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    LIV Golf Wants to Talk About Sports. Donald Trump Still Looms.

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    It was only on Sunday evening that LIV Golf, the men’s league awash in billions of dollars from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, met its greatest athletic triumph to date when one of its headliners, Brooks Koepka, emphatically won the P.G.A. Championship.By Thursday morning, though, LIV’s road show had been reinfused with the political bent that has trailed the second-year circuit as it has convulsed professional golf: the loquacious, limelight-seizing presence of former President Donald J. Trump, who is hosting one of the league’s tournaments this weekend at a course northwest of Washington.Whether LIV can outrun Trump’s shadow, and whether it even wants to, could do much to shape how the league is perceived in the years ahead, particularly in the United States, where it has struggled to gain a meaningful foothold against the PGA Tour.But for now, besides major tournament winners like Koepka and Phil Mickelson who have joined the circuit, there is probably no figure beyond golf more publicly linked to LIV than Trump, who has repeatedly and enthusiastically cheered Saudi Arabia’s thunderous, flashy entrance into sports. At its events, he often seems like an eager M.C. whose role is at once decidedly conspicuous and deeply mysterious — neither the Trump Organization nor LIV have disclosed how much money the former president’s company is making for the events — as the league looks to make inroads in a hidebound sport.The former President Donald J. Trump played with Patrick Reed during a pro-am event Thursday.Trump talked to the news media throughout his round of golf.“They want to use my properties because they’re the best properties,” Trump said on Thursday, when he spent five hours appearing in a pro-am event with the LIV players Graeme McDowell and Patrick Reed (and staging what amounted to a rolling news conference about politics and an infomercial about his property over 18 holes along the Potomac River).The Trump portfolio does indeed feature some exceptional courses, including the Washington-area location, which once held a Senior P.G.A. Championship, and LIV executives have said in the past that they were drawn to them because many top-caliber properties in the United States were not willing to host a circuit intended to rival the PGA Tour. But Trump’s persistent, growing place in LIV’s orbit also invites sustained skepticism of the motives and intentions of the league, which some critics see as a glossy way for Saudi Arabia to rehabilitate its image.The former president is unbothered by the league’s patron, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, and the kingdom’s budding place in professional golf, despite its record of human rights abuses. He is still casting aside objections from family members of Sept. 11 victims, some of whom believe Saudi Arabia played a role in the 2001 attacks, because, as he said Thursday, LIV tournaments are “great economic development.” He is openly admiring the millions and millions of dollars that the Saudis are raining down onto players and, of course, properties like his, even though he asserted Thursday that hosting tournaments amounts to “peanuts for me.” This year, LIV will travel to three of his properties, up from two in its inaugural season.He has remained steadfast in his loyalty even though a special counsel from the Justice Department, Jack Smith, has subpoenaed the Trump Organization for records related to LIV.In an interview as he walked between holes on Thursday, Trump described Smith’s aggressive approach as “retribution” because the Biden administration wants “to do something to take the spotlight off what’s taken place.” He said he did not know why his ties to LIV had drawn the special counsel’s scrutiny.Trump’s affection for LIV can be traced, at least in part, to years of friction with golf’s establishment.Graeme McDowell, right, who played with Trump Thursday is among the past major champions to have left the PGA Tour for LIV.Neither the Trump Organization nor LIV have disclosed how much money the former president’s company is making for the events on his courses.In 2016, the PGA Tour ended a longstanding relationship with Trump’s course in Doral, Fla., near Miami, because of what its then-commissioner described as “fundamentally a sponsorship issue.” And in 2021, after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, the P.G.A. of America — which is separate from the PGA Tour — abandoned its plan to host its flagship men’s championship at a Trump property in New Jersey in 2022.Trump has not fared much better abroad. The R&A, which organizes the British Open, has signaled it does not intend to take the tournament back to Trump-controlled Turnberry, where LIV’s commissioner, Greg Norman, won one of his two Opens.LIV has embraced Trump, though, and in return gotten a former president’s imprimatur, along with bursts of news coverage for events that might have gone unnoticed otherwise. He brings prestige and power, diluted as both might be by the divisiveness in which he revels.“They have unlimited money and they love it,” he said Thursday, “and it’s been great publicity for Saudi Arabia.”But for every day Trump appears at a LIV event, it is a day that LIV might as well write off as one in which it will not escape the pointed questions that it has spent a year trying to move past, or at least saying it wants to move past.It has been hard enough for the league, even on a day when Trump is not playing a round, not to have its players confronting questions about the morality of accepting millions in Saudi money.“We’re contracted to play golf,” Bryson DeChambeau, the 2020 U.S. Open winner who finished in a tie for fourth at the P.G.A. Championship last weekend, said on Wednesday. “I think the most important part is to provide great entertainment wherever possible on whatever platform that is, whatever platform that provides it. When you can talk about ethics, that’s people’s perception. I completely disagree with it, but everybody has the right to their own opinion, and I’d say, was it worth it? Absolutely.”Trump suggested Thursday that nothing — not even a return to the White House — would easily dissuade him from doing business with the league.But DeChambeau hardly has the same megaphone or presence as a former occupant of the Oval Office. When Trump appears at a LIV event, even winners of the Masters Tournament or the U.S. Open are relegated to supporting actors.LIV executives have generally brushed aside questions about whether the former president is good for business, or merely essential for it, given their troubles landing quality venues. They seem convinced that, at some point, sports will overtake politics, which might be wishful thinking since Trump suggested Thursday that nothing — not even a return to the White House — would easily dissuade him from doing business with the league.But LIV’s strategy still involves a gamble that the presence of one of the nation’s most polarizing figures will not scare off even more of the sponsorship contracts and television rights that are already proving hard to come by for the operation. And Trump can just as easily alienate prospective fans as he can entice them.Trump himself insists that LIV craves him at its events and that he is not a distraction from the league’s proclaimed goal of growing the sport and giving it doses of needed energy.“They wanted me to be here, and I said sure,” said Trump, who said that LIV’s contracts with his properties did not require his appearances in events like the pro-am.Perhaps all of that is true. But as long as it is, LIV will linger in the political thicket, no matter how well Koepka plays on the game’s biggest stages. More

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      Golfers Battered By Rain At The PGA Championship

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      Driving rain on Saturday at the P.G.A. Championship forced some golfers to buck the usual country club sartorial norms in order to keep the water out of their eyes.PITTSFORD, N.Y. — For a while during the third round of the P.G.A. Championship on Saturday, Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, Scottie Scheffler, Justin Rose, Adam Scott and three or four other golfers were roaming the august grounds of the Oak Hill Country Club with their caps on backward.“It makes me feel cool,” Rose said. “Young. Hip.”The attire at the 105th playing of the P.G.A. Championship on Saturday did not mark a revolution toward relaxed golf mores. Although, it is also true that the back-turned caps — not the norm in professional golf — did not draw penalties, hoots or disqualifications either, so maybe some welcomed informality is brewing in golf after all.The world’s best golfers were experimenting with the best use of their headgear because of a relentless, driving rainstorm that pounded the Oak Hill Country Club throughout the day.Bryson DeChambeau kept a towel to dry his hands hanging from his umbrella.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesSo, Rose, 42, was not trying to remake his image. That was him making a joke. He wore his cap backward because it had become soaked with rain and when he put his head down to hit the golf ball, beads of water drip, drip, dripped past his eyes and onto his ball.“It actually put me off a little bit,” Rose said. “And at the top of my backswing, I had a couple of droplets fall down and it distracted me. I thought, this is annoying me, so let’s flip it.”McIlroy offered the same explanation, although he and Rose both conceded that they had not worn their hat backward at a major golf championship before.It is a known remedy on sloppy, rainy days, one seen regularly during bad weather at municipal golf courses, but the look was a little jarring when exhibited by the world’s best golfers.And in case you were wondering, a spokeswoman for the P.G.A. of America, which conducts the P.G.A. Championship, confirmed that there is a player dress code, but apparently, wearing your cap backward does not violate the code because no golfer was penalized or pulled off the course.Spectators dressed for the elements to take in the rain-soaked third round.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesIn fact, Rose, Scheffler, McIlroy and Justin Suh, who was another backward hat rebel, were each in the top 10 entering Sunday’s final round, so maybe they knew something that most of the other golfers did not.The soaked hats brigade was the most obvious example of the many adjustments that all the golfers in the field had to make because of Saturday’s rainstorm.The rough weather also highlighted the role of the relationship between players and their caddies. Nothing is more complex than the umbrella handoff between players and caddies that happens thousands of times — almost always in the same sequence — during a rainy round. It is either comical or the epitome of efficient, unspoken coordination.Usually in the fairway, in full view of the gallery of fans, it goes like this:The player holds an umbrella over his head and over his bag while the caddie marches around in the pouring rain trying to figure out the distance of the player’s next shot to the green. When the caddie returns, the player hands the umbrella to him and selects a club from the bag. The caddie dries the club’s grip with a towel hanging from the interior spokes of the umbrella. When the player walks toward his ball in the fairway, the caddie holds the umbrella over the player’s head — but not his own head. This protection of the player is offered until just seconds before he begins his swing at the ball. That’s when the caddie steps to the side. At that moment, the caddie makes sure he’s holding the umbrella over the player’s golf bag, because keeping the bag dry is more important than keeping the caddie dry.Once the ball is struck, the player hands his club to the caddie and the caddie hands over the umbrella. The player heads toward his ball, leaving the caddie to walk in the rain behind him, unprotected.Brooks Koepka, right, and his caddie perform the intricate umbrella exchange. Desiree Rios/The New York TimesOr as Jon Rahm, the world’s top ranked golfer, said on Saturday: “I can just take the umbrella and go. He sacrifices.”But Rahm appreciates his caddie, Adam Hayes, and knows what he endures.“The bottom of the bag today had about two inches of water in it,” he said. “And his clothes were soaked through. He must be carrying about 35 pounds of water on him right now. His job is extra important on a rainy day.”Stephan Jaeger, whose golf bag contained seven towels and other gear to get through a nearly five-hour round in the rain, said he thought his bag weighed 70 pounds on Saturday. The entire experience — the ongoing umbrella exchange, wiping the rain off the bill of his cap, trying to determine how many yards the wet grass would impede a shot — had left Jaeger, who was tied for 10th, exhausted.“It’s a lot of effort,” he said minutes after walking off the golf course. “I think I’m going to feel it once I sit down and calm down. I think the adrenaline will wear off a little bit, and I’m going to be pretty tired. It’s a lot of thinking, a lot to consider.”Jaeger was asked if he ever practiced in the rain between tournaments to get used to the experience.Jaeger answered immediately: “No.” More

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      Brooks Koepka Surges to the Lead at P.G.A. Championship

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      After his second consecutive four-under-par 66, the LIV golfer Koepka will be in the final pairing on Sunday at Oak Hill Country Club.PITTSFORD, N.Y. — Four years ago, less than a week before he won his second consecutive P.G.A. Championship, Brooks Koepka allowed the world inside his swaggering mind.“One hundred fifty-six in the field, so you figure at least 80 of them I’m just going to beat,” he said at Bethpage in 2019. “You figure about half of them won’t play well from there, so you’re down to about maybe 35,” he added. “And then from 35, some of them just — pressure is going to get to them. It only leaves you with a few more, and you’ve just got to beat those guys.”Keep in contention long enough, he reasoned, and “good things are going to happen.”He returned to the mix last month at the Masters Tournament, where he surrendered his lead to Jon Rahm during the final round. And now he is in the mix this weekend at the P.G.A. Championship at Oak Hill Country Club, where he fired a field-best four-under-par 66 on a rain-soaked Saturday, giving him a one-stroke lead over Corey Conners and Viktor Hovland with a round to play. He had also scored a tournament-leading 66 on Friday, after a 72 on Thursday.All of that is rumbling forth from a man with a wrenching medical history, a man who last year was trying (and failing) to shatter car windows at Augusta National Golf Club after a missed Masters cut, a man who just on Thursday played a round that he said was “the worst I’ve hit it in a really long time.” He finished that day tied for 38th, a day after he declared the try-and-beat-me algorithm he detailed in 2019 still worked just fine.Maybe he was right, though.Sunday, of course, will have pitfalls. With its often firm and narrow fairways and a rough whose verdant hue makes it appear more appealing than it actually is, Oak Hill has been a devilish test since the first tee shot on Thursday. After two rounds, only nine players were below par. After three, that figure had shriveled to seven.Conners held a lead that crawled as high as two strokes for much of Saturday, helped along by a front nine that passed without a bogey and made the possibility of his first major championship victory all the more real. Born in Ontario, not all that far from Oak Hill, he has been a favorite of the galleries, energized by an April victory at the Texas Open and confident in his putting, a welcome status for a player with a reputation for expert ball striking. But a double-bogey on the 16th hole sent him tumbling out of the top spot.And Hovland again lurked at and around the top of the leaderboard throughout Saturday. He has been there before: Since the start of last year’s British Open, he has been in the top-10 at the end of every major tournament round. His afternoon darkened quickly, with bogeys on two of his first five holes, before a spree of three birdies left him poised to take the lead on the 14th hole. A sand wedge from about 75 yards brought him just inside the green’s edge, but he missed a birdie putt, settling for par. He missed another birdie try at No. 16.Viktor Hovland on the 18th green waiting to putt. He lurked at and around the top of the leaderboard throughout Saturday.Six pairings ahead, Hovland’s playing partner in last year’s final round at St. Andrews, Rory McIlroy, rediscovered some of the form that eluded him at the Masters and beyond. (Neither Hovland nor McIlroy won that Open, which Cameron Smith left with the claret jug.) McIlroy, often drenched, shot a 69 for the second consecutive day, taking him to one under and putting his ambition to win his first major since 2014 not fully out of reach.“I probably hit it a little better off the tee today than I did the first couple of days, but I think this tournament and especially in these conditions and on this golf course, the nonphysical parts of the game, I think, are way more important this week than the physical parts of the game,” McIlroy said Saturday. “And I think I’ve done those well, and that’s the reason that I’m in a decent position.”Koepka has not gone as long as McIlroy without a major victory, though he has been more battered with injuries these last few years. He began to gain ground early on Saturday, with birdies on the fourth and fifth holes. At No. 5, christened Little Poison, his 179-yard tee shot landed neatly on the green, setting up a putt for birdie. Unlike plenty of other past major champions, including McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau, on Saturday, he avoided a bogey at No. 6, a havoc-inducing par-4 that has been playing closer to a 5.A second shot at No. 13 landed in the rough, leaving Koepka 96 yards from the hole. His next stroke put him on the green, setting up a birdie putt from roughly 18 and a half feet. That putt, though, seemed puny at the 17th hole, when Koepka rolled one in from about 47 feet.One of the central questions entering the tournament at Oak Hill was whether Koepka would much resemble the player who punished almost the entire field at Augusta. Playing in the LIV Golf league afterward, he had assembled a middling performance in Australia, a third-place finish in Singapore and a sixth-place outing last weekend in Oklahoma.Before that tournament near Tulsa, he had mused over how he enjoyed the rigors of the majors: “the discipline, the mental grind that comes with it all, the focus.” In the hours after his letdown at Augusta, he said this past week, he did not sleep, that swaggering mind suddenly left looking for answers. The answers took shape within days.He said on Saturday that he had learned that he should “never think the way I thought going into the final round.”Koepka on the fourth fairway. A victory on Sunday would give him his fifth major tournament championship.“I won’t do it again the rest of my career,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean that you can’t go play bad — you can play good, you’ll play bad, but I’ll never have that mind-set or that won’t ever be the reason.”A victory on Sunday would give him his fifth major tournament championship, and his first since that heady week at Bethpage in 2019.Others are not so well positioned. Rahm, the No. 1 player in the Official World Golf Ranking, shot two over on Saturday to bring his tournament score to six over. Justin Thomas, the winner of last year’s P.G.A. Championship, and Phil Mickelson, who has won the event twice, were five over on Saturday, moving their scores to 10 over.“This golf course, with how difficult it is, it all starts by putting the ball in the fairway,” Rahm said. “It’s not an easy task. It’s very, very difficult. If you can do that, then you can maybe give yourself some chances and it all starts with that. A little bit of it is trying to keep the club head dry and manage it but again, there’s an element — there’s only so much you can control — so a bit of an element of luck.”With the wet conditions forecast to clear, players expected the tees to be moved back for Sunday’s final round. The P.G.A. of America, the three-time major winner Padraig Harrington noted, is deeply skilled at setups.“If they want us to go out there and shoot a good score, being 68, they’ll set it up that way,” he said. “They could if they want set it up for a low one for sure, but that wouldn’t suit the leader. The leaders always want a tough challenge on Sunday so they can play safe and the chasers get caught out.”But the universe of chasers is a small one. Again, its members are pursuing Koepka.The field will chase Koepka in the final round on Sunday. More

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      Scheffler, Hovland and Conners Share the Lead at P.G.A. Championship

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      Jordan Spieth, who needs a victory at Oak Hill to complete the career Grand Slam, and Justin Thomas, who won last year’s tournament, just made the cut at five over.PITTSFORD, N.Y. — Justin Rose, the golfer you remember but maybe have not thought all that much about lately in major tournaments, had hit two fairways all day. He had birdied as often as he had bogeyed.And when he walked off the course on Friday, his tournament score at one under par, he was positioned to contend at the P.G.A. Championship this weekend. He had figured, he said, that four under could win the tournament at an Oak Hill Country Club where the fairways seem to be awfully hard to find.“There are chances,” said Rose, the 2013 U.S. Open winner who only in February ended a four-year drought of PGA Tour victories. “If you do drive the ball in play, there’s a few fun pins. Those are the moments in your round you have to pick up three, four birdies and then ride some of the tougher holes and tough breaks that you’re going to get out there.”So it went during the second round at Oak Hill, which had been hardly prone to compromise on Thursday and stayed fearsome on Friday. By nightfall, only nine men in the 156-player field were under par; the 2008 P.G.A. Championship was the last with fewer than 10 players below par after two rounds.Corey Conners, Viktor Hovland and Scottie Scheffler shared the lead at five under, while Bryson DeChambeau and Justin Suh trailed by two strokes and were tied for fourth.The par-70 course has never yielded a major champion who was not in the top three after the opening two rounds.“It’s nice to be back to have a chance, but at the same time, we’ve got a lot of golf left,” Hovland said. “We’re only halfway, and a lot of things can happen.”The cut, the top 70 golfers plus ties, claimed the rising stars Tom Kim and Sungjae Im and the reigning U.S. Open winner Matt Fitzpatrick. Jordan Spieth, who needs a P.G.A. Championship victory to complete the career Grand Slam, and Justin Thomas, who won last year’s tournament, just made the cut at five over, along with Phil Mickelson and Zach Johnson, the captain of this year’s American Ryder Cup team.Rose, left, on his way to the fifth green, where he would make par.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesThrough his first two rounds in suburban Rochester, Rose was never in much danger of joining them. But it has been an up-and-down decade since his Open victory at Merion. There were two runner-up finishes at Augusta National Golf Club, but never one of the green jackets that Masters Tournament champions don. He finished the 2018 British Open at Carnoustie two strokes behind Francesco Molinari, who missed this week’s cut. There were a few top 10 showings at P.G.A. Championships, a third-place performance at a U.S. Open and the sustained aggravation of going winless for so long on tour.A renewal of confidence came at Pebble Beach, the site of that third-place Open finish, in February, when he finally found a victory.“Just the fact of knowing I can do it again is important,” said Rose, who is seeking to become the first British player to win a P.G.A. Championship in 104 years.So far at Oak Hill, he has found his iron play pleasing and his putting encouraging, but his game still in need of some tightening. A dose of hard-won realism probably did not hurt, either.“When I did catch a bad lie in the rough, took my medicine and pitched out and tried to avoid the big number,” he said. “I felt like making a bogey or two around here is no big deal.”He was probably right, since even the leaderboard’s highest reaches were speckled with green, bogey-signaling squares on Friday. Dustin Johnson, who shot a 67 in the opening round, raced downward on Friday, when he stumbled to a 74. Less than a week after a victory in an LIV Golf tournament in Oklahoma, Johnson had four bogeys and a double bogey, his frustrations eased only by a pair of birdies.Dustin Johnson, who shot 74 on Friday and is one over for the tournament, putts on the 10th green.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesMin Woo Lee, on the other hand, used a day of exceptional putting to make five birdies on Friday’s front nine to reach even par. Brooks Koepka played the first half of Friday’s round to par but had five birdies on the back nine to move to two under, a four-stroke swing from Thursday. Patrick Cantlay, the highest-ranked player in the world (No. 4) without a major tournament victory in his career, gained three strokes to stand at one over.“If you hit great shots all day, you can play a good round, and if you just get a little off all day, you can play a round like I did yesterday where I shot four over par,” Cantlay said on Friday. “It’s just the line is that small. You’d better be on the right side of it.”Michael Block, the head pro at Arroyo Trabuco Golf Club, southeast of Los Angeles, was just above Cantlay on the leaderboard, at even par, a score more than sufficient for him to make the P.G.A. Championship cut for the first time.“People out there, they understand: They’ve hit that ball out into the bushes on the right side and they don’t know what’s happening, but the lucky thing about me is I figured it out pretty quick where I was going wrong,” Block, who is appearing in his fifth P.G.A. Championship, said. “Club pros, I always heard, figure it out within a couple shots. Tour pros figure it out within one shot, and I was lucky enough to figure it out within one shot this time.”Michael Block, a club pro, shot consecutive rounds of 70 and was even par for the tournament,Desiree Rios/The New York TimesOak Hill has narrow fairways — No. 18’s is as skinny as 20 yards — and surging winds made them even trickier to stick on Friday than they had been on Thursday, when Rory McIlroy, the No. 3 player in the Official World Golf Ranking, landed in only two. On Friday, shots that rocketed off the tee and appeared promising frequently tumbled into a rough almost inevitably described as penal.“I had a couple back-to-back drives on 16 and 17 where I thought it was dead in the middle, landed in the perfect spot, and just the fairways are so firm, it just rolled right in the rough,” said Sepp Straka, whose 71 on Friday brought him even for the tournament. “There’s not much stopping the ball out there right now other than the rough, and when you get in the rough, it’s really tough to score.”Weather conditions are expected to worsen Saturday, when rain and wind could batter the course.“I think that’s going to throw off the comfort level again,” Rose said. “This is just going to be four days of kind of getting the most out of each day.” More

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      Bryson DeChambeau Rediscovers His Groove at the P.G.A. Championship

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      It’s only one round, but DeChambeau, the once hard-swinging golfer who has struggled of late, shot a four-under-par 66 at Oak Hill Country Club.PITTSFORD, N.Y. — Bryson DeChambeau walked onto his final green in the first round of the 2023 P.G.A. Championship on Thursday and the modest gallery awaiting him remained hushed. DeChambeau was leading the event and on his way to a sterling 18-hole score, his best at an American major championship in three years. And yet, the roughly 200 silent fans near the green stared at him as they would an exhibit in a museum.This is the place DeChambeau has come to inhabit in golf. Even at the conclusion of a sparkling performance, fans were curious but nonetheless wary about awarding him too much affection.Three years ago, he was feted and cheered as the game’s next revolutionary, one who would inspire a new generation to swing as hard as possible on every shot. It was the way to his record-setting 2020 U.S. Open victory. He promoted an intense workout regimen and a radical diet. His following was young and raucous.Then came a long series of uninspiring results, a defection from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf and more ineffective play that made him a relative afterthought. Once ranked fourth in the world, DeChambeau began Thursday ranked 214th.But the DeChambeau who attacked the demanding East Course at Oak Hill Country Club in the first round was wholly different, for a day at least. He was still powerful off the tee, often out-driving his playing companions Jason Day and Keegan Bradley by 40 yards. Stepping onto his last green, he was leading the tournament on a day when most players were floundering and cursing under their breath.In pursuit of long-distance drives, DeChambeau bulked up, once eating about 5,000 calories per day before abandoning that strategy.Doug Mills/The New York TimesFacing a 50-foot uphill birdie putt, DeChambeau knocked his golf ball to within a few inches of the hole. The fans watching finally relented and applauded politely.One spectator who appeared to be in his 50s — not the usual demographic for a Bryson die-hard — shouted, “Come on, Bryson! Come on buddy!”With a four-under-par 66, DeChambeau was second by the time play was suspended because of darkness with many players, including the leader Eric Cole, not having finished their rounds. He left the grounds smiling and with a hop in his step that seemed more than a reflection of the roughly 35 pounds he has shed from his once bulky frame.He stopped to sign a child’s golf ball, fist bumped a handful of fans and jogged off to the scoring tent and then lengthy meetings with reporters and television interviewers.All the while, DeChambeau grinned, even as he said repeatedly: “It’s been a tough last four or five years.”It is a quizzical statement for a golfer who since 2018 has had a runaway victory at the U.S. Open, six wins on the PGA Tour and 31 top-10 finishes. In that stretch, he earned more than $23 million on the PGA Tour.But DeChambeau would explain his view of what has transpired since 2018.For starters, he had been consuming about 5,000 calories per day and “eating lots of stuff that inflames your body.” He is now eating about 2,900 calories per day.He also had a hand injury, which he said has healed.“Obviously having the hand injury was no fun and then learning to play golf again with a new hand,” DeChambeau said.DeChambeau was once viewed as a potential revolutionary in the game by fans.Doug Mills/The New York TimesThere were dark days as his slump and ailments continued.“The emotions have definitely fluctuated pretty high and pretty low — thinking I have something and it fails and going back and forth,” he said. “It’s humbling.”He continued: “I will say that there have been times where it’s like, man, I don’t know whether this is worth all of it.”DeChambeau was notorious for hitting balls on practice ranges at PGA Tour events well past sunset, swatting away under lights that illuminated only him. He now seems ambivalent about putting in those long hours.“You see me out there on the range,” he said. “That’s something I don’t want to do. I don’t want to be out there all night.”But DeChambeau feels like he’s now discovered something, or in his words Thursday: “Trending in the right direction.”Asked if he was closer to the end of his journey to find, or regain, his swing, he answered: “The end of it, for sure. I want to be just stable now. I’m tired of changing, of trying different things.”But what of the predictions of him maybe being able to blast 400-yard drives? DeChambeau shook his head.“Yeah, I could I hit it a little further,” he said. “Could I try and get a little stronger? Sure. But I’m not going to go full force. It was a fun experiment, but I definitely want to play some good golf now.”“Golf is a weird animal,” DeChambeau said on Thursday. “But I feel like I’m trending in the right direction.”Doug Mills/The New York TimesAnd, as he said, he is still plenty long enough.One good round at Oak Hill does not reverse many months of ineffectual play, but what next for DeChambeau?“Golf is a weird animal,” he replied. “But I feel like I’m trending in the right direction. Of course, playing like I did today makes it easier to feel that way.”DeChambeau was still smiling. He smiled easily and often two and three years ago, too.“Maybe it could all change tomorrow; it’s golf,” he said. “But I don’t think it will.” More

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      Ferocious Oak Hill Daunts P.G.A. Championship Field, With More to Come

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      Birdies were at a premium for many of the 156 golfers vying for the Wanamaker Trophy at Oak Hill Country Club during the first round of the major tournament on Thursday.PITTSFORD, N.Y. — Scottie Scheffler had, at least in the moment, a share of the P.G.A. Championship lead when he offered a foreboding prediction Thursday afternoon: Oak Hill Country Club, already playing to the point of menace in the first round, would only become more terrorizing.The winds are expected to bluster. Rain is coming. And, for good measure, the East Course has been recently restored to bring back the diabolical, century-old wizardry of the architect Donald J. Ross.“It’s just one of those places where you hit one shot maybe barely offline, and sometimes can you hit a good shot and end up in a place where it’s pretty penalizing,” said Scheffler, the 2022 Masters Tournament winner, who nevertheless had his first bogey-free round in a major championship Thursday. “There’s lots of tough holes out there.”The rough is showing itself to be ferociously retributive, the fairways so firm that balls are only so often staying in them — even after the frost that delayed Thursday’s start by nearly two hours had softened the turf. Rory McIlroy, the four-time major champion, hit two fairways all day as he dueled with crosswinds off the tees.But there was no parade of aggrieved players publicly fuming over the setup just outside Rochester, N.Y. Instead, as the tight leaderboard took shape before play was suspended because of darkness, a brand of begrudging, knowing admiration took hold, even as the likelihood of a runaway winner seemed distant.Sahith Theegala of the U.S. slammed his putter after missing a shot on the 18th hole.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesKeegan Bradley bogeyed on No. 7 but finished at two under par.Doug Mills/The New York Times“Very difficult golf course,” said Bryson DeChambeau, whose four-under-par 66 put him in second place, one shot behind the solo leader Eric Cole, who did not complete his round on Thursday night. “As I was looking at it throughout the week, I’m like, man, I don’t know how shooting under par is even possible out here on some of the golf holes.”“It’s playing tough,” said Kurt Kitayama, who was at even par. “I don’t think anyone’s really comfortable.”“It stacks up with some of the toughest major championship venues that I have ever played,” said Corey Conners, who has had three top-10 finishes at the Masters, after his three-under-par round.The sterling performance by DeChambeau, who has routinely sputtered since his 2020 U.S. Open victory in New York at Winged Foot, often seen as similar to the recharged Oak Hill, came after an early bogey on the 12th hole. (With a 156-man field, tournament organizers opted for a two-tee start. Because of the frost delay, the last group’s tee time was pushed back to 4:32 p.m., less than four hours before sunset.)He moved to under par for the first time on his seventh hole — No. 16 — and finished his front nine at one under. Three birdies on his back nine, including one at No. 6, the hole that the course restorer Andrew Green has judged as Oak Hill’s most threatening, brought him to four under. Afterward, having become “so used to hitting it everywhere,” he reveled in a day of straight drives that, he conceded, could be little more than a memory by Friday evening.“You always think you have it one day and then it just leaves the next,” DeChambeau said. “Just got to be careful.”Bryson DeChambeau overtook Scheffler for the lead but stood one shot behind Eric Cole once play was suspended due to darkness.Doug Mills/The New York TimesScheffler, only a week removed from a round near Dallas in which he made birdie or eagle on five of his first six holes, found something approximating a groove on the par-5 No. 4. His tee shot rocketed wayward and landed miserably near a tree. He ultimately saved par anyway.“We got a wind switch and had a really good up-and-down to keep the round going,” said Scheffler, who ended the day tied for third with Conners and Dustin Johnson, another Masters winner. “You would hate to bogey a par-5, especially when there’s only two of them around this place. That was good momentum.”Cole, 34, charged up the leaderboard late in the day, when three consecutive birdies brought his score to five under. He had played in one other major in his career, the 2021 U.S. Open, where he missed the cut.“When I did have an opportunity, I kind of felt like I happened to read it right and hit a good putt, and they went in today, so that was good,” Cole said Thursday night.The first round, with 11 groups scheduled to resume play Friday morning, was more boggling for others.There was Kazuki Higa, a Japanese golfer who missed the cut at the two other majors of his career, opening his day with birdies on four of his first five holes, only to end it with four consecutive bogeys or double bogeys. Jon Rahm, the No. 1 player in the Official World Golf Ranking and the winner of last month’s Masters Tournament, later finished at six over, the worst single-round showing at a P.G.A. Championship by a world No. 1 since 1987. And Brooks Koepka, who dueled with Rahm in the final round at the Masters but found himself with a two-over-par 72 on Thursday, said the first round “was the worst I’ve hit it in a long time.”Jordan Spieth, who withdrew from a tournament last week because of a wrist injury, played Thursday and signed for three over, tying him with the past major champions Shane Lowry and Gary Woodland. McIlroy, who has lately struggled and missed the Masters cut, ended his day at one over. But his outing included an uphill putt from nearly 37 feet to save par at No. 2, delivering the kind of jolt that he suggested could perhaps keep him a contender.“Depending on what happens over the next three days and what I go on to do, you know, I may look back at that shot as being the sort of turning point of the week,” he said.Corey Conners of Canada on the 18th hole.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesRory McIlroy after a chip shot on No. 2.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesThe rigors of an event like this week’s helped shape Green’s thinking when he began work on the course, which hosted P.G.A. Championships in 2003 and 2013, as well as a Ryder Cup and three U.S. Opens.“Knowing that the golf course has a wonderful major championship legacy, and knowing that was something the club wanted to continue to do, we had to blend the Donald Ross design elements with modern championship golf,” Green said in an interview this year.The greens took on unorthodox shapes again, bunkers assumed greater brutality and more so-called chocolate drops — the turf-shrouded mounds that were a Ross signature — appeared.“You play really well and hit fairways and greens, you can make some putts, you can shoot a few under par,” said Viktor Hovland, who finished at two under on Thursday. “But if you’re a little bit off, the rough is just so penal. If you are short or you make a couple bogeys, you want to attack the pin, and you hit it more in a bad spot and it’s just a never-ending cycle.”The cut is scheduled for Friday evening, daylight permitting, with the top 70 and ties advancing to the weekend. Then the rain will start. More

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      Judge Rules for Tiger Woods in Dispute With Ex-Girlfriend Erica Herman

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      The dispute in a Florida court focused on whether Erica Herman’s claims against the golf star could be heard publicly or only through arbitration.A dispute between the golf star Tiger Woods and a former girlfriend about her right to live in his home must be resolved through arbitration, a Florida judge ruled on Wednesday.The ruling put the spectacle on a path to be handled in private — a victory for Woods, whose lawyers had contended that his nondisclosure agreement with Erica Herman, his former companion, broadly required disputes to be addressed privately through arbitration, not the court system.Lawyers for Herman had cast doubt on the validity of the agreement, in part because they believed that some of Woods’s conduct was sexual harassment. Under a relatively new federal law, a nondisclosure agreement connected to sexual harassment can be declared void, allowing the matter to be heard in a court.But in a decision on Wednesday, Judge Elizabeth A. Metzger of the Circuit Court in Martin County, Fla., backed Woods’s request to order the matter into arbitration and said Herman had not provided “factual specificity for any claim relating to sexual assault or sexual harassment.”The judge also rejected Herman’s request for a hearing to consider what her lawyers had described as “a factual dispute about the alleged formation of the arbitration agreement” since she did not recall signing it. In her decision on Wednesday, Metzger said the agreement “appears on its face to be valid” and that there was “no substantial issue of fact regarding the making or existence” of the pact.Although the ruling, barring a successful appeal, will take the dispute out of public view, lawyers for Herman and Woods used court filings in the months leading up to the hearing to exchange sensational allegations and slights.In Herman’s account, she went to work in Woods’s constellation of business interests in 2014 and became romantically involved with him in 2015. By the end of 2016, she said in a court filing, she had moved into a home with Woods.About six years later, in October 2022, their relationship collapsed. According to Herman, she was told she and Woods would be taking a quick trip to the Bahamas aboard a private plane and went to an airport with him.“But instead of boarding the plane, Mr. Woods told Ms. Herman to talk to his lawyer, and Mr. Woods left,” Herman’s lawyers wrote in a submission to the judge. “Then, Mr. Woods’s California lawyer, out of the blue, told her that she was not going anywhere, would never see Mr. Woods again, had been locked out of the house, and could not return.”According to Herman, she and Woods had an 11-year “oral tenancy” deal, which had about five years remaining at the time of their breakup. In a filing last autumn, Herman’s lawyers estimated that she had suffered more than $30 million in damages.But Woods’s representatives argued that the aftermath of the breakup, including any matters about Herman’s access to the home in a wealthy enclave north of West Palm Beach, should be handled in arbitration. They cited a three-page agreement dated Aug. 9, 2017, the same day a prosecutor said Woods had reached a plea deal in a case that began with a charge of driving under the influence.The immediate legal question before Metzger was not whether Herman’s interpretation of her tenancy arrangement with Woods was correct, but whether her court was the right forum for the matter to be considered.Woods and Herman became romantically involved in 2015 and broke up in October 2022.Rob Prezioso/EPA, via ShutterstockTo fortify their effort to move the dispute into a Florida courtroom, Herman’s lawyers, relying on a largely untested federal law regarding N.D.A.s, argued that Woods had engaged in sexual harassment because the agreement was tied to his personal and working relationships with Herman.“A boss imposing different work conditions on his employee because of their sexual relationship is sexual harassment,” Herman’s lawyers wrote. Beyond the employer-employee relationship, they said, the push by a Woods-established trust to force Herman from the home the couple had shared also amounted to sexual harassment because “the landlord made the availability of her housing conditional on her having a sexual relationship with a co-tenant.”In a filing of their own, Woods’s lawyers depicted Herman as “a jilted ex-girlfriend who wants to publicly litigate specious claims in court, rather than honor her commitment to arbitrate disputes in a confidential arbitration proceeding.”They also denied that she was “a victim of sexual assault or abuse” and warned the court against allowing “Ms. Herman to end-run her obligation to arbitrate her disputes with Mr. Woods with implausible claims of sexual harassment.” Arbitration tangle aside, the trust, citing the length of the oral tenancy arrangement, said in a separate submission that it believed the housing agreement was not governed by a particular Florida law.Woods has played two tournaments this year, most recently the Masters Tournament in April. He withdrew during the third round and underwent ankle surgery less than two weeks later. He has not announced when he expects to return to a competition schedule that was already severely limited after he sustained major leg injuries in a car wreck in February 2021.Mike Ives More

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      Watch Gareth Bale nail his first ever hole-in-one then celebrate wildly but video goes down like lead balloon with fans

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      GARETH BALE celebrated wildly after sinking his first ever hole-in-one at Torrey Pines.The 33-year-old is making the most of retirement, and enjoyed a round at 2021 US Open golf course in California.
      Gareth Bale nailed his first ever hole-in-one at Torrey PinesCredit: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CsXOv0dN7CT/?igshid=ZWQyN2ExYTkwZQ
      The 33-year-old celebrated wildly after sinking the shotCredit: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CsXOv0dN7CT/?igshid=ZWQyN2ExYTkwZQ
      Bale has made no secret of his love of golfCredit: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CsXOv0dN7CT/?igshid=ZWQyN2ExYTkwZQ
      While Bale’s love of golf is well documented, the former Tottenham and Real Madrid man has never hit a hole-in-one… until now.
      He shared a video of the moment to his Instagram account.
      After a perfectly executed swing, Bale watched on as his ball trickled into the hole.
      Reacting to the ace, he spun around and ran off with his arms in the air, shouting in celebration alongside his jubilant pals.
      READ MORE ON BALE
      Bale captioned his video: “First ever hole-in-one @torreypinesgolf South course, hole no3 great commentary by @ollieschindler.”
      But some Real Madrid fans weren’t too happy with the post, which came just hours after his former side were thumped 4-0 by Manchester City in the Champions League.
      One commented on Bale’s vid: “Bro we lost 4-0.”
      A second said: “Make a Madrid post rn before I lose my s***.”
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      And part of another said: “I know he is retired I respect that but still.”
      Meanwhile, other Madrid fans were left begging Bale to return to the club following the humbling defeat at the Etihad.
      One commented on his post: “Come back to Madrid.”
      And a second added: “Missing you in Madrid.”
      Bale won the Champions League an incredible FIVE times during his spell at the Bernabeu.
      He left the club this time last year, joining MLS side Los Angeles FC on a short term deal, before retiring from football after the World Cup.
      Bale won the Champions League five times with Real MadridCredit: AP More

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      in Golf

      How Oak Hill Was Returned to Its Roots

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      Oak Hill Country Club, near Rochester, N.Y., has been a familiar stop for men’s professional golf for decades: Since 1956, it has hosted three U.S. Opens, three P.G.A. Championships and a Ryder Cup.But when the P.G.A. Championship returns to Oak Hill on Thursday for the first time since 2013, the East Course will be different than it was for some of the elite tournaments it has hosted. In recent years, the club brought in Andrew Green to interpret and restore some of Donald J. Ross’s original design from the 1920s.Green, who has also worked on overhauls at other major championship courses — Congressional Country Club, Inverness Club and Scioto Country Club — can sometimes be seen as “fairly radical,” as Jack Nicklaus, who grew up playing at Scioto and won the 1980 P.G.A. Championship at Oak Hill, put it recently.In an interview this spring, though, Green said he had regarded the Oak Hill project as an opportunity to reemphasize Ross’s approach, which includes unorthodox shapes for greens.“I took the most pride in being able to reestablish a few of the golf holes that had been lost to time,” said Green, who, to try to decipher the thinking of Ross, who died in 1948, studied his writings, pencil sketches and formalized drawings, as well as a selection of historical photographs.An archival map shows both the East and West courses at Oak Hill Country Club.Oak Hill Country ClubRoss’s influence at Oak Hill had faded over the decades, particularly with the work of the uncle-nephew duo George and Tom Fazio in the 1970s. Their changes, by Oak Hill’s own account, “created a more challenging layout for the several major championships that followed” but also promoted “significant criticism since they did not fit” in Ross’s original design. Hundreds of new and ultimately overgrown trees, the club also said, had shifted the course away from Ross’s vision.“As the evolution of the golf course had occurred, players and critics and the golf world had always felt there was a disconnect within the golf course itself,” Green said. “Really, the primary goal was to reinfuse Ross and make the entire course feel as if it had always been there.”No. 5: Little PoisonPar 3, 180 yardsNo. 5 emerges from a thicket of sand, rough and steep slopes. Evan Schiller, Oak Hill Country ClubThe par-70 course measures 7,394 yards, 231 yards more than the 2013 P.G.A. Championship but 151 yards less than how Augusta National Golf Club played during last month’s Masters Tournament. With the rough expected to be challenging and parts of Oak Hill strikingly narrow, even after many trees were removed, Green thinks the P.G.A. Championship could show “an interesting balance to see if the guys who can really bomb it and gouge it out have a leg up on everyone else, or if someone that really finesses it around the golf course will still be able to mount a good run.”An early glimpse at finesse will come at No. 5, where a long tee shot will all but stifle hopes for a birdie and could even make tapping in for par a formidable challenge. Positioned between the fourth hole and what was No. 15, the target emerges from a thicket of sand, rough and steep slopes. Green and his colleagues envisioned No. 5, where the green has two tiers, as a midiron test.Oak Hill Country Club“It will be a bit of a nervy shot, but aiming for the center of the green and trying to make a putt would be my suggestion,” Green said. “The whole vision for it was to play off of what Ross had on his original sixth hole.”No. 6: Double TroublePar 4, 503 yardsNo. 6 offers several hazards.Evan Schiller, Oak Hill Country ClubAfter an escape at No. 5, the hole Green believes is now the course’s most perilous awaits.Allen’s Creek runs alongside the right side from the start, forcing a player to choose between the risk of dropping his tee shot into the water — but perhaps also getting a better angle into the green if he avoids the hazard — or facing a longer second shot.“The green allows for a ball to be run into the approach, if they need to with a longer club or if they get in trouble off the tee,” said Green, whose restored course has water in play on six holes. “The green itself, front hole locations are fairly accessible, but the back right location is very demanding, very tough to get to. My guess is they’ll probably put the hole back there and move the tees forward on a certain day during the championship.”Oak Hill Country ClubPart of the challenge is that the creek does not simply run in a straight line off the tee, or even away from it. Instead, it ultimately moves diagonally across the approach and then up to the left side of the green.No. 6, Green said, was naturally the trickiest hole, given its placement and the parcel of earth on which it sits. With the fourth, sixth, seventh and eighth holes slotted in a relatively narrow sliver of earth, he assumed that Ross had “tried to find the most unique way to set those golf holes kind of side by side, and the result of that differentiation from hole to hole was what we got on the sixth.”Green added: “He had four golf holes that, on a very flat piece of ground, would be potentially very much the same way, but the way he utilized the ground and the creek made them all night-and-day different, and he was a genius at that. It was a very awkward piece of property that he had to work with — it wasn’t just a giant rectangle — and so the way he created the variety he did is just mind-blowing to me.”No. 13: Hill of FamePar 5, 623 yardsThe longest hole on the East Course travels uphill.Desiree Rios/The New York TimesThe longest hole, No. 13, could be a showcase for the equipment that is helping top players drive the ball farther than ever. The hole goes uphill, bringing players toward the clubhouse, with Allen’s Creek making an appearance at around the 325-yard mark.The evolution of equipment, Green predicted, will entice top players to hit the ball over the creek, which has been a relatively rare occurrence through Oak Hill’s history.“We added a new tee, but I still think the golf course at times will be set up where players would be tempted to play over that and get home in two,” Green said.Water is not a threat beyond the creek, but the vicinity of the newly reshaped green has two of Oak Hill’s 78 bunkers.No. 15: The PlateauPar 3, 155 yardsIf the tournament moves to a playoff, No. 15 will be a part of it.Evan Schiller, Oak Hill Country ClubWhen Jason Dufner won the 2013 P.G.A. Championship at Oak Hill, the 15th hole included a man-made pond stationed menacingly near the putting surface and a rock wall.“It was a very dramatic shot for major championship golf and TV,” Green said, “but it wasn’t very good for member play, and it didn’t represent anything Ross would have done.”So the pond is gone. Missing left will send a ball into a bunker that guards the left side. Missing right will have the ball moving away from the target in short grass, forcing a player to make a delicate shot onto the skinniest portion of the green, which is narrow left to right and deep front to back — maybe, Green said, a club-and-a-half difference, front-to-back.Oak Hill Country Club“It will be a very demanding shot in order to both control distance and spin to get close to the hole locations,” Green said.If the tournament moves to a playoff, No. 15 will be a part of it, along with the 14th and 18th holes.No. 18: Goin’ HomePar 4, 497 yardsThe green on No. 18 sits on the edge of a steep hill.Evan Schiller, Oak Hill Country ClubEyes always turn toward the 18th hole at any major championship. For Green, it was the one he fretted over most.“Unfortunately, that green really kind of stuck out a little bit in its shape as being very modern and out of character with the others,” Green said.Now the green, which sits on the edge of a steep hill that a player should look to carry with a second shot, has been extended on the right side and made deeper. The left side is shallower, front to back, and there are effectively three distinct surfaces within the green to place the hole.Oak Hill Country Club“Hitting a good drive is critical — absolutely critical,” Green said of the hole, where the fairway width can be as tight as 20 yards. “There are some very deep bunkers down the right-hand side that will make it very difficult to get home.”A player who successfully hits from the fairway to get his ball onto the zone of the green where the hole is will have a shot at a birdie. Otherwise, Green said, “it will be quite a dramatic putt to make that three.” More