Tiger gets richer with Gatorade
Photo: © By:Stuart Franklin/Getty Images
Tiger Woods with his new "favorite" drink. The "GolfBuzz" likes the endorsements that Tiger Woods commands. He probably makes more money gulping from his new drink endorsement Gatorade, than the common man makes in a year.
GolfWeek magazine is reporting that Tiger has just inked a deal with Gatorade for five years worth a whopping $100 million. I just wonder how many Gatorades are going to have to be sold just to pay off Woods.
According to the article, the $100 million will be in endorsements and royalties on sales of three Gatorade products, including a new one that is going to be named after Woods. Gatorade spokesmen and Woods' agent had nothing to say about the deal. All we can say is hey Gatorade, you could of gotten off a lot cheaper if you had gone to GolfObserver for some endorsements. According to Forbes magazine Tiger should be a billionaire by the end of 2009 while Golf Digest reported in a recent article that Woods' cumulative tournament purses and endorsement deals have totaled $545 million since 1996. Below is a list of endorsement deals that the business world knows that Tiger has:
Nike - reported to be paying his $105 million for five yearsBuick - reported to be paying him $40 million for five yearsAccenture - no figure reportedGillette - reported by the Boston Globe as being between $10 and $20 million, with no length found.Tag Heuer watches - no figure reported.Electronice Arts, maker of Tiger Woods 2008 video game - no figure reportedGatorade - $100 million for five yearsNetJet - no figure reported
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Hey, this just isn't fair
Photo: © Sam Greenwood/WireImage
The view of the 18th fairway of the Classic Club home course of the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic.
The Desert Sun had a nice report on how the good folks of the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic take care of their new partners. For years one of the biggest bargains was the price members of some of the Classic courses that held the event got for pro-am spots. For years members at Bermuda Dunes, Indian Wells and LaQuinta paid between $2,000 and $7,000 for pro-am spots, while others had to pay up to $12,000 each.
So you can understand how upset the city of LaQuinta, whose Silver Rock course will be one of the host courses in 2008, is that they got 10 passes for pro-am spots for $12,000. Part of the deal for letting the Bob Hope be played on SilverRock was that they would get 10 "member price" slots into the Bob Hope to sell them to LaQuinta residents. But wait. The city of LaQuinta is starting to put two plus two together, and realizing that they just aren't getting the same deal as the other member courses. As a matter of fact they are being charged the same price as anyone off the street who wants to pay to play in the four day pro-am.
As La Quinta Mayor Don Adolph told the Desert Sun, without a discount, Adolph worried the city isn't getting the same perks that country clubs with courses on the Bob Hope rotation may be receiving from the tournament.
Looks like the folks of SilverRock will just have to charge the Hope people a bit more for the right to hold the event on it's new course.
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Recap of the BMW Championship with Tiger Woods winning
Photo: © Sam Greenwood
Tiger Woods wins the BMW Championship.
BMW Championship results & money
BMW Championship scores & stats
Again we write about the wonders of Tiger Woods and when he gets his putter going like he did on Sunday at the BMW Championship, he just can't be beat. Woods was in prime form on Sunday, as his 63 matched his best final round ever on the PGA Tour. He made eight birdies and no bogeys, with seven birdies coming in a 10-hole stretch starting at the seventh hole. Still, he was pressed by Aaron Baddeley, who was tied for the lead until Woods holed a 50-foot birdie putt on the 12th hole. Woods finished at 22-under 262, with Baddeley shooting a 66 for a 264 total to finish second. Stricker had a 68 to end up third at 268. Adam Scott was fourth at 270 after a 65, while Tim Clark (67) and Justin Rose (68) tied for fifth at 271.
For Woods, it was his 60th career victory, moving him within two of Arnold Palmer for fourth on the all-time list. It was his fourth win at Cog Hill, along with the 1997, 1999, and 2003 Western Open. He has won six events in 15 starts this year, and is on a 1-1-T2-1 streak in his last four events.
Of course this is a bonanza for FedEx Cup officials and it momentarily took some of the sting away from the horrid conditions of the greens at East Lake. With the win, Woods shot back up to No. 1 in the FedEx Cup standings and going into the last event, pretty much controls his destiny on winning the $10 million deferred payment. Unless Phil Mickelson or Steve Stricker win at East Lake, it should be an easy walk in the park for him to collect the big prize.
Tiger Woods best 72 hole scores of the PGA Tour:
Score
Event
Place
259
2000 WGC-NEC Invitational
Win
261
2006 WGC-American Express
Win
262
2007 BMW Championship
Win
263
1997 GTE Byron Nelson Classic
Win
263
2002 WGC-American Express
Win
More importantly the win puts Woods on track to catch Arnold Palmer's victory mark of 62 by early next year and Ben Hogan's 64 win mark by the summer. If he can keep up with the pace of six wins a year, Woods is on pace to catch Jack Nicklaus 73 win mark either at the end of 2009 or the start of 2010 and Sam Snead by 2013. There is a good possibility that if Woods keep things up, he won't have anything to play for by the time he is 40, other than making it tougher for the next Tiger Woods that comes down the pike in 50 or 100 years.
Now, Woods made the win look easy, even though Steve Stricker played one of his best events of his career. In the 313 PGA Tour events that Stricker has played in, his lowest 72 hole score of 266 last week tied his personal best of 266 shot in the 1996 and '98 Greater Milwaukee Open. Now the course that held that event is nothing to the degree of Cog Hill so it just shows that a player like Steve Stricker can give his career best performance and still lose by four. As for Aaron Baddeley, his 264 total was one off his personal best 263 score shot at the 2003 Valero Texas Open and this year's FBR Open which he won. So these guys are putting their best events together and not even coming close to Tiger.
It just seems that Woods is always pushing himself to greater levels to the point that he is even surprising himself. Of course, Woods seems to like winning
Still the important aspect is winning and doing it with Woods in the field. Another important aspect in the Harmon/Mickelson relationship is being sure Mickelson keeps the ball in the fairway and that's one thing he achieved, hitting 76.8% of his fairways.
So with his win, it will be interesting to see if Mickelson can carry this momentum over the long run, for years to come. If we can see this happen in other events and majors, it will help make golf even more exciting to watch. Hopefully Mickelson will come to his senses and play in the BMW Championship so that we can again get a taste of Mickelson and Woods going mano-a-mano together.
Here are some other notes on Woods's win:
Photo: © Chris Condon/WireImage
Tiger Woods on Sunday after making another putt for birdie.
Keys for Tiger winning:
One of his better overall performance stat wise.Led in birdies made with 26. In only three 72 hole events has Tiger made more than 26 birdies in a event.Only made 3 bogeys for the week, Was T3rd in fairways hit with a 80.4% hitting 45 of 56. Was 3rd in driving distance with an average drive of 311.6Led the field in total driving.Was 4th in greens hit with a 79.2 % average, hitting 57 of 72 greensPlayed the par 4s in 11 under, 2nd bestPlayed the three par 5s in 9 under, bestWas 12 of 15 in scrambling, the 80% average was best in the fieldNo three putts for the week, 33 one puttsWas third in putting per green hit and his 109 putts was 5th
Again, looking at this week compared to last week you can see how easily it is for Tiger to win when his putter is working. Last week Woods was had 115 putts and was 58 of 62 on putts from seven feet and in. In the final round Woods made only three of 16 putts over 6 feet. But this week was a different story, he took 109 putts and from putts ten feet and in he was 59 of 66 and made 14 of 15 putts from ten feet and in on the final day.
Tiger shot 63 in his final round, it was his personal best score in the final round. Here are the other times he shot 63 in the final round:
2000 GTE Byron Nelson - finished T4th2001 Verizon Heritage - finished T3rd2002 Disney Golf Classic - finished 3rd2006 Deutsche Bank Championship - Won2007 BMW Championship - Won
A couple of notes on Tiger's win:
Tied for second with four BMW Championship wins with Billy Casper and Willie Anderson. Walter Hagen won five between 1916 and 1932.
Seven different players (total of 12 times) since 1970 have won six or more times in a season. Woods has five of the 12.
Come-from-behind victory was 18th in 58 career PGA Tour stroke-play wins, and fourth of the 2007 season (Buick Invitational, Wachovia Championship, and World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational).
This is the 29th time he has won an event without holding the 36-hole lead, including three of his six victories in 2007. He came from seven strokes back through 36-holes at the Buick Invitational and came from four-strokes back this week at Firestone Country Club.
Seventh event with four or more victories (CA Championship-6; Bridgestone Invitational-6; Buick Invitational-5; Arnold Palmer Invitational-4, Masters Tournament-4, BMW Championship-4, PGA Championship-4).
Tiger Woods' winning score of 262 set a tournament record for low 72-hole score. In fact, the top three players all broke the previous mark of 267 first set by Scott Hoch in 2001 and matched by Woods in 2003.
Surpasses the $75 million mark in career PGA Tour Official Money with $75,319,376.
Has won in 27.9 percent (60 out of 215) of his professional starts on the PGA Tour.
Woods's stats (with rank in parentheses):Fairways hit: 45 of 56 ..... (3rd)
Driving average: 311.6 ..... (3)
Greens hit: 57 of 72 ....... (4th)
Putts: 109 (27.25 a rd) .... (T5th)
Putting breakdown:
0-putt greens: 1
1-putt greens: 33
2-putt greens: 38
3-putt greens: 0
Play on par 3s: -2
Play on par 4s: -11
Play on par 5s: -9
Eagles: 0
Birdies: 26 ................ (1st)
Scrambling: 12 of 15 (80.00%)... (T2nd)
Scrambling measures how many times a player gets up and down for par or better on the holes where he missed the green in regulation.
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The "Couch Producer" is on the "Couch" in Ireland and we thought it would be nice to look at some European TV.
First of all it was nice to see Renton Laidlaw returning to Golf Channel last week after his medical scare. He along with Peter Alliss are the greatest to hear and we have missed Laidlaw, along with Alliss since ABC doesn't do regular PGA Tour events. Now many people don't know this but Laidlaw is like a cat that has gone through about six lives already. Back in March, while undergoing some cancer surgery, Renton died on the operating table, not once, but twice. Quick thinking doctors were able to revive him and after a few months rest in his summer home in St. Andrews, Renton has made a nice recovery. So much that he was able to do the telecast of the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles.
Photo: © David Cannon/Getty
Renton with co-host Warren Humphreys.Again we were able to enjoy his commentary, no matter how big or how small an event is, Renton has a style that keeps us entertained and seems to make it a big event. He is not abrasive, just a friendly chat with his friends in a style like Vin Scully does for those lucky enough to watch him on the Los Angeles Dodgers telecasts.
He even helps Warren Humphreys along and makes interesting to listen to because Renton knows how to lead his co-host and make him sound great. In a email from him he says he will do a couple of events in England, like the Quinn Direct British Masters in two weeks and the Dunhill Links. He wants to stay in England for the time being until he completely heals.
Anyway, welcome back Renton, we all love you and have missed you. Get well so that we can hear you every week in 2008.
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We thought that we had it tough with Golf Channel this year? The biggest problem (other than some of its voices) in its deal with the PGA Tour is reach. A perfect example is when I was in Akron a couple of weeks ago, the hotel didn't have Golf Channel and it was hard to find it anywhere in Akron.
Photo: © Setanta website
Of course this was a problem that the PGA Tour knew about and to be fair to Golf Channel they are growing at a fast pace. Of course, ESPN and USA will have more reach, but the good thing about Golf Channel is that in most cases CBS or NBC cover the weekend making it a non issue.
But a bigger problem is for the folks over in England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland. For a dozen years they have been able to get all PGA Tour golf on Sky Sports, which has the same kind of reach in the United Kingdom as ESPN. Of course it's nothing compared to BBC, who during events like the Masters, British Open and Walker Cup get audiences in excess of three and four to one. But the fact of the matter is that Sky Sports has covered the PGA Tour for a dozen years and people were used to it. Not only did Sky have the PGA Tour, but they also have all the European Tour, the World Golf Championships plus the Ryder Cup, U.S. Open and the PGA Championship. In a way they have dominated the golf airways.
Now many will say that I am biased because I work on Sky's coverage of the majors and World Golf Championships. But I was a consumer this week and found out how hard it is with the changes that happened. What Sky does is not just take the feed but send a full golf team to the big events and do its own telecast back to the United Kingdom. Last year in some of the other events that weren't that big like Bay Hill, it sent over a couple of announcers to host the show and supplement the coverage with the American networks announcers.
But last summer a bit of greed set in as the PGA Tour was approached by the newly formed Setanta, an Irish cable company that is trying to make inroads on Sky's big market. What Setanta did was offer the Tour a reported $200 million for a six-year deal, up to four times what Sky was paying. To be fair to a long-time partner, the PGA Tour ask Sky to match the bid, which it didn't do so the contract went over to Setanta starting at this year's Mercedes Championship.
Of course Setanta had some good intentions. It said that it would start up its own team of announcers and production people to do the telecasts of the Players Championship, the four FedEx Cup events and the Presidents Cup, just like Sky does. Unfortunately, after doing this at the Players Championship in May, it cancelled all of its crews and are doing the playoffs with just Ronan Rafferty on site. It has two announcers in London and is using a feed from CBS or NBC using their announcers, something that Sky doesn't do on its World Golf Championship and major coverage.
The reason for such cheap coverage is the lack of money that has been brought in off of subscriptions to Setanta Golf. I didn't realize the scoop of the problem until I went to Dornich in Scotland in July. Golf fans in this golf-crazy town were heart broken that Setanta took over and like most of them said, they just didn't care to pay the Setanta fee, which is $300 a year. The economics of this is so bad that one group of golfing buddies at Dornich share one feed at one person's house and four of them watch the telecast together from that one person's home. In a way I can't blame these folks, they are still paying for Sky, which has a lot more sports and they now have been forced to pay for Setanta. It just doesn't work.
I personally got to witness the problem this weekend on a trip to Ireland. The home I am staying in had Setanta until a storm last week caused some drifting of the Satellite dish, which meant no coverage. Plus, it's hard to get a service man out to fix it. No problem, we thought. There had to be some pubs that had it on. We found one, but unfortunately there was a big rugby match on this weekend and that was on in the pub that had it. In searching for other places, we came up empty, even the Marriott hotel at Druids Glen golf course didn't subscribe to Setanta Golf because , as the hotel manager said, of the high cost. So I got to witness first hand some of the frustration that folks over in the United Kingdom and Ireland are having. Not only is it an added expense, but Setanta is doing a very "cheap" job of not giving these events proper home coverage like Sky would.
Hopefully the PGA Tour will see the hazards of taking the big bucks and not getting the reach because there is a lot of folks that no longer care about the PGA Tour or the FedEx Cup in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Click here to post your thoughts and to tell us your "Golf Buzz"
E-mail us at: Golfersal@aol.com
The Observer looks at what the big "Buzz" in golf is
September 3, 2007
By The Editors of GOLFOBSERVERE-mail me at: Golfersal@aol.com
Some of today's items:
*Greg Norman and Laura soap opera continues
*Peter Jacobsen loses clubs for a day
*Nancy Lopez comeback not doing well
*Dream pairing
*Oldies but goodies on the Champions Tour
*Recap of the Deutsche Bank with Phil Mickelson winning
Click here to post your thoughts and to tell us your "Golf Buzz"
Could peace be near for Greg and Laura Norman?
So what happened this week in the continuing saga of the bickering Norman's?
Photo: © Lee Besford
Greg Norman and Chris Evert. Could things be closer to closure on the trail as Laura Norman's attorney's asked Greg's attorneys to file a financial statement which list all of his income, expenses and liabilities. Could this mean that some kind of settlement is close or even further away? Still up in the air is the jury trial to determine who is responsible for tax liability on one of Greg Norman's jets.
Still, Judge Lawrence Mirman has been quoted in several newspapers including the Palm Beach Post, as saying that he has hopes that the couple could stop bickering and work together in getting this divorce done.
Also a lot of gossip pages are wondering if Norman could have been more careful in his relationship with tennis star Chris Evert and if pictures like the ones to the left could of spurred Laura even more.
We probably will never know what the final money terms will be, but it's easy to say that it will be over $100 million which will put it in this list of one of the most expensive celebrity divorces every:
Forbes List of Costliest Celebrity Divorces:#10 - Mick Jagger & Jerry Hall estimated $15 to 25 million#9 - Lionel & Diane Richie estimated at $20 million#8 - Michael & Diandra Douglas estimated at $45 million#7 - James Cameron & Linda Hamilton estimated at $50 million#6 - Paul McCartney & Heather Mills, settlement pending rumor at $60 million#5 - Kevin Costner & Cindy Silva estimated at $80 million#4 - Harrison Ford & Melissa Mathison estimated at $85 million#3 - Steven Spielberg & Amy Irving estimated at $100 million#2 - Neil Diamond & Marcia Murphey estimated at $150 million#1 - Michael & Juanita Jordan estimated at more than $150 million
For those that want to know what the costliest divorce ever has been, this year Russian billionaire and Britain's richest man Roman Abramovich gave his wife of 15-years Daria Zhukova between $2 and $4 billion dollars, yes billions. Rumor had it that Russina President Vladimir Putin stepped in and told his friend to settle things.
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Peter Jacobsen losses his clubs for a day
Photo: © By:Mike Ehrmann/WireImage
Peter Jacobsen with his clubs. Talk about having a bit of a scare, Peter Jacobsen had one last week.
While he and his wife were leaving their Oregon home, they pulled out of their garage and drove off and the garage was left open for about ten minutes. On Jacobsen's return home he found out that his golf clubs were taken.
Among the 80 clubs taken was a set of Titleist clubs that he has used over the course of the last five years, including the ones that he used while winning the U.S. Senior Open. Also taken were clubs that Jacobsen used when he was in high school and college.
As police told him it was unlikely that whoever stole the clubs knew what they were taking and that it would be easy to spot if the robber tried to pawn them or try to sell them to any golfers. So Jacobsen offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to whoever did the dastardly deed.
Sure enough, the next day the tale had a happy ending as Police were able to recover 55 of the 80 clubs, but more importantly all of his competition clubs and those with sentimental value were returned. Details were withheld on who stole them but thanks to the reward someone called with a tip about their location.
So for Jacobsen this has a happy ending as he was getting ready to play in the Wal-Mart First Tee Open at Pebble Beach with his old clubs instead of the replacement set that Titleist had made up for him.
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Nancy Lopez comeback
Photo: © By: Doug Benc/Getty Image
Nancy Lopez has a lot of fans that are happy to see her back. At the age of 50, Nancy Lopez's comeback on the LPGA Tour hasn't been a stellar experience. In a way we feel sorry for Lopez, who basically has seen her family pursue other interest and she is left with very little to keep her busy. Husband Ray is not at home in Albany, Georgia as he is up in Maryland working on the Washington Nationals telecasts. Two of her three daughters have flown the coup and are in college while Lopez Golf Equipment company was sold. She no longer has her golf event and her career in television was very short lived because the inexperienced folks at Golf Channel didn't work with her and show her how to do television. Two years ago she was very busy as the Solheim Cup captain but when that ended she had nothing to do. So after the Solheim Cup, Lopez got the thought of a possible comeback on a limited basis on the LPGA Tour. With the mid-life erg to return, Lopez went out and lost 30 pounds last year, which helped her nagging problem of bad feet and knees and gave it a try in 2007.
Lopez's first comeback start was at the Ginn Clubs Resort Open. Unfortunately, she shot 83-80, missing the cut. But this was just a preview of things to come. She played at the McDonald's LPGA Championship, shot 83-78, followed by a 82-82 performance at the Wegman's LPGA. At the Jamie Farr she shot 78-83, but we have to say that she hit rock bottom two weeks ago at the Safeway Classic with rounds of 82-91. Last week is was more of the same at the State Farm as she again finished in last place with rounds of 81-79. Six events, six missed cuts after shooting an aggregate 120 over par.
Nancy Lopez will always be considered one of the great players on the LPGA Tour. Yes it's nice to see her once or twice a year in a event that has meaning for her, something that doesn't take a spot away from the field and something that she can take more of a ceremonial jog around the course for a couple of days.
In a way Lopez is tarnishing her reputation and legacy with this comeback. Some have said that she is doing it to help the owners of her golf equipment company, while others have said that she has nothing to really keep her busy. Still it's unfortunate watching an idol struggle. Yes, Arnold Palmer may have played too long but he was still "The King." With Nancy this comeback bid is getting a bit embarrassing.
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Photo: © By: Marco Garcia/WireImage
Tiger, Phil and Vijay played together with Michael Campbell at the 2005 Grand Slam of Golf.
The dream pairing
During the first two rounds of the Deutsche Bank Championship Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh were paired together and it was the first time in a PGA Tour event that the three had ever played together. Now this time Mickelson got the best as he was 8-under to Woods' 6-under and Singh's 2-under (Phil got the ultimate best my winning the event). But in looking through the history of golf this threesome was paired together in the 2005 PGA Grand Slam of golf. In that 36-hole meeting Woods got the best of the three shooting rounds of 67-64 for a 13-under par total of 131 to beat Mickelson by seven and Singh by 13. Now for their meeting last week at the Deutsche Bank, no money was won but at the Grand Slam, Woods collected the first place check of $250,000.
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Oldies but goodies on the Champions Tour
Photo: © By: Chris Condon/ Wire Image
Hale Irwin and Gil Morgan. Gil Morgan was back in the winner's circle at the Wal-Mart First Tee Open at Pebble Beach with his two shot victory over Hale Irwin. For Morgan it was his 25th Champions Tour win and puts him in the third spot for most all-time wins on that tour. Hale Irwin leads with 45, followed by Lee Trevino with 29. Since joining the Champions Tour in 1996, Morgan has won every year except for 2005 when he was runner-up three times. The win also makes him the 17th player to win in his 60s on the Champions Tour. At the age of 60 years, 11 months and 7 days, Morgan is the eighth oldest winner.
Talking about longevity, Hale Irwin is a classic example of a old warhorse that can still do battle as he went into the final round at age 62 with a shot at winning. Already this year Irwin won at the MasterCard Champions at Hualalai, making it 36 years between his first PGA Tour win in the 1971 Sea Pines Heritage Classic and this year's win. Now in those 36 years Irwin has won every year except for in 1972, '78, '80, '86-'89, '91-'93 and 2006 for a total of winning in 26 different years.
So how does Irwin's 36 years rank statistically?
Many think that Sam Snead is the best. No two ways about it, he has played full time more than anyone else on the PGA Tour, playing 38 years between 1937 and 1974. He also played the first seven years on the Champions Tour but that was when it first was founded, so he played 45 years full-time on both tours. Unfortunately, Snead never won a official event on the Champions Tour and his total of winning 24 years on the PGA Tour falls two short of Irwin's 26 on both the PGA and Champions Tours.
Another person that Irwin passed up this year was Arnold Palmer, who won 18 years on the PGA Tour and seven on the Champions Tour for a total of 25. Palmer played full time (more than 10 events a year) between 1955 and 1983 on the PGA Tour (29 years) but if you add in his 17 Champions Tour years between 1984 and 2000, it means that Irwin still has to play 10 more years to have a chance to break Palmer's longevity record.
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Recap of the Deutsche Bank with Phil Mickelson winning
Photo: © J. Rogash/WireImage
Phil Mickelson wins the Deutsche Bank Championship.
Deutsche Bank results & money
Deutsche Bank scores & stats
What a great Labor Day of golf, one for the ages and one for the fans. A Tiger Woods/Phil Mickelson tussle, a dream come true for not only the golf aficionado but for the PGA Tour in helping solidify that the FedEx Cup idea could work. Tiger and Phil have gone at each other before, but that was at the Ford Championships and Buick Invitationals. What golf fans have dreamt of is a final round mano-a-mano duel between the two that really meant something in an event for the ages, exactly what Tim Finchem and the PGA Tour are trying to do in the FedEx Cup.
They got it at the Deutsche Bank Championship, which was as good as we could get things in a playoff atmosphere of golf's giants that had everything in it with ups and downs, with birdies and bogeys and putts made and putts missed, the kind of stuff that Tim Finchem had dreamed of when he put the FedEx Cup together.
For a decade we have been hoping for a rivalry between Phil and Tiger, unfortunately Phil just hasn't been up to it. After he played with Woods and Vijay Singh on Friday, Mickelson admitted to the media his shortcomings saying, "This was actually a really interesting day because I have been working with Butch Harmon as you know and in the past I haven't really played that well with Tiger, but he (Butch) told me a couple of things that he (Tiger) likes to do and I kind of was watching for it and I chuckled throughout the round when I picked up on it and I think that working with Butch has really help me understand how to play my best golf when I play in the same group with Tiger and I am hoping that I have a chance to do it on Monday." What that basically meant is that not only is Butch working on the swing with Mickelson, but also the mental aspect of things.
Tiger and Phil in a final round pairings on the PGA Tour:
Event
Phil Mickelson
Tiger Woods
2007 Deutsche Bank
66 (Win)
67
2005 Ford Championship Doral
69
66 (Win)
2003 Buick Invitational
72
68 (Win)
2002 Tour Championship
69
70
2001 Masters
701
68 (Win)
1997 PGA Championship
75
75
Now Butch was with Woods for close to a decade until the spilt in 2002. There is a lot that Butch taught Woods especially on "gamesmanship," which has been an important part of Woods game. Not only does Woods have the best game, but he is always able to get a mental advantage over his opponents. Those are the things that Butch is helping Mickelson do, while not giving Woods that mental advantage and it looks like it has worked. with Mickelson winning this week. Now many may not think this is true, but I feel it is, Mickelson wants to win and beat Woods along the way. He wants to be able to go "Mano-a-Mano" with Woods and it's funny how little they have done it since Woods joined the Tour in 1996.
Prior to this week Mickelson and Woods had only played together in the same group 16 times on the PGA Tour (since 1996) with Woods shooting the lower score nine times compared to Mickelson having the lower score four times. They had the same score three times so Woods has had Mickelson's number a lot. Now it doesn't mean that Mickelson has been a total loser against Woods. Mickelson did win the 2000 and 2001 Buick Invitational and the 2000 Tour Championship against Woods, but in all three they didn't have the pleasure of playing together in the final round.
Still the important aspect is winning and doing it with Woods in the field. Another important aspect in the Harmon/Mickelson relationship is being sure Mickelson keeps the ball in the fairway and that's one thing he achieved, hitting 76.8% of his fairways.
So with his win, it will be interesting to see if Mickelson can carry this momentum over the long run, for years to come. If we can see this happen in other events and majors, it will help make golf even more exciting to watch. Hopefully Mickelson will come to his senses and play in the BMW Championship so that we can again get a taste of Mickelson and Woods going mano-a-mano together.
Here are some other notes on Mickelson's win:
Photo: © Stan Badz/WireImage
Important to Phil Mickelson is being congratulated by Tiger Woods after a victory.
The key for Mickelson was getting the best of Tiger in putting. Mickelson took 105 putts compared to Tiger's 115 for the week, quite a lead. While Mickelson had 31 one putts and no three putts, Woods had 32 one putts but 3, three-putts with all of them coming on the weekend. Tiger was 58 of 62 on putts from seven feet while Mickelson was 61 of 64 in putts from the same distance. But what Mickelson did in beating Woods was missing only two of 17 putts on the final day, Woods couldn't say the same, on 16 putts on the final day from over 6 feet he only made three of 16, the difference for the Mickelson victory.
Another big key for Mickelson this week is something that he has been working very hard on with Butch Harmon, driving it in the fairway. For the week Mickelson was 76.8% on hitting fairways. That means he hit 43 of 56 fairways, which ranked T4th. In 22 of his victories since 1997 he has only done that two other times. In the 1997 Bay Hill Invitational when he ranked T21st and in his 2000 Colonial win when he hit 43 of 56 fairways which ranked T3rd, his best in a victory. It's also interesting to note that this week was one of his better driving weeks in the last five years. But in winning this event, Mickelson followed a formula that is almost always flaw-proof, that is to be in the top-five in both driving distance and driving accuracy. That he did this week so already his work with Butch Harmon has paid big dividends.
A couple of notes, of Phil's 32 wins this is only his 2nd after September 1st, the other one being the 2000 Tour Championship.
Mickelson played the par 5s in 10-under par which was second of those in the field. More importantly he beat Woods in something that he always seems to beat others in: Tiger was only 7 under on the par 5s for the week.
Mickelson was the best in the field in scrambling (86.36%) and sand saves (7 of 7).
Mickelson's stats (with rank in parentheses):Fairways hit: 43 of 56 ..... (T4th)
Driving average: 310.4 ..... (4th)
Greens hit: 50 of 72 ....... (T8th)
Putts: 105 (26.25 a rd) .... (T6th)
Putting breakdown:
0-putt greens: 4
1-putt greens: 31
2-putt greens: 37
3-putt greens: 0
Play on par 3s: -2
Play on par 4s: -4
Play on par 5s: -10
Eagles: 2
Birdies: 18 ................ (T8th)
Scrambling: 19 of 22 (86.36%)... (1st)
Scrambling measures how many times a player gets up and down for par or better on the holes where he missed the green in regulation.
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The Observer looks at what the big "Buzz" in golf is
August 27, 2007
By The Editors of GOLFOBSERVERE-mail me at: Golfersal@aol.com
Some of today's items:
*Greg Norman and Laura soap opera continues
*Sorenstam engaged
*Perfect man for the bag
*Another 7 shot comeback
*Recap of the Barclays with Steve Stricker winning
*So how was the first FedEx Cup playoff
*Couch Producer on how good CBS is and how bad NBC is
Click here to post your thoughts and to tell us your "Golf Buzz"
The Bickering Norman's saga continues
Photo: © Pretty/ALLSPORT
Greg Norman and Laura in 2000.
Pretty calm week in the continuing saga of Greg and his soon to be ex-wife Laura.
Seems that they are close of getting this divorce settled (yes we have heard this before), the only thing in the way is some kind of court determination on who is responsible for a tax liability on one of the private jets.
Still there is another sticking point that has come up, Greg wants Laura to sign a confidentiality clause before he signs off on the nine-figure settlement (rumor to be as high as $250 million dollars). The confidentiality clause is nothing more than a way to make sure that Laura doesn't talk to anyone about their 26 year old marriage and any breach would mean that Laura would have to pay unspecified damages to Greg. It's interesting to see that Greg is worried on what Laura could spill the beans on publicly.
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Photo: © By:Halleran /Getty
McGee & Sorenstam
A happier love story
Annika Sorenstam may not have a lot of pleasant golf memories of 2007 but she is very happy about one aspect of the year. On Saturday morning while relaxing at home, Sorenstam got engaged to her boyfriend of two years, Mike McGee, who popped the question at the couple's Orlando home. "What a lovely surprise," Sorenstam said, according to the Associated Press. "I'm as happy as I can be." No date is set for the wedding.
Be interesting to see what happens to Sorenstam and her career when she does get married. Could this spell the end to the Sorenstam destiny with no trying to catch Lorena Ochoa?
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Perfect man for the bag
Now the next time the U.S. Amateur comes to Olympic Golf Club a piece of advise. Look up Steve Molinelli, a Olympic member and ask him to caddy for you. Why, you ask? Molinelli, who is a four-time club champion at Olympic caddied for Colt Knost in his U.S. Amateur victory but if that isn't enough, Molinelli was the bagman for Nathaniel Crosby in his early qualifying rounds to get into the 1981 Amateur which Crosby won.
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Field shaping up for China event
The field for the HSBC Champions in Shanghai, China is shaping up into a first class event. In it's third year and being held November 8th through the 11th, it already has Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh and Sergio Garcia. This week three more star players signed up as Angel Cabrera, Padraig Harrington and Retief Goosen have entered. Now the one disadvantage this year is that after playing in the first two, Tiger Woods has taken a pass but still the event is gaining a reputation for such a fine field it's being dubbed "Asia's Major".
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Photo: © Marc Feldman/WireImage
Jimmy Walker back in the winners circle.
7 shot comeback for the second week in a row on the Nationwide Tour
Last week at the Xerox Classic, Nick Flanagan was able to make up a seven shot deficit on the final day with a 63 to win his third Nationwide Tour event and get a spot on the PGA Tour.
This week at the National Mining Association Pete Dye Classic, Parker McLachlin started the final round with a seemly safe seven shot lead, tying the Nationwide Tour record for largest lead entering any round and blew the tournament. With a combination of McLachlin shooting 77 and Jimmy Walker shooting 67, Walker was able to win for the third time on the Nationwide Tour. Now the timing of Walker's victory couldn't of been any better. After a breakthrough season on the Nationwide Tour in 2004 as the leading money winner, Walker struggled on the PGA Tour finishing 207th on the money list in 2005 then 202nd last year. Going into the Pete Dye Classic he was 62nd on the Nationwide Tour money list and was looking for something good to happen. With the win Walker climbed to 16th on the money list and has a good shot at regaining his PGA Tour card for 2008 if he can maintain his top-20 status on the money list for eight more Nationwide Tour events.
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A very crowded playoff
The seven-man playoff in the Boeing Classic Sunday in which Denis Watson prevailed with a eagle on the second playoff hole was the largest ever in a PGA Tour sanctioned event. The all-time record for a tournament was six players at the 1994 GTE Byron Nelson Classic and the 2001 Nissan Open on the PGA TOUR, while the high on the Champions Tour was five players at the 1996 Emerald Coast Classic and the 1998 Kroger Senior Classic.
In more Champions Tour news today is a dawning of a new era for the tour as it's Bernhard Langer's 50th birthday. He will play in his first event this week at the Wal-Mart First tee Open at Pebble Beach.
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Recap of the Barclays with Steve Stricker winning
Photo: © M. Ehrmann/WireImage
Steve Stricker hugs his caddie after winning the Barclays.
Barclays results & money
Barlcays scores & stats
Who knows what's more important at this point, a Barclays win or taking over the FedEx Cup point lead? I think if you ask Steve Stricker he would say winning. It's his first victory since the 2001 WGC-Accenture Match Play championship, 148 events ago. Even more telling it's Strickers first stroke play win since the 1996 Western Open 237 events ago.
For Stricker it's been a long haul back. After poor season in 2003 when he finished 188th on the money list, then 151st in 2004 followed by 162nd in 2005 Stricker went through a serious rebuild. He spent hours in the cold snow of Wisconsin during the winter of 2005/06 rebuilding and getting things back to the way it use to. He also got help from sponsors on the PGA Tour that gave him exemptions into events, at the time his only way to play.
Stricker showed his first signs of coming back at the Shell Houston Open in 2006 when he shot 68-66 on the weekend and finished 3rd. That was his best finish since his match play victory. Two months later Stricker was among the leaders going into the weekend of the U.S. Open, succumbing to poor play. The next week in Washington, he almost won the Booz Allen Classic, finishing runner-up. Steve finished the year with four more top-ten finishes and with earnings of $1,8 million regained his Tour card finishing 34th on the money list.
Stricker continued the good play over to 2007 with a great start at the Sony Open in Hawaii, almost winning that except for a poor final round. Unfortunately Stricker had problems in the final round this year but he still had runner-up finishes at Wachovia and the AT&T National. He also had good performances at the U.S. Open and the British Open, again playing poorly on the final day.
So he was knocking on the door of winning and it looked like he was going to do it at Westchester, only to play poorly in the middle of the round with bogeys at 10 and 13. But he changed things around with a birdie at 14, then followed it up with birdies at 16, 17 and 18 to catch and pass K.J. Choi who looked like he was going to win for the third time.
Here are some other notes on Stricker's win:
The key for Stricker was those birdies on the final three holes. It was a culmination of good ball strking and making putts of 13 feet on 16, 3 and a half feet at 17 and 8 feet at 18.
Putting was an important key for Stricker during the week. He was second with 110 putts and first in putting per green hit. He also ranked T4th in greens hit so the combination of high rank in both greens hit and putts per greens hit is a winning combination.
Again, we can't stress how important putting was for Stricker. For the week he made 245 feet of putts, now this stat may sound weird but lets look at it. If you divide that number by 72 holes, he average close to 3 and a half feet per hole of putts. He was one of only four players to have no three putts and only eight players had more one putts than Stricker's (Mark Calcavecchia led with 36).
Stricker played the final three holes in 8 under par for the week.
Strickers's stats (with rank in parentheses):Fairways hit: 46 of 56 ..... (T11th)
Driving average: 276.6 ..... (38th)
Greens hit: 54 of 72 ....... (T4th)
Putts: 110 (27.50 a rd) .... (T2nd)
Putting breakdown:
0-putt greens: 1
1-putt greens: 32
2-putt greens: 39
3-putt greens: 0
Play on par 3s: -3
Play on par 4s: -5
Play on par 5s: -8
Eagles: 1
Birdies: 22 ................ (T2nd)
Scrambling: 10 of 18 (55.56%)... (50th)
Scrambling measures how many times a player gets up and down for par or better on the holes where he missed the green in regulation.
One down, three playoff events left
Photo: © Stan Badz/Wire Images
The 18th green at East Lake Country Club will be the place were the FedEx Cup playoffs end next month.
So after the first FedEx Cup playoff, many are wondering, is this something that is exciting or is it just another tournament on the PGA Tour that offers a lot of money? Quite frankly the jury is still out on the whole thing but if just watching a golf tournament is not enough, trying to keep track of the event and the cup race is like work. The PGA Tour did get a break in the fact that the main people on Sunday, Steve Stricker, K.J. Choi and Rory Sabbatini were in the top-15 of the FedEx Cup which added a lot more drama on things than having Rich Beem, Robert Garrigus and Bob Heintz fighting it out. I find it a non-story the race for the top-120, who cares, these guys won't be around for the Tour Championship so why waste the time to make a big deal of it. Now one of the problems with these so-called playoffs is the bottom-feeders. It will be interesting to see if any of those that started the playoffs 100 and higher can make it through the BMW Championship, which pretty much ask's the question why go down so low. It was funny listening to Frank Nobilo on Golf Channel rant about how unfair it was that Bob Heintz finished T17th with a final round 65 and didn't advance. Yes that's the whole problem with having so many folks with opinions. Even though the Tour and Tim Finchem has a lot of Monday quarterbacks including myself, it's interesting to point out that Tiger Woods could regret not playing. In a way, for Woods not to play at the Barclays it was like Roger Federer giving his opponent the first set in a U.S. Open match. Still many feel that Woods is just going to roar through the Deutsch Bank and then the BMW, winning both and making another big deposit on his already fat back account. But if Tiger does stumble and finish lets say 25th at the Deutsch Bank and if Steve Stricker, K.J. Choi or Rory Sabbatini were to win at Deutsch Bank, this would leave Woods in the tough spot of having to win at least once in the remaining events, to even have a chance. As for an early call on the success of the series I still have to wait and see, but after the first round I give it a thumbs up for a great point system that should make it interesting.
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Nice job by CBS, just wish they were doing the next three weeks
The "Couch Producer" feels that this year's telecasts by CBS could of been the best by any one network over the years. Technically they were well done and there was no too ways about it, they tried new things and found success with them.
The best has to be the BizCam which has brought state of the art slo-mo into the real word. In the past these slo-mo cameras have been very big and bulky, which meant that a fixed locate was necessary. But with the new camera, it's about the same size as a regular hand-held camera and goes off with the leaders. They isolate the picture to a tape machine and have gotten some great results, not only slo-mo swings but swings in which club-heads go through rough showing how well a player executes a shot. We never get tired of the slo-mo's and NBC should pick this up in a heartbeat.
Another thing CBS has done is turned around the career of Peter Kostis with his "Kostis Korner" and tips, using the slo-mo camera. CBS has realized that lessons and tips are becoming a very popular item and with the combination of Kostis and the camera have come up with first class pieces all year.
CBS also gets a lot of points for there talkers, everyone of them with the exception of Bobby Clampett is first class and someone that we love to listen to. Unfortunately for Clampett he could be the worst announcer in golf period, he never seems to know what to say and the viewer most of the time has this "what was that" on a lot of his comments. Fortunately for us, Clampett is more of a summer fill-in when the other announcers need some time off.
As for the others, what can you say about David Feherty, Peter Oosterhuis and Gary McCord. They always keep us entertained and know the right things to say keeping a show lively.
CBS also gets high points for taking the best from ABC and moving it to CBS. Ian Baker-Finch did a great job this year and made the executives at CBS look very wise for getting him. Another good move was getting Nick Faldo, who is 20 times better than Lanny Wadkins ever was. You have to give high points to CBS for taking the chance on replacing Wadkins with Nick.
Even with the high number of shows that they do, CBS is so rich in talent, that when key members go they are hardly missed. Feherty, Oosterhuis and Baker-Finch are always great in filling in for Faldo and we can't say enough good things about Bill Macatee who does a good job in filling in for Nantz or doing play by play or interviews.
Now we can't say the same about NBC, who after Johnny Miller gets weak with there talkers. Yes Jimmy Roberts does a fine job in interviews and commentary, we also like Roger Maltbie and Mark Rolfing but barely. I just really hope that Tommy Roy and the folks are in deep thought of upgrading this fall.
Of course the pick-ins are slim in getting a great announcer, last year they were on the verge of getting Faldo, even to the point that they had a deal with him but were outsmarted by CBS. They also tried hard to get David Feherty to come over but CBS president Sean McManus has always been a step ahead. Hopefully the NBC folks can figure out a way to get some better voices.
Here are my suggestions. The first person I would go after is Golf Channels Frank Nobilo. He knows just what to say and has upgraded the Golf Channel telecasts. There is no too ways about it, NBC should offer him some serious cash to come over and replace Gary Koch.
Another person that NBC should look at is Butch Harman. I do some work with Sky Sports, who telecast majors and World Golf Championships back to England and I am always impressed with what Harmon has to say. He is well versed on the players and is very forthright in his words. On top of that Harman would blow away Peter Kostis on the slo-mo stuff if given a chance.
NBC should also talk with Curtis Strange. The consciences on him was mixed over at ABC, still he had a good following and would be someone that could help NBC. Even though he has been out of TV for 3 and a half years now, it's in his blood and I personally think that he would love to return. His Champions Tour career hasn't been very stellar and the timing would be very good to try and coax him back into the booth. Ego wise I think he could work very well with Johnny Miller and I feel that times like last week in the U.S. Amateur NBC would be better served to have a former two-time U.S. Open winner as the main analysis than Gary Koch. Of course many will say, hey instead of trying to get Curtis Strange why not get Paul Azinger, yes he would also be a good choice but I think that he wants to devote 2008 to the Ryder Cup, but if given the right amount of money you never know. He too would be a good choice.
Lastly, in looking at new talent for the future, one person NBC should look at is Scott McCarron. He was very good doing some studio work for Golf Channel at the Masters and should be given a chance. Again, in his heart he feels that he still has the game to compete on the PGA Tour but he has not played in over a year due to elbow problems I just wonder if it's time for him to think of another career. Again, getting talented people like the announcers that CBS has is hard to do but with only CBS and NBC doing the bulk of the big telecasts, NCB has to improve.
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The Observer looks at what the big "Buzz" in golf is
August 20, 2007
By The Editors of GOLFOBSERVERE-mail me at: Golfersal@aol.com
Some of today's items:
*Greg Norman and Laura back to fighting
*Adam Scott passes on Australian Open
*Mickelson to be busy this fall
*Skins to turn into a "Turkey" this year
*Lorena wins again
*Flanagan on his way to the PGA Tour
*Recap of the Wyndham Championship with Brandt Snedeker winning
*Future of the Wyndham and it's host course, Forest Oaks
Click here to post your thoughts and to tell us your "Golf Buzz"
Greg Norman won't like it but is back in the limelight
Photo: © Chris Evert Tennis Classic
In a much happier time, Greg, Laura, Chris Evert and husband Andy Mill in 2001
At the beginning of the summer we all were under the perception that the Greg Norman divorce from Laura had come to an conclusion and peace would ensue, with Laura getting somewhere in the neighborhood of a $100 million settlement. Well, that's apparently not the case as the two are still arguing and the news is becoming public, which Greg really doesn't want.
It seems that Laura Norman's attorney's filed a motion in a Palm Beach court last week claiming that Greg changed the locks on their unoccupied $21 million Jupiter Island home, cut off her credit cards in an attempt to "coerce" and "starve her out" during the ongoing divorce proceedings and fired the maid.
Norman's lawyer, Martin Haines, described Laura Norman's claims as "unfounded and grossly inaccurate" and said his client "reserves the right to bring action against both wife and her attorneys for libel and/or defamation of character". Haines then asked the judge handling the case that Laura Norman issue a retraction in the form of a press release. Haines also told the court Norman continued to financially support his wife, although her average spending has jumped more than 50 percent since he filed for divorce last year.
Haines also explained that Greg changed the locks only after Laura changed them first and that Greg has gone way beyond duty buying Laura a $4 million home in Palm Beach and a $400,000 deposit for a house in the Hamptons, outside of New York. On top of that, Norman has also paid more than $700,000 in Laura's lawyer fees.
On another front, Greg's girlfriend Chris Evert's former husband, Andy Mill, has come out with some tough words about Greg. Mill, a former U.S. Olympic ski champion told the Australian Sunday Telegraph that he was heart-broken by Norman's betrayal.
"Greg Norman at one time was my best friend and a year and a half ago I would have taken a bullet for this guy," he told the paper. Mill and Evert had been close friends with Norman and Laura for years. The four regularly socialized together in Florida, where both couples had Palm Beach homes. It has been rumored that Evert and Greg had been romantically involved, which led to Evert filing and getting a divorce from Mill last year.
Mill said he had been emotionally wrecked by the split and described December 4 - when their divorce and their multi-million dollar settlement was finalized - as "the worst day in my life. I wouldn't wish divorce on anyone,'' Mill said in the news account. "But it happens and you can't make somebody love you - in the case of my ex-wife. You have to move on and so I'm moving on - it (recovering from the split) is a work in progress.''
No two ways about it, this story will only get more weird and have more legs over time and it looks like there will be more court filings in coming weeks.
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Photo: © Stuart Franklin/Getty
Adam Scott
Adam Scott passes on Australian Open
Adam Scott will not be playing in the Australian Open in December, instead fulfilling a long-standing agreement with a friend to be his best man at his wedding on the Gold Coast in Australia. Scott is, however, defending his Singapore Open title from November 1-4, a title he won in 2005 and 2006.
The tournament seems to have found a good chuck of loose change - $5 million to be exact as it has lured not only Scott to play, but U.S. Open champion Angel Cabrera, Ernie Els, Vijay Singh and Michael Campbell. But the big fish that will be playing is Phil Mickelson, who has the reputation for not traveling off American soil. According to sources Mickelson will get a cool $1 million, plus money to fly his gas guzzling G-2 to Singapore.
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More Mickelson News
Photo: © Richard Heathcote/Getty Image
Phil Mickelson for the first time in years will be busy playing golf this fall.In technical terms, Mickelson's streak of winning majors ended this year after winning one in 2004, '05 & '06. Now some would say that he was at a disadvantage this year with a bad wrist that hampered his chances at the U.S. Open and the British Open. But in terms of a "major shutout" Mickelson disagrees, "I consider The Players Championship to be a very special event, so that's kind of what salvaged the year for me," Mickelson said. "I came through and won on a tough venue, so winning that event has made me still look at the year very positively."
Now of his trip to Singapore, it isn't the only place that he is playing this fall. In the last couple of years Mickelson has always shut it down after the Bridgestone, taking September, October, November and December off. But that isn't going to happen this year. Not only is Mickelson playing in Singapore, the week after he will be in Shanghai, China for the HSBC Champions.
This isn't the only place that he is going to play in. Rumors have Mickelson playing in both the Frys.Com Open, which is the old Las Vegas Invitational, and the next week at the Fry's Electronics Open, which is in Scottsdale, Arizona. Also, word on the street has Mickelson considering playing in Tiger's Target World Challenge in December, which would make a very busy fall for him.
Skins to turn into a "Turkey" this year
One place that Mickelson did take a pass on was the Skins Game. It seems that just about everyone of note did the same. We have talked about the demise of the Skins Games for years now but the event keeps on popping back. Thanks to Tiger Woods showing up three times in the last six years and Annika Sorenstam playing it has been able to skate around the fact that its $1 million dollar purse hasn't changed in 20 years and in today's money on the PGA Tour, that is nothing more than pocket change.
This year's pairing of Fred Couples, Stephen Ames, Zach Johnson and Brett Wetterich could spell its death and all we can say is that it will be a true "Turkey" of an event played during Thanksgiven weekend. Hard to believe that in a quarter of a century this event went from Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Tom Watson to this. What a let down.
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Photo: © Robert Laberge/Getty
Lorena Ochoa
Lorena wins again
With her victory in the CN Canadian Open, Lorena Ochoa is a shoe-in to win player of the year honors. Even though she hasn't mathematically won it, with 11 official LPGA events left in the season, Ochoa has 279 points and her closets rival is Suzanne Petterson with 129 points. Another honor that Ochoa will be looking to bring is the season earnings race as she has won $2,535,590 and is closing in on the mark of $2,863,904 that Annika Sorenstam won in 2002, the most in LPGA Tour history.
Since joining the tour five years ago Ochoa has won 14 times. But she has dominated the last two years winning 11 times as she is the only LPGA Tour player over the past two years to post back-to-back victories each of the last two years. Ochoa is playing this week at the Safeway Classic as she will look to win her third event in a row.
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Flanagan on his way to the PGA Tour
Photo: © Jim Rogash/WireImage
Nick Flanagan Is going to the PGA Tour with his win at the Xerox Classic.
With a final round of 63, Nick Flanagan won the Xerox Classic, his third Nationwide Tour victory of the year. With it he gets the Three-Win Promotion and a trip to the PGA Tour, unfortunately his timing is off because he won't be able to play on the Tour for at least four weeks due to the FedEx Cup playoffs. Despite that fact, Flanagan becomes the eighth player in Nationwide Tour history to win three times in a year and the first since Jason Gore accomplished the feat in 2005. Who knows, with four weeks to continue playing on the Nationwide Tour Flanagan could win for the fourth time and that mark will be very tough to break in coming years as long as the tour has it's three-win promotion. Yes, Flanagan is in the field at the National Mining Association Pete Dye Classic.
Photo: © Rogash/WireImage
Another disappointment for James Driscoll. As for James Driscoll, who shot 64-66-70-71, it continues a run of hard luck and a string of bridesmade finishes for him. Driscoll who was the seventh of seven children in a Irish Catholic family, lost the 2000 U.S. Amateur to Jeff Quinney despite playing 39 holes and having to win the last three holes just to send it into overtime. After turning pro, Driscoll did win the 2004 Virginia Beach Open, but since has been runner-up three times. After earning enough money in 2004 on the Nationwide Tour, he earned his PGA Tour card and had another life-changing moment. At the 2005 Zurich Classic of New Orleans, Driscoll had a four-footer on the 72nd hole that would of won the event for him and thus change his life. He missed the putt forcing a playoff with Tim Petrovic and on the first playoff hole Driscoll three putted to lose to Petrovic. The next year Driscoll finishes 187th on the PGA Tour money list and since he finished T81st at Q-school had to return to the Nationwide Tour. Presently he is 16th on the Nationwide Tour money list and will have to fight hard to get his PGA Tour card back for those in the top-20 of the money list.
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Recap of the Wyndham Championship with Brandt Snedeker winning
Photo: © Jonathan Ernst/WireImage
Brandt Snedeker wins the Wyndham Championship.
Wyndham Championship results & money
Wyndham Championship scores & stats
At 26th on the FedEx Cup points list, Brandt Snedeker was the highest ranked player to enter the Wyndham Championship, the final event before the four-week PGA Tour playoffs. While others were resting, Snedeker figured he would try to improve his position to earn a big FedEx Cup bonus. By shooting a closing 63 to take a two-stroke victory, Snedeker did just that, moving all the way up to ninth place. (At the end of the playoffs, 10th place earns a $500,000 bonus compared to $175,000 for 30th.)
Snedeker put together a 9-under-par 63 to win. He finished at 22 under, two shots better than Tim Petrovic (67), third-round leader Jeff Overton (70) and Billy Mayfair (67). Crowd favorite Carl Pettersson shot 68 and finished three shots back.
Snedeker was the 13th first-time winner at Greensboro, and with his first place check of $900,000, the most money he has ever made in a single tournament it brings his yearly total to $2.6 million, the first rookie to ever make that much money in one season.
Now the Wyndham Championship had several low lights for the week. First was the field, which had low attendance of marquee names and spectators, which suffered from a lack of people. With marquee names bowing out like defending champion Davis Love III, who had Kidney Stones to K.J. Choi, who felt he needed to rest before the four week FedEx Cup this event didn't was lacking in any kind of buzz. Only three top-50 world rank players were in the field along with only five top-50 off of the PGA Tour money list.
With the low turnout, concession prices were lowered this year and on Sunday morning with attendance looking sparse all week, the tournament let people in for free on Sunday, if they got to the turnstiles before 9 a.m.
Here are some other notes on Snedeker's win:
The key to Brandt Snedeker win was his 9 under par 63 on Sunday. As for under par final rounds for a winner in 2007 it was the lowest. Now Woody Austin shot 62 at the Stanford St. Jude Championship, but it was on a par 72 course and 8-under par so Snedeker's round was lower. For the tournament, Davis Love III shot 62 in 1992 so this was the second lowest final round at Forest Oaks and the lowest on the PGA Tour by a winner since Kirk Triplett's 9-under 63 at the 2006 Chrysler Classic of Tucson.
In looking at Snedeker's final round 63, he hit 11 of 14 fairways and 14 of 18 greens. He took 25 putts in a day that he made 10 birdies and one bogey. Snedeker made that bogey at 12 but then came back to birdie 12, 14, 15 and 17. For the day he made seven putts of nine feet or longer.
Snedeker's weekend score of 129 (66-63) matches the second-best final 36 holes on the 2007 PGA TOUR. Tournament winner Aaron Baddeley posted a 128 total (64-64) at the FBR Open. For Wyndham, Snedeker's 129 total beat the best in tournament history of Lee Trevino, who shot 132 (66-65) in 1976.
In his first 45 holes, Snedker was 10 under par as he made 11 birdies. But over the course of his last 27 holes, Snedeker was 12 under par and made 13 birdies.
Over the weekend Snedeker took only 49 putts as he made 10 putts over 10 feet and 20 putts over five feet.
For the week, Brandt Snedeker was 41/41 on putts inside 3 feet and 63/68 on putts inside 10 feet.
Snedeker ends a streak of third-round leaders who have gone on to win the Wyndham Championship. He is the first player to come-from-behind on the final day since 1998 when Trevor Dodds rallied from three off the lead to beat Scott Verplank in a playoff. Going back to 1974, 23 of the 34 winners have led or co-led after 54 holes.
Furyk's stats (with rank in parentheses):
Fairways hit:44 of 56 ..... (T6th)
Driving average: 289.9 ..... (56th)
Greens hit: 55 of 72 ....... (T29th)
Putts: 110 (27.50 a rd) .... (4th)
Putting breakdown:
0-putt greens: 0
1-putt greens: 34
2-putt greens: 38
3-putt greens: 0
Play on par 3s: -2
Play on par 4s: -7
Play on par 5s: -13
Eagles: 1
Birdies: 24 ................ (T8th)
Scrambling: 13 of 17(76.47)... (T11th)
Scrambling measures how many times a player gets up and down for par or better on the holes where he missed the green in regulation.
Future of the Wyndham Championship and it's host course, Forest Oaks
One of the worst kept secrets of the Wydham Championship is the fact that the event will probably move to Sedgefield Country Club after this year. Even with five years left on the contract with Forest Oaks, the foundation that runs the Wyndham Championship is very interested in moving, to the point that they are paying some of the $3 million restoration of the Donald Ross course, Sedgefield which was the site of the event before 1976.
Helping put the pieces to the puzzle together is an interview that Steve Holmes, CEO of Wyndham, did with the Greensboro News & Record in which Holmes said his company is in the mist of buying and converting the Grandover Resort into a Wyndham resort. Grandover has two courses itself but the resort lies next to Sedgefield. As for an official annoucement, there is no time table yet and everyone is quiet about this
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The Observer looks at what the big "Buzz" in golf is
July 30, 2007
By The Editors of GOLFOBSERVERE-mail me at: Golfersal@aol.com
Some of today's items:
*Back home from the British
*What is Padraig up too?
*Other European Tour news
*How can I sign up for that job?
*Watson wins the Senior British again
*Gulbis off the snide, who's next?
*Recap of the Canadian Open with Jim Furyk winning
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Nice to be back home
Photo: © Warren Little/Getty Images
18th hole at Carnoustie.
It's always nice to be a world traveler and jet off to exotic places like Carnoustie but by digestive system and wallet are glad to be home. On returning back and looking at all of the bills I have to wonder how American's can afford going off to the British Open and playing golf in England. Yes the exchange rate is a problem but there is a form of greed at Carnoustie. The town is very small and finding places to eat and drink is a problem. Most restaurants had fixed menu's in which a dinner ran 35 pounds ($70) and that didn't include drinks or a bottle of wine. One morning I went into the Carnoustie hotel breakfast room, had a cup of tea and the bill was 18 pounds ($36), yes it was a fixed rate for a continental breakfast. Wish I could of given the tea back but it was half drunk.
The cost of watching the Open Championship is also reading the stratosphere. Back in 1991 the cost of a day ticket for the championship was 10 pounds or back then about $15 dollars. In 2001 the cost of a ticket was 35 pounds, which for American's at the exchange rate then was about $50. But in 2007 the cost of a ticket has gone up to 50 pounds and with the 2 for 1 exchange rate of the dollar it cost $100 a day to attend.
Maybe that is the reason for the poor attendance figures for this year's British Open as only 154,000 came through the turnstile this year, off from the figure of 175,000 that the R&A had anticipated. The figures were down 3,000 from 1999, the last time the Open was at Carnoustie and a drop of 76,000 from last year at Hoylake. Of the nine courses on the Open rota, Carnoustie is the furthest from a major town and with train costs being 30 pounds ($60) round trip from Edinburgh it's becoming an expensive ticket. On top of that the food and drink at the course isn't cheap a chesseburger, fries and coke were 7 pounds ($14). The combination of high prices and weak U.S. dollar is making the British Open an easy event to stay home in America and watch on TV.
But some are putting the blame on poor attendance on the town of Carnoustie itself which lacks good housing. Yes the town is small but the outlaying towns are great and the traffice into the Open was very well handled. I feel the combination of cost, weather and the fact that TV has made it so easy to stay home and watch it as the real reasons for poor attendance.
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Photo: © Andrew Redington/Getty Images
Padraig Harrington pours champagne into the claret jug.
What is Padraig up too?
After spending the last two years on a fireplace in Tiger's Woods home, I have a funny feeling that the Claret Jug may be seeing a lot of the countryside in Ireland. Already we can see that Harrington likes to hang around the jug and stare it down almost pinching himself over his victory. Since he won the Open eight days ago Harrington has dragged the Claret Jug into weird places.
We heard that after winning the championship he took it with him into the bathroom so that he could gaze at it while taking his shower. Harrington told the media that he would peer out of the shower just to look at it and assure himself of the victory. That night he didn't get to bed until 4am and was up two hours later, again staring at the jug that was at the foot of the bed. He was so excited that he woke his poor wife Caroline out of a sound sleep just to get assurances that he had won the Jug.
On his return home to Dublin it seems that the trophy went with him everywhere. On Tuesday night he went into a local cafe in Dublin for a bite to eat and didn't want to leave the Jug in the car so he brought it into the cafe and sat it on the table next to the pizza that he ordered making for a grand site in the cafe. The following night Harrington dragged the Jug with him to a pool hall for a session of darts and pool with his four brothers. It will be interesting to see if the Jug makes the journey with Harrington to America this week for the Bridgestone and the PGA Championship.
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Other European Tour news
Photo: © Stuart Franklin/Getty Image
Andres Romero is a winner a week later in Germany.. Nice to see that Andres Romero was able to recover after his debacle at Carnoustie to win the Deutsche Bank Players Championship. A week after playing his final two holes in three over par, Romero played the final two holes in one under in Germany to claim his first European Tour win. Now this isn't to say the final round was completely perfect, going into his ninth hole on Sunday with a five shot lead Romero again from the rough tried another of those hero shots like he did at the 17th at Carnoustie. Again he got terrible results putting the shot into the pond in front of the green and taking a double bogey. But he settled down after that for his victory which help earn him a trip to America for the WGC-Bridgestone and the PGA Championship.
What have you done for me lately?When Colin Montgomerie won at the Smurfit European Open in Ireland, ending a 19-month win drought, one of the big keys to his win was putting. For that week Monty switched over to a long putter and many thought that was the key for him. But poor putting at both Loch Lomand and the British Open brought on two straight missed cuts so Monty has decided to swap back from the belly putter to a short putter of the WGC-Bridgestone.
The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat
Photo: © Andrew Redington/Getty Images
It's been a very frustrating summer for Henrik Stenson.After Henrik Stenson won the WGC Accenture Championship many were engraving his name on the U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship tournaments. But the opposite has happened. At the WGC-Ca Championship he finished T19th and then T17th at the Masters. He did have his best finish since the Match Play with a T8th in the European Tour's top event, the BMW Championship. But things haven't been very Rosy for him since. He missed the cut at both the U.S. and the British Open. Now his problems continued at the Deutsche Bank Players Championship when after a first round 70 he came to the 17th hole five over for the day and with a chance at making the cut. But on the 17th hole he played it so poorly that he lost count of his scoe and after he was uncertain with the 12 that first went on the scorecard he realized he couldn't remember how many shots he took and was unable to sign the scorecard.Still despite the slump Stenson still has a very good chance at winning the order of merit, right now he is in second place within striking distance of Padraig Harrington with 14 events left on the schedule.
Whops award of the weekAnother big debacle at the Deutsche Bank Players happened to first round leader Simon Khan. After a 65 in which he had an eagle, six birdies, a bogey and just 26 putts, things changed for the worst in the second round when he made seven bogeys, a triple-bogey, just two birdies and took 36 putts. On the day Khan shot 80 and he fell from grace going from 1st place to missing the cut. Since 1990 this has happened 9 times, the most famous being Rod Pampling leading the British Open after the first round and then missing the cut. Now the last time this has happened on the European Tour was just last month at the A.A. St. Omer Open when Julien Clement went from 69 to 80. At least the 15 shot swing didn't break any records, again since 1990 the largest single round swing on the European Tour is 21 shots when Greg Owen went from shooting 70 in the first round of the 1996 Open Catalonia to a second round 91 and when Wayne Riley shot 66-87 between the 3rd and 4th rounds at the 1998 Dubai Desert Classic.
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Photo: © New Zealand Charity Golf
Ricky Bartlett
How can I sign up for that job?
40 year old Ricky Bartlett finished off a year long journey in which he played every golf course and golf hole in New Zealand for charity. For those that wonder how many courses there are in New Zealand, if you count even the nine holers there are 419, which is the highest number of courses per capita in the world. Bartlett played 419 rounds in 362 days as he played 7,542 holes in 31,594 shots.
All the courses, except for one gave Bartlett free golf in his quest, the one standout was a course on Chatham Islands that was in terrible shape with sheep droppings and worm casts on the greens. The course charged Bartlett $3 for the round.
As for the different charities, he was able to give the Cancer Society, Amnesty International and the Ronald McDonald House a total of $60,000 for his year long quest.
For more information on Bartlett's quest go to his website: http://www.nzcharitygolftour.co.nz/
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Senior British Open
Photo: © David Cannon/Getty Images
Tom Watson win the British Senior for a third time.
Does anybody else find it a bit strange that Tom Watson won again at Muirfield? And did Stewart Ginn really have a chance? That is because it seems that the winners at Muirfield are the elite of hero's of Golf. In the 16 British Open's and Senior Open played on the course, 13 different players have won with 10 of them being Hall-of-Famers. The only one's that aren't in the hall is Ernie Els, who will be one day, Ted Ray, who should be because of winning a British Open and a U.S. Open. So the only one that won't ever be is Alf Perry, who basically played during the depression era and never played outside of England. So in a way it's an impressive list of players, since World War II winners at Muirfield are Henry Cotton, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson, Nick Faldo and Ernie Els.
With Watson's win he has now won a total of 49 PGA Tour and Champions Tour events. You would have to think that if Watson could have his way that 50th win in his mind would be the U.S. Senior Open. The next three Open's are being played at Broadmoor G.C., Crooked Stick G.C. and Sahalle CC.
The first hole at Muirfield is going down as the second hardest hole in Champions Tour history. The hole played to a scoring average of 4.824 as only one birdie was made on the hole in the final three days of the championship and that was done on Friday by Tim Simpson. On Thursday the hole had nine birdies. The only tougher hole in the history of the Champions Tour was the par 4, fourth hole at the 1990 Greater Grand Rapids Open which played to an average of 5.124.
Gary Player is at it again.Two weeks ago at Carnoustie while talking to the media dropped a bomb shell claiming that players are taking drugs but refused to point any fingers on the guilty parties. This week at Muirfield during the British Senior Open Player had some harsh words again, this time when he accused the R&A of making Muirfield harder than Carnoustie, site of the British Open. As Gary said, "It's surprised me they've made the seniors so much more difficult than the regular British Open. The rough must be five or six times higher. The standard of play is extremely high yet it's projecting that the players are not all that good. We're trying to build up the European senior tour and the wrong message has been sent out. If I'm sitting in the stands I don't want to see bogeys, double bogeys and quadruple bogeys, I want to see birdies."
Indications of how tough the course played as 56 scores were 80 and over after the first three rounds played. The highest score on Saturday, 84 by Denis Durnian had an oddity as despite his high score he was able to make a hole in one on the 213 yard par 3, 4th hole. With it he earned 213 bottles of win for every yard the par 3 was to help him drain his sorrow. As for Player, we can only wait for the next time he is on the world stage as he continues his National Golf Inquiry sessions.
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Photo: © Andy Lyons/Getty Images
Natalie Gulbis finally finds the winners circle
Gulbis off the snide, who's next?
With a short birdie putt at the 18th hole of the Evian Masters, Natalie Gulbis finally made it into the winners circle by beating Jeong Jang on the first hole of a playoff. With the win, her first in 151st LPGA start, she will no longer be mentioned as the best women golfer without a win. Now with Gulbis getting off the snide, who is next in line for the title best without a victory.
As far as events played, Beth Stone was in 516 LPGA events in a long career that ended in 1982 that started in the early 60s. Stone was runner-up five times. But many point to the career that Gulbis was following, that of another LPGA glamour girl Laura Baugh who played in 456 LPGA events without a victory. Baugh's career was one of the saddest because she finished 73 times (16% of her starts) in the top-ten and was runner-up ten times without a win.
Of active winners on the LPGA Tour, Kim Williams has the most starts without a victory, she has played in 390 events and her best finish was one runner-up finish in the 1988 Sara Lee Classic.
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Recap of the Canadian Open with Jim Furyk back in the winners circle
Canadian Open Results & money
Canadian Open scores & stats
Photo: © Hunter Martin/Getty Images
Jim Furyk wins back to back Canadian Opens.Back at the start of the year people were giving a dim outlook on the Canadian Open. It was in search of a major sponsor and with the event inbetween the British Open and the WGC-Bridgestone many thought that getting any kind of field with any kind of marquee names was close to impossible. But in the end defending champion Jim Furyk was good to his word on returning to defend his title and past champion Vijay Singh came and they dueled in the final round to make this a very exciting event.
Now the golf course probably won't get many high marks and the odds on them returning to the North Course of Angus Glen is slim but the future of the Canadian Open looks better. They have signed on some sponsors so the future looks good next year when the tournament returns to it's old stumping grounds of Glen Abbey and if they can catch a break in the schedule will be in good shape.
As for the tournament itself, it's big guns of Furyk and Singh put on a first class show as Jim Furyk was able to make up a three shot deficit and Singh found himself losing a tournament he led and shooting a final round 68.
Here are some other notes on Furyk's win:
The key to Jim Furyk winning was his birdie, par, birdie, hole-in-one start on Sunday. Furyk's ace came on a hole that he had great success on making birdies in each of the first three rounds. He used a 5-iron in making his hole-in-one. The last player to make a hole-in-one and win the tournament was Mark Hensby during the 2004 John Deere Classic.Now since 1970 there have been 21 different times that holes in one have been made in winning efforts and Jim Furyk has been a part of this making an ace in his 2002 Memorial victory. He now joins Johnny Miller as the only players to ace holes twice in victory, Miller did it in his 1974 Heritage win and the 1974 Kaiser victory. The only other ace in victory this millennium was by David Toms in the 2001 PGA Championship.
More on why the fourth hole was so kind to Furyk, he beat Vijay Singh by a single stroke but you have to give the nod to the fourth hole as Furyk was eight shots better than Singh on that one single hole. While Furyk was playing the hole in five under, Singh was three over on it playing it bogey-bogey-par-bogey.
With the victory, Furyk becomes the 12th player to capture multiple Canadian Open titles and the first defending champion since Jim Ferrier in 1950-51 to win back to back events.
Jim Furyk's 64 today matches the second-best final round score of his PGA Tour career. Furyk's all-time best is a 63 (9-under) on the last day of the 1998 Las Vegas Invitational, which he won. He also posted 64's in the final round of the 1995 B.C. Open (7-under) and the 2006 Buick Open (8-under).
On the PGA Tour in 2007, Furyk's final round 64 is the second lowest by a winner, here is the list of lowest final rounds by winners this year:62 - Woody Austin - Stanford St. Jude Classic64 - Jim Furyk - Canadian Open64 - Aaron Baddeley - FBR Open
It's been well documented that Vijay Singh has the most wins over 40 with 19. But how does Vijay compare to Snead and others for runner-up finishes over 40? For Singh he has 23 runner-up wins with 11 of them coming after his 40th birthday. For Snead, he has a big lead with 19 runner-ups after his 40th birthday.
Winning has been tough on the PGA Tour for third round leaders. Only 8 events have had the winner with the lead after 54 holes but in the last 15 PGA Tour events, only once has the third round leader won. That was ten events ago at the Crown Plaza Invitational at Colonial won by Rory Sabbatini.
Furyk's stats (with rank in parentheses): Fairways hit:
45 of 56 ..... (T13th) Driving average: 296.6 ..... (49th) Greens hit:
56 of 72 ....... (T6th) Putts: 115 (28.75 a rd) .... (T22nd) Putting
breakdown: 0-putt greens: 1 1-putt greens: 28 2-putt greens: 42 3-putt
greens: 1 Play on par 3s: -5 Play on par 4s: -5 Play on par 5s: -6
Eagles: 1 Birdies: 19 ................ (T10th) Scrambling: 12 of 16
(75.00)... (8th)
Scrambling measures how many times a player gets up and down for par or better on the holes where he missed the green in regulation.
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The Observer looks at what the big "Buzz" in golf is
July 8, 2007
By The Editors of GOLFOBSERVERE-mail me at: Golfersal@aol.com
Some of today's items:
*What's up with all the departures at the USGA?
*Caddie Rumors
*A perfect debut for the AT&T National
*Recap of the U.S. Seniors Open with Brad Bryant winning
*Monty back on top again
*Recap of the AT&T National with K.J. Choi winning
*The "Couch Producer" looks at how NBC at the Senior Open and the extra PGA Tour coverage we are getting on the weekend
Click here to post your thoughts and to tell us your "Golf Buzz"
What's up with all the departures at the USGA?
Photo: © Scott Halleran/Getty Images
Walter Driver, President of the USGA
After a very successful U.S. Open, golf insiders are a bit shocked over the recent departure of two high-level staffers. At the U.S. Women's Open it was announced that Tim Moraghan, who was the director of championships agronomy, had left to pursue other interests. His job basically disappeared as it will be handled by regional agronomists. At the U.S. Senior Open, USGA staffers got a memo from executive director David Fay that said that after 16 years Marty Parkes, the USGA's senior director of media relations and communications, was leaving. Fay also said in the memo that Parkes would stay on as a consultant. In trying to reach both Fay and Parkes, both would not comment on this.
Insiders say that both of these were firings by USGA president Walter Driver, who's stock is going down as some insiders are saying he could be one of the most unpopular president's in the 113-year history of the USGA. Over the last couple of months both magazines and newspapers have written negative stories on Driver, mostly about his membership in clubs that discriminate against women and blacks, along with his decision to cut employee benefits even though it's known by insiders that the USGA has more money in its investment portfolio than it could possibly spend.
As one media person said at the AT&T National, this looked like the ending of a Godfather movie where Michael Corleone in getting revenge kills off some of his rivals and employees. Sources have told Golfobserver that Driver wasn't keen on both Moraghan and Parkes with some wondering why he had to get rid of both. It can be argued that the Moraghan's departure saves the USGA a salary without a major downside. But the Parkes firing could prove to be something that comes back to haunt Driver.
That's because Parkes did a fine job at what he did, he was well liked by staffers and media, and was able to balance making sure that USGA policy was upheld while also making sure to have a good relationship with all.
Still Parkes did numerous things that upset Driver and other members of the executive committee. One ex-USGA staff member told GolfObserver that Parkes distributed an email publicly voicing his opinion against Driver's cutting of employee benefits. That was the beginning of discourse but as one media source told GolfObserver, Parkes was fired because of the recent Golf World story on Driver, which shed more bad publicity on the USGA president. The source said that Driver felt that Parkes leaked information to writer Chris Millard. The source said this was the final straw for Driver, who directly blamed Parkes for other negative stories.
All of this stems from Driver trying to control the spending of the USGA. Last year for the first time, the USGA spent more money than it earned which has raised warning flags from Driver and others. Unfortunely, Driver has gone to great lengths to try and curb this spending which hasn't made him very popular, especially among USGA staffers who haven't experienced the corporate structure which Driver wants to bring in. For those from the outside looking in the sense is that Driver could be too ruthless on this cause which put Parkes in a tough situation. Making things worst is the media who loves to see infighting and a juicy story making this issue a perfect storm that caused Parkes departure. But we have to wonder what good this will do for the USGA, were moral is at a all time low in a organization that has been very happy for years. Yes Driver's cause is right, the USGA can't spend more than they bring in. The days of easy money from networks is at an all-time high and with networks having a tough time making a buck the prospects of higher increases is not very bright. The USGA is going into a new frontier with there partnerships with companies like American Express and Lexus, but they are also turning the U.S. Open into an advertising vehicle which angers some oldtimers.
Just like the U.S. Government, the USGA runs a lot of programs at loses, for the good of the game. But the bottom line is the USGA has to get smarter in finding new ventures, weather it's in new media or cutting some of the fat off of programs that cost too much money and don't help the game. In a way this is the same problem that politicians have in Washington. What is sad on all this, in a way the USGA was better off 25 years ago when they were struggling without the big TV money. At least they were able to run all there national championships and help other causes in golf. The finances were easy to run and control. Now with the advent of a lot of TV money coming in they are spending on more things and have a bigger liability for a lot more projects than they had 25 years ago.
An example of how things have skyrocketed and gotten out of hand is expenses for running championships. In their most recent budget on their website, we see that in 2005 the USGA spent $37 million to run championships while in 2006 it's cost doubled to $69 million. So in a way Driver is right, cost has to be brought under control. Now not to venture off the subject of Parkes. But the fact of the matter is the timing of Parkes departure and the reasons behind it is the problem. Parkes was very capable in the job, even with his mounting problems with Driver. But with his departure the communications department is running rudderless in its busiest time. This also doesn't help morale at the USGA, especially after Driver was responsible for reducing several benefit items from staffers earlier this year. In recent reports, Driver paints the picture that the USGA is losing money and is making things sound like the organization needs to handle things better. But the USGA is not a stockholder company like United Airlines or Ford, it's a non-profit organization that really doesn't have to make a buck but more importantly has a very healthy bank account. So that is the root of the problem and as many can say it's a bit sad that Driver is looking at staffers to try and absorb the losses at the same time the USGA is spending a lot more money on things like a jet service for its executive committee members to get to places more conveniently, not to mention that the packages likely received by Moraghan and Parkes for their silence is probably about the same as the savings that Driver got in cutting company benefits. But more importantly it's all the bad publicity that the USGA is getting on this. Negative talk is running rapid, it's even been written in Golf World that rumors are flying around that even David Fay's job isn't safe.
So what is the solution? Unfortunely there really isn't an instant answer on this, but there has to be some way that Driver, Fay, the executive committee brings up moral among the troops and make sure these senseless acts like what happened to Parkes doesn't get out of hand. In the age of communication there simply wasn't any communication between Driver and staffers, just nothing but tough love from him. Yes the USGA may be losing money but the situation isn't as bad as Driver is painting, just go see what Ford Motor company is having to go through. Hopefully there can be better times for the USGA. By the way, Driver has another six months left on his two-year term as USGA president.
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Photo: © Andrew Redington/Getty Images
Steve Williams with his boss Tiger Woods.
Caddie Rumors
Isn't a good rumor, well just that, a good rumor? On Wednesday, July 4th the BBC came out with an unbylined story that said Darren Clarke's caddie Billy Foster was approached to take over the bag for Steve Williams. As the rumor goes, Williams wanted to go back to New Zealand and retire. Woods and Williams have been together since 1999, As news went through the caddie yard faster than lightning, both Williams and Foster denied the story, both laughing it off as every caddie admits that Williams probably has the best bag in golf.
Other caddie news
Davis Love III has used a variety of caddies this season. Last week at the AT&T National, he had an old friend on his bag, three-time PGA Tour winner Mike Hulbert.
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A perfect debut
Photo: © Jim Rogash/WireImage
The 18th Hole at Congressional C.C. home of the inaugural 2007 AT&T National.. There are 50 different events on the PGA Tour schedule in 2007 and everyone of them are looking for the same goals, bring in a lot of people and money. To most of these events the key is getting Tiger Woods to play but some events like the FBR and the AT&T Pebble Beach have been successful for years without Woods. One of those events that didn't make it and said that Woods not playing was the International, who was suppose to have this week's slot and left the schedule.
After the International departure from the PGA Tour, the AT&T National was born and in a time frame of just four months the event was up and running and a big success. The big question is, how did this event become the success that the Booz Allen never saw before it. Of course having Tiger Woods as part of the tournament helped and he along with his people made sure that the AT&T National was done in a special manner. First was the venue Congressional, a gem of a course that helped bring players to the tournament and also made people excited to watch the players on. Next was the way Woods kept the ticket price down, a single day ticket was $25 dollars, about the same amount as the Washington Redskins charge for parking. While we are on that subject, parking was free at the AT&T. It was also nice what Woods did for children, those under 12 got in free, those from 13 to 17 only paid $10. The tournament also gave away 5,000 tickets a day to military personal and treated them in a first class manner, even giving them special lanes to watch golf just ahead of the general public.
Still the most important element that made for a great experience was not being bombard by ads and people selling things. Other tournaments have people hawking items when you enter the grounds, none of that was at Congressional. About the only thing that you could get was a special virtual caddie which was free or a XM radio, again a free service. It was also nice not seeing any advertising on the course. This sounds great but in the real world that doesn't happen because events get millions in this form of advertising. The Washington Post printed a story that said that the tournament could of gotten about $750,000 for this form of advertising and didn't. In a way the AT&T National had the look and feel of the Masters, we just hope this wasn't a one time deal.
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Recap of the U.S. Seniors Open with Brad Bryant winning
U.S. Senior Open Results & money
U.S. Senior Open scores & stats
Photo: © Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
Tom Watson after he finished his round while the winner was Brad Bryant.This could go down in the annual of golf as one of the biggest back nine collapses in a major championship. Yes some of you won't agree that there are majors on the Champions Tour but the U.S. Senior Open, British Senior Open and The Senior PGA is special.
Thanks to Tom Watson's big collapse, Brad Bryant was able to celebrate his biggest moment of his career in winning the U.S. Senior Open.
Watson played his last eight holes in eight over par During that eight hole stretch, Watson hit just one fairway and only one green. He had two three putts and missed five putts inside of ten feet.
There is no two ways about it, the U.S. Senior Open is the one Champions Tour event he wants to win and in five of the last six years has come very close, only to have someone play better than him and now self imploding. Over the last six Senior Opens he has finished 2nd, 2nd, T25th, T5th, 2nd and now 4th.
Here are some other notes on Bryants's win:
Brad Bryant should get a hand for his final round 68. It was the low round of the day which saw only five rounds under par shot and only two shot in the 60s. Making Bryant's round even more remarkable was the fact that the final round scoring average was 76.014. Now in the history of the Senior Open 76.014 was the seventh hardest final round scoring average but those six hardest was done in the 80s. Since 1990 that hardest final round scoring average before this year was 75.02 in the 1999 Senior Open at Des Moines Country Club.
This was Brad Bryant's first senior major win in ten attempts. He came close to winning the 2006 Senior PGA Championship losing a playing to Jay Haas at Oak Tree.
In majors on the regular tour he played in 20 and never finished in the top-ten, best was T13th at the 1995 U.S. Open
For the week Bryant was best of the field in greens in regulation, he hit 54 of 72. On the final day he hit 15 of 18. /li>
Bryant was not only the only player in the field to shot four rounds in the 60s, but in U.S. Senior Open history he is only the fourth player to do it joing the likes of Gary Player in 1987 Senior Open, Tom Weiskopf in 1995 and Allen Doyle last year at Prairie Dunes.
Bryant was the best scrambler of the week, getting it up and down 13 of the 18 greens that he missed.
Finishing 2nd this week was Ben Crenshaw and this may sound weird but it's his best finish in 102 Champions Tour starts.
Bryant's stats (with rank in parentheses): Fairways hit:
36 of 56 ..... (T15th) Driving average: 287.1 ..... (6th) Greens hit: 54
of 72 ....... (T1st) Putts: 122 (30.50 a rd) .... (T48th) Putting
breakdown: 0-putt greens: 0 1-putt greens: 25 2-putt greens: 44 3-putt
greens: 3 Play on par 3s: Even Play on par 4s: Even Play on par 5s: -6
Eagles: 0 Birdies: 14 ................ (T10th) Scrambling: 13 of 18
(72.022)... (1st)
Scrambling measures how many times a player gets up and down for par or better on the holes where he missed the green in regulation.
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Photo: © Andrew Redington/Getty Images
Colin Montgomerie with his new secert weapon caddie Craig Connelly.
Monty back on top again
For the last three months the golfing word has been wondering what has been wrong with Colin Montgomerie. He has been terrible of late, finished T3rd in the French Open but before that missed cut in the U.S. Open and The Austria Open, T20th in Wales Open and T30th in the BMW PGA Championship. In the Masters he was T61st and T55th in the WGC CA Championship.
But all of that changed as he shot a final round 65 to win the Smurfit Kappa European Open by a stroke at the K Club. Now European Tour officials had to take drastic action in altering the course because of heavy rains. Par was reduced from 72 to 70 when the par 5 18th hole was reduced to a par 3. The course was also shorterned by 653 yards.
For Monty this is his first win in 19 months since the 2005 Hong Kong Open. He had a bit of a secert weapon with him, he new caddie Craig Connolly was on the bag. Connolly was fired by Paul Casey after the U.S. Open and was picked up by Monty just before the French Open. After two events it's been a match made in heaven as the pair have a third and win.
Montgomerie, who just turned 44, didn't have a stress free round, he had a "Winged Foot" moment on the final two holes. Hitting the same club as he did in that fairthful U.S. Open, a six iron, he again hit it fat on both the par 3 17 and 18 hole. Both times it looked like it was going into the water but instead just flew over and stayed on the bank. Monty seemed to have an angel on his shoulder as both times the ball, which was on the brink of disaster in which one roll would of done him in. He was able to get it up and down on both occasions and make pars which helped him to his victory.
Putting was the key to his final round 65, he had eight one putts including two putts of 15 feet, one of 25 feet and another of 30 feet. He switched putters last week in France and is now using a belly putter. The big question on everybody's mind will be how Monty will do at Carnoustie. Monty did finish T15th in the 1999 British Open on the course so many will think that he has a chance this week. But insiders know how Monty will react to this, he will be all nervous and up tight and will probably break down like he usually does when under the gun.
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Recap of the AT&T National with K.J. Choi winning
AT&T National Results & money
AT&T National scores & stats
Photo: © Stan Badz/Wire Image
K.J. Choie celebrates after putting out on the 72nd green.On a hot, muggy day in our nations capital, K.J. Choi cruised to a three shot win in the AT&T National, posting a closing round of 68 to win for the second time in five weeks.
Choi did it in a new event that has been overwhelmingly be embraced in the Washington D.C. area as 37,000 people came out to watch. With the win Choi won for the sixth time on the PGA Tour, he is the most successful Asian player in tour history with $14.8 million in career earning. With the win Choi moves up to 13th in the World Rankings and makes him an instant favorite for next week's British Open. In seven previous starts his best finish was T16th in 2004, Choi finished T49th at Carnoustie in 1999.
Here are some other and keys to Choi's win:
He was 9 under for the week, he played the last four holes in seven under.
Made 20 birdies which is tied for best of the week
Choi was T5th in driving accuracy hitting 41 of 56 fairways was 2nd in total driving
T5th in green in regulation hitting 54 of 72.
One great little tidbit, last year while watching TV late at night, Choi saw an infomercial on the Super Stroke Grip. Of course he wasn't totally sold on it but still bought it and tried it. He thought it was very ugly when he first put it on his putter and tried it, but he has gotten the grasp of it and it has improved his putting by keeping his hands still during the storke.
Choi's stats (with rank in parentheses): Fairways hit:
41 of 56 ..... (T5th) Driving average: 308.8 ..... (T15th) Greens hit:
54 of 72 ....... (T5th) Putts: 115 (28.75 a rd) .... (T5th) Putting
breakdown: 0-putt greens: 1 1-putt greens: 29 2-putt greens: 40 3-putt
greens: 2 Play on par 3s: +3 Play on par 4s: -8 Play on par 5s: -4
Eagles: 0 Birdies: 20 ................ (T9th) Scrambling: 9 of 18
(50.00%)... (T1st)
Scrambling measures how many times a player gets up and down for par or better on the holes where he missed the green in regulation.
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NBC with Johnny
The "Couch Producer" hated the U.S. Senior Open without Johnny Miller. I can only image his words on Tom Watson's implosion, they would of be classic. Who knows maybe he would of called it the biggest fall off the leaderboard of all time
We got stuck big time with Gary Koch telling us stuff that we already knew and could see. I know that Johnny has to take time off but isn't the U.S. Senior Open big enough for Miller to be at?
This just shows the weakness of a NBC show without Miller, it's just not the same. When Nick Faldo takes off from CBS they have brought in Ian Baker-Finch or David Ferherty, not bad replacements. But other than Gary Koch or possibly Mark Rolfing, NBC doesn't have a really strong replacement for Johnny.
For the sake of NBC and all of us lets make sure that Johnny stays healthy for the next couple of years, I don't think that I could stomach much of Gary Koch in Johnny's chair.
Golf Channels show in is great in the day, sucks at night
Anybody else like the hour and a half of bonus coverage that is on Golf Channel right before the network show? Not bad for the golf junkie that can't get enough golf. But come on Golf Channel, how bad is the replay? Who wants to watch the first hour and a half of an early golf show after the fact? We want to see a re-air of the CBS show that gives us a winner, not a show that has just shots and no leaders. You would think that Golf Channel can give us better programing in that 7:30 to 9Pm time slot.
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The Observer looks at what the big "Buzz" in golf is
July 2, 2007
By The Editors of GOLFOBSERVERE-mail me at: Golfersal@aol.com
Some of today's items:
*R&A didn't cover up mistake
*AT&T National a success before the first shots are fired
*Mickelson has a funny way of giving Tiger the needle
*No return to Carnoustie for Van de Velde
*Will sell anything for a pound or two
*Recap of the U.S. Women's Open and how Cristie Kerr won
*Recap of the Buick Open and how Brian Bateman won
*The "Couch Producer" looks at how NBC did at the U.S. Open
Click here to post your thoughts and to tell us your "Golf Buzz"
R&A didn't cover up mistake
Photo: © Richard Heathcote/Getty Image
Martin Koppax, the R&A official that made a bad pin placement in British Open qualifying.
Have to like the R&A, they seem to know the right way of doing things. Just a history lesson but we still don't really know what happened at Shinnecock Hills during the 2004 U.S. Open, it just went down in history as a big mystery, like Kennedy's assassination. Nobody really took blame for the problem and play just went on like nothing happened
But at British Open qualifying, we had a similar situation in which a pin placement at the fourth hole at Sunningdale wasn't fair. It was so bad that Brett Rumford hit it two feet away but ended up making a double bogey instead of a birdie thanks to four putting, from two feet no less.
But like I said the R&A do things the right way, after eight players completed the hole they saw their mistake in a poor pin position. Martin Koppax, the R&A person in charge of setting the pin immediately saw the problem, stop play and had the pin changed. As for the 8 players that completed the hole when they finished their first rounds they got to go back to the fourth hole and replay it. Unfortunely for Fredrik Anderson, who parred it the first time, he made double bogey during the "mulligan" hole but that wasn't a problem since he still qualified.
For me I think that the R&A did the honorable thing, admit their mistake, fix the problem and make it as fair as possible for those effected. Yes many thought that Kappax blew it and players feel that officials from the European Tour, who do this week in and week out should be setting up the pins for professional events. Still you got to like that this problem got solved and we won't have to refer back to it like we still do with Shinnecock.
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Photo: © Jamie Squire /Allsport
The last time Tiger Woods played competitively at Congressional he finished T19th at the 1997 U.S. Open.
AT&T National a success before the first shots are fired
It's amazing what a year could do for things. Last year at this time the Booz Allen Classic had just finished, two days late because of rain and with nobody giving a hoot about it. As for the PGA Tour, they basically found a way to alienate Booz Allen Hamilton chief executive Ralph Shrader to the point that he no longer wanted to sponsor the tournament and it died a sad death. For many golf fans in the D.C. area the feeling was that this would be the last time any PGA Tour players would be in the Washington D.C. area, at least until the U.S. Open returned in 2011.
But things changed, six months later Jack Vickers saw the writing on the wall that Tiger Woods wasn't going to play in his tournament and he pulled the plug on The International. A day later Tiger Woods got a call from Tour commissioner Tim Finchem asking if he was interested in being a part of a tournament in Washington. Within a matter of days AT&T signed on and Congressional was asked to be a part of it and before you know it the AT&T National was born.
Again a piece of luck playing an important role in things as Phil Mickelson was hurt and couldn't play in Hartford, since he needed a start before the British Open he decided to play here at the last moment. Also a stroke of luck, Elin delivered a baby girl weeks early and thus Tiger Woods is in the field not having to worry if Elin would suddenly go into labor forcing Woods not to play.
No matter what it looks like the AT&T National is going to be a big success. It's got a perfect date, two weeks after the U.S. Open and two weeks before the British Open, it's got a great home at Congressional, even though they are paying two and a half million dollars for a site fee. But as Tiger Woods has said, Congressional was his first and only choice. This brings up a serious question, what happens after next year when the two year agreement with Congressional is up? The club is booked for the U.S. Amateur in 2009 and then the U.S. Open in 2011 and club officials have made it know that they aren't interested in having the event in 2010. So what does that leave the A&T National, back to Avenel? That is an interesting question and I asked a couple of people with the tournament their thoughts on the subject and got the answer, "we will worry about that come the end of next year". It will be interesting to see if Finchem and Woods will butt heads on this issue because many believe that the Tour wants to see Avenel back in the picture. Again, you never know what could happen in a year's time.
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Photo: © Gretchen Dow Mashkuri/WireImage
Tiger, Elin and Sam Alexis
Mickelson has a funny way of giving Tiger the needle
Ran into an interesting item last week on Phil Mickelson's website, it was the way Mickelson and his wife Amy congratulated Tiger Woods and his wife Elin on the birth of Sam Alexis. It seems that as a present, the Mickelson's sent to Isleworth a special gift. "We sent them a mini Ping-Pong table," Mickelson wrote. "Our kids have had a little head start on Sam Alexis and expect them to continue the Mickelson domination over the Woods in pong, but we thought we should give Sam Alexis a chance to jump-start her own game."
What was important in all of this? The reference that Mickelson beat Woods at Ping-Pong when the two played together during the Ryder Cup. It also shows how competitive the two really are and even when it comes to their kids as they are passing all of this down to the youngsters.
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Photo: © David Cannon /Allsport
Jean Van de Velde on his way to making a triple bogey on the 72nd hole at Carnoustie in 1999.
No return to Carnoustie for Van de Velde
I don't know if anyone else feels like me but I am going to miss not having Jean Van de Velde at Carnoustie this year. If you believe that there is a golfing God, then you would love to believe that Van De Velde would of found a way to get into this year's British Open and again come to the last hole with a three shot lead, only this year he would of made a double bogey and won the British Open by one.
That isn't going to happen so for Van de Velde we will remember him this year as the person that had the worst final hole melt down in 60 years. No the biggest wasn't Phil Mickelson last year, even though that was bad, the worst had to be Sam Snead who made an 8 on the 72nd hole to lose the 1939 U.S. Open. Still for Van de Velde it's probably better that he doesn't play at Carnoustie and relive those memories. You have to wonder if his "mystery illness" may have something to do with the Open going back to Carnoustie. As his manager Jamie Cunningham told media this weekend, "Jean is to see a specialist on Tuesday and there could be a scenario where he could be out for two to three months," Van De Velde started feeling poorly after the Portuguese Open in March, getting physically sick including on the course during last month's Wales Open. Of for the illness Van de Velde has been told by doctors that it could be a virus or an infection
Still without Van de Velde the memories of his 8 and loss to Paul Lawrie in a playoff will be every present as most publications relive his final hole 8 from '99.
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Photo: © Sandra Mu/Getty Images
The question will be who will pay Ewan Porter for the privilege of caddying for him at the British Open
Will sell anything for a pound or two
Great story out of Australia. In 2005 David Diaz was able to qualify for the British Open and sell on ebay to an investment banker the job to caddie for him at St. Andrews. Stephen Bridle payed $15,000 for the privilege.
When vagabond golfer Ewan Porter qualified for the British Open, he too had the idea to help pay expenses for the trip to Carnoustie to auction off the caddie duties. In a internet auction on Ebay he received a bid for $30,000, double the amount that Diaz made and the same amount as what 41st place paid off last year at Hoylake. Only problem, when it was time to collect Porter found out that the bid was a trick, so it's back to square one to find the highest bidder to caddie for him in July.
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Recap of the U.S. Women's Open with Cristie Kerr winning
U.S. Women's Open Results & money
U.S. Women's Open scores & stats
Photo: © Jonathan Ernst/Getty Images
Cristie Kerr had a nice lead on the 72nd green.For Cristie Kerr her victory this week in the U.S. Women's Open is the culmination of a long and drawn out process of completely redoing herself. We have all heard the story of players going through a swing change, Tiger has done it three time, Mickelson is kind of doing it now with Butch Harman. But for Cristie Kerr, her transformation is more that just changing her swing, it was changing ever part of her life.
As a teenager Kerr was a great young player that dominated junior golf in the Miami area. But Kerr was always chubby, boys didn't like her (probably because she would beat them on the golf course) and she wore glasses. She went straight from high school to the LPGA Tour and things weren't easy for her. She struggled with her game and got the reputation as a poor closure.
In 2001 Kerr decided that she was going to change a lot in her life, she first got rid of the glasses for contacts and when on a massive diet, losing 50 pounds. At the same time she worked hard on her game and her attitude and it paid off with her first victory in the Longs Drug Challenge in 2002. Since then every part of Kerr's game and life has been positive, five more victories, she fell in love and got married in December. But all of the hard work finally pay off with her first major championship. It will be interesting to see what this does for Kerr, if this will stoke the flame within her to win other major championships and catch up to Lorena Ochoa and become the number one women golfer.
Here are some other notes on Kerr's win:
For Kerr, Pine Needles will have to be a special place for her. In 1996, in her second to last event as an amateur, Kerr finished T36th at Pine Needles and was the low amateur. In 2001 she returned to Pine Needles and this time finished T4th. So you have to think that with her victory this week Pine Needles will always be a special place for her.
Every victory has a special moment, something good that happens to you that helps drive you to victory. If you look at Sunday, that special moment had to be the 16th hole when Kerr made a ten-footer for par, without that putt things could of been totally different because it forced Lorena Ochoa to press and she snapped hook a drive at the 17th tee.
Kerr only make 2 bogeys in her last 45 holes of play, she played her first 27 holes in 2 over and her last 27 holes in 7 under.
Another big key for Kerr was her play on the par 3s, at four under she was the best of anyone in the field and only made one bogey on them all week./li>
Kerr made 16 birdies, along with Jee Young Lee the most of anyone in the field
Kerr shot 66-70 over the weekend and was one of only six players that were under par over the weekend, her six under total was the best along with Se Ri Pak who shot 68-68.
This was Kerr's first major victory on the LPGA in 42 tries. For Kerr she has come close in a major finishing T2nd in the 2000 U.S. Women's Open and the 2006 Women's British Open
Kerr's stats (with rank in parentheses): Fairways hit:
40 of 56 ..... (T28th) Driving average: 252.5 ..... (20th) Greens hit:
47 of 72 ....... (T14th) Putts: 113 (28.25 a rd) .... (3rd) Putting
breakdown: 0-putt greens: 0 1-putt greens: 32 2-putt greens: 39 3-putt
greens: 1 Play on par 3s: -4 Play on par 4s: Even Play on par 5s: -1
Eagles: 0 Birdies: 16 ................ (T1st) Scrambling: 16 of 25
(64.00%)... (T14th)
Scrambling measures how many times a player gets up and down for par or better on the holes where he missed the green in regulation.
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Recap of the Buick Open with Brian Bateman winning
Buick Open Results & money
Buick Open scores & stats
Photo: © Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
Brian Bateman celebrates after making birdie on the 72nd green.Brian Bateman was the most unlikely winner probably of the year. You have to start with his World ranking at 408th beginning of the week he was the highest ranked player to win in 2007 on the PGA Tour
This is Bateman's sixth year on the PGA Tour and only once has he finished in the top-125 and that was 2004 when he finished 86th with $919,255 in earnings. Now we can honesty say that Bateman was the most unlikely winner not only because in 151 starts he has finished in the top-10 just three times, the best coming at last year's Deutsche Bank Open with a 3rd place finish, but on the PGA Tour this year in eight starts he only made four cuts with the best finish coming in Mexico at the Mayakoba Classic with a T31st finish. Going into this week Bateman was 203rd on the money list with just $56,708 in earnings.
So with his great week of golf he went from a struggling journeyman whose prospect of losing his card and having to go to Q-school for a tenth time is erased. For Bateman he now will be exempt on the PGA Tour for 2 years and next year get to play in the Mercedes Championship and the Masters. The win this week will also help him collect some more money later in the year as he moves from 205th to 44th on the FedEx Cup point list.
Here are some other notes on Bateman's win:
With his win today, Brian Bateman becomes the first Buick Open champion not to play in the final group on Sunday since 1999 when Tom Pernice, Jr. came from the sixth-to-last group to win.
Bateman's winning score of 15-under 273 is the highest winning score at the Buick Open since Vijay Singh captured his first title at Warwick Hills in 1997 with a score of 15-under-par 273.
Brian Bateman becomes the 8th first-time winner on the 2007 PGA Tour and the third in a row. Angel Cabrera won the U. S. Open two weeks ago and Hunter Mahan won the Travelers Championship last week in Hartford, CT.
Bateman's stats (with rank in parentheses): Fairways
hit: 30 of 56 ..... (T54th) Driving average: 309.6 ..... (6th) Greens
hit: 52 of 72 ....... (T35th) Putts: 111 (27.75 a rd) .... (T8th)
Putting breakdown: 0-putt greens: 1 1-putt greens: 33 2-putt greens: 36
3-putt greens: 2 Play on par 3s: -2 Play on par 4s: -6 Play on par 5s:
-7 Eagles: 1 Birdies: 20 ................ (T9th) Scrambling: 15 of 20
(75.00%)... (T7th)
Scrambling measures how many times a player gets up and down for par or better on the holes where he missed the green in regulation.
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CBS and the PGA Tour go head to head with NBC and the USGA
The "Couch Producer" hates when two great tournaments run against each other like the Women's Open and the Buick Open did last weekend. Unfortunely we are going to have more of the same as the Senior Open goes up against the AT&T National this weekend.
In a way this is a big loser for everyone, golf fans are deprived from being able to watch both live, advertisers are losers because they won't get the bigger audience, players don't get the full exposure that they deserve but most importantly the networks make less money because ratings are lower which makes the ads cheaper, thus networks make less.
The big question is why do the networks allow this to happen? The root of the problem is the 3 to 6 pm window is best for sports programming. It gets the best numbers, a lot better than say 12 to 3. In a way the networks do better splitting the audience at the 3 to 6 window than having a full audience at the 12 to 3 window.
Still for the fans it would be nice if the USGA and the PGA Tour would get together and work out some kind of rotated schedule so that these events don't compete. Unfortunely I don't see that in the happening in the Crystal ball.
So how bad were the ratings for the two shows?This year the U.S. Women's Open won the slot with a 1.7 (1.47 million) rating compared to the Buick Open's 1.7 (1.3 million) rating. Now both shows were drastically down over last year, the Women's Open was 39% down but that had to be expected. The reason, Annika Sorenstam and Michelle Wie were in contention last year and the Sunday show went to 7:30 because they played 36 holes on Sunday. Again getting into that 7pm window really puts the ratings over the top.
As for the Buick Open they had a bigger drop, 60%. That was because last year the event was played in August and there was no competing golf show against it but the main reason for the drop was Tiger Woods won last year. You can't ever go wrong with Woods winning, until he doesn't do it the next year and your ratings fall off the face of the earth.
Again both networks did solid jobs, CBS was minus Jim Nantz who was replaced by Bill Macatee who also does a fine job. Now I watched the event afterwards on TiVo and I have to admit this was a better show because it was faster pace than NBC's telecast. What I mean is that CBS, who did have a tight leader with five tied for the lead and 11 within one early at one point during the show has the knack of being able to give us more golf for our money. With this the shows tend to be faster pace and more enjoyable to watch. There is one major drawback with this style and that is storylines and player information is lost and that was the case with Brian Bateman. CBS did a poor job in telling us a lot about Bateman, who is not a household name on the PGA Tour. They did run a piece with Bateman giving us an insight in some of the things that he likes, but the piece ran in the last hour of the show it needed to be on earlier.
As for NBC they are slower pace and give you a lot more information on the players. Now for the week NBC did another fine job, especially when you see all of the hours that they have to put in on days when the weather is poor. NBC gets a ton of credit for swhowing us the finish of the 2nd round on tape during the early stages of there Saturday telecast, but for once we saw the big advantage that Golf Channel has on the PGA Tour package. It's becoming norm not to miss any golf due to weather, time or playoffs. The reason I say that is at 6pm on Saturday NBC was off the air even though there was two and a half hours of golf left. No move to ESPN who it seem didn't want to blow out Sports Center and on ESPN 2 they had a Wimbledon tennis show of tape highlights so we were forced with just real time scoring. But ESPN made up for it with early morning third round coverage on Sunday between 8 to 10 am. As for Dottie, Dan and Johnny, they were one happy family this week on the 18th hole, all did a great job as Dottie and Johnny gave us some fine commentary. Dottie is becoming the Johnny Miller of Women commentators but my only problem is that she seems to be very vocal on her criticism of Michelle Wie in her Sports Illustrated column and in interviews in local papers , but she tends to not do the same with NBC. Wonder if Tommy Roy (NBC Producer) has a muzzle on her or if Dottie is too scared to say the things she writes on NBC. Come on Dottie, say what you feel.
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The Observer looks at what the big "Buzz" in golf is
June 25, 2007
By The Editors of GOLFOBSERVERE-mail me at: Golfersal@aol.com
Some of today's items:
*Angel Cabrera, Argentina's newest hero
*What if there was a playoff?
*Say it aint' so Lee
*Pressel returns to Pinehurst
*An American wins the British Amateur
*Recap of the Travelers Championship and how Hunter Mahan won
*The "Couch Producer" looks at how NBC did at the U.S. Open
Click here to post your thoughts and to tell us your "Golf Buzz"
Angel Cabrera, Argentina's newest hero
Photo: © Courtesy La Voz.com.ar
It's splitsville between Angel Cabrerareturned home to Argentina and was welcomed by hundreds of Argentine compatriots during a motorcade from the airport to his home.
For Angel Cabrera his return to Argentina was quite a party. Shops, restaurants and even schools were closed in his hometown province of Cordoba last Monday in his honor. On his arrival on Tuesday he got a police escort from the Cordoba airport to his home in Villa Allende as more than 100 vehicles joined in the motorcade in which he stood most of the way through the sunroof of the car grasping the U.S. Open trophy. On Wednesday 150 caddies threw a party for him. During the party he told them, "I hope my triumph serves as a motivation for golf in Argentina," he said. "I want the players to know they can win, that they have a chance. It was a triumph for Argentine golf."
For Cabrera he becomes just the second Argentine to win a major championship joining Roberto De Vicenzo who won the 1967 British Open. Cabrera, who is a member of the European Tour is one of nine Argentine players to win 25 times on that tour. Eduardo Romero has won the most with eight as Cabrera and Vicente Fernandez have won four each.
As for his return to golf.It's been uncertain when Cabrera will return to golf until now. He was suppose to play in this week's French Open but now things have changed. It looks like he will play three straight weeks at the Smurfit Kappa European Open, then the Barclays Scottish Open and then the British Open. After that we assume that he will play at Firestone and the PGA Championship but as he told everyone on his return to Argentina, everything has now changed and he will have to sit with his manager and figure things out. One person that did get through to him was Eduardo Romero, he called just after he finished, while Cabrera was waiting to see if Jim Furyk or Tiger Woods would of tied him. "He was happy to hear from me but was still very nervous because he hadn't won yet," Romero told Irish Independent reporter Dermot Gilleece. "I told him to take it easy because even though Tiger was still on the golf course, it was very difficult for anyone to birdie the last hole." As for Roberto De Vicenzo, the 84 year-old winner of the 1967 British Open champion said of the victory, "It's fantastic. Cabrera is now a hero in Argentina. He's my hero! I'm very happy for him because I didn't want to leave this world before I saw something like this."
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Photo: © Harry How/Getty Images
Tiger Woods and Angel Cabrera at the award ceremony.
What if there was a playoff?
Talking about the U.S. Open we have to sit back and wonder, what if. We were all surprise on Monday Night on TigerWoods.Com when he announced the birth of his daughter Sam Alexis Woods. It took everyone by surprise because the thought was the baby wasn't due for another couple of weeks. Details have been very slow in coming, Woods didn't indicate during the Open that the birth was impeding. Of course Tiger Woods demands his privacy and pretty much gets it but this brings up one big question, what would of happened if Woods did get a birdie to force a playoff. The playoff was scheduled for high noon on Monday but what if Tiger couldn't make it?
Would the USGA have given Woods a reprieve?Or would they have given Woods the shaft even on the birth of his child.Would Cabrera of possibly had a say in all of this?What would the USGA done, we may never know unless it happens some time in the future.Historically there is one thing that would help shape a decision, in 1957 Ben Hogan woke up the morning of the first round and couldn't raise his arms above his chest. Due to tee off at 9:36, when he got to the course and explained the problem to the USGA, officials changed his starting time to allow him to seek treatment from a doctor. A doctor treated him but it didn't help as Hogan had to withdraw but still the USGA tried to accommodate Hogan. The big question would have been what the USGA would do today.
Still a rule is a rule and times are set in stone with penalties for being late. Now I find it hard to believe that some kind of compromise couldn't of been raised on this.
I asked USGA Executive Director David Fay what the USGA would have done and of course the answer was what I expected, no answer. As Fay said in a email answering GolfObserver's question:"An intriguing question for blogs and golf talk shows to kick around as a 'what if' bar room-type question. But the USGA didn't take the bait in 1999 and we'll not take the bait on this hypothetical in 2007 either ! "Sorry, but you will just have to take a guess as to what might have happened with the confidence that whatever you say can not be proven wrong - or right......"In our complicated word, there will be a time in the future that this will come up for real and we will all see what the USGA would do. Bet you they postpone it.
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Photo: © Scott Halleran/Getty Images
Tim Clark at the U.S. Open
More U.S. Open odds and ends
At the beginning of the year Steve Lowery had 14 birdies at the FBR Open in Phoenix, but with rounds of 66-70 missed the cut. For his efforts of making birdies on 39% of the holes he got nothing but the pleasure of making all those birdies. So it's a bit surprising that Tim Clark made only 5 birdies of 72 holes (7% of the holes) and made $102,536 for finishing T17th. Now birdie for dollar that comes out to $20,507 for each one made, not the same as the $96,923 that Angel Cabrera made for everyone of his 13 birdies made last week.
Another unexpected paycheck made at the U.S. Open was for George McNeill. Even though he finished dead last and got only $16,363 that isn't bad considering that he didn't make it through local qualifying but got a second chance as an alternate at the sectional qualifying, getting in at the last minute on a no-show. For McNeill every bit will help since the rookie is in a struggle to keep his card this year as he has only earned $238,198 which is 144th on the money list. The $16,363 moved him up five spots on the money list.
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Photo: © Scott Halleran/Getty Images
Lee Trevino retiring?
Say it aint' so Lee
The last couple of years have seen some of our biggest golfing idols retire from competitive golf. Jack Nicklaus did it at the British Open in 2005. Last year in a Champions Tour event in Houston, Arnold Palmer withdrew saying it would be his last competitive round ever. Now we have a declaration from Lee Trevino that he too will play his last competitive round later this year at the AT&T Championship in October.
After 466 PGA Tour events in which he won 29 times and six majors, 378 Champion Tour events with 29 wins Trevino will play in just corporate outings, fun and charitable events. As he was signing autographs this week at the Bank of America Championship in Boston he told everyone, "Two more tournaments and I'm never going to sign another autograph,"
Still for a man who has averaged playing in 21 tournaments a year for the last 40 years it may be a little strange not signing autographs and having the admiration of all these people Trevino conceded to Jim McCabe of the Boston Globe that, "I'll miss all of this."
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Photo: © Scott Halleran/Allsport
Morgan Pressel played in the 2001 Women's Open just after her 13th birthday.
Pressel returns to Pinehurst
For Morgan Pressel her return to Pine Needles for the U.S. Women's Open will bring back some memories. That is because it was six years ago in 2001 that Pressel, just 8 days after her 13th birthday, made history as the youngest player to participate in the Women's Open. Back then she was the darling of golf, she attracted a lot of attention because of her age as thousands watch her shot 77-77 to miss the cut. It also was a time for Pressel to remember that for her mother Kathy it was the only time while she was alive that she saw her daughter play on the LPGA Tour, watching every one of her 154 strokes. By the time Morgan got into her second LPGA event at the Women's Open in 2003, Kathy was battling breast cancer, unable to travel to Oregon and just two months short of losing her battle to the disease.
So for Pressel, she returns to Pine Needles with all of those memories plus the fact that she will be one of the favorites. She won the first major of the season at the Kraft Nabisco and will be looking for her second. In a twist of fate one thing that will change at Pine Needles this year is that Pressel won't be the youngest Women's Open player anymore. This year Alexis Thompson will break Pressel's record as she will be 12 years, 4 months and 18 days old when she tees it up on Thursday at Pine Needles. Matter of fact things have drastically changed as in 2001 Pressel was one of five teenagers in the field, this year there are 19 that will be 18 and under with four players not even old enough to qualify for a driving license. The second youngest player in the field will be 14 year-old Danielle Kang of San Francisco, California.
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Photo: © Richard Heathcote/Getty Images
Drew Weaver became the first American to win the British Amateur since 1979.
An American wins the British Amateur
Over the last decade American's haven't done very well on the world stage of golf. As an example, take last week's U.S. Open, Angel Cabrera became the fourth straight non-american winner. Since 2000 only two American's Tiger Woods and Jim Furyk have claimed a victory. In Ryder Cup play it's the same old story, American has only sniffed victory once in 12 years and that was in 1999. Now the same can be said in Amateur golf, take for example the U.S. Amateur. Since it's start over hundred years ago it's been dominated by American winners but just look at what has happened the last four years. Other than Ryan Moore in 2004, three of the winners have been Scottish (Richie Ramsey last year), Italian (Edoardo Molinari) and Australian (Nick Flanagan in 2003). But the United State had a moral victory this week over in England when Drew Weaver, a 20-year-old from High Point, North Carolina, broke out of obscurity and won the British Amateur, the oldest major amateur competition in the world dating back to 1885.
The British Amateur has only been won by 20 different American's and even though great players like Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods have won our national championship they never won the British Amateur. Matter of fact, other than Bobby Jones, Lawson Little and Deane Beman must of the champions are very obscure.
So obscure that the last American champion was Jay Sigel, who won it in 1979. Since then only two have made it into the finals, Jim Holtgrieve lost to Philip Parkin in 1983 and Bob May lost to Gary Wolstenholme in 1991. So you can see that it was becoming an embarrassment for American Golf.
The British Amateur has become such an afterthought that of the 288 players in the field only nine of them were Americans as Tom Glissmeyer was the only other American to make it into Match Play losing to Jason Shufflebotham in the fourth round 3 & 2.
As for Weaver, who beat last year's Australian Amateur champion Tim Stewart 2 & 1 in the finals. The win means a lot to him, not only does he get to bring the trophy to America for the first time in 28 years he also gets into the British Open next month and the Masters next year.
Not only is he just the sixth player in British Amateur history to win on his first try, but if faith didn't play a different role on April 16th he may not of even been at the British Amateur.
That's because Weaver, a junior at Virginia Tech almost was trapped in the same Engineering Hall that so many people lost there lives in. He was just 100 yards from walking into that building when Cho Seung-Hui begin his killing spree. Weaver heard the shots and ran for his life, finding refuge in the campus library where he waited most of the morning and into the afternoon. Who know what would of happened if Weaver would have been three or five minutes early? "I dedicated the entire week to the 32 who died that day," Weaver said after victory over Stewart. "Winning the British Amateur is so minute compared to what happened to the victims that week." Weaver had the help of his father John who carried his son's bag which had a patch on it that read" Virginia Tech remembers 4:16:07. "I carried the patch to help give Virginia Tech some positive publicity after what happened," Weaver said. "It turned out to be a good omen this week. As for Weaver this victory will help him gain a lot of notoriety. Not only will he play in the British Open and the Masters, he will probably get a spot on the U.S. Walker Cup team that will play in Northern Ireland in September. But more importantly Weaver has done his job in helping recognize that people should never forget that sad day last April when 32 people lost there lives in the tragedy at Virginia Tech.
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Recap of the Travelers Championship with Hunter Mahan winning
Travelers Championship Results & money
Travelers Championship scores & stats
Photo: © Kyle Auclair/Getty Images
Hunter Mahan wins the Travelers Championship.Hunter Mahan must like Connecticut and the Travelers Championship. it was not only the site of his first PGA Tour start in 2000, of the 43 different tour stops that Mahan has played in 122 events, he has played the most at the Travelers with six visits. So it's only fitting that in the event he has played the most in, the only event in which he has two top-five finishes and the tournament in which he has won a third of his career earnings ($1.5 million of his $4.2 career earnings) he would win for the first time
Here are some other notes on Mahan's win:
He took only 108 putts, second best in the field. He was also 2nd in the field in putts per greens hit. He had 36 one-putts, the best of anyone in the field and only three putted once, that coming on the 70th hole, He made 23 birdies, the most of anyone in the field. Another amazing stat, Mahan was 60 for 60 in putts from 8 feet and under. It's amazing to also look at how many putts he made in the final round, here is a look at the length of putts he made for birdies on Sunday:
Hole - Length of putt3rd - 11'9"6th - 1'5"9th - 6'8"11th - 13'12th - 2'9"13th - 7'4"18th - 7'playoff-1.6"
His Sunday 65 was near flawless as he hit 13 of 14 fairways and 15 of 18 greens Mahan's first round 62 tied his career low round of 62 in the third round of the 2004 Valero Texas Open, which he finished T5th. Mahan's final round 65 wasn't his career low final round, he had previously shot 64 in three other events.
This stat may sound weird but at 25 years, one month old Mahan is the youngest winner on tour in 2007. Of the 26 winners on tour this year Mahan joins Aaron Baddeley, Charles Howell III, Adam Scott and Nick Watney has the only champions in there 20s.
Now who is to say that finishing 2nd is a helpful experience or not. Hunter Mahan becomes the fourth player in Travelers history to finish 2nd and then win the next joining this list of players that have done it.Greg Norman runner-up in 1994 and winning in 1995Nick Price runner-up in 1992 and winning in 1993Wayne Levi runner-up in 1989 and winning in 1990
Jay Williamson is a jouneyman on the PGA Tour. Playing since 1995 he has been in 279 events and is still looking for his first PGA Tour event. Now of course he is way off the 711 events that Bobby Wadkins started in, the most of anyone without a victory but if you look at active players on the PGA Tour only Jay Delsing, Skip Kendall, Marco Dawson, Kelly Gibson, Scott Gibson, Michael Allen and Esteban Toledo can claim to play in more events on Tour without a victory.
Since 1995 Williamson has played in at least 15 more events a year with the exception of 1997. In his previous 11 years he has only broken into the top-125 five times, the last being in 2004 which was his best season financially on tour when he earned $660,038 which is $12,000 more than what Williamson earned for his runner-up finish at the Travelers.
Mahan's stats (with rank in parentheses): Fairways hit:
41 of 56 ..... (T21st) Driving average: 300.3 ..... (13th) Greens hit:
52 of 72 ....... (T10th) Putts: 108 (27.00 a rd) .... (2nd) Putting
breakdown: 0-putt greens: 0 1-putt greens: 36 2-putt greens: 33 3-putt
greens: 1 Play on par 3s: +1 Play on par 4s: -11 Play on par 5s: -5
Eagles: 0 Birdies: 23 ................ (1st) Scrambling: 13 of 20
(65.00%)... (19th)
Scrambling measures how many times a player gets up and down for par or better on the holes where he missed the green in regulation.
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So how did NBC do at the U.S. Open?
It took the "Couch Producer" the whole week after the U.S. Open to go through the TiVo and look at all of the coverage. So how did the 35 hours of TV coverage of the U.S. Open go?If you were to ask NBC, the USGA and advertisers they were madly in love with it. That is because ratings were way up, on Saturday the Nielsen numbers were 4.6 (average 3.5 million people watching), 44% higher than Saturday at Winged Foot. Sunday's final round was even better, a 6.4 rating (average 9.5 million viewers) making it the highest rated final round of the U.S. Open since 2002.
Now of course having Tiger Woods in the final group on Sunday means high ratings, plus with the conclusion coming with the last stroke by Woods at 7:30 eastern time it meant that the ratings spiked to 10.1 in the final half hour.
Now of course ratings have two motivating aspects for being high, running past the 7pm hour in which millions are looking for Dateline NBC and having Tiger Woods in the final round. On paper the 6.4 rating from this Sunday looks a far cry from the 9.3 rating in 2002, but that Open at Bethpage had the perfect scenario with Tiger Woods in the final round and a rain delay that didn't see Woods finish until 9pm. With two hours of prime time numbers it was no surprise to see it the best but look for those numbers to possibly be beaten next year when a West Coast venue (Torrey Pines) will bring a 9pm east coast finish.
As for the shows, ESPN gave us a preview of the British Open bringing out Mike Tirico, Terry Gannon, Judy Rankin and Andy North. Hearing them for the first time in six months makes us realize how much we hate having a two network system, Tirico is the best golf anchor period and how great is it hearing Judy Rankin again. Along with those PGA Tour veterans, ESPN brought out Chris Berman to host about four hours a day. Now for years I have always wondered what the deal was, Berman has been a fish out of water doing golf which is a much different beast than doing football or baseball or basketball. The things that we love Berman for on the NFL pre and post game shows is not what we want in golf. His made up names like Francis-when-we-met and Joe Durant-Durant just don't work in golf and his raw-raw traits, which work on Football didn't work in Golf. More importantly Berman never seemed to know much about golf, it's history, the game and the players which made him embarrassing to listen to.
Still for years ESPN would always trot him out and many wondered why. I asked Mark Carlson, the director of broadcasting for the USGA, what the deal on him was and, according to Carlson, the USGA not only loves him but demanded that he be a part of the telecast. As Carlson said, "He brings a younger audience to the table and a lot of energy.
Still over the years as he gets older, Berman is playing in more pro-ams and he seems to understands the game much better which makes him more tolerable . In listening to the Friday telecast, he does bring on a different energy level to the 5 to 7 pm telecast which helps make it OK after watching wall-to-wall golf since 10am in the morning. Now this doesn't mean we want a steady diet of Berman on golf, but he is getting better and would probably help ESPN on a show like the Skins Game be more enjoyable to watch.
Lastly, looking at the production value of the ESPN shows, they had a lot of nice pieces and made us feel that they had there own identify during the first two days.
So how about NBC?
As for the pictures, no two ways about it NBC is far superior than CBS, they spend more money with hard cameras that give us better viewing from better angles than CBS. Of course it's hard to judge CBS on the Masters because a lot of it they don't have control over but historically NBC has always been stronger in big telecasts and they showed that again over the weekend. As for there voices that is a problem area and something that NBC has to address in the future. We love Johnny Miller and again he was on top of his game over the weekend. In a way Miller is becoming like the Walter Cronkite of TV golf, a person that we trust with ever aspect of the game. Miller doesn't give us insights on the personal aspect of a player but what he does is gives us an insight on what players are thinking and feeling. It was great watching a close-up on Angel Cabrera off the 18 green on Sunday and how Miller was able to see that Cabrera couldn't get any saliva because of nerves. He also isn't afraid of being critic of anyone, even Tiger Woods who a lot of announcers genuflect over. When Woods made double bogey at three, Miller was critical saying that Woods had more "fluffs than he's had since junior golf." In conclusion Miller hasn't lost anything and is still the best in golf, even with the competition from Nick Faldo.
Now for the other voices, Dan Hicks is barely tolerable and that is because he has Miller at his side and is smart enough to let Johnny do all of the talking. As for Bob Costa and Jimmy Roberts both are good, after knowing Roberts for over 25 years it's great to see that he has blossomed into the best journalistic reporter on Sports television and his essays are as good as the ones that Jim McKay and Jack Whitaker did decades ago. His insightful seven minute piece on Arnold Palmer is probably one of the best features ever, giving us a glimpse of a man that is loved by every golfer around the world
As for Roger Maltibie and Mark Rolfing they give what is needed and aren't obtrusive, making sure that we always get conditions, yardage and clubs on most shots. They also work great with Johnny Miller and are able to converse with Miller acting more like Johnny's eys on the course. As for Dottie Pepper, she doesn't work as well with Johnny and most of the time has Miller walking all over her. Still Pepper is being wasted as the third wheel on course. Of course her commentary is always on the mark but it's time for an upgrade to a hole for Pepper, she would add a lot more to the telecast as a hole announcer than Bob Murphy and Gary Koch. Both are not very strong with Murphy being the worst, he now really doesn't bring much to the table teling us basically what we are watching. As for Koch, he sometimes has a nugget or two but most of the time he annoys people with his rah-rah attitude. Over the winter NBC tried to hire replacements with David Ferherty and Nick Faldo but both were signed by CBS.
So it's time that NBC seriously thinks of replacing them. Pepper is one choice but maybe NBC should think of a Paul Azinger, Curtis Strange or a Lee Trevino. Yes all would be expensive and probably would only do a limited schedule but I feel that if they would do the U.S. Open, Players and the Women's Open it would make NBC look very good. All three are great, available and would be popular replacements.
Another item that doesn't work is the Tim Rosaforte pieces. Yes the information that Rosaforte gives is OK but the concept is awkward. What I mean is why can't he just give the announcers the information and let them report it at the right moment, why do we have to get a two minute piece with Rosaforte during the telecast? Maybe it would work better if Rosaforte would give a single item while someone was walking to there ball or after a shot, but putting him on camera for the piece doesn't work.
Aother thing that NBC was lacking this year was great announcer information. In the past they have always had great stat nuggets, a perfect example was on Saturday, in the past years they would of know how many players have had bogey-free U.S. Open rounds when Tiger was on the verge of doing it. But they didn't have it this year. When Paul Casey was getting close to the lead on Saturday, it would of been great for NBC annoucers to tell us the great stat nugget that the last time a player won the U.S. Open after shooting 77 in the first round (Casey shot a first round 77) was in 1935 when Sam Parks did it at Oakmont. In years past NBC would of had this but for some odd reason they lacked seriously in this department this year.
One last criticism of the telecast, on Saturday I got sick and tired of Gary Koch, Bob Murphy and Mark Rolfing trying to tell us how fair the USGA had set up the course. They did this over a dozen times while on Friday they never said that the course was on the verge of getting too hard, tough and unfair. In a way I have noticed that the USGA/NBC relationship is way too close and NBC sometimes doesn't get tough on USGA mistakes, it's like the price of gas, it goes up very quickly (just like NBC trying to defend the USGA) but when oil goes down, the price of gas takes a long time to reflect the change (Just like how long it sometimes takes for NBC to criticize the USGA).
Now for overall marks there is no too ways about it, NBC knows how to make the U.S. Open special just like they do on all there major telecasts. They give us the best pieces, the best angles and they are on top of the action with Johnny Miller as there main voice. In grading them I give them a B++, losing the A because of their weakness with Koch and Murphy.
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The Observer looks at what the big "Buzz" in golf is
June 11, 2007
By The Editors of GOLFOBSERVERE-mail me at: Golfersal@aol.com
Some of today's items:
*Spiltsville for Monty and Caddie
*The Norman soap opera coming to an end?
*Canadian's Weir and Ames may not play in President's Cup
*Vagabond pro hauls in the big bucks in Vegas
*Recap of the McDonald's LPGA Championship and how Suzann Pettersen won
*Recap of the Stanford St. Jude Championship and how Woody Austin won
*The "Couch Producer" looks at Golf Channels problems last THursday
*Dottie Pepper could be better than Koch and Murphy
*Stat of the day
Click here to post your thoughts and to tell us your "Golf Buzz"
Monty's terrible year takes it's toll on his caddie
Photo: © Richard Heathcote/Getty Images
It's splitsville between Monty and Alastair McLean, for the time being.
For over ten years the team of Colin Montgomerie and his caddie Alastair McLean were formative, winning seven straight order of merits and 25 wins on the European Tour. In May of 2002, when Montgomerie wasn't winning as many times he fired McLean and went through a terrible period with several different caddies and getting Phil Price upset when he stole his caddie Andy Prodger. Before the 2004 Ryder Cup McLean got back together with Monty and just like that he won the order of merit in 2005 but more importantly finished runner-up in the 2005 British Open and runner-up last year at Winged Foot. Montgomerie hasn't won since the Hong Kong Open in 2005 and things have been very stressful the last couple of months after missing the cut at the Masters and Players. A poor T30th finished at the European's BMW PGA Championship didn't help things either but it all boiled over on Friday when he shot 74 on Friday to miss the cut. Of course Monty's bad play is due to bad putting but that isn't getting the heave ho as Alastair McLean won't be making the trip to America to caddie for Monty this week. According to Montgomerie's manager Guy Kinnings he said, "They have agreed to take a break, they needed to refresh things." So it looks like Montgomerie will arrive to Oakmont without a caddie and just hire one there.
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Photo: © David Cannon/Getty Images
Greg & Laura at '93 British Open
Greg and Laura soap opear could be ending
The end could be near in the year long Greg Norman/Laura Norman divorce case. The sign that things could be settled very soon and out of court was when Laura's attorneys withdrew last week the paper work that they had filed last month accusing Greg of "marital misconduct". All the negotiations are being done in closed doors in Florida and it seems that pictures of Greg with tennis star Chris Evert holding hands had a lot to do with Laura having the "marital misconduct" papers filed. With that, Evert could have been called to testify in what could turn out to be a very embarrassing public trial. Along with Evert, PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem and Nick Price were also on the list of people that Laura's attorney's were planning to have testify.
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Photo: © Stuart Franklin/Getty Images
Darren Clarke
Clarke's downspin continue's
Again Darren Clarke's problems continued as he missed the cut again in BA-CA Golf Open in Austraia with rounds of 73-70. It's the fifth straight cut that he has missed on the European Tour, his last pay check came at the Accenture Match Play and that was deceiving considering that he lost in the first round of the Match Play tournament. Clarke also had a dismal miss last week in trying to qualify for the U.S. Open. Every bit of Clarke's game has problems, but giving him the most is a balky putter. With the poor play also comes a big fall down the World Rankings. After starting the year 35th on the list he is now down to 106th in the rankings which means he will have problems getting into majors and World Golf Championhips. He is safe for now on the British Open and the PGA Championship, getting into both due to being a member of the Ryder Cup team.
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Photo: © David Cannon & Andrew Redington/Getty Images
Stephen Ames and Mike Weir.
Canadian's Weir and Ames may not play in President's Cup
It would be a shame if Canadians Mike Weir and Stephen Ames couldn't particpate in the Presidents Cup, being played in Canada this year. But according to International captain Gary Player neither Ames or Weir would be given a spot on his team for the event in Montreal simply because he was Canadian. "Is this a sentimental tournament or is it to try and win? That's the big question and it's a long way to go," said Player, who quickly added, "obviously Mike Weir having been such a predominant player and such a wonderful gentlemen, I look at the (points) list -- my office sends this list wherever I am every week -- and the first person I happen to look for is Mike Weir because I realize we're playing in Canada." As for the point list Ames is 15th while Weir is 17th. For the competition the top ten on the point list makes the team while Player will get two wild card picks. The matches will be played the last week in September at Royal Montreal Golf Club.
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Photo: © Doug Benc/Getty Images
Bobby Ginn
PGA Tour finds a friend in Bobby Ginn
Tim Rosaforte reported on Golf Channel that Bobby Ginn is going to have a tournament on the PGA Tour. He already has two on the LPGA Tour and one on the Champions Tour so with the upcoming PGA Tour event he will have all three tours covered. What Ginn is doing is bailing out the PGA Tour on their fall event called the Running Horse Golf Championship. It was suppose to be a new event held on a new course in Fresno, California but the course hasn't even began to be built with the developer have big money problems. So it's become pretty obvious in the last six months that the Running Horse Golf Championship wasn't going to happen. So look for that October 25th to 28 date going Ginn who is developing the tournament at the Tesoro Club, an Arnold Palmer design course in Port St. Lucie, Fla. The three other events have Ginn has had have been big winners on the Champions and LPGA Tours so there isn't any reason to think that this event could one day become a big event on the Fall schedule.
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Scott Piercy gets a kiss from his wife after winning $2 millions.
Vagabond pro hauls in the big bucks
Who was the big winner this week? No it wasn't Suzann Pettersen who won just $300,000 at the LPGA Championship or Woody Austin who won just over a million dollars in Memphis. The biggest winner had to be Scott Piercy, a vagabond pro living in Las Vegas who was a three shot winner in the Ultimate Game at Wynn Las Vegas. With the victory he collected the first place check of $2 million dollars, not bad considering that in 24 PGA Tour and Nationwide Tour events he had won just $190,000. The big loser could have been Ken Jarner, another Vegas resident who is a caddie on Wynn Las Vegas course. Jarner had a three shot lead over Piercy after the 11th hole but the combination of five birdies by Piercy on the last seven holes and Jarner playing those holes in one over gave the victory to Piercy. For Jarner he wasn't a total loser, he did win $100,000. But minus the $50,000 entry fee, that didn't leave much as 40 players put up $50,000 each to play. For Piercy, he won't keep the full $2 million as he got a syndicate group led by Bob Kahan to pony up the entry fee. The group and Piercy will spilt the two million 50/50 which for Piercy isn't a bad week's work.
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Recap of the McDonald's LPGA Championship and how Suzann Pettersen won
McDonald's Results & money
McDonald's box score & stats
Photo: © Andy Lyons/Getty Images
Suzann Pettersen getting McDonald's trophyWhat a difference ten weeks does for the way players do things. At the Kraft Nabisco, Suzann Pettersen had control of the championship but finished bogey, double bogey, bogey par and lost that championship by a shot to a surprising Morgan Pressel.
Of course Pettersen could of felt bad for herself and done what others have done, not play very good golf afterwards reflecting on the disaster but that wasn't the case with her. She came out strong, winning the Michelob Ultra Open at Kingsmill and playing with a new resolve.
She showed some of that resolve on Sunday at the McDonald's LPGA Championship in a fabulous back nine of four birdies and no bogeys to win the McDonald's by a shot over Karrie Webb, who also had four birdies and no bogeys but did a serious job of applying the pressure on to Pettersen with a birdie-birdie finish.
Keys to victory for PettersenThe difference this week for Pettersen was the ability to image every shot before she would hit it and be able to executed the shot. She also figured out her putting problems which hindered her last week at the Ginn Tribute. There see took 126 putts, which placed her near the bottom of the field in putting as only six putted worst in a T45th finish. Pettersen drastically improved upon that stat at the McDonald's taking 114 putts which tied for 8th in that stat. Now she has her pro-am playing partner Tom Elliot from Tuesday to thank for the win, she fell in love with Elliot's putter and "borrowed" it for the week. It will be interesting to see if Elliot gets the putter back anytime soon.
With this good play we just wonder who the player of the year could be. Right now with the win Pettersen moves in front on the points of player of the year and in the new Rolex rankings she moved up eight spots into fourth, just behink Annika Sorenstam, Karrie Webb (who moved to second) and Lorena Ochoa. Oh, Pettersen is from Norway and becomes the first Norwegian to win a major championship not only from the LPGA but all of golf.
Pettersen's stats (with rank in parentheses): Fairways hit: 44 of 56 ..... (T39th) Driving
average: 280.9 ..... (6th) Greens hit: 52 of 72 ....... (T21st) Putts:
114 (28.50 a rd) .... (T8th) Play on par 3s: -3 Play on par 4s: -2 Play
on par 5s: -9 Eagles: 1 Birdies: 22 ................ (1st)
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Recap of the Stanford St. Jude Championship and how Woody Austin won
Stanford St. Jude Results & money
Stanford St. Judebox score & stats
Photo: © Hunter Martin/Getty Images)
Woody Austin wins Stanford St. Jude.Hard to believe Woody Austin's victory. Going into this week you would of given him very little chance at winning. Not only was his record poor in the event, he only made four cuts in nine tries in Memphis with a T44 best finish in 2005 in PGA Tour play this year he only had one top-25 finish in 14 starts, a T18th at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans. But Austin found his game while walking through Memphis as he shot 72-66-67-62. How about that final round 62, it was a magical day with the putter because he only hit 13 of 18 greens as he took 28 putts making just about everything that he saw. His round got off to a great start holing out a wedge for an eagle at the 3rd hole. Five of his six birdies came on the back nine as he shot 30 for a 62, his lowest score in 1,197 rounds over 383 PGA Tour events, as he has had six rounds of 63. Woody Austin's 8-under-par 62 was the low finish on the PGA Tour this season for a winner, and the lowest final-round for a champion since Brad Faxon posted a 9-under-par 61 to win the 2006 Buick Championship.
Here are some other notes on Austin's win:
Austin shoots an 8-under-par 62, the best final round score by a tournament winner in the 50 years of this event. The previous low round by a champion at TPC Southwind was 64 (7-under) by Jay Haas (1992), Len Mattiace (2002) and David Toms (2003). His final round was the best since Nick Price shot a 62 in 2004, when he finished T-4.
Austin becomes the fourth winner to play the final 36 holes without a bogey since the event moved to TPC Southwind in 1989. He joins Len Mattiace (2002), John Cook (1996) and Jay Haas (1992) in that category. Austin played the final 49 holes without a bogey. His last bogey came on No. 5 during the second round.
The five-stroke win for Woody Austin tied the fourth-largest margin of victory in tournament history. John Cook won by seven in 1996, Ray Floyd won by six in 1982 and David Toms won by six in 2004. Other five-shot winners wereCary Middlecoff in 1961, Bert Yancey in 1966 and Gene Littler in 1975.
Woody Austin's victory this week marked his first top-10 since a T7 at the 2006 Buick Open. At 43 years, four months and 13 days, Austin is the second-oldest winner of the Stanford St. Jude Championship. Gene Littler (44 years, 10 months, 4 days) is the oldest champion in tournament history, having won the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic in 1975.
Austin's stats (with rank in parentheses): Fairways hit:
35 of 56 ..... (T12th) Driving average: 304.3 ..... (57th) Greens hit:
52 of 72 ....... (2nd) Putts: 113 (28.25 a rd) .... (T31st) Putting
breakdown: 0-putt greens: 2 1-putt greens: 31 2-putt greens: 35 3-putt
greens: 4 Play on par 3s: Even Play on par 4s: -10 Play on par 5s: -3
Eagles: 1 Birdies: 17 ................ (T2nd) Scrambling: 17 of 20
(85.00%)... (3rd)
Scrambling measures how many times a player gets up and down for par or better on the holes where he missed the green in regulation.
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Golf Channel has problems during a big moment on Thursday
The whole week the "Couch Producer" along with many other golf fans were looking forward to the Thursday coverage of the McDonald's LPGA Championship. Now normally I wouldn't care less about a Thursday telecast but this week a lot was riding with Michelle Wie returning from her WD the previous week at the Ginn Tribute.
The questions generating a lot of interest was how Wie was going to react to all of the controversy during the week.Would Wie be able to block it out and play great on Thursday? Would Wie be scrambling around and again have another poor round, putting her at risk of the "88" rule? Would Wie just collapse under all of the pressure and have to WD again?All of these questions made the Thursday telecast a must watch, something that you don't see much on TV.
As for the Golf Channel, they were up to the task in the first couple of hours, providing one of there better telecasts that was crisp and bounced around to see a lot of the leaders and marquee names. Making it even better right before Wie's 2:16 tee time, Golf Channel cameras caught the early drama of Wie and the wrist injury. they showed her getting a massage and a trainer working on the wrist on the range, we got a great interview with her coach David Leadbetter who said she was only 80% but wanted to play and felt ready to go.
Golf Channel couldn't of done a better job at milking the anticapation of the round, we got to see Wie hit her tee shot on the 10th tee, saw the second shot and then all of a sudden things went to green on the screen. Yes green followed by 11 minutes of commercials and info-commercials which started the strangest segment of golf on TV. After the 11 minutes a studio update with Steve Sands came up apologizing for a problem and saying that they would get back to the coverage when things were fixed. After the three minute update Sands threw to last year's coverage, making things even more confusing because who do we see, Michelle Wie. Unfortunely there was no graphic on the tape saying that this was last year's event, confusing a lot of people that didn't hear Sands announce that this was last year. Then after about ten minutes of this the tape went into rewind and again everyone got confused because the Golf Channel switched people back to this year's telecast, with Brian Hammonds just saying they were back. But that only lasted for about 20 minutes when the picture again went to green and we were again confused with a combination of last year's sound and then commercials. After they came back it was last year's tape, again nobody told us or they didn't have any graphics saying it was last year. At that point I would say that nobody basically stayed around and the Golf Channel lost anybody that was interested in Michelle Wie.
According to a Golf Channel spokesperson, they experienced a power system failure in the router that brings the live telecast through the main production facility. Of course this was a one in a million problem that nobody would of cared about any other time but it happened at the worst possible time. Golf Channel spokesman Dan Higgan admitted they could of handled the problem better in updating people with graphics and update studio's and said that they would make sure that any problems in the future would be handled better in telling folks what was happening and what they were watching.
One of the great things about the Golf Channel is the nightly repeat show's and that went on without a flaw. All of the stuff that was missing in the last year was on those shows and after it concluded with Michelle Wie still on the course they smartly gave us an update on her day but I just wonder how many of the original folks from the 12:30 show watched at 9:58 for this update.
Again the Golf Channel tries hard but these problems are annoying and hopefully they will learn how to handle problems like this better in the future.
As for the McDonald's telecast, I really liked Brian Hammonds and Dottie Pepper on Thursday and Friday and thought that they were perfect. Now when Golf Channel brought in Nick Faldo for the weekend, he was a fish out of water and I don't think that Hammonds did as well of a job as traffic cop with two in the booth. Still Pepper was good and so was Faldo, even though he didn't have the insight of the players like Pepper had. Again it was great to have Faldo, the LPGA were happy but the team of Hammonds and Pepper were doing just fine on there own.
Should Dottie be in a tower at the U.S. Open instead of Koch & Murphy?
One last item, the NBC telecasts have dragged quite a bit this year with Gary Koch and Bob Murphy. Back in October, NBC worked hard to fix the problem my hiring Faldo and David Feherty but CBS made sure to get Faldo and retain Feherty. So NBC is still weak in talent and I hope producer Tommy Roy considers shaking things up a bit by putting Pepper on a tower this week at Oakmont and possibly replacing either Murphy or Koch. Pepper has blossomed in the two years she has done television and would be a better fit.
One last thing from the couch, anybody catch the Ultimate Game at Wynn Las Vegas on Fox? The show was great with a lot of drama of average players looking for that grand $2 million dollar first place prize. Adding to the drama was the ability of having live interviews on the course with the players as we could see the drama and excitement unfolding.
But what really made the show was Lee Trevino, who was the main voice for NBC Sports in the 80s. We loved him then and he was just as good now giving us great insight on what the players were feeling and what to look for. The creator of the show was Terry Jastrow, a long time golf producer for ABC and he was very wise in getting Trevino to participate. Of course he had to pay dear for Trevino's services and it was worth it, I just hope that the brain trust at Golf Channel saw it and will talk with Trevino about future shows. Now I don't see Trevino becoming a regular announcer again but if he can do some special shows once a month or so will be great.
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Stat of day
Woody Austin's 8-under-par 62 was the low finish on the PGA Tour this season for a winner, and the lowest final-round for a champion since Brad Faxon posted a 9-under-par 61 to win the 2006 Buick Championship.
Lowest final round by a winner (since 1970):
Score
Player
Tournament
59
David Duval
1999 Bob Hope Chrysler
61
Johnny Miller
1975 Tucson
61
Hal Sutton
1995 B.C. Open
61
Brad Faxon
2005 Buick Championship
62
Ron Streck
1978 Texas Open
62
Greg Norman
1990 Doral-Ryder
62
Davis Love III
1992 Kmart Greensboro
62
John Huston
1992 Walt Disney World
62
Tom Kite
1993 Bob Hope Chrysler
62
Fulton Allem
1993 NEC World Series
62
Duffy Waldorf
2000 Walt Disney
62
Phil Tataurangi
2002 Las Vegas Invitational
62
J.L. Lewis
2003 84 Lumber
62
Ryan Palmer
2004 Funai Classic Disney
62
Woody Austin
2007 Stanford St. Jude
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The Observer looks at what the big "Buzz" in golf is
June 4, 2007
By The Editors of GOLFOBSERVERE-mail me at: Golfersal@aol.com
Some of today's items:
*Kline finishes but get's ban for the rest of year
*U.S. Open qualifying
*Scott thinking of shooting in the 50s?
*Recap of the Memorial and how K.J. Choi won
*Remembering a friend
*TV Watch for the week
*Stat of the day
Click here to post your thoughts and to tell us your "Golf Buzz"
Kline finishes but get's ban for the rest of year
Photo: © Scott Halleran/Getty Images
MacKinzie Kline in her cart.
It's funny, Michelle Wie couldn't finish two holes on Thursday "tweaking" her wrist, thus possibly avoiding being ban on the LPGA for the rest of the year. MacKinzie Kline made a triple bogey on her last hole on Friday shooting a 89. On the way Kline could of "quit" on the hole and claimed she was having problems with a lack of oxygen or something but didn't and with it will not be able to play on the LPGA for the rest of the year. Still it was a great ride for Kline, who was the first player to use a golf cart in LPGA history. She not only got a lot out of the experience and learned what it will take to possibly become a LPGA player in the future, but the appearance will also help raise the awareness for the Children's Heart Foundation, as millions were able to learn about the plight of Kine.
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U.S. Open qualifying
Photo: © Rick Stewart/Getty Image
Oakmont Country Club. Getting into the U.S. Open isn't an easy thing. Just ask Sean O'Hair who because he finished so poorly at The Players is forced to go through qualifying. He isn't the only one in the same boat, in looking at the list of 820 players going through qualifying it's a who's who of golf talent, with three past U.S. Open champions and 15 U.S. Amateur winnings plus 49 winners on the PGA Tour. Here is an example:Past U.S. Open winners include Larry Nelson, who won at Oakmont 25 years ago, Steve Jones, the 1996 U.S. Open champion whose 10-year exemption for being champion ended last year and Corey Pavin who won the 1995 U.S. Open champion.
Tommy Armour III is the grandson of Tommy Armour who won the U.S. Open at Oakmont in 1927, he will try to play in the tournament and on the course that his grandfather won at 80 years ago.
Not only did Mark O'Meara win a British Open, he is also a Masters champion but he will try to qualify in Columbus. Another British Open champion trying is Mark Calcavecchia, who won this year at the PODS Championship. Tom Lehman is also in Columbus, he not only won the British Open in 1996 but finished 2nd and 3rd, three times in the U.S. Open. Justin Leonard of Dallas, Texas, won the 1992 U.S. Amateur and was a member of the 1992 USA World Amateur Team and '93 Walker Cup squad. He later won the 1997 British Open and was the runner-up at the 1999 British Open and '04 PGA Championship. He is looking to play in his 12th U.S. Open. John Daly of Memphis, Tenn., won the 1991 PGA Championship as the ninth alternate and then added a second major title with the 1995 British Open.
Six members of Ryder Cup teams, Darren Clarke, Lee Westwood, Jean Van De Velde, Paul Lawrie, Paul McGinley and Miguel Angel Jimenez will try in England.
Pablo Martin of Spain became the first amateur to win a European Tour event when he captured the 2007 Estoril Open de Portugal. The Oklahoma State All-American is hoping to make the U.S. Open his professional debut.
David Duval, who was number one ranked player in the world in 1999 and British Open champion in 2001 was going to try and qualify in Colorado, but he withdrew at the last moment.
Kevin Sutherland may of won the 2002 WGC-Accenture match Play Championship but he had to play his way to the Open from Murrieta, California.
Fred Funk, who won the Players Championship just two years ago, has won this year on both the PGA Tour and the Champions Tour will try to qualify at Maryland.
Ryan Moore may of finished 2nd yesterday in the Memorial, but a day later he is just one of players trying to qualifying in Columbus.
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Photo: © Andy Lyons/Getty Images
Adam Scott deep in thought during his 62 on Friday.
Scott thinking of shooting in the 50s?
There is a reason why only three players have shot sub-60 rounds on the PGA Tour, it's really tough. Adam Scott realized the reason why, because you think about it too much. As an example look at Scott's 62 from Friday at the Memorial. At 13 he hit his second shot 4 feet away and as he said later on about what he was thinking at the time, "I can put two and two together. I thought, if I make this I'll be 10-under [for the round] and I've got five holes for three more birdies. The way things were going, a 59 was realistic with a par 5 in there." So what did Scott do, missed the putt. The same thinking happened to him two holes later when he put a five-wood second shot to five feet away at the par 5, 15th hole. "I got up there and I saw it was so close and I did the math again," he said. "[An eagle] would put me 11-under with three to go, so there's still a good chance. But I just didn't hit the putt with enough speed to hold the line. Maybe thinking about a 59 was my error. I guess that's the one thing I can be critical of in my round. Maybe I shouldn't be so good at math."
On another note, It's never easy to come back with a good score after shooting low. A perfect example of that was Adam Scott shooting a second round 62 and following it up with a 72 in the third round of the Memorial.
Since 1970 on the PGA Tour, there have been 440 rounds of 62, 61, 60 and 59 shot. Of those players 354 played the next day and the average score was 69.73 or about 8 shots worst. The best returns came from four players that won the event, Blaine McCallister shot 2nd round 62 followed by a 63 in the 1988 Hardee's Golf Classic, John Cook shot a 2nd round 62 followed by a 63 in the 1996 FedEx St. Jude Classic, Cook again shot a fourth round 62 followed by a final round 63 in the 1997 Bob Hope Chrysler Classic and Tommy Armour III shot a 2nd round 62 followed by a 63 in the 2003 Valero Texas Open. On the other side of the foot, Matt Gogel shot a 2nd round 62 at the 2001 AT&T Pebble Beach and followed it up with a 81.
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Recap of the Memorial and how K.J. Choi won
Memorial Results & money
Memorial box score & stats
Photo: © Hunter Martin/Getty Images
K.J. Choi with Jack Nicklaus after winning the Memorial It was only fitting that K.J. Choi would win Jack Nicklaus tournament. The only reason Choi is playing is because Jack Nicklaus in a way was his teacher. Choi comes from an small island off of Korea called Wando that didn't have a golf course when he was growing up. A son of a rice farmer, Choi never saw a golf club until he was 16 years old when on the advice of a high school athletics coach he took up the game at a local driving range. At that time his main interest was weight-lifting but the more he got involved in golf the more he realized how much weight-lifting effected his golf swing so he gave up that sport.
Another key thing that helped Choi was when his coach gave him a book of golf tips from Jack Nicklaus. Choi would study the book and when he learned the game on that driving range would do the same thing that Nicklaus recommended in the book. Choi copied the fundamentals of the grip, how to do the backswing, follow-through and most of the fundamentals of golf. For three years Choi practiced those fundamentals on that driving range and seven years after that in 1996 he won the Korean Open. With that win it opened up the doors for him to play golf in other places like Japan and Europe and after missing the cut in the 1998 British Open got his first chance of playing in the United States. His first event on American soil was in all places the 1999 Memorial and who do you think he played with, yes Jack Nicklaus. Choi went on to finish T24th and the rest as we say is history.
Keys to victory for ChoiNo big surprise that K.J. Choi won, he had the type of game to play at Muirfield Village and in his two previous top-ten's in the Memorial if he would of played better on the final round could of won. Another important element of the victory in his four previous wins where on three courses that mirrored Muirfield Village. His first win in the COMPAQ Classic of New Orleans, was on a Jack Nicklaus style course English Turn. His two victories at the Tampa Bay Classic was on a long tough Innisbrook course while his Greensboro win was on a tough course in which driving is a premium.
One of Choi's big keys to victory was being able to hit fairways. He hit 47 of 56 which ranked 2nd which means that the last five of six winners of the Memorial have finished in the top-ten in driving accuracy at Muirfield Village. Another key in Choi's win was dominating the par 5s, he was 8 under on them this week best of anyone in the field and the lowest total of any winner in the last 11 years.
Choi's final round 65 tied the Memorial record for the lowest final round by a winner. The player that held that record was Jim Furyk, who shot his final round 65 in 2002. In the Choi's round on Sunday he only missed two fairways but by missing seven greens he had scramble, which became the key item for him on Sunday. He got it up and down on six of the seven greens he missed but making this stat even better, on Saturday and Sunday he got it up and down on 11 of the 12 greens that he missed.
Putting was also sharp this week as he was T7th in putts per round and T11th in putts per green hit. One key was not having any three putts all week as he missed only three of 64 putts from nine feet and in all week. On Sunday he had 12 one-putts, the best of the day. But if your looking at his main key for the victory it had to be his three one-putts on the last three holes. He made a 7 footer on 16 for par followed by a 16 footer for par at 17. Then on 18, after hitting it in a greenside bunker got it up and down making a four-footer.
Here are some other notes on Choi's win:
For the second year in a row, a player that won the previous week in Tampa Bay won this week.
With Choi's win at the Memorial, he has won in each of his past three seasons.
Choi now has five PGA Tour wins, the most wins by an Asian-born player on the PGA Tour. Shigeki Maruyama of Japan has three Tour titles on his resume. Choi and Maruyama are the only Asian-born players to win multiple events on the Tour.
Choi started the final round five back and his victory is the largest comeback in 2007. The previous largest comeback was four by Charley Hoffman at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic.
Choi's stats (with rank in parentheses): Fairways hit: 47 of 56 ..... (T2nd) Driving average: 281.8 .....
(57th) Greens hit: 51 of 72 ....... (T28th) Putts: 109 (27.25 a rd) ....
(T7th) Putting breakdown: 0-putt greens: 2 1-putt greens: 31 2-putt
greens: 39 3-putt greens: 0 Play on par 3s: -1 Play on par 4s: -8 Play
on par 5s: -8 Eagles: 1 Birdies: 21 ................ (T7th) Scrambling:
16 of 21 (71.19%)... (3rd)
Scrambling measures how many times a player gets up and down for par or better on the holes where he missed the green in regulation.
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Photo: © Golf World
Stu Schneider
We all lost a good friend last week
You never seem to appreciate someone until the day you get that sad phone call on the death of someone. That happened last week when the golf writing world was shocked at the sudden death of Stu Schneider, at 52. For the average person they wouldn't know who Stu was but he was responsible for TV-Rewind and the Front-Nine columns at Golf World magazine. These two weekly pieces have been the most popular items for the weekly magazine.
Another thing that people didn't know about Stu was that he was one of the reasons for GolfWeb's popularity a decade ago. Stu was responsible for all the editorial material for the website and the quick growth that it experieced. Stu was also responsible for a lot of the beginnings of writers that are famous today. If you go to the remembrance page that Geoff Shackelford has, you can see all the people that loved Stu and who Stu influenced and had touched. For me personally since I spent most of my life in television we always talked and argued the merits of television and why things were the way they are. I know for the past two Sunday nights it's been very lonely not getting the 9:30 PM IM bong from him so that we could discuss what was good and bad in television that week. I along with many others with miss the great relationship that we had with him and Stu, when we meet again one day up in that big golf course in the sky I will pay you the dozen golfballs I owe you.
In remembrance of his craft and what he did every week here are a couple of TV items that I know he would of covered if he was still alive.
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Photo: © Richard Heathcote/Getty Images
Looking at golf TV this week
How did TV do on the Michelle Wie coverage?
The difference in coverage between Golf Channel's post game show and the Ginn Tribute telecast by the Golf Channel/NBC was night and day on the Michelle Wie story. On the show telecast on Thursday, which was tape delayed and shown seven hours after the incident took place, TGC/NBC told the story and did have the only interview with Michelle Wie. But they didn't have the interview that would of given us a better angle on if Wie's wrist was a problem during the day, that interview would of been withWie's playing partners Janice Moodie or Alena Sharp. They also could have had an interview with Wie's manager, Greg Nared or parents and possibly even LPGA COO Chris Higgs, who seems to have been a part of all this by going out on the course and talking with Nared. Unfortunately this a classic case of the print media being on the scene and covering it better with reporters, even though camera's were covering Wie's shots.
On Friday the telecast didn't follow up at all on what happened which was surprising and wrong, but they did update things on the NBC show on Saturday, saying that Wie was visiting a doctor and not practicing, and that a talk with Nared indicated that he never talked with Wie about withdrawing.
As for the Golf Channel post game show, on Thursday they covered everything and even had a great statement from Dottie Pepper, who was a part of the show telecast saying that she didn't like the direction that this was leading. They also followed up on the story with Brian Hewitt and honest comments from Frank Nobilo saying that he thought the whole incident had a bad smell to it. So again the Golf Channel Post Game and Golf Central shows brought us journalistically the right news.
Now on another subject about the LPGA/Golf Channel relationship, when is the LPGA going to wake up and either switch networks to ESPN, Fox or someone else so that we can get live telecasts? It was nice for a change to have the weekend stuff live on NBC but for the last two weeks in a row all of the shows have been shown on Golf Channel delayed because frankly the Golf Channel thinks more highly of their PGA Tour relationship over the LPGA. In a way I can understand the LPGA playing second fiddle to a PGA Tour event, but when they show a Nationwide Tour event live over the LPGA event we begin to wonder if the LPGA needs to go elsewhere. The Ginn Tribute should have been on live in that 1 to 3 window and push the LaSalle Classic to tape delay status. http://www.yogacalmness.comOne good thing for all of us, this week's McDonald's LPGA Championship will have all shows live on the Golf Channel.
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Stat of day
Looking forward to the U.S. Open, in looking at how tough Oakmont statistically plays over the years, here is a look at the scoring average of all the courses that have held majors since 1960. To join the list you have had to hold at least two majors.
Hardest major course (since 1960):
Scoring Average
Course
Majors held
76.16
Caroustie
3 majors - 1968, '75 & '99 British
75.82
Pebble Beach
5 majors - 1972, '82, '92 & 2000 U.S. Open, '77 PGA
75.62
Brookline (The Country club)
2 majors - 1963 & '88 U.S. Open
75.31
Hazeltine National
3 majors - 1970 & '91 U.S. Open, 2002 PGA
75.23
Oakmont C.C.
5 majors - 1962, '73, '83 & '94 U.S. Open, '78 PGA
75.17
Firestone C.C.
3 majors - 1960, '66 & '75 PGA
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The Observer looks at what the big "Buzz" in golf is
May 28, 2007
By The Editors of GOLFOBSERVERE-mail me at: Golfersal@aol.com
Some of today's items:
*Faldo snubs Sandy Lyle?
*What's one more tree when you've cut down 5,500
*Phil's Oakmont visit
*Memorial goes back to it's torture tool, furrowing bunkers
*Health of the European Tour
*Stat of the day
Click here to post your thoughts and to tell us your "Golf Buzz"
Faldo snubs Sandy Lyle?
Photo: © Warren Little/Getty Images
Nick Faldo picked Jose Maria Olazabal and Paul McGinley as his vice-captain's snubbing Sandy Lyle.
Nick Faldo made some very strange choices in vice-captains last week. Normally players that don't have a chance at making the team are given the nod and it strange to pick both Paul McGinley and Jose Maria Olazabal, players that want and have a good chance at making next year's team. Still Faldo chose them saying, "It is very important that they have a good rapport with the whole tour. They are both well seasoned players as well as being very well liked and respected. And open as well. Players of great character."
Many are wondering why Faldo left off two names as possible choices, Colin Montgomerie and Sandy Lyle. Unfortunely there isn't any love lost between the three. As for Montgomerie, he is only 43 and looks to be the captain of the 2014 when they move to Gleneagles.
That still leaves Lyle, who is the only player out of the fab five (Ballesteros, Langer, Woosname and Faldo) of European players to be left out. Lyle was an assistant to Woosnam in Ireland last year and has said he would help if needed, but the call didn't come. Lyle, who is 49, has already said that if he isn't picked for captaincy in 2010 it won't happen in his career because he will be to old and away from tour life after that.
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What's one more tree when you've cut down 7,500
Photo: © Rick Stewart/Getty Images
A treeless 14th hole at Oakmont Country Club. Since the last U.S. Open in 1994 Oakmont Country Club has removed 7,500 trees from it's grounds to make the course look like it did when it first opened 100 years ago. Of course there are still many trees lining the property, but in the interior of the course all the trees are gone, except for a select few.
So it would seem like an easy thing to cut down just one more tree with all the carnage that has been going on for the last decade.
That one tree made for a very hard decision for club officials because the tree that needed to be cut was one of a cluster of six trees behind the 18th green and 10th tee, know as the Oak Grove. The problem came up when officials couldn't figure out how to put up bleachers around the 18th green. They couldn't put up the same bleachers they did in 1994 to the left of the green because of new tees for holes 10 and 12. So officials had to make a tough decision, either have seating for 2,100 if the tree stayed or 4,100 if the tree was cut. They opted for the 4,100 seats and one more tree fell, leaving the interior of the course with just five trees at 18, one next to the third tee and another one between the fourth and fifth.
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Photo: © Andy Lyons/Getty
Phil Mickelson
Phil's Oakmont visit
Phil Mickelson cruised into town with caddy "Bones' and short-game teacher Dave Pelz to look over Oakmonth. But they did something very weird. Instead of going out to play the course, Mickelson went out of the back nine with a putter and some wedges and spent time just chipping and putting on the greens.
After that he had some lunch and hit the front nine, with the same wedges and putters. When some writers asked him what he was up to he declined an interview saying he was there just for some work and that he would talk with the media at the Memorial.
As for other plans, Mickelson is suppose to play a normal round on Monday morning with Oakmont professional Bob Ford. Oh for the record in the 1994 U.S. Open, Mickelson shot 75-70-73-79 to finish T47th.
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Memorial goes back to it's torture tool, furrowing bunkers
Photo: © Al Messerschmidt/WireImage
Furrowing of bunkers will be back at the Memorial this year. When Jack Nicklaus "furrowed" the bunkers last year at the Memorial it brought on a rash of complaining from the players who didn't think it was fair. PGA Tour statistics proved that furrowing the bunkers made it harder, for 2007 49.2% of the players got it up and down while only 41.62% did it last year at the Memorial. Even with the rash of complaints, the Memorial has decided to do it again and will continue the practice this year with one small change, the rakes won't be spread as far apart, this year will be 13/4 inches compared to 21/2 inches last year. Officials said that tournament founder Jack Nicklaus made the decision based on the fact that players started hitting the ball straighter last year and even laid up on the tees to avoid the bunkers. So with that Nicklaus felt that his furrowed bunkers was achieving the goal, making people think a lot more instead of bombing away.
With this happening could the USGA follow suit with furrowing the bunkers at Oakmont, which just happened to be the originators of the practice? No says Mike Davis who is the man that will set up Oakmont, "I have a hard time when two guys hit the ball in the same bunker, and one of them has a shot while the other has no shot," So with that as a backdrop it will be interesting to see if player complaints at Memorial will have some action for seeing the tool gets retired for 2008.
In other Memorial news, John Daly has become an early withdrawal with a shoulder injury. Daly was given a sponsor exemption into the Memorial and will be replaced by Frederik Jacobson. Two weeks ago Daly also withdrew from the AT&T Classic after a first round 77. In this millennium Daly has now withdrawn 17 times but he isn't' the leader on the PGA Tour in withdrawing, Dudley Hart holds that honor with 23 since the start of 2000.
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Photo: © Richard Heathcote/Getty Images
Michael Campbell with his teacher Jonathon Yarwood.
Campbell can't break out of slump
Ever player goes through slumps but when a major championship winner does it, it's more visible. One such slump is by 2005 U.S. Open champion Michael Campbell who has gone from 25th in the World rankings at the start of the year to 66th before last week's BMW PGA Championship. In nine world wide starts his best finish was a T27th at Qatar, followed by a T33rd at the Accenture, which wasn't very good because he lost his first match. So in the other seven starts he has only made one check and that was in the WGC-Ca Championship, which doesn't have a cut and he finished second to last. Going into the BMW PGA Championship things have been so bad, he has missed the cut in his last four events, that he paid for his teacher Jonathon Yarwood to fly from Florida to London to try and sort things out. Even with the help of Yarwood he wasn't able to sort things out as he shot rounds of 78-75 to miss another cut. "It is just ridiculous my game at the moment and I just don't know what is going on," said Campbell who returned to his English home and got ready for this week's Wales Open.
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Photo: © Richard Heathcote/Getty Images
The first tee at Wentworth
Health of the European Tour
With the European Tour being ravished by the PGA Tour moving The Players into May, and the four tournament FedEx Cup playoff in August and September, European sponsor's are looking towards Executive Director George O'Grady for some help.
It seems that the European Tour is close to announcing a plan for 2008 in which a bonus scheme will give players added money for playing in European Tour events and doing well in them. This is needed to help shore up support and keep European events healthy. The announcement of this will come in the next month.
Another thing that was floating around Wentworth was the news that the European Tour could join up with all the other major tours, minus the American PGA Tour. John Hopkins, in this London Times piece talks with European Tour Executive Director George O'Grady about the possibility of joining up not only the Asian Tour but the Japan Golf Tour, The PGA Tour of Australasia and the South African Tour into one main tour and taking the best from each. But in asking Asian Tour executive chairman Kyi Hia Han about the plan he said, "We have not been informed or approached by the European Tour on its proposed idea." So I guess we will just have to wait to see what happens on this but many have said that Asia is the future of golf. The thought is between China and India they could have tournaments in the future that will come close to American prize money and be the source of growth of golf weather it's a part of the Asian Tour, European Tour or even the PGA Tour.
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Welcome matt out for American's at Wentworth
One of those events in serious need of help is the European Tour's flagship event, the BMW PGA Championship. Held on the West Course of Wentworth, one of the finest courses in the world the event historically has had a great cast of winners with names like Arnold Palmer, Tony Jacklin, Nick Faldo, Seve Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer, Jose Maria Olazabal and Colin Montgomerie some of the marquee winners. But it's winners in this millennium haven't been the cream of world golf with names like Andrew Oldcorn, Ignacio Garrido, Scott Drummond and now Andres Hansen winning this year for a second time.
Even Vijay Singh has noticed the problem and gave a challenge to American's to come over a play in the event, which in 2007 didn't have a single American born player off the PGA Tour active list. With a first place check of just under a million dollars it a shame that more PGA Tour players don't go over and play in that event but with marquee players attending less and less on the PGA Tour it's not surprising
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Stat of day
Ross Fisher was the co-leader after the third round with Paul Broadhurst and both had disastrous final rounds with Broadhurst shooting 80 and Fisher 84. Many thought that this could be some kind of record for worst collapses by third round leaders but in looking through records on both the European Tour and PGA Tour there was one worst collapse. That was Thomas Bjorn who shot 86 in the final round of the Smurfit European Open after having the third round lead. Matter of fact Fisher's 84 tied for the second worst collapse along with Colin Montgomerie who led the 2004 Benson & Hedges International and shot a final round 84.For those wondering what is the highest final round by a third round leader on the PGA Tour, 82 was shot by Bob Gilder in the 1980 Memorial and Jack Nicklaus in the 1976 Bing Crosby.
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The Observer looks at what the big "Buzz" in golf is this week
May 23, 2007
By The Editors of GOLFOBSERVERE-mail me at: Golfersal@aol.com
Some of today's items:
*Shark's divorce getting uglier?
*Wie and Simon get big exemptions
*Didn't know you needed a passport to qualify for the U.S. Open
*Stat of the week
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Shark's divorce getting uglier?
Photo: © Adam Pretty/ALLSPORT
Greg Norman and Laura in 2000.
It seems that Greg Norman's divorce gets uglier every day. Last week he withdrew from the Senior PGA Championship citing personal reasons, maybe the reasons are in the new papers that his attorney's refiled in his divorce petition. According to the Vero Beach Press-Journal, Norman's attorneys blame his wife Laura for forcing the divorce into trial and that a public trial could cost the golfer money in personal service contracts and has asked that Laura be held responsible for any money that Greg loses in battling her in court.
The petition also claims Norman's contribution to raising the couple's two children, Morgan-Leigh, 24, and Gregory, 20, "were extraordinary and far exceeded the contributions of the wife".
As a result, Norman is seeking an "unequal but equitable distribution of the assets and liabilities of the marriage with the understanding and belief that the moneys Laura will receive will exceed her needs many-fold".
Norman and Laura were married for 25 years. Greg filed for divorce last year in what his looked at as a $300 million battle. For the last ten years Norman has focused more on business than golf and has been more successful in a business sense, leading him to such a high fortune.
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Wie and Simon get big exemptions
When the good folks at the Samsung World Championship game Michelle Wie a exemption into the 20 player field for a fourth time, it produced rumblings with other players on the LPGA Tour. An example of some of one players thought:
Photo: © R. Heathcote &D . Miralle/Getty Images
Ashleigh Simon and Michelle Wie. Brittany Linicombe:"People aren't very happy. It's tough to accept. We're out here working our butts off to get a spot in that tournament and it's just handed to her on a plate. She hasn't even been playing. Yeah, a lot of people aren't very happy about it, but what can you do?"
If that isn't enough Wie also excepted an invitational to play in the John Deere Classic for the third year in a row. She is still trying to make a cut in a men's event.
Now another youngster that will be causing some controversy on the LPGA Tour is 18-year-old South African Ashleigh Simon. She just turned pro and started playing on the Ladies European Tour. What is going to make the rank and file of the LPGA Tour upset is that Simon got an special exemption into the HSBC Women's World match Play Championship. Many are wondering how Simon, who's only LPGA start was in last years Women's British Open and has never played in the United States got such a plumb invite into the 64 player field. The answer could be because Simon signed on two weeks ago with IMG, who just happens to be the company running the HSBC Women's World Match Play Championship. Great to know the right people in high places.
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Didn't know you needed a passport to qualify for the U.S. Open
Photo: © Donald Miralle/Getty Images
Tadd Fujikawa is off to Japan. With Local U.S. Open qualifying ending and going into sectional qualifying the Observer found an interesting tidbit.
Talk about the strangest way of getting into a U.S. Open. If Tadd Fujikawa is going to return to Oakmont to play in his second U.S. Open, his journey will be through Japan. It seems that the USGA has taken away sectional qualifying from Hawaii this year which meant that Fujikawa, who was the only local qualifier from Hawaii, would have to fly to California to try and qualify. But the June 4th qualifier on the Mainland didn't fit his schedule as well as playing in the May 28th qualifier in Japan so its off to Japan for one of the three spots.
In other U.S. Open qualifying news, Peter Uihlein, son of Wally made it through to sectional but for Arnold Palmer's grandson, Sam Saunders he missed out by a shot. On the women's side Morgan Pressel's 15-year-old sister Madison made it through.
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For the love of the game and sponsor dollars
Wonder why the PGA Tour is experimenting with moving the Barclays Championship away from Westchester C.C. to Liberty National in 2009?
Many are wondering this since Westchester is a beloved site not only with the fans but the players. It's been a part of the PGA Tour since 1967, it's an old style course that even though is only 6,839 yards plays as hard as any other course on the PGA Tour. So why the change?
$$$ of course.
The course is in harbor with access to the Hudson so river taxi's can be employed for getting not only fans but corporate guests from New York City to the event. With that as a back drop, the sky is the limit for selling corporate hospitality just a short boat ride away from the biggest metropolitan marketplace in the world. While many will question the validity of the course, money walks and the PGA Tour will take lots of corporate Skyboxes within minutes of the biggest city in the world.
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Phil's schedule getting mighty busy
Photo: © Stuart Franklin/Getty Images
Phil Mickelson in his last Barclays Scottish Open in 2004. Phil Mickelson is returning to play in the Barclays Scottish Open but many are wondering how much of an effort he will put into it. It's played the week before the British Open and is run by a friend of his, Lyle Anderson. Mickelson didn't play in the event last year, but has played in five previous Scottish Opens with his best finish coming in 2000 when he finished T7th. Since then he hasn't put his heart and soul into the event, as an example in 2004 he only played one practice round and spent more time at Royal Troon getting ready for the British Open. So it was of no big surprise that he missed the cut that year at the Barclays. As for this year, Carnoustie is about a three hour drive from Loch Lomond so again it will be interesting how much time he puts into the Barclays.
As for some more Mickelson scheduling news he won't be playing in the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial even though he is a past champion. Another tournament that probably won't be on his schedule is Tiger Woods AT&T National, which is two weeks before the British Open and the week before the Scottish Open which he is playing in. The big mystery in all of this is that Mickelson is considering playing in the Stanford St. Jude, in Memphis the week before the U.S. Open. If he plays there it will be four straight weeks for him at the Memorial, Stanford St. Jude, U.S. Open and the Travelers in Hartford.
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It's a toss up, go to college or turn pro
With all the big bucks on the line it's not surprising to hear stories like this happening.17-year-old Esther Choe has made a decision to turn pro after the Women's Amateur in August instead of going to Arizona. For most of the year it looked like she was going to Arizona and continue her amateur career.For coach Greg Allen this is another major blow to his University of Arizona program, which had Julieta Granada signed up three years ago only to see her turn pro instead of going to college. For Choe, her 18th birthday is in August and she plans on trying some Futures Tour events before going to LPGA qualifying school in November.
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Just the stats please
One of the weirdest stats coming out this year was was happened to Justin Leonard at The Players. He shot 150, six over par and just missed the cut. But you have to wonder how he missed the cut as he made 33 pars for the week.Look no further than the fact that he didn't make a single birdie for the week which included a bogey, a double bogey and a triple bogey on the 17th hole. So this adds to Leonard's already disappointing year in which in 12 starts he has only made the cut in four tournaments and in 35 rounds only broken 70 four times.
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Stat of the week
Many were shocked and surprise to see Seve Ballesteros play so poorly at the Regions Charity Classic last week.Ballesteros made all the news as he played in his first Champions Tour event, he closed on Sunday with a 73, eight shots better than his second round 81. That still left him tied with Lee Trevino in last place at 16-over 216.Many that watched Seve play weren't impressed with his game which isn't up to par with other 50 year-olds. In a way it's like time has passed him by.With this development, Ballesteros withdrew from the Senior PGA Championship, which after watching him play was probably a wish choice.
Still that made us think, how many big time players just have run out of gas and haven't found success on the Champions Tour:
No magic left for the Champions Tour:
Player / age
PGA Tour wins / Major victories
Best finish on Champions Tour
Lanny Wadkins / 57
21 PGA Tour wins / 1 major
1 Champions Tour win in 109 events
Greg Norman / 52
20 PGA Tour wins / 2 majors
3rd in two Champions Tour starts
Doug Sanders / 73
20 PGA Tour wins / no majors
1 Champions Tour win in 213 events
Ben Crenshaw / 55
19 PGA Tour wins / 2 majors
T3rd in 99 Champions Tour starts
Nick Price / 50
18 PGA Tour wins / 3 majors
T7th in 6 Champions Tour starts
Curtis Strange / 52
17 PGA Tour wins / 2 majors
3rd in 47 Champions Tour starts
Mark O'Meara / 50
16 PGA Tour wins / 2 majors
T2nd in 6 Champions Tour starts
Calvin Peete / 63
12 PGA Tour wins / 0 majors
4th in 156 Champions Tour starts
John Mahaffey / 59
10 PGA Tour wins / 1 majors
1 Champions Tour win in 203 events
Mark McCumber / 55
10 PGA Tour wins / 0 majors
T4th in 85 Champions Tour starts
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