Wet course, short course, sure, but still: 16-under 55 – USA TODAY

May 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Again.

Last Saturday, for the second Saturday in a row, Gibson set a course record at River Oaks Golf Club in Edmond, Okla. And that was no easy task, considering that the course record he had set seven days earlier was a 60.

Gibson’s new course record at River Oaks: 16-under 55.

If golf’s magical number is 59, just how exactly do you describe a 55? How about near perfection.

The 26-year-old Australian has played the course hundreds of times as a member, but this day was special from the start when he unleashed a 325-yard drive on the 555-yard, par-5 11th — the second hole of the day — with a club that arrived in his mail just a couple of days earlier.

“I pulled the Cleveland Classic out and just swung away,” Gibson said with his strong Aussie accent. “And that thing just went off like a rocket.”

Matt Conine has been a club pro at the River Oaks for four years, teeing it up more than 200 times himself, never scoring below a 71.

“I’m pretty damn familiar with the golf course, too,” Conine said. “And you will never see that score coming out of me — and I know every blade of grass on this golf course.”

From the first hole on, Gibson was nearly flawless. Though the course isn’t long by PGA Tour standards (par 71, 6,697 from the championship trees), and though it was wet, meaning greens were receptive, there was nothing fluky about Gibson’s round.

He chipped in just once (on the front edge of No. 13), and everything else was pure, landing on fairway after fairway and knocking down putt after putt … after putt.

Two eagles. 12 birdies. No bogeys.

One of Gibson’s playing partners, Ryan Munson, was so bewildered throughout the extraordinary day that he started feeling like he might do something wrong.

“I was starting to get superstitious,” Munson said. “How do I keep from doing something different?”

Munson secretly texted everyone — his golf buddies, his wife and even Rhein’s childhood friends — throughout the round just for a personal documentation.

Eric Fox, the third member of the group, said golfers go to bed envisioning the perfect way to attack a course.

Gibson, who has played golf since he was 10, illustrated one of those sports fantasies.

“He hit it on the right spots on every hole to put [the ball] in good position,” Fox said. “It was almost a perfect round of golf.”

Gibson currently sits 12th on the Golfweek National Professional Tour— one of many mini development systems designed for golfers to gain experience before attending qualifying school in an attempt to make the Nationwide or PGA Tour — earning a little more than $16,000 this season in the six events he has played.

Gibson’s next stop after the tour ends will be pre-qualifying stages of Q School in September and October in an attempt to earn a spot on the Nationwide or PGA Tour.

“I’m a pretty humble guy,” he said. “If people want to talk about [the 55], I’m happy to talk about it. But it’s not like I’m going to bring it up or get a tattoo on my arm.”

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A lost ball, no penalty, a Women’s Open title – USA TODAY

May 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

But imagine the outcry if Woods made the cut. Or what if that happened to a player who went on to win the U.S. Open by two shots?

The details don’t make this a clean comparison, but it gave Meg Mallon occasion to recall the bizarre circumstances in the first round of the 2004 U.S. Women’s Open.

She was playing the 421-yard fourth hole at The Orchards in the opening round when she pulled her tee shot toward a food compound. When she arrived to where her ball should have been, it wasn’t there. Marshals didn’t know what happened.

“I said, ‘What you do mean you don’t know where the ball is?’ ” Mallon said Tuesday.

Her first thought was to go back to the tee, but she called for a rules official when someone in the gallery said someone picked up the ball. The official arrived, talked to people in the gallery and concluded that must have been the case.

“We went to the vicinity of where they thought the fan picked up the ball, and it was a trampled down area,” Mallon said. “They gave me a drop, I had to pitch out to the fairway and I hit 7-iron to a foot for my par.”

Three days later, Mallon closed with a 65 for a two-shot win over Annika Sorenstam.

But this is where the comparisons differ. No one found Woods’ golf ball at the Wells Fargo Championship. The evidence official Mark Russell had when making the ruling pointed toward a stolen ball, and the wide-open area of trampled pine straw (along with the nature of the trees) supported that.

In Mallon’s case, there was chatter after her drop about the missing ball, and someone confessed.

“After I hit the shot, a woman heard everyone talking and realized she had done it,” Mallon said. “She came up to me and said, ‘I’m so sorry. I was getting something to eat, when I looked down and there was a golf ball, so I picked it up.’

“She was a nun,” Mallon said. “And she was honest.”

Tiger and Pavarotti: British player-turned-broadcaster Peter Alliss is among those who believe Tiger Woods is getting too much instruction.

At a news conference before his induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame, Alliss said Woods’ “golfing brain for some reason or another is completely addled.” What astonished him was a scene from the practice range at the Masters last year. Alliss said he was sitting with Arnold Palmer at the end of the range.

“And there 50 yards away is Tiger Woods at the green nearest the television facility being shown how to chip,” Alliss said. “‘You must do it this way, this way.’ And I said to Arnold, ‘Are we seeing …?’ He was the greatest chipper in the world for a period, and this guy is teaching, ‘No, don’t do it that way.’

“It’s like Pavarotti saying, ‘I’m fed up with being a tenor. I think I’m going to sing as a baritone.’ Land sake,” he said. “That’s as stupid as that, in my opinion. That’s not a criticism, that’s an opinion. But that’s why he’s fuddled and befuddled. … But he’s gone. He’s gone at the moment.”

Lopez honor: Nancy Lopez will receive the Byron Nelson Prize next week at the Byron Nelson Championship outside Dallas. The award recognizes people in golf who show the same philanthropic spirit for which Nelson was known.

Lopez sparked popularity in the LPGA Tour as a rookie in the late 1970s. She won 48 LPGA Tour events, including three major championships, and was a four-time player of the year. She was twice voted Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year.

The Salesmanship Club of Dallas makes a $100,000 donation to the charity picked by the winner of the Byron Nelson Prize. Lopez has chosen AIM for the Handicapped.

Overdue trip: Phil Mickelson was getting serious with his girlfriend, Amy, when he went to Paris to play a golf tournament and wanted her to go with him. So he asked her parents, Gary and Renee McBride, and “explained to them how this was somehow a good idea.”

“Gary, in his great parenting, put it on us and said, ‘Listen, you’re going to have plenty of time to go to Paris together. Amy, it’s your decision. But you’re not going,’ ” Mickelson said during his induction speech for the World Golf Hall of Fame, as the room laughed. “I do want to say to him that we still have not been to Paris together.”

That’s about to change. Mickelson said they would go to Paris in a few weeks for his wife’s 40th birthday.

Dustin out: Dustin Johnson has gone two months without playing on the PGA Tour, though he plans to gradually get back to practice.

Johnson had surgery to repair cartilage damage in his knee during the offseason, but he withdrew from his first tournament because of back pain that never quite went away. He withdrew from Bay Hill with hopes of being ready for the Masters, and then hurt his back again the Friday before the Masters lifting a jet ski from the water near his home in South Florida.

“I can promise you, I won’t be doing any more heavy lifting, other than in the gym,” Johnson said in a statement from Hambric Sports Management. “I’ve learned a valuable and expensive lesson the hard way.”

Johnson has three top 10s this year, though only one serious chance at winning, when he missed a playoff at Riviera.

He is behind in Ryder Cup points, but he still has three majors and a World Golf Championship to make up ground, along with the rest of his schedule. He has not said when he would return. The release said the “coming weeks.” Johnson said he would take it slow.

“There’s no point in me taking any dumb risks and hurrying my return just because I’m anxious,” he said. “The next time I tee it up, I’m going to be healthy, strong and 100 percent ready.”

Divots: Rory McIlroy is to throw out the first pitch at a San Francisco Giants game June 12, two days before the start of the U.S. Open at The Olympic Club in San Francisco. …Matt Kuchar at No. 14 is the highest-ranked American in the Ryder Cup standings who either has not won a major or has not won this year. … The Irish Open got another boost Tuesday when PGA champion Keegan Bradley announced he was playing. The field will feature three of the last four major champions — Bradley, McIlroy and Darren Clarke. … The Players Championship is missing four of the top 50 in the world ranking —Charl Schwartzel, Dustin Johnson, Anders Hansen and Paul Lawrie. … McIlroy has decided to put a 2-iron in the bag for The Players Championship, taking out his 5-wood. He has never been a fan of hybrids.

Stat of the week: There were 83 members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame at the induction ceremony in Canton, Ohio, last August. There were 14 members of the World Golf Hall of Fame at the induction Monday night in St. Augustine, Fla.

Final word: “His problem isn’t his swing. It’s just playing golf. And that’s everyone’s problem.” — Hunter Mahan on Tiger Woods.

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A lost ball, no penalty, a Women’s Open title – USA TODAY

May 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

But imagine the outcry if Woods made the cut. Or what if that happened to a player who went on to win the U.S. Open by two shots?

The details don’t make this a clean comparison, but it gave Meg Mallon occasion to recall the bizarre circumstances in the first round of the 2004 U.S. Women’s Open.

She was playing the 421-yard fourth hole at The Orchards in the opening round when she pulled her tee shot toward a food compound. When she arrived to where her ball should have been, it wasn’t there. Marshals didn’t know what happened.

“I said, ‘What you do mean you don’t know where the ball is?’” Mallon said Tuesday.

Her first thought was to go back to the tee, but she called for a rules official when someone in the gallery said someone picked up the ball. The official arrived, talked to people in the gallery and concluded that must have been the case.

“We went to the vicinity of where they thought the fan picked up the ball, and it was a trampled down area,” Mallon said. “They gave me a drop, I had to pitch out to the fairway and I hit 7-iron to a foot for my par.”

Three days later, Mallon closed with a 65 for a two-shot win over Annika Sorenstam.

But this is where the comparisons differ. No one found Woods’ golf ball at the Wells Fargo Championship. The evidence official Mark Russell had when making the ruling pointed toward a stolen ball, and the wide-open area of trampled pine straw (along with the nature of the trees) supported that.

In Mallon’s case, there was chatter after her drop about the missing ball, and someone confessed.

“After I hit the shot, a woman heard everyone talking and realized she had done it,” Mallon said. “She came up to me and said, ‘I’m so sorry. I was getting something to eat, when I looked down and there was a golf ball, so I picked it up.’

“She was a nun,” Mallon said. “And she was honest.”

Tiger and Pavarotti: British player-turned-broadcaster Peter Alliss is among those who believe Tiger Woods is getting too much instruction.

At a news conference before his induction into the World Golf Hall of Fame, Alliss said Woods’ “golfing brain for some reason or another is completely addled.” What astonished him was a scene from the practice range at the Masters last year. Alliss said he was sitting with Arnold Palmer at the end of the range.

“And there 50 yards away is Tiger Woods at the green nearest the television facility being shown how to chip,” Alliss said. “‘You must do it this way, this way.’ And I said to Arnold, ‘Are we seeing …?’ He was the greatest chipper in the world for a period, and this guy is teaching, ‘No, don’t do it that way.’

“It’s like Pavarotti saying, ‘I’m fed up with being a tenor. I think I’m going to sing as a baritone.’ Land sake,” he said. “That’s as stupid as that, in my opinion. That’s not a criticism, that’s an opinion. But that’s why he’s fuddled and befuddled. … But he’s gone. He’s gone at the moment.”

Lopez honor: Nancy Lopez will receive the Byron Nelson Prize next week at the Byron Nelson Championship outside Dallas. The award recognizes people in golf who show the same philanthropic spirit for which Nelson was known.

Lopez sparked popularity in the LPGA Tour as a rookie in the late 1970s. She won 48 LPGA Tour events, including three major championships, and was a four-time player of the year. She was twice voted Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year.

The Salesmanship Club of Dallas makes a $100,000 donation to the charity picked by the winner of the Byron Nelson Prize. Lopez has chosen AIM for the Handicapped.

Overdue trip: Phil Mickelson was getting serious with his girlfriend, Amy, when he went to Paris to play a golf tournament and wanted her to go with him. So he asked her parents, Gary and Renee McBride, and “explained to them how this was somehow a good idea.”

“Gary, in his great parenting, put it on us and said, ‘Listen, you’re going to have plenty of time to go to Paris together. Amy, it’s your decision. But you’re not going,’ ” Mickelson said during his induction speech for the World Golf Hall of Fame, as the room laughed. “I do want to say to him that we still have not been to Paris together.”

That’s about to change. Mickelson said they would go to Paris in a few weeks for his wife’s 40th birthday.

Dustin out: Dustin Johnson has gone two months without playing on the PGA Tour, though he plans to gradually get back to practice.

Johnson had surgery to repair cartilage damage in his knee during the offseason, but he withdrew from his first tournament because of back pain that never quite went away. He withdrew from Bay Hill with hopes of being ready for the Masters, and then hurt his back again the Friday before the Masters lifting a jet ski from the water near his home in South Florida.

“I can promise you, I won’t be doing any more heavy lifting, other than in the gym,” Johnson said in a statement from Hambric Sports Management. “I’ve learned a valuable and expensive lesson the hard way.”

Johnson has three top 10s this year, though only one serious chance at winning, when he missed a playoff at Riviera.

He is behind in Ryder Cup points, but he still has three majors and a World Golf Championship to make up ground, along with the rest of his schedule. He has not said when he would return. The release said the “coming weeks.” Johnson said he would take it slow.

“There’s no point in me taking any dumb risks and hurrying my return just because I’m anxious,” he said. “The next time I tee it up, I’m going to be healthy, strong and 100 percent ready.”

Divots: Rory McIlroy is to throw out the first pitch at a San Francisco Giants game June 12, two days before the start of the U.S. Open at The Olympic Club in San Francisco. …Matt Kuchar at No. 14 is the highest-ranked American in the Ryder Cup standings who either has not won a major or has not won this year. … The Irish Open got another boost Tuesday when PGA champion Keegan Bradley announced he was playing. The field will feature three of the last four major champions — Bradley, McIlroy and Darren Clarke. … The Players Championship is missing four of the top 50 in the world ranking —Charl Schwartzel, Dustin Johnson, Anders Hansen and Paul Lawrie. … McIlroy has decided to put a 2-iron in the bag for The Players Championship, taking out his 5-wood. He has never been a fan of hybrids.

Stat of the week: There were 83 members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame at the induction ceremony in Canton, Ohio, last August. There were 14 members of the World Golf Hall of Fame at the induction Monday night in St. Augustine, Fla.

Final word: “His problem isn’t his swing. It’s just playing golf. And that’s everyone’s problem.” — Hunter Mahan on Tiger Woods.

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Golf: Webb Simpson has lead at Quail Hollow – Boston Globe

May 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment


The cheers Webb Simpson heard Saturday at Quail Hollow were all for him.

Simpson, who lives about a mile away from the golf course, emerged from a crowded leaderboard with a 12-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole. He finished with a 3-under-par 69 for a one-shot lead in the PGA Wells Fargo Championship at Charlotte, N.C.

Simpson, who played the opening two rounds with Tiger Woods, was among seven players who had a share of the lead at some point in the third round. One of them was Rory McIlroy, who can return to No. 1 in the world this week. McIlroy was slowed by a three-putt late in his round, but still had a 66 and was among those two shots behind.

Five players were tied until Simpson made his birdie and finished with a solid par to reach 14-under 202.

Ryan Moore (68) and D.A. Points (69) were one shot behind, though nothing was settled on a steamy afternoon except for Simpson atop the leaderboard and a lot of his neighbors loving it.

Ten players were separated by four shots going into the final round, with McIlroy and another 23-year-old sure to command a lot of the attention. Rickie Fowler, trying to win for the first time on the PGA Tour, played in the group ahead of McIlroy and they matched birdies for much of the round. Fowler had a 67 and was three shots back.

Nick Watney, the 36-hole leader, missed three birdie chances inside 15 feet over the last seven holes, and then took bogey on the 18th when his drive tumbled into a creek. Watney had to settle for a 72, joining McIlroy at 12 under.

Stewart Cink, another player in that five-way tie, took four putts from the front of the 18th green for double bogey and shot 71.

Phil Mickelson ran off four straight birdies late in his round. He and Lee Westwood had 68s and were nine shots back.

Simpson has the crowd on his side, and it wasn’t hard to figure out. Watney blasted a beautiful drive on the par-5 15th, followed by a fairway metal into the wind to the fringe for a two-putt birdie and a share of the lead. Walking off the green, he looked back at the crowd clapping wildly for Simpson making birdie to join him atop the leaderboard.

“It’s like playing with Phil,’’ Watney said. “Visiting team.’’

Watney wasn’t at all bitter. After all, he is staying with Simpson this week. They have a deal that low score takes out the garbage.

Champions - Fred Funk shot a 3-under 69 in sweltering heat for a share of the second-round lead with Tom Lehman in the Insperity Championship at the Woodlands, Texas.

Lehman followed his opening 65 with a 70 to match Funk at 9-under 135 on the Tournament Course.

Mike Goodes and Brad Bryant were one shot back. Goodes had a 67 and Bryant shot a 68.

Michael Allen, going for his third straight victory, had a 68 to join Bobby Clampett (67) at 7 under.

European - Simon Dyson had a 1-under 71 after a final-hole double bogey left him with a one-stroke lead over Pablo Larrazabal (69) and Soren Kjeldsen (71) heading into the final round of the 100th Spanish Open in Seville.

Dyson flew the green with his approach shot but failed to get out of a bunker in regulation to finish the three rounds at 5-under 211.

Dyson is the highest-ranked player in the field – No. 36 in the world – and is seeking his seventh tour victory.

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Shotgun Start: Previewing the Wells Fargo Championship – Yahoo! Sports (blog)

May 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Quail Hollow Club / Getty ImagesIt’s tournament time! The PGA Tour moves to North Carolina for one of the top tournaments on the schedule — the Wells Fargo Championship.  Here’s a tournament primer to get you prepared for the week.

The course: Quail Hollow Club will host the 2017 PGA Championship, and after watching some of the finishes the course has produced in recent years, you can see why it was pegged as the site for “Glory’s Last Shot.” (Sorry, I had to throw that reference in there.) The par-72 George Cobb designed layout in Charlotte, NC, measures 7,442 yards and has one of the toughest final stretches on the PGA Tour. Dubbed the “Green Mile,” the final three holes — par 4, 3, 4 — played more difficult than the final three at the Masters, U.S. Open or Open Championship last year. No doubt about it, the finish can make or break a round. The 480-yard par-4 16th and 217-yard par-3 17th deserve a portion of the spotlight, but it’s the par-4 18th (the 14th-most difficult on tour in 2011 with a stroke average of +0.380) that seems to get most of the accolades. With a bunker on the right side of the fairway and a creek meandering down the left, it’s imperative that players find the fairway on the 478-yard hole. Doing so should leave you with a chance to go at a back right Sunday pin, with the creek coming into play if players miss short side. Quail Hollow ranked as the 24th-most difficult course on tour in 2011 (-0.047 strokes under par), so outside of the closing stretch, the rest of the course is there for the taking.

The schedule: The tournament runs Thursday-Sunday. It’ll be broadcast on the Golf Channel from 3 to 7 p.m. ET on Thursday and Friday; and on CBS from 3 to 6 p.m. ET on Saturday and Sunday.

The field: Some of the biggest guns on the PGA Tour are in the field this week, including 18 different major winners. Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods and Hunter Mahan headline the field. Other notables include Zach Johnson, Jim Furyk, Keegan Bradley and Cameron Tringale. If you’ve been complaining that the fields over the last couple of weeks have been a little watered-down, well, now might be a good time to sit down and watch some golf this weekend.

The video: Check out some of the memorable moments from the Wells Fargo Championship’s history.

Your turn. Who are your picks for this week? Swing away!

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Kansas women’s golf adapts to unusual weather to end season – University Daily Kansan

April 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment

The Kansas women’s golf team finished 10th in this weekend’s Big 12 Championship at Lawrence Country Club.

Sophomore Thanuttra Boonraksasat and junior Audrey Yowell led the team by finishing tied for 30th. Inclement weather conditions caused delayed tee times and a short delay during third round play Sunday.

photo

Photo by Chris Neal

The Oklahoma University Women’s Golf Team poses for a photo after winning the Big 12 Tournament at at Lawrence Country Club, Sunday afternoon. The Sooners won a total score of 904 over the three day tournament. Kansas placed tenth with a score of 951.

“The course held up great, especially today,” coach Erin O’Neil said. “I think we got an inch and a half or rain in a short period of time. When we went back out, it was pretty dry. The greens were rolling well. It held up pretty nicely.”

Multiple rain delays made it difficult for players to stay focused while waiting in the clubhouse. To occupy time in the clubhouse during the delay, Coach O’Neil and the players worked on a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle.

“It kept them occupied,” O’Neil said. They were thinking about the puzzle not how long the delay was or what would happen next. It worked out pretty well.”

The Jayhawks didn’t have time to finish the puzzle before heading back into the breezy conditions. Senior Katy Nugent struggled with the wind early in the tournament; shooting an 88 on day one before finishing the tournament with a 79 and 75 placing her in a tie for 39th with a total score of 242 on the weekend.

“She finished strong today,” O’Neil said. “She had a couple of funky shots here and there, but she still managed to pull a par out a lot of the time, which she’s really good at. She did a great job.”

Nugent struggled with ball striking early in the tournament. She said in Friday’s round she hit a tee shot that started on the left side of the fairway and landed in the second cut of rough on the right side.

“I really struggled with my ball striking,” Nugent said. “Anytime the wind is blowing like that you don’t know where it’s going and it’s really tough. It got a lot better in the last two days. The wind made a big difference.”

Nugent became the senior leader in the spring season; helping a young squad, featuring four freshmen, develop.

“They’ve made great strides this year,” Nugent said. “I’m confident they’re going to come out playing really well next year. The team has a lot of talent. Everyone has their head in the right place and it’s been a fun year.”

For Nugent, finishing her career at the Big 12 tournament provided an opportunity to play in front of many friends and family members.

“It was great finishing up at home.” Nugent said. “It was cool to have a lot of our support staff and administration out there this week.”

Oklahoma won the team tournament with a score of 904. Texas A&M’s Mary Michael Maggio won the individual tournament with a score of nine-over par.

Kansas sophomore Meghan Potee finished 42nd with a total of 243, and freshman Gabby DiMarco finished 50th with a 253.

— Edited by Tanvi Nimkar

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Golf: Jason Dufner leads Zurich Classic – Salt Lake Tribune

April 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment


























Avondale, La. • Jason Dufner is in familiar territory atop the leaderboard after 36 holes.

It’s the weekends that have given him fits.








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  • Jason Dufner holds up his ball after a birdie on the 16th hole during the second round the Masters golf tournament Friday, April 6, 2012, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)























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Dufner moved into position for another bid to win his first PGA Tour title, shooting a 7-under 65 on Friday to take the second-round lead in the Zurich Classic. The former Auburn player has had at least a share of the 36-hole lead in two of his last four tournaments, including the Masters, where he closed with consecutive 75s. He’s second on the tour in pre-cut scoring, but 98th in third rounds and 108th in final rounds.

“It’s been a difficult weekend for me the last month and a half or so,” Dufner said. “I haven’t quite played as well as I would have liked, but I know that my game is still pretty good.

“I’ve been trying to think about what I can do better mentally, what I can do better emotionally out there and learn from some things that I maybe struggled with. Obviously, there’s a lot of different things that go into winning besides hitting the golf ball.”

Dufner lost a playoffs last year to Mark Wilson in the Phoenix Open and Keegan Bradley in the PGA Championship for two of his three runner-up finishes in 163 starts on the PGA Tour.

On Friday, he capped his bogey-free round with a 30-foot eagle putt on the par-5 18th to reach 12 under.

“I had a couple of easy birdies,” Dufner said. “I don’t think I missed a fairway or a green. Just had some tough reads. The greens are kind of tough to read. Sometimes you get competing grains, competing slopes, so you get a putt that might break to the right, but the grain is going left. That can be kind of difficult to judge. Then 18, I had just a really good number for my 5-wood to get somewhere on that green and had a putt that was down grain and breaking to the left with the grain, so that was a nice way to finish the day.”PGA Tour rookie Russell Knox, John Rollins and first-round co-leader Ken Duke were tied for second. Knox shot a career-best 64, Rollins 66 and Duke 68.

Greg Chalmers holed out for an eagle on the par-4 first and also finished with a 64 to join Steve Stricker and Ernie Els at 10 under. Stricker and Els shot 68.

LPGA Tour











In Mobile, Ala., Stacy Lewis birdied five of her final nine holes for a 5-under 67 and a onestroke lead after the second round of the Mobile Bay LPGA Classic. Lewis, the Kraft Nabisco winner last year, had three straight birdies and a two-stroke lead, but missed a 5-foot par putt on the final hole en route to her first bogey of the week. She had a -under 135 total on The Crossings course at the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail’s Magnolia Grove complex.

Karin Sjodin tied the tournament course record with shot a 64 to finish a stroke back along with Lindsey Wright, So Yeon Ryu and rookie Sydnee Michaels. Ryu shot 67, Michaels 68, and Wright 69.











Copyright 2012 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Golf: Masters champion Bubba Watson gets back to work – San Jose Mercury News

April 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Masters champion Bubba Watson returned home from a media tour in New York two weeks ago and hung his green jacket in the closet.

He hasn’t seen it since.

Life has been moving at a faster pace than Watson imagined since he hooked that sand wedge off the pine straw, around the trees and onto the 10th green at Augusta National to win a sudden-death playoff over Louis Oosthuizen and capture his first major.

He and his wife, Angie, adopted a month-old boy named Caleb just two weeks before the Masters. His first act as Masters champion was to cradle the boy the next morning and feed him from the bottle, before leaving the next day for his media tour.

So much has changed in one month. A new father. A major champion. And two weeks after trying to let it all soak in, it’s time for Watson to get back to work. He is defending his title this week in New Orleans at the Zurich Classic.

If not for the responsibility he feels to defend, Watson would much rather be home.

“We figured out we’ve had him for a month, and I’ve been home, I think at the most, nine days, maybe eight days,” Watson said. “So it’s not enough.”

His clothing company made up a tiny green jacket for his son, which hangs in the closet next to the real one. There have been diagrams that Watson’s caddie posted on Twitter illustrating the 40-yard hook of a shot from trees right of the 10th fairway on the second extra hole, setting up a par and the win.

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Masters champ Bubba Watson gets back to work – San Jose Mercury News

April 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Click photo to enlarge

Masters champion Bubba Watson returned home from a media tour in New York two weeks ago and hung his green jacket in the closet.

He hasn’t seen it since.

Life has been moving at a faster pace than Watson imagined since he hooked that sand wedge off the pine straw, around the trees and onto the 10th green at Augusta National to win a sudden-death playoff over Louis Oosthuizen and capture his first major.

He and his wife, Angie, adopted a month-old boy named Caleb just two weeks before the Masters. His first act as Masters champion was to cradle the boy the next morning and feed him from the bottle, before leaving the next day for his media tour.

As for changing diapers? That’s coming along at a slightly slower pace.

“Not that I have a count, but it’s only five I’ve changed,” Watson said. “And they’ve been easy to change.”

So much has changed in one month. A new father. A major champion. And two weeks after trying to let it all soak in, it’s time for Watson to get back to work. He is defending his title this week in New Orleans at the Zurich Classic.

If not for the responsibility he feels to defend, Watson would much rather be home.

“We figured out we’ve had him for a month, and I’ve been home, I think at the most, nine days, maybe eight days,” Watson said. “So it’s not enough, not a lot. So it’s hard leaving him. It was hard leaving today, but that’s the change. That’s the excitement of waking up every morning, no matter how

tired you are, no matter how red your eyes are, just seeing him pretty much do nothing—just lay there.”

The win at Augusta isn’t a distant memory by any stretch.

His clothing company made up a tiny green jacket for his son, which hangs in the closet next to the real one. There have been diagrams that Watson’s caddie posted on Twitter illustrating the 40-yard hook of a shot from trees right of the 10th fairway on the second extra hole, which somehow not only landed on the green, but checked up and settled 15 feet away for a par.

It will live in Masters’ lore, just like so many other shots before it—the 6-iron that Phil Mickelson hit between a pair of Georgia pines on the 13th hole in 2010, Tiger Woods’ chip-in that made a U-turn on the 16th green and paused at the lip of the cup before falling for birdie in 2005.

Watson might have been the last guy to realize how close his shot was to the flag.

“I was expecting front of the green, maybe center of the green at best, because you never expect it to be that close,” he said. “But it came off and I couldn’t see it. I ran to the fairway and I heard them roar, and I said, ‘Where is it?’ … So I saw it, and I go, ‘Whew, I’m pretty good.’ That’s how it all went down.

“Those shots … I try to pull off the amazing shot, just like we’ve seen Mickelson pull off shots, Tiger pull off shots, everybody that’s won you’ve seen pull off shots like that,” he said. “It’s something you want to try to pull off, and somehow I did.”

His win was popular for several reasons, not the least of which was a guy named Bubba whose approach to golf is similar to so many regular folk. His late father taught him how to grip a golf club and the fundamentals of the swing, and Watson took it from there. He has never had a teacher, preferring to figure it out by himself. He was groomed on public courses and would much rather play golf than beat balls on the practice range or stare into a video to figure out his swing.

Five years ago, the Masters champion was Zach Johnson, who described himself as a “normal guy” from Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

“I’m just Bubba from Bagdad, Florida,” Watson said. “Small town, play golf because I love the game of golf. I play golf because it’s fun. … Everybody can see that my swing is homegrown. That means everybody has a chance to do it. Hard work, dedication, practice and the drive to do it, and not worry about what other people say.”

Before thinking about the next majors, though, Watson said he is more geared toward charity.

He started this year with “Bubba & Friends Drive to a Million,” in which he is trying to raise $1 million. He wore white all week at the Masters in another campaign that raised some $70,000. Ping is selling a limited edition of his pink driver, which could bring in $450,000. He has organized a “Bubba Bash” in Columbus, Ohio, to raise money for the Bubba and Angie Watson Medical Center in Africa.

“That stuff is more important to me, but right now with this platform that I have of winning the Masters, it’s going to give me a better chance to raise good dollars for cancer, for the center in Africa and different things like that,” Watson said.

There have been changes typical of any newfound stardom.

Watson said a radio station called him about 40 times the morning after he won the Masters. The first job for Watson’s agent, Jens Beck, was to change the cell phone number of him and his wife. And while the last two weeks have been mostly about his new family, it didn’t take long to realize he gets to play the Masters the rest of his career, with a few extra privileges as the champion.

“I think there’s a new rule where I can take a guest, play Sunday before the Masters,” he said. “My wife said that she will be glad to play Sunday before the Masters next year. That’s when I realized that every year I get to take a guest. I’ll have a bunch of new friends. My cell phone number will be changed many times.”

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Golf Tidbits: Oosthuizen just misses 2nd major title – Sacramento Bee

April 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

With all of the deserved love going to Bubba Watson, it’s easy to forget that Louis Oosthuizen nearly picked up his second major championship.

Much like his big win at St. Andrews in 2010, Oosthuizen was a surprising competitor last weekend at Augusta National.

In three previous trips to the Masters, Oosthuizen had not only missed the cut all three times, but he never broke par in any of his six rounds. What did he do last week?

Of course, he posted three rounds of 69 or better. Nothing like having a career week at one of the four majors.

Prior to his win at the 2010 Open Championship, Oosthuizen broke par in just one of 14 rounds in the six majors he had appeared in, and he had made the cut in one, the 2008 PGA Championship. Unfortunately, he finished last at that event.

Oosthuizen was propelled into the lead in Sunday’s final round at Augusta by his double-eagle on the par-five second. It was the fourth albatross in Masters history.

The bad thing for the South African was that he played the other 17 holes of regulation in even-par as Watson rallied to tie him at 10-under.

Oosthuizen rarely flinched all weekend, but down the stretch he hit a pair of poor drives that cost him dearly. His second bad drive opened the door for Watson.

The duo was on the 10th hole, the second of the playoff, and left-handed Watson tugged his tee shot into the right trees. No one knew how bad the shot was from the tee, so Oosthuizen switched from driver to three-wood.

He flared it right, but got a lucky kick back into the fairway. Oosthuizen had a longer than normal second shot, which he left short of the green. Watson had just enough of an opening to create a remarkable shot onto the green.

Oosthuizen failed to get up and down for par, then watched Watson two-putt for par and the win. Watson became the eighth straight first-time major champion, a run that includes Oosthuizen’s win at St. Andrews.

Prior to the 2010 British Open, not many people had heard of Louis Oosthuizen, and he even said in the media center at the Masters that, to this day, no one pronounces his name correctly.

The poor guy narrowly lost out on winning his second major, which would have given him one more than Fred Couples, Ian Woosnam, Tom Kite, Ken Venturi, Bob Charles or Davis Love III, and people still can’t say his name right?

We should learn it, because the guy is going to be around for a while. The South African won’t turn 30 until mid-October. He claimed his fourth European Tour title earlier this year and preceded his playoff loss at Augusta with a share of third place in Houston.

Oosthuizen went through a rough stretch last year in which he missed the cut in every other tournament during a 13-event span. He broke out of that up-and- down rut with six top-eight finishes in his last seven starts.

He has played less to this point in the year than he did last year, and that not only is helping his game now, but will help him keep his stamina up as the year rolls along.

Don’t bet against Oosthuizen winning another major in the near future.

MASTERS ODDS AND ENDS

Sundays at the Masters are always special, but this past Sunday has to rank in the top 10 of all-time best final days.

Where to start with highlights? Bo Van Pelt fired the low round of the week, an eight-under 64. His round included a hole-in-one on the par-three 16th.

Adam Scott later aced that same hole.

Of course the second-best shot of the week was Louis Oosthuizen’s double-eagle on the second. That shot was bettered only by Bubba Watson’s shot from the trees on No. 10 in the playoff.

So those were the good things we saw on Sunday. How about the bad?

Phil Mickelson hitting two shots right-handed. They were worse than his tee shot that hit a railing and landed in some bamboo.

Hideki Matsuyama had the lead for low amateur until making bogey on two of the last three holes.

Henrik Stenson was in contention on Thursday and Friday. The first round ended with a snowman on the par-four 18th, then he had a double-bogey on the 17th in Friday’s second round.

As if that weren’t bad enough, in the final round, Stenson had a birdie, seven bogeys and a double-bogey en route to a closing 81. Miguel Angel Jimenez also closed with an 81 in which he had a birdie, two double-bogeys and six bogeys.

The dramatic swings at the top and bottom of the leaderboard are what make the Masters the most entertaining of the four major championships.

MINI-TIDBITS

* A week after explaining how slow the LPGA played during their first major, the PGA wasn’t any better. The first group during Friday’s second round took 4 hours, 53 minutes and the final group was 5 hours, 45 minutes. Again, I realize there is a lot on the line, but both of those tournaments had smaller than normal fields. I can only imagine how long rounds will take at the U.S. Open with its tough course conditions and 156 players.

* The only thing better than Bubba Watson winning the Masters is watching Bubba Watson on the interview circuit. His appearance on the Letterman show the other night was simply awesome.

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