Jeld-Wen Tradition releases list of players
The Champions Tour's three major winners have all committed to competing in the JELD-WEN Tradition, played at Crosswater Golf Club at Sunriver Resort, Aug. 13–19, 2007, announced the tournament director today. Denis Watson (Senior PGA Champion), Brad Bryant (US Senior Open Champion and currently number two on the Money List), and Tom Watson (Senior British Open Champion) will join the tournament's field of 79.
The list of committed players includes 29 of the current top-30 on the Champions Tour Money List including money leader Jay Haas and former JELD-WEN Tradition champions Tom Watson (2003), Craig Stadler (2004), Loren Roberts (2005) and Eduardo Romero (2006).
"It has been a highly competitive season and with a stellar roster of players committing to the JELD-WEN Tradition, fans can expect to see amazing golf from their favorite players," said Mike Lee, JELD-WEN Tradition tournament director.
Champions Tour newcomers Fred Funk and Mark O'Meara are both expected to make their JELD-WEN Tradition debut this year in addition to Scott Hoch, who has never played in the tournament.
"This will be the first chance many people have had to see these players in person," said Lee. "All three players have had first or second place finishes this year, including O'Meara's second place finish in last week's Senior Open Championship. They should all be major contenders at the JELD-WEN Tradition this year."
Oregon's own Peter Jacobsen and Bob Gilder have also committed to play. For a full list of committed players, visit www.jeld-wentradition.com/tournament_field.
"It is very gratifying to see top players continue to support the event in its first year at its new home," said Gina Monterossi, sports marketing manager for JELD-WEN.
Labels: golf
Best bag company gets more recognition
I'm working on my third Ogio golf bag and I love, they're the best. Below is proof that I must not be the only one who feels that way...
OGIO HONORED BY CLUBCORP, KSL RESORTS WITH PREFERRED VENDOR STATUS BLUFFDALE, Utah (July 25, 2007) - OGIO has been selected as a preferred vendor to two of the country's most prestigious club and resort owner/operators: Dallas-based ClubCorp and La Quinta's KSL Resorts. The announcement was made today by OGIO Executive Vice President Harlan Gardiner. With the selection, OGIO's signature golf bags and accessories will be distributed through more than 170 iconic facilities nationwide through the combined ClubCorp-KSL Resorts Golf Retail Program. Among the most recognized names on this prestigious list are Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio; The Homestead in Hot Springs; Rancho Mirage's Mission Hills Country Club; as well as the Hotel del Coronado and La Costa Resort and Spa. "Now we know how Greg Oden felt when he was named as the Trailblazer's first-round pick this year," Gardiner says. "This selection is a huge testament to OGIO's brand strength in the golf category. We're thrilled to be counted among ClubCorp and KSL's chosen vendors." OGIO's soon-to-be released 2008 stand and cart bag collection will be the first line distributed through the new retail program. In addition, OGIO's three award- winning travel bags, as well as its new shoe bag, head covers, golf duffel, and other accessories, will be available to guests at these world-class destinations. For more information about OGIO's golf and gear bag lineup, visit www.ogio.com.
Labels: golf
British Open: Live Scoring and Streaming Coverage
Don't have a television at your desk? Why not watch live coverage of The Open on the Internet? Right now, the best coverage available is on PGATour.com.
You can watch every swing on the 16th, 17th, and 18th holes and get the most recent updates on the full leaderboard. Labels: british open, golf
British Open: Player says steroids are in use
Gary Player said Wednesday he knows of at least one golfer who has used steroids, and he urged golf organizations to move quickly toward a random drug-testing plan. "We're dreaming if we think it's not going to come into golf," Player said. Player estimated 10 players from tours around the world were taking some type of performance-enhancing drug. Asked how he knew golfers were taking steroids, he said a player told him in confidence. "One guy told me -- and I took an oath prior to him telling me -- but he told me what he did and I could see this massive change in him," Player said. "And somebody else told me something I also promised I wouldn't tell, that verified others had done it." Last year, the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews and the USGA used random testing for the first time at the World Amateur Team Championship in South Africa. All 12 tests came back negative. The LPGA Tour said it would start drug testing next year, while the European and PGA tours also are moving toward drug policies. PGA Tour Tim Finchem said in June that drug testing in sports has become a reality and golf organizations around the world should make sure they're on the same page. "It's unfortunate that these realities are with us, but they are," Finchem said then. "And we have to deal with them, and I think it's important that golf deal with them collectively."
R&A chief executive Peter Dawson supports testing, although he said the professional tours are better suited to develop drug policies. Asked about Player's accusation, Dawson referred to Tiger Woods' comments earlier in the week. Woods, who has come out in favor of drug testing, was asked Tuesday if he would be surprised if a golfer tested positive. "If anything, probably out here it would be testing positive for maybe being hung over a little bit," Woods said. "But that's about it. I know some guys have taken Medrol packs for inflammation in their wrists, but other than that, I really don't see anybody doing anything, or have heard anybody doing anything." Phil Mickelson also said he thought golfers were clean. "I don't think there's even a remote chance that will happen," he said of a golfer testing positive for steroids. Labels: golf
British Open: Sergio hoping for drier conditions
Sergio Garcia would love to see hard and fast conditions for The Open Championship rather than the holding fairways and greens that have been dictated by heavy rain. But the weather outlook for the rest of the week remains uncertain.
"I would love to see this course playing fast and firm like we played last year in Liverpool. But it doesn't look like it's going to be that way," he said as he prepared for his final practice round after a morning of further rain.
"If we don't get somne wind coming, the scores aregoing to be very low. It's going to be easy to get to the fairways. We're going to be able to stop it quite easily on the greens. It's just a matter of what the weather does. It looks like the most important club this week is probably going to be the umbrella. That's never good news."
Referring back to his first experience of Carnoustie in 1999, when he failed to qualifying with rounds of 89-83 to be 30 over par, he said: "It was a little bit out of hand. Also we had quite bad weather, quite difficult playing conditions so that didn't help the way the course was set up. But this year it's a different course.
"Even though the rough is not too bad this year you still lose a bit of control out of it. You still want to be hitting from the fairways as much as possible. Once you start getting to that guessing game, you know, how much is the ball going to release and everything, it's tougher to get going. And to get to some pins you have to be on the fairway. If they tuck them behind the bunkers you can't get to them from the rough."
He struggled with his form at the recent US Open, but feels his game is picking up in time for tomorrow's assault on the Championship. "It's just a matter of getting some good confidence, getting some good momentum on your side, just get going the right way." He considers himself a good wind player, but is no big fan of rain.
Only one shot behind Tiger Woods going into the final round last year at Hoylake, he dropped back into a tie for fifth place after a 73. "Mainly what happened on Sunday the way the tournament was going, I had almost no chance of winning. I put in an excellent round on Saturday (a 65) and gave myself a chance. It's very difficult in a major, and even more a British Open, to try to shoot 65, 66 to get into a play-off. I had a chance of trying to do something good and hopefully win.
"What happened was I didn't get off to a good start. I missed a couple of short putts early on and kind of put myself a little behind the eight-ball. When you get in that situation and things have to go your way. You get a couple of bad bounces and hit a couple of bunkers and it becomes quite difficult. I'm just going to do the same things, put myself in that position again and keep trying and do my best. That's all I can ask for myself and hopefully it's good enough." Labels: golf
British Open: A softer, gentler Carnoustie?
Tiger Woods hit putts with one hand and held his yardage book with the other, studying Carnoustie on Sunday as if he were seeing this links course for the first time in his life.
Considering what happened last time the British Open came here, it all looked so new.
Gone was the rough, so thick at its foundation that it was difficult to see the golf ball, much less hit it. The fairways were far more generous, nothing like Kapalua or a resort course, but certainly wider than the country lane that players faced in 1999.
Woods said it brought back memories of his first trip to Carnoustie -- not 1999 in the British Open, but 1995 and 1996, when he played the Scottish Open at Carnoustie for his first taste of links golf.
"It looks really nice, really fair," Woods said.
Royal & Ancient chief executive Peter Dawson, who regretted how players lambasted the setup in '99, was among those to greet Woods when he finished his practice round. The conversation was private, but Dawson appeared to be pleased by what he heard.
It can't be considered a major without complaints, and certainly there was griping on a sunny, lazy afternoon along the North Sea.
"A bit too easy," David Frost said.
Frost played in the second-to-last group in the final round eight years ago, despite opening with an 80. He wound up in a tie for seventh, finishing at 10-over 294. He was among the few who found no problem with the tight fairways and rough on steroids.
He took far greater issue with a course where he could see his ball off the fairway even as he stood on the tee.
"I think the fairways are very wide and there's no rough," Frost said. "So, it's a little bit of a total opposite to what it was in '99."
Most players would celebrate this change.
"No, it's too lenient," Frost said. "I just think it should have been tighter."
It's probably a good thing Jean Van de Velde isn't around this week to see Carnoustie or he might really be haunted by throwing away the British Open. With a mixture of bad decisions and bad luck, he took triple bogey on the final hole to fall into a three-man playoff that was won by Paul Lawrie.
It is difficult now to reconstruct the sad sequence that cost Van de Velde the claret jug.
His second shot caromed off the bleachers, back across Barry Burn and into rough so deep that the best he could do was chop it into the 6-foot wide burn. He took a drop in grass so mangled that he only managed to get it over the stream and into a bunker.
That would not have happened this week, because there's so such thing as mangled rough right of the 18th fairway, or hardly anywhere else at Carnoustie. In fact, the area in front of the burn is mown closely, not like the front of ponds at Augusta National, but close.
But it is noticeable only by those who were here in 1999.
Steve Stricker had the one of the 102 rounds in the 80s eight years ago, missing the cut. He played Sunday with Jerry Kelly, his pal from junior golf in Wisconsin, and was asked if Carnoustie looked familiar.
"Yeah, it does," he said. "Except for the rough and the width of the fairways."
He remembers narrow fairways that were 20 yards wide, and only a dozen paces between rough lines on some holes.
"The rough was very thick. You were having a hard time getting it to the green," Stricker said. "Now, the rough is not bad at all. You can actually aim at the rough on some of the holes."
But he wasn't calling it a pushover. Far from it.
Engaged in a friendly duel with Kelly, Stricker was down one playing the 18th, at 499 yards and into a slight breeze. He hit a good drive with a tiny draw that landed in the first cut, giving him a clean lie. From there, he had 237 yards to the hole and hit 3-wood that landed on the edge of out-of-bounds to the left of the green.
Even without tiny fairways and deep rough, the defense of Carnoustie and most links courses are bunkers and wind.
K.J. Choi, a two-time winner on the PGA TOUR this year, played Saturday and hit driver and wedge to the 18th. He played Sunday afternoon and hit a driver and a 5-wood to the green.
Choi's memories from 1999 include playing in the last round with Lawrie, whose brilliant 67 to make up a record 10-shot deficit was overlooked by Van de Velde's follies. And Choi remembers Carnoustie as being the toughest major he has ever played.
Not right now.
"You can hit the ball anywhere and find it," Choi said. "You can still see the ball."
Two-time U.S. Open champion Retief Goosen tied for 10th in 1999 at 11 over par, failing to break par any of the four rounds.
"Eleven over won't finish 10th this year," he said with a smile.
Goosen thrives on the toughest tests, but he fears the course setup at majors have gone too far, and have taken some of the fun out of the game for players and spectators alike. Carnoustie was entertaining for all the wrong reasons in 1999.
"You have nothing silly like last time," he said. "The R&A did a great job."
And it apparently did nothing to lessen the test of Carnoustie, long considered the toughest links course in the world. Younger players like Charles Howell III and Sean O'Hair were still teenagers in 1999, watching the fiasco on television.
Both were pleasantly surprised to see that the rough was not nearly as bad. But what got their attention was the 7,421 yards of course, the flapping flags in what the Scots might consider only a wee breeze, and bunkers everywhere they looked.
"I wasn't here in '99," Howell said. "I thought it was tough."
Labels: british open, golf
Tiger's caddie calling it quits?
Steve Williams has no intention of quitting his job as caddie to Tiger Woods, the New Zealand native said in a newspaper interview published Sunday.
Williams told New Zealand's Sunday Star-Times he didn't know why rumors were circulating he was about to end his lucrative eight-year partnership with Woods, the world's No. 1-ranked golfer.
"I need to get a few people off my back over this," Williams said. "I've been inundated with e-mails and text messages and requests for interviews but I haven't responded to anybody and this is the one and only statement I'll make on it.
"A rumor started last week that I was to retire at the end of the year and there's no truth to that rumor. If I was to retire, Tiger would be the first one to know."
Reports of a possible split between Woods and Williams surfaced earlier this month when Woods was said to have approached Billy Foster, caddie to Briton Darren Clarke, to gauge his future availability.Labels: golf
Tour Roundup - 07/16/07
PGA Tour - Byrd keeps Clark from the winner's circle
Jonathan Byrd didn't like the leaderboard on his way to the 14th hole, and things weren't looking much better for him when his tee shot sailed wide right. Then, his fortunes changed.
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European Tour - Mickelson bogeys his way to second place
A faulty driver cost Lefty his first European Tour win, as France's Gregory Havret rallied to win the Scottish Open on the first playoff hole Sunday.
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LPGA - Pak wins another Farr
Trailing briefly by three strokes after Morgan Pressel aced the sixth hole, Se Ri Pak regained the lead with a birdie at the 15th hole and held on to tie an LPGA record with her fifth win at the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic on Sunday.
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Labels: golf
Tour Roundup - 07/09/07
Choi wins Tiger's Tournament
For the second time in five weeks, the biggest South Korean star of the PGA TOUR soaked up the cheers as the prized guest at a golf party thrown by one of golf's greats. Having accepted the crystal trophy from host Nicklaus at the Memorial in late May, K.J. Choi persevered in an adventurous back nine for a three-stroke victory Sunday at Woods' inaugural event, the AT&T National.
"This tournament is just too big for me to really absorb right now," Choi said. "But it's a very big win for me, and definitely the biggest win of my career."
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Watson fails again in bid for US Senior Open title
Brad Bryant fired a 4-under 68 Sunday to win the U.S. Senior Open as third-round leader Tom Watson collapsed on the back nine.
Bryant collected his first major championship win and fourth Champions Tour crown as he finished at 6-under-par 282.
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Monty returns to the winner's circle
Colin Montgomerie shot a 5-under 65 Sunday to win the European Open after 19 months without a title.
The 44-year-old Scot had seven birdies to come from four shots behind and finish with an 11-under 269 and win his first title since the Hong Kong Open in December 2005.
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Van de Velde to skip Carnoustie
Jean van de Velde will miss the British Open's return to Carnoustie, where he squandered a three-shot lead on the last hole. The French player, who eventually lost a three-man playoff to Paul Lawrie at Carnoustie in 1999, has suffered from a virus for more than three months.
Because of his low ranking, van de Velde would need to play next week's Scottish Open at Loch Lomond and earn the only qualifying spot for the July 19-22 British Open. But his agent, Jamie Cunningham, said Friday that the golfer would instead have further medical tests.
"He knows what pulling out of the Scottish Open means and he is bitterly disappointed about it, but he does not think there is any point going there not feeling competitive," Cunningham said. "He does not feel 100 percent confident of playing four rounds, so reluctantly is withdrawing. Hopefully it won't be long before he's back."
Van de Velde has been feeling ill since the Portuguese Open in early April.Labels: british open, golf
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