When you’re ranking below average, which I am over the past few years with my short game and putting, you have to work on it,” he said. “I’ve been able to get hot and have some good weeks for me, but it’s about the level of consistency for me. Being 170th in putting or whatever in chipping, it’s not good enough for me.” His putting is not quite that bad: He ranks 147th.From an early age, Morikawa had his sights set on being a professional golfer, and he said a focus on constant improvement was at the heart of that.Unlike many elite professional athletes, he attended and completed a top school, the University of California, Berkeley, where he majored in business administration and won five times as a college golfer.But those four years were not a hedge for a different career, he said, but a way to gain more knowledge for when he became a professional golfer. “People said, Cal was a great backup plan,” he said. “I never thought I had a backup plan. I knew I could use my degree for my professional career and my brand. There was never any wavering.”Likewise, he never looked at the top players as heroes; they were future competition. He drew on his amateur success to keep the competition in perspective. And that meant sticking to his own game, as one of the best long-iron players in the game today.That mind-set kept him from being intimidated. “I never looked at them as guys I’m going to have weak knees over when I see them,” he said. “The only guy like that was Tiger. All the guys I watched for countless years, I knew these guys were the best in the world, but I wasn’t afraid of them. At the end of the day, I still wanted to beat them.”Comparisons to Tiger Woods came quickly for Morikawa. He had the second-longest streak of cuts made as a rookie — 22 to 25 for Woods. And after 60 events, he stacked up pretty favorably to Woods.While Woods had more wins, top-10 finishes and a lower scoring average, according to Golf Digest research, Morikawa, at the same point, had two majors and a World Golf Championship to Woods’s one major.Morikawa and Tiger Woods at the 2020 U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club.Hilary Swift for The New York TimesMorikawa is circumspect in embracing comparisons to Woods, comparisons that have been made to plenty of other young players who began their careers hot only to cool off.“I don’t think there will ever be another Tiger,” he said. “A lot of his records will be unbeatable. It doesn’t mean I can’t reach for them. But when you think about what he did, they’re a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”Does he think he can beat some of the records? “Yes,” he said. “Are some of the records untouchable? Yes, but I’m going to try to push for them.”Woods has recognized Morikawa’s play. “He doesn’t really do anything wrong,” Woods said in December on the Golf Channel. “He doesn’t really have wild misses. He’s super, super consistent, an unbelievable iron player.”To that end, Morikawa is pushing to test his game around the world. Victories have given him an enviable tour status for someone in only his fourth season, one that allows him to pick and choose the events he wants to play in.He could easily opt to play in just the United States and reduce some of the travel fatigue. But weeks before his 25th birthday, he said traveling to play golf is part of the fun at his age.“I’ve been very fortunate early on to be able to choose my schedule, and that’s made it a lot easier,” he said.“I’m not forcing myself to go play eight events a row on the PGA Tour, and with that balance I’ve been able to add in the DP World Tour. I wanted to see if my game traveled. I wanted to play internationally. And I put myself in a position to win the Road To Dubai in 2021.” More

    • 125 Shares139 Views

      in Golf

      Charlie Woods Dazzles While Tiger, in Return, Grimaces and Grinds

      by

      At the PNC Championship, the first tournament for the 15-time major champion since a devastating car crash in February, father and son inspired awe — and trepidation.To watch Tiger Woods and his son play golf over the weekend was to feel a kaleidoscope of emotion.Goodness, it was something to see Tiger back. It was just 10 months ago when his S.U.V. tumbled off the road in suburban Los Angeles. He nearly died. He had to be pried from the overturned wreck of mangled metal with the Jaws of Life. His injuries, including compound fractures in his right leg, were so severe that doctors discussed amputation.He spent nearly a month in the hospital, and three more laid up in bed.And yet there he was, golf’s complicated and magnificent lodestar, healthy enough now to grind and grimace through 36 holes at the PNC Championship, a casual soiree of a tournament teaming golfing greats with family members.For Tiger Woods, that meant pairing with his son, 12-year-old Charlie, who after being put on center stage for the second year running at this tournament is now renowned in the game of golf and far beyond.All weekend — particularly on Sunday when the duo battled briefly to the top of the leaderboard on the back nine — father and son inspired awe and, dare I say it, trepidation.We kept one eye on Charlie, noticing every way he mirrored his father. Every hitch, every grimace and smile and stance. Every torquing twist and long follow-through and confident twirl of the iron.We kept another eye on Tiger, two years removed from winning his 15th and last major championship, the 2019 Masters.He flashed enough tantalizing glimpses of old form to foreshadow a return one day to truly competitive, high-test golf.But Tiger Woods, 45, is clearly compromised. For every glimmer of magic in this nationally broadcast event — the orbital drives that nestled upon the greens, the lengthy putts that curved and swept to their targets — came reminders that he is no longer the same.He often walked with a noticeable limp, favoring his left leg over his right. Sometimes he grimaced and groaned after swinging hard. On drives, he could not push off on his right leg the way he needs. And over the last few holes of the tournament he was on occasion outplayed by Charlie.But the weekend was not just about the father. For fans, it was also about the son. Because of who Tiger is and how he plays, there is an equal fascination with Charlie, who last December played this tournament as its youngest competitor ever. It was then that the enchantment began. Fans could not get enough of Charlie, Tiger’s mini-me, a then-11-year-old whose technique was pristine — and mirrored his father’s to a T.This year’s competition offered more of the same. On television, anchors used slow-motion video to analyze and fawn over Charlie’s backswing, his follow-through, his hip turn.Early in the week, shots of Charlie hitting practice shots on the Orlando Ritz-Carlton course slung across the internet. Casual duffers who have spent the better part of three decades worshiping Tiger now stand in awe of Tiger’s 12-year-old.Charlie and Tiger Woods during the first round of the PNC Championship on Saturday.Jeremy Reper/USA Today Sports, via ReutersWhat does this portend for Charlie?Watching him play smack dab in front of the world brought to mind a difficult back story: the well-known tale of Tiger Woods and his father, Earl Woods. The elder Woods eagerly infused his dreams into the life of his son, who grew up before our eyes, making his debut on national television at age 2, hitting balls in front of Bob Hope on “The Mike Douglas Show.”Before Tiger’s teens were done he was drenched in fame — and saddled with staggering expectations. Tiger would not just be the greatest golfer who ever lived, his father contended in those early, heady days, he would “do more than any other man in history to change the course of humanity.”Can it be any surprise that Tiger grew into a man saddled with deep emotional wounds?When his internal struggles spilled out in the open, it was as ugly as can be: sex scandals, addiction, divorce, a charge of driving under the influence in 2017.To many, he is and always will be a superhero.He is also a cautionary tale.On Sunday, with the tournament on the line, Charlie struck two perfect drives, including a 5-iron on the 17th he placed as beautifully as any shot hit by any of the field’s pros. He followed those irons with a pair of clutch putts, securing two more birdies for Team Woods, giving them 11 birdies in a row.Tiger’s son relished all of it.How long can that last? Think of the assumptions of greatness with which Charlie will now have to contend.He appears to be a wunderkind. But because he is the son of Tiger, and because he has now been thrust before the public because of his golfing skills, the spotlight will begin to burn much hotter.How will this affect him, not as a golfer but as a human being? Is it possible that Tiger would have better served Charlie by waiting three or four more years to unveil his son to the world?Time will tell.Team Woods nearly ended the PNC with a win. They finished two shots back of John Daly and his son, John II, now a freshman on the golf team at the University of Arkansas.“What a blast it was,” Tiger Woods said, shortly after he and his young and now famous partner finished by making par on the 18th hole. “We just had a blast all day.”He looked energized, and he smiled that familiar wide smile.It is the job of parents to carry their children. This weekend, birdie after birdie after surely struck drive, Tiger and Charlie carried each other — and the results were joyous for both. Let’s hope it remains this way. More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Golf

      Tiger Woods Set to Play the PNC Championship With His Son

      by

      The golfer, who is still recovering from a serious car crash in February, has not competed in a tournament since he and his son, Charlie, last played in the family team event a year ago.Last week, Tiger Woods was emphatic that he would never again be a full-time player on the PGA Tour because of the serious leg injuries he sustained in a high-speed car crash in February. But Woods conceded that he could “play a round here and there,” which he called, “a little hit and giggle.”Woods is not waiting long to make an informal, and public, return to a golf course. On Wednesday, he announced he would play in a family team tournament with his son, Charlie, on Dec. 18 and 19. The event, the PNC Championship, has a small limited field — it was once called a father/son tournament — and will be contested at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in Orlando, Fla.“Although it’s been a long and challenging year,” Woods, whose doctors considered amputating his right leg 10 months ago, wrote on Twitter Wednesday. “I’m very excited to close it out by competing at the @PNC Championship with my son Charlie. I’m playing as a Dad and couldn’t be more excited and proud.”Although it’s been a long and challenging year, I am very excited to close it out by competing in the @PNCchampionship with my son Charlie. I’m playing as a Dad and couldn’t be more excited and proud.— Tiger Woods (@TigerWoods) December 8, 2021
      Woods, who turns 46 on Dec. 30, has not played in a tournament of any kind since he entered the 2020 PNC Championship with Charlie, who is now 12, roughly a year ago. The duo finished seventh. Shortly afterward, Woods had a fifth back surgery that sidelined him for the next few months.The PNC Championship’s 36-hole team format should make it easier for Woods to avoid placing too much stress on his lower right leg, which was reconstructed by doctors using a rod, screws and pins during emergency surgery following his crash outside Los Angeles on Feb. 23. Each player in a pairing will begin a hole by hitting from the tee and players will then pick which tee shot is most advantageous to play. Both players hit a second shot from that spot, a process that is repeated until the hole is finished.Importantly for Woods, there will be only two 18-hole rounds rather than the usual four rounds on the PGA Tour and players can use golf carts driven within a few feet of a player’s ball. On the tour, golfers are required to walk.The players will also play from different sets of tees, which means Charlie Woods will play from the forward tees and often make his father’s tee shots, which will be struck from much farther away, unnecessary. While Tiger Woods was hitting golf balls at a practice range during last week’s World Hero Challenge, a PGA Tour event he hosted in the Bahamas, he also made several jokes about how his shots were traveling about half the distance they once did because he lacked strength and the nerves in his right leg were diminished. From 2018 to 2020, Woods averaged about 299 yards in driving distance during tour events.In last year’s PNC Championship, Woods sometimes had his son hit first — from tees that could be dozens of yards closer to the hole — and if Charlie’s tee shot was well-positioned on or near the fairway, Woods did not bother hitting his tee shot. The format, known as a scramble, could conceivably put Woods in a position to primarily hit less physically demanding shots struck with irons, wedges and a putter throughout his rounds. The format would also permit Woods to decline hitting any shots from a challenging, uneven lie or from daunting terrain that might put added force on his right leg.NBC will televise both rounds of the PNC Championship.Woods’s appearance on a golf course next week will likely spawn conversations about when he might return to the PGA Tour. The Masters Tournament, which he has won five times, is only four months away. But last week Woods cautioned against speculation about when, or if, he will return to elite competitive golf.“I haven’t proven it to myself that I can do it,” Woods, who has won 15 major golf championships, said. “I can play a par-3 course and I can hit a few shots. I can chip and putt, but we’re talking about going out there and playing against the world’s best on the most difficult golf courses under the most difficult conditions.“I’m so far from that. I have a long way to go to get to that point. I haven’t decided whether or not I want to get to that point. I’ve got to get my leg to a point where that decision can be made.”Last year, however, Woods talked repeatedly about how much it meant to him to be able to play with Charlie.“We can do this together for a lifetime,” Woods, who was taught the game by his father, Earl, who died in 2006, said. “I like the thought of having that opportunity to play with him for as long as I live.”Several of Woods’s colleagues from the PGA Tour in the previous 25 years will join him in next week’s field, including his good friend Justin Thomas and his father and coach Mike Thomas; Jim Furyk and his son, Tanner; Henrik Stenson and his son, Karl; and the multiple major champion turned broadcaster Nick Faldo and his son, Matthew. Nelly Korda, the world’s top-ranked women’s golfer, will also make her debut in the event playing with her father, Petr. More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Golf

      Lee Elder Paved the Way for Tiger Woods's Masters Dominance

      by

      Lee Elder forced golf forward by winning his way into the Masters tournament in 1975, the first Black player to do so, laying a path for Tiger Woods and others.How do we measure athletic greatness? By the number of big wins and unforgettable championships?Or by something less obvious but perhaps more profound: an athlete’s resolve to go against the grain and upend the status quo in both sport and society, even at the risk of personal harm?If the latter measure is as true a test as any, we must make room in the pantheon of the all-time greats for Lee Elder. An indefatigable African American golfer, he died on Sunday at age 87, nearly a half-century after he stood against the stultifying stain of racism and became the first Black golfer to play at the Masters, paving the way for no less than Tiger Woods.“He was the first,” said Woods, not long after he stunned the sports world by winning the Masters in 1997, at age 21. “He was the one I looked up to. Because of what he did, I was able to play here, which was my dream.”What a journey, what a life. The hard, tumultuous arc of sports in the back half of the 20th century — indeed the arc of American history during that time — can be traced through Elder.He was a Black man born in the Jim Crow South who taught himself to play golf on segregated courses and polished his trade on the barnstorming golf tour akin to baseball’s Negro leagues.He dreamed of making it to the biggest stage, but professional golf took its own sweet time while sports such as baseball, basketball and football slowly integrated. The Professional Golfers Association kept its Caucasian-only clause until 1961.Elder never wavered. He broke through on the PGA Tour in 1968, as a 34-year-old. In those days, with the battle for civil rights well underway, the Masters began receiving pressure to add at least one Black player to its field. In 1973, a group of 18 congressional representatives even petitioned the tournament for just that. Elder was among the top 40 money earners on tour and had played in multiple U.S. Opens and P.G.A. Championships — so why not Augusta National?But after choosing not to invite outstanding Black golfers such as Charlie Sifford during the 1960s, the tournament settled on a stringent requirement for its participants: victory at a PGA Tour event.Elder earned that at the 1974 Monsanto Open — the same Florida event where, six years earlier, he had been forced to change clothes in a parking lot because Black people were not allowed to use the country club locker room.Elder possessed an understated but firm resolve. He wasn’t quick to raise a fuss about racism, but he wasn’t afraid to speak up about it, either. “The Masters has never wanted a Black player, and they kept changing the rules to make it harder for Blacks,” he said, adding: “I got them off the hook by winning.”Elder served as a ceremonial starter for the Masters in 2021. He was cheered by Gary Player, in black, and Jack Nicklaus, right.Doug Mills/The New York TimesSince its inception in 1934, the Masters has dripped in the antebellum codes of the South. Held at Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, on a former indigo plantation, the only African Americans allowed on the course were groundskeepers and caddies. Nobody described the Masters more truthfully than the Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray. The tournament, he wrote in 1969, was “as white as the Ku Klux Klan.”In the months leading up to the 1975 Masters, Elder was the target of multiple death threats. “Sometimes it was sent to the course where I was playing, sometimes it came to my house,” he said. “Stuff like, ‘You better watch behind trees,’ ‘You won’t make it to Augusta.’ It was bad stuff, but I expected it.”But on April 10, 1975, there he stood, at the first tee, surrounded by a gallery full of close friends, including the football star Jim Brown. When Elder smashed his tee shot straight down the fairway, he did not just make history at the Masters, he pried open the cloistered and often racist world of golf to new possibilities.Looking back at the contours of his career beyond 1975, one sees a consistent solidity. He won three more PGA Tour titles and then eight on the Senior Tour and represented the United States in the Ryder Cup. It will always be a great unknown — the heights Elder could have reached if the opportunity had been equal and he had been able to play PGA Tour events in his prime.We can say this much for certain: Elder fixed himself in the sports history firmament at the Masters in 1975. He will always remain there, a North Star for others to follow.Woods came along just over two decades later, winning the 1997 Masters by 12 strokes and announcing himself as the heir not just to Elder but to Jack Nicklaus, who won at Augusta six times. As Woods marched past a gallery of awe-struck fans on his way to receive the champion’s green jacket for the first of five times, he saw Elder, and the two embraced. Past met present, paving the future.And yet the road to equality in golf remains elusive. The sport was overwhelmingly white in Elder’s era and overwhelmingly white when Woods burst on the scene. It remains overwhelmingly white.The game is “still slacking quite a bit” when it comes to diversity, Cameron Champ, 26, whose mother is white and father is Black, said while speaking about Elder this week. Champ is one of the few players of African American heritage on tour and one of the game’s most vocal about the need to diversify.It took until this year — prodded by tumultuous nationwide protests over racism and police brutality in 2020 — for the Masters to truly give Elder his due.In April, aside Nicklaus and Gary Player, Elder sat at Augusta National’s first tee as an honorary starter for this year’s tournament. Tubes snaked into his nose to deliver oxygen. He was too hobbled to take a shot.A gallery of the tournament’s players stood nearby, paying proper respect to a golfer whose greatness extended far beyond the fairway. The cold, crisp morning had a reverent, unforgettable feel, recalled Champ, whose paternal grandfather fell for golf in part because of Elder and then taught the game to his grandson.But it took 46 years for golf to honor Elder at the Masters. Think about that.Why didn’t it happen in 1985, the 10th anniversary of his smashing past Augusta National’s color line? Or in 1995, 20 years after the fact? Or at any other time?Why must change always take so long? More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Golf

      Tiger Woods Concedes the Spotlight. ‘I’ve Had a Pretty Good Run.’

      by

      Best known for willing himself to victory, the winner of 15 major championships said he had no desire to do what would be necessary to win another on his surgically rebuilt right leg.It was 15 minutes into his first public appearance since a terrifying car crash in February that Tiger Woods, assessing an uncertain future and a celebrated past, took the measure of his career.“I got that last major,” a wistful Woods said on Tuesday, recalling his stunning 2019 victory at the Masters Tournament, golf’s most watched event, at age 43.Ascending to a similar pinnacle in golf, however, is no longer foremost in Woods’s plans.“I’ve had a pretty good run,” Woods, with the thinnest of smiles, said at a news conference nine months after he sustained devastating leg injuries when his sport-utility vehicle tumbled off a Los Angeles-area boulevard at a high speed. He added: “I don’t see that type of trend going forward for me. It’s going to have to be a different way. I’m at peace with that. I’ve made the climb enough times.”In that moment, one of the most influential athletes of the last quarter-century retreated from the brightest spotlight in sports. Woods said he hoped to play competitive golf again at some level, although he offered no timetable for achieving that ambition. Instead, a sporting champion best known for willing himself to victories conceded that his surgically rebuilt right leg would forever inhibit his once-lofty expectations and drive.“A full practice schedule and the recovery that it would take to do that,” he said, “no, I don’t have any desire to do that.”It was a striking concession for the tenacious Woods, and an inflection point for golf and sports in general. Woods has been among the world’s most prominent people since he won the first of his 15 major golf championships in 1997, with a likeness recognized around the globe and omnipresent commercial endorsements.Woods after winning the Masters in 2019, an improbable triumph after years of struggling with a damaged spine.Doug Mills/The New York TimesYet, for all his triumphs and attendant fame, the February crash and its debilitating consequences were in keeping with a recurring cycle of fortune and misfortune — all of Woods’s own making — that will forever mark the narrative of his life.At the height of his fame, in 2009, when he seemed destined to easily surpass Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 major golf championships — Woods already had 14 — news reports about serial infidelity cost him his marriage, and he was shunned by many in the golf community. His myriad corporate sponsors dropped him. The scandal caused him to take a lengthy hiatus from golf.When Woods returned to competition, he struggled to find his old form, in part because of physical ailments linked to the obsessive, perhaps overly aggressive workout regimen that had been his hallmark. Worse for Woods, on the same golf courses where he had been greeted by wild cheering, he was instead met with an eerie quiet that bordered on disdain.In time, he became a limping afterthought as a young wave of golfers replaced him atop leaderboards. Woods’s descent led to a defining act: a middle-of-the-night arrest in May 2017 that revealed an opioid addiction. The police took Woods into custody after he was found alone and asleep in his car on the side of a road with the engine running.In keeping with his career arc, Woods’s resurrection was dramatic and irresistible.At the 2019 Masters, he was not considered a serious contender. Yet as he played the last holes of the final round on the hallowed grounds of Augusta National Golf Club, Woods was rejuvenated. He played his best golf while his younger rivals wilted, birdieing three of the final six holes to claim his fifth Masters title. When he sank the winning putt on the 18th hole, Woods celebrated with a primal scream that seemed to be matched by the thousands of fans encircling the green.Two years earlier, Woods had ranked as low as 1,119th in the world. His comeback, given his off-the-course hardships, is among the greatest in sports history.While Woods continued to be competitive in 2019, and won one more event, the pandemic forced an extended absence from golf. In January this year, he underwent a fifth back operation that sidelined him. He hoped to return by April.On Feb. 23, police determined that Woods was driving about 85 m.p.h. in a 45 m.p.h. zone on the winding Southern California road when he lost control of his SUV. Woods sustained open fractures, in several places, of the tibia and the fibula in his right leg.Woods’s SUV after the crash in February.Allison Zaucha for The New York TimesOn Tuesday, speaking ahead of the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas, a tournament that benefits Woods’s foundation, he briefly discussed the crash and its aftermath, which included the possibility that his right leg would have to be amputated.“I feel I’m lucky to be alive but still have the limb — those are two crucial things,” Woods, 45, said. “So I’m very, very grateful that someone upstairs was able to take care of me and I’m able to not only be here, but also walking without a prosthesis.”When asked what he remembered about the crash, Woods said: “Yeah, all those answers have been answered in the investigation. So you can read about all that there in the police report.”In an investigation affidavit, Woods repeatedly said he didn’t remember how the crash occurred. He was not charged with any legal violation. Asked if he had flashbacks or recent memory of the incident, Woods replied: “I don’t. I’m very lucky in that way.”Woods said he purposely did not watch news accounts about his crash while he was hospitalized.“I didn’t want to have my mind go there,” Woods said, adding that he was in considerable pain, even when medicated. Asked if he was still in pain, he grinned and nodded.“Yep, my back hurts, my leg hurts,” Woods said.Woods appeared most comfortable when discussing what he can and cannot currently do on the golf course. He has begun playing some holes, but he said his swing lacks speed and power, noting that many of his shots “fall out of the sky” much sooner than they once did.“It’s eye-opening,” Woods said and offered giggling support to a United States Golf Association initiative that encourages golfers to play from tees that can significantly shorten the length of courses. “I really like that idea.”The comment reflected the arduous path Woods will have to negotiate to return to the elite level of golf necessary to play on the PGA Tour.“I’ve got to prove to myself that I’m good enough,” he said of that effort. Referring to PGA Tour pros, Woods quipped: “I’ll chip and putt with any of these guys, but courses are longer than chip-and-putt courses. I’m not going to be playing the par-3 course at Augusta to win the Masters. You need a bigger game than that.”But Woods, who talked about how the muscles and nerves in his right leg needed to continue to rehabilitate, was nonetheless optimistic that, in time, he could possibly improve his game enough to sporadically play tour events again.“To ramp up for a few tournaments a year, there’s no reason I can’t do that and feel ready,” he said. “I’ve come off long layoffs and I’ve won or come close to winning. I know the recipe.”He cautioned, though, that he was not close to that level of golf yet.“I have a long way to go to get to that point,” Woods said. “I haven’t decided whether or not I want to get to that point.”Woods at the 2020 Masters, where he finished in a tie for 38th. He pointed out on Tuesday that he had won after long layoffs but that he was far from that level of the game now.Doug Mills/The New York TimesAt roughly the midpoint of the news conference, Woods was asked if he wanted to play in next year’s British Open, on the 150th anniversary of the event. It will be held at St. Andrews, the birthplace of golf.“I’d love to play at St. Andrews, my favorite golf course in the world, and being a two-time Open champion there,” he said.But Woods’s next sentence was perhaps most telling. He changed the subject to whether he would be able to attend the pre-competition ceremonial dinner for past British Open champions.“I would like, you know, just even being a part of the champions dinner is really neat,” he said. “Those dinners are priceless. It’s an honor to be part of a room like that.” More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in Golf

      Tiger Woods Rules Out a Full-Time Return to the PGA Tour

      by

      In a half-hour video interview with Golf Digest, Woods, who was badly injured in a car crash early this year, said he hopes to recover enough to play sporadically in tour events.Tiger Woods hopes to play on the PGA Tour again, though never as a full-time player, something he called “an unfortunate reality” that he has accepted, according to a 30-minute video interview with Golf Digest posted online Monday.“I think something that is realistic is playing the Tour one day — never full time, ever again — but pick and choose, just like Mr. Hogan did and you play around that,” Woods, 45, said, referring to the nine-time major champion Ben Hogan, who played sporadically, if effectively, after breaking multiple bones in a devastating 1949 car crash. “You practice around that, and you gear yourself up for that. I think that’s how I’m going to have to play it from now on. It’s an unfortunate reality, but it’s my reality. And I understand it, and I accept it.”On Feb. 23, Woods sustained open fractures of both the tibia and the fibula in his right leg in a single-vehicle crash outside Los Angeles. The fractures were described as comminuted, which meant the bones were broken in several places. After undergoing emergency surgery, he was hospitalized for three weeks. In that time, Woods said, he faced the possibility of having his right leg amputated.The police determined that Woods was driving about 85 m.p.h. in a 45 m.p.h. zone on a winding road when he lost control of his sport-utility vehicle. He was not charged with any legal violation.The vehicle Woods was driving when he crashed in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., on Feb. 23.Allison Zaucha for The New York Times“There was a point in time when — I wouldn’t say it was 50-50 — but it was damn near there if I was going to walk out of that hospital with one leg,” Woods said in the video of a Zoom interview, which began with the smiling golfer striding toward the camera without a noticeable limp, inside his South Florida home.Woods, who has had several back operations, including a fusion in 2017, returned to professional golf and won the 2019 Masters, his 15th major championship, a comeback Woods referenced on Monday.“After my back fusion, I had to climb Mt. Everest one more time,” he said. “I had to do it, and I did. This time around, I don’t think I’ll have the body to climb Mt. Everest, and that’s OK. I can still participate in the game of golf. I can still, if my leg gets OK, I can still click off a tournament here or there. But as far as climbing the mountain again and getting all the way to the top, I don’t think that’s a realistic expectation of me.”He added: “I don’t have to compete and play against the best players in the world to have a great life.”On Tuesday, Woods will make his first formal public appearance since the crash, attending a news conference at the Hero World Challenge, a 20-man tournament in the Bahamas that benefits Woods’s foundation.On Monday, he described the stages of his rehabilitation over the last nine months. One of his first memories after the crash, Woods said, was of asking for a golf club that he held in his hands while in the hospital. Later, he spent three months confined to a hospital bed, mostly at his home. Next, he was able to move around in a wheelchair, then on crutches and eventually in a walking boot.“I’ve had some hard days and tough setbacks,” said Woods, who believed his recovery would be swifter. “But I keep progressing and I’m able to walk again.”Woods last week posted a three-second video of himself swinging a short iron on a practice range, but he cautioned that he was nowhere near ready to play competitive golf.“I have so far to go,” Woods said. “I’m not even at the halfway point. I have so much more muscle development and nerve development that I have to do in my leg. At the same time, as you know, I’ve had five back operations, so I’m having to deal with that. As the leg gets stronger, sometimes the back may act up.”During the video interview, Woods seemed to spend more time talking about his 12-year-old son, Charlie, than any other topic. Charlie has been playing in a succession of junior golf events, with Woods in attendance lately. The two have also spent time in chipping and putting contests at a practice facility. Woods has counseled Charlie on the mental aspects of competitive golf, most notably how to recover from a bad hole.“I said, ‘Son, I don’t care how mad you get. Your head could blow off for all I care, just as long as you’re 100 percent committed to the next shot,’” Woods said. “That’s all that matters. That next shot should be the most important shot in your life. It should be more important than breathing. Once you understand that concept, then I think you’ll get better. And as the rounds went on throughout the summer, he’s gotten so much better.”Throughout the video, Woods was upbeat and even jocular, although he was more serious when discussing the next steps in his rehabilitation.“There’s a lot to look forward to, but a lot of hard work to be done,” he said. “And I have to be patient and progress at a pace that is aggressive but not over the top.”He added: “It’s been a tough road, but to get on this side of it is fantastic.” More