PGA Tour: The Fabric of Sandersons Farms: Notes from the Ballwasher

1).The "B" Feature opposite this week's Open Championship is in Mississippi, the "Sandersons Farms Championship". This will receive something far removed from second billing in Europe, but it is a big deal for many PGA Tour pros still striving to secure their "card" for 2013/2014. After this week, there are only three (four if in the PGA) FedEx points-gathering tournaments remaining for guys like Colsaerts, Hanson and Fisher to play well and keep their cards for 2013/2014.

2).The John Deere Classic rewarded Steve Stricker and Zach Johnson with six-figure pay cheques as it usually does, but offered a compelling climax with the journeyman Canadian from Gretzky country, David Hearn, tournament board member Zach, and 19-y-o Matteo-wannabe Jordan Spieth.
Spieth may have got in to the play-off more than flukily, and watched as Zacher and Hearn each missed tournament-clinching putts, but when all were in trouble on their fifth play-off hole, he produced the goods. All credit to him - he's got all the tools, but sometimes that's not enough. 23-y-o Sean O'Hair was a budding superstar when he won here eight years ago, but three wins and a Presidents Cup appearance later he's out with the washing, headed for the web.com Tour Finals (or some such name).  

3).So Jordan Spieth is on his way to a Muirfield tee-time and good luck to him. He hasn't tasted failure on Tour yet so, just like O'Hair eight years ago, you'd expect him to perform with credit in this week's Open. Scott Stallings will be there courtesy of Phil's Castle Stuart win and Joost Luiten is on deck, waiting for Peter Hanson to withdraw. After that, Brendon Fatty de Jonge is presumably beached somewhere along the East Lothian shoreline awaiting the call.

4).But that's over there, and I'm over here (for a couple more days anyway).
And the in-form player right now is no 19-y-o apprentice from Dallas, it's 52-y-o Kenny Perry who just walked away with the US Senior Open, just a week or so removed from winning the Constellation Senior Players Championship. Major gratification at last from a grinding Tour pro who threw away a couple of real Majors (at Valhalla and Augusta), plus May's Senior Players Championship, but has now been justly rewarded for a fabulously consistent game.

5).This week's Sanderson Farms pasture has some solid Tour players like Jerry Kelly and Charlie Howell but is mostly being neglected by the Tour players. It is downright ridiculous to hold a web.com AND "B"rated tour event the same week as The Open but Commish Finchem has ridiculous in his DNA, so one tournament is cannibalizing the field of the other and the Sandersons has geezers in the field who are not even exempt on the Champions Tour. Finchem has got this upside down with Tour-status guys (Cejka, Chopra, Johnson, MacKenzie for instance) all opting for the web.com rather than PGA Tour golf.

6).So let's close this out with some stat's and a Major Championship trivia question:

7).I'm awarding a 2013/2014 Tour card to anyone registering 375 (first estimate was 350) FedEx points and these guys are still vulnerable to lose their "privileges":
374 pts: Woodland
356: Charlie Wi
356: GolfBoy Crane
339: Colsaerts
326: Baddeley
290: Bud Cauley (almost the Jordan Spieth of 2011/2012)
285: Hanson
279: Appleby
267: Greg Owen (incomprehensibly absent this week)
248: Romero
212: Ishikawa
212: Karlsson
200: Immelman
200: Ross Fisher
183: Sean O'Hair
172: Russell Knox

8).Quite apart from this lot there is a host of fine box-office draws who may not reach the FedEx Play-Offs but have their next season card secure and would illuminate European Tour events. Names like: Harrington, Oosthuizen, Kaymer, Sabbatini, Curtis, Goosen, Ames, LoveIII, Allenby, Weir, even deer-antler-spray Singh.

9).One thing I enjoy more than looking at the PGA Tour golfers is looking at the ladies, in this case the maidens of the LPGA Tour. Another good week (3rd) just came and went for Catriona Matthew.
InBee Park has taken more than $2.1M to the bank so far this year, but no-one else has earned more than $900K. Not petty cash though, and these are the leading European money-winning ladies:
Suzann Pettersen: $860K
Beatriz Recari: $589K
Catriona Matthew: $496K
Anna Nordqvist: $421K
Caroline Hedwall: $327K (excuse me please for always thinking of a mogul field when I see her name)
Karine Icher: $298K
Jodi Ewart-Shadoff: $278K

All these in the top 30 LPGA Money-winners, which makes one have high hopes for Solheim Cup success.

10).TRIVIA!!!!!!! Major Championship week, and who is the oldest surviving Major Champion? Answers on a postcard to Ballwasher Notes s'il vous plait.

Peter Thomson?

Thomson? Not yet!

Doug Ford, could be there for a while still, at his current 90?

Someone even older than Doug Ford.

Mr. p says Kel Nagle ( and he seems pretty confident) !

Mr.P is correct: Kel Nagle, terrific golfer much under-appreciated by the US press.
Saw him bracketed with Hamilton and Curtis the other day - what an insult! Almost won (lost to Player in a play-off) the US Open also.

There was a nice article about him in one of our many golf magazines just a couple of months ago.  

Yup, I read one in GolfWorld, half a dozen or so old pros looking back on their careers, Billy Casper, Charlie Owens, Ray Floyd - all with interesting perspectives, especially Charlie Owens and the perceived racial slights from the USGA.

Can't find the Nagle article on-line, but here's a nice piece from The Australian from a year or two back:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/archive/sport-old/gentleman-golfer-kel-nagle-celebrates-90th-birthday-with-some-of-the-greats/story-fn6aue9t-1225971391846

kwinigolfer wrote:Mr.P is correct: Kel Nagle, terrific golfer much under-appreciated by the US press.
Saw him bracketed with Hamilton and Curtis the other day - what an insult! Almost won (lost to Player in a play-off) the US Open also.

Of course, Curtis almost won Padraig's PGA too. Strange career Nagle had, not really doing anything at all til he hit the big 40. Wonder who will be the first to go of Nagle, de Vicenzo, Burke and Fleck, all in their 90s now.

Pretty sure we say this every year, but the Web.com took the week off two weeks ago, surely more sensible to have this week's event then instead.

Ned,
Don't know if you've noticed by Matt Richardson has put in some good rounds in Oh Canada, but more than his fair share of self-destructive efforts too - something like 68-79 last week for instance.
There's a good player trying to come through there, but must be something in his make-up that promotes such inconsistency.
A couple of Scots playing there too, Alan McLean and Kevin(?) McAlpine plus Fergal Rafferty.

Two more withdrawals: It's "Sandersons" curtains for Kelly and JJ Henry, and the list of non-exempt Champions Tour players is extended - would far prefer they opened up the number of qualifying places in situations like this; and if the Senior retreads wanted to play enough they'd enter the qualie.
Sure to be a heavily subsidised event which is a shame for a new sponsor at a tournament which has produced some big-name winners, not least Luke Donald, Bill Haas, Chad Campbell, Chris Kirk (also teeing it up here) and last year's champ, Scott Stallings.
Perhaps Campbell might continue his good form of last week and make up for a dismal season?
Appleby, Immelman, Sabbatini, Love and Toms among those offering some credibility and all of this lot could use a big week.
As could Gary Christian and Russell Knox.

Hi Kwini,

Yep I've been keeping half on eye on proceedings in Canada, some good rounds here and there from the GB&I contingent but nothing consistent enough yet to suggest any will be threatening the likes of Nick Taylor for whatever reward is on show for the end of year ranking winners. Particularly disappointed to see David Skinns fail to build on his 54 hole lead in the first event of the season, followed by a Sunday slump and then two missed cuts - everything about his record in tour qualifiers, mini tours etc suggests he's good enough to contend on a regular basis on the Web.com, if he can just get a break. I think Alan McLean has been spending his summers in Canada (and winters in SA) for years now, but he must be over 40, and feeling like PGA Tour affiliation has come a little too late. Don't know much of McAlpine beyond a good amateur record 6 or 7 years back, but I see Rafferty was being tipped by one of the Tour's "experts" in last week's preview.

You mention Greg Owen is inexplicably AWOL this week, and I agree - but also wonder if this is a missed opportunity for others. Ross Fisher is missing out on Muirfield, and given his lack of recent US starts may have given up on his adventure altogether, but this would seem to represent his best opportunity of sneaking in enough FedEx points to salvage the year. And Paul Casey would also have been exempt if he'd fancied, and would surely have nothing to lose, and everything to gain if he repeated his Irish success.

de Jonge still in the Mississippi field - he'd have to make an almighty dash for it if his Muirfield second alternate number was to come up. Perhaps he's alreay withdrawn from a chance at The Open as Charlie Howell apparently has. In which case, I wonder who the alternates in site are, after Luiten of course?

Ned,
Agree with all comments!! Forgot about Skinns.
Nick Taylor somewhat disappointing so far don't you think? He and Hill came in to the Pro ranks with the best collegiate credentials and pretty much nothing of consequence since.

Kwini,

I'm pretty sure after Howell & de Jonge the next alternate is Lingmerth. Then after him, from what I can work out, it's Palmer-Bae-Merrick-Larrazabal-Chappell-Kirk-van Zyl. Don't know how many, if any, of those will be on site!

Think the jury is still out on the young Canadians - with Taylor you wonder if he's just finding his game back home, done nothing in the States the past few years but played well every week since the Canadian Tour started up again, might be a case of working his way up the ladder steadily. Whereas Hill has got himself a Web.com card this year, and so far wasted it, 3 cuts made in 11 starts. Both rather overtaken by Graham deLaet.

Last I knew, 102 yr old Errie Ball, a native from Wales, is alive and well and still giving golf lessons in Florida.

He played in the first Masters, in 1934

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Errie_Ball

He never won a major, but the old guy deserves a mention every now and again!

He played in the Open Championship in 1926 at Lytham.

GPB,
He gets a mention every year in my Masters week blog . . . . . . !

Wow, weather delay on the PGA Tour...

Woody Austin wins!

His first PGATour paycheck since last years tournament in Mississippi.

Gets to about 128th on the FE List, can he qualify for the Playoffs?

He has not even played that well on the Web.com tour. One top 10 finish and 6 miss cuts in 10 events.

GPB,

Austin really seems like a truly miserable character.........
Is he reallt that bad?

John Cregan wrote:GPB,

Austin really seems like a truly miserable character.........
Is he reallt that bad?

Not one of my favorites. But he is self deprecating which I do like. Falling into the pond at the Prez Cup was hilarious.

That's a must see for me !!

John Cregan wrote:That's a must see for me !!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hbn9095yG1U

  

That made me laugh.............