It’s a chilly, rainy Round 1 at the Women’s British Open today in Southport, England, on the links of Royal Birkdale. Players are bundled up in layers, in jackets, and …
Permalink: Cold and Wet at Royal Birkdale
The Champions Tour is in a stretch of three majors in four tournaments: The U.S. Senior Open this week, the Senior Open Championship last week, and the Jeld-Wen Tradition coming …
Permalink: This Week: US Senior Open
Fans aren’t supposed to take cell phones inside the gates at PGA Tour events, nor at most other professional golf tournaments.
But the PGA Tour’s Wyndham Championship, calling itself “the guinea pig tournament,” is changing that policy this year. Tournament officials announced that cell phones will be allowed at the tourney, so long as fans who have them keep them on silent and use them only in designated areas around the course.
Golfers can play through anything if we just try – or, perhaps more to the point, if we have no choice. The course I grew up on had one hole that doglegged right at an unlucky homeowner’s fenceline. That owner had a mean dog. And that dog loved to bark and growl and threaten every time I had to play a ball adjacent to his fence. Which, alas, was often. But with that dog screaming in my ear, so to speak, I hit many a great shot from that location. There was no other option. Dogs can’t read “Quiet” signs.
Pro golfers would get used to a little rustle in the crowd if they were expected to, or if they were forced to. (Whether that’s desirable is a different matter.) And for now, pros – or at least some pros – have ears that seemingly can pick up a whisper from the other side of the golf course. Some players are hypersensitive, and those are the players who are going to be bothered by the Wyndham Championship’s decision.
Defending champion Ryan Moore says he’s OK with the decision. But, then, he seems to have a sunny view of human nature:
Though wireless devices have long been a no-no on the tour, Moore said he usually hears rings from contraband cell phones roughly once or twice per tournament. He joked that he might send some text messages from the course, then said he expects fans to use their phones responsibly.
“People are going to sneak (phones) in anyways, somehow get them in. It’s adults. I feel like if you let them actually bring them out there, they’ll probably respect the fact that you let them have it and actually go use those (designated) areas a lot more,” he said. “People appreciate the fact that you’re not treating them like a 10-year-old: ‘You’re not responsible enough to do this.’ They’re actually letting them have it, and just say, ‘Please, just be respectful of play.’ I think people will do that, for the most part. I really do.”
We applaud Ryan for his optimism, and hope that he’s right. But in case he’s not, we also offer this Wyndham Championship cell phone drinking game: Any time a golfer backs off and glares into the crowd, take a drink. Any time a golfer backs off and curses, take two.
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE= "javaScript" SRC="http://guidepolls.about.com/golf/0330467012/poll.js?linkback=“>
Permalink: Cell Phones at PGA Tour Events? Curses!
Duramed Futures Tour rookie Sarah Brown was on her way to her best finish and biggest payday yet at last week’s The International at Concord. Then she was was disqualified …
Permalink: Player Wrongly DQ’d Over Grooves Gets Apology, But What About a Paycheck?
Last week at the Evian Masters, 15-year-old Alexis Thompson birdied the final hole to get in the clubhouse with a share of the lead. Thompson then waited while Jiyai …
Permalink: Alexis Thompson Not Playing Women’s British – Is Michelle Wie to Blame?
We’ve come to the final major of the 2010 women’s golf season, the Ricoh Women’s British Open. It feels like we’re only halfway through the season, though. With good reason: …
Permalink: Poll: 2010 Women’s British Open Winner
What does it take to make 22-year-old Morgan Pressel feel old? Lexi Thompson. The 15-year-old Thompson chased down Pressel, the third-round leader at the Evian Masters, with a closing 67. …
Permalink: Shin Outduels Youth Brigade to Win Evian
Carl Pettersson on Saturday became just the 22nd golfer in PGA Tour history to shoot 60 during the third round of the 2010 RBC Canadian Open. It’s the 23rd time …
Permalink: Pettersson Posts 60 at Canadian Open
Carl Pettersen on Saturday became just the 22nd golfer in PGA Tour history to shoot 60 during the third round of the 2010 RBC Canadian Open. It’s the 23rd time …
Permalink: Pettersen Posts 60 at Canadian Open
| <SCRIPT LANGUAGE= "javaScript" SRC="http://guidepolls.about.com/golf/9985905602/poll.js?linkback=“> |
Where do you fall in the debate over distance in golf: Are you fine with ever-longer golf courses to accommodate advances in club and ball technology that combine to help us hit the ball farther? Or do you think distances need to be reigned in, even dialed back, to keep the game’s traditional yardages (and courses) intact, and to prevent the land-use/environmental concerns associated with bigger courses?
If the latter, do you think the distance “problem” is more properly blamed on club technology or ball technology?
Many of the game’s experts – most prominently Jack Nicklaus – argue for dialing back golf ball technology as a way to reverse distance gains they believe are bad for the game’s future and dismissive of the game’s past.
A while back the USGA asked several golf ball manufacturers to create prototype balls that don’t fly as far as the balls currently on the market. The request wasn’t a prelude to any rules changes, the USGA told manufacturers, just a chance to collect and compare data.
Next month, those prototype shorter golf balls will be tested by Canadian Tour players, the Winnipeg Free Press reported (hat tip: Geoff Shackelford) earlier this week:
What we do know is that the Tour, after one of its events next month, is going to have a couple dozen of its players come back on a Monday for some research.
They’ll play in what could be termed a one-day tournament. It might be better termed a lab experiment, and they’ll all play with the same kind of golf ball – one of these less-zippy models.
Word is these “prototype” balls will be anywhere from 10 to 20 percent shorter, with the 20 percent figure applying only to the hardest-hit and longest shots from the driver.
There’s a discussion in the Rules folder of our golf forum about the use of stymies. If you’re not familiar with stymies, there’s a good reason for that: Stymies disappeared …
Permalink: Stymied By Stymies
K.J. Choi put an end to two experiments this week at the European Tour’s Nordea Scandinavian Masters, and now he’s leading the tournament after two rounds. Coincidence? On one front, …
Permalink: Choi Ends Two Experiments, Takes Scandinavian Lead
The induction ceremony for the World Golf Hall of Fame will become part of The Players Championship…
Permalink: Who Gets Your Vote from the 2011 Hall of Fame Ballot?
What can go wrong next for Michelle Wie? First her putting – which was much improved …
On Monday, Colin Montgomerie made the easy choices: His assistant captains for the 2010 European Ryder Cup team. (Darren Clarke, Thomas Bjorn, Paul McGinley.)
The tough choices – filling out his playing team with three captain’s picks – are still a month away. And there might be some very hard choices for Monty to make this year.
The European team will be announced following the Johnnie Walker Championship in late August, the week after the US PGA Championship. In addition to Monty’s captain’s picks, there are nine automatic qualifiers who make the team via two points lists. The top four players on the World Points list make the Euro squad, and then the top five remaining on the European Points list also get in.
If today was the deadline, Europe’s nine automatic qualifiers would look like this (w-via the world list; e-via the European list):
- w-Lee Westwood
- w-Rory McIlroy
- w-Graeme McDowell
- w-Luke Donald
- e-Ian Poulter
- e-Martin Kaymer
- e-Francesco Molinari
- e-Miguel Angel Jimenez
- e-Ross McGowan
Perhaps more interesting than the names on the list are the ones missing. Like Paul Casey. Justin Rose. Padraig Harrington and Sergio Garcia. Henrik Stenson, Robert Karlsson, Alvaro Quiros, Edoardo Molinari.
From something resembling that group of “leftovers,” Monty will have to select only three. Is this the year Garcia – arguably the best Ryder Cup player in the history of Team Europe – fails to make the squad?
Monty could still get some help. Casey is just a few points outside of being an automatic qualifier. There are several tournaments still to go before team selections are made. Point standings can, and most likely will, change.
But any way you look at it, Monty will most likely have to leave a couple of very good players off his team. That’s not a bad problem to have, and it doesn’t bode well for the chances of the American side. Especially given that American captain Corey Pavin’s problem will be the opposite: He doesn’t appear to have too many good choices for captain’s picks, but too few.
European Ryder Cup point lists
American Ryder Cup point lists
Permalink: Tough Choices Await Captain Monty for Euro Ryder Team
Most of us, at one time or another, have experimented with a golf training aid. And then there are those golfers who seem to constantly experiment with one (or more) …
Permalink: Wanted: Your Ratings of Training Aids
Former Big Break contestant Tommy “Two Gloves” Gainey continues his great play on the Nationwide Tour. Gainey won the Chiquita Classic on Sunday, closing with a 69 to …
Permalink: Another Nationwide Win for Tommy Two Gloves
| <SCRIPT LANGUAGE= "javaScript" SRC="http://guidepolls.about.com/golf/9473249656/poll.js?linkback=“> |
Louis Oosthuizen is the champion golfer of 2010. Oosthuizen entered the final round of the 2010 British Open with a 4-stroke lead and questions about whether this comparitively little-known player could stand up to the final-round pressure of a major.
Yes. Yes, he can. And he did. He didn’t just stand up to that pressure, he stomped all over it. Oosthuizen won by seven strokes for his second career European Tour win, his first PGA Tour win, his first major championship win.
How big a surprise is Oosthuizen’s victory? He entered the tournament ranked No. 54 in the world, and got into the tourney by virtue of ranking inside the Top 50 a couple weeks ago at the cutoff point. So it’s not like Oosthuizen was a nobody before this.
But he wasn’t playing well entering the week. Oosthuizen finished fifth at Abu Dhabi in January, second in the Trophee Hassan in March, then won the following week at the Andalusian Open. After that, however, Oosthuizen had only one Top 20 finish and three missed cuts. Still, he ranked fourth on the European Tour in scoring average at the start of the British Open.
But Oosthuizen was rock solid all week, taking the lead after the seventh hole of his second round and never relinquishing it. He held the lead after two rounds, and played a great third. He held the lead after three rounds, and played a great fourth. Listening to the television announcers (and some of his fellow tour pros) talk about his impressive swing was to wonder why he hasn’t won more often. Maybe he’ll start winning frequently now.
That’s what will really determine whether Oosthuizen goes down in history as one of the biggest surprise winners of a major: What he does from here. Ten years from now, Oosthuizen’s victory might look like a fluke, or it might look like the start of a great string of victories, or it might look like something in-between.
Right now it looks like “Oosthuizen” is the newest name on the Claret Jug.