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Tag: Justin Thomas

  • Column: PGA Tour year in review based on shots from 14 clubs

    Column: PGA Tour year in review based on shots from 14 clubs

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    One swing can go a long way, whether the shot ends up in the water, on the green or in the hole.

    One swing cost Mito Pereira his first major championship. It validated the rise of Tom Kim. And for Jordan Spieth, it had observers on the edge of their seats as he stood on the edge of a cliff.

    What follows is a year in review on the PGA Tour based on significant shots from all 14 clubs in the bag.

    DRIVER: Mito Pereira came to the 18th hole at Southern Hills with a one-shot lead in the PGA Championship, a chance for the Chilean to win his first major and give South America the career Grand Slam. A quick swing sent his drive into the creek, the start of a meltdown that led to double bogey. Justin Thomas went on to beat Will Zalatoris in a playoff.

    3-WOOD: Justin Thomas drove the par-4 17th with a 3-wood in a playoff for birdie and the lead on his way to winning the PGA Championship. The best 3-wood goes to Hideki Matsuyama at the Sony Open, a shot he never saw because the sun was in his eyes. In a sudden-death playoff, he had 277 and laced it to 3 feet for eagle. That was the highlight for the reigning Masters champion, who dealt with injuries the rest of the year.

    2-IRON: Tom Kim already captured attention by winning the Wyndham Championship. The 20-year-old really introduced himself in a Saturday afternoon fourballs match at the Presidents Cup. The match was all square. The opponents were Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele. The audience included a trio of U.S. major champions who had finished their matches. He drilled his 2-iron to 10 feet and slammed his cap to the ground when he made the winning putt.

    3-IRON: Scottie Scheffler had a four-shot lead in the Masters and reason to be nervous after his tee shot on the 18th hole Saturday headed for the pines. Spotters found the ball. He took a penalty drop. And then with trouble looming, he ripped a 3-iron from 237 yards away off pine straw. The ball landed on the green and rolled just over the back, setting up two putts and a bogey that felt much better.

    4-IRON: Rory McIlroy was off to a sluggish start in the DP World Tour Championship and needing to make a move. He birdied the 16th and 17th. And on the par-5 18th, from 237 yards away, he hit 4-iron to 3 feet for eagle and a 68. That sparked him to a 65-68 weekend to finish fourth and capture the DP World Tour Points and the FedEx Cup in the same season.

    5-IRON: Matt Fitzpatrick was tied for the lead with Will Zalatoris when he pushed his drive slightly to the right on matted rough on the 15th hole at The Country Club. From 225 yards away, Fitzpatrick hit 5-iron to 15 feet for a birdie that gave him the lead for good on his way to winning the U.S. Open.

    6-IRON: As if going for that first PGA Tour victory wasn’t hard enough, Sepp Straka faced heavy rain on the par-5 18th hole of the Honda Classic. He was tied for the lead when he found the fairway and then hit 6-iron to the heart of the green, setting up a two-putt victory for the win.

    7-IRON: Jordan Spieth’s tee shot on the eighth hole of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am was inches past the red hazard line and about a foot from going over a 60-foot cliff. His caddie tried three times to talk him into taking a penalty drop. Spieth chose to play 7-iron for what he called the most nerve-wracking shot of his life. It was part of a 63. And it was an example of how there’s rarely a dull moment with this guy.

    8-IRON: Patrick Cantlay had a one-shot lead on the final hole of the BMW Championship when he drove into a bunker. The ball was above his feet, 158 yards to a pin on a steeply pitched green. He took 8-iron and tried to slice it as hard as he could. It found the green, he two-putted for par and became the first back-to-back winner of the BMW in the FedEx Cup era.

    9-IRON: The toughest test in golf was every bit of that for Matt Fitzpatrick on the final hole of the U.S. Open. He was in a bunker, 156 yards away, a steep lip in his line. Fitzpatrick hit what he calls a “squeezy fade” with a 9-iron to 18 feet that secured his first major.

    PITCHING WEDGE: Bubba Watson was one shot inside the cut line at the Masters on Friday when he put his drive in the trees right of the fairway, seemingly no way out. Bubba found a way, hitting a pitching wedge through a tiny gap and onto the green 3 feet away for birdie. Bubba Golf.

    GAP WEDGE: Jon Rahm had not made bogey all weekend until his first one on the 12th hole Sunday of the Spanish Open, cutting his lead to two shots. He responded with a gap wedge to 6 feet for birdie that sent him on his way. It was one of three wins this year for Rahm, including national Opens in Mexico and Spain.

    LOB WEDGE: Max Homa was one shot behind and in a swale left of the 18th green at the Fortinet Championship. Danny Willett was 4 feet away for birdie with a one-shot lead. Homa used lob wedge to hole out for birdie, and he won when Willett three-putted in the most stunning finish of the year. For Homa, it was another chapter in a year when his game exceeded his social media skills.

    PUTTER: Cameron Smith can never be counted out when the putter is in his hand, even when he’s not on the green. He was 40 yards away from the flag on the 17th hole at St. Andrews with a one-shot lead in the British Open. The Road Hole bunker was in the way. He skillfully putted with enough pace around the bunker to 10 feet, made the par and finished with a birdie to win the claret jug.

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    AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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  • Column: Major champions and the significant shots they hit

    Column: Major champions and the significant shots they hit

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    NASSAU, Bahamas — All it takes is one shot to settle the nerves, to create momentum or restore confidence, or in the case of Justin Thomas, to stop the bleeding.

    Thomas has won the PGA Championship twice, and both times he looked back to a moment before the final round that was crucial to winning.

    It’s like that for other major champions, too.

    In a series of interviews, they shared the signature shot of the major they won, along with a shot that was pleasing because of the subtle quality or the circumstances.

    MASTERS

    Scottie Scheffler was so nervous about his three-shot lead going into Sunday at Augusta National that he was in tears that morning. Two holes into the final round, the lead was down to one and Scheffler was in trouble again on the third hole.

    The memorable shot of what became a runaway victory was chipping in from short of the third green for birdie. Smith made bogey for a two-shot swing, the lead was back to three and no one got closer the rest of the way.

    “The timing of it was great,” Scheffler said with a laugh. “I was trying to get it up there to have a putt. At worse, I’d have a good look at par. And it happened to go in.”

    But it was another wedge a few holes earlier that really stood out. The one place to avoid with the traditional Sunday pin on No. 1 is long. Scheffler was in the trees and hit a good punch shot that rolled just over the back.

    “It’s one of the hardest pitches on the course,” he said. “You have this shelf. You’re down below the green. Everything runs away from you. The odds of keeping it on that top shelf? I don’t know if you can tell on TV but it goes up, down, left to right. It’s such a hard shot. I hit it so well it looked like it wasn’t hard.

    “That was the chip that got me settled in that all right, I can do this.”

    PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

    Thomas was in a three-hole playoff at Southern Hills with Will Zalatoris, both opening with birdie on the par-5 13th. Next was the reachable par-4 17th, with a creek to the right that meanders in front of the green.

    “I hit it in the left bunker in regulation, so I knew that had to be my miss,” he said. “I aimed at the left bunker, cut it to the second one, and if the wind wants to take that up the gap, great. As soon as it came off, it was a perfect shot.”

    It found the green for a two-putt birdie and one-shot lead, and he won with a par on 18.

    The meaningful shot cleaned up a mess from the day before.

    Thomas was sliding from contention with each of the five bogeys he made through 15 holes, one of them on the par-5 13th. The 16th hole looked like another when he drove into the rough, had to chip out and hit a pedestrian wedge to 25 feet.

    “I was leaking oil, playing bad. It was really rough,” Thomas said. “I hit a poor wedge to 25 or 30 feet and made that for par, and I birdied 17. I bogey that hole and don’t birdie 17, it’s over.”

    U.S. OPEN

    “The one thing I’ve been really struggling with this year is fairway bunker play,” Matt Fitzpatrick said after winning at Brookline.

    That’s what led to his first major. He had a one-shot lead when he drove into the bunker left of the 18th fairway. With the steep lip, it looked like his safest option was short of the green. He hit a “squeezy fade” from 156 yards with a 9-iron to 18 feet for par.

    “It was just kind of natural ability took over and just played the shot that was at hand, if I was a junior trying to hit it close,” Fitzpatrick shot.

    Three holes earlier, he hit a 5-iron out of the rough on the 15th that led to birdie. But it was another birdie, even more unlikely, that stands out to him.

    “The putt on 13,” he said. “It was 50 feet. For whatever reason, I genuinely felt good over the putt. I felt like I had a chance, and you don’t often get that. I’ve had it multiple times over 10-footers and 20-footers. That one … I felt good over it.”

    As for the timing? He had missed a 6-foot par putt on No. 10. He three-putted from 15 feet on the par-3 11th, falling two shots behind. And then he dropped the big one.

    “It just changed the momentum for me,” he said.

    BRITISH OPEN

    Imagine leading the 150th Open at St. Andrews by one shot on the 17th hole, 40 yards away with the notorious Road Hole bunker between you and the pin.

    “It was pretty daunting,” Cameron Smith said. “I hit a great putt. I figured somewhere on the putting surface I’d have a good look at par.”

    The danger was losing pace if it started too close to the edge and funneling into the pot bunker. The pace was perfect and settled 10 feet away. Smith made everything on Sunday, and that par putt was no exception.

    “I was trying to hit it to a certain spot on the green and trying not to think of the big bunker that was staring me right in the face,” he said. “That’s probably the one shot on the back nine where if it goes pear-shaped, we’re not talking.”

    He made five straight birdies in that closing 64. But when asked for a meaningful shot, he thought back to the second round, a 3-wood into the par-5 14th for an eagle.

    “My favorite shot of the week,” he said. “I had to take a little off a 3-wood and hold it off the breeze, and it turned out perfect.”

    It told him the long game was in top form. The short game never seems to leave him.

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    AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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  • Tiger Woods to return at his tournament in the Bahamas

    Tiger Woods to return at his tournament in the Bahamas

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    Tiger Woods made it official Wednesday by announcing he would return to competition as part of the 20-man field at the Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas.

    Woods is the tournament host of the unofficial event on Dec. 1-4 at Albany Golf Club, where the tournament has been played since 2015.

    It will be the first time Woods has played the Hero World Challenge, which benefits his foundation, since 2019.

    Woods, who announced his decision on Twitter, has not played competitively since he missed the cut in the British Open at St. Andrews in July.

    That was only the third tournament he played in 2022, all of them majors. He made the cut at the Masters and PGA Championship, finishing 47th at Augusta National and withdrawing after three rounds at Southern Hills.

    The Hero World Challenge is the start of a busy month for Woods, who also has agreed to play in a made-for-TV exhibition on Dec. 10 with Rory McIlroy as his partner in a 12-hole match against Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas.

    Woods also is expected to play in the PNC Championship a week later with his son, Charlie. They were runners-up a year ago in Orlando, Florida.

    The 20-man field in the Bahamas receives world ranking points, with the caveat that sponsor exemptions must be among the top 50 in the world. There is an exception for the tournament host — Woods is at No. 1,245.

    Woods said Tommy Fleetwood and Kevin Kisner would be the other exemptions, joining an already stacked field that has 17 of the top 20 players in the world. The only players from the top 20 not playing are McIlroy, Cameron Smith and Patrick Cantlay. Smith, the British Open champion, is ineligible because of his PGA Tour suspension for joining LIV Golf.

    Also, tournament officials announced that Will Zalatoris has not fully recovered from a back injury that kept him out of the Tour Championship and the Presidents Cup. Zalatoris was replaced by former British Open champion Shane Lowry.

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    AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf and https://twitter.com/AP—Sports

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