If you can’t watch Tiger Woods and his star-studded group on Thursday morning at the 2022 PGA Championship, don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
The 15-time major champion is back at the home of his 2007 PGA win at Southern Hill Country Club in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is playing alongside fellow stars Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth. The last time we saw Woods was when he miraculously made the cut at the Masters in his return to competitive golf following a single-car accident that nearly cost him his leg.
Take a scroll through Woods opening round with shot-by-shot updates from Thursday at Southern Hills.
“Phil was not missed,” said Dave Stockton, who won the PGA Championship in 1970 and 1976. “I think Phil would have been a big distraction. The story here this week is the PGA.”
Mickelson would have hosted the dinner after becoming the oldest major champion last year when he won the PGA Championship at Kiawah Island two months shy of turning 51. Mickelson elected not to defend his title this year as he extended his self-imposed hiatus from the game following disparaging remarks of the PGA Tour and the oppressive Saudi Arabia regime, which is financially backing Greg Norman’s rival LIV Golf Investments.
Joining Stockton for the dinner were past champions Collin Morikawa, Jeff Sluman, Rory McIlroy, Mark Brooks, Jason Dufner, Rich Beem, Martin Kaymer, Jason Dufner, Padraig Harrington and Keegan Bradley.
“So last night I spoke,” Stockton said. “It was surreal for me. I’m used to being the youngest and now I was clearly the oldest, which at 80 years of age that kind of shakes you up a bit.
“And then at the end Mark Brooks got up, they got him up, and he immediately had everybody comment what’s their worst shot and best shot.”
Morikawa, obviously, said his best shot was his driver on the par-4 16th hole at Harding Park in the final round of the 2020 PGA Championship which came to rest seven feet from the hole. Morikawa canned the putt for eagle and won by two.
“Everybody had a similar story and everything,” Stockton said. “It was fun.”
Last week’s AT&T Byron Nelson at TPC Craig Ranch outside of Dallas was feeling like another empty tournament for the world No. 10 and gold medalist from the Tokyo Summer Games. His year to date already had been below his lofty standards aside from teaming with Patrick Cantlay to win the Zurich Classic and after going bogey-double bogey on the second and third holes of the second round, he was 3 over in the tournament that was a birdie fest.
“Some terrible things. Not going to lie,” Schauffele said this week about what he was thinking heading to the fourth tee that day. “It’s so weird when you’re playing so poorly, or scoring so poorly, I should say. Scoring really poorly, kind of frees you up. I had nothing to lose.
“So I pretty much had that nothing-to-lose mindset for quite some time throughout that tournament. And I was just chasing.”
That’s when Schauffele lit a fire under himself. One could make a case for quite a few players as being the hottest coming into Southern Hills Country Club for the 104th PGA Championship. World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who has won four tournaments since February, including the Masters. Three-time major winner Jordan Spieth, who has gone W-2 his last two starts. Last week’s winner, K.H. Lee, who shot 26 under.
But is anyone scalding hot like Schauffele? In his final 51 holes of the Byron Nelson, he was 26 under – he made 24 birdies and an eagle without a bogey to finish in a tie for third. Repeat. Twenty-six under over 51 holes.
“Big for me. The Zurich tournament with Patrick was really nice, sort of half the stress. I was playing well at the time, and getting that win was important but if you look before Zurich, how my year was going, very kind of stale, for me, in my feelings and how my team sort of view how I’m supposed to play,” Schauffele said. “So it was nice to kind of put that aside, and Friday, I had that stale feeling for a little bit and then kind of woke up and made a lot of birdies.”
Was it his best stretch of golf as a pro?
“You tell me,” he said.
OK, we will. In terms of three consecutive rounds, Schauffele’s 193 total in rounds 2-4 (he shot 67-65-61) was one better than his previous best.
“It was kind of a cherry on top to finish with a 61 last week,” he said. “But whenever you’re playing bad and can kind of get back in position and shoot a good score, it’s always a really good thing for the player in terms of confidence.”
Schauffele’s last of four PGA Tour titles came in the 2019 Sentry Tournament of Champions. While he’s finished in the top 10 in nine of 19 majors, he has yet to capture his first.
“I haven’t had the best of years up to this point, for the most part, I’d say, in terms of consistency,” he said. “So I think me just getting back to sort of my process and being patient and not really trying to do too much. Just sort of when I do really well in majors and I’m not worried throughout the week. I kind of have that feeling now. I think mentally I’m in a good spot.”
Which will play well at Southern Hills, which will not allow a birdie fest.
“It’s tough. It’s going to be really hard. I think PGA Championships for the most part, people feel like you can kind of shoot lower in them than most majors. But I think this year is going to be a different story,” he said. “Southern Hills is no joke. You know, it’s going to take a lot of patience and a lot of good quality shots just to kind of shoot around par.
“You just have to play smart. They are going to be long rounds, not just because they are hitting over other greens and waiting, stuff like that. It’s going to be long just because you have to really think. You have to be smart. It’s going to be a mental battle and you really have to stay patient.”
If the first tee shot was any closer to the Southern Hills pro shop, they’d have to open a window to play through.
When the PGA Championship blasts off the first tee Thursday at Southern Hills Country Club, the television and streaming cameras will be sure to focus on the great view downhill to the opening fairway and the long views of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Coverage may also show a rarity that makes that first shot at Southern Hills special: The opening hole features a back tee box that is certainly among the closest tees to a clubhouse found anywhere. The design almost makes golfers feel as if they are teeing off from the clubhouse patio.
How close is it? During normal member play, you can almost hear the cash register in the pro shop and feel the air conditioning when the doors to the shop are opened. It’s not more than 10 steps from the pro shop door, across a small wall adorned with shrubs and flowers.
A view of the first tee and stands at Southern Hills from near the pro shop door (Todd Kelly/Golfweek)
There are other examples in championship golf of tees close to the clubhouse. Merion, Pebble Beach, Oakmont and Riviera spring to mind. But with the stands and the edge of the building wrapped around the players, there might not be such an intimate gathering spot for a first tee as at Southern Hills. If players were much closer to the building, they’d need to open a window to play through.
Of course, most members don’t play that back tee box, which stretches the hole to 468 yards for the PGA. The regular tee is down the hill a bit and across a cart path, sparing members the possible indignity of rocketing one off in a weird direction from so close to the clubhouse.
A golfer prepares to tee off the regular members tee on No. 1 at Southern Hills Country Club in April, before the course’s rough came out of dormancy. (Jason Lusk/Golfweek)
For the PGA Championship, the back tee also will feature an adjacent set of stands built atop what is normally a practice green. It will be a tight area, with the stands and the clubhouse pinching around the teeing area, perhaps adding a few extra nerves to anybody not used to teeing off in the national championship.
Also nearby is the tee for No. 10, which sits atop the hill just to the side of the clubhouse with that par 4 playing off to the right in relation to No. 1. Players on Nos. 1 and 10 likely will have to coordinate who swings when to make sure they don’t distract each other. All in all, a very busy spot.
Instead of sadness at how far the most beloved golfer since Arnold Palmer has fallen, however, there should be a sense of relief. Bad as it’s been to see his image and reputation go up in flames from a distance, it would be far worse to see the blaze up close.
And that’s exactly what would have happened had Mickelson showed up at Southern Hills.
Neither will show Mickelson in a positive light, and he will not be able to dodge the pointed questions whenever he does resurface. The more space he can put between himself and the revelations that undermine the Man of the People image he’s crafted so carefully all these years, the better.
That’s a distance that cannot be measured in days or even weeks, mind you, but rather in months and major championships. He’s already missed the Masters and now the PGA. If Mickelson is smart, he won’t play the U.S. and British Opens, either.
That’s how corrosive the vile and selfish things Mickelson said, and were said about him in Shipnuck’s book, are.
“Mickelson’s future was unlimited,” Shipnuck wrote, “as long as he could avoid saying something stupid.”
Mickelson is hardly the first athlete who has turned out to be not what he seemed, his true self a disappointment to those who conflated athletic ability with moral character. What makes Mickelson’s fall so stunning was that he was so committed to the con.
For 30-some years now, he has presented himself as Every Man. With his goofy grin, a penchant for audacity that bordered on reckless and an endless patience for seemingly everyone who wanted an autograph, a ball or just a high five, he made fans feel special. Seen.
He was an entertainer as much as an athlete, and he gave everyone a front-row seat to his circus.
But like every show under the big top, it was as much illusion as it was reality.
According to Shipnuck’s book, Mickelson can be gracious and kind. He is generous with his tips for clubhouse attendants and waiters. He paid to retrofit the house of a casual acquaintance after he was paralyzed in a motorcycle crash. Upon hearing that fellow pro Ryan Palmer’s wife had been diagnosed with breast cancer, Mickelson immediately put Palmer in touch with the doctors who had treated his wife, Amy.
But Mickelson also can be immature and cruel, delighting in other’s failings and dredging up embarrassments years later. He is also ruthlessly calculating.
In Shipnuck’s book, Brandel Chamblee shares a story from early in Mickelson’s career of Mickelson blowing off a child who wanted an autograph, telling the boy he’d come back after his round.
“This little boy was crestfallen,” Chamblee recalled. “He wasn’t gonna wait around for six hours to ask again and they both knew it.”
“I’m not saying this to denigrate Phil, just to illustrate that it was strategic when he decided to start signing all those autographs,” Chamblee continued. “Because early in his career he didn’t sign a lot. I’m 99 percent sure it was strategic because Tiger (Woods) hated signing and pretty much refused to do it. Phil saw there was a void and decided he would be the superstar who signs for everyone.
“And that elevated the narrative surrounding Phil.”
That kind of cool self-interest helps explain what is Mickelson’s greatest sin: his involvement with LIV Golf Investments.
Worse, though, is Mickelson’s cavalier attitude about throwing in with the Saudi royal family. He is well aware that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi killed and dismembered because Khashoggi was a vocal and unrelenting critic. He knows the Saudi government is repressive, particularly to women and members of the LGBTQ community.
But he considers it a small price to pay to bring the PGA Tour to heel. And further line his pockets, of course.
“They’re scary (expletives) motherf—–s to get involved with,” Mickelson told Shipnuck in a November phone call that didn’t become public until February. “Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.
“They’ve been able to get by with manipulative, coercive, strong-arm tactics because we, the players, had no recourse,” Mickelson added. “As nice a guy as (PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan) comes across as, unless you have leverage, he won’t do what’s right. And the Saudi money has finally given us that leverage.”
Ah yes. What’s a little murder and torture among friends when there’s golf to be played and money to be made!
There will come a day when Mickelson makes a sheepish return, apologizing and asking fans for forgiveness, and no doubt some will. He’s brought too much joy and entertainment for too many years for them to hold a grudge.
Others, however, will never be able to see Mickelson the same way. Their fun and folksy hero is anything but, and he does not have enough years left in his career to write a redemption story.
It’s sad that Mickelson is missing the ultimate victory lap for his career this week. What’s even sadder is why, and who Mickelson has shown himself to be.
TULSA, Okla. — It won’t be as hot at Southern Hills Country Club this week as it was in 2007.
Southern Hills hosts its fifth PGA this week, beginning Thursday. The last time the tournament was held in Tulsa, it was the hottest major championship on record. That year, it was contested in August.
That won’t be the case this time around.
Temperatures should be much cooler, especially during the weekend rounds because of a cold front expected to come through the area late Friday, according to weather.com. The wind direction is also forecasted to be different every day.
Thursday will be the hottest day of the week, with temperatures likely reaching 91 degrees with a south wind between 10 and 20 miles per hour.
Friday’s weather is similar, with highs reaching 89 and southwest winds blowing between 15 and 25 miles per hour. In the afternoon and evening, however, is when winds shift to out of the northeast and temperatures drop into the 60s.
Saturday, the high is only 63 degrees with winds 10 to 20 miles per hour out of the north and a slight chance of rain in the morning. Sunday’s final rounds looks spectacular, with a high of 72 and 10 to 15 miles per hour winds out of the east.
The change in winds will present a different challenge every day for the golfers, but overall, the weather is looking to be spectacular.
Forecast for tournament days
Thursday: High of 91, winds S at 10-20
Friday: High of 89, winds SW at 15-25, changing to NE at 10-15 by evening
Saturday: High of 63, winds N at 10-20, 30 percent chance of rain
TULSA, Okla. — There has been severe sticker shock at the prices on concessions this week at the 2022 PGA Championship, with the prices on the cans of beer reaching almost $20 a pop.
Michelob Ultra is going for $18, Stella Artois $19. A glass of wine is $13. Souvenir and signature cocktails are $19. Some of the food prices: $16 for the chicken Caesar salad, $14 for the Butcher’s Grind Cheeseburger is $14, $8 for a hot dog.
Justin Thomas saw the news and reacted on Twitter to the high prices.
“Gotta treat the fans better than that,” he said.
$18(!!!!!!) for a beer… uhhhh what. Gotta treat the fans better than that! 🤦🏽♂️ https://t.co/7DeyC7WTJE
Brooks Koepka, who counts Michelob Ultra among his many sponsors, defended the prices.
“Yeah. Michelob Ultra is 18 bucks, but it’s a tall boy,” he said, referring to the fact that the cans of beer at Southern Hills are of the 25 oz. variety. “It’s bigger than the normal 12 ounces, 16 ounces. It’s bigger than the normal ones, so you’ll be all right. You drink enough, you’ll be fine.”
Tournament officials were asked about the prices as well Tuesday.
“We do have a new concession area, but we also have a new ticketing pricing offering for all the spectators this year, which includes basically as much food and non-alcoholic beverage as they want included in the price of the ticket,” Kerry Haigh, Chief Championships Officer of the PGA of America, said. “Starting Thursday, spectators will be able to drink non-alcoholic beverages and as much food as they want for the price of their ticket. For those on the practice days, all spectators can bring in bottled water, and starting Thursday we’ll have refills on water.
“The pricing of the product is sort of comparable to stadium events. We’re comfortable with where we are, and we hope spectators will come out and have a great time and a great experience.”
Seth Waugh, CEO of the PGA of America, admitted things may need tweaking.
“It’s a new model for us, right, so at the end of it we’ll go back and, like we always do, try to figure out if it worked or didn’t work and what we can do better and raise the bar.”
The 15-time major champ made a subtle change to his bag.
Equipment lovers are fascinated by Tiger Woods’ gear.
A traditionalist, Tiger has embraced technological advancements in drivers and fairway woods, but he has been very slow to change irons, shafts or grips. In fact, after growing up with a Ping putter, he has used a Ping grip on his Scotty Cameron putter for decades.
Having played a few practice rounds at Southern Hills in preparation for the PGA Championship, Woods has opted to change that setup, removing two clubs and adding two others.
Tiger Woods’ TaylorMade P-770 2-iron at the 2022 PGA Championship. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The first club that Woods removed from his bag this week is the M3 5-wood, and one of the clubs that he added is a TaylorMade P-770 2-iron. In years past, Woods removed his 5-wood and added a 2-iron on fast, firm courses where the wind is a factor, like links venues that host the British Open.
The other change that Woods made is taking out his P-7TW 3-iron and adding a P-770 3-iron in its place. That move, unlike swapping a 2-iron for a 5-wood, is unusual for Tiger.
Tiger Woods’ TaylorMade irons at the 2022 PGA Championship. (David Dusek/Golfweek)
The P-770 is a compact, hollow-bodied club that is designed to be a better-player’s distance iron. It has a forged 4140 stainless steel face attached to a forged 8620 carbon steel body. The inner chamber is filled with a foam material that TaylorMade refers to as Speed Foam. It absorbs excessive vibrations, to improve sound and feel, but does not inhibit the face from flexing or reduce ball speed. There is also an internal tungsten weight inside the head that lowers the center of gravity location to encourage a higher ball flight. Finally, there is a Speed Pocket slot in the sole that allows the lower portion of the hitting area to bend more efficiently on thin shots.
Time will tell whether the addition of the two P-770 irons is going to be permanent or whether they are course-specific clubs that woods is planning to use only at Southern Hills, but given Tiger’s injuries and reduced ability to practice, it makes sense that he might be looking for more ball speed and distance from his long irons.
Get a look at some past PGA Championship winners to see the evolution of golf style.
It’s PGA Championship week and the players are sure to bring their best game as well as their best outfits.
We’ve seen some exponential growth over the years when it comes to golf fashion as players have amped up their wardrobe with bold colors, prints and shoes.
From Brooks Koepka‘s color-blocking polo to Phil Mickelson‘s neutral tones, everyone has their personal flare added to Sunday’s wardrobe. Some players prefer to keep it simple and other’s look to make a statement, but all styles look good up against the Wanamaker Trophy.
Golfweek has rounded up photos of past winners to see the evolution of style through this major championship.
What would an amateur shoot from the tips at Southern Hills? In this case, himself in the foot.
TULSA, Okla. – When the pros make it all look easy on TV in a major championship, an avid amateur golfer almost can’t help but wonder, what might I shoot on a course like that? On a tough, penalizing, impossibly long layout like Southern Hills Country Club, site of this week’s PGA Championship?
The one time I saw Cirque du Soleil, it never crossed my mind to consider jumping through a window 40 feet down onto a trampoline. When I saw Billy Joel play a concert recently, I didn’t suddenly get the urge to serenade a crowd. As Clint Eastwood put it, a man’s got to know his limitations. But when I see great golf courses, I can’t help but think, what could I do out there? Turns out, not much.
In April, I set out to prove that point. From the back tees. In the breezes. On a very, very – did I say very? – long Southern Hills Country Club. But in my corner was veteran caddie Anthony Owens, who would help guide the likes of Scottie Scheffler, Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas around Southern Hills in practice rounds leading up to the PGA. So at least I had that going for me, which is nice.
It didn’t hurt that it was still early spring before the then-dormant rough grew in – I never said Southern Hills was playing as tough that day as it will during the PGA. The greens were perfect but probably not as fast as the pros will play. All in all, I had perfect blue-sky weather for this experiment that means absolutely nothing to anybody who isn’t me, same as for all my golf scores.
The author tries to cut a fairway wood around trees toward the 18h green at Southern Hills. It didn’t end well. (Photo by Anthony Owens)
First, some background. Like many golfers, in my mind I am a terrible hack. But the truth is, I can play a little bit. My handicap index is 0.7, meaning I’m just a hair over being a “par golfer.” At my best I was a +3 handicap, but I got old (49 when I played Southern Hills) and my back hurts – I’ll spare you the kvetching.
On my best days I’m a mediocre putter, but I do manage to swing a pretty decent iron from time to time and I hit a lot of greens to set up boring two-putt pars. And as with so many players my age, the ball doesn’t seem to go anywhere anymore. It just kind of slowly hangs in the air like a helium balloon, teetering on the breezes before gently dropping to the turf close enough for me to see it even with my aging eyes.
I have vowed to accept that I now play “old-man golf.” What option do I have, besides quitting? Besides, I can still post the occasional number. Shot 69 recently on Bandon Trails at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon with reigning U.S. Junior Amateur champion Nick Dunlap watching, then shot 71 on Pacific Dunes in a storm that afternoon. A few weeks later I shot 75 at Kiawah Island Golf Resort’s Ocean Course with 15 pars – perhaps a better comparison for this major test at Southern Hills, as the Ocean Course was the site of last year’s PGA Championship.
So yes, I can play a little – this isn’t one of those “What would a 20-handicapper shoot?” stories. But my good scores mentioned above weren’t from anywhere near the tips, with all those good rounds coming under 6,900 yards. So how would I do on the pros’ tee boxes at Southern Hills, which the scorecard pegs at 7,481 yards?
Nine pars, five bogeys and four doubles, that’s how. It all adds up to 83, playing it as a par 70 because that’s what the pros will do, instead of its normal members par of 71. Not a great day of ballstriking, but not a bad one either.
I managed to hit seven greens in regulation, several fewer than I expect in my normal skins games around Orlando but about what I would have predicted. I three-jacked it three times, which is not terrible on incredible, major-championship greens recently restored by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner. By the members scorecard I birdied No. 16, a par 5 for the mortals, but for this comparison I will count it as a par – if the pros consider it a par 4 in the PGA Championship, so will I.
What did I learn? That the pros are long. Very long. God-like, as a matter of fact. Many of the players in this week’s PGA Championship could blast it 100 yards past me off the tee. Everybody knows they hit it a long way, but playing a course like Southern Hills off the tips, it slaps a recreational amateur like me in the face that I’m not even playing the same game. Not even close. The pros are Ferraris, and I’m a Yaris with a heavy clutch.
No. 12 green amid an overview of Southern Hills (Photo: Gabe Gudgel/Golfweek)
I hit driver off the deck toward the green on one par 4, and I hit 3-wood at four others. I say “at” instead of “into” because when you’re hitting woods into architect Perry Maxwell’s tilted greens with rolled edges, you’re not really hitting “into” anything but trouble. I did manage to roll my 3-wood onto the surface of No. 1 to make par, but the others … well, not so much.
But as long as the par 4s played, and the par 5s for that matter, it was two of the par 3s that killed me. No. 6 is 226 on the scorecard with a creek in front of the green, and I pulled my 3-wood off the tee into the water for one of my four doubles. Parred No. 8 after another 3-wood tee shot, and made another par at No. 11, the shortest of the bunch. But on the 230-yard 14th, it was back to the 3-wood, this one blocked right where the ball clipped a tree and bounced into a pond I never even considered. Two doubles on the one-shotters never helps.
Many of the pros will hit irons into those par-3 greens, at least some of the time. Did I mention they’re long?
My favorite par came on No. 10, a 406-yard par 4 that doglegs right and uphill to a green perched some 20 yards over a creek. Owens, my caddie, assured me that if I missed left with my regular draw, my ball would likely cascade down the hill into the water. So I missed right instead. Then I delicately splashed it downhill from a greenside bunker to 8 feet and made the putt. Big smiles – I could sell that up-and-down during this week’s main event.
The most perplexing hole might be the last – I still can’t figure out the best way for a long-hitting pro to tackle No. 18, and my efforts shed absolutely no light on the subject. It’s a 491-yard par 4 that plays down to a creek that cuts diagonally across the fairway before the hole turns right and uphill toward the green and the clubhouse beyond. Will the pros take a safer 3-wood left off the tee to avoid the water? Will they challenge the dogleg while risking their tee shots tumbling through the fairway into trouble? How much risk? What possible reward?
What they won’t do is what I did: Smack a driver down there knowing I couldn’t reach the water even if I bounced it off a 250-yard marker. Still, one of my best tee balls of the day found the right side of the fairway, 15 yards short of the creek with trees forcing me to cut a 3-wood some 220 yards uphill to the flag. That attempt clipped a tree branch with a disheartening thwack and ended up 90 yards short of the green, from where I spun a gap wedge off the putting surface into the left greenside bunker to set up my final double bogey of the day. Fitting.
I wouldn’t advise amateurs take on such an experiment. If you’re ever fortunate enough to play Southern Hills – which Golfweek’s Best rates as the No. 1 private course in Oklahoma and No. 38 among all classic courses in the U.S. – then in the name of all that is holy, play it from the proper tee boxes and instead enjoy the round.
My round proved nothing we didn’t already know. It’s hardly a secret that the pros are incredible, at least a dozen shots better than my paltry-by-comparison near-scratch handicap. This never was a test to see if I could keep up. But it was a thrill to see the holes from where they play, to face similar challenges even if it did take me five or more extra clubs to reach the greens. It was a blast, even if my tee shots weren’t.
