PGA Tour: Gulf in the Golf of Mexico: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).The Tour's second "international" odyssey of the year wraps up this week following trips to Malaysia, China and Mississippi. There's quite a gulf between the quality of fields in Kuala Lumpur and, especially, Shanghai and that assembled for the "OHL Classic of Mayakoba", but it will still yield a million bucks to the winner, and trips to Augusta National, Sawgrass and Whistling Straits next year.

2).And there's quite a gulf between the greatest golfer Mexico has produced, the very great Lorena Ochoa, and all other Mexican Pros. Steely Dan sang that "Guadalajara won't do", but it was perfect for Lorena and seems pretty good for Carlos Ortiz, who earned a "battlefield promotion" last year from the web.com Tour. Way too early to tell what sort of career Ortiz will enjoy, but he's off to a good start, made the cut in his first three events of the year and could be a star for Mexico and the PGA Tour to savour. We have Camilo and Jhonny Vegas, plus the Argentinian gauchos, but Ortiz could prove a welcome addition to the increasingly diverse tour.

3).This year's US Ryder Cup Team is developing a penchant for winning tournaments, or getting into play-offs that they subsequently win, by holing out sand shots, Bubba following in the recent footsteps of Spieth and Kuchar. Didn't watch any of it, but good for Bubba - slowly putting together quite the golfing CV.

4).Bad luck, though, for Tim Clark, who nevertheless extended his string of consecutive years with a runner up finish to 11, tied with Phil Mickelson for the longest current streak on Tour. Win totals tell a different story:
Clark: 2
Mickelson: 42.

5).Lee Westwood has now cashed at the WGC ATM 45 times, the most since WGC's began. The top 6 in WGC appearances are:
45: Westwood
43: Els
41: Woods
40: Furyk
40: Harrington
40: Mickelson

6).And, speaking of Harrington, what a horlicks he made of a promising position halfway thru' last week's Sanderson Farms event. Alas, he followed rounds of 70 and 69 with a pair of 76's, including a total of 15 shots on just one hole, the relatively straightforward 12th which he butchered with a 6 and then a 9. Sorry Padraig, it seems every tournament you tee it up in it's just a matter of time before you throw in the towel. Disappointing - how's about kicking Ronan off the bag, get someone else in your ear?

7).I fancied a Southern golfer to bring home the Sanderson chicken last week, just didn't expect it to be a Southern Canada winner. Nick Taylor was the world's #1 amateur five years ago but his pro career had been a shambles, mixing wins on the Vancouver mini-tour with futility elsewhere. But he clinched his Tour card with a brilliant final round of 63 in the web.com Tour Final and he has almost three exempt years ahead of him, not to mention tickets to Maui, The Players and PGA. He's the first Canadian-born player since Mike Weir in 2007 to win on Tour - bypassing Messrs DeLaet and Hearn in the process.

8).I'm thinking Holland's Robert-Jan Derksen has played his final European Tour event as he heads for retirement. Kinda enjoyed watching him play, instantly recognizable with distinctive shirts and cap-less barnet, but it made me think back to Pros who have retired when still eligible for their respective Tours.
Does Joe Ogilvie count this year?
Bill Rogers and Baker Finch quickly receded following Open Championship fame and attention.
And we remember Jodie Mudd returning to his Old Kentucky horse farm, Keith Fergus becoming a leading collegiate golf coach, and Craig Parry going home to Australia, but it doesn't happen often.
A couple of guys from 10 or 15 years ago, Lennie Clements and Bret Ogle (is he commentating?) both dropped out of sight, no idea why. Demons or fatigue? Notah Begay is among the many who migrated to the broadcast booth, following others whose status had become marginal.
Any other notables? Must be dozens who just call it a day when we're not looking.

9).Back to Mayakoba and the gulf between Tour prosperity and abandonment of a dream: Robert Karlsson led last year's Mayakoba tournament after 54 holes, blew up on his back nine with a 3-hole stretch of +4 and disappeared back to Europe with no status. A win would have retrieved his Tour card, a second place finish, which he missed by three strokes, would likely have dominoed in to Special Temporary Membership. But no, and a fine career will most probably never be fully recognized outside Europe; a tale of freakishly bad health and bad luck. Not to mention that he's one of very few regulars in Europe or the States to have played his first Major in the 80's!

10).Padraig Harrington joins a relatively strong contingent of Europeans at Greg Norman's highly regarded Mayakoba course, including Gonzo (who's been in terrible form this past month or so), Quiros, Knox, Jacobson, Pettersson and Brian Davis. Camilo and Cabrera are there also while Harris English is the defending champion.
It looks like the weather should mostly cooperate so let's sit back with fingers crossed that Harrington plays well for 65 holes and storms to the victory that eluded Karlsson. Isn't that what Fantasy Golf is all about?

Poulter and his new equipment seemed to have moved up a couple of gears.

Where's that been? Three ahead.

Titleist will be pleased if Poults keeps this up.

Koepka and Uihlein collectively -11 in Round 2. Uihlein looked really good last week too, overdue for the big breakthrough.


Mac,
It's all speculation isn't it; I'd just be shocked if she was involved. (But I've been shocked before.)

Some Notable golfer playing the Japanese and Asian tour this week.

Bubba is in 2nd place in the Japanese Tournament going into the weekend.  Ryo Ishikawa barely made the cut and his T60. Fujita is leading.

In Thailand, on the Asian Tour, Dufner is T5, Seung Yul Noh is T21, and Charl Schwartzel came back with a 68 to barely make the cut.  Jyoti Randhawa is leading.  Scrolling down the leaderboard, I see a player from Vietnam, Michael Tran.  I think that is first time a Vietnamese player on a pro golf leaderboard.

Jason Dufner could be one to watch for 2015. Looks like he made a decision that, even if he packed in his golf career early, as he has threatened, he'll make the most of the years he plays - short hair and a leaner (relatively speaking) and meaner figure, almost unrecognizable.

Scoring lower at Mayakoba for Round 2; the cut-line could quite easily creep down to -3, which would mean Harrington, for instance, has to shoot a 65 to get paid.

Yesterday, when I scrolled down the Mayakorba leaderboard, I saw that Gonzo was having a poor round (+4 at the time). I didn't pay much attention to him after that.

Scrolling down this morning I see that he turned it around on his back Nine and is now -3 for tournament and well inside the cutline. Good for Gonzo!

Too bad Harrington could not do the same.

And Whoa! Nick Watney. WTF? Maybe it is time you go back to Butch Harmon. And get rid of those Nike Clubs!

I wouldn't be surprised if DJ might have had a nibble round Mrs Watney; remember all the fuss a year or two ago when Butch Harmon made his stupid tweet?
Apart from some good play late this past summer, he's pretty much floundered the last 18 months.

EDIT: Also really enjoy following Nick Watney - always seems a really good bloke. Hope he gets his form back for the California swing where he's often done well.

Good write up Kwini.

How the hell does DJ pull all these women?  He looks like a Thunderbird on cocaine steriods

!!

Good news for those of you in the Aberdeen area:

http://www.europeantour.com/europeantour/news/newsid=242613.html

Not sure that a 1MEuro prize fund will attract a great field but looks like it fills a spot in the ET calendar. Welcome news, Well done Paul Lawrie.

Bob - The dude obviously knows how to get results.

Now it's time to grow up ... Mr. Gretzky, I'm sure, is comfortable helping high-profile professional athletes to make the "right" decisions.

Well done Gonzo, Very well done Cejka - what's with him all of a sudden?!

Low scores are out there, now for Harrington, Knox, Freddie and the Englishmen to get their fair(?) share.

top 64 in the RTD able to play in the Paul Lawrie matchplay championship, how far down that list will it go, with people more then likely deciding against it.

Don't you think that wording "will pit 64 of the leading players in the R2D" is ambiguous?
The date looks as if it will clash with the WGC Bridgestone or be the week before it, for 2015 at any rate - either way, it's not an ideal date, the purse looks modest, and one might expect the top 30-ish to be in the States or Canada.
A great initiative by Paul Lawrie regardless.

kwinigolfer wrote:!!

Good news for those of you in the Aberdeen area:

http://www.europeantour.com/europeantour/news/newsid=242613.html

Not sure that a 1MEuro prize fund will attract a great field but looks like it fills a spot in the ET calendar. Welcome news, Well done Paul Lawrie.

I read this news earlier Kwini and I must say I thought it very peculiar news. My work has a corporate deal at that course and I've played it a good few times, and as much as I like the course it isn't what I'd call being close to tournament standard.
Given that in the immediate area they have Royal Aberdeen right next door to Murcar, Trump 5 miles up the road, Royal Deeside over in Cults, Cruden Bay to the North and even Montrose  30 mins away it seems a very odd choice of venue indeed given what as Jim Bowen would say "they could have had"

Fingers crossed it will be a success anyway.
I go to The Travelers every year and would never have thought the course was up to Tour standard (altho always in impeccable condition), yet the pros seem to like it and it's a fairly popular spot.
Probably other considerations apart from just quality of the course are in play, at Murcar as well as Hartford's TPC River Highlands.


Fine start three early birdies for St.Padraig, but OH NO!, followed up with a swift triple bogey 7. Edit: Now adjusted to a 6, but still! It's just not working for him is it?

Quiros looks like he'll make the cut on the number after birdieing 6 of his final 8 holes. "The dude with the hat" as Bubba Watson used to call him.

The Lawrie Match Play confuses me... the date "might" make some sense with the extra week between the Open and Bridgestone in 2015... but the following year is the Olympics and the schedule is gonna be whack... and the following year the interval is supposed to go back to the one week in between the Open and PGA.

Now I LOVE match play in concept... at least the early days when there are 32 and 16 matches respectively... but unfortunately as the number of matches goes down each day... it often gets LESS and LESS interesting with each passing round... with sometimes the final being a real snore...

Hi robo,
Yeah, I thought of the '16 schedule also but, if the prize fund is only Euro1M, it seems he's pitching a low-level "community" tournament in Scotland rather than a big commercial event. Date may be almost irrelevant.
We need more details!


Lots to play for at Mayakoba - course seemed to be drying out this afternoon, could really be a ball-striking weekend.

Bubba is +6 after 8 holes in Round 3 in Japan.

Poulter 6 (six) clear after 2 Rounds in Turkey.

He's always been good early/late season but that's a different class to the rest of the field. His to lose.

GPB wrote:Bubba is +6 after 8 holes in Round 3 in Japan.

Yep... looks like the 3rd round blues for both American intrepid travelers... Bubba and Duf both shoot themselves out of their respective tournaments... OH well.. at least Bubba's gained plenty of Yen to stuff under his new Japanese mattress..... and I'm guessing Dufnering on elephants doesn't pay too badly either.... :-)

super_realist wrote:Poulter 6 (six) clear after 2 Rounds in Turkey.

He's always been good early/late season but that's a different class to the rest of the field. His to lose.

I'd like his chances better if he was leading by 2...

super_realist wrote:Poulter 6 (six) clear after 2 Rounds in Turkey.

He's always been good early/late season but that's a different class to the rest of the field. His to lose.

Looks like Lowry is catching him souper...

That fat Billy Bunter knacker will run out of pace as he always does.

Poults ought to pick up a couple of shots to restore a decent berth.


Did you see Maloney's strike into the back of the potato sack, sorry onion bag last night Inco?

Be quite appropriate if Poultry wins the Turkey open I suppose...

No didn't catch the match last night sup, was it any good? Heard it was 0-0 most of the time, didn't sound too exciting.

Neck and neck now with Ormsby and Poulter, top weights Westwood and Lowry coming up on the outside.

According to GPB's OWGR crystal ball, Lowry needs to finish 6th or better to get into the top 50

Poulter goes from 6 ahead to 2 behind. What a Salmond.

Amazing that Daly is in the top dozen or so - not the worst week for him last week at Sanderson Farms - going from a chicken processor to Turkey. Whatever next?

Three Americans in the Top dozen, four altogether in the Top 20. Good for them; and good for the European Tour.
Imagine Europe will lose Koepka for 2015, but would think Uihlein and Lipsky will play mainly in Europe.
And perhaps a good finish Sunday might reignite Daly?

Setting the John Daly over/under at 74.5 in Round 4.  And I am taking the over.

BOOK IT!!

Wade Ormsby. Never heard of him. But it looks like he is blowing up already on the first hole. Just hope poulter doesn't win. It was great to see him blow up yesterday.

Like him or loathe him, but Poulter's playing pretty darn well today. Can he keep it up?
Lowry from penthouse to outhouse in two holes.

Koepka has wobbled a bit in the Final Round of his last few winning opportunities - looking much stronger today though; Poults has his work cut out for him.

Koepka putted today like Nick Taylor last week.
Poults lost it Saturday, but great effort today.
Koepka should be set fair for all the Majors and WGC's for 2015.

kwinigolfer wrote:Koepka putted today like Nick Taylor last week.
Poults lost it Saturday, but great effort today.
Koepka should be set fair for all the Majors and WGC's for 2015.

Yep... he was already qualified for the Masters, U.S. Open and PGA... but this should get him in position to qualify for pretty much the rest of the big events...

Interesting week for American's so far... Not Bubba, but instead David Oh breaks his maiden in Japan, Koepka in Turkey... and Dufner not too bad with a T7 in Thailand. Playing the contrarian view... I figure Cejka wins in America... Chistina Kim on the LPGA... Who knows...???

This course is made for guys like Ken Duke, Jerry Kelly, Givadogga Bohn and Cejka.
Big day for Cejka; maintaining his T3 position would bump him in the reshuffle and get him in to most of the West Coast swing where he's had some form in the past. This looks like his 159th Tour cut, definition of journeyman but seems to have found a magic potion all of a sudden.

EDIT: Dramatic implosion for 36-hole leader Putnam: +8 over his last five holes. Don't much care for him, looks like his young brother could be the star in the family.

kwinigolfer wrote:Dramatic implosion for 36-hole leader Putnam: +8 over his last five holes. Don't much care for him, looks like his young brother could be the star in the family.

Sheesh...  looks like it got worse before it got better... +10 over a 6-hole stretch (+12 over 8 holes)... hate to see that happen to anybody.  Michael's always been a pretty solid citizen in my book though...

Putnam's obviously a good player robo, however temperamentally combustible - saw MThompson and him be total pr1cks to a couple of young lads once, way before either had done much on Tour and quite unnecessary. He'll take a long time to erase that sort of crap from the memory.
Clearly too bright a lad not to "get it" eventually you'd think, but imagine steam is funnelling out of every facial orifice right now.
Not sure what the weather's doing but scores are a little higher than they've been, in the early going at least.

kwinigolfer wrote:Putnam's obviously a good player robo, however temperamentally combustible - saw MThompson and him be total pr1cks to a couple of young lads once, way before either had done much on Tour and quite unnecessary. He'll take a long time to erase that sort of crap from the memory.
Clearly too bright a lad not to "get it" eventually you'd think, but imagine steam is funnelling out of every facial orifice right now.
Not sure what the weather's doing but scores are a little higher than they've been, in the early going at least.

Hate to hear that... I've seen the "passion" before, but not the pri1cklishness (anyone who can take out a sapling with a only two slashes from mid-iron is OK in my book... :-)... but either way... regardless if one had ever done anything on the tour or not, not cool to be a turd to fans regardless of age...

Albatross for Russell Knox on Mayakoba's 7th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not Shot Link's finest hour as they seem to have him playing his third from the fairway.
Regardless, storming start and now right in the shake-up.

EDIT: Or maybe not! Waited for the Golf Channel to confirm it too!
Who know?. Mayakoba has lovely beaches but lousy carrier pigeons.

kwinigolfer wrote:Albatross for Russell Knox on Mayakoba's 7th!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Not Shot Link's finest hour as they seem to have him playing his third from the fairway.
Regardless, storming start and now right in the shake-up.

EDIT: Or maybe not! Waited for the Golf Channel to confirm it too!
Who know?. Mayakoba has lovely beaches but lousy carrier pigeons.

Live scoring is not showing that, but I hope it is true. Knox is on my PGATour fantasy team this week.

Yeah, On mine too. It's still being shown as an albatross on gc's web-page tweet, but no longer on pgatour.com.

Six straight birds for Danny Lee and he now has a the lead. But does he have a head for such heights?
Not so far in his Tour career, but you never know.

EDIT: Now SEVEN straight birds. But the posse is still on his tail.

Whoever wins this event and the last few played. How does that effect the tour exemption status. Is it next season or next 2 seasons? And if you win more then once does it carry extra years on top?

Hi ben,

Exemption for the remainder of the '14/'15 season, plus two seasons after that.

Danny Lee looks like playing the back about 9 shots worse than the front. We've seen it before. Hope Hoffman wins it, brilliant iron shots the past few holes.
Very poor Sunday for all Europeans . . . . . disappointing for Cejka, but still promising for the new year.

beninho wrote:Whoever wins this event and the last few played. How does that effect the tour exemption status. Is it next season or next 2 seasons? And if you win more then once does it carry extra years  on top?

A win gets an exemption for the current season, plus the next two seasons. Each additional win extends your exemption. Up to a maximum of five seasons.

Lets look at an actual example.

Jimmy Walker won three times last season.

He won the Frys which gave him an exemption for the remainder of the 2013-14 season. and the 2014-15 season and the 2015-16 season.

He later won Sony Open which gave him an exemption through the 2016-17 season.

Then he won Pebble beach which gives him an exemption through the 2017-2018 season.

If Jimmy happens to win a tournament this year, it will extend his exemption through the 2018-19 season.

Brooks Kopeka is such a talent, the first of many wins, a good early shout for the Masters imo!

Notable Players in 2nd Stage web-com Q-School.

3 of the Six different 2nd stage sites completed this past week.

Advancing

Tim O'Neal Savannah, GA
Jamie Sindelar Horseheads, NY
Jeff Klauk St. Augustine, FL
Brad Elder Reston, VA
Oliver Goss Knoxville, TN
Craig Barlow Henderson, NV
Rhein Gibson Edmond, OK
Patton Kizzire Gulf Shores, AL
Frank Lickliter Ponte Vedra Beach, FL

Not Advancing

Matt Bettencourt Duncan, SC
J.J. Killeen Ft. Worth, TX
Cory Whitsett St Simons Island, GA
Cliff Kresge
Shaun Micheel Collierville, TN
Parker McLachlin Scottsdale, AZ
Jeff Quinney
Corbin Mills Easley, SC
Pablo Martin United Kingdom
Arjun Atwal Windermere, FL
Daniel Chopra Orlando, FL

===============

Americans are not doing well in EuroT Q-School.

Sorry to see Bettencourt flunk out but at least he and Micheel, Atwal and Chopra have "Past Champion" status.

Pablo Martin needs to return to Espana and contemplate the meaning of life. Such great promise a thing of the distant past.
Stefan Jaeger qualified comfortably though while Colwyn Bay's Ben Briscoe is back to the mini-Tours.
And Matt Hill's a goner; always think of him and Nick Taylor in the same bracket - superstar Canadian amateurs who failed to train on. Until the past fortnight for Taylor anyhow. Now polar opposite directions.

GPB wrote:Americans are not doing well in EuroT Q-School.

GPB's reverse hex in action.

John Hahn shoots 58 today!! Currently T14 in 4th of 6 rounds.

Shoots 79 in Round 2...58 in Round 4.

Ha!
Meant to mention that!! Didn't Shigeki shoot a 58 in a US Open qualie once?
Looks like John's heritage is a little different from James's?!
EDIT: Apparently his grandad played for the Phillies!