PGA Tour: Open Championship / True South Classic: Notes from the Ballwasher

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1).Well done Zach Johnson, winning the John Deere Classic after you tried hard to throw it away on the first play-off hole. Second win of the season for Zach who is on the Board of the tournament and has done so much to ensure its place on the PGA Tour schedule - reminiscent of Carl Pettersson's win at Greensboro a few years ago in that respect.

2).This win doesn't arithmetically ensure Zach Johnson of a place on Davis Love's Ryder Cup Team, but he and DLIII are near neighbours on the Georgia coast, have worked together to help create "The McGladrey Classic", and it would be a huge surprise if his John Deere success doesn't clinch a spot at Medinah.

3).Troy Matteson came way too close to winning last week's John Deere Classic, leading as he did every day, to throw it all away on his first play-off hole. He would have been the first player to win a Tour event in which he finished last in driving accuracy for 24 years! But he putted for his dough, leading the field in "strokes gained - putting". Sometime College Teammate of Kuchar and Molder, among others.

4).Open Championship week, then, and let's hope Royal Lytham gets the Champion it deserves. Rather like Carnoustie did in 1999, or so Davis Love thought:
"When you have a screwy setup, you're going to get a screwy finish," Love was quoted as saying. "And if Paul Lawrie is the champion that Scotland wanted, I think they got exactly what they wanted."
The R&A get exactly what they want on Thursday, 8.31 a.m. BST, when Lawrie and Love tee it up together with Tim Clark!

5).Let's see who's done well in the past at Lytham:
1996 result:
1st: Lehman
2nd: Els
11th: Darren Clarke, Vijay Singh
14th: Duval
18th: Harrington
22nd: Woods, Stricker
27th: Broadhurst (also 58th and Leading Amateur in 1988 - hope he plays well this week, will never get the credit he deserves for his 1991 Ryder Cup play.)
41st: Calc, Mickelson
Also made the cut: Hamilton, Furyk, Allenby, Ames, Lyle, Daly, Goosen

6).2001 result:
1st: Duval
3rd: Els, Clarke, Jimenez
9th: Garcia
13th: Vijay, Goosen, Jacquelin
21st: DLIII
23rd: Michael Campbell, Greg Owen
25th: Woods
29th: Barry Lane
30th: Cink, Mickelson, Rose
37th: Harrington
42nd: Stricker, Paul Lawrie
Also made the cut: Allenby, Scott, Westwood, Calc, Lyle.

7).The last two Major winners won Majors their namesakes had won, Watson and Simpson. Sadly Jarrod Lyle won't be maintaining the tradition as he battles leukemia in Australia. But Aussie Luke Elvy tweets a promising update on Jarrod's condition:
"Has had his ups and downs over the past 6 weeks but Bone Marrow tests overnight showed no leukemia cells. Great news."
Get well, Jarrod, hope to see you on Tour soon.

8).No idea who'll win this week, fingers crossed though for Westwood and Harrington. Obviously Els, Clarke and Vijay have played well here in the past, but, Woods apart, it's difficult to see where any American challenge might come from. (Interesting take in USA Today on David Toms' non-participation: "He's pulled out of the British on several occasions due to injury and general disinterest."!)
Apart from the golden oldies, Woods, Stricker, Furyk and Phil, the leading Americans in the owgr have little to show for their trips to The Open, Dustin Johnson, Fowler, Mahan and Watney scoring the only 5 top 15's.

9).Hate disclaimers but this week's "opposite field event", the True South Classic in Mississippi, has been abandoned by PGA Tour players in their droves, very few of the owgr top 200 bothering to show up for a $540K first prize. Players are withdrawing by the dozen and it seems futile to speculate too much about the event. If they don't care, why should we?

Except to say that it's a BIG tournament for Gary Christian and Russell Knox, not to mention the ailing Richard S.Johnson and a golfer with an excellent record in Lytham Opens, Alex Cejka - a cut for Cejka this week will earn him PGA Tour "Veteran" status as he reaches 150 career cuts. Good luck Alex, but a poor reward for a first-time sponsor and a Jack Nicklaus course that the players rate more highly than Torrey Pines, Doral, Bay Hill and the Greenbrier.

10).Finally, Majors may be two-a-penny on the Champions Tour, two-in-Michigan even, but Sundridge Park's Roger Chapman won't be complaining as he added the US Senior Open title to the Senior PGA he won a few weeks ago. Two fingers, then, to the USGA who only saw fit to invite five Europeans (Hogberg went through qualifying) to their Senior Open which is even more of a closed shop than the Champions Tour. Pathetic.

Roger Chapman won't mind though as he will be at Kiawah Island for next month's PGA Championship, and joins Lee Westwood in being the first two Englishmen to punch their tickets to next year's US Open at Merion.

poults is playing well, really well- since he got over his illness start of the year its been a very competant year. He has what i would call clutch as well. Surely he would never do a 'scott' but its weather he can get into the position

Super

Maybe you need to think of nationality as a proxy for the system in which a player learnt the game. In that context I think nationality probably does come into it.

yeah success breeds success thats for sure. faldo helped english depth. Els helped SA depth. Scott may have got here due to norman as well.

the anomoly is the english though!! they arnt anything like faldo!!! yet!!

McLaren wrote:Super

Maybe you need to think of nationality as a proxy for the system in which a player learnt the game. In that context I think nationality probably does come into it.

Really Mac? Is the Northern Irish system so much better than the rest of the world per capita then, or is it just a few very talented players.

Is that Argentinian golf carousel spitting out Cabrera clones now, or is the huge golf nation of Italy that far ahead of the UK?

Depth is breed from success SR- and i think that is proven..

Italy is nowhere near the uk in terms of golf, not sure what you mean there dude- there have 3 only ok players

What I mean is that the majority of people in Italy won't have ever heard of golf, let alone the three players they have, but per capita of golfers in their country they have produced more players than the UK, ditto NI, but I doubt that either has training/coaching/facilities that are any better than the UK (mainland).

So, as far as I can see, nationality does not reflect success.

Look how many good players come from Scandinavia. Total population about 18 million., yet facilities and weather is no better than here.

sr the uk is miles above per capita over italy- italy isnt a small country(same pop as uk)

scandinavia produces some good golfers, but not to the level of the uk- maybe close to par with the uk per coapita- but id say uk still above(there are certainly 3 times more uk golfers top 500 than scnadinavians), and top 1000 way way more, and offcourse top 50 way more as well

Oakey, I'm talking about the population of Italians who play golf. THere are many more golfers in the UK than Italy, yet they have a disproportinately high number of players per golfers in their population.

Looks at who Scandinavia have produced, remember there are three times as many UK people as there are Scandinavians., so I'd expect 3 times as many Brits in the top 500.

I just don't believe that a nationality can stop you succeeding in a tournament.

you mean per golf course- thats not per capita then is it SR.

the uk has 10 times the golf courses than Italy. but i would safely say the UK produces over 10 times the golfers than them

RE scandianvia -i mentioned 3 times more because there are 3 times brits than scandianvians!!! that was my point- per capita!

Oakjey, I meant per capita of golfers in the population, no point in using general population as a rule.

The assumption was though by SRock that the fact that only 2 europeans had won the PGA was down to their nationality, I totally dispute that.

It's only 64 years, most of which heavily favoured the Americans', not so much to do with Europeans being Europeans, but the PGA being part of the PGA Tour of which relatively few Europeans were a part for most of the PGA's history.

I give any player on form, regardless of nationality the same chance as any other in any tournament.

so i then used per golf course- which is the only thing solid.

there is nothing disproportionate about italy at all.

i just did a count up from the top 300 pdf!

5 italians
33 english
9 scottish
4 N irish
2 welsh

what surprised me was only 1 irish in there!!

Oakey, we are trying to prove whether being from a certain nation affects your chances of winning, obviously it is b0llocks.

but that irish golfer has more majors than anyone else on that list!!!

and Ni has 3 major winners out of there 4!!

the rest - Nil puois

Sr i agree with you- but i said depth is produced from winners

Paul Lawrie?

arr yep soz- he is to forgetable

Oakey, I don't disagree that having good players encourages others hence depth, that's why if Murray had won Wimbledon it would have encouraged more kids to take up tennis than Federer's 17th major will.

Correct - but depth will naturally give us more chances of winning stuff. But i agree basing donald being english therefore having no chance in the pga is futile and not valid at all- i made the point at the same time as you did

Agreed, but I don't believe it was Irishness which made the three paddies major winners any more than it is Englishness that is holding them back.

yep thats true

off the top of my head i can think of 3 golfers from the republic of Ireland.(Paddy, Lowry,Lawrie) and 8 from the GUI.... the golfing union of Ireland. (add Rory,Gmac,Hoey,Clarke,Maybin)

super_realist wrote:

Looks at who Scandinavia have produced, remember there are three times as many UK people as there are Scandinavians., so I'd expect 3 times as many Brits in the top 500.

Brits in top 500: 74 (48 ENG, 17 SCO, 5 NI, 4 WAL).
Scandinavians in top 500: 28 (19 SWE, 6 DEN, 2 FIN, 1 NOR).

74/28 = 2.64

mystiroakey wrote:so i then used per golf course- which is the only thing solid.

there is nothing disproportionate about italy at all.

i just did a count up from the top 300 pdf!

5 italians
33 english
9 scottish
4 N irish
2 welsh

what surprised me was only 1 irish in there!!

Not sure what rankings you're using mysti but there's 5 RoI players in the top 300. Paddy (60), Lowry (144), Peter Lawrie (152), McGinley (260) and McGrane (294).

hend085 wrote:off the top of my head i can think of 3 golfers from the republic of Ireland.(Paddy, Lowry,Lawrie) and 8 from the GUI.... the golfing union of Ireland. (add Rory,Gmac,Hoey,Clarke,Maybin)

no the others are from ni mate(bar paddy)- the rest arnt in the top 300 bar mcilroy and clarke off course

cross everything i said out

i didnt naturally search for ireland- i only searched for N ireland

http://dps.endavadigital.net/owgr/doc/content/archive/2012/owgr29f2012.pdf

and for some reason one ireland came up

i thought it was strange lads

If you really want to compare, these are the total Irishmen in the entire OWGR system:

McIlroy (NIR): 3
McDowell (NIR): 11
Harrington (IRL): 60
Clarke (NIR): 89
Hoey (NIR): 102
Lowry (IRL): 144
Pe. Lawrie (IRL): 152
McGinley (IRL): 260
McGrane (IRL): 294
Maybin (NIR): 325
Thornton (IRL): 388
N Turner (IRL): 635
D Higgins (IRL): 663
C Moriarty (IRL): 840
N Kearney (IRL): 1153
P Cutler (NIR): 1284
G Murphy (IRL): 1306

NedB-H wrote:

super_realist wrote:

Looks at who Scandinavia have produced, remember there are three times as many UK people as there are Scandinavians., so I'd expect 3 times as many Brits in the top 500.

Brits in top 500: 74 (48 ENG, 17 SCO, 5 NI, 4 WAL).
Scandinavians in top 500: 28 (19 SWE, 6 DEN, 2 FIN, 1 NOR).

74/28 = 2.64

so as i said close.

italy arnt the same as they have about 1 for every 100, england have about 1 for every ten- gb has about 1.5 for every ten- its good going

NedB-H wrote:If you really want to compare, these are the total Irishmen in the entire OWGR system:

McIlroy (NIR): 3
McDowell (NIR): 11
Harrington (IRL): 60
Clarke (NIR): 89
Hoey (NIR): 102
Lowry (IRL): 144
Pe. Lawrie (IRL): 152
McGinley (IRL): 260
McGrane (IRL): 294
Maybin (NIR): 325
Thornton (IRL): 388
N Turner (IRL): 635
D Higgins (IRL): 663
C Moriarty (IRL): 840
N Kearney (IRL): 1153
P Cutler (NIR): 1284
G Murphy (IRL): 1306

can you do the same for brits please

or show me a link of the full rankings in one place

By the way Ned- i do like the fact that i am using NI for brits and your using them for irish!!

i think we should just stick with uk and ire when we compare our golf. that makes more sense probally

mystiroakey wrote:By the way Ned- i do like the fact that i am using NI for brits and your using them for irish!!

i think we should just stick with uk and ire when we compare our golf. that makes more sense probally

I was just comparing NI to Irish there! For "Brits" I used NI but not Irish, as per the definition of the UK (GB&NI).


You can find the rankings of all Europeans here:
http://www.officialworldgolfranking.com/rankings/default.sps?region=europe&PageCount=1

yeah i know what the definition of of uk is- but its up to the individual what they want to be!! so NI allways is a talking point!

anyway i know that link- its just really annoying to search on different pages

True enough, though I'm not aware of any golfer who chooses the opposite of what they would obviously, as in guys born in NI opting to be IRL or vice versa.

Agree it isn't the best link... it probably shows that I'm quite bored today!

Northern Irish Golfers officially represent the GUI. Golfing Union of Ireland, which is representative of the 32 counties. its very similar to the Rugby Union split.... though this might be somewhat tested when they are looking to compete in Olympics

lol i counted 112 english- thats me done- i am off home!!

hend085 wrote:Northern Irish Golfers officially represent the GUI. Golfing Union of Ireland, which is representative of the 32 counties. its very similar to the Rugby Union split.... though this might be somewhat tested when they are looking to compete in Olympics

its up to them- rory has stated he would pick GB- but if i am honest they will pick either if they are asked.

i suppose the reasoning behind it all is that golfers play for there own countries, whereas tennis plays for gb, all of this is to do with world cup of golfs etc- but lets be honest gb and ire in golf could also be histoically classed as one due to the walker cup and the original ryder cup

Super - Point of clarification ... I never said it was "down" to their nationality that only 2 Europeans have won the PGA Championship. For whatever reason, however, they have not done as well there. In the 80's and 90's the Europeans had done quite well at Augusta (and other majors) but for some reason none of those top dogs -- Seve, Faldo, Langer etc. ever lifted the Wanamaker trophy. Odd, given their evident talent.

mystiroakey wrote:

hend085 wrote:Northern Irish Golfers officially represent the GUI. Golfing Union of Ireland, which is representative of the 32 counties. its very similar to the Rugby Union split.... though this might be somewhat tested when they are looking to compete in Olympics

its up to them- rory has stated he would pick GB- but if i am honest they will pick either if they are asked.

i suppose the reasoning behind it all is that golfers play for there own countries, whereas tennis plays for gb, all of this is to do with world cup of golfs etc- but lets be honest gb and ire in golf could also be histoically classed as one due to the walker cup and the original ryder cup

WUM ALERT

As amateurs Clarke, McGinley, Harrington, McDowell, McIlroy, Lawrie & Lowry have all won the Irish Amateur Championship. This is the only national amateur championship they would have been eligible to enter, just like Luke Donald won the English Amateur.

There is no such thing as the NI or the ROI Amateur Championships. There is a North of Ireland Championship played every year at Portrush but this is just like the South, East & West Championships which are all open to players from the entire Island.

What about the Leprechaun Links Championship at Lough Neigh.

By coincidence, Golf World did a feature interview with Ernie Els which appeared in the edition you can currently find on the shelves of WH Smith and the like.

You may have heard him thank Dr Sherylle Calder in his acceptance speech yesterday. The article discusses their work together a bit. She's worked with various sportspeople (e.g. England rugby team), and her speciality seems to be eyes, believe it or not. Ernie is regularly going through various hand-to-eye coordination exercises which Dr Calder has developed, taking the form of games he can play on his laptop. The one described requires the user to press the space bar when a certain type or colour of dot appears on the screen.

I don't follow the jump between this and correcting putting setup/stance/stroke etc, but Ernie is clearly a believer.

I bet Dr Calder's client list might be about to grow a bit.

Oh, and my brief report from The Open Championship from Friday as follows:

* Mud: might be good for cooling the blood, but not a day for spectators to wear white or beige trousers. Golf shoes helpful. We were a bit worried we wouldn't make it into or out of the park & ride, but it was OK in the end (other than very irate marshal having a go at anyone within earshot - his colleagues had messed up the row we ended up in, not leaving much space at all for any early leavers to escape).

* WAGs: we started off by following Casey / Immelman / Curtis for a few holes. Positioning ourselves near the landing zone on the 2nd, I was peering back to the tee with binoculars when a lady with blonde hair wearing a red jacket walked into and blocked my line of sight. Before I could walk over to give her a piece of my mind, my friend said to me "Mate, that's Pollyanna Woodward... from The Gadget Show." Later on, we crossed paths with an lady wearing Union Jack trousers, speaking in a fairly loud American accent. Presumed she was John Daly's partner seeing as he was trousered in the same fashion. No sightings of any tennis players though.

* How do they do that?: watched Branden Grace splash a few shots out of the practice bunker, the last few were right against the lip and seemed impossible - he made it look easy. Casey was smacking the ball all over the place, but was scrambling well when we watched him (only falling apart later in the round). Cannot believe how well / far he was hitting it out of that rough. Shot of the day for me though was Woods' holed bunker shot on 18. We were in the stands, watching the later groups come in when that happened. There was slightly more than a smattering of polite applause when that happened.

* Fleecing: as expected, food/drink and merhandise were all rather overpriced. Good fish & chips though!

Lovely course, overall really enjoyed the day.

Sky


A couple of fallacies in the rhetoric a few posts back.
Luke Donald: He shot -2 in the first two rounds, even at the weekend. Slow starter? Not really, this week at least, just that he is better at holding his game together at the slightest sign of adversity.

Europeans in the PGA? All very well lamenting their poor record in terms of wins, but it should be remembered that none of the three American Majors were welcoming to European golfers until relatively recently, the last twenty years especially.
As noted last week, this is still prevalent in the Senior game, only five Europeans in the Senior Open for instance, and one qualifier. Colin Montgomerie is in for a rude surprise if he thinks he can coin it in on the Champo Tour, he'll have to qualify and then retain his exemption every year, unless he's voted into the WHOF a la Sandy Lyle.

Kwin - Interesting take on Donald. What do you mean by holding his game together a the slightest sign of adversity?

No denying two things: He's got serious talent and he's o-fer in all majors. Surprise me Luke.

And speaking of Monty, for a guy that's had 50+ starts in the US and never won a sanctioned stroke play event why on earth would he be hoping for special treatment? Maybe he should be lobbying for the WHOF.

Hi Sr,
Just saying that Luke played at a level of consistency over the weekend that others struggled to achieve. His Rounds 3 and 4 were certainly a cut above most who made the cut.

I agree about Montgomerie, the Champions Tour is designed to shut out international players even if they win Senior Majors; Stewart Ginn, Denis Watson, Eddie Romero, Mark James, you name 'em Finchem's spat 'em out. Chapman's two Majors won't mean anything by next December, back to Europe for 2014.

But my point about Senior "Majors" copying Finchem in shutting out overseas players regardless of credentials just shows how out of touch these organizations are. Shades of Sepp Blatter, Bud Selig, Pres of Penn State etc.

With all that talent stagnating, yet ready to play, in Europe there should be an opportunity to accelerate that tour. Hope someone can line up the investors.

Penn State sanctions not too harsh IMO - I wish they shut down the football program to be honest.

Sr,
I thought the PSU penalties were gratuitous.

Biggest problem is the reverence these coaches have attained, Coach this, Coach that. Good Lord. Here's $10M for salary. Slam the University for empolying an 86-y-o man as a football coach if you like, but the young people of PA's future are the ones that will suffer, and they're completely innocent.

Still not sure who's going to pocket the $60Mil.

Meanwhile, there are more guns than people here, a massacre every few months, and no-one does anything about it.

A $60Mil fine on the NRA and ban for life for Wayne LaPierre (shocking that he got degrees from Siena and BC) and you're getting somewhere.

Think the NCAA is as corrupt as FIFA (not to mention the Olympic Games of Billy Payne and Mitt Romney) and that's saying something.

Hopefully Mike Krzyzewski will get his collar felt while in London, then the fur will fly!

hend085 wrote:

mystiroakey wrote:

hend085 wrote:Northern Irish Golfers officially represent the GUI. Golfing Union of Ireland, which is representative of the 32 counties. its very similar to the Rugby Union split.... though this might be somewhat tested when they are looking to compete in Olympics

its up to them- rory has stated he would pick GB- but if i am honest they will pick either if they are asked.

i suppose the reasoning behind it all is that golfers play for there own countries, whereas tennis plays for gb, all of this is to do with world cup of golfs etc- but lets be honest gb and ire in golf could also be histoically classed as one due to the walker cup and the original ryder cup

WUM ALERT

not in the slightest

kwinigolfer wrote:Sky


A couple of fallacies in the rhetoric a few posts back.
Luke Donald: He shot -2 in the first two rounds, even at the weekend. Slow starter? Not really, this week at least, just that he is better at holding his game together at the slightest sign of adversity.

Europeans in the PGA? All very well lamenting their poor record in terms of wins, but it should be remembered that none of the three American Majors were welcoming to European golfers until relatively recently, the last twenty years especially.
As noted last week, this is still prevalent in the Senior game, only five Europeans in the Senior Open for instance, and one qualifier. Colin Montgomerie is in for a rude surprise if he thinks he can coin it in on the Champo Tour, he'll have to qualify and then retain his exemption every year, unless he's voted into the WHOF a la Sandy Lyle.

we are not talking about this major- this was his turning point- however it still was a slow start, no point using the actual scores as the gauge on what was slow or good. the course was immeasurably harder last round and donald again produced- the leaders went backwards and he yet again went forward final round as he allways does. he was 8 behind after day 2 thats all i know yet ended up only losing by 5- this is a pattern that is repeated after being repeated in his majors- all of lukes top 10's are made in this way. He is miles back then has a blistering final round and shoots himself into the top ten without challenging for the title. Infact even in regular events this is siumilar to how he wins, I and many others have been mentioning this trait for donkies

its phenomenal how often this happens.
what do people think the reason for it is? is it that he gets to know the course better? or is it that the nerves are gone after he is out of contention?