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The Rapid Rise of the Clutch Pro Tour

• By Richard Cole
• August 1, 2023

The Clutch Tour , a third-tier golf tour recognized by the European Tour, was founded in 2020 by former professional golfer Tom Hayward, who wanted to create a more accessible and inclusive tour for players of all backgrounds and abilities. It was launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which disrupted the schedules and incomes of many golfers, especially those at the lower levels of the sport. The Tour aimed to provide a safe and competitive environment for players to showcase their skills and earn a living from the game they love.

The Tour consists of four tiers: the Clutch Pro Tour, the Clutch Amateur Tour, the Clutch Junior Tour, and the Clutch Super Series. Each tier has its own schedule, prize money, and ranking system, but they all share the same vision of providing equal opportunities and exposure for male and female golfers.

The Clutch Pro Tour started with a few events in March 2020, before expanding to a full season of 15 events from June to October 2020. It attracted some notable players, such as Andy Sullivan, who won the Stoneham event in July 2020 with a record-breaking score of 27-under-par. The inaugural Order of Merit was won by Mitch Waite, who is currently playing on the European Challenge Tour.

The 2021 season saw the Tour grow in size and stature, with 22 official events and increased prize money. The tour also partnered with several sponsors, such as Mojo Masters, Bluespace Media, and Simplicity Digital. The season featured some impressive performances, such as Harley Smith’s win at the Prince’s Classic as an amateur, Curtis Knipes’ two victories at The Belfry and Remedy Oak, and Henry Sheridan-Mills’ double triumph at the Bluespace Media South of England Open and Kedleston Park Classic. The 2021 Order of Merit was won by Australian, Daniel Gaunt.

The 2022 season , titled as the Mizuno Next Gen Series for sponsorship reasons, was the third season of the Clutch Pro Tour and consisted of 25 events, including six majors, with a total prize fund of £700,000. The tour also offered 44 Challenge Tour, 5 DP World Tour and 1 LET invite for the top performers. Highlights included OJ Farrell, who won two events and finished second in the Order of Merit and George Bloor , who won the Mizuno Open, one of the majors, and also qualified for the Challenge Tour. The Order of Merit ultimately being won by Giles Evans with two wins and nine top-10 finishes.

In December 2022, it was announced that the Clutch Pro Tour and the Tartan Pro Tour would become official feeder tours to the Challenge Tour in place of the now-defunct PGA EuroPro Tour. The Clutch Pro Tour would offer Challenge Tour status to the top two players on the Order of Merit, as well as invitations to selected events for other high-ranked players.

The 2023 season saw another huge increase in prize money, with 15 Tier 1 events offering a guaranteed purse of £60,000 and another 3 events with a £100,000 purse. The total Tour purse for Tiers 1 & 2 was increased to an impressive £1.8 million. On top of that, the Tour will be providing over 40 invites onto the Challenge Tour and DP World Tour, helping to continue its core mission of developing up and coming talent. As of the end of July 2023, there have been 12 completed Tier 1 events, with Brandon Robinson Thompson leading the order of merit following three wins and six top-10s in the 9 tournaments played. Following his latest win at the end of June, Brandon followed this up by qualifying for the 151st British Open, where he made the cut, eventually finishing 59th. With 5 more events remaining in the season before the Tour Championship at Royal Norwich, it promises to be another exciting season on the Tour.

The Clutch Pro Tour is a remarkable success story that showcases the resilience and talent of professional golfers in the UK. It has provided a platform for players to showcase their skills, earn a living, and progress their careers during challenging times. More importantly, it has also attracted attention from fans, media, sponsors, and other tours, who have recognized the quality and potential of the tour and its players. The Clutch Pro Tour is not only a feeder tour to the Challenge Tour and the DP World Tour hierarchy; it is also a tour that stands on its own merits and delivers exciting golf entertainment.

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The Clutch Pro Tour - The New UK Golf Tour For Male and Female Pros

The Clutch Pro Tour may be the career-boost than many pros are looking for this year

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The Clutch Pro Tour may offer the career-boost than many professionals are looking for this year

Whilst many pro golfers in the UK may be struggling during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Clutch Pro Tour is offering the chance to fast-track their careers.

The ambitious new tour - which is the brainchild of golf professional, Tom Hayward - is based in the UK and is open to both male and female players.

It offers huge incentives, such as a £10,000 first prize for a 'Major', plus the top three players at the end of the season will have their European Tour Qualifying School fees covered.

"I just thought there should be more opportunities out there for players where they can go and win something substantial," says Hayward, who struggled to find somewhere to compete after missing out at Qualifying School in 2018.

"For mini tour players, sponsorship is hard to come by. We’re just trying to offer a really exciting and interesting platform for players with genuine opportunities for development."

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The new 2020 schedule boasts £200,000 in prize money and the tour has received backing from Modest! Golf management as well as Cobra Puma Golf, who will be running its own Order of Merit.

Modest! Golf is co-owned by Niall Horan, and it manages the likes of Tyrrell Hatton , Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Guido Migliozzi.

"We are always very passionate about providing opportunities for young players as they start out on their journey," says Modest! Golf's Mark McDonnell.

"You win one of these events for £10,000 and that can pay for a lot of the travel costs for the first six, seven months of the season for these younger guys who have limited schedules. It's life changing for them."

The Clutch Pro Tour will visit some of England's finest inland courses, with the next Major taking place later this month at the stunning Notts Golf Club.

The 18-hole tournaments have already attracted a number of top professionals, including European Tour stars, such as Matthew Southgate and Steven Brown.

In July, 'The Open Access Masters' at Sunningdale Heath will unite the stars of the European and Ladies European Tours in a split field boasting equal prize money.

The field gets stronger by the day, with four-time Major winner Dame Laura Davies, LET star Meghan MacLaren and the highly-rated Connor Syme already confirmed.

This year's overall champion will receive full status for the 2020/2021 MENA Tour (Middle East North Africa), which is an Official World Golf Ranking-sanctioned tour that is an official feeder tour to the Challenge Tour.

In addition, the 2020 Clutch Pro Tour winner will receive a year's Mizuno sponsorship, featuring a full bag of equipment: driver, metal woods, a full set of irons and wedges, a season’s worth of balls and gloves, two pairs of shoes, a Tour Bag and clothing from Mizuno’s range of performance apparel.

For all the latest golf news, check the Golf Monthly website and follow our social media channels @golfmonthlymagazine on Facebook and @golfmonthly on Twitter and Instagram

Elliott Heath is our News Editor and has been with Golf Monthly since early 2016 after graduating with a degree in Sports Journalism. He manages the Golf Monthly news team as well as our large Facebook , Twitter and Instagram pages. He covered the 2022 Masters from Augusta National as well as five Open Championships on-site including the 150th at St Andrews. His first Open was in 2017 at Royal Birkdale, when he walked inside the ropes with Jordan Spieth during the Texan's memorable Claret Jug triumph. He has played 35 of our Top 100 golf courses, with his favourites being both Sunningdales, Woodhall Spa, Western Gailes, Old Head and Turnberry. He has been obsessed with the sport since the age of 8 and currently plays off of a six handicap. His golfing highlights are making albatross on the 9th hole on the Hotchkin Course at Woodhall Spa, shooting an under-par round, playing in the Aramco Team Series on the Ladies European Tour and making his one and only hole-in-one at the age of 15 - a long time ago now!

Elliott is currently playing:

Driver: Titleist TSR4

3 wood: Titleist TSi2

Hybrids: Titleist 816 H1

Irons: Mizuno MP5 5-PW

Wedges: Cleveland RTX ZipCore 50, 54, 58

Putter: Odyssey White Hot OG #5

Ball: Srixon Z Star XV

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Clutch Announce Dual Tours for 2022 With Stellar Metal Lineups

Clutch are ready to let it rip in 2022. On Tuesday (Jan. 18), they announced back-to-back headlining North American tours for the spring.

As if that weren't enough, the influential Maryland stoner rock band will bring along a different pair of hard-hitting metal and rock acts on each trip.

Joining Clutch on 19 stops across the U.S. and Canada starting in March are sludge metal icons Eyehategod and English rockers Tigercub. Clutch pick up again in late April with an additional 19 North American concerts supported by Texas metal quartet The Sword and singer-songwriter Nate Bergman.

Clutch recently celebrated their 30th anniversary  with the archival " Vault Series " and the livestream concerts  Live From the Doom Saloon . The group's latest album, Book of Bad Decisions , came out in 2018.

See all the spring Clutch tour dates below. Tickets go on sale Friday (Jan. 21) at clutchontour.com .

Clutch, Eyehategod + Tigercub Spring 2022 North American Tour Dates

March 16 – Birmingham, Ala. @ Iron City March 18 – New Orleans, La. @ Fillmore March 19 – Tyler, Texas @ Country River Club March 20 – San Antonio, Texas @ Aztec Theatre March 22 – Tucson, Ariz. @ Rialto Theatre March 24 – Santa Ana, Calif. @ Observatory March 25 – Las Vegas, Nev. @ Brooklyn Bowl March 26 – Reno, Nev. @ Virginia St. Brewhouse March 28 – Vancouver, B.C. @ Commodore Ballroom March 29 – Vancouver, B.C. @ Vogue Theatre March 31 – Edmonton, Alberta @ Midway April 1 – Calgary, Alberta @ Palace Theatre April 2 – Missoula, Mont. @ Wilma Theatre April 3 – Spokane, Wash. @ Knitting Factory April 5 – Billings, Mont. @ Pub Station April 7 – Minneapolis, Minn. @ First Ave. April 8 – Lincoln, Neb. @ Bourbon Theatre April 9 – Green Bay, Wis. @ Epic Events Ctr April 10 – Joliet, Ill. @ The Forge

Clutch, The Sword + Nate Bergman Spring 2022 North American Tour Dates

April 27 – Burlington, Vt. @ Higher Ground April 29 – Hampton Beach, N.H. @ H. Beach Casino April 30 – Providence, R.I. @ The Strand May 1 – Stroudsburg, Pa. @ Sherman Theatre May 3 – Rochester, N.Y. @ Anthology May 4 – London, Ontario @ Music Hall May 6 – Indianapolis, Ind. @ Egyptian Room May 7 – Grand Rapids, Mich. @ 20 Monore May 8 – Columbus, Ohio @ Kemba Live May 10 – Moline, Ill. @ The Rust Belt May 12 – Tulsa, Okla. @ Cains Ballroom May 13 – Wichita, Kan. @ The Cotillion May 14 – Sauget, Ill. @ Pop's May 15 – Little Rock, Ark. @ The Hall May 17 – Knoxville, Tenn. @ Mill & Mine May 18 – Charlotte, N.C. @ The Fillmore May 19 – Daytona Beach, Fla. @ Welcome to Rockville May 21 – Myrtle Beach, S.C. @ Bike Week May 22 – Richmond, Va. @ The National

Your Guide To Rock + Metal Bands Touring in 2022

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Clutch Announce Co-Headlining Tour With Rival Sons in 2024

by Em Casalena April 22, 2024, 11:12 am

It’s going to be an excellent fall season for hard rock fans! Hard rock/blues rock icons Clutch and Rival Sons are going to kick off an extensive co-headlining tour of the US and Canada in September and October of this year. 

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The tour will be a dual celebration of Clutch’s 2004 album Blast Tyrant and Rival Sons’ 2014 album Great Western Valkyrie for their 20th and 10th anniversaries, respectively. Plus, the bands will bring along Fu Manchu and Black Stone Cherry as supporting acts.

The Rival Sons and Clutch 2024 Tour will kick off on September 5 in Brooklyn, New York at Brooklyn Paramount with support from Fu Manchu. The tour will close on October 12 in Sacramento, California at Aftershock Festival.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Clutch (@clutchofficial)

There are no current presale events for this tour and it looks like tickets are available for public sale. Fans can get their tickets through Rival Sons’ website or Clutch’s website , as well as Ticketmaster .

If your tour date of choice has sold out before you’ve gotten a chance to buy tickets, try Stubhub . The platform usually has tickets for sold-out shows, and the FanProtect Program ensures that your ticket purchase is legit. It’s worth a shot!

Get your tickets to see this hard rock duo live in concert before tickets are totally gone!

Rival Sons and Clutch 2024 Tour Dates

September 5 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Paramount (with Fu Manchu)

September 6 – Atlantic City, NJ – Ocean Casino Resort (with Fu Manchu)

September 7 – Washington, DC – The Anthem (with Fu Manchu)

September 8 – Raleigh, NC – The Ritz (with Fu Manchu)

September 10 – Pittsburgh, PA – Stage AE (with Fu Manchu)

September 12 – Niagara Falls, ON – OLG Stage at Fallsview Casino (with Fu Manchu)

September 13 – New Haven, CT – College Street Music Hall (with Fu Manchu)

September 14 – Bushkill, PA – Berzerkus Festival (with Black Stone Cherry)

September 15 – Hampton Beach, NH – Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom (with Fu Manchu)

September 17 – Boston, MA – House Of Blues (with Fu Manchu)

September 19 – Cleveland, OH – Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica (with Fu Manchu)

September 20 – Sterling Heights, MI – Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre at Freedom Hill (with Fu Manchu)

September 22 – Fort Wayne, IN – Performance Pavilion at Sweetwater (with Fu Manchu)

September 24 – La Vista, NE – The Astro (with Fu Manchu)

September 26 – Grand Rapids, MI – GLC Live at 20 Monroe (with Fu Manchu)

September 28 – Green Bay, WI – EPIC Event Center (with Black Stone Cherry)

September 29 – Maplewood, MN – Myth Live (with Black Stone Cherry)

October 1 – Des Moines, IA – Val Air Ballroom (with Black Stone Cherry)

October 2 – Kansas City, MO – The Uptown Theater(with Black Stone Cherry)

October 4 – Houston, TX – Bayou Music Center (with Black Stone Cherry)

October 5 – Dallas, TX – The Factory in Deep Ellum(with Black Stone Cherry)

October 8 – Los Angeles, CA – The Wiltern (with Black Stone Cherry)

October 9 – Tempe, AZ – Marquee Theatre (with Black Stone Cherry)

October 10 – Las Vegas, NV – Brooklyn Bowl (with Black Stone Cherry)

October 12 – Sacramento, CA – Aftershock Festival

Photo courtesy of Clutch’s official Facebook page

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© 2024 American Songwriter

CLUTCH And RIVAL SONS Announce 'The Two Headed Beast' North American Tour

Hard-working road hounds CLUTCH have been proving themselves on stage night after night for more than three decades — vocalist Neil Fallon declaring "If you're gonna do it, do it live on stage, or don't do it at all" in their 2013 track "Earth Rocker" . It's an ethos the band still cleave to today.

Since their emergence in 2009, RIVAL SONS have reignited and recharged rock 'n' roll with towering vocals, uncompromising guitar playing, and thunderous grooves to enthusiastic fans the world over.

Fans will soon get another chance to witness the electrifying live magic these skilful musicians conjure, with the announcement today of CLUTCH and RIVAL SONS ' upcoming fall co-headline tour.

Titled "The Two Headed Beast" tour, the North American run is set to captivate 23 cities, kicking off September 5 in Brooklyn, New York and bowing out October 10 in Las Vegas, Nevada. In an unexpected twist, both bands will be performing the majority of songs on one of their best-loved albums: "Blast Tyrant" for CLUTCH and "Great Western Valkyrie" for RIVAL SONS .

As for special guests, FU MANCHU will support from September 5 to September 26, with BLACK STONE CHERRY taking over from September 28 to October 10.

CLUTCH 's chief storyteller Neil Fallon declares: "We are looking forward to our tour with RIVAL SONS . Throughout the course of our set, CLUTCH will be performing 'Blast Tyrant' . Both bands have plenty of mutual fans and will garner many more throughout the course of 'The Two Headed Beast' tour. We hope to see you there!"

Scott Holiday , guitarist of RIVAL SONS , adds: "We've wanted to put something together with CLUTCH for a long time! They're one of the acts that we could notice people rep'ing at our shows, so we've always thought it could make a really great double bill! Happy to bring 'The Two-Headed Beast' to life! The riff will be strong on this tour …as will the good times!"

Tickets go on sale on April 19 at 10 a.m. local time from clutchmerch.com and rivalsons.com/tour.

CLUTCH and RIVAL SONS with FU MANCHU :

Sep. 5 - Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn Paramount Sep. 6 - Atlantic City, NJ - Ocean Casino Resort, Ovation Hall Sep. 7 - Washington, DC - The Anthem Sep. 8 - Raleigh, NC - The Ritz Sep. 10 - Pittsburgh, PA - Stage AE Sep. 12 - Niagara Falls, ON - OLG Stage at Fallsview Casino Sep. 13 - New Haven, CT - College Street Music Hall Sep. 15 - Hampton Beach, NH - Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom Sep. 17 - Boston, MA - Citizens House of Blues Sep. 19 - Cleveland, OH - Jacobs Pavilion Sep. 20 - Sterling Heights, MI - Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre at Freedom Hill Sep. 22 - Fort Wayne, IN - Sweetwater Performance Pavilion Sep. 24 - La Vista, NE - The Astro Sep. 26 - Grand Rapids, MI - GLC Live at 20 Monroe

CLUTCH and RIVAL SONS with BLACK STONE CHERRY :

Sep. 28 – Green Bay, WI – EPIC Event Center Sep. 29 – St Paul, MN – Myth Live Oct. 01 – Des Moines, IA – Val Air Ballroom Oct. 02 – Kansas City, MO – Uptown Theater Oct. 04 – Houston, TX – Bayou Music Center Oct. 05 – Dallas, TX – The Factory in Deep Ellum Oct. 08 – Los Angeles, CA – The Wiltern Oct. 09 – Tempe, AZ – The Marquee Oct. 10 – Las Vegas, NV – Brooklyn Bowl

Most recently, CLUTCH released a special, limited version of seminal album "Transnational Speedway League: Anthems, Anecdotes, And Undeniable Truths" on vinyl for the first time.

The remastered edition is available exclusively as a gatefold 12-inch LP, including a band-signed insert. The vinyl is a stunning 180-gram translucent emerald green, housed in robust, extra-heavy sleeves. Sticklers for high quality detail, even the gatefold jacket is printed on luxe, metalized, polyester paper. This numbered, limited edition is restricted to just 7,500 units worldwide.

CLUTCH 's thirteenth studio album, "Sunrise On Slaughter Beach" , was released in September 2022 and is a slamming summary of everything that makes the band great. The band have released three official singles — "Red Alert (Boss Metal Zone)" , "We Strive For Excellence" and "Slaughter Beach" . "Sunrise On Slaughter Beach" is the natural culmination of what CLUTCH began as teenagers in the early 1990s. It's a new chapter in an ever-unfolding story which means as much to the fans as it does to the band.

Double Grammy -nominated band RIVAL SONS released two albums last year to critical acclaim. "Darkfighter" (June 2023) and "Lightbringer" (October 2023) were made available on Low Country Sound / Atlantic Records .

RIVAL SONS have recently announced a remastered reissue of critically acclaimed third full-length album "Head Down" (2012); described as "howling blues rock meets psychedelic pop perfection". "Head Down" includes the hit single and fan favorite "Keep On Swinging" , plus poppy retro dance numbers "Until The Sun Comes" and "Wild Animal" . An album that showcases the versatility of RIVAL SONS , "Head Down" also includes the classic ballad of death and loss "Jordan" and "Manifest Destiny Parts 1 & 2" , an epic stonking room shaker of betrayal and revenge of the Native American People. Out on May 24, the reissued "Head Down" will be released on their own record label Sacred Tongue Recordings and distributed through Thirty Tigers .

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For Rory McIlroy, it's been a decade of glory and anguish

Pga championship returns to valhalla, where he last won a major in 2014.

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Rory McIlroy won four majors in four years – 2011 U.S. Open, 2012 PGA Championship, 2014 Open Championship and PGA Championship. But there’s winning, and then there’s winning.

He won the first two by eight shots apiece, and the second two in a span of three weeks.

“This is Rory’s time,” The Guardian declared. “The dawning of a new era.”

McIlroy now heads into the PGA Championship at Valhalla with two victories in his last two starts – just as he did at the 2014 PGA at Valhalla, which is still his most recent major victory.

“Just need to try to replicate whatever I did in 2014, just try to do that all over again,” he said after going 8-under in a span of eight holes (Nos. 8-15) to pull away at Quail Hollow on Sunday. “Yeah, I'm feeling really good with my game.

Rory McIlroy charges to victory at Wells Fargo

“I need to stay in my own little world next week and not get too far ahead of myself,” he added, “but if you can step on to the first tee at Valhalla on Thursday and feel as good about my game as I did today, I think I'll have a good chance.”

McIlroy has 20 major championship top 10s over the last decade (the most in golf, by three) but no wins. Where has he gone wrong? As he prepares for this week’s PGA Championship, the punditry will turn up the volume on that question, comparing him to his 2014 self.

Back then, his 281-yard 3-wood to 7 feet and subsequent eagle at the 10th hole sparked a furious comeback. (He later said he started his second shot 15 yards left of his intended line and got lucky.) With a two-stroke lead and in fading light, McIlroy gave no high-fives on the way to the 18th tee, where he watched Rickie Fowler and Phil Mickelson in the group ahead tee off, then arranged for them to move off to the side once they were several paces down the fairway to allow McIlroy and Bernd Wiesberger to drive. As Nick Faldo noted on CBS, McIlroy was playing into the group ahead while also playing through the world of golf.

It was McIlroy’s third win in as many starts – and his second straight major. (He had won The Open Championship three weeks earlier.) All of a sudden, he had joined Woods and Jack Nicklaus as the only players to win four majors before turning 26. Steeped in the game’s history, McIlroy marveled at that, as well as being tied with Ernie Els and Raymond Floyd at four majors, one behind Seve Ballesteros and two behind Europe’s all-time leader, Faldo.

Confoundingly, that’s where McIlroy remains.

Rory McIlroy comments after winning the PGA Championship

Looking for his edge

Rory McIlroy is too nice to win majors.

If there’s a through line to the criticism of this generational talent, that would be it.

Aggression, killer instinct, edge – McIlroy hasn’t always loved these terms. Asked last summer about his “ruthlessness” at Valhalla in 2014, he replied: “I find being that way pretty exhausting in life in general, to be that ruthless and that – it's not as if I can't get into that mode, but I don't feel like I need to be that way to be successful on the golf course.”

And yet, by the time he sat down with PGATOUR.COM at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard earlier this season, McIlroy was rethinking that.

“Especially Valhalla, there was like a killer instinct there,” he said, “that I've maybe, you know, if I've been lacking … that I've been trying to tap into over the past couple of years.”

He seemed to be tapping it when asked last week about the pileup at the last at the 2014 PGA.

“Yeah, I'd say I'm a pretty, you know, non-confrontational person,” McIlroy said at the Wells Fargo last week. “I'm not a huge fan of conflict, but when push comes to shove, I will (engage). That was one of those times when I needed to sort of assert my will on a situation.”

Whether he was pushy or assertive, he was golf’s new IT player, and his scoring average in the majors from 2007 through 2014, 71.25, was second only to Woods (71.21).

The story of McIlroy in the majors since then, however, has been cover-your-eyes stuff. He has tried playing less, playing more, stoicism, long hair, short hair, being on the PGA TOUR Policy Board, and not being on it. He has watched himself winning majors and visualized his name atop leaderboards, as at the 2022 Open Championship.

“I'm only human,” he said after finishing third at that ’22 Open at St. Andrews, where he became the only player to hold the 54-hole lead at a major, hit every green in regulation in the final round, and not win. “I'm not a robot. Of course, you think about it, and you envision it, and you want to envision it.”

Rory McIlroy's clutch up-and-down from bunker at The Open

McIlroy has tried minimizing the stakes, reminding that it’s just golf. Conversely, he has allowed himself to vent, as he did after finishing T7 at last year’s PGA. There, in the locker room at Oak Hill, he said he lacked the firepower to pull away from fields and was considering an overhaul, all of it captured in the Netflix docuseries “Full Swing.” When Brooks Koepka won, a frustrated McIlroy no longer had the most majors among his peers.

Meanwhile, he has won everything else but a major. The only three-time FedExCup champion, he’s a 26-time TOUR winner, a five-time Race to Dubai winner (DP World Tour No. 1) and a 17-time winner on the DP World Tour. He has won THE PLAYERS Championship, the Ryder Cup and been world No. 1. (He’s now No. 2, well back of Scottie Scheffler.)

Last month, McIlroy returned to a simpler and more joyful time as he and Shane Lowry played the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, where they ate grilled oysters on the course, sampled the NOLA restaurant scene, won the tournament, wore beads, drank beer and sang karaoke.

“I think it freed me up a little bit,” McIlroy said before the Wells Fargo began.

He proved as much in Charlotte, North Carolina, especially with his 65 on Sunday. It was the best round of the day, even with the double at the last, and he won for a record fourth time at Quail Hollow. If he lacks any firepower, you could have fooled the runner-up.

“I mean, he played unbelievable,” Schauffele said of McIlroy. “Looked up at the board and I'm like dang, he's 6 under through six on the back nine.”

Small margins

McIlroy took just 25 putts in the final round at the Wells Fargo, so it would be easy to forget the role putting has played throughout his major drought.

In his toughest losses, McIlroy has struggled on the greens. At the 2022 Open Championship at St. Andrews, where he visualized his name atop the big, yellow leaderboard across from his hotel room, he took a staggering 36 putts in the final round, shot 70, and went from first to third.

“I hit a good putt on 13, 14, 15, 16, 17,” McIlroy said. “I was hitting good putts.”

(A contrarian might argue that a good putt is one that goes in.)

History repeated itself at last summer’s U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club, where McIlroy took 34 putts, shot a final-round 70, and finished second to Wyndham Clark by one. As he walked off the course, McIlroy called it a carbon copy of the ’22 Open.

“When I do finally win this next major, it's going to be really, really sweet,” he said. “I would go through 100 Sundays like this to get my hands on another major championship.”

Statistically, his average putts per round show improvement in three of the four majors over his last 35 starts (since 2015) compared to his first 25 starts. But he has not putted well at the right time . In his major championship career, McIlroy has recorded 34 or more putts in four final rounds – once during his first 25 starts through 2014, and three times since September of 2020.

Rory McIlroy drains 33-footer for eagle to take the lead at Wells Fargo

His short irons and wedges have come under heavier scrutiny, and his ghastliest miss at L.A.C.C. came with a wedge from the middle of the fairway at the 612-yard, par-5 14th hole, where he dumped his third shot into the rough short of the green.

Although he got embedded-ball relief, McIlroy couldn’t get up and down, missing a 9-foot par putt. He said he had misjudged the wind, but it was a terrible mistake, and not entirely atypical of him. McIlroy can look befuddled with his short irons, most notably on approaches from 75-100 yards, where he was 163rd on TOUR last season, 95th in 2022, 141st in ’21.

As for his driving, always the strength of his game, since his first 25 starts in the majors he has averaged one fewer fairway hit per round in the majors from 2015 to today. Does it matter? When trying to shave what amounts to a half a stroke per round, everything matters.

What’s more, McIlroy averaged 70.2 in his opening rounds over his first 25 major championship starts (through 2014) but has dipped to 71.5 over his last 35 starts, more than a stroke off his previous pace. Again, everything matters; it’s hard to win majors from behind.

Barely 35, McIlroy is still young. And dry spells between majors are not unprecedented; Woods broke an 11-year drought at the 2019 Masters. But one of these weeks when everything looks ripe for McIlroy to break the streak – like this week – he’s going to have to break it.

Career-defining moments come infrequently, and he will need to reassert himself when they do. He’ll need to find his killer instinct, play with joy, and inhabit that which he crooned in NOLA – " Don’t Stop Believin’" – if he wants to party like it’s 2014 at Valhalla this Sunday.

“I mean, I've been sort of banging this drum for the last few years, but I'm a way better player now than I was back then,” he said Sunday night. “I haven't had the major record to back that up, but I've had the wins, I've done everything else there is to do in the game since 2014.

“The only thing I need to do,” he added, “is get another major.”

Cameron Morfit is a Staff Writer for the PGA TOUR. He has covered rodeo, arm-wrestling, and snowmobile hill climb in addition to a lot of golf. Follow Cameron Morfit on Twitter .

PGA Championship

Valhalla Golf Club

pga championship

PGA Championship 2024: What do you believe?

Andrew Redington

LOUISVILLE — It’s Saturday night, and all that matters is if you believe. In your game and command of it. In yourself. That all the work and travel and struggle and sacrifices have gifted this moment, and you have the gumption and fortitude to make the most of it before it’s gone.

Major championships usually require more, acting as tests that ask questions that can be answered in multiple fashions. Not here at the 2024 PGA Championship. Valhalla Golf Club is too straightforward, and its roadmap is singular. What defenses the course has have been down. Everyone with a viable chance to hoist the Wanamaker Trophy has the tools and talent to execute; whether they will is a matter of the soul.

Collin Morikawa and Xander Schauffele are tied atop the PGA Championship board at 15 under with 18 holes remaining, although that doesn’t mean much. Not with six formidable competitors within three shots of the lead. It will take a special type of belief to look at this congested board and think your name will be the one above the rest.

So the question is, what do these players believe?

Does Morikawa believe he can be as good as he once was? It wasn’t that long ago Morikawa was the next big thing, two major wins in two consecutive years before age 25. Since he captured the claret jug in 2021 he’s won just once and he’s quietly slipped from stardom. Just look at the Official World Golf Ranking, where Morikawa—No. 2 at one point just two years ago—had fallen outside the top 20, a drop that doesn’t seem that bad until remembering the dozen or so LIV players that no longer really factor into the OWGR equation. But there have been signs of a comeback, starting with a T-3 at the Masters last month, and Morikawa has shown Augusta wasn’t an aberration through three days in Louisville. A third major title—in just 18 major starts—would return Morikawa to the upward trajectory he rode not long ago.

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“I've just got to be focused on myself,” Morikawa said. “Look, I've played against all these guys. It's not like any of these guys are new. They all have their accolades within themselves, and really anyone can go low. But I'm going to put everything I have. I learned a lot over this past month, over these past two years, over the past five years of being a pro, and we're going to really just … going to have a talk with myself.

“I think everything that I've gone through over the past couple years, I'm ready for these moments. A month ago, I felt like I was ready. Made a couple errors. Tomorrow hopefully we're not.”

Does Schauffele believe the whispers? The ones that mutter, “He’s good, really good … except when it matters,” and the whispers are not wrong. He’s a regular presence on the game’s biggest stages yet to this point he’s not been the final actor bowing to the crowd, and without a trophy the times in contention can be viewed as an indictment on his ability in the clutch. Yet all it takes is one title to silence those whispers for good, and Sunday provides Schauffele his best chance to rewrite the story.

“Just like any other tournament for the most part,” Schauffele said. “It's another Sunday. I typically love Sundays. I think I need to really just stay in my lane and do a lot of what I've been doing and just worry about myself.”

Does Viktor Hovland believe he’s back from the wilderness? He was arguably the best player in golf last fall, winning the FedEx Cup and delivering a remarkable showing in the Europeans’ runaway victory at the Ryder Cup. This season, Hovland has been a guy who knows he is lost but has no idea how to get back, going so far as to drop out of a signature event because he no longer had faith in making solid contact. Through three days at Valhalla, the young Norwegian has looked like his old self—and it’s no coincidence that he recently reunited with swing coach Joe Mayo last week. He will have the chance at redemption after falling just short at last year’s PGA to Brooks Koepka.

“I'm surprised in the sense that … just how far away I felt last week,” said Hovland, who entered the week 89th in the FedEx Cup. “But I'm not surprised in the way that I'm here because, like, I never doubted my abilities. It was just kind of my machinery was not working very well. But as soon as I get the machine kind of somewhere on track, I can play. Like there's nothing wrong with me mentally, I never doubted I couldn't play golf anymore. It's just like the technique was not good enough to compete. But now we're moving in the right direction. So I already saw it was better a few days ago right before I was playing the tournament. I thought, we can maybe do some damage this week.

“But this has exceeded all expectations. That's for sure.”

Does Bryson DeChambeau believe he’s still the paradigm shifter, the one who threatened to break golf only to become somewhat of a side attraction in the ensuing years? The former beefy boy may be an afterthought to much of the golf populace due to his defection to LIV Golf, and his reputation had gone sideways well before then. Yet DeChambeau has been one of the 10 best players in the sport over the last six months, according to DataGolf. He’s also quietly been in the mix at majors, posting a T-6 at this year’s Masters and a T-4 at the 2023 PGA. A chip-in eagle at the 18th Saturday leaves DeChambeau just two off the lead, and a good day tomorrow could put him halfway to the career Grand Slam.

“Exhilarating. I haven't felt like that in a long time,” DeChambeau said. “The only other time I felt like it was when I shot 58 at Greenbrier. That was pretty exciting there. I was pretty pumped.” DeChambeau later added: "As I look forward to, I would say just tomorrow and the future, it just seems so much more positive than where I was.”

Does Shane Lowry believe that he’s more than a one-major wonder? He started the day way outside the fire, eight shots behind the lead with nearly 30 players between him and there. He responded with 29 on the front and gave himself a 12-footer for a chance at the first 61 in major championship history . That putt didn’t drop, but his 62 placed him in the penultimate group. It was a blessing, yet also a burden, for following up a virtuoso performance is one of the hardest tasks in golf.

Does Sahith Theegala believe he’s on the precipice of a breakthrough? He’s been one of the better players on tour in 2024, ranking sixth in strokes gained and fifth in the FedEx Cup. Theegala has the facility to be a star and the personality and character to make that star brighter. He also admitted earlier this week that he looks at the world’s best golfers deems a disparity in their games and that he feels like an imposter: among them, but not of them. Sunday will give Theegala the chance to see how good he can be.

Does Justin Rose believe he can turn back the clock? Does Robert MacIntyre believe he can make Sunday a national holiday in Scotland? Does Rory McIlroy think he can do something ridiculous? Does Justin Thomas believe he can conjure a comeback from five back for his third PGA win and one in front of his hometown crowd?

“Everybody has a scenario that runs in their head of them potentially winning the tournament, but how that happens, you don't know,” Thomas said after a Saturday 67. “But I feel like I'm fully capable of that of how I'm playing, and it would be nice to have a chance there on the back nine.”

Do you believe that Valhalla, despite its perceived ills and all the oddities of this week, will do what it has done in its previous PGA parties and present one heck of a finale?

It should be noted that belief is not far removed from hope, and while hope is what makes life worth living it’s also the hope that gets ya. Maybe that’s why Morikawa, Schauffele and DeChambeau were on the range late Saturday night, doing everything in their power to not leave fate to chance. Because a dream will be fulfilled Sunday, and in order for someone to win the PGA Championship, they must believe they can.

MORE GOLF DIGEST PGA CHAMPIONSHIP COVERAGE

PGA Championship 101: Answering all your frequently asked questions How to watch the 2024 PGA Championship Power Rankings: Every player in the PGA field, ranked The 13 best bets to win at Valhalla Secrets to Scottie’s Success: Watching 1,353 shots during Scheffler’s impressive run Tiger’s mysterious Valhalla bounce: Investigating one of golf’s biggest conspiracy theories Micheal Block: ‘Year of Blockie’ and what happens when your 15 minutes of fame are up ‘The Hole At’: Valhalla’s 18th was built to always produce drama An ode to Valhalla and the thing it’s always delivered The 5 holes that will decide the PGA Championship

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Local Guys Bought the Valhalla Club, and Now They’re Hosting a Major

A group of Kentucky businessmen are trying to give the P.G.A. Championship a Louisville feel, complete with nods to Churchill Downs.

By Paul Sullivan

The quality of a major championship venue is defined by its champions, and Valhalla Golf Club, the site of this week’s P.G.A. Championship in Louisville, Ky., has a list of past winners that stands out at every level.

Tiger Woods won the 2000 P.G.A. Championship at Valhalla, and Rory McIlory won it there in 2014 . Hale Irwin won the 2004 Senior P.G.A. Championship at Valhalla, and Tom Watson won it there in 2011. At the 2008 Ryder Cup , the United States squad, led by Paul Azinger, beat the European Team.

Even on the junior side, the course has hosted elite players. Akshay Bhatia , who at 22 has two PGA Tour victories, won the 2018 Boys Junior P.G.A. Championship there. Anna Davis, now 18, won the 2021 Girls Junior P.G.A. Championship at Valhalla and went on the next year to win the Augusta National Women’s Amateur.

What its new owners, a group of Kentucky businessmen who bought Valhalla in 2022, said it didn’t have was a club presence to go with its illustrious championship history. So when the P.G.A. of America, which runs the championship, decided to sell Valhalla, the new owners moved in to change that.

“We couldn’t let it go to an out-of-town golf management firm,” said David Novak, the co-founder and former chief executive of Yum Brands, which owns Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. “We felt they’d be more interested in making money than building Valhalla’s reputation.”

The “we” in this instance is an ownership group that consisted of community leaders: Jimmy Kirchdorfer, the chief executive of ISCO, a piping company; Junior Bridgeman, a former basketball player at the University of Louisville and the N.B.A. who owns hundreds of franchise restaurants and a Coca-Cola bottling plant; and Chester Musselman, a hotel owner based in Louisville.

Novak had the golfing bona fides to unite the golf world behind him. He had been a member of Valhalla since 1990, when he moved to Louisville to become president of Kentucky Fried Chicken, now KFC. And he also had won the Seminole Pro-Member tournament and was the oldest winner of the club championship at Shinnecock Hills in New York, a frequent site of major championships.

“In Louisville, we don’t have many iconic properties,” Novak said. “There’s Churchill Downs, the [KFC] Yum Center where Louisville plays and Valhalla. We wanted to make it better. We said, ‘Dwight Gahn built it and started the club, then the P.G.A. bought it, and then we bought it.’”

So, what will fans see this year that’s different? It is now a venue that aims to create a Kentucky-inspired golf club that also borrows from the business success of its ownership group. Novak has brought in chicken sandwiches inspired by KFC’s Colonel Sanders, and Bridgeman helped create a dessert that plays off Wendy’s Frosty treat.

Bridgeman, who also owns Ebony and Jet magazines, likened his participation in the ownership group to those storied magazines.

“Valhalla was somewhat like Ebony magazine,” he told the Golf Channel last week. “When we heard that it might be for sale, it wasn’t so much looking at it as an investment. It was more something that we felt was important to the city of Louisville, important to the community and important to the state. We thought that we could do some things with Valhalla to get it where it probably should be and by that I mean as far as rankings in the top courses in this country.”

There was an economic factor, too. The new owners saw a vibrant Valhalla as a path for tourism dollars to the city.

“We felt we had an opportunity to not only preserve our championship history but to get it again,” Novak said. “The P.G.A. Championship brings in close to $150 million to the city. We know the community supports the golf, and we could make it better.”

The changes started with the image of the club. The partners wanted it to exemplify Kentucky, known for horse racing, bourbon and bluegrass.

The clubhouse was the start. It now looks like Churchill Downs. Inside there’s a room to commemorate all the champions, like Woods and Davis, who have won significant tournaments at Valhalla, but with the name of the horse that won the Derby the same year of their tournament victory. The gate into the club — along Bluegrass Way — looks like a horse farm gate. And, yes, there are horses on the property, too.

And the holes on the championship course follow the horse theme. No. 1 is called the Post; No. 18 is Photo Finish.

“I’ve always believed the most important thing you can do is know what you stand for,” Novak said. “We wanted to build the Valhalla brand. The first thing we did as an ownership group was we got together with our team and thought, what will we stand for?”

Not everyone has embraced the group’s definition of reality. After the group bought the club at the end of 2022, it altered the rules on initiation fees, causing some members to quit the club.

Disagreements at private clubs are nothing new. Still, the ownership team, which said it funded the renovations without assessing members, is ready for its close-up this week.

“I had complained about what Valhalla could be,” Novak said. “My daughter convinced me to buy the club. She said you have all these ideas about the course, and you love these guys. I’ve had more fun doing this. We’ve done this together.”

Paul Sullivan , the  Wealth Matters  columnist from 2008 to 2021, is the founder of  The Company of Dads , a work and parenting site aimed at fathers. He is also the author of  The Thin Green Line : The Money Secrets of the Super Wealthy and  Clutch : Why Some People Excel Under Pressure and Others Don’t.  @sullivanpaul More about Paul Sullivan

Inside the World of Sports

Dive deeper into the people, issues and trends shaping professional, collegiate and amateur athletics..

Testing the W.N.B.A.’s TV Limits:  The docuseries “Full Court Press” closely tracked college stars like Caitlin Clark and Kamilla Cardoso. Fans who want to follow elite W.N.B.A. rookies could have a tougher time .

Competing for Olympic Spots:  Two friends had run side by side for more than 10,000 miles. Both vied for a place in the marathon at the Paris Games .

Captivating New York:  It has been 50 years since the Knicks last won the N.B.A. championship. Now, a freshly promising team has enthralled the city .

Americanizing English Soccer:  U.S. investors are gobbling up the storied teams of the English Premier League — and changing the stadium experience  in ways that soccer fans resent.

Wild World of Sports:  Surprisingly often, animals show up uninvited at sporting events. Sometimes, it gets a little weird .

Stray Kids Confirm 2024 Tour Dates, Perform ‘Lose My Breath' on ‘Good Morning America'

Stray Kids staged a takeover of Good Morning America on Wednesday morning (May 15), dropping into the show's New York studios to take a few questions from fans before busting out a performance of their new single.

The first order of business for the eight-member K-pop band was confirming that they are headed out on a world tour this year. Rapper Felix verified the tease that designer Tommy Hilfiger dropped on the red carpet at the Met Gala, telling Lara Spencer, "We do have some good news. We are preparing a tour. Big news because it's been so long since we prepared for something so big. And so, yeah, we took this chance to prepare something for our fans. So exciting."

Dancer Bang Chan also took an audience question from a fan who wanted to know what the creative process was for making the band's latest single, "Lose My Breath." He said, "We got the chance to work with Charlie [Puth], it was a very good experience. Because he's very musically talented. There's a lot of things to learn. Overall, the project came out very, very well. So, hope you guys like it. Do you like it?"

The group them performed the song in studio, singing and dancing along to the song in front of a wall of flashing neon lights as the studio full of fans sang along and held up their armloads of tributes.

At press time the only announced dates for the group's tour were a July 12 gig at the Ippodromo SNAI La Maura in Milano, Italy, followed by a July 14 show in Hyde Park in London, and an August date at Lollapalooza in Chicago, which runs from the Aug. 1-4.

Watch the "Lose My Breath" performance here .

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Jalen brunson would be historic if he could lead knicks to game 7 win.

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It’s not a fair thing to ask under any circumstances. For one thing, it’s pretty obvious that there’s still something wrong with Jalen Brunson’s foot. For another, there isn’t a soul alive who’ll be under the pinwheel roof at Madison Square Garden who’ll be unaware of the Indiana Pacers’ game plan for stealing Game 7 Sunday, which goes something like this:

1. Blitz Brunson.

2. Swarm Brunson.

3. Harass Brunson.

4. Pick Brunson up 94 feet.

5. Double-team Brunson.

5A. Triple-team Brunson.

6. Hit Brunson as often as you can get away with it.

7. Knock Brunson down as often as you can get away with it.

8. STOP BRUNSON.

Such would be the case anyway, because this is who Brunson is now, as we reach the second half of May. He is the decider. He is the decoder. Basketball is a wonderful game because it can be, at the same time, both remarkably complex and painfully simple. And here’s the simple part:

It is Brunson, more than any other player on either side, who can determine the outcome of Game 7 . We have seen, plenty, what he has in him when the Knicks need it most. That’s the version we see more often. If that’s the version who takes the court at the Garden just past 3:30, there’s an awfully good chance the Knicks will be playing a basketball game in Boston on Tuesday night, despite it all.

But we have also seen, as this series has progressed, that through sheer repetition and familiarity, the Pacers have occasionally unlocked the secret of how to slow Brunson: by focusing all of their energies — and all of their basketball players — on Brunson. By bleeding half the shot clock dry by the time the Knicks offense can set up. By making Brunson work so hard to create difficult shots that he sometimes misses routine ones.

And above all else: force someone else to beat us.

And the hard truth is this: As this series has ground along, there are fewer and fewer options for the Knicks to identify as that someone else. OG Anunoby staggered off the court in Game 2 with a hamstring strain. Josh Hart spent most of Game 6 looking just about as physically uncomfortable as a basketball player can look. Deuce McBride and Donte DiVincenzo have been lights out at points in this series; they’ve also scuffled some.

The Knicks are not a one-man team.

But Sunday afternoon, they will be a one-man band, with Brunson needing to play an awful lot of instruments: scoring, passing, controlling tempo, taking his inevitable charge or two. And, most of all, serving as the Knicks’ spirit animal, their soul, their inspiration. That’s a lot to ask of one player, especially in an elimination game. It’s not going to be easy.

But, as Jimmy Dugan might say if Tom Thibodeau asked him to join his coaching staff for the day Sunday afternoon: “If it was easy, then everyone would hear ‘M! V! P!’ chants at the foul line.”

“They adjust,” Brunson said late Friday night after the Pacers had sent this series back to New York with a 116-103 win in Game 6 . “They try to make things difficult. And I have to adjust as well. Show me different looks and I have to do a better job of reading it. I just can’t be what I was for the first 40 minutes of the game.”

Again, a hard truth: If Brunson is what he was for the first 40 minutes of that game, then it’s the Pacers — who undoubtedly packed for a longer trip than just a day and half — who will be rolling the dice against the Celtics in the East Finals. There’s no escaping that. And, with the state of the Knicks’ health right now, just being average — or slightly above — might bring the same result.

Hart will try to play through the abdominal strain that had him doubled over most of Friday. Anunoby was upgraded to “questionable” for Game 7. If they can go, Brunson will have some company. If not …

The best who have ever played for the Knicks have always found a way to save the very best of themselves for the most necessary moments. In 1970, with the Knicks teetering in the first round of the playoffs against Baltimore, Willis Reed posted a 36-point, 36-rebound masterpiece in pivotal Game 5 that might be remembered as the best game a Knick ever played — if not for the 36-point, 19-assist, seven-rebound tour de force Clyde Frazier delivered against the Lakers a few weeks later in Game 7 of the Finals.

In 1984, on the loudest night at the Garden between the early ’70s and the mid-’90s, Bernard King dropped 44 on the Celtics, refusing to let the Knicks lose, insisting the Celtics beat them in Game 7 before marching on to the title. And in ’94, in his finest of many fine hours as a Knick, Patrick Ewing’s follow-jam sealed a win for the Knicks in Game 7 of the East Finals, capping a brilliant 24-point, 22-rebound game against the Pacers.

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Knicks fans remember those numbers like they remember the Pledge of Allegiance. That’s what’s on the table for Brunson on Sunday. That’s the company he can keep. It won’t be easy. Its doubtful he’d want it any other way.

Captain Clutch

Jalen Brunson and the Knicks face their first elimination game of this year’s playoffs when they host the Pacers for Game 7 of this Eastern Conference semifinals series at the Garden on Sunday. The Post takes a look at how Brunson has performed in his career in each of his elimination games.

May 12, 2023

Brunson scores nearly half of the Knicks’ points in a season-ending 96-92 loss to the Heat in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. He pours in 41 points on 14-of-22 shooting, but his turnover with 16.2 seconds left and the Knicks trailing by two ends a memorable first season in the orange and blue. In typical Brunson fashion, he faults himself for the loss despite his extraordinary individual effort.

May 10, 2023

Brunson keeps the Knicks’ season alive, scoring 38 points to go along with nine rebounds and seven assists in a Game 5, 112-103 victory over the Heat at the Garden. He plays all 48 minutes in the masterful performance.

May 26, 2022

Brunson’s breakout postseason ends on a low note. He shoots just 3-of-10 and manages just 10 points as the Warriors end the Mavericks’ season in Game 5 of the Western Conference semifinals, 120-110. It would be his last game in a Dallas uniform.

May 15, 2022

The Mavericks blast the Suns in Game 7, 123-90, and Brunson shines. He scores 24 points on 11-of-19 shooting in the one-sided road victory.

May 12, 2022

Trailing the Suns 3-2 in the Western Conference semifinals, Brunson helps the Mavericks force Game 7 by scoring 18 points and adding three steals in a 113-86 blowout win.

— Zach Braziller

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Tiger Woods makes bold ‘win’ claim ahead of PGA Championship at Valhalla

Can Tiger ever win again?

Preston Byers

Tiger Woods is one of the greatest golfers ever, but all but one of his major titles are 15 years old or older now. And with how many injuries he has sustained throughout his career, it is a fair question to ask if Woods can ever achieve the glory of winning another Major or non-Major title again. But the person who needs to believe it the most does.

While speaking to the media today ahead of the PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Course in Louisville this week, Woods said he thinks he can win resume his winning ways, but being able to keep up his play throughout the weekend has proven to be a challenge.

“I can still hit shots,” Woods said. “Getting around is more of the difficulty that I face day-to-day. And the recovery of pushing myself either in practice or in competition days. I mean, you saw it at Augusta (at The Masters); I was there after two days and didn't do very well on the weekend.

“I still feel like I can win golf tournaments. I still feel I can hit the shots and still feel like I have my hands around the greens and I can putt. I just need to do it for all four days, not like I did in Augusta for only two.”

Can Tiger Woods win PGA Tour events with injuries piling up?

Tiger Woods, now 48, has undergone numerous surgeries throughout his career. He was largely sidelined between 2014 and 2018 as his back was operated on four different times, and he has recovered from several knee surgeries throughout the course of his time as a professional as well.

While he won the 2019 Masters, his first Major championship in nearly 11 years, Woods has won just a single PGA Tour tournament since. A large factor in that, in addition to his increasing age, is a serious single-car crash in February 2021. Woods' car “sustained major damage” after the vehicle, which was traveling nearly twice the speed limit in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, rolled over and necessitated surgery on his lower body.

Dr. Anish Mahajan of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, who operated on Woods following the crash, said the golfer suffered “significant orthopaedic injuries to his right lower extremity.”

“Comminuted open fractures affecting both the upper and lower portions of the tibia and fibula bones were stabilized by inserting a rod into the tibia,” Mahajan said. “Additional injuries to the bones of the foot and ankle were stabilized with a combination of screws and pins. Trauma to the muscle and soft-tissue of the leg required surgical release of the covering of the muscles to relieve pressure due to swelling.”

Woods returned more than a year later, playing in the 2022 Masters, where he made the cut but was seen limping through the final two rounds en route to a 47th-place finish. He withdrew from the PGA Championship the following month and missed the cut at The Open Championship in July 2022.

This year at the Masters, Woods shot a 73 and 72 in the first two rounds, respectively, before freefalling down the leaderboard with an 82 and 77 in rounds three and four to finish +16 and in 60th place.

Woods will tee off with Adam Scott and Keegan Bradley at 8:04 a.m. ET on Thursday at the PGA Championship.

Preston Byers is an experienced writer and journalist who currently serves as an associate NBA, NFL, and NCAA Football editor for ClutchPoints. Preston also works as a staff writer at The Vindicator and Tribune Chronicle, and previously was a site expert for FanSided's Union and Blue.

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Scottie Scheffler's 41-round par-or-better streak ends with substitute caddie on bag at 2024 PGA Championship

The world's top-ranked golfer was without a crucial member of his team on saturday in louisville.

Scottie Scheffler had answered just about every question thrown his way in 2024. Would he putt well enough to start winning tournaments? Yes. Would he claim another major championship? Yes. Would he play and contend the week following his Masters triumph? Yes. Would he be able to balance his personal and professional life with a new child on the way? Yes.

This week at the 2024 PGA Championship, he was thrown two more. How will he compete after being arrested and released following a chaotic traffic incident ahead of Friday's second round? Will he be able to play as well Saturday with his usual caddie missing from his bag for 18 holes?

Scheffler answered the former in the affirmative, shaking off that arrest to post a 5-under 66 on Friday and shoot his way up the leaderboard. As for the latter? Well, it's a bit of his unknown.

Whether it was the change in caddie, built-up exhaustion from his chaotic Friday or (likely) a combination of the two, Scheffler finished Moving Day with a 74. Shooting 3 over, he ended a streak over which he scored par or better across 41 straight rounds dating back to Aug. 26, 2023.

"I was definitely not feeling like myself today, for sure," Scheffler told CBS's Amanda Balionis after the round. "Yesterday happened, and I did my best to recover from it, and come out here and compete today. I did a great job yesterday of coming out and competing, riding the adrenaline. This morning was definitely not my usual routine for a round, if that makes sense. … I wasn't able to get it done, which is pretty frustrating, but I'll come back and try again tomorrow."    

Steve Stricker set the PGA Tour record at 55 rounds last year, surpassing Tiger Woods' achievement of 53 straight rounds earlier in his career.

Scheffler revealed Tuesday that his bag man since late 2021, Ted Scott, would not lug his sticks around the par 71 Valhalla Golf Club on Saturday as Scott would instead attend his daughter's high school graduation. Scott flew out of Louisville on Friday evening after the second round with a plan to celebrate his daughter's achievement Saturday before return at some point in the evening evening to resume his duties for the final round Sunday.

"That's something we talked about from the beginning of our relationship was family always comes first, and it's the same thing for me as it is for my caddie," Scheffler explained. "It was a pretty easy decision. He told me at the beginning of this year that was the date that it was, so I got a backup caddie lined up. One of my buddies is going to carry the bag on Saturday, and then Ted will be back for Sunday's round."

In Scott's place, Brad Payne assumed the role as Scheffler's right-hand man for the third round. Payne currently serves as a PGA Tour chaplain after having played collegiate golf at Pepperdine University. 

"It's one of my older friends who travels week to week out here," Scheffler said. "He's the Tour chaplain. His name is Brad, and he's caddying for me on Saturday. I trust him to rake a bunker more than my buddies."

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