Ageless: Captain Couples Edges Tiger & 14 Y. O. Guan Almost Does

Tiger said his red-hot putter was undermined by a couple of bad reads but an overall decent ball striking afternoon, even if his Presidents Cup Captain and Hall of Fame geezer Fred Couples beat him in their (requested) head-to-head pairing. By no means is this a setback in his quest to win an amazing 6th Memorial or to get his game ready for Merion (unlike McIlroy's 78 in the benign morning conditions).

Dave Shedloski reports on the Woods, Couples, Bradley pairing.

"I won't lie to you, I asked to see if I could get paired [with Woods]; it probably might be my last time playing with Tiger," said Couples, who withdrew from last week's Senior PGA Championship because his bad back flared up. "Maybe at Augusta I might get paired with him. If he can be leading after two rounds again, maybe I'll get a shot at him. So I was blessed to play with him. And my goal when I play with him always is to try to hit it solid and stay out of his way. And today was a good one. I did beat him."

The 14 year-old Tianlang Guan missed a short putt on the last to post a still-impressive 72 in the afternoon when unpredictable breezes created headaches for the last few groups.  Doug Ferguson's assortment of notes covers Guan's late round and also includes an item on how fast the course is playing, another on Rory and a look at the cell phone task force at work.

Ashleigh Ignelzi and I talk about the opening round from the Nationwide Digital House, which is led by Charl Schwartzel (65), followed by Scott Piercy (66).