PGA Tour: One Hundred Years of Ben Hogan: Notes from the Ballwasher

1).More on Hogan later, but if this week's homage to him at Colonial exceeds the excitement and intrigue at the Byron Nelson we'll be in for a treat.
Another week, another red letter day for Jason Dufner. With the Aussies falling away, and Jonas Blixt coming up short, it was left to golf's middle aged warriors to fight it out at TPC at Las Colinas.
Dufner is enjoying his Tour breakthrough at the age of 35, which reminds one of other mid-thirties overnight successes, Steve Stricker (although his was more of a welcome rebound), Boo Weekley, even Kenny Perry. I'd say that Dufner reminds me of Perry more than anyone, an idiosyncratic, repeating swing that seems designed to withstand pressure, and a good enough short game to contend when the putter's working.
Regardless, he's an almost cert for Medinah now.

2).And right behind Dufner were three more whose brilliant future had been slipping well behind them.
~JJ Henry could, perhaps unkindly?, be described as a Tour journeyman - a successful rookie year in 2001, then in moneylist places 80 - 120 every year since, except 2006 when he won (hometown) Hartford and made the Ryder Cup team. He went to college in Fort Worth, still lives there, and would dearly love to win Colonial but last week's 17th hole nightmare will surely takes its toll.

~Dicky Pride won Memphis (in a play-off with Gene Sauers and Hal Sutton) in his first year on Tour in 1994 and has suffered ill-health on a regular basis ever since. But the self-styled "great putter" banked his largest pay cheque and will be exempt for another year!

~But neither are as much as enigma as Joe Durant, whose T3 should propel him to Tour security for another year or two. Then he'll be on the Champions Tour. Four Tour wins and a regular near the top of the Tour's "ball-striking" stat. And a regular near the bottom of the putting stats. He played his first Tour event in 1987 and won the prestigious Western Open eleven years later. Since then he's enjoyed two purple patches and otherwise relentlessly consistent mediocrity:
*Three months in 2001 when he won the "Hope" and Doral and $2.2M.
*Three months in 2006 when he won Disney, was seldom out of the top six, and coined $2.4M.
When you consider that his career earnings are "just" $13.7M, you'll see that, in his 25-year career, 1/3 of his winnings occurred in just 2 x three-month periods.

3).Sweden's Jonas Blixt assured himself of a spot in this year's Barclays play-off event, and is just about guaranteed a top 125 position in the money list. Closing in on Huh and Bae for Rookie Of The Year?

4).A bad week for Adam Scott playing just his sixth 2012 Tour event and missing the cut. He, and regular absentee Charl Schwartzel, will now be struggling to fit in their minimum of fifteen tournaments this year unless they enjoy an inspired run of form and qualify for all four Play-Off events.

5).With qualifying for the Open Championship moving in to high gear, commiserations to Russell Knox whose valiant effort to qualify among a strong field of 72 Tour pros fell tragically short as he was the odd man out in a four-way play-off for the final three places. And congrats to Greg Owen (and his 2nd round 61 - also achieved by the ever-toothy Stephen Ames) who qualified in 2nd place and will be looking to improve on his 23rd place finish in Lytham's 2001 Open. Harris English (fittingly?) was the "medallist" and broke the course record with a Round 1 score of 60.

6).Thirty miles east of Byron Nelson's statue is Ben Hogan's statue in Fort Worth. Born in Stephenville (90 minutes west of Fort Worth) 100 years ago, he started caddying in his early teens. In the Glen Garden CC Caddy Tournament in 1927 his play-off competitor was the even younger Byron Nelson!

7).Hogan is known for his association with Colonial where he won the inaugural "Colonial National Invitational" in 1946 and four more times for good measure. No Hogans in this year's field but a strong turn-out nonetheless headlined by Mahan, Kuchar, Fowler, Dufner, Haas, Watney and course specialists Zach Johnson, Furyk and Toms. And Garcia, who won here in 2001, leads the lightweight European cast of Davis, Owen, Pettersson, Blixt and Stenson.

8).It's going to be a test of patience this week, very HOT with temps likely to be approaching 100F, and it's not a week where an obvious favourite leaps off the pairing sheet. Zach Johnson a good each way investment though?

9).There will be Senior moments a-plenty in Michigan this week, at the first Major (and there are many more to come) of the Champions Tour: The "Senior PGA Championship" at the highly controversial venue of Harbour Shores in Benton Harbour. There is insufficient room to explain why the controversy; suffice it to say that Michigan has turned in to a despotic State, democracy as we know it in the rear-view mirror. "Occupy the PGA" will be protesting, whether in their hundreds, or the hundreds of thousands that could well be warranted, but doubtless the actual tournament will proceed in wilfully blind ignorance and without significant interruption.

10).Europeans on hand to join Bernhard Langer include Messrs: Brand, Chapman, Farry, James, Lane, Lyle, Martin, Mouland, Oldcorn, Quiros, Russell, Sherborne, Walton, Wesselingh and Wolstenholme. There'll be some notable absentees with defending Champion Tom Watson not actually defending and Corey Pavin at Colonial. But this is invariably a well run event with a Championship feel - Langer hasn't returned to the consistent excellence of his pre-injury Champions Tour career but hopefully this will be the week.

Hi Kwini! How goes it?

Not long back from Florida. Had a fantastic time of it. The Players and staying at St Augustine, which was really nice, were my highlights. Would recommend a visit to St Augustine. Only thing about the golf was that it was really hot on the Wed and Fri so the Mrs struggled a bit. Having been there I personally think its a fantastic course, testing every part of the game. I definitely understand what they mean now with how tight the fariways look off the tee, visually misleading. Some great short par 4s in there. Perhaps some of the undulations around the greens are a bit too penal and would agree with some of Mr Ogilvy's comments regarding the doubled up punishments. Overall a good spectating course tho, save a few bottle necks at the 5th and then the back of 6th, with busy groups only really, and it doesnt really flow thro' the 17th to 18th that great if you're following a group. Greens didnt look as brown as they did on tv.

Managed to see most of Lairds front 9 on friday then back round front 9 again with Lee and Luke, great eagle on his 10th the 1st. Then to the back 9 for Poults' shoddy 2nd round. Mr Oosthuizen's swing is just a joy to watch, felt that he was vastly under appreciated by the crowds over there for some reason, often found myself the only one rewarding his good shots. Wasnt that fussed I didnt see Kuchar. Or Na. Or Tiger.

Pleasant surprise to see Dufner continue his winning form last weekend. Missed most of it but good to see him kicking on and not resting on his achievement a few weeks back.

Incidentally, I read Tales from Q School while I was away. It includes a section on Casey Martin who is now only 36 holes away from qualifying for the US Open at Olympic again... surely not?

Has Adam scott been injured?

Hi Lairdy,
Great stuff.
I watched Oosthuizen a couple of years ago, before his St.Andrews breakthrough, and loved his swing. And, if spectators didn't admire his golf, they should surely have admired his lady.

Not a great Feinstein fan, but love Tales From Q-School - many of them still being rewritten!


'Morning Mac,
I think Adam Scott has been caddying for Ana in Europe - not sure if he's off to Roland Garros (sure she will be) or whether he'll play Memorial - he's seriously running out of events to make up his fifteen, Charl too.

We got to admire Jason Day's (3rd member of that group) lady when she turned up and gave him a hug on the 14th - he wasnt playing very well! Seemed to help him until he missed the cut on his last hole.

Quite a good time to read that book. Many of the younger ones now prominent. Haas, Mahan, Wagner and of course Kooch.

Scott's long putter is suddenly not looking so steady...

kwini

Do you know if Knozx can try and qualify for the open through the local qualifying?

Mac,
I really don't know - it would be double-dipping but don't see why not. Perhaps you can only "enter" once.

Two top tournaments this week - looking forward to both of them.
Is it just me, or does Wentworth look more majestic on TV than it does walking the course?

Pretty sure I've read somewhere that you can't enter the qualifying more than once Mac.

Rewriting history:

PGA.com writes of Kenny Perry:

"Still, he is the most successful post-40 professional in history with 11 PGA Tour wins after his 40th birthday."

That's eleven PGA Tour wins fewer than Vijay Singh since HIS fortieth birthday, including a Major and a WGC, so not sure if this is ignorance, poor arithmetic, Mitt Romney's speech writer. Or all three.

kwinigolfer wrote:Rewriting history:

PGA.com writes of Kenny Perry:

"Still, he is the most successful post-40 professional in history with 11 PGA Tour wins after his 40th birthday."

That's eleven PGA Tour wins fewer than Vijay Singh since HIS fortieth birthday, including a Major and a WGC, so not sure if this is ignorance, poor arithmetic, Mitt Romney's speech writer. Or all three.

Vijay obviously doesn't count Kwini; did Garrigus write this?

kwinigolfer wrote:Rewriting history:

PGA.com writes of Kenny Perry:

"Still, he is the most successful post-40 professional in history with 11 PGA Tour wins after his 40th birthday."

That's eleven PGA Tour wins fewer than Vijay Singh since HIS fortieth birthday, including a Major and a WGC, so not sure if this is ignorance, poor arithmetic, Mitt Romney's speech writer. Or all three.

Yeah... Sam Snead might have found that comment interesting also...

robo: 17? Good point.

I like Kenny Perry, seems to be a good guy to follow, and he certainly doesn't need any artificial bigging up!

kwini:

Did pga dot com also say that Jeff Overton is the all time winner on the European Tour?

looks like the kenny perry article has been edited

i reckon the page editors got quite a chuckle out of a whole bunch of middle aged couch jockeys getting a hardon over such a simple error

Hi Slowride,
Welcome to the Ballwasher!

You're not Steve Eubanks are you? Anyway, no sign of editing so far - with all respect to my American friends, it's just the type of revisionist "fact", from NBC News etc on down, that irks non-Americans.

Anyway, good to hear from you, no hard-on here, but pl don't consider me middle-aged. I'm old, damnit!

Already warm and windy in Fort Worth, 75F and 15mph breezes; it'll be 95F and windier before the day is done.

I see Gary Christian has been promoted from first alternate to a threesome with Lucas Glover and Bryce Molder - Stewart Cink dropped out to join Verplank on the sidelines.

Sergio playing with Zach Johnson and Toms, leaving the 10th tee at 7.43 a.m. CDT; 1.43 p.m. Wentworth time.

kwini

Good start for Sergio... he'd better win over there if he wants us to forgive him over here...
Any hints as to why Oosty is saying pass to Ernie's course this week? Any other reason than the two Wentworth MCs since Els's course changes?

Cheers pd,
The only reason I can imagine St.Louis staying over here is that he (by his own admission) completely messed up his schedule last year and he's anxious, I assume, to have more stability this year. As things stand, his buddy Charl will really have his work cut out this season to fit in the required tournaments.

Glad to see Sergio off to a flyer; European Tour wannabe Peter Uihlein is also in the Colonial field. Good luck!

PS: Nice to see Jose Maria ahead of many of his (presumed) team at Wentworth!

Could Oosty be the next player to leave Camp Chubby?

Personally,I think Sergio is right to stay put. It's hard to make a case (apart from Donald) for anyone who has played both tours to say that it has improved them...............

Harrington back accrorr the Atlantic +4 after 2 for example!!!

Wow at the start from Zach Johnson... Hes holing them from everywhere it seems. Good Start from Sergio too, looks like hes picked up a few putting tips from Zach.

Luke Elvy (@elvisgolf), a friend of Jarrod Lyle, is tweeting that Jarrod Lyle is now in remission and awaiting the transplant process.

Good news about Jarrod Lyle...

Has someone told Sergio how to putt again?

Sergio just caught up with Zach!
Happy to say I've got ZachJ as a pick for the Colonial. Baddly needing a result on the US fantasy race, having a dismal record so far...

Wonderful write up Kwin.

I'll be very curious to see how young Fowler plays this weekend.

In the 18th fairway at Merion East there's a plaque commemorating where Mr. Hogan hit his 1-iron (reputed) from in the 1950 US Open. Lots of divots from that spot ... but scant few approach the beautiful follow through pose made so famous in picture.

GPB wrote:Could Oosty be the next player to leave Camp Chubby?

Don't know about that... but there seems to be more than just speculation that Oosty is planning to make the PGA Tour his long term primary Tour. From the sounds of it, he may be giving up his digs in England, and while he will keep his place on the family farm back home as his official domicile, he'll spend more time in his new upscale digs at Old Palm. And when kids get school age, wife and kids will likely remain in the States even more.

For the next few years at least... I kind of expect him to take on a similar schedule as his mentor/idol Ernie Els (who lives right up the road in Jupiter by the way). Play the meat of the South Africa schedule in Dec-Jan, take a break skipping the Middle East swing... concentrate primarily on the PGA Tour from the WGC's through the U.S. Open, get some more Euro starts around British... back to States for PGA/FedEx then finish off his Euro commitment mainly in Asia/SA events and Dubai. That would definitely work, especially since he's exempt on the PGAT and all majors thru at least 2015 (British til age 60), and the Euro Tour through 2017.

The only "hitch" would be if he doesn't play well enough to gain continued entry into WGC's or deep into the FedEx. No need to explain all the ramifications and scrambling he would need to do if that were the case. (no worries about that this year though... he's already in all the bigs, including the HSBC and "likely" through three rounds of the FedEx)

Thanks Shotrock - Sorry to see your mate O'Hair has withdrawn, neck pain according to pgatour.com. Busy time of year for him so hope he's OK.


Very surprised to see Bill Haas struggling - he's really fallen upon hard times since his Riviera success. And very happy to see Sergio received his script today - a course where he's won and played well last year; long may it continue.


A familiar name to British golf fans leading the Seniors in Michigan: Roger Chapman at -3 with one hole remaining on a day when par is a very, very good score.

Two days before the start of US Open, Major League Baseball's San Francisco Giant are going to have "Irish Heritage Night", honoring Rory McIlroy

The Giants will be giving away Rory Bobble-Headed Dolls

http://www.cbssports.com/golf/blog/eye-on-golf/19144382/mcilroy-honored-with-bobblehead-doll-at-san-francisco-giants-game-before-open

Jason Dufner birdies his first two holes.

Fascinated to see how this run continues - would think he'll take a decent break following the US Open.

Another good showing from Greg Owen, hard on the heels of his Monday 61. Thought Owen would struggle this year but he seems to have a brand new lease on golfing life. Great to see.

Brian Davis withdraws. Would think he's been running on fumes. Good for him to take a breather.

Philip Walton playing well in the early going in Michigan

kwinigolfer wrote:Philip Walton playing well in the early going in Michigan

Jinxed... Let's drink some more to drown our sorrows...

But I agree with you on Dufner, I'm also fascinated with his run...
New world #1 by the end of the year!?!
Is there any golf pro out there who can teach waggling Dufner-style...?

pd,
I love to see our Ryder Cup Old Boys playing well in the few Senior events they get the chance to play. Most of them have got off to a fair start; too bad so few compete on the Champers Tour, only really Canizares, James and Smyth in recent years, apart from Langer and a cameo from Eamonn Darcy.
Glad to see Anders Forsbrand squeaked in at the last moment.

Looks like another hot and windy day in store in Fort Worth - Jason Dufner shot about the easiest 65 you'll ever see Thursday and he seemed to fancy his chances of going low again this morning. We'll see soon enough.

And Roger Chapman slept on the first round lead in Michigan; his competition are getting underway now.

Promising round in progress from Tim Clark at Colonial, -3 over his first nine holes. Second here a couple of times and just the place for him to retrieve some lost confidence. Decent round Thursday, except a 9th hole triple.

Not bad so far for Soth Africa, with Immelman -1 for the day, St.Louis -2.

Meanwhile, Dufner sailing along at the head of the fleet, already -4 for Round 2 and harbouring a three-shot lead.

Make that 4 shots lead... amazing!! Until very recently Dufner and exciting was an oxymoron, but not anymore. On top of that, another great quality he has is that if I watch him for long enough, he makes me fall asleep as well...

Duffffner......gets.......another........birdie......at.......the.......5th.......hole......Then.......walks.....sloooooowly...
....to........the......6th........teeeee...................waggle#1.......#2.......#3........#4.........#5........#6.........snorrrrrrrrr.........

First hole eagle for Zach Johnson, the chase is on!
Super round for Van Pelt also - what's he doing on my yahoo bench?

Very strong field for next week's visit to Muirfield Village and Jack Nicklaus's Memorial tournament. Among the Europeans are:
Blixt
Casey
Colsaerts
Davis
Donald
McIlroy
Owen
Pettersson
Rose
Stenson

plus Scott and Schwartzel and lots of South Africans!

princedracula wrote:waggle#1.......#2.......#3........#4.........#5........#6.........snorrrrrrrrr.........

... all the way to the bank!!!!!!!!!

princedracula wrote:another great quality he has is that if I watch him for long enough, he makes me fall asleep as well...

That's why they show lots of guys... I mean that Ben Crane eagle had to pick you up.... right?

Let's just be kind and say that Ben Crane makes Jason Dufner seem exciting!
Seriously, Duffy reminds me strongly of Kenny Perry. And that's meant in a positive way - I've a feeling his career may follow a similar path.

But Crane reminds me strongly of Can't stand him! Someone needs to tell him he's not at all funny.

Disappointing splashdowns for Sergio on the 9th hole resulting in an eight but the good news is that he's still in 21st position at Colonial.

And the other news is that he's paired Saturday with John Daly. Good or bad?

Last 12 golfers on the course Saturday will be Americans, making it almost cerrtain that the length of time without an International winner on Tour will extend back further than in 1989 when Ian Baker Finch won Colonial. Not sure when the next longest drought was but I'm sure we'll find out soon.

All Europeans made the cut except the withdrawing Brian Davis and the mercurial Henrik Stenson. another cheque for Gary Christian and more ducats in the bank for Greg Owen.

MDF after Saturday's round with Pat Perez, Bill Haas, Weekley and Christian among those on the bubble starting Round 3.

Duffner playing like a man possessed. Great to see and Davis Love smiling from ear to ear.

Sergio goes away today ... few run as hot and cold as he seems to.

Tiger comes to mind!

Nice round in Michigan by Wayno today, Shotrock, there's life in the old dog yet !

Kwin - Sergio runs as cold as TW, but rarely as hot ... never a major, I would have bet against that 10 years ago!

Wayne!!

That Tiger does get hot!

Hotter than a May day in Fort Worth? Nineties again today and breezy, but cooler and calmer than that as Argentina's Miguel Angel Carballo completes his pre-round foreplay. They're going two-by-two today, except Carballo who's a 6.55 a.m. start singleton.

MDF after Round 3.
I wonder whether the old Open Championship habit of a statutory Round 3 cut - perhaps at top 60 and ties? - would add some competitive intrigue to Saturday's play?

Regardless, 1,100 miles to the north, Roger Chapman and John Cook are leading the way after two rounds of the Senior PGA Championship. What an opportunity for Chapman who has been frustrated in his efforts to make it onto the Champions Tour! Other European survivors are:
8th: Langer
19th: Wesselingh
19th: Mark James
30th: Oldcorn
37th: Russell
37th: Lyle
37th: Forsbrand
37th: Mouland
50th: Wolstenholme
57th: Barry Lane

Ooof! Weather delay for the Seniors in Michigan, and the field has been recomposed in threesomes with groups off the 1st and 10th starting about three hours late at 11.00-ish.

Hmmm Last week I commented on why they didn't go with two-somes off only one tee.

There was some speculation that it was because of the MDF.

Well today Colonial is almost an identical situation to last week. 79 players, facing a 5 pm local time TV deadline.

And they went with two-somes.

GPB,
They seemed to be getting round relatively quickly Thursday and Friday.

Would think they'd make it OK.