Tour golfer update
Shell Houston Open
Not a bad week for Vijay Singh I guess. Monday - get elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame. Sunday - pick up winner's check for $900,000. Presumebly he hasn't run over any black cats recently.
Singh was given a battle by John Daly, who took him to a playoff. Other good performances came from Darren Clarke (T4), who might have been forgiven for disintegrating after the disappointment of his final round machinations in the MCI Heritage.
And the Brits are indeed coming, though not in the usual form, but with Greg Owen and Brian Davis, two relative unknowns, picking up a T4 and T7 respectively.
Over in China, where golf and communist dictatorships seem to be mixing well, Adam Scott did his burgeoning reputation no harm by winning the Johnnie Walker Classic against a strong field that included the likes of Els and Goosen.
Unlike many of the "next Tigers", Scott is justifying the bold predictions with his golf clubs. Now he just needs to get Greg Norman to sign the adoption papers, and his future is secure.
On the LPGA Tour, Carin Koch obliterated the rest of the field in the Corona Morelia Championship, winning by a mere 6 shots from Karine Icher.
On the Champions Tour, Des Smythe took home the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf.
Monday, April 25, 2005
Not a bad week for Vijay Singh I guess. Monday - get elected to the World Golf Hall of Fame. Sunday - pick up winner's check for $900,000. Presumebly he hasn't run over any black cats recently.
Singh was given a battle by John Daly, who took him to a playoff. Other good performances came from Darren Clarke (T4), who might have been forgiven for disintegrating after the disappointment of his final round machinations in the MCI Heritage.
And the Brits are indeed coming, though not in the usual form, but with Greg Owen and Brian Davis, two relative unknowns, picking up a T4 and T7 respectively.
Over in China, where golf and communist dictatorships seem to be mixing well, Adam Scott did his burgeoning reputation no harm by winning the Johnnie Walker Classic against a strong field that included the likes of Els and Goosen.
Unlike many of the "next Tigers", Scott is justifying the bold predictions with his golf clubs. Now he just needs to get Greg Norman to sign the adoption papers, and his future is secure.
On the LPGA Tour, Carin Koch obliterated the rest of the field in the Corona Morelia Championship, winning by a mere 6 shots from Karine Icher.
On the Champions Tour, Des Smythe took home the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf.
Monday, April 25, 2005
MCI Heritage
Peter Lonard was a happy bunny Sunday as he won his first tournament on the PGA Tour, despite a somewhat troubled final round where he shot a 75.
Spare a thought, though, for Darren Clarke. He played the first two rounds in 12 under and the last two in 7 over to blow a six-shot lead coming into the weekend. Still, $343,200 for T2 is a nice consolation prize and buys a lot of cigars.
The LPGA Takefuji Classic saw Wendy Ward win and some newcomers put in notable performances. Rookie Paula Creamer tied for third and amateur In-Bee Park came fifth. Michelle who? (Just kidding)
In Europe, Peter Hanson won the Jazztel Open de Espana en Andalucia in a playoff with fellow-Swede Peter Gustafsson.
Monday, April 18, 2005
Peter Lonard was a happy bunny Sunday as he won his first tournament on the PGA Tour, despite a somewhat troubled final round where he shot a 75.
Spare a thought, though, for Darren Clarke. He played the first two rounds in 12 under and the last two in 7 over to blow a six-shot lead coming into the weekend. Still, $343,200 for T2 is a nice consolation prize and buys a lot of cigars.
The LPGA Takefuji Classic saw Wendy Ward win and some newcomers put in notable performances. Rookie Paula Creamer tied for third and amateur In-Bee Park came fifth. Michelle who? (Just kidding)
In Europe, Peter Hanson won the Jazztel Open de Espana en Andalucia in a playoff with fellow-Swede Peter Gustafsson.
Monday, April 18, 2005
US Masters
Normal service is resumed. He's back, chalking up his fourth Masters win and ninth major, which puts him level with Ben Hogan and Gary Player. Tiger Woods is the 2005 winner of the green jacket.
It wasn't easy for him, though...the details...
The Masters didn't escape the inclement weather that's plagued the PGA Tour this year, with the first two days visited by large quantities of rain.
And Woods start reflected the weather - a 2 over 74 that gave no indication of what was to come. His reponse was to follow with a 66 and then a 65, the latter including 7 birdies in a row.
That third round rout turned a four stroke deficit behind Chris DiMarco into a three stroke lead over the same player at the start of the final round.
The two then went head to head on the front nine, both playing it at two under par, before things hotted up on the back nine.
DiMarco clawed a shot back on the tenth when Woods bogeyed the hole and another on the eleventh with a huge 40 foot birdie effort. Then he lost one back with a bogey on the twelth before pulling up to within one shot of Woods with a birdie on the fourteenth.
Both birdied the fifteenth before Woods pulled out possibly one of the best shots in golf history, to collect a birdie from an apparently impossible position on the sixteenth.
Then on the seventeenth, Tiger dropped a shot to leave him just one ahead coming onto the final hole. He repeated the feat on the eighteenth to send the two players into a playoff.
Facing the eighteenth again, Woods rolled in a birdie putt to end an extraordinary contest.
Elsewhere, irony popped up to pair Vijay Singh with Phil Mickelson in the final round. The former had earlier complained about the latter's spikes, which didn't go down too well with Mickelson and led to an exchange of words in the locker room.
Although neither really troubled Tiger in the end, a tenth place for Mickelson and a T5 for Singh confirmed their big four status. The missing man was Ernie Els, who finished a surprising 47th.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
Normal service is resumed. He's back, chalking up his fourth Masters win and ninth major, which puts him level with Ben Hogan and Gary Player. Tiger Woods is the 2005 winner of the green jacket.
It wasn't easy for him, though...the details...
The Masters didn't escape the inclement weather that's plagued the PGA Tour this year, with the first two days visited by large quantities of rain.
And Woods start reflected the weather - a 2 over 74 that gave no indication of what was to come. His reponse was to follow with a 66 and then a 65, the latter including 7 birdies in a row.
That third round rout turned a four stroke deficit behind Chris DiMarco into a three stroke lead over the same player at the start of the final round.
The two then went head to head on the front nine, both playing it at two under par, before things hotted up on the back nine.
DiMarco clawed a shot back on the tenth when Woods bogeyed the hole and another on the eleventh with a huge 40 foot birdie effort. Then he lost one back with a bogey on the twelth before pulling up to within one shot of Woods with a birdie on the fourteenth.
Both birdied the fifteenth before Woods pulled out possibly one of the best shots in golf history, to collect a birdie from an apparently impossible position on the sixteenth.
Then on the seventeenth, Tiger dropped a shot to leave him just one ahead coming onto the final hole. He repeated the feat on the eighteenth to send the two players into a playoff.
Facing the eighteenth again, Woods rolled in a birdie putt to end an extraordinary contest.
Elsewhere, irony popped up to pair Vijay Singh with Phil Mickelson in the final round. The former had earlier complained about the latter's spikes, which didn't go down too well with Mickelson and led to an exchange of words in the locker room.
Although neither really troubled Tiger in the end, a tenth place for Mickelson and a T5 for Singh confirmed their big four status. The missing man was Ernie Els, who finished a surprising 47th.
Sunday, April 10, 2005
