PGA Tour: No Tournaments for Six Weeks: Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

1).Not much to write about so I won't write it. Fine win for Brooks Koepka though, and difficult not to agree with "sirbenson" that he's a good shout for The Masters, especially if he can putt like he did last Sunday.
He'd wobbled on two or three Sundays previously when in serious back-nine contention. Not this time though. Impressive display.
Good to see Poulter snap out of his year-long funk - and now he has Greg Norman's offer of a tip: "Mate noticed something in your putting when I watched you this week. Easy fix." That's good.  

2).The broadcasters have been reminding us that four of last autumn's six PGA Tournament winners qualified for the Tour Championship: Walker, Kirk, Simpson and Johnson, whilst English and Moore were close as well.
Not sure that all of Bae, Ben Martin, Streb, Ryan Moore (again), Bubba, Taylor and Charley Hoffman will have the same success, but these are good tournaments with far-reaching rewards. All winners will be exempt thru the 2016/2017 season, at least, have dates at the TOC, Players and PGA, while Billy Payne will be dropping a line to all except Nick Taylor (because his win was "opposite field").
Amazing iron shots from Hoffman on his final nine holes last Sunday - always regarded as a marvellous iron player and certainly showed it in Mexico.  

3).It's repetitive to scribble on about the futility of the autumnal efforts by Brian Davis and Harrington, nine more months for that, but several British golfers got themselves off to a good start; Knox, Laird and Westwood already have at least a third of the points needed for the Top 125, and McDowell's not far behind. We can only hope that Poulter's recent form is not a flash in the pan, but imagine Casey and Donald should be revising their Tour schedules - both likely to be way behind come late February if they keep to their normal schedules.
South African Richard Sterne qualified for the Tour via the web.com Finals, made no cuts and no money and is dead last in the "reshuffle", meaning starts for Richie will be few and very far between.  

4).Lots of silly season notes: Dustin Johnson is threatening to return for San Diego, Phil's spending time in the gym, Tiger's p1ssed off with an octogenarian columnist, Phil's lost weight, Dustin won't return until Paulina has their(?) baby or until Wayne says he can, Phil's taken a job as assistant golf coach at Arizona State (terrible photos of him in ghastly calf-length white shorts), Tiger's hitting balls, etc, etc.
Who cares?!?! Still interested in Vijay's litigation against the Tour though; it's only been going on for 18 months and no sign of a court date.

5).And it's Q-School week.
Final Stage for Champions Tour Q-School in aptly named Winter Gardens in Florida. Suffice to say the only British competitors, Golding & Barry Lane, finished Round 1 outside the Top 50.

And Stage 2 of web.com Q-School concludes this week - no significant European Tour entrants involved. In a couple of weeks we'll know if any sail over for Final Stage.
They certainly didn't last year and can't see why this year should be any different. Where's the incentive unless they want to waste a year of their career on something that's purely speculative - worst case is they'd get injured and enter 2016 with no status anywhere?
Best case is that they stay home, play well in Majors and WGC's when they earn the chance, and try to follow in the footsteps of Jamie Donaldson and Victor Dubuisson. Hopefully the Ryder Cup hangovers for both will wash away in the New Year. Mine too.

Lowry certainly gets into the WGC-Cadillac, along with some others not previously exempt:
Stenson, Siem, RFisher, Donaldson, Koepka, Gallacher, Levy, Luiten, Oosthuizen, Bjorn, Poulter, McDowell, Fleetwood and Ilonen.

And the Top 30 in the R2D earned spots at St.Andrews in July. Those not previously exempt include:
Siem, Koepka, Levy, Wattel, Luiten, Ilonen, RFisher, Fleetwood, Jimenez, Jaidee, Coetzee, Willett, Warren, Larrazabal, Blixt.

Official additions to the NEDBank field include Kevin Na ( ), Ross Fisher and Tim Clark.

Still 15-ish spots to fill - hopefully they'll announce Lowry's inclusion soon.

Positive confirmation now on the NEDBank web-site that Lowry's in next week's field.
Also added are King Louis, Fleetwood, Koepka, van Tonder, Ilonen, Siem, Luiten, Warren, Coetzee, Willett, Levy, Larrazabal & Blixt.
This week's Cape Town Open winner will join them.

3 Open Championship places up for grabs in Sydney this week - top three not already exempt.

kwinigolfer wrote:Positive confirmation now on the NEDBank web-site that Lowry's in next week's field.
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Hope local big game hunters don't mistake him for one of the Big Five... Don't venture too much off the fairway Shane!

pedro wrote:

kwinigolfer wrote:Positive confirmation now on the NEDBank web-site that Lowry's in next week's field.
.

Hope local big game hunters don't mistake him for one of the Big Five... Don't venture too much off the fairway Shane!

Shane announced his engagement to girlfriend Wendy recently, best of luck to both of them.

Hope to see Shane make another big push in the rankings next year.

incontinentia wrote:Shane announced his engagement to girlfriend Wendy recently, best of luck to both of them.

Hope to see Shane make another big push in the rankings next year.

Hopefully "Wendy" is not a diminutive name  for "Wyndham", or else SuperRealist might have another conniption.

Congrats to Shane and Wendy.

Wendy is actually a made up name from Peter Pan (or that might be an old wives tale)

If I recall from the pictures I think Shane is punching above his considerable weight with her, wonder what she sees in the repulsively proportioned millionaire Lowry?

Shane and Wendy's - a great combo. All you have to do is go on to the website wendys.com to see what Shane sees in her.

raycastleunited wrote:Shane and Wendy's - a great combo. All you have to do is go on to the website wendys.com to see what Shane sees in her.

ray!  
"Bacon Portaballa Melt on Brioche. The Double Stack double snack."

You chaps certainly are making a meal out of this particular issue. Don't over-egg the pudding...

quite easy to see why she would plump for him

super_realist wrote:Wendy is actually a made up name from Peter Pan (or that might be an old wives tale)

If I recall from the pictures I think Shane is punching above his considerable weight with her, wonder what she sees in the repulsively proportioned millionaire Lowry?

For someone who hasn't had sex in about 5 years that is a bold statement.