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      Tiger Woods Played a Practice Round Wednesday Ahead of Masters Return

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      Woods played nine holes with his favorite practice partners on Wednesday. But one noticed a change in the five-time champion’s demeanor.Follow our live coverage of Tiger Woods’s return to the MastersAUGUSTA, Ga. — Tiger Woods’s final day of preparation for the 2022 Masters was typical of the laid-back vibe on the eve of the tournament, when the goal is to play a little golf, but not too much — just enough to stay loose for Thursday’s first round.With that in mind, Woods played nine holes with his preferred practice partners, his Florida neighbor Justin Thomas, whom Woods considers a little brother, and Fred Couples, who has at times has served as something of a big brother to Woods.Befitting the atmosphere, the group smiled regularly thorough the round, although Couples, 62, the 1992 Masters champion, noticed a slight change in Woods’s demeanor since playing practice rounds with him earlier in the week.“He was a little more serious; he’s getting ready to roll,” Couples said. “The first practice round I played with him on Monday we had both flown in that day and we were laughing a lot. He was lighter. Today, he and Justin were pretty serious. They’re getting ready.”Couples, left, Woods and Thomas skipped their practice shots over the water on the 16th green.Doug Mills/The New York TimesFans lining the holes that the Woods group played Wednesday alternatively cheered Woods, the five-time Masters champion, on the tees and in the fairways and remained quiet as they almost reverentially watched him practice his putting from different spots on each green.Couples said Woods, who had a more pronounced limp on Wednesday than on any of the other days he practiced at Augusta National, appeared to be swinging the club better than any other day this week. Woods’s surgically rebuilt right leg, however, is clearly causing him some pain.“The pain is there, but he’s dealt with that before,” Couples said. “In terms of his swing, I think he’s a little sharper, a little better.”Couples added that he continues to be mesmerized that Woods is back at the Masters so quickly after his horrific car crash on Feb. 23, 2021.“It’s a miraculous thing, I mean, 14 months ago I’m bawling like a baby every day worried about him,” he said. “And now you’re paired with him and he looks strong. He’s hitting it plenty far enough to play this course, and he plays this course so well. He knows what to do here. I think it’s amazing for him to be out here.” More

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      Older Players on the PGA Tour Are Looking Over Their Shoulders

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      A week ago, the top five players in the men’s world golf rankings were under 30 years old for the first time since the rankings began in 1986.PALM HARBOR, Fla. — On the eve of the PGA Tour’s Florida swing, a four-tournament series in March that sets the stage for four months featuring major golf championships, Rory McIlroy, 32, made a revealing observation.McIlroy, a one-time child prodigy turned four-time major winner, said the results of recent tour events were making him feel especially old.McIlroy was only half joking.But with Sunday’s conclusion of the Valspar Championship, the last chapter of the tour’s trip through the Sunshine State, McIlroy sentiments reflect an unmistakable reality: Men’s professional golf is being transformed by a sweeping youth movement.Even being a creaky 32 is enough to keep you out of the upper echelon. Sort of.A week ago, the top five players in the men’s world golf rankings — in order, Jon Rahm, Collin Morikawa, Viktor Hovland, Patrick Cantlay and Scottie Scheffler — were under 30 years old, which was the first time that had happened since the rankings were instituted in 1986. While Cantlay turned 30 on Thursday, that does not diminish the headway the game’s youngest players are making.It is particularly noticeable because many of the most dominant names in men’s golf during this century are now farther from the top of the rankings than ever: Phil Mickelson is 45th, Justin Rose is 51st, Jason Day is 99th and Tiger Woods, who has not played a tour event in 16 months, is 895th.Moreover, no one expects the 20-something brigade to retreat.“I’ve been saying it since Day 1, the young guys, we all believed in ourselves when we got to the tour,” Morikawa, 25, said. “That’s not going to change. The recent play just shows how good the young guys who are coming out can be — how good this young pile is.”Collin Morikawa, 25, will attempt to defend his British Open title, his second major tournament victory, in July.Julio Aguilar/Getty ImagesThe remaking of the rankings has been most dramatic over the last several weeks.It began a week before the first PGA Tour Florida event this month when Joaquin Niemann, 23, won the Genesis Invitational near Los Angeles. It continued when Sepp Straka, 28, was atop the final leaderboard at the Honda Classic in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.Next, Scheffler, 25, claimed the Arnold Palmer Invitational in Orlando. The following week, on the east coast of Florida, Cameron Smith, 28, won a Players Championship that was battered by bad weather over five days. Finally, on Sunday, near Tampa, Sam Burns, 25, won the Valspar Championship, a tournament he also won last year. Burns, who moved to 10th in the world with Sunday’s victory, defeated Davis Riley, 25, in a playoff. Justin Thomas, 28, and Matthew NeSmith, also 28, tied for third. Matt Fitzpatrick, 27, was fifth.Thomas, a former world No. 1, praised the growing accomplishments of this younger set even though the competition has helped push his current world ranking to seventh.“I’ve played some pretty damn good golf, but if you’re not winning tournaments now, you’re getting lapped,” Thomas said. “That’s just the way it is, which just goes to show the level of golf being played.“But the jealous side of me wants that to be me.”It is a reasonable expectation that youth will continue to have an impact heading into the four golf majors contested from April through July. While the truism is that experience matters greatly at the Masters, it is also worth remembering that Will Zalatoris, 25, finished second at last year’s Masters. Xander Schauffele, 28 and ranked ninth (one behind McIlroy), played in the final group on the last day of that Masters with eventual winner Hideki Matsuyama.At this year’s U.S. Open, Rahm, 27, is the defending champion. Scheffler, Schauffele and Morikawa were all in the top 10 last year, as were Daniel Berger, 28, and Guido Migliozzi of Italy, who is, of course, just 25. At last year’s P.G.A. Championship, Scheffler, Zalatoris and Morikawa were among the top 10 finishers; Morikawa is the reigning British Open champion. Oh, yes, at that event a year ago, Spieth was second and Rahm was third.There are a handful of theories to explain this youthful surge, and most center on the heightened professionalism that has become commonplace even in competitions for top golfers in their late teens or early 20s. That has in turn raised the caliber of golf at the American collegiate level, where rosters are also now frequently dotted with elite players from around the world.And since every conversation about modern golf must have a tie to Woods, there is also a belief that more agile and finely honed athletes have been flocking to golf for more than 20 years — a tribute to Woods’s effect on sports worldwide.Put it all together and those graduating from pro golf’s chief minor league, the Korn Ferry Tour, seem less intimidated by the big leagues and more ready to win, or at least contend, right away.“It’s a reflection of the system at work,” said Jay Monahan, the PGA Tour commissioner. “The athleticism, the youth, the preparedness, the system is working. You can talk about the top five, but you can extend it past the top five and into the top 30.”Jon Rahm, 27, won his first major tournament title at the 2021 U.S. Open.Jared C. Tilton/Getty ImagesSixteen of the top 30 golfers are 30 years old or younger.Scheffler gave credit to Jordan Spieth, who won his first PGA Tour event when he was 19 and nearly won the Masters when he was 20 (he finished second). Scheffler, like Spieth, attended the University of Texas.“It was one of those deals where I had a personal connection with him,” Scheffler said of Spieth, who is 28. “He gave a lot of the guys from Texas the belief that we can come out here and play well at a young age. You don’t have to wait until you’re 25 or 30 to get some experience under your belt.”The one aspect so far missing from golf’s youth movement is the kind of prominent rivalries that fuel any sport’s popularity. While television ratings for golf broadcasts have been surging since 2020, which could be because of the new faces at the top of leaderboards, pitched competition between familiar foes always helps.But if the cohort of 20-something golf champions has anything in common, it is their congeniality. Morikawa and Hovland were born 12 days apart, turned pro at the same time in 2019 and roomed together during their early days on the PGA Tour. Cantlay and Schauffele have vacationed together. Thomas and Spieth have been close friends since they were preteens.In that case, maybe the rivalries will have to be between the new guard and their elders — you know, those old guys in their early 30s. More

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      U.S. Ryder Cup Team Seizes Big Lead on a Wild Opening Day

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      The action included some harrowing moments for a couple of golfers, and the gallery included Michael Jordan.HAVEN, Wis. — A snapshot panorama from the first day of the Ryder Cup would start with a crowd of 40,000 — 90 percent of it American fans because of pandemic-related travel restrictions — noisily arriving before sunrise on Friday to roar unabated for 12 hours and through eight matches that concluded in the gloaming. Patriotic costumes were in vogue, though not among the most prominent spectators in the mix: Michael Jordan and Stephen Curry.Whistling Straits, the topsy-turvy golf fun house designed by Pete Dye along Lake Michigan, almost claimed two competitors as a stumbling Jordan Spieth ended up a hop step from a Great Lakes face plant and Ireland’s Shane Lowry flopped to his backside on an embankment like a toddler on a water slide. Tiger Woods, still recovering from a devastating car crash in February, was there in spirit on Friday, having sent an inspirational message to the U.S. team on the eve of the event. Bryson DeChambeau, ever the lightning rod for attention, boomed his opening drive of the day off line and off the ankle of a spectator. Later, DeChambeau ripped a towering 417-yard drive and then helped chase down the world’s top-ranked male golfer, Jon Rahm, to earn a pivotal half point.DID THAT JUST HAPPEN?! 🤯@JordanSpieth // @RyderCupUSA 📺 Watch now on GOLF and @peacockTV💻 https://t.co/FGvI8M8F19 pic.twitter.com/wHxO9XuSKr— Golf Channel (@GolfChannel) September 24, 2021
      Ultimately, the big picture would reveal that the Americans had taken control of the event by winning each of the four-match morning and afternoon sessions for a 6-2 lead over the European team. It was the largest first-day lead for the United States at the Ryder Cup since 1975, when it had a five-point lead.But that was when the Americans routinely dominated the event. Since the mid-1990s, the script has been reversed, with the Europeans having won four of the past five events and nine of the past 12.“It was good to finally get things going, and it was obviously a good start,” Steve Stricker, the U.S. nonplaying captain, said. “We’d like to win every session.”Stricker, a mild-mannered Wisconsin native not known for risky moves, took some big chances with his afternoon pairings after the Americans had built a 3-1 lead in the morning matches. Every match featured two-man teams from each side. The morning format was foursomes, in which players alternate hitting the same golf ball on a hole, while the afternoon brought a four-ball format, in which each golfer plays his own ball, and the lower score for a team decides the result on a hole.The strongest American combination in the morning was Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay, two of the American team’s six Ryder Cup rookies. The pair surged to a big lead early and routed the high-profile, veteran European team of Rory McIlroy and Ian Poulter, 5 and 3.“I don’t know that anyone could have beaten Xander and Patrick today,” McIlroy said later.Usually when a new team is formed and has immediate success, Ryder Cup captains keep the players together and playing often. But for the afternoon matches, Stricker surprisingly had Schauffele play with Dustin Johnson, who had teamed with Collin Morikawa for an easy win in the morning. It had been expected that Stricker would keep that pair together as well.Instead, Morikawa, the reigning British Open champion, sat out the afternoon matches, as did Spieth and the team of Brooks Koepka and Daniel Berger, who had been victorious in a morning match.But on Thursday, Stricker said that he had arranged his lineup for the first eight matches and that nothing that occurred in the morning session would change his plans for the afternoon. Given the pressure the Americans are under to win on home soil, few believed Stricker would stick to such a plan. But he did, and the results were impressive.Justin Thomas celebrating on the ninth green as Viktor Hovland of Norway looked on. Thomas emerged as the emotional leader of the U.S. team on Day 1.Warren Little/Getty ImagesCantlay teamed with Justin Thomas, who had played in the morning with his close friend Spieth. Cantlay, the PGA Tour player of the year, was steady, and Thomas, who appears to be the emotional leader of the American team, was fiery. But the duo was losing for most of its match against England’s Tommy Fleetwood and Norway’s Viktor Hovland. Then, with two holes remaining, Thomas rallied for a crucial putt that created a tie, which is how the match ended.The usually stoic Cantlay even showed some emotion during the round with an occasional fist pump.“I was feeding off J.T. a little bit,” Cantlay said, referring to Thomas. “He carried me around all day today, and he played great, and it was a dogfight.”Cantlay was also doing most of the post-round talking because Thomas had all but lost his voice from screaming and yelling toward the American crowd, which he did after sinking any meaningful putt.Tony Finau, left, and Harris English of the United States on the 10th green Friday afternoon. They defeated Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, 4 and 3.Andrew Redington/Getty ImagesThe Johnson-Schauffele team defeated England’s Paul Casey and Austria’s Bernd Wiesberger, 2 and 1. DeChambeau was paired with Scottie Scheffler in a match against Rahm and England’s Tyrrell Hatton that ended in a tie. The American team of Tony Finau and Harris English used their length off the tee and their accurate iron play to overpower McIlroy, who combined with Lowry in a 4-and-3 loss.The competition continues Saturday with another eight matches.Some of the Americans mentioned that Woods’s message had been part of the motivation for their winning play on Friday.“I’m obviously not going to reveal what he said,” Schauffele said. “But we referred to it a few times a day, and we knew what we needed to do. We knew he was fist-pumping from the couch. Whether he was on crutches or not — he’s fired up as any of us back at home.” More

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      Four Major Tournaments in Four Months Is a Lot of Important Golf

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      Professional golfers worry about sustaining peak form, but say that scheduling four championships April through July is good for the game, and anyone who gets on a roll.KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. — This is just the second time in the modern era of men’s professional golf that the sport’s four major championships will be contested in consecutive months, one each from April through July. The schedule was similar in 2019 when, after years of deliberation, the P.G.A. Championship opted to move to May, from its long standing date in mid-August.But the pandemic in 2020 forced three major championships, the P.G.A. Championship, the United States Open and the Masters, to be held from August to November. So, when this year’s P.G.A. Championship concludes Sunday at the Ocean Course on Kiawah Island, the world’s top men’s golfers will have played five majors in 10 months. Moreover, if the 2021 U.S. Open and this year’s British Open are held as expected in June and July, respectively, golf will have crammed seven majors into 12 months.If that weren’t enough, many of the best men’s players will also be competing in the Tokyo Olympics golf tournament from July 29 to Aug. 1.It is unlikely such a grueling schedule would occur again, at least intentionally, but it raises the question of whether golf’s best players can be expected to peak for the sport’s biggest championships repeatedly in a compressed time period. And moving forward, what are the challenges to staying mentally and physically prepared for golf’s new format of four majors in four months? For pro golfers, it is a little like the lengthy playoff runs in professional basketball, hockey, soccer and baseball.“It feels like every two or three weeks we’re at a venue where it’s super stressful because it’s a difficult golf course or a difficult event,” Kevin Kisner, a three-time winner on the PGA Tour, said.Kisner added: “It feels like I’m constantly getting beat up out here with the big schedule. The hardest thing is every event feels big. I haven’t played well in any of them.”It has forced some players to make difficult choices, like skipping regular tour events that they used to play so they can rest for the condensed series of major tournaments. Justin Thomas, the world’s second ranked golfer, made such a decision last month when he took two weeks off after the Masters, even though not playing can diminish a golfer’s competitive edge.“I’m just not in the physical or mental state to be able to play a golf tournament after the grind of a pressure-filled event like the Masters,” Thomas said. “I need the time to relax and then get into it later where I feel like I’m peaking for this big stretch coming up.”While the new schedule has added to the strain of trying to claim what can be a career-defining major championship, most players believe it is worth it for two chief reasons: Golf no longer goes head-to-head with the N.F.L. in the fall, and players can take a break and put their clubs away earlier.Moving the P.G.A. Championship from August to May does both because it allows the PGA Tour’s season-ending FedEx Cup playoffs to start, and end, sooner.“If you poll all the players, I would think they would be happy about the way it is now,” Jordan Spieth, a three-time major winner, said this week. “We can finish our season in August and not compete with football. And then create a little bit of an off-season for ourselves.”Playing the P.G.A. Championship in the spring rather than the summer also allows the event to be played in more parts of the United States. Scheduling the tournament in August meant that areas of the country that experience especially hot summer conditions, which are ruinous to greens, could not stage a P.G.A. Championship. That eliminated wide swaths of the country.“We think the cadence of the schedule is just better for fans — better for players,” said Seth Waugh, the chief executive of the P.G.A. of America, which conducts the P.G.A. Championship. “Obviously it’s exhausting for them to go April, May, June, July, and then if this year you’ve got an Olympics. It’s a long grind.”The P.G.A. of America represents more than 28,000 teaching and club golf professionals nationwide who serve the recreational golfing public. More golf majors early in the year theoretically enhances overall interest in the sport. Said Waugh: “Our chance to kind of light the fire for the game in May is pretty significant.”In the end, Adam Scott, the 2013 Masters winner, thinks that tour players will be better adjusted to the new schedule after having done it a second time in 2021. He pointed to Brooks Koepka, who won two U.S. Opens and two P.G.A. Championships in a 26-month span beginning in 2017, as inspiration for his colleagues.“I look at it as a huge opportunity,” Scott said of the condensed schedule. “And I think seeing what Brooks has done from the schedule of winning a couple in really quick succession, or four in quick time — that’s what is possible if you can get on a roll.” More

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      Tiger Woods ‘in Decent Spirits,’ His Closest Golf Buddies Say

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      Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas and other golfers who live near Woods in Jupiter, Fla., have visited regularly as he recovers from his serious car crash.AUGUSTA, Ga. — Rory McIlroy and Justin Thomas, two of Tiger Woods’s closest friends on the PGA Tour, said Tuesday that they had recently visited Woods at his Florida home and were encouraged by how he was handling the recovery from his serious car crash in February.“When you hear of these things and you look at the car and you see the crash, you think he’s going to be in a hospital bed for six months,” McIlroy said after practicing for the Masters tournament, which begins Thursday. “But he was actually doing better than that. I spent a couple hours with him, which was nice. It was good to see him in decent spirits.”Woods, 45, sustained severe injuries to his right leg on Feb. 23, requiring at least two operations after the S.U.V. he was driving crashed onto a hillside along a challenging stretch of road in Los Angeles County. The Los Angeles County sheriff said last month that an investigation into the crash was finished but that the results wouldn’t be released without Woods’s permission.McIlroy lives near Woods’s home in Jupiter Island, Fla., as do tour players like Thomas, Rickie Fowler and Brooks Koepka, who have also gone to see Woods.“I’m sure he appreciates that,” McIlroy said. “We all have a responsibility to try to keep his spirits up and keep him going and try to get him back out here.”“I know he’s at home and he’s fully focused on the recovery process,” McIlroy continued, “and I feel like he’s mentally strong enough to get through that. And once he does, broken bones heal, and he’s just got to take it step by step. I’m sure he’s going to put everything he has into trying to be ready to play here next year.”Thomas has played his Masters practice rounds in recent years with Woods, a five-time winner of the tournament, and Fred Couples, another past Masters champion.“We texted Friday morning, and he said it’s kind of starting to set in — he’s bummed he’s not here playing practice rounds with us,” Thomas said of Woods. “And we hate it, too. I’m very, very lucky that I somehow got thrown into that practice-round group with Tiger and Freddie the last four years or whatever it is. I just follow them around like puppy dogs. Wherever they go, that’s where I go. If they hit chips from somewhere, I go hit chips from there.”Thomas described Woods’s recovery as “good” and said that each week he was home he had tried to stop by Woods’s house a couple of times. “That’s just what I want to do for him, is just be like: ‘Dude, I’ll do anything you want. If you need me to help out with your kids, I can do that. If you’re craving McDonald’s and you want me to bring it over, dude, I don’t care. I’m here for you and I’ll help out however I can.”Thomas said he had spent substantial time watching sports on television with Woods. “We are fortunate with the basketball to just hang out,” he said, “and watch sports like we would any normal time.” More

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      Without Tiger Woods, the 2021 Masters Leaderboard Is Wide Open

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      As Augusta National faces life without Woods, possibly even beyond this year, several young golfers look ready to usher in a new era.AUGUSTA, Ga. — The Masters tournament, after an aberrant autumn appearance five months ago, returns this week to its customary place as a ritual of spring, and golf fans will find familiar the sight of vibrant azalea bushes and blooming magnolia trees. But beyond aesthetics at the Augusta National Golf Club, this year’s Masters may be at a crossroads, when golf’s most tradition-bound event turns a new page.Slightly more than a year ago, the energy driving the golf world was a fervent zeal to watch Tiger Woods defend his seismic 2019 Masters victory. Now, the next chapter of the Tiger era at the Masters remains wholly undefined. Because of the serious leg injuries he sustained in a February car crash, Woods will not compete at the Masters, something that has happened three times since 2014.This absence, however, is altogether different.Woods’s future as a competitive golfer is unclear, and the Masters marches on without the person at the cynosure of the tournament’s dominant narrative for nearly 25 years.“You can’t go to Augusta and not think about the guy,” Curtis Strange, a two-time United States Open champion who is now a broadcaster for ESPN, said last week of Woods. “He changed the game as we knew it right in front of our very eyes at Augusta.”But the void that Woods’s absence creates at the Masters could serve to underscore the most dramatic transformation in men’s professional golf: a changing of the guard at the top of the weekly leaderboard. New, younger personalities have stormed into the spotlight vacated by Woods, 45, and some of his contemporaries, like Phil Mickelson, who will turn 51 in June. The game has seen an infusion of not just youth, but players with back stories alluring enough to ease the transition.Bryson DeChambeau has been a dominant force in golf for several years.Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesFor example, a year ago, Bryson DeChambeau was still an eccentric curio on the PGA Tour, known more for his quirks than his accomplishments. In 2020 and continuing into this year, DeChambeau, 29, has been the dominant force in golf even when he is not on the course. With an intense fitness regimen and hard-swinging power game that launched prodigious drives, DeChambeau forced his rivals to reconsider everything, including their course strategies and their diets. Moreover, he captivated golf fans as a new breed of golfer in an age-old sport — daring, showy and charismatic.DeChambeau also backed up his boasts of reinventing golf by bludgeoning the 2020 United States Open field, and a venerable golf course, to claim a runaway victory that verified his status as a phenomenon. DeChambeau has not gone away, with one PGA Tour victory and a tie for third place at the Players Championship last month. It’s true that DeChambeau conspicuously failed to overpower Augusta National in November, but the golf course in the firm conditions of spring — as opposed to the soft fairways that greeted competitors in November — will give him another opportunity to prove that his brawny style can prevail.“He’s certainly got the talent, and maybe learning from the November experience will be very beneficial for him,” Nick Faldo, a three-time Masters champion and now a CBS broadcaster, said of DeChambeau last week.DeChambeau, who has never putted well on Augusta National’s slick greens in four previous Masters appearances, is not backing down.“I’m definitely hitting it a lot further than I was in November of last year,” he said in March, looking ahead to the Masters. “So there are some places that I will look at taking a line that’s going to be a little different than last time.”DeChambeau, the world No. 5, is not the only golfer under 30 years old among the top contenders this week. Thirteen of the top 25 ranked golfers, including four of the top five, are in their 20s. Many come with pedigrees, like world No. 2 Justin Thomas, 27, who last month added a Players Championship victory to go with the P.G.A. Championship he won in 2017. Ranked fourth worldwide, Collin Morikawa, 24, already has a tour victory this season and won last year’s P.G.A. Championship. Jon Rahm, 26, is the world’s third-ranked golfer and has had five top-10 finishes in his seven events this year. Xander Schauffele, 27, is No. 6 in the world rankings and tied for second in the 2019 Masters.There are factors working against a new generation of players leaping to the forefront of golf’s most-watched event this week, notably the accepted canon that a Masters champion must have acquired a wealth of practiced knowledge about the Augusta National layout to win. But the current crop of young players may be fast-tracking the learning curve.Or as Zach Johnson, the 2007 Masters champion, said last month in a telephone interview: “You can have plenty of experience at 27 years old. There could be four Masters champions in a six-year span that are under 30. That would not surprise me in the least.”Jordan Spieth, top left, has his driver worked on during a practice round.Doug Mills/The New York TimesJordan Spieth, who won the 2015 Masters when he was 21, is another young golfer whose recent form makes him a candidate to be slipping on a green jacket after the final round on Sunday. Spieth has won three major golf championships, but had gone nearly four years without a tour victory until he won the Valero Texas Open on Sunday. Spieth’s revival has put him back in the mix, and he insists that his age group is positioned to make a run at several Masters championships. He did not rule out crowning a champion who was playing in his first Masters, something that has not happened since Fuzzy Zoeller won the tournament in 1979.“I wouldn’t be surprised going forward if you end up getting a first-time winner at some point or a number of young guys that are able to do it,” Spieth said last week.Spieth said Augusta National’s extremely hilly terrain, a feature that is hard to grasp from watching the event on television, might especially benefit younger players.“Honestly, it’s a tough walk, it’s one of the toughest walks on tour,” Spieth said of Augusta National. “Physically, it can take a toll. So you would think that guys that are in their mid-20s would be in the best position physically.”Other less-than-household names within golf’s youth movement may have escaped the attention of casual golf fans but are nonetheless worthy contenders this week. Foremost in that group is Sungjae Im, 23, of South Korea, who was the PGA Tour rookie of the year in 2019 and tied for second in his Masters debut last year. No Asian has won the Masters, although that has not stopped Im from dreaming of a Korean-style menu that will be served at the annual champions-only dinner the year after he wins the tournament.“Marinated ribs, of course,” he said in November with a grin.There are few Black players in this year’s Masters field, although Tony Finau, who finished tied for fifth in 2019 and is the world’s 13th ranked golfer, is among the contenders for the title. Vijay Singh, the Masters champion in 2000, is also competing.Change, like the passing of a torch from generation to generation, is in the air at the Masters despite the tournament’s reputation for time-honored traditions. And golf fans may already be warming up to the makeover taking place at the top of the leaderboards.With the television viewership declining for other sports lately, the ratings for PGA Tour events this year have increased by 10 to 20 percent, and some in golf credit the surge to the increasing prominence of what Jim Nantz, the longtime CBS broadcaster, called “the new brigade.”“We’ve arrived at a point now where we don’t have to rely on just Tiger,” Nantz said last week. “We all know how enormous his presence is — maybe he comes back one day, that’s not what we’re addressing here. But how does the sport transition to a time when he is not at the top of the game?”Nantz continued: “There are so many interesting figures now that are competing at the highest level of our sport and them being certified as great players, people are going to watch more often.”Dustin Johnson, left, and Rory McIlroy walk with their caddies during a practice round at Augusta National.Doug Mills/The New York Times More

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      Justin Thomas Surges to Win the Players Championship

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyJustin Thomas Surges to Win the Players ChampionshipThomas, who entered the final round Sunday three strokes behind the leader, won his 14th career title on the PGA Tour.Justin Thomas held off Lee Westwood and Bryson DeChambeau to win the Players Championship.Credit…Mike Ehrmann/Getty ImagesMarch 14, 2021, 9:09 p.m. ETPONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — It was evident early that the final round of the Players Championship might not unfold as expected when Bryson DeChambeau took one of his trademark mighty swipes and barely made contact with the top of his golf ball, which nose-dived and skittered into a pond roughly 100 yards away.Next, on the same tee, was Lee Westwood, who was leading the tournament and predicted to duel DeChambeau, who was in second place after the first three rounds, throughout Sunday afternoon. Westwood hit a slice so crooked it would have warmed the heart of the everyday hacker. Westwood’s ball plunked into a different pond than DeChambeau’s, but the tone for the day was undeniably cast.Playing in the pairing ahead of DeChambeau and Westwood, Justin Thomas was not aware of the travails going on behind him. But he had a studied understanding.“I’ve watched this tournament for years,” Thomas said, “and I know lots of crazy things can happen.”Thomas began the last round three strokes behind Westwood but passed him, and DeChambeau, to take the tournament lead with an eagle on the 11th hole. From there, as his rivals wobbled, he was steady, especially when he birdied the 16th and made gritty pars on the two treacherous closing holes at the TPC-Sawgrass course.On a day of unforeseen ups and downs, Thomas’s consistency led to a one-stroke victory and another noteworthy title, his 14th on the PGA Tour. Thomas, 27, has also won a P.G.A. Championship and the 2017 FedEx Cup playoffs.“I was bold when I had to be — I took risks,” Thomas, who finished the tournament at 14-under par, said afterward. “But I was also patient when things didn’t go exactly as planned because you knew it was going to be that type of day.”The victory also was a respite in a stormy year for Thomas, the second ranked golfer in the world.In January, a television boom microphone caught him muttering a homophobic slur to himself after a short missed putt at the Sony Open. Thomas apologized immediately and has not shied from the consequences, which included a social media outcry and the loss of his clothing sponsor.In February, his 89-year-old paternal grandfather, Paul, a P.G.A. professional with whom Thomas talked daily, died. Later that month, Tiger Woods, who has become one of Thomas’s closest friends, was seriously injured in a car crash.Since the crash, Thomas has stayed in almost daily contact with Woods, including on Sunday when Woods wished Thomas luck before the final round. In his last four tournaments this year, Thomas had seemed distracted and turned in poor results, especially for a player of his recent pedigree.“It’s been a bad couple of months,” Thomas said after Sunday’s victory. He added: “I told my family I’m ready for something good to happen this year. I’d say this qualifies.”Thomas was in danger of missing the cut with nine holes remaining in his second round on Friday, but he rallied with four birdies on the back nine to earn a spot in the last two rounds. He began Sunday with seven consecutive pars on a warm but mostly windless day in northeast Florida. Though the conditions were benign, they still did not lead to many low scores on the devilish Pete Dye-designed layout. Thomas, whose closing 36-hole score of 12 under par was a tournament record, vaulted to the top of the leaderboard with birdies on the ninth, 10th and 12th holes — along with his eagle on the par-5 11th hole.Lee Westwood finished second for the second consecutive tournament.Credit…Sam Greenwood/Getty ImagesWith DeChambeau and Westwood, the top two finishers at last week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, trailing but not totally out of the picture, Thomas came to the par-5 16th hole needing a daring strike. For his second shot from the fairway, Thomas hit a gutsy 5-wood that curled onto the 16th green from 228 yards. It was Thomas’s first attempt at an eagle putt in his career on the golf course’s 16th hole, which he did not make from 46 feet. But he tapped the ball in for a crucial, timely birdie.“I was proud that I took some chances that paid off,” Thomas said.A second successive second-place finish did not leave Westwood, who will turn 48 in April, dejected. He appeared at a news conference with a wide smile.“I’m just having so much fun — everybody keeps telling me how old I am,” Westwood said, laughing. “I’m still out here contending for tournaments and playing in final groups with great players.”DeChambeau said he had never hit a shot in competition like his knuckling mis-hit off the tee on the fourth hole Sunday, but he was not overly dispirited either.“I don’t know what happened on four — that’s the game and I’m OK with it,” DeChambeau said. “Still smiling after. It just seemed like something wasn’t going my way today for some reason. I could just feel it. It was weird.”Thomas, despite the outcome, was not without at least one moment of fear that one of his shots might find a water hazard at an inopportune time. His drive off the 18th tee landed only a few feet from the large pond to the left of the fairway.“I thought it was 50-50 whether it was going to be dry or in the water,” Thomas said of the shot, which ricocheted to the right, away from the hazard, on its first bounce.He continued, “When you win tournaments, you get lucky breaks like that.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Justin Thomas on Woods's Accident: ‘I’m Sick to my Stomach'

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyTiger Woods Live Updates and Video: Golfer Hospitalized After Car Crash‘I’m sick to my stomach,’ Woods’s friend Justin Thomas said.Feb. 23, 2021, 4:22 p.m. ETFeb. 23, 2021, 4:22 p.m. ETJustin Thomas, left, and Tiger Woods during the first round of the PNC Championship golf tournament last year.Credit…Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated PressJustin Thomas, a trusted confidant of Tiger Woods who frequently joins Woods for pretournament practice rounds, appeared stunned by the news of Woods’s accident on Tuesday.“I’m sick to my stomach,” Thomas said as he prepared for the Workday Championship, a PGA Tour event in Central Florida set to begin Thursday. “It hurts to see one of your closest friends get in an accident.”Thomas said he had heard about Woods’s crash only minutes earlier.”I’m sick to my stomach.” Justin Thomas reacts to the news of Tiger Woods being injured after a single-car crash. pic.twitter.com/RMXKLfSi9N— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) February 23, 2021
      “Man, I just hope he’s all right,” he said. “I’m just worried for his kids, I’m sure they’re struggling.”Thomas and his father, Mike, were paired with Woods and his son, Charlie, during the PNC Championship, a father and son tournament in December. Woods also has a daughter, Sam.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More