By Steve Keating
AUGUSTA, Georgia (Reuters) – Brooks Koepke and Jon Rahm were poised for a Masters Green Jacket showdown on Sunday on a marathon day of high drama at Augusta National that could be a watershed moment in the LIV Golf and PGA Tour feud.
Even before the first ball was struck, there was a surprise when Tiger Woods announced he was withdrawing from the tournament due to a foot injury, his surgically repaired leg, mangled in a near fatal 2021 car crash, unable to stand up to the challenging weather and demanding course layout.
After two days of interrupted play caused by ferocious winds that toppled trees and lashing rains, the field of 53 returned to the water-logged course to complete the third round with LIV Golf standard bearer Koepka four clear of Spaniard Rahm at the top of the leaderboard.
Although there is plenty of golf to be played, the pair have broken clear of a pack that will need to produce something special to challenge and hope for a stumble by the frontrunners with amateur Sam Bennett lying third, seven shots back.
Critics of LIV Golf have branded the Saudi-bankrolled big-money venture as uncompetitive and little more than a sportwashing enterprise by a country eager to polish its human rights record.
A Koepka victory will not end the human rights questions but would give the rebel circuit some of the credibility and legitimacy it craves.
If Koepka or another LIV player were to walk away wearing the Green Jacket it would be a major marketing coup for the rebel circuit which also has British Open champion Cameron Smith of Australia among its members.
The final day at Augusta will unfold without golf’s biggest name after Woods’s withdrawal 75 minutes before third-round play resumed at 8:30 a.m. (1230 GMT).
Woods, the last of 54 players to make the cut, was limping down the 17th fairway on six over par through seven holes when play was called off on Saturday due to bad weather.
The 47-year-old American has won the Masters five times, most recently in 2019, but he has struggled since his car crash.
“I am disappointed to have to WD (withdraw) this morning due to reaggravating my plantar fasciitis,” Woods said on Twitter.
“Thank you to the fans and to The Masters who have shown me so much love and support. Good luck to the players today!”
Plantar fasciitis is tissue inflation that causes pain in the heel.
(Reporting by Steve Keating in Augusta, Editing by Ed Osmond)
