Notebook: Tiger Woods perplexed by today's stars taking weekends off

 

Tiger Woods is duly impressed with today's young stars, with Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth winning two majors in successive years and Jason Day picking up his first major at the PGA Championship and getting to No. 1 in the world.

 

Only one aspect perplexes him – too many weekends off.

 

Spieth already has missed the cut 12 times in his three full seasons on the PGA Tour. McIlroy has missed the cut eight times in the last three years. Rickie Fowler has missed the cut 11 times in the last two years.

 

"In today's game, you don't have to make cuts," Woods said in his Time magazine interview earlier this month. "And I see these guys miss so many cuts when they're that good. ... It doesn't compute, because I haven't done it. I think I've missed only 15 cuts in my career."

 

Woods has missed the cut 16 times, including six in the last two years.

 

MCILROY AWARD: Rory McIlroy won the Association of Golf Writers trophy, given to those born or living in Europe who made the most outstanding contribution to golf. He joined Seve Ballesteros and Lee Westwood as the only three-time winners of the award.

 

McIlroy won three times on the European Tour, and once on the PGA Tour. He also captured the Race to Dubai, even though he missed two months with an ankle injury.

 

He narrowly won over the Walker Cup team that handily beat the Americans at Royal Lytham & St. Annes. Third place went to Andy Sullivan of England, who joined McIlroy as a three-time winner on the European Tour.

 

TALE OF TWO SEASONS: Matt Kuchar already knew what happened to him this year before he was presented with some statistics.

 

"I felt like the first half of the year I didn't hit it great but I putted well," he said. "And the second half, it flip-flopped. I hit it well and struggled with the putter. The beautiful thing about the game is you need everything to work in order to have good tournaments."

 

One statistic is all that mattered to Kuchar: This was only the second time in the last seven years that he failed to win on the PGA Tour. Kuchar had two chances early at the Sony Open and Humana Challenge, and Rickie Fowler beat him with birdies down the stretch at the Scottish Open.

 

"I wasn't real happy with my year. It's not what I'm accustomed to, it's not what I expect out of myself," Kuchar said. "There was a lot of frustration."

 

DIVOTS: Tom Weiskopf has been chosen to renovate the North Course at Torrey Pines. Work is to begin immediately after the Farmers Insurance Open. Weiskopf told The San Diego Union-Tribune, "My challenge is to not get caught up in what the best players in the game are going to do here in one round a year." ... Of the top 10 players in the world ranking at the end of the year, Rory McIlroy, Henrik Stenson and Jim Furyk are the only ones who lost more points than they gained in 2015. ... The 2018 U.S. Women's Amateur Four-Ball is going to El Caballero Country Club in Tarzana, California. ... Anirban Lahiri has received a sponsor's exemption to the Farmers Insurance Open, along with Robert Garrigus, Aaron Baddeley, Jhonattan Vegas, Ollie Schniederjans and Xander Schauffele.

 

STAT OF THE WEEK: Based on the current Olympic rankings, 14 players in the 60-man field are outside the top 200 in the world ranking.

 

FINAL WORD: "My bad golf is a little bit better now." – Anirban Lahiri on how he improved in 2015.

 

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