Tag: Adam Scott

Two-time Genesis Invitational champ Adam Scott wanted to play at Riviera so badly he wrote a letter

“I did it how I thought was right, but if writing to Tiger works, let me know.”

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. – Adam Scott didn’t want to miss the Genesis Invitational.

The tournament is conducted at Riviera Country Club, his favorite course on the PGA Tour, where he’s won twice and recorded seven top-10 finishes in 16 starts. But after finishing 72nd in last season’s FedEx Cup standings, Scott didn’t qualify for the limited field, signature event and so the former Masters champion and world No. 1 had to do something he’d never done before: he wrote to the tournament director, not to tournament host Tiger Woods, for a sponsor exemption into the 70-man field.

“I did it how I thought was right, but if writing to Tiger works, let me know,” he said.

Asked to recall the last time he had received a sponsor invite, the 43-year-old Aussie wracked his brain and came up empty.

“I probably have been invited to a tournament in Asia or something like that throughout the years, but on the Tour; it’s been a while, that’s for sure. … I’m of the view that these invitations are unrestricted to the sponsors and they can invite whoever they want and that’s up to them. So, I feel lucky that I’ve got one of them. If I didn’t, then, you know, I didn’t qualify. So that’s how it goes. I don’t expect to get invited to every tournament that I ask for either, but I am very happy to be here.”

Genesis Invitational: Picks to win, odds | Thursday tee times

Riviera is where he won as a rookie in 2005 when the event was shortened to 36 holes due to rain. He considers how he plays at Riviera as an important barometer for how prepared his game is for the upcoming major season.

“If you played well here, you’re pretty much ready for any event,” he said. “It demanded good ball striking and for most of my career, I feel I’ve been in the category of a good ball striker. I think it’s really helpful if you’re hitting your irons well, because these greens are very, very, tricky and putting from a long way away is tough.”

Scott’s last victory on Tour came at Riviera in February 2020, shortly before COVID, which had a detrimental effect on his game. (He also won the Australian PGA in his most recent start before Riviera.)

Genesis Invitational 2020
Adam Scott shares a laugh with Tiger Woods after Scott won the 2020 Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club. (Photo: Ryan Kang/Associated Press)

“I think I was playing great at the time when I won and I think I was top-10 in the world and trending in a good direction,” he said. “I have found it tougher to get back. I’m not complaining, I mean every one faced difficulties, but I sit here and I feel good about my game today and hopefully I’m on the path back to some high-level golf.”

Scott, who is ranked 48th in the world, is set to make his third Tour start this season coming off a T-8 finish last week at the WM Phoenix Open to go with another top 10 in Dubai last month. He ended the year on a high note with a T-4 at the Australian Open, and a three-stroke victory at the Cathedral Invitational, which broke his 1,389-day winning drought. Riviera with its Kikuyu grass and eucalyptus trees that smell like Australia reminds him of home.

“Even the smells feel like I’m playing as a kid back at home,” he said. “I just have this certain level of comfort.”

Which sums up why Scott is grateful to be in the field once again. “I’m so thankful to be a sponsor’s invite this week” he said, “and get the chance to have another go around Riviera at the Genesis.”

10 of the best players at the Genesis Invitational over the last 5 seasons

These players love Riviera.

The PGA Tour’s third signature event of the year has arrived, and a loaded field is in Los Angeles for the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club.

Tiger Woods, who hasn’t played an official Tour event since the Masters, last teed it up at the PNC Championship in December. Before that, he placed 18th at the Hero World Challenge.

World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Max Homa and Justin Thomas are among the players who will join Woods.

Reigning champion Jon Rahm is unable to defend his title due to his move to LIV Golf.

Genesis: Picks to win, odds

Here are 10 of the best players at the Genesis Invitational over the past five seasons.

Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson highlight 12 sponsor exemptions who won a PGA Tour event since 1990

There are five major champions on this list.

Every PGA Tour event has a handful or so of spots in the field to dole out to golfers who didn’t otherwise qualify.

Those spots may go to a past champion. They often are awarded to a rising star in the game. The strategy there is that perhaps the up-and-comer will remember the courtesy later in his pro career and will become a regular at that particular Tour stop.

Sometimes a sponsor exemption gets doled out to someone noteworthy as a means to drive interest in a tournament, such as former NFL quarterback Tony Romo, who got into the Charles Schwab Challenge, or LPGA star Lexi Thompson, who wowed the Las Vegas crowd last October before just missing the weekend cut at the Shriners Children’s Open.

According to the PGA Tour, since 1990 there have been just 12 golfers to win a tournament after getting a sponsor exemption. There’s been over 1,000 PGA Tour events in that time, proving the long odds a sponsor invite faces.

Here’s the list of those who won on the PGA Tour after receiving a sponsor exemption since 1990.

Min Woo Lee takes commanding lead at Australian PGA Championship

Min Woo Lee is trying to run away and hide.

Min Woo Lee is trying to run away and hide.

The Australian carded a 5-under 66 for the second straight day, extending his lead to three shots at the 2023 Fortinet Australian PGA Championship. A win would be his third on the DP World Tour and one of the biggest in his young career.

“I again played pretty solid,” Lee said. “A couple of mistakes but that happens. But overall, pretty happy with the way I went today.”

For the third time in as many days, Lee birdied his opening hole at Royal Queensland and added another at the third. A pair of birdies and bogeys rounded out his front nine to turn in 2 under.

On the back, the 25-year-old added three more birdies to finish his day at 17 under, three shots in front of Rikuya Hoshino.

“It’s a course where you can shoot low, so you’re going to be aggressive no matter what,” Lee said. “There’s probably a couple of holes where you don’t need to hit driver where I did the last three days. It just all depends. It’s obviously score dependent, but I’m here because I played aggressive and I played the way that the game plan has been. So, hopefully I can just do the same.”

Lee is 45th in the Official World Golf Ranking, but his last victory on the DP World Tour came two years ago at the Scottish Open. Adding a third in his home country would be special.

“At the end of last week the season, technically ended but the year hasn’t ended and I wanted a win on the DP World Tour, so it was in the back of my mind and I wanted to win,” Lee said. “So yeah, it will be amazing. Any win’s awesome. I have the potential to win but I’ve only had three wins, so it’s not like it comes off. Any time you win it’s an amazing feeling.

“I mean yeah, again, tomorrow’s just another day and hopefully I can keep going. I can just control what I can do and if someone goes out there and shoots low, hopefully I’ve finished the day happy with the way I played.”

Curtis Luck is third at 13 under with Adam Scott, who played with Lee on Saturday, fourth at 11 under.

Cameron Smith gets choked up after missing cut at Australian PGA Championship by nine strokes

Smith won this event in 2017, 2018 and 2022 and called his performance “unacceptable.”

Cameron Smith knew a good showing at this week’s Australian PGA Championship was imperative if he wanted to earn his way into next year’s Olympic Games in Paris.

Since Smith plays on the LIV Golf circuit, meaning he can’t maintain what was once a lofty spot in the Official World Golf Rankings, he needed to play well this week in Brisbane and then again next week at the Australian Open in Sydney.

The reigning champion failed miserably on the first test, missing the cut for the PGA by nine strokes on Friday by shooting a 7-over-par 78.

Smith, who was once No. 2 in the OWGR but has slipped to No. 18, was paired with Min Woo Lee, who ended the day with six birdies on his card and the top spot on the leaderboard.

For Smith, the poor showing left him emotional to the point where he was nearly moved to tears.

“Yeah, no words. Shit. I’ve performed under pressure before and it’s not acceptable, a bit upsetting actually,” he said. “I know what I’m doing, it’s just going out there and committing to something is another thing.”

Smith, who tied for 10th at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, also won this event in 2017 and 2018. He called his performance “unacceptable.”

“Australia’s been so good to me even when I have been tired so there’s no reason to really perform that way. I’ve performed under pressure before, it’s just unacceptable,” he said. “I just got on the wrong side a bunch of times and was trying to do a bit too much I think, it’s very frustrating.”

While Smith was struggling to score, Adam Scott was buzzing along, firing a 65 to tie for the day’s best round. Scott sits at 11 under at the tournament’s midpoint and just a stroke behind Lee.

“It’s always nice to have a bogey-free round, I probably haven’t had many of them this year,” Scott said. “I feel like my swing from the tee to the green is feeling better than it has for a while and that’s a nice thing for me.”

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Adam Scott hoping to ride the Atlantic Ocean waves to win at Butterfield Bermuda Championship

It’s been a decade since Adam Scott shot a then-course-record 64 to win at Port Royal Golf Course.

It’s been a decade since Adam Scott shot a then-course-record 64 to win the now-defunct Grand Slam of Golf at Port Royal Golf Course in Southampton, Bermuda. He was the reigning Masters champion at the time and on the verge of reaching world No. 1. This week, he returns to compete there for the first time at the PGA Tour’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship and listed a variety of reasons for doing so.

“I think whenever you’re coming back to a place where you’ve had good results, there’s a positive vibe, that’s for sure,” he said Tuesday during a pre-tournament interview.

Scott, 43, who hails from Australia and is gearing up to play some events in his native land later this month, was a late addition to the field. He appeared in Boston at Fenway Park on Monday for the official announcement of his role on Boston Common, one of six franchises in TGL, the new tech-forward, prime-time team golf league developed by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy’s TMRW Sports in partnership with the Tour.

“This time of year I’m really not around the East Coast normally,” he said.

The other draw for Scott is to end his more than three-year drought without a victory, which dates to the 2020 Genesis Invitational. Scott had a pedestrian season by his standard, recording four top-10 finishes in 18 starts. He’s dropped from 72nd in the FedEx Cup standings to 85th while playing just once during the FedEx Cup Fall to date.

“I’m not going to get results being on the couch at home,” said Scott, who is seeking a 15th Tour title. “I’m here to try and win this golf tournament. I’ve been working at a lot of different things in my game and I’m trying to put it all together here this week.”

2022 Butterfield Bermuda Championship
Seamus Power hits his first shot on the 17th hole during the final round of the 2022 Butterfield Bermuda Championship at Port Royal Golf Course on October 30, 2022, in Southampton, Bermuda. (Photo: Andy Lyons/Getty Images)

At just 21 square miles in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, Bermuda isn’t a big island but it loves its golf, boasting four championship golf courses and a handful of shorter courses. It gives Bermuda one of the highest ratios of golf courses to land area in the world. Port Royal was designed by Robert Trent Jones Sr., and plays 6,828 yards, making it the island’s longest test but the shortest on the Tour.

Scott has been pleased with his driving this season, which may allow him to take advantage of his length, and calls his putting the strongest part of his game. He’s hard at work trying to improve on a part of his game that he sees as a glaring weakness.

“If we’re going to look at the stats this year, my iron play was the worst,” he said. “I think I was about 18th in strokes gained driving, so I didn’t feel too bad about that, but my iron play is stand-out terrible this year. So I’ve been addressing that and I’ve made some equipment changes and, you know, testing some of that stuff still this week.”

Nevertheless, Scott enters this week as the second-highest ranked player in the field at No. 45 in the world behind only Lucas Glover (No. 31) and a favorite among the field of 132 to hoist the trophy on Sunday.

“Many different times in my career I’ve come to events as the favorite, world No. 1 or in good form with expectations being high,’’ he said. “That’s what I like, that’s the environment I want to be in. If it is the case this week that I feel like I’m the best player here, it might help me perform a little bit better.

“I don’t fight pressure like that, you can feed off that expectation a little bit.”

Asked if there was anything off the course that he was looking forward to doing during his visit to the tropical paradise, Scott, an avid surfer, gave one more reason he was excited to be back at Bermuda.

“Getting in the ocean, that’s what I miss most of the year everywhere I go,” he said. “And the water looks beautiful, so I can’t wait to get in the ocean.”

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Boston-based TGL squad features Rory McIlroy, local favorite Keegan Bradley

Bradley is an avid Boston sports fan and won a high school state championship in Massachusetts in 2004.

It’s been a good news, bad news morning for TGL, the new tech-infused golf league led by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy.

The bad news? Jon Rahm will no longer be playing in 2024 when the league begins in January. The good news? Team rosters are now being announced.

The Boston-based team, named Boston Common Golf, became the first squad to announce its four-player roster of McIlroy, Keegan Bradley, Tyrrell Hatton and Adam Scott on Thursday morning. Justin Thomas (Atlanta) and Collin Morikawa (Los Angeles) were the first two players to sign with a team.

The signing of Bradley to the Boston team makes sense given his ties to the Northeast. The six-time PGA Tour winner and 2011 PGA champion grew up in Vermont and briefly lived in a Boston suburb in high school.

McIlroy, the world No. 2, is a four-time major champion and 27-time winner on the PGA Tour. Two of those wins came in the Boston area at the former Deutsche Bank Championship, held annually from 2003-18 at TPC Boston in Norton, Massachusetts.

Hatton’s fiery personality would fit in well in parts of Boston, not to mention the six-time European Tour winner and 2020 Arnold Palmer Invitational champion has a strong relationship with McIlroy from their time spent together on the three European Ryder Cup teams.

Scott is a 14-time winner on Tour, including the 2003 Deutsche Bank Championship, 2004 Players Championship and 2013 Masters.

The first TGL match is slated to air on ESPN on Jan. 9, 2024. More on the league format can be found here.

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2023 Zozo Championship: Collin Morikawa’s early success among 5 things you missed from round 1

Here are five things you need to know from the opening round of the Zozo Championship.

Collin Morikawa isn’t the type to allow himself to think too far ahead but even he acknowledged that winning the Zozo Championship in Japan, the country where his father’s side of the family grew up, would hold a special place in his heart.

“There’s obviously a little bit more meaning to this tournament for me, but look, a win’s a win, I’ll take a win anywhere, right?” he said. “I’m doing everything I can the next three days and kind of tonight to make sure I give myself the best opportunity to do that.”

He’s off to a flying start, posting a bogey-free 6-under 64 on Thursday at Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club in the Chiba Prefecture of Japan, the third time he’s shot that figure in 13 career rounds at the course. Morikawa, who started on the back nine, raced to three birdies in his first four holes and barely slowed down. He tacked on birdies at Nos. 16 and 17 and one more on his inward nine at the sixth. He drained an uphill 8-foot par putt at his last hole of the day to grab a one-stroke lead over five golfers.

Morikawa has won five times on the PGA Tour, including a pair of majors, at the precocious age of 26. But he’s also winless since the 2021 British Open and is anxious to get back into the winner’s circle. He blew a six-stroke 54-hole lead at the Sentry Championship in January and nearly won the Rocket Mortgage Classic in July, losing in a playoff to Rickie Fowler. In the last two seasons, he’s recorded 14 top-10 finishes, tied with Tommy Fleetwood for the most during that span without a win. Morikawa is making his first start during the FedEx Cup Fall and competing for the first time since the Ryder Cup.

“Taking a few weeks off, you never know what you’re going to get, but I’ve been kind of working on a few things trying to get control of the golf ball, spent a lot of time putting yesterday,” Morikawa said. “It’s nice to kind of see the work I’ve put in, just kind of recreate that on the golf course.”

Here are four more things to know from the first round of the Zozo Championship.

These players’ PGA Tour seasons came to an end at the Wyndham Championship

Matt Kuchar owns the distinction of being the only player to qualify for the playoffs every year since 2007.

GREENSBORO, N.C. — And then there was one.

Matt Kuchar now owns the distinction of being the only player to qualify for the playoffs in each season since the inception of the FedEx Cup in 2007.

Kuchar finished T-39 at the Wyndham Championship on Sunday and enters the playoffs, which begin next week in Memphis, at No. 60 in the season-long point standings.

This season, only the top 70 in the FedEx Cup standings qualify for the first playoff event, the FedEx St. Jude Championship, down from 125 (2009-2022), which made it much tougher.

After plenty of drama, only one player, tournament winner Lucas Glover advanced to the playoffs and Austin Eckroat, who entered the week at No. 70 but missed the cut, got knocked out.

Justin Thomas, meanwhile, was the odd-man out at No. 71.

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PGA Tour pros sound off on cuts at Arnie, Jack and Tiger’s legacy events

“If he wants to have a cut in his event, I think that’s more than OK to allow,” said Justin Thomas

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods deserve respect for what they did to make the PGA Tour what it is today.

It is only fitting that Tiger and Jack and the caretakers of the Palmer legacy should have a say in how the tournaments they host are contested. Jack’s Memorial and the Arnold Palmer Invitational have been 120-man events for years while Tiger became involved in the Genesis Invitational at Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California, more recently and it got bumped to higher status in 2020.

Golfweek has learned that those three signature events, the new name for the Tour’s eight designated events, will continue to have a cut in 2024. Here’s what Billy Horschel, Adam Scott, Kevin Streelman and Justin Thomas think about that.

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