PGA Tour: Seoul Searching: Notes from the Ballwasher

1).Not many notes but here are a few.
Kicking off with a somewhat unusual occurrence on the PGA Tour in the past fortnight with consecutive tournaments being won by two different blokes born in the same town. Kevin Na and Michael Kim both took the competitive interest out of their respective Greenbrier and John Deere leaderboards and both were born in Seoul.
Na's something of a Korean version of Charlie Howell, 2 wins now in 370 events - brilliant short game has kept him going, through injuries and the yips, and trips to the bank to deposit $27M in career earnings. And still only 34.
While Kim burst in to media prominence as a promising college player who opened his Tour account with a tip 20 finish at Merion's US Open. 80+ tournaments and 1 x Top Ten finish since, and he never looked like losing his 36-hole lead in the Quad Cities.

2).The summer doldrums on Tour continue this week with an absolutely awful field for their first venture into Kentucky for decades, at the Barbasol Championship. I like the fact that the Pros insist on "opposite field" events for their rank and file to compete in whilst the stars are at WGC's or at The Open, but they might at least back that up by actually entering such tournaments. $3M purse and some clubs would have a stronger field at their Member/Guest. The field includes a dozen or so lesser known Seniors, but happy to see Brittany Lincicome accepting the challenge to canoodle with the guys.
Still, if they can duck bad weather, some guys are going to be thrilled they made the trip to the heart of Kentucky horse country.


3).Along those lines, Michael Kim was one of EIGHT players who look to have sewn up their cards for next year last week: Also Damen, Burgoon, John Huh, Varner, CT Pan, Duncan & Vaughn Taylor.
Others will doubtless follow this week whilst better known stars could be in trouble - McDowell, Danny Lee, Harris English, Lowry to name just a few.

4).Two rounds of The Open are complete and Thomas Bjorn can be entitled to be scratching his head while many top Europeans are struggling for form:
Garcia, Rahm, Cabrera Bello (not picking on Espana), Fitzpatrick, Casey, Poults, Pieters, Hatton, Stenson all struggling for form or fitness. Good job Langer's going well.

5).Matt Kuchar making a promising start to make a big leap in the US qualifying list - remember, if Mickelson & Woods don't make the team, "wisdom" is that they'll be "picks" and Kooch is among those outside the Top 8 right now.

A few people were debating the crossover between sports and the military on the Greenbrier thread a few weeks back. I didn’t get involved at the time but this aligns pretty closely with how I feel on the subject:

http://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2018/07/20/military-sports-astore-francona

Good link, Ned.
And there's nothing anti-military about being anti the military presence in sport.

I always feel it's more political than anything, and usually propogated by politicians who'd run at the thought of military service.

Now the flames are being fanned by the presidential twitterer, especially in the context of the NFL.

Hope that doesn't travel outside the US.


Hunter Mahan playing nicely, very good to see; has his wife's sister's recent death given him a fresh sense of purpose? At Hartford a year or so Steve Foley was consoling Hunner's wife, talking about what a fine career he'd already had. Hopefully such sympathy can soon be regarded as premature.

Steve Foley? Who is he? Do you mean Sean Foley?

Reed, BDeC & Perez teeing it up in Hamburg next week. Good!

I know Reed plays a lot more than most pros but he could find himself signed up for about 8 weeks in a row if he plays G'boro.

A busy month or two for top pros and echo GPB's notion that some might opt to miss Bridgestone.

4 tied for the lead at the Barbasol, including Hunner, three more tied for 2nd just one shot back, incl Horschel. It's a shoot-out, but Power is a long way in arrears, could do with a really low round Sunday just to bolster his FedEx position. Keeping his card will be a touch-and-go proposition for Seamus, just like last year.

GPB wrote:Steve Foley?  Who is he?  Do you mean Sean Foley?

Oh yeah, Sean Foley was too . . . . . . . .

Amazing to think Molinari felt he had to sign up for PGA Tour events this summer because he was unsure of retaining his card.
Won't have that problem again for a few years, provided he can successfully count to 15.


Now, where were we?
The Barbasol action is suspended due to storms right now, but hopefully the birdie binge can get away again soon. Power off to a decent (-2 after 7) start in Round 4 but needs to keep going low.
And for Hunter Mahan as he starts the final round in a four-way tie for the lead.

David Skinns in a share of the Web.com lead on the back nine, having barely made a cut all year. Has there ever been a season with two different English winners on that tour?

Ned,
I can't think of too many that have won one any year, Greg Owen (has he packed it in?) obviously, Gary Christian (commentating at the Barbasol) won two, Jim Fryatt's (saw him play a couple of times!) boy Ed (now back to amateur status I think). Can't honestly think of any others.

NedB-H wrote:David Skinns in a share of the Web.com lead on the back nine, having barely made a cut all year. Has there ever been a season with two different English winners on that tour?

And: Skinns winns . . . . . . good for him; still needs another great result but assured of playing the WTF tournaments.

Seamus doing himself a Power of good. So far.

Monday morning resumption of play at the Barbasol, five-way tie for the lead including Horschel & Hunter.

A top 40 finish in prospect for Seamus Power, but he needs something better than that in his final three tournaments before the end-of-regular season cut-off of the Top 125.

Troy wins on merritt.

pedro wrote:Troy wins on merritt.

He and Adam Scott both reach the Play-Offs after this week's efforts.

Disappointment from Mahan, as he screwed up the two holes (Par 5's) which should have been the passport for recovering his card. But he's earned himself a spot in the Glen Abbey field where, possibly, only a call that his first child was on its way stat, kept him from a Canadian Open win a few years ago.