After becoming the first player in 72 years to win on her LPGA debut, the 20-year-old American could be what’s needed for a tour that’s deeper than ever but wanting for household namesNo sooner had Rose Zhang finished off one of the more extraordinary fortnights in golf history – capping her Stanford career with an unprecedented second NCAA title, ringing in her 20th birthday, entering the professional ranks and immediately becoming the first player to win on her LPGA debut in 72 years – than she was back on a plane to Palo Alto to nail down some unfinished business.Three more final exams. One last problem set for CS-106A, the introductory computer programming course that’s sworn her off coding for...
LIV rebel rolled back the years with a final round flourish but futures of the two biggest names in golf are up in the airMasters week in April is always a long one in Augusta. The Monday before the major, all the talk around the course was about Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, who were out playing a practice round together. Whether it really was or not, their pairing felt like a pointed rejoinder to the LIV golfers who were still arriving at the course. Woods and McIlroy aren’t just the two biggest names in the game, but the two most outspoken critics of the breakaway tour. And here they were, taking ownership of the biggest stage.Augusta National is a...
The five-times champion had some good moments in his first round, but too many mistakes led to a two-over-par finishIt’s an odd truth that if you’ve got to ask someone who it is you’re watching at Augusta National then you already know the answer. At a quarter-to-ten, half an hour before Tiger Woods was even due on the 1st tee, the crowd was packed four or five deep down the length of the fairway, and three times as thick again up by the clubhouse. So anyone who arrived hoping to see him afterwards needed to be awfully comfortable up on their tip-toes, or else try to find a vacant pine tree root to perch on so they could peer over...
The 15-times major champions’ dreams of continuing to compete at the summit of golf are now appearing unattainableIt would be quite the story if Tiger Woods turned up at a golf tournament and announced he was there only to make up numbers. Eyebrows were raised when Woods used pre-tournament media duties at the Genesis Invitational to assert he was in California to win, seven months after his last competitive round, yet this was Woods in natural form. When the 47-year-old senses he cannot trade blows with the best in the world he will quietly exit stage left.Woods must realise that time is fast approaching. He surely comprehends the competitive dilemma he finds himself stuck within. Making the cut at the...
Tiger is a protective father but the decision to catapult his son into public view at the PNC Championship is an interesting oneNobody who owns a yacht named Privacy is likely to pursue publicity. Tiger Woods has made the keeping of secrets an art form despite spending the majority of his life as one of the most recognisable people on earth. Hank Haney, the golf coach, once told the story of being chastised by his star client for giving a television executive a nod towards Woods’s likely schedule. Any member of the media who claims they properly know Woods is spoofing; there is deliberate, visible distance kept between the 15-times major winner and all but those within his inner sanctum....