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Tiger seeks 15th major, Spieth a Career Slam at 100th PGA
ST. LOUIS, Aug 3, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Tiger Woods stalks his first major win
in 10 years and Jordan Spieth chases a Career Grand Slam at next week’s 100th
PGA Championship while top-ranked Dustin Johnson hunts a second major
triumph.
The American trio is expected to contend in the year’s final major showdown
over a 7,316-yard, par-70 Bellerive layout in the last PGA Championship to be
played in August. The event moves to May next year.
Woods, a 14-time major champion who hasn’t won a major title since the 2008
US Open, underwent spinal fusion surgery in April 2017 after years of back
pain and began a comeback last December, rising from 1,200th in the world to
50th.
The former world number one shared second in March at the PGA Valspar
Championship, switched to a mallet putter in June and shared fourth at the
PGA National and last month led briefly in the final round of the British
Open before settling for a share of sixth at Carnoustie behind Italian winner
Francesco Molinari.
“I certainly can win again,” Woods said. “I feel like I’m starting to hit
the ball a little more crisp. And since I’ve switched putters, I’ve started
to make some putts. When you make putts here and there, it changes
everything.”
Woods, 42, has won 79 career US PGA titles but hasn’t won any event since
the 2013 WGC Bridgestone Invitational.
“I’ve had an opportunity to win a couple times this year,” Woods said. “My
game has gotten better and good enough where I feel like I can win again out
here.”
Woods has won four PGA Championships, one shy of the record five won by
Jack Nicklaus and Walter Hagen, but missed the cut in 2015 in his most recent
appearance. He last won the PGA title at Southern Hills in 2007.
Third-ranked defending champion Justin Thomas, trying to become the first
back-to-back PGA Championship winner since Woods in 2006 and 2007, wants to
see Woods win if he’s not in the hunt.
“I’m always pulling for Tiger if I’m not playing, or if he has a chance to
win and I don’t,” Thomas said. “I said this at the beginning of the year I
think he’s going to win if he stays healthy. And it would be really cool for
the game, if and when he does.
“But at the same time, I’m trying to make sure that he doesn’t do that, for
many reasons.”
– Spieth accepts challenge –
Spieth was third at the Masters and shared ninth in his British Open title
defense last month.
But the 25-year-old Texan who took the 2015 Masters and US Open titles
hasn’t won since claiming his third major crown last year at Royal Birkdale.
World number eight Spieth could become only the sixth player to complete
the career Slam — winning the Masters, US and British Opens and the PGA —
to join a list that includes Nicklaus, Woods, Gene Sarazen, Ben Hogan and
South African Gary Player.
“When you have an opportunity to do that, certainly it weighs on you a
little bit,” Spieth said. “All I can do is embrace the challenge.”
Spieth could have become the youngest player to complete a Career Slam by
winning last year’s PGA but shared 28th at Quail Hollow.
– DJ tough to beat at best –
Johnson, coming off a victory in last week’s Canadian Open, is an
oddsmakers favorite to win the Wanamaker Trophy despite missing the British
Open cut.
“I felt like I was hitting it fine,” Johnson said. “It was the worst I’ve
ever scored and the only thing I could come up with was I really wasn’t
focused on the shots and what I was trying to do.”
But Johnson, whose lone major win came at the 2016 US Open, feels he can
beat anyone anywhere when playing his best.
“If I’m playing my best, yeah, it’s going to be very tough (to lose),”
Johnson said.
Bellerive is hosting its third major tournament, having been the site of
Player’s 1965 US Open triumph to complete his career Grand Slam and
Zimbabwean Nick Price’s 1992 PGA Championship title, the first of his three
major crowns.
BSS/AFP/MRI/0819 hrs