Pratima Sherpa’s journey to become Nepal’s first female golfer got an unexpected boost from Tiger Woods, who gave the 18-year-old golfer a 30-minute lesson in Florida.

Click here to read the full article…

Take the week off, gang. PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO does not include the Zurich Classic of New Orleans because of the team format. We’ll crank the game back on for next week’s Well Fargo Championship. The condensed version of this weekly column includes the staples that are most relevant. However, Wednesday’s One & Done preview will be as usual because that game never rests. You’ll want to be sure to check it out for advice on strategy, Experts’ picks and Future Possibilities for those in the field at TPC Louisiana. Power Rankings Wild Card Billy Horschel & Scott Piercy … Along with the teams of Jon Rahm/Wesley Bryan and Jason Day/Ryan Ruffels, Horschel and Piercy can be categorized as snubs in the Power Rankings and others considered (listed on that same page). The American duo presents a proper blend of course experience and success – it’s been five years now since Horschel broke through for victory with an emotional release for the ages at TPC Louisiana – with form upon arrival. Quite simply, it’s an insult to label them as a Wild Card. Returning to Competition Brooks Koepka … There are multiple layers of good news here. First, and obviously, it’s great to know that he’s ready to compete again. The 2017 U.S. Open champ has been recovering from a partially torn tendon in his left wrist since early January. When that body part is the reason for time off, gamers are prepared to spring even the most valuable of assets because the sabbatical can last months. That he’s back in play without surgery this week quickly is a coup for full-season owners who have been wringing their hands for an update. Because the Zurich Classic of New Orleans isn’t included in PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO, we also get a free look at him. This is not unlike how Tiger Woods gave us a peek at the Hero World Challenge in December. So, a good score is a bonus this week, but the goal is the absence of an aggravation to Koepka’s injury. He’s teamed with Marc Turnesa, a fellow resident of Jupiter, Florida. Chris Stroud … Withdrew after an opening 79 at the Valero Texas Open. An explanation wasn’t released. He’s partnered again with 2016 Zurich champ Brian Stuard, and why not. They shared 11th place in this format last year. Power Rankings Recap – Valero Texas Open Power Ranking  Golfer  Result 1  Charley Hoffman  T64 2  Brendan Steele  T30 3  Billy Horschel  T11 4  Pat Perez  MC 5  Kevin Chappell  T30 6  Luke List  MC 7  Ryan Palmer  MC 8  Ryan Moore  7th 9  Chesson Hadley  T20 10  Matt Kuchar  T51 11  Sergio Garcia  MC 12  Si Woo Kim  T45 13  Beau Hossler  T51 14  Brandt Snedeker  15th 15  Abraham Ancer  T58 Wild Card  Jimmy Walker  4th Sleepers Recap – Valero Texas Open Power Ranking  Golfer  Result Chris Kirk  T8 Nate Lashley  MC Joaquin Niemann  6th Daniel Summerhays  T58 Shawn Stefani  MC Birthdays among active golfers on the PGA TOUR April 24 … Jason Bohn (45); Jonas Blixt (34) April 25 … Kyle Thompson (39); Nick Watney (37) April 26 … J.B. Holmes (36) April 27 … none April 28 … none April 29 … Justin Thomas (25) April 30 … none

Click here to read the full article…

For the second year in a row the Zurich Classic of New Orleans will shake it up on the PGA TOUR. Last year was the first time since 1981 that the TOUR implemented a partner’s game as an official event. Featuring foursomes and fourballs in alternating rounds, 80, two-man teams will battle it out again at TPC Louisiana for over $1 million and 400 FedExCup points EACH to the winners. If the second-year format wasn’t enough, the TOUR is introducing walk-up music to introduce the pairings on the first tee as well. This event will welcome 10 of the top 15 players in the Official World Golf Ranking, 13 previous winners from this season and will host the last four major champions. Remember PGA TOUR Fantasy Golf presented by SERVPRO has the week off but the One & Done presented by SERVPRO is ready to go! The 80 pairs will get another crack at the 7,425-yard, Par-72 track designed by Pete Dye. Since becoming the host course for this event in 2005, TPC Louisiana has been annually run over by the TOUR’s best players. Not even the fantastic local food and drink can protect this layout as the winning scores are littered with birdies every April. There is a new wrinkle in the format this season as the best-ball and alternate shot sessions will flip rounds. Last year, alternate shot was Thursday and Saturday with best-ball on Friday and Sunday. This time around the final round will use alternate shot, the more difficult of the two formats, to decide the champion on Sunday. After seeing the early forecast, I type SUNDAY with great confidence! In the first incarnation of the partner’s event last year, the team of Jordan Spieth & Ryan Palmer and the then-team of Kyle Stanley & Ryan Ruffels both fired 66 for the best round of the week in alternate shot. The best-ball honors went to South African pair Retief Goosen & Tyrone Van Aswegen and vanquished playoff participants Kevin Kisner & Scott Brown with 60. TALES OF THE TAPE England’s Justin Rose torched TPC Louisiana to the tune of 22-under-par 266 to set the tournament record in 2015. He didn’t square a bogey in his last 66 holes and played his final 54 in 19-under. Weather played a big part in this winning formula as preferred lies were used in all four rounds as the course was soaked. The top 27 players posted exactly TWO rounds worse than par for the week. Usually a week of posting a double-digit total is good for the wallet. In 2015 it was good enough for T48. Mother Nature took over again in 2016 as the event was shortened to 54 holes yet finished on Monday. Brian Stuard, Byeong-Hun An and Jamie Lovemark all posted 15-under-par to force extra holes on the extra day. Stuard didn’t make a bogey on the week and his birdie on the second playoff hole gave him his first win on TOUR. In addition to finishing without a bogey he also didn’t miss a putt inside 10 feet on the pure greens. Stuard isn’t long off the tee by any definition but he navigated the weather delays and preferred lies to hold off the bigger hitting An and Lovemark. He was 79th in driving distance and T73 in fairways for the week. As I’ve noted in the table above, there was more than one way to hit the podium as partners last year. The winning pair avoided bogeys completely while their competitors in the playoff racked up a whopping 28 birdies. This is even more amazing considering that 25 of the 42 teams that made the cut couldn’t break par on Saturday in the alternate-shot format due to winds blowing 20-25 mph and gusts topping 30 mph. Smith & Blixt entered the final round with a four-shot lead before Kisner & Brown tied the event record for best-ball with 60 to force the playoff, albeit with preferred lies. There were only four, bogey-free rounds in the alternate shot format and half were recorded by the champions. NOTE: Golfers inside the top 25-ish in each statistic on the 2017-18 PGA TOUR are listed only if they are scheduled to compete this week. * – Finished inside the top 25 at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans since 2013 or is a former champion. Birdie Average Rank Golfer 4 *Justin Rose 5 *Justin Thomas 5 *Jason Day 9 *Jordan Spieth 11 Brendan Steele 12 *Chesson Hadley 15 Patrick Reed 22 Tommy Fleetwood 22 J.J. Spaun 24 Aaron Wise 24 Trey Mullinax Greens in Regulation Rank Golfer 2 *Jordan Spieth 3 Kevin Streelman 4 Pat Perez 4 Gary Woodland 7 Brendan Steele 8 *Bubba Watson 10 Rafael Cabrera-Bello 11 *Keegan Bradley 12 *Justin Thomas 14 Sam Ryder 18 Emiliano Grillo 19 C.T. Pan 20 Chez Reavie 21 Patrick Cantlay 23 Scott Piercy 26 *Justin Rose Putting: Birdie-or-Better Percentage Rank Golfer 4 *Jason Day 5 *Justin Thomas 6 *Justin Rose 9 Ricky Barnes 12 *Cameron Smith 12 Patrick Reed 15 Aaron Wise 16 Tommy Fleetwood 19 *Chesson Hadley 21 Pat Perez 22 Brendan Steele 25 Zach Johnson Bogey Avoidance Rank Golfer 1 Kevin Streelman 2 *Jordan Spieth 6 *Justin Thomas 7 *Cameron Smith 7 *Justin Rose 10 Chez Reavie 11 Brandt Snedeker 12 Johnson Wagner 14 Zach Johnson 16 Emiliano Grillo 18 William McGirt 19 *Bubba Watson 20 Matt Kuchar 23 Andrew Landry 24 *Chris Kirk 25 Tony Finau   Pete Dye’s challenge is quite simple: great shots will get greatly rewarded and those that don’t won’t. Those who play closer to the hazard will find the better line to the green. Teams that pick and choose their spots to attack and lay off will be the ones looking to take home the trophy on Sunday. This will be the second Pete Dye test in three weeks (Harbour Town) and the third consecutive week on Bermuda (Miniverde) greens and that will favor the guys who didn’t pack it in after Augusta. With four Par-5 holes, rough at only two inches and greens in perfect conditions, there will be ample opportunities to score. The accurate will be rewarded as the greens classify below-average in square footage (5,225 on average) and are multi-tiered reinforcing that great shots will have great opportunities to score. Anytime gamers hear “Pete Dye course” many thoughts start running through their collective heads. Or at least should. This week is the exception, not the rule, as TPC Louisiana usually plays as one of the easier tracks on TOUR. Or will it? New Orleans, for once, isn’t completely soaked. The forecast, as of Tuesday, called for some rain on Thursday yet sunshine and below-normal temperatures for the rest of the week. Usually this time of year thunderstorms are the norm, not the exception, so I’m of the opinion scores will creep up. With less humidity and cooler temperatures, the ball won’t go as far. It also won’t plug so it will give the accurate players perhaps an advantage. The pros always mention they would love to have firm and fast but the absence of wind after Thursday suggests that won’t be the case. There are too many angles to count this week when assessing possible options. I’ll point out that EVERBODY’S favorite pair from last year, Justin Rose & Henrik Stenson, missed the cut. So did Jason Day & Rickie Fowler. So did Daniel Berger and Thomas Pieters. I’m going to obviously look at who is back again together for a second run because that suggests the partnership was working. Jordan Spieth played with Ryan Palmer last year because he lost a bet. They’re back again after finishing fourth last year. #Clues. I don’t think omitting players who have been hot the last three weeks is a sane formula either as hot golf is hot golf. Course Ratings: 2011 is the only year that the course played over par. It has ranked inside of the top 12 easiest courses annually since. Rob Bolton’s Power Rankings will give you more juice for the week so make sure you stop by. It’s also who I trust with the weather each week so pay attention! NOTE: The groups below are comprehensive to assist in data mining. Inclusion doesn’t imply automatic endorsement in every fantasy game as all decisions are specific to your situation. CONFIDENCE MEN 2017 Podium Finishers BUILDING CONFIDENCE Players in the field this year, regardless of partner; *different partner OTHER SIGNS OF CONFIDENCE Players in the field this year, regardless of partner; *different partner

Click here to read the full article…

Click here to read the full article…

AVONDALE, La. – When Tony Finau posted pictures of his busted ankle on social media after the Masters, it was anyone’s guess when he might return to competition. The one-time PGA TOUR winner made headlines all over the world on Masters eve when he dislocated his ankle while celebrating a hole-in-one in the traditional Par-3 Contest at Augusta National. Amazingly – after popping it back into place himself – he played. Even more amazingly he finished 10th in his Masters debut. But as the pictures graphically showed – he had suffered significant damage to his left ankle. While he admits he is not yet fully healed, Finau returns to competition this week at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, partnered up with Daniel Summerhays. They breed them tough in the Finau family. “We will see how it feels when I get out there and play. I haven’t been doing a lot of that, just a lot of rehab,� Finau said as he started practice at TPC Louisiana. He spent the last few weeks feverishly working on the injury with the help of trainers from the Utah Jazz and professionals from the University of Utah Orthopedic Centre. “I feel like their expertise; their working with something like this every day of the year; it seems like someone in the NBA has a high ankle sprain every day of the week,� Finau said. “I tried to make sure I had the best contacts in Utah to help me not rush the process but get me back asap.� While he could have certainly rested longer, Finau said this week was important to get a feel for just how successful the rehab journey has been. “We felt like it has gotten to a point where it is more mobile and the only way we are really going to know where we are at is to come out and compete and see how it feels,� he added. “The journey is far from over as far as dealing with the foot. I dealt with ankle injuries before, they can linger for a while; I don’t think it’s going to be 100 percent for a while, but I do feel like it’s ready to go and play and compete.� Finau now hopes to use the injury as a positive motivator going forward. His incredible play at Augusta has sparked even more belief into the already confident 28-year-old. While those on the outside of the golf world were impressed by his toughness, Finau was quick to point out many PGA TOUR players are always playing hurt. “I wanted to post those pictures after, but I didn’t want anyone to think I had excuses,� he explained. “When I tee it up I am ready to compete, I am ready to play. Same thing this week. “There is never any excuse, but I wanted people to just understand and respect that was what I was dealing with throughout the week and how much work it took for me to play. “It was an interesting week but man it was something I will never forget. To top it off with a top 10 in my first Masters just puts it in perspective – I think you can accomplish things that maybe your body feels like you can’t if you just put your mind to it.�

Click here to read the full article…

After a successful debut last year, the Zurich Classic of New Orleans returns with its unique team format. Many of the game’s biggest names have descended on TPC Louisiana for the opportunity to partner with a friend for the only team event during the FedExCup season. The two-man teams will play four-ball on Thursday and Saturday and alternate shot in the second and fourth rounds. Last year’s tournament included one of the best shots of the year, as Kevin Kisner chipped in for eagle on the 72nd hole to force a playoff with Jonas Blixt and Cameron Smith. Smith clinched the title by hitting a wedge to 3 feet on the fourth hole of the sudden-death playoff, which concluded Monday because of darkness. Blixt and Smith have returned to defend their title. They’ll be part of PGA TOUR LIVE’s Featured Groups coverage, as will two of the past three FedExCup champions (Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas), Masters champion Patrick Reed and all three medalists from the 2016 Olympics. The Thursday broadcast will begin at 8 a.m. Eastern, while the Friday broadcast will begin at 9:15 a.m. Featured Holes will begin at 3 p.m. and run until the end of the broadcast at 6:30 p.m. TPC Louisiana’s two back-nine par-3s, Nos. 14 and 17, are this week’s Featured Holes. PGA TOUR LIVE also can be viewed on Twitter from approximately 8 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. on Thursday and 9:15 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on Friday. Here’s a closer look at what you can see this week on PGA TOUR LIVE (Note: FedExCup rankings in parentheses): THURSDAY Justin Thomas (1)/Bud Cauley (61), Daniel Berger (66)/Gary Woodland (22): FedExCup leader Justin Thomas is teaming with fellow Alabama alum Bud Cauley for the second consecutive year. The duo finished fifth in last year’s Zurich Classic. Thomas won last year’s FedExCup and holds the lead again this season after victories at THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES and The Honda Classic. They’ll play alongside Thomas’ Presidents Cup teammate, Daniel Berger, and another of this season’s winners, Gary Woodland. He won earlier this year at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Tee times: 8:39 a.m. Eastern off No. 10 on Thursday; 2:08 p.m. Eastern off No. 1 on Friday. Jordan Spieth (28)/Ryan Palmer (84), Wesley Bryan (153)/Jon Rahm (7): The Texas twosome of Ryan Palmer and Jordan Spieth has reunited after a fourth-place finish here last year. Bryan and Rahm are good friends who promise to make a colorful pairing. Rahm’s strong driving and Bryan’s crafty wedge play could make them a dangerous duo. Tee times: 8:52 a.m. Eastern off No. 10 on Thursday; 2:09 p.m. Eastern off No. 1 on Friday. FRIDAY Patrick Reed (6)/Patrick Cantlay (15), Jonas Blixt (162)/Cameron Smith (25): The Patricks are back after a 14th-place finish at last year’s Zurich. They were one shot off the lead at the halfway mark. For Reed, this will be his first PGA TOUR start since his Masters victory. Cantlay picked up his first PGA TOUR title earlier this season at the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. They are the only team with two players ranked inside the top 15 in the FedExCup standings and the only team of PGA TOUR winners this season. Smith is coming off fifth-place finishes at the World Golf Championships-Dell Technologies Match Play and the Masters. Click here to read Ben Everill’s feature on Smith. Tee times: 1:44 p.m. Eastern off No. 1 on Thursday; 9:53 a.m. Eastern off No. 10 on Friday. Justin Rose (8)/Henrik Stenson (37), Matt Kuchar (58)/Bubba Watson (3): All four of these players competed for their countries at the 2016 Olympics. Three of them won medals (sorry, Bubba). However, Watson is the only one with multiple titles this season. He won both the Genesis Open and WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play. Kuchar earned a bronze medal in Rio de Janeiro. Kuchar and Watson are among an elite group of players who have qualified for the FedExCup Playoffs in all 11 seasons of the FedExCup. Rose and Stenson, the gold and silver medalists, respectively, have reunited despite a surprising MC at last year’s Zurich Classic. Rose (2015) and Watson (2011) also are former Zurich champions. Tee times: 1:57 p.m. Eastern off No. 1 on Thursday; 10:04 a.m. Eastern off No. 10 on Friday.

Click here to read the full article…

Bernhard Langer won’t be able to defend his Senior PGA Championship title on May 24-27 because his youngest son is graduating from high school that weekend.

Click here to read the full article…