Aussie Smith in the mix, chasing shock leader at TPC Boston

DeChambeau emerged on Monday as the hottest commodity in the game at the moment, becoming the first player this season on the PGA Tour to win back-to-back events with another commanding performance at TPC Boston.

Whether it’s DeChambeau’s capacity for compartmentalization or his unwavering confidence that makes him immune to those types of external concerns – he would call those standard deviations – there’ s an undercurrent of optimism that he’s poised to be Woods’ flawless partner. Woods carded a 3-under 68 to enter the final round on Monday at 7 under.

As for DeChambeau, he also missed the cut in the US PGA when he had a chance to overhaul Webb Simpson in the automatic places, but on his next start he won for the second time this season with a four-shot victory in the first FedEx Cup play-off event. Tiger gets very focused on that, and I want to free him up.

“There were some tee shots that I left a little right, and it was just a little nerves”, DeChambeau said.

And he solidified his claim to be one of Jim Furyk’s captain’s picks for the American Ryder Cup team, where he would join the likes of Dustin Johnson, Rickie Fowler, Jordan Spieth, back-to-back U.S. Open victor Brooks Koepka and others who have staked a claim to follow Tiger Woods as golf’s next big thing.

DeChambeau thinks they’d be an intimidating pair.

“If he goes around and shoots 8-under par every time, that will work”, Woods said with a smile. He still managed a 69 and joined DeChambeau one off the lead.

“You can always get better”, DeChambeau said. “I will draw on the experience from my final round at the Quicken Loans”. Oh, it’s like a foot.

Alex birdied the final five holes in a front-nine 30 to take the lead and added birdies on the par-5 12th and par-4 15th at tree-lined Columbia Edgewater in Portland.

Tyrrell Hatton had a shot bounce off a cart and into the woods, never to be found, leading to double bogey. “So that when he needs to step out it gives him a little bit of freedom and it gives me another set of eyes over there”.

“I didn’t get a lot out of my round today – that’s just kind of the way it goes”, Woods said.

“I wanted to experience it”, he explained.

The win was the third of the season for the DeChambeau after he captured the Memorial Tournament in June and The Northern Trust last week.

He was outside of the world’s top 1,000 this time previous year but has climbed back into the top 30 after finishing joint sixth at The Open in July and second at last month’s PGA Championship. Woods did it in 1996. No one has been close to DeChambeau over the last two weeks. “So that’s a reason”.

“Having two PGA tournaments now in Mexico has impacted Mexico or golf in Mexico incredibly”, Ancer said, citing the WGC Mexico Championship and the OHL Classic at Mayakoba. After he tapped in for par, he angrily slapped the blade of his putter and then tossed this putter toward his bag.

Detail view of the Ryder Cup Trophy during a press conference as U.S. Team captain Jim Furyk (not pictured) officially name the eight qualifying members of the 2018 U.S. Ryder Cup team at Bellerive Country Club.