A new course for Woods, and maybe a new putter
POTOMAC, MD. » Tiger Woods is playing the Quicken Loans National for the last time, and so much about this year feels new.
Woods played his first 18hole round at the TPC Potomac at Avenel Farm during the pro-am Wednesday, and it didn’t take long to realize why the course rated as the fourth toughest to par last year on the PGA Tour, behind only three majors.
“It’s certainly a lot more difficult than what I had envisioned,” Woods said. “They’ve got the rough up, fairways in. It’s like a miniOpen here.” Also new: his putter. Maybe. Woods has been struggling with just about every aspect of putting since March, when he made a brief charge in the final round at Bay Hill until tying for fifth. He missed the cut at the U.S. Open two weeks ago, and last week in the Bahamas he began tinkering with a new putter. The one he used in nine holes of practice on Tuesday, and in the pro-am, was a mallet variety.
“I’m trying to find something that I can feel again like the swing of the putter, getting my body in the right positions and seeing the lines again,” Woods said. “Once I start to get that ball rolling on my lines, then I’ll be back to putting like I was. I just have not been rolling it on my lines. And then on top of that, when they don’t roll on lines, then I have a hard time seeing my line. It’s a vicious cycle.”
Whether it goes in his bag on Thursday remains a mystery.
“Tiger had three putters on the putting green before I walked in here,” Billy Hurley III said.
Woods is the only twotime winner of the National,
Tiger Woods adjusts his glove with his putter in hand during the Quicken Loans National golf tournament Pro-Am, Wednesday in Potomac, Md.
both times at Congressional a few miles down the road. He hasn’t played the event since 2015 when he was struggling with back issues that eventually led to multiple surgeries and kept him out of golf for the better part of two years.
This is the final edition of a tournament that began in 2007 with high hopes, with Woods as the tournament host at Congressional, held around the Fourth of July with a theme built around saluting the military.
Woods’ career took several unexpected turns a few years later, with surgeries to his knee and back sandwiched around the downfall in his personal life. There was a change in title sponsors, a change in dates and the field gradually became weaker.
Rickie Fowler, who has a corporate deal with Quicken Loans, is the only player from the top 10 competing this week. He checks in at No. 8. Quicken Loans decided not to renew its contract with Woods’ foundation, instead sponsoring a new PGA Tour event in Detroit that starts next summer.
Woods couldn’t find another sponsor, and now there isn’t room on next year’s schedule. His foundation still runs the Genesis Open at Riviera in February and the unofficial Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas in early December.
“The support has been fantastic. We just haven’t got the sponsorship dollars,” Woods said.
He would like nothing more than to end the tournament’s 12-year run by winning for the first time in nearly five years, a reasonable task considering how well he has been swinging the club. The trouble has been getting the putter to cooperate.
“He was away from competitive golf for so long,” Fowler said. “It’s not like you just come right back out and go win a golf tournament. But it’s Tiger. It wouldn’t have surprised me. ... He knows how to win, so I’m not worried about him by any means.”
This isn’t the first time Wood has tinkered with a new putter, whether it was St. Andrews in 2010 or the Masters the following year. That he might use a different model putter in the middle of his season shows a little of the frustration.
Woods was making putts in Florida, when he had two chances at winning. He has been missing short ones ever since.
“I’m pretty excited the way I’ve hit the golf ball,” Woods said. “If I have the same putting stroke I had earlier in the year, with the ball-striking I’ve had, that would be where I want to get to. Just got to put both those things together at the same time.”
This will be his last tournament until the British Open at Carnoustie, and while Woods has played 10 times already, he is running out of time. He is No. 82 in the world and needs to get into the top 50 after Carnoustie to be eligible for the Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone, a World Golf Championship that he has won eight times.
The Bridgestone Invitational is moving away from Firestone after this year, and Woods wants to be part of another finale.
He’s just not willing to add tournaments as he approaches 18 months since fusion surgery on his lower back.
Brother of Giants’ Janoris Jenkins charged in man’s death
FAIR LAWN, N.J. » The brother of New York Giants cornerback Janoris Jenkins has been arrested and charged with manslaughter in the death of a 25-year-man whose body was found in the NFL player’s New Jersey home.
The Bergen County prosecutor’s office says 34-yearold William H. Jenkins, of Fair Lawn, was arrested Tuesday and charged Wednesday with aggravated manslaughter in the death of Roosevelt Rene, whose body was discovered Tuesday.
Acting Prosecutor Dennis Calo said Wednesday that William Jenkins is in custody in the Ontario County Jail in New York State. The investigation is ongoing.
Janoris Jenkins’ home is about 10 miles (16 kilometers) north of MetLife Stadium. Property records show Janoris Jenkins has lived at the house the last two years.
Body found in major league stadium identified as Minnesotan
ATLANTA » A body found inside a beer cooler at the major league home of the Atlanta Braves belongs to a Minnesota inventor who was doing contract work at the stadium, police in Atlanta’s suburbs said Wednesday.
Cobb County police on Wednesday identified him as Todd Keeling, 48, of White Bear Lake, Minnesota.
Keeling had worked an overnight shift for a beverage vendor, authorities said. A co-worker found his body inside the beer cooler at SunTrust Park before Tuesday night’s Braves vs. Cincinnati Reds game.
The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating the death, agency spokesman Michael D’Aquino told The Associated Press.
Keeling was an inventor, and had been at SunTrust Park to install his patented beer-pouring technology when he died, a relative told an Atlanta newspaper.
In October 2016, the United States issued the patent for the invention, which features “a new nozzle for a beer valve tap and a new foamless beer tap dispensing system,” government records show.
Becky Hammon moves up, gets promoted by San Antonio Spurs
SAN ANTONIO » Becky Hammon is moving up San Antonio’s coaching ladder.
The Spurs announced Wednesday that they have promoted Hammon, and that she will fill the spot vacated by James Borrego on the team’s roster of assistant coaches.
Borrego left the Spurs to become the coach of the Hornets.
Hammon has been a member of the San Antonio coaching staff since 2014, and was one of six assistants under Gregg Popovich last season. Hammon has been among the assistants who sit in the row directly behind the Spurs bench, but this move means she will be in the front row alongside Popovich starting this season.