According to a story on TMZ Sports, Wayne Gretzky recorded a hole-in-one at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, California, to end his year.
Gretzky reportedly used a 9-iron on the par-3 sixth hole, which was playing 140 yards. TMZ also reported that Masters champ Dustin Johnson, who is engaged to Gretzky’s daughter Paulina, called from vacation in Hawaii to congratulate his future father-in-law.
In October, Gretzky put his mansion in Thousand Oaks back on the market for nearly $10 million more than he bought it for just three years ago. He built the home with his actress/model wife Janet Jones in 2002 and then sold the property to former Major League Baseball star Lenny Dykstra for $18.5 million in 2007. Dykstra later fell into debt and the home was auctioned off, it changed hands twice before Gretzky again purchased the property — this time for $13.5 million. It is still for sale.
After wrapping up disappointing weeks at the Zozo Championship at Sherwood on a soggy Sunday north of Los Angeles, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson turned their attention to the Masters in November.
The itineraries of the two men who have won eight green jackets and 20 majors between them are far from chiseled in stone. Both could put a peg in the ground in the Vivant Houston Open the week before the Masters. Both could take the next two weeks off. Mickelson might even play in a PGA Tour Champions event.
What is finalized is that neither will play a competitive round this coming week.
On Sunday, their play matched the grey, listless skies above. Playing together for the 38th time as professionals, neither got any momentum going; both hit into a water hazard. Woods birdied the last to shoot 2-over-par 74, Mickelson a 78. Adam Long, the third member in the group, shot 71.
“The only thing I can take out of this week that I did positively I feel like each and every day and pretty much every hole is I putted well,” said Woods, the defending champion who finished with rounds of 76-66-71-74 and 22 shots behind winner Patrick Cantlay. The 76 and 74 were two of the three worst rounds he’s ever shot at Sherwood in 52 rounds. He won five times here and finished runner-up five times in 12 starts heading into this week. “I feel like I rolled it great. Unfortunately, most of them were for pars and a couple for bogeys here and there, but not enough for birdies.”
Woods has just one top-10 this year in eight starts.
“Work needs to be done,” said Joe LaCava, Woods’ caddie. “Good news is he’s not afraid of hard work. It all needs work. And he realizes that. Nothing was really bad, but nothing was really sharp.
Tiger Woods plays a shot on the tenth hole during the final round of the Zozo Championship @ Sherwood on Oct. 25, 2020 in Thousand Oaks, California. Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
“The biggest positive is he felt pretty decent each and every day. And after the rounds he still felt pretty strong. And those were 5-hour rounds, tough, soft walks. That’s a good sign. He’s certainly feeling better than the last stretch from the PGA Championship through the U.S. Open. And that, in turn, will allow him to practice. Now, he still has to put the time in and work at it. Which he will.”
Woods said he will consider playing the Houston Open, but he’s never played the week before the Masters in 20 starts there as a professional. Yes, he needs competitive reps, but he likely will find it more beneficial to work at home.
“We were talking about that this morning, our progression and our training sessions, and we’ll be in the gym tomorrow afternoon and get back after it that way,” Woods said. “But I’ll make a decision quickly on whether or not I’m going to play Houston or not.”
What he does know is Augusta National. And he knows what he’ll need there to successfully defending his 2019 title when he won his fifth green jacket.
“Each and every year same thing, hitting the ball high draws, making sure I can hit a high draw anytime I want,” he said. “There are a few holes like 10 and 13, a little bit on 14, depends on the conditions, but it’s so advantageous to hit a high draw.
“That’s always been my game plan ever since I was an amateur.”
Mickelson posted rounds of 72-74-67-78 to finish at 6 over. While he has three top-3s on the PGA Tour this year in 15 starts, he’s missed seven cuts and finished worse than a tie for 41st on five occasions.
He has won both of his starts on the senior circuit.
“Disappointing week, but fun,” Mickelson said. “I love the golf course and got a few things out of the week. I have some pretty good direction on where I need to go with my game and I’ll take this week to work on it.”
Mickelson said he will talk with his wife, Amy, to decided if he’ll play the Houston Open at Memorial Park or head to Arizona for the PGA Tour Champions’ Charles Schwab Cup Championship at Phoenix Country Club.
Mickelson said he’s concerned, despite the PGA Tour’s highly successful protocols to deal with COVID-19, about the Houston Open’s decision to allow 2,000 fans per day on site. That might send him westward unless the Champions’ event allows spectators. If both allow fans, he’ll likely play Houston.
“I’ll see what course is best to get ready and I’ll do that,” he said. “But this week I’ll take to work on a couple of things and, you know, see if I can get my game sharper. I need to be much more disciplined out here. Obviously I’m making way too many mistakes and big numbers and penalty strokes and so forth, and the Champions Tour is a little bit more forgiving, you can recover a little bit easier, pins aren’t as penalizing.
“So I certainly enjoy that style of play because I can play aggressive and it’s more comparable to the way Augusta is because Augusta allows you to recover a number of times if you hit less‑than‑perfect shots.”
Patrick Cantlay had nine birdies on Sunday and rallied past third-round leader Justin Thomas to claim the 2020 Zozo Championship at Sherwood.
Patrick Cantlay charged up the leaderboard on Sunday at the Zozo Championship and perhaps didn’t even realize he had vaulted into the lead.
Golf Channel’s on-course reporter Notah Begay was following Cantlay and his group and mentioned a couple times there’s a stretch on the back nine where there is not a scoreboard.
Maybe that was a good thing.
Cantlay had nine birdies in his stellar final round, including three in a row on Nos. 13-15. His 2 on the par-3 15th was almost a 1, as his tee shot was dead-on the flagstick. His ball almost went into the hole on the second bounce. He then drained a left-to-right 10-footer to get to 24 under.
His lead went to three after a bogey by third-round leader Justin Thomas on the 15th hole.
Cantlay bogeyed the 16th but parred 17 and 18 to post a final-round 65, and then he had to wait.
Thomas couldn’t keep pace. He parred all three par-5s on the back nine and bogeyed the par-3 15th after he plugged his ball in deep grass on the rocky face short of the green.
Jon Rahm, playing in the final group with Thomas, also made a run, taking the outright lead with a birdie at 11, but he then gave two back with bogeys on 12 and 13. He later made birdie on 16 to get to 22 under to get within a shot of Cantlay.
Rahm needed a birdie on 18 to force a playoff but his 19-footer on the last was wide right. Thomas then made a birdie to forge a T-2 finish with Rahm at 22 under.
Russell Henley, Cameron Smith, Bubba Watson and Ryan Palmer were T-4 at 19 under, four shots back.
Cantlay’s win at Sherwood is his third PGA Tour win and marks the third year in a row he’s won on Tour, following his 2019 Memorial and 2018 Shriners Hospitals for Children Open titles.
The PGA Tour heads to the Bermuda Championship next week, where Brendon Todd is the defending champion.
Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are mostly having a ho-hum week at the Zozo Championship but they’re giving golf fans a nice little treat on Sunday. As Justin Ray of the 15th Club points out, Tiger and Phil will be grouped in a PGA Tour round for the …
Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are mostly having a ho-hum week at the Zozo Championship but they’re giving golf fans a nice little treat on Sunday.
As Justin Ray of the 15th Club points out, Tiger and Phil will be grouped in a PGA Tour round for the 38th time in the final round at Sherwood Country Club.
That ties Mickelson with Ernie Els for most rounds played with the Big Cat all-time.
Justin Thomas holds a one shot lead headed into the final round of the Zozo Championship, but don’t count out Jon Rahm.
The Zozo Championship ought to be renamed The Shootout at Sherwood. On another overcast, windless day with soft conditions, the Zozo at Sherwood Country Club continued to be a birdie-fest. The scores through 54 holes look like the Bob Hope Desert Classic. As Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee put it, “It’s like these guys are in a 100-meter race and everybody’s running downhill.”
Justin Thomas sprinted to the lead on Friday and while he didn’t have his best stuff on Moving Day, he birdied two of the last three holes to fire 5-under 67 and maintain a one-stroke lead over Jon Rahm.
“It was a good fight, hung in there well,” Thomas said. “To shoot a round like that is huge on a course like this. Usually I’m grinding to shoot a 1, 2, 3 under, but here at Sherwood the scores are very low and you need to be able to, as crazy as it is, shoot 5 under to keep pace.”
Thomas was coasting along early with birdies at his first two holes, but a bogey at eight and a couple wild shots, including one he hit off the cart path at No. 13, allowed the chasers to catch and pass Thomas. As Thomas will be the first to attest, you have to keep playing offense at Sherwood.
“You literally can birdie every single hole out here,” he said. “if you’re playing well, you can really get after it.”
Thomas, No.3 in the world, is in position to claim his 14th PGA Tour title this week because his putting stroke may have never looked better. He started working with putting coach John Graham ahead of the U.S. Open in September and this week he ranks third in the field in Strokes Gained: Putting. At 17, Thomas drained a 28-foot birdie putt to improve to 19 under and claim the 54-hole lead. But Thomas, who has closed out eight of his previous 13 54-hole leads on the Tour, knows he will need to go low on Sunday if he expects to hoist the trophy this week.
“It’s a course where you can shoot 61, 62, 63 so I can’t go out and protect the lead, I have to build it,” he said.
Especially with the World No. 2 breathing down his neck. Rahm charged up the leaderboard early playing his first seven holes in 6-under par. Rahm sank a pair of 17-foot putts on the first two holes, the latter for eagle, and he was off to the races.
“Just one dropped and it’s like OK, it’s possible to make putts and just keep going,” he said. “The last five and a half rounds my putter was absolutely cold, didn’t make anything at all. And I think the stats are there to back me up because last week I was, I think, bottom five putting and up to yesterday before getting to the back nine I was probably in bottom 10 percent. It was that putt on 11, that 20-footer for eagle that I made just kind of freed me up a little bit, made a couple more putts. And then today those putts on 1 and 2 were really helpful, obviously were key to good momentum and got confidence going. Nothing technical at all, though.”
And while the idea of World Nos. 2 and 3 trading birdies on Sunday is quite appealing, don’t rule out a spoiler such as Lanto Griffin, No. 59 in the world, who trails by two strokes after shooting 68. Griffin notched his maiden Tour title last year at the Houston Open and came out guns blazing on Saturday, making birdie at his first four holes. He had a share of the lead until he bogeyed two of his final four holes. He said he will try to draw on his experience of chasing victory in Houston last year, but conceded the bar has been raised.
“Playing against Jon Rahm and Justin Thomas is different. It’s a different field, there’s no way around it, so I’m going to have to play really well tomorrow, I’m aware of that,” he said. “But it’s fun. This is what I dreamed about, position I dreamed about being in my whole life. From being on mini tours, the Korn Ferry Tour, now to be here playing with the best players in the world in the final group, it’s a lot of fun.”
Others are lurking including Patrick Cantlay, who is the only player in the field bogey-free through 54 holes, and is part of a trio of players three back.
“It will be a little bit of a shootout, and hopefully around here you can get off to a quick start, so that’s the plan for tomorrow and try and make as many birdies as I can,” Cantlay said.
Another half dozen players including Bubba Watson and Scottie Scheffler, the last player to shoot 59 on Tour, are lurking four behind. With birdies being made in bunches, no lead is safe, said Thomas, who has failed to convert his last two 54-hole leads.
“It’s really tough,” he said of sleeping on the lead. “It doesn’t matter how big the lead is.”
Check out Sunday tee times, TV and streaming information for the PGA Tour’s Zozo Championship at Sherwood.
With the November Masters on the horizon, the world’s top players prep their games on the West Coast during the Zozo Championship at Sherwood.
After Saturday’s third round, Justin Thomas holds a one-shot lead at 19 under after carding a third-round 67. Jon Rahm sits in second at 18 under. Rahm finished Saturday with a bogey-free 9-under 63 to jump 20 spots up the leaderboard.
Lanto Griffin is in third at 17 under while Sebastián Muñoz, Ryan Palmer and Patrick Cantlay are T-4 at 16 under.
Tiger Woods shot a 71 on Saturday to sit T-68 at 3 under.
From tee times to TV info, here’s everything you need to know for the final round on Sunday.
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You know it wasn’t the round Tiger Woods was looking for when the highlight was a par he made on the front side.
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – You know it wasn’t the round Tiger Woods was looking for when the highlight was a par he made on the front side.
Granted, it was a ridiculous par, but when you’re trying to build momentum heading to Augusta National and time is on the short side, Saturday’s third round of the Zozo Championship at Sherwood wasn’t what Woods had in mind.
“Well, it wasn’t very good,” Woods said of his round of 1-under-par 71, which left him at 3 under through 54 holes and 16 shots behind leader Justin Thomas. “I hit a lot of balls left today and made the round a lot harder than it should have been. The golf course is playing a little bit harder, but jeez, it’s still gettable.
“Obviously there’s a lot of low rounds and I wasn’t one of them.”
There were 44 rounds posted in the 60s. That’s where Woods, who won this championship last year in Japan, expected to be each day on a course where he’s won five times and finished runner-up five times in 12 starts. But he began with a 76 – his worst score in 51 trips around Sherwood – and then made eight birdies in a second-round 66. But on Saturday, Woods couldn’t get anything going – except the ball going left.
“I missed a few balls left today and need to get that fixed for tomorrow and clean that up. I was hitting it solid, that’s the thing. I flushed all the shots. They were just starting left,” Woods said. “Hopefully, tomorrow it will be better and I can shoot a low round and take some positives out of this week.
“I feel like today I had a good warmup session and just didn’t quite hit it as good as I did in my warmup. Put the ball in some bad spots. But the golf course was gettable and I just didn’t do it.”
While Woods made three birdies, the best shot he hit came on the par-4 fourth hole. After finding the fairway with his 277-yard tee shot, he missed the green to the left. That would have been enough trouble to deal with, especially chipping to a tight pin, but making matters worse was a tree that stood between Woods and the green. After surveying the situation, Woods flopped the ball through the V-shaped tree and watched it come to a stop less than two feet from the hole.
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being superb, you might have given it a 15.
“Well, I had a gap,” Woods said with a big smile as he thoroughly enjoyed recalling the shot. “Had to get it over one clump of branches, but also keep it below the next (clump of branches).
“It all worked out great and had a simple tap‑in. Easy 4.”
Sunday’s final round of the Zozo could be his last competitive 18 before heading to Augusta National to defend his 2019 Masters title, although he said earlier this week he might play the Vivint Houston Open the week before the Masters. But Woods has never played the week before the 20 Masters he has played as a pro, so Sunday’s round has some meaning. And Woods will be grouped with Phil Mickelson, so that could help get the juices flowing.
“Well, I think obviously I’m not even close to even getting in the top‑10, but if I can just play well shot for shot and build on what I had yesterday, that would be a positive,” Woods said. “If I can do something similar to what I did (Friday), I’ll have a lot of positives. As I said, I flushed it today, the ball was just starting left.”
Check out Round 3 tee times, TV and streaming information for the PGA Tour’s Zozo Championship at Sherwood.
With the November Masters on the horizon, the world’s top players prep their games on the West Coast during the Zozo Championship at Sherwood.
After Friday’s second round, Justin Thomas holds a one-shot lead at 14 under after back-to-back rounds of 65. Dylan Frittelli and Lanto Griffin, who also shot second-round 65s, are T-2 at 13 under headed in to the weekend.
Patrick Cantlay and Scottie Scheffler are T-4 at 12 under while Bubba Watson is tied with Richy Werenski, who shot a course-record 61 on Friday, and six others are T-6 at 11 under.
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Justin Thomas had no experience with Sherwood headed into the 2020 Zozo Championship, but he has the lead through 36 holes.
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – Justin Thomas knew next to nothing about Sherwood Country Club when he set foot on the grounds to get ready for the Zozo Championship at Sherwood.
“I remember 18 and 17 and is it 15 a little bit just from seeing them on TV?” Thomas said.
Hasn’t taken him long to acclimate. Especially to the back nine.
Thomas posted his second consecutive 7-under-par 65 on Friday to take the lead in the Zozo at 14 under through 36 holes. He has shot 60 this week on the back nine, which features three par-5s. Thomas shot 7-under 29 in the first round on the back nine and a 5-under 31 in the second round.
“I think it’s a coincidence,” Thomas said of his success on the back nine. “One extra par-5 on the back helps, and I parred three of the par-5s on the front, so that’s a big difference right there. I feel like you can get just as hot on the front nine, I just haven’t done so. Hopefully I’ll do it one of these days this weekend.
“(The course) is not very difficult. It’s short and the greens are soft right now. So obviously if they get firmer and they tuck the pins a little bit more, it is going to be harder and the scores will be higher. With some of the pins that they’ve had and definitely just the softer conditions, that’s good scoring conditions for us.”
There certainly has been.
Thomas is just one clear of a stampede of players rolling toward the top of the leaderboard. Just one back are Lanto Griffin (65) and Dylan Frittelli (65). Two back are Patrick Cantlay (65) and Scottie Scheffler (65).
Eight players are three back at 11 under, including Richy Werenski, who shot a course-record 61. Also at 11 under are Patrick Reed (63), Bubba Watson (63), Tyrell Hatton (68), Harris English (67), Abraham Ancer (66), Tony Finau (64) and Kevin Kisner (67). Eight more players are at 10 under.
Thomas is already comfortable at Sherwood. Then again, he’s usually comfortable on most courses. The 2017 PGA Tour Player of the Year, a five-win campaign that included victory in the PGA Championship, is looking for his 14th PGA Tour title. The world No. 3 has six top-10 finishes in 12 starts since play resumed in June following a 13-week break due to COVID-19, including a win in WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational.
“I played well. I’m not very pleased with the finish. The last six holes I would have liked to at least have got something. Definitely having a 5‑iron and a 5‑wood out of the fairway into two par-5s and making two pars is not good,” Thomas said. “I had a great par save there on eight and I hit a lot of good shots, I just wasn’t near as tight and tidy those last four holes. So just try to go work on that a little bit to where hopefully it’s fixed for the weekend.”
Bubba Watson shot his best round on the PGA Tour in 28 months when he posted a 63 in the second round of the Zozo Championship on Friday.
Bubba Watson is getting it going.
Watson shot his best round on the PGA Tour in 28 months when he posted a 63 in the second round of the Zozo Championship on Friday.
He did shoot a 62 to open the QBE Shootout last December but that’s not an official PGA Tour event. The last time he shot a 63 on Tour was in the second and final rounds of the 2018 Travelers, also the last time he won Tour.
More than that, Watson said he was just having fun on Friday at Sherwood Country Club when he played with Cameron Champ and Dylan Frittelli for a second day in a row.
“On 16, I made fun of them,” Watson said after his round. “They all hit woods in there and I hit 3-iron in there and made eagle. So I said, ‘Hey, this old guy’s still got it, so just remember that.’ So we had a fun day and it was good golf for everybody.”
Watson hit all 18 greens on Friday, leading to eight birdies and an eagle. His only bogey came on the 9th green when he three-putted. Maybe his new driver is helping, too. The two-time Masters champion put a customized pink and black G425 LST driver in his bag last week Shadow Creek, with the word “BUBBA” in pink across the crown, and he’s using it again at Sherwood.
But mostly, he’s just having fun.
“When I’m joking around with guys and shooting the breeze, it makes it easier for me, just makes me just not really think about much and just poking fun at people and just having a blast out there,” Watson said. “You know, a lot of times we get stiff out there, especially if – there’s certain guys that just don’t talk much, and so when you have guys that you can joke around with and shoot the breeze with, it loosens me up.”
Watson, who’s from Florida and played at the University of Georgia, seems to really get a charge out of being in Southern California.
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“When I come to L.A. I just love it, hanging out with all the guys I know from here, people from Warner Brothers, some celebrities here and there, and then the all-popular Judah Smith and Ryan Good and Jason Kennedy. Judah Smith started a church here so I was part of that a little bit. So we had Bible study the other day.
“It’s just shooting the breeze with guys that I really look up to and learn from when it comes from the mental side of a so-called being a celebrity and how to deal with life that way. It just makes L.A. . … brings the best out in me because I got to shoot the breeze with guys that I look up to and want to learn from.”
