Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy had their best start ever Thursday in The Players Championship. It still wasn’t enough to catch Roberto Castro, who had never played the TPC Sawgrass and made a debut he won’t soon forget.
Castro hit shots into tap-in range on the famed 17th and 18th holes on his way to a 9-under 63 in perfect scoring conditions in the morning. He tied the course record held by Fred Couples and Greg Norman, and it gave him a three-shot lead — the largest 18-hole margin in 21 years at Sawgrass — over McIlroy and Zach Johnson.
Read More
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Adam Scott finished the job this time, and put an end to more than a half-century of Australian misery at the Masters.With the two biggest putts of his career, Scott holed a 20-footer for birdie on the 18th hole of regulation that put him into a playoff with Angel Cabrera, and then won his first major championship Sunday with a 12-footer for birdie on the second extra hole.
Read More
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Sergio Garcia might have written himself off too quickly at the Masters.When last seen walking off the course at Augusta National, the impetuous Spaniard was moping about his bad luck at this tournament and said last year it was increasingly evident he would never be fitted for a green jacket.
Read More
AUGUSTA, Ga. — The first tee shot clattered through a pair of pines on the left side of the 13th fairway, finally landing on the wrong side of Rae’s Creek. Tiger Woods tried again, and this wasn’t any better. Fans peered across the fairway and only heard the ball rifle through some bushes.
“He’s hitting another one,” a man announced from the gallery.
The third shot with a fairway metal caused them to retreat until it turned with a slight draw, clipping a pine branch and settling in the second cut of rough.
Read More
AUGUSTA, Ga. — While Tiger Woods commands the spotlight going into this week’s Masters after a sizzling start to the season, 14-year-old Guan Tianlang has also got tongues wagging at Augusta National.
The Chinese prodigy will become the youngest player to compete at the Masters when he tees off in Thursday’s opening round and he has already stunned the game’s top practitioners with his remarkable talent and poise during practice rounds.
Read More
Unlike his teammates Michael Kim, Joel Stalter and Brandon Hagy, Michael Weaver has not been ranked No. 1 among NCAA golfers at any point this season. But all three members of the No. 1-ranked Cal men’s golf team would surely trade that honor for a chance to stand in his spikes this week.
Read More
HUMBLE, Texas (AP) — Hunter Mahan doesn't believe Tiger Woods has to win a major to validate his return to No. 1 in the world.
Woods fell to as low as No. 58 toward the end of 2011. But after winning at Bay Hill for his sixth PGA Tour title in the last 53 weeks, Woods returned to the top of the ranking for the first time since October 2010. Woods hasn't won a major, however, since the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines.
Read More
HUMBLE, Texas (AP) — Once the frost thawed, Rory McIlroy was back at work Wednesday morning trying to find a swing he could trust and repeat.
McIlroy hasn't looked anything like the No. 1 player in golf this year, and now he's not. That spot belongs to Tiger Woods again after winning for the third time in two months to establish himself as the favorite going into the Masters.
None of this bothers McIlroy.
Read More
Tiger Woods won for the third time this season Monday when he captured the Arnold Palmer Invitational trophy, his eighth time winning the event. The victory led every news organization to ask the most obvious and overstated question: Is he back?
The topic is dredged up every time Tiger makes a birdie putt or even sniffs the top of a PGA Tour leaderboard.
Tiger himself has repeatedly stated the standard he holds himself to is winning major championships. Anything less is failure.
Read More
ORLANDO, Fla. — The moment was vintage Tiger Woods, and so was his reaction.
Seconds after Rickie Fowler made a 40-foot birdie putt on the 12th hole to pull within two shots of the lead, Woods posed over his 25-foot birdie putt until he swept the putter upward in his left hand and marched toward the cup as it dropped for a birdie.
Fowler, standing on the edge of the green, turned with a slight smile as if to say, “What else can I do?”
Read More
URL: http://www.sfexaminer.com/archive/69/69?type%5bstory%5d=story
