Category: Other

In Las Vegas on the PGA Tour, Andre Stolz shot a 5-under 67 to win the Michelin Championship by a shot over Tom Lehman, Harrison Frazar, and Tag Ridings. Ridings, who began his final round on the back nine, shot a 29 on the front and tied the course record with a final-round 61 to just barely come up short.

Scotland’s Stephen Gallacher won for the first time on the European Tour, beating Northern Ireland’s Graeme McDowell on the first playoff hole Sunday at the dunhill links Championship. Ernie Els and Fred Couples finished five strokes back and Vijay Singh finished eight strokes back.

On the Senior Tour, Larry Nelson shot an 8-under 64 to come from behind and beat Hale Irwin with a birdie on the first playoff hole at the Administaff Small Business Classic.

Liselotte Neumann won her first LPGA Tour title in six years, holding off a late charge by Grace Park for a three-stroke victory at the LPGA Asahi Ryokuken International Championship on Sunday.

And finally, on the Nationwide Tour, 22-year old Chris Nallen chipped in on the 72nd hole and sealed the win on his Nationwide debut at the Gila River Golf Classic at Wild Horse Pass Resort. Nallen went wire-to-wire and won easily by eight strokes.

The US World Cup team has been announced: Scott Verplank and Bob Tway will team together November 18-21 in Seville, Spain. Scott Verplank, the #21 player in the world, waited for six years for this chance and is the highest ranked American who accepted the invitation to play in this two-man-teams 24-country competition. Nine players above Verplank, including Tiger Woods and Todd Hamilton, declined to play.

Verplank and Tway are best friends and neighbords at Oak Tree Golf Club in Edmond, Oklahoma. This is the first year the qualifying player has been allowed to choose his teammate so long as the teammate is in the top 100 in the world. Said Verplank, “we should make a good team” before adding “I doubt we’ll sell many tickets.”

Wayne Levi, 52, carded a second straight round of 68 (-4) to win the Constellation Energy Classic. Levi led wire to wire to beat Hale Irwin by two strokes, finishing at -16 (200).

Irwin lead a charge, shooting an 8-under 64, and Rodger Davis took third place at -13. Fan favorite Jim Thorpe and the plodding Graham Marsh finished another stroke back at 204.

This is Levi’s second Champions Tour title, having previously won the 3M in August, 2003.

Levi Strauss and Company was unavailable for comment.

Tiger Woods is now on record: he wants to be like Europe. At least when it comes to choosing the Ryder Cup team. Specifically, Woods wants a one year selection period instead of the current two. Woods said that “to get the true team that’s playing the best we’re going to have to go to a one-year period, like the Europeans do.”

Woods also expressed interest in a vice-captain’s role, saying:

I’d like to work with the captain on the pairings and team strategy and working on the whole concept of bringing the team together and doing what I can to make our team successful at the end of the week. I basically kind of do that now, but if I were a vice-captain it would have an official role.

It remains to be seen (and debated, of course) what exactly a title would offer if Woods is already fulfilling the role presently.

According to various news reports, Tiger will marry his girlfriend Elin Nordegren next week at the Sandy Lane resort in Barbados.

“All I can say is that I’m getting married in the future. I’ve narrowed it down to that,” Woods said.

With only two of Europe’s Ryder Cup winning stars making the cut, and only a handful of otherwise household names in attendance, my expectations for the final day’s play of The Heritage at Woburn were perhaps understandably low. However, my pessimism was unfounded, as the quality of golf played on Sunday not only made for a great tournament, but also (re)opened my eyes to the high standard of golf on tour, not only among the top dozen or so golfers, but right down to 125th ranked player and beyond.

The tournament was won by Henrik Stenson of Sweden by a convincing margin of 4 shots from Spain’s Carlos Rodiles. His stats for the tournament speak for themselves, notably his impressive length and accuracy from the tee, on a tight, tree-lined and slightly damp course. Equally impressive was his run of four consecutive birdies from the 14th (that I was fortunate enough to witness), and the manner in which he made each of them: found the fairway, found the green, holed the putt. Simple. He could have made it five birdies in a row on the par 5 finishing hole, but, deciding that discretion is the better part of valour, laid up and wedged onto the final green, and two putted to close out the win.

Continue reading “Sunday at The Heritage”

Let’s get all of the second guessing out of the way in one fell swoop so that we can just move on. We’ll play a game called “Why in the Hal?” as in “Why in the Hal did he do that?”

Why in the Hal were Tiger and Phil paired? Twice!? And then Tiger was paired with Davis Love III, who’d sucked it up earlier the previous day. The only player Woods won with: his friend Chris Riley.

Why in the Hal did Phil switch clubs and balls just before the Ryder Cup? Why in the Hal didn’t Phil practice with the team? Why in the Hal did the captain let him?

Why in the Hal didn’t the US team play mock matches against each other in its three days? Strategy in a team game is important and a little more complex than “I’ll hit one safe so you can really go at it, pardner.”

Why in the Hal did Sutton choose to walk on Saturday, admitting later that it prevented him from getting to every group that needed information?

Continue reading “Why in the Hal?”

A new tournament, The Heritage, takes place on the European Tour this week. The event, though probably created to fill an awkward gap in the schedule (i.e. the week after the Ryder Cup), has been established to honour the European Tour’s Executive Director, Ken Schofield. Schofield has been the driving force behind European golf for the last 30 years and is set to retire at the end of the year.

Continue reading “The Heritage”

The US had their backsides handed to them yesterday, losing to the European squad 18½ to 9½ in the 35th Ryder Cup matches at Oakland Hills Golf Club in Detroit, Michigan. Not only did the US lose the Ryder Cup, but it did so in an unprecedented fashion: losing by the largest margin in the 77-year history of the Ryder Cup.

“We haven’t been winning it,” Davis Love III said. “If they keep bringing the cup back on their airplane, we are the underdog.” No kidding, Davis. The US has lost seven of the last ten Ryder Cups and shows no signs of reversing that trend. The same comments were made before this Ryder Cup as have always been made: “The Euros have more chemistry,” “It means more to them,” and – our favorite – “They have more heart.”

Continue reading “Europe 18.5, USA 9.5”