82nd for Tiger, plus: Aussie Tour results around the world – October 29, 2019

PGA Tour

ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP

Accordia Golf Narashino Country Club

Purse: $9,750,000 ($1,755,000 to the winner)

Continuing his case for being named the Greatest Golfer of all Time, Tiger Woods tied Sam Snead’s TOUR record of 82 career victories with his three-shot win at the ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP. Woods’ 82^nd career victory comes at age 43. Sam Snead’s 82^nd came at age 52. Woods has now converted 25 of 25 leads of three shots or more after 54 holes and 44 of 46 solo 54-hole leads

Final-Round Leaderboard

Tiger Woods                         64-64-66-67—261 (-19)

Hideki Matsuyama              65-67-65-67—264 (-16)

Rory McIlroy                         72-65-63-67—267 (-13)

Sungjae Im                            71-64-67-65—267 (-13)

“[82] It’s a big number. It’s about consistency and doing it for a long period of time,” Woods said.  “Sam (Snead) did it into his 50s and I’m in my early to mid 40s. So it’s about being consistent and doing it for a very long period of time. I’ve been very fortunate to have had the career I’ve had so far. To have won this tournament in Japan, it’s just so ironic because I’ve always been a global player, I’ve always played all around the world and to tie the record outside the United States is pretty cool.

“It was a very long week because I was tied for the lead for the better part of five days and going into today’s    finishing up the final round, having a three shot lead and Hideki making a run like he did last night birdieing 11 and 12 and then he got off to a good start.  I made a mistake right away at 11 and it became a pretty good ballgame. Wish I would have made one of those putts on 13 and 15, but coming up 18, I had looking back on it, I probably misread the situation because what happened was Hideki hit his ball on    as I was walking up to 17 green, I made sure I saw him hit his tee shot.  He hit a fairway wood off the tee and didn’t like it, so looked like he hit some kind of spinner to the right.

“I finish out 17 and we got to 18 tee, looking down there, it looked like when he hit his shot, he hit a good one.  People were clapping, people were applauding.  When I got into my second shot, I figured he had hit his second shot from the bunker onto the green from the right.  The leaderboard when I got up there on the green didn’t show any of the numbers, so I was looking across to nine and I couldn’t read the numbers, it was too far away, it’s in red, so I figured I need to make par to win by a shot and end up winning by three, which was a little bit to my surprise.”

In comparing TIger’s 82 victories versus Sam Snead, by age:

With the victory

No. 8      FedExCup

1              Starts at ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP

359         PGA TOUR starts

82            PGA TOUR victories

2              FedExCup titles (2007, 2009)

198         Top-10s on PGA TOUR

#6            Projected OWGR

1              PGA TOUR starts in 2019-20

Stats about Tiger:

• Has converted 44 of 46 times (95.6%) when holding the outright 54-hole lead. Only two times he has failed to convert the solo 54-hole lead were the 1996 Quad City Classic and 2009 PGA Championship
• Has converted 55 of 59 (93.2%) times he’s held the 54-hole lead/co-lead including his last nine consecutive
• Fifth PGA TOUR winner (since 2003) to play their opening three holes in their opening round in 3-over or worse and go onto win. Ben Crane/2003 AT&T Classic, Vijay Singh/2004 RBC Canadian Open, Bubba Watson/2014 Genesis Open, Rory McIlroy/2016 Dell Technologies Championship are the only other players to do so
• Played the par-3s in 9-under, his career-best par-3 performance in an event on TOUR and best in the field by four shots. One of only six players since 1983 to play the par-3s in 9-under or better en route to victory
• Carded 27 birdies, seven more birdies than any other player in the field
• Has posted PGA TOUR wins in 19 different seasons, beginning in 1996
• Eight wins in his first start of the season – 1997 Sentry Tournament of Champions, 2000 Sentry Tournament of Champions, 2003 Buick Invitational, 2006 Buick Invitational, 2007 Buick Invitational, 2008 Buick Invitational, 2013 Farmers Insurance Open, 2019 ZOZO CHAMPIONSHIP
• 19-under 261 ties the third lowest 72-hole score of his career. Best 72-hole career score is 257 (-23) at the 2007 TOUR Championship
• Ranked third in the field in greens in regulation hit with 55/72 (76%)
• Ranked T4 in putts per hole with 1.54
• Finished 13^th in the final Presidents Cup rankings in August and has an opportunity to make himself one of four captain’s picks when he decides which players will fill out his U.S. Team. If he is picked, Woods would be the second playing-captain in Presidents Cup history, joining Hale Irwin, who was a playing captain in the inaugural playing in 1994

Australian Results

PGA Tour Champions

No Tournament this Week

Next Tournament: Invesco QQQ Championship

Sherwood Country Club, Thousand Oaks, California, November 1-3

Korn Ferry Tour

No Tournament this Week

Next Tournament: Korn Ferry Tour Qualifying Tournament

Orange County National Golf Center and Lodge (Panther Lake), Winter

Garden, Florida, December 12-15

PGA Tour Latinoamerica                                   

No Tournament this Week

Next Tournament: Termas de Rio Hondo Invitational

Rio Hondo Golf Club, Rio Hondo, Argentina, October 31-November 3