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    At the P.G.A. Championship, Justin Thomas Looks for Last Year’s Magic

    The defending champion comes to Oak Hill without finishing first in any of the 20 events he has entered since claiming his second career major victory in 2022.PITTSFORD, N.Y. — Five years ago, when Justin Thomas came to the 2018 P.G.A. Championship as the defending champion, he was still cruising along as one of the top three players in the game and had spent a stint as the top-ranked men’s golfer in the world.At that moment, elite golf came easily to him.Thomas was 25 and the winner of one major championship. This week, Thomas once again returns to the P.G.A. Championship as the defending champion. But things are different now.Since his victory last year at the P.G.A. Championship in Tulsa, Okla., Thomas has endured the bumpy, maddening irregularity typical of any golf career (amateur or professional). He comes to the Oak Hill Country Club outside Rochester, N.Y., without finishing first in any of the 20 events he has entered since claiming his second career major victory in 2022.In April, he missed the cut at the Masters Tournament, which was a first for him. A month earlier, he stumbled to a tie for 60th at the Players Championship, an event he won two years ago.In 10 tournaments this year, he has just two top-10 finishes and five results outside the top 20. None of this is particularly unusual in the narrative of any lengthy professional golf career but that has not made it any easier for Thomas, whose father and grandfather were PGA teaching professionals and whose emotions are often readily apparent on the golf course.Always candid, Thomas conceded on Monday that his game was tattered enough at times in the last year that he teed up for some tournaments knowing, in the back of his mind, that he could not win. How must that feel for someone who was once rated the best golfer on the planet?“It’s terrible,” Thomas answered. “How I described it for a couple months is that I’ve never felt so far and so close at the same time. That’s a very hard thing to explain, and it’s also a very hard way to try to compete and win a golf tournament.”But Thomas does feel as if he might be battling his way out of the golfing darkness in recent weeks. He shot three rounds under par at this month’s Wells Fargo Championship on the PGA Tour to finish in a tie for 14th. He has learned a newfangled system of putting, which he said was complex but made reading the greens very simple (sounds like golf, right?). Nonetheless, he sees progress with his putting.Perhaps most important, he has allowed other golfers to help him, because the sport can be too hard to manage by yourself.Thomas, for example, played his 18-hole practice round on Monday with Max Homa, who is now the sixth-ranked player worldwide but who once appeared to have bungled his chance of making a living as a golfer — at about the same time Thomas was winning his first major title.In 2017, Homa lost his PGA Tour playing privileges after he missed the cut in 15 of 17 tournaments. In golf parlance, it is called losing your tour card, which is a gracious way of saying you were expelled from the top level of golf for shoddy play.The next year, Homa magically requalified for the tour, in part by improbably making birdies on each of his final four holes of a minor league tour golf event. Since then, Homa has won more than $21 million on the PGA Tour with two of his six tour victories coming in the last eight months.On Monday, as Thomas was attempting to explain how he was trying to fight his way back to the highest echelon of men’s golf — and how vital it was to remain optimistic instead of pouting — he used Homa as an example.With the Wanamaker Trophy after beating Will Zalatoris in a playoff in the final round of the P.G.A. Championship in 2022.Erik S Lesser/EPA, via Shutterstock“Nobody is in a better place than Max Homa out here,” Thomas said. “There’s no other top player in the world who’s gone through what he’s gone through in terms of having a tour card, losing your tour card, having to earn it back and then becoming one of the top players in the world.“I’ve talked to him about it before because he’s like, nobody out here really knows how bad it can be.”Thomas snickered. He was not going to allow himself to feel too badly about his recent slump. He is still the 13th-ranked golfer in the world. Or as he added: “It’s all relative. And it’s all about making the most of whatever situation you’re in.“That’s how you get out of it, by just playing your way out of it. You hit shots when you want to and make those putts when you need to, and then your confidence builds back up. The next thing you know, you don’t even remember what you were thinking in those times when you felt down.”But Thomas smiled. He is now a veteran at 30, not just getting started in the big time at 25. He knows he has chosen a mercurial vocation.“Like anything else in golf,” Thomas said, “it’s easier said than done.” More

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    How Bryson DeChambeau Saved Long Drive Golf

    The sport is gaining fans among the public and professional golfers, many of whom have adopted its techniques for their own games.In August 2021, long drive was on the brink of collapse. The niche sport — in which competitors drive golf balls as far as humanly possible, often more than 400 yards — had endured a difficult year, disrupted by the pandemic, and registrations for the world long drive championship were dismal.That’s when Bryson DeChambeau, the winner of the 2020 U.S. Open and a member of the 2018 and 2021 U.S. Ryder Cup teams, entered the competition, sparking a surge in interest and dozens of new entries.“He saved us, that’s for sure,” Kyle Berkshire, a two-time world long drive champion, said.DeChambeau’s participation was not a total shock: In recent years, more and more established pros, increasingly obsessed with driving distance, have become unabashed fans of long drive, with PGA Tour winners like Justin Thomas, Tony Finau and Cameron Champ expressing support. Berkshire has become a go-to training partner and sounding board for many of these pros, sharing tips on swing technique, stretching, fitness routine and more.“Back when I was in college, everyone thought the long drive guys were the clowns of the golf world,” Berkshire said. “That whole perception is changing.”DeChambeau has played a major role in that, and after finishing seventh in the 2021 competition, he’ll be back for this year’s world championship, which begins Tuesday.DeChambeau made headlines in 2020 by bulking up and drastically changing his swing, increasing his average driving distance by nearly 20 yards to lead the PGA Tour. He ultimately won that year’s U.S. Open, and he has not been shy about crediting long drive — particularly its emphasis on swing speed — with much of his success.“I actually watched the 2019 world long drive championship, and that’s what inspired me and got me thinking,” DeChambeau said in a recent phone interview. “These guys were swinging the golf club 40 or 50 miles faster than me, so I thought, what if I could add just 15 percent to my swing speed and use that on tour? That’s how it started, and then I got addicted to hitting it farther and farther.”With the help of Berkshire and other long drivers, DeChambeau adopted a common long drive practice method: overspeed training, in which competitors swing the driver as hard as possible, with no regard for accuracy, in the hopes that it will also improve the speed of their more typical, controlled swings.The method worked incredibly well for DeChambeau — so much so that now, he and Berkshire said, it has become a standard training routine for many professional golfers.“It’s sort of a new revolution,” Berkshire said. “At this point, it’s almost required for professional golfers, since everyone is doing it.”According to Mark Broadie, a Columbia University professor and golf researcher who helped coach DeChambeau in 2020, the embrace of long drive within the golf world is a logical next step. Years ago, Broadie invented the “strokes gained” metric, which analyzes the impact of every shot throughout a round of golf in relation to the rest of the field. His analysis ultimately found that even marginal gains in driving distance could have a major effect on scores.“It’s true for all players: If you drive it 20 yards longer, even with a little less accuracy, you can gain a stroke per round,” Broadie said. “So it feels like a natural evolution for long drive to be more accepted. If you want to drive the ball as far as possible, then you clearly want to talk to the long drivers, the guys who have optimized that throughout their careers.”Long drive has existed, in some form or another, since 1949, when a driving competition was held in conjunction with that year’s P.G.A. Championship. A more formal long drive world championship would form in 1976, and various professional leagues have taken shape since the 1990s.One of the most recent iterations of a long drive league — the World Long Drive Association, sponsored by Golf Channel — essentially disbanded in 2020 after canceling its season because of the pandemic. In its wake came a spiritual successor, the Professional Long Drivers Association, which has hosted a number of tournaments, including the 2021 world long drive championship.While the association’s administrators are happy to be gaining acclaim in golf circles, they are also hopeful it will translate into mainstream acceptance.“This year, we’re getting a really big response from players wanting to compete, and more fans are coming out to watch our events,” said Bobby Peterson, the association’s managing partner and majority owner. A former long drive competitor, Peterson has been a part of the sport since 1992, and he said there had never been as much enthusiasm surrounding it as there is this year, including interest from possible corporate partners. “This isn’t just hyperbole,” Berkshire said. “Based on the talks I’ve been involved in, this sport is in the best position it’s ever been in.”Long drive’s recent ascent comes at a time when golf is reckoning with a major disruption in the form of the LIV Golf Series, whose major shareholder is the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia. In its first season, LIV Golf poached some high-profile golfers from the PGA Tour, including DeChambeau, and implemented innovations aimed at enhancing the fan experience and changing how viewers watch golf, including shorter tournament structures and a team format.David Carter, a sports business professor at the University of Southern California, said long drive could ultimately be an intriguing acquisition or partner with either the PGA Tour or LIV Golf, as both look to add content in the years to come.“It’s all about this next generation of consumer: younger people who want short-form, digestible content,” Carter said. “Something like long drive could be curated in a lot of different ways, whether online, through social media, or in conjunction with tournaments.”As long drivers prepared for this year’s world championship, Berkshire was grateful for DeChambeau’s continued support. He said he nearly had to pinch himself when he thought of how far long drive had come in such a short time.“Just a year ago, I had never seen a sport in such a bad position,” Berkshire said. “Now, I’ve never seen one poised for such a bright future. It’s just an exciting time all around.” More

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    PGA Stars Seek ‘Some Sort of Unity’ With LIV After Meeting With Tiger Woods

    Adding to the drama, the LIV golfer Patrick Reed filed a defamation lawsuit against Golf Channel and the commentator Brandel Chamblee, seeking $750 million in damages.PGA Tour stars, including Tiger Woods, met on Tuesday to grapple with the LIV Golf series, which has lured away tour players with staggering sums of money, and emerged feeling positive but unwilling to detail how they planned to fend off the rebel golf start-up or live somewhat peacefully alongside it.The meeting was the latest turn in what has been an uncharacteristically antagonistic year in golf, and it came just a week after a federal judge ruled that the PGA Tour can bar LIV golfers from the FedEx Cup playoffs, which conclude at the end of August.Ahead of the BMW Championship, PGA Tour players on Wednesday were reluctant to share specifics about the meeting, held in Wilmington, Del., that attracted Woods, who flew in from his home in Florida to attend. Rory McIlroy, the world No. 3, described the meeting to reporters on Wednesday as “impactful.”McIlroy said Woods’s leadership at the meeting was crucial as players discussed how to improve the PGA Tour and contend with the rift in the golf world since the emergence of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Invitational series. (The PGA Tour announced in June that it would suspend players who joined the LIV series.)“His role is navigating us to a place where we all think we should be,” McIlroy said of Woods’s presence. “He is the hero that we’ve all looked up to. His voice carries further than anyone else’s in the game of golf.”While players were quick to praise Woods, they demurred when it came to sharing any actionable steps that came from the meeting.“What’s the short-term? What’s the medium-term? What’s the long-term?” McIlroy said. “That’s something that we have to figure out.”Xander Schauffele told reporters on Wednesday that he wanted to see a resolution that ended in “some sort of unity.”“It was a really nice meeting. It was great. It was exciting. It was new. It was fresh,” Schauffele said. “I am very hopeful with what’s to come.”Schauffele, the world No. 6, told reporters there was “a little bit of a code” to keep quiet.“I think I’d be pretty unhappy if I saw one of those guys from last night just blabbering to you guys what we talked about,” Schauffele said. “That would be really frowned upon, and you probably wouldn’t get invited back to the meeting.”Justin Thomas, the world No. 7, said at a news conference that the meeting was “productive” and that the players who attended “just want the best for the tour and want what’s in the best interest.”“I’d just hope for a better product,” Thomas said. “I think that’s the hope in general of anything, is just to try to improve ourselves, where we’re playing, everything the best that we can.”Thomas said that having Woods present gave the meeting added credibility.“I think if someone like him is passionate about it, no offense to all of us, but that’s really all that matters,” Thomas said. “If he’s not behind something, then, one, it’s probably not a good idea in terms of the betterment of the game, but, two, it’s just not going to work. He needs to be behind something.”McIlroy said that in addition to dealing with LIV Golf, the PGA Tour would also eventually have to handle a world without Woods on the tour.“The tour had an easy job for 20 years,” McIlroy said. “They’ve got a bunch of us, and we’re all great players. But we’re not Tiger Woods.”Adding to Tuesday’s drama, Patrick Reed, the winner of the 2018 Masters who joined LIV Golf in June, filed a defamation lawsuit against Golf Channel and the commentator Brandel Chamblee, seeking $750 million in damages.The lawsuit, which was filed in a federal court in Texas, claims that the network and Chamblee have conspired with the PGA Tour to defame LIV players “with the intention to destroy them and their families professionally and personally” and eliminate LIV Golf as a competitor.According to the lawsuit, Golf Channel, Chamblee and the PGA Tour have conspired since Reed was 23, about nine years ago, “to destroy his reputation, create hate, and a hostile work environment for him, and with the intention to discredit his name and accomplishments.”For Chamblee and Golf Channel, “it does not matter how badly they destroy someone’s name and life, so long as they rake in more dollars and profit,” the lawsuit said.Larry Klayman, a lawyer for Reed, said that “we are confident of prevailing in court,” adding that “it’s a very strong complaint.”“While Chamblee’s and NBC’s Golf Channel’s never-ending defamation with regard to Mr. Reed, as set forth in the complaint is not new, with his joining of LIV Golf, it has reached new, intolerable heights,” Klayman said in a statement.Lawyers for Golf Channel and Chamblee could not be reached.The LIV Tour, which is financed by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, has drawn much attention and criticism in recent months. Among those who have left the PGA Tour for LIV Golf are Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Phil Mickelson. Mickelson sparked outrage in February when it was reported that he had said that the LIV series was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” even as he called Saudi Arabia’s record on human rights “horrible.”Mickelson, who is reported to have received as much as $200 million to sign with the breakaway tour, is among 11 golfers who defected from the PGA Tour and then filed an antitrust lawsuit earlier this month against the PGA Tour, seeking to challenge its suspensions and other measures that have been used to discipline players who have joined LIV Golf. More

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    Why Do LIV Golfers Struggle to Explain Why They Left the PGA Tour?

    The latest golfers to join the Saudi-backed series were vague and defensive in the face of hard questions about guaranteed money and human-rights issues.BEDMINSTER, N.J. — Last month, Justin Thomas, the world’s seventh-ranked men’s golfer, summed up the feelings of PGA Tour players like himself who have rejected the sumptuous money offers of the rival, Saudi-backed LIV Golf series to remain with the established tour.Thomas just wants his former tour brethren now aligned with LIV Golf to say they jumped for the money. “Like, I personally would gain a lot more respect for that,” Thomas has said. “But the more the players keep talking and saying that this is for the betterment of the game, the more agitated and irritated I get about it.”On Wednesday, Thomas, who made his comments on the “No Laying Up” podcast, would have been repulsed anew by the words of the three latest defectors to the rebel tour who appeared at a news conference for a LIV series event that begins Friday at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey.“No, money was not a factor,” said Charles Howell III, 43, who was once ranked No. 15 worldwide but has slipped to No. 169. Howell insisted instead that he joined the breakaway circuit because golf “can be a force for change and good.”Paul Casey, ranked 31st in the world, also lamented that the focus of the new circuit’s successful recruiting efforts has been the bountiful money paid to jump ship.A Quick Guide to the LIV Golf SeriesCard 1 of 6A new series. More

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    Five Players to Watch at the U.S. Open

    They include Dustin Johnson, who was just suspended from the PGA Tour for taking part in the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour.The Masters, the first major of the year, was won by the 25-year-old Scottie Scheffler, who is on the rise.The P.G.A. Championship, the second, was won by the 29-year-old Justin Thomas, who has been one of the game’s best in the last five years.Now comes the third major, this week’s United States Open at the Country Club in Brookline, Mass.Will youth be served once more, or will someone in his 30s or 40s produce some magic? Here are five players to keep an eye on at Brookline:Tom Pennington/Getty ImagesScottie SchefflerForget about the missed cut in last month’s P.G.A. Championship. Scheffler, the No. 1 player in the world, rebounded with a second-place finish the next week at the Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth, Texas. If not for Sam Burns, who fired a final-round 65 and made a 38-foot birdie putt in the playoff, Scheffler would have five victories this season.Some of the credit should go to his caddie, Ted Scott. The two first connected last year. Before working with Scott, Scheffler was in contention a few times but failed to break through. For 15 years, Scott was the caddie for the two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson.Jim Cowsert/USA Today Sports, via ReutersJustin ThomasWinning a second major, as Thomas did at the P.G.A. this year, puts a golfer on a new plateau. Winning a third would elevate him even further. Only 47 players have collected three or more major championships.Thomas, who finished third at last week’s RBC Canadian Open, is more than capable of adding to that total at Brookline. As skilled as he is with the wedge — a prime example was his approach to the green on the first playoff hole at the P.G.A. that left him with a 6-foot birdie putt — he’s likely to make his share of saves to keep himself in contention.Phil Mickelson never captured an Open, finishing second a record six times. It would be something if his former caddie, Jim Mackay, who now works for Thomas, were to win one without him.Sam Greenwood/Getty ImagesWill ZalatorisAs well as he’s performed in big events, with five top 10s in his last seven majors, it’s hard to believe Zalatoris has yet to win on the PGA Tour. He is bound to break through.He took a significant step with his showing in the P.G.A., losing in a playoff to Thomas. The key might be his ability to make short putts, which has plagued him in the past.Zalatoris, 25, who tied for fifth two weeks ago at the Memorial Tournament, has registered only one professional victory, the 2020 TPC Colorado Championship on the Korn Ferry Tour.Michael Reaves/Getty ImagesRory McIlroyMcIlroy, 33, who shot a 62 on Sunday in Canada to post his 21st tour victory, is still trying to win his first major since the 2014 P.G.A. Championship. What were the odds that a drought in majors would last this long?He had his chances this year, finishing second at the Masters and eighth at the P.G.A. McIlroy needs to start strong, as he did at the P.G.A. with a five-under 65, and stay within range, even if he isn’t at his best. He trailed by nine strokes heading into the final round of the P.G.A, which is too big a deficit even for a player of his caliber.To contend, McIlroy will need to putt well from inside 10 feet.Matt York/Associated PressDustin JohnsonGiven his suspension by the PGA Tour last week for joining the Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour, there is no doubt that Johnson will be attracting a lot of attention at Brookline.The Open is a United States Golf Association event, so the suspension won’t keep him from the tournament, but he’s still not likely to make a run at the title. Since winning the Masters in 2020, Johnson, 37, who has fallen to No. 16 in the world rankings, has posted a top 10 in only one of his six major appearances. As a matter of fact, he hasn’t won any PGA Tour events during that span.In 10 starts this season, his best finish was a fourth at the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play tournament in March. He missed the cut at the P.G.A. with successive rounds of 73. More

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

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

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

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

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    Playing the Masters Is Different With Tiger Woods in Your Group

    “It’s way different when you play with Tiger,” Stewart Cink said. Often, it’s hard to hear a thing.AUGUSTA, Ga. — Joaquín Niemann could not hear his caddie.He had made another Masters Tournament. He had navigated the thicket of spectators. Now, as the 23-year-old Chilean stood at Augusta National Golf Club’s first tee on Thursday, Gary Matthews, who was carrying Niemann’s bag, may as well have been anyplace else.Such is life playing alongside Tiger Woods.It was only weeks ago that Woods, whose doctors weighed amputating his leg after a car wreck last year, seemed certain to miss the Masters. But his decision to play in the tournament, his first professional competition since November 2020, instantly transformed how spectators would follow the action — and any player accompanying the five-time Masters winner at Augusta National.Woods’s presence in a pairing or group has long defined the playing environment around his slice of just about any tournament, with his fans, and quite often just the curious, offering up a barrage of cheers, commentary, cameras, bustle and scrutiny. The spotlight, it seems, only barely tilts away from him, if it does at all.And so the chaos, or whatever counts for chaos on a golf course, can make Fred Couples — a Masters champion, once the world’s top-rated golfer and a hero to baby boomer duffers — look more like an afterthought than a leading man. It can render Stewart Cink, a British Open champion and one of the finest golfers of his era, a merely thrilling bonus, or Francesco Molinari, also a British Open winner, something less than a pairing’s marquee name.“It’s way different when you play with Tiger anywhere, and Augusta National is no different,” said Cink, who has often had an up-close view of Woods at the Masters, and who had a hole in one on No. 16 on Friday.At times, Joaquín Niemann struggled to hear his caddie because of the crowd.Doug Mills/The New York TimesWoods, who earned the first of his Masters green jackets 25 years ago, has long commanded one of the largest Augusta galleries, with some other champions certain that a “Tiger roar” through the pines simply sounds different than cheering for other players. And with Phil Mickelson, one of Woods’s rivals for attention and affection, absent from this year’s Masters, Woods is even more the player with the greatest following around Augusta this week.The frenzy of this particularly intense week began well before Niemann, Woods and Louis Oosthuizen found themselves peering down the 445-yard No. 1 on Thursday. Couples, who played in his 37th Masters this week, joined Woods for a pair of practice rounds and was left agog on Monday, the first day the course was open to spectators.“I’ve never seen anything like it,” he marveled. Couples said he found a way to get to the tee where Woods’s fans “were only four deep.”He added, “They wanted to see the big guy, and they saw him, and they saw good golf. He gets that here all the time.”But frequency does not necessarily make the scenario easier for others pursuing their own ambitions.“The biggest thing is just the energy in the crowd and the intensity of the reactions and the scrambling for position,” said Cink, whose best finish at Augusta was a tie for third in 2008. “There’s a lot of movement out there.”Cink said that Woods had routinely tried to keep it a fair fight by allowing others to finish playing a hole before he did, keeping the crowd in place just a little while longer.“When you play with him, it’s busy, it’s noisy,” said Molinari, who won the 2018 British Open at Carnoustie when he was paired with Woods and, the next year, played with Woods on Sunday at Augusta. “I don’t think it makes a big difference if it’s here or somewhere else.”Woods, mighty as he is, has only so much control.Woods chatting with Oosthuizen, left, and Niemann on the 8th tee.Doug Mills/The New York TimesOn Thursday, the spectators began to amass around the first tee box long before Woods emerged from the clubhouse to start his tournament. A drone flew overhead. At least one man shouted “let’s go Tiger!” at least twice, though it was hard to tell in a crowd that seemed about 25-deep in places so people could see Woods (or maybe just the top of his cap) as he took his first shot.Niemann and Oosthuizen received polite, restrained welcomes from the crowd, which started to break up as soon as Woods, who hit first, finished swinging his driver, all the better to get a head start down the fairway or to the second green, to see Woods again.The din quieted enough on later holes that Niemann said he could, in the end, hear Matthews as he played his way to a three-under-par 69. He said he had even come to find pleasure in the enormous crowds.“They were always telling me to make sure you try to finish before Tiger, that way the people don’t start moving,” Niemann said. “But they were really respectful, so it was an enjoyable round.”Daniel Berger suggested that a worse fate than being paired with Woods was playing just in front of him.“If you are one or two ahead of him, then it’s always a struggle with people trying to run up to see him,” said Berger, who debuted at the Masters in 2016.Padraig Harrington, another British Open winner who has played with Woods, had a similar assessment.“It’s very difficult if you’re the group ahead of him,” he said. “It’s very, very difficult because the crowds are watching him and they’re moving on to see him. When you’re playing with him 20 deep, you can’t hear a thing because there’s so much going on.”But Harrington, who has won two Opens and a PGA Championship, had no complaints about life with Woods as a playing partner.“He’s actually one of the easiest guys to play with over the years,” he said. “He’s a very simple guy to play with. He plays golf. He says ‘good shot’ only when you hit a good shot. There is no messing around, no rubbish about it.”Woods and Fred Couples bumping fists during a practice round on Monday.Doug Mills/The New York TimesPractice rounds are, of course, less pressurized, and Couples, who has long been close to Woods and is now in the twilight of his career, signaled that he sometimes plays the court jester. It appeared that way this week when Woods played with Couples, who won at Augusta in 1992, and Justin Thomas, who was born the next year and was 3-years-old when Woods first won the Masters.“I like to tell them stories, but usually on the tees it’s very quiet and I let them do their thing, and as soon as we step down the fairway there will be a story about this guy or that guy or me or Tiger,” Couples, who said that Woods and Thomas make him hit last, recalled this week. “Then we laugh until we get to a ball.”The crowds are always thick, and always watching, and always bouncing. But Couples said there is a benefit of playing with Woods and Thomas, all of the theatrics and distractions aside.“It’s nice because they only want to play nine holes,” Couples, 62, said. “I am great with nine holes.” More