Australia’s Geoff Ogilvy defends his title at Kapalua as he wins the USPGA’s season-opening SBS Championship by a stroke.
11 Jan
10
Tag: Golf
3 Jan
10
Colin Montgomerie believes Europe will regain the Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor this year regardless of whether Tiger Woods plays for the United States.
17 Dec
09
(AP Photo/Peter Morrison)
The Welshman, of Whitchurch Golf Club, played in four successive Walker Cups between 2001 and 2007, winning four matches, losing five and tying three.
Edwards’ team will try to win back the Walker Cup from the United States at the Royal Aberdeen Golf Club in 2011.
“I am delighted to have been invited to be the next Great Britain and Ireland Walker Cup captain,” Edwards said.
“It is a great honour for me, my family and for Welsh golf and I look forward to the challenges that lie ahead.”
Edwards, 41, will also captain the GB & Ireland team as they take on the Continent of Europe in the St Andrews Trophy Match at Castelconturbia Golf Club, Italy, next year.
The United States retained the Walker Cup last September with a 16.5-9.5 victory over Great Britain and Ireland at the Merion Golf Club in Pennsylvania.
19 Nov
09
After eight months out after reconstructive surgery on the knee Tiger Woods said he feels fitter than ever ahead of this week’s WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in Arizona.
“I didn’t think it would feel this good, I have not known what it is like to feel this way before, so healthy, solid and secure,” he said.
“I am doing the same things I have always been trying to do but now I have got a leg I can do it on.”
The tournament, which begins on Wednesday, will be Woods’ first since winning the US Open at Torrey Pines last June.
The 33-year-old ended his 2008 campaign after revealing he had played with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and a double stress fracture of the tibia below it. Woods has been back practising at full power in Arizona and said the signs are looking good.
“The strength in both legs feels a lot stronger than it has ever been with stability I have not had in years.
“Basically practise went really well, I felt really good to be back in a competitive environment.”
Woods will face Australian Brendan Jones in the first round on Wednesday, and the world number one will be wary as he has lost to Australians three times in this tournament.
Peter O’Malley beat woods in the first round in 2002 and Nick O’Hern got the better of him in the second and third rounds in 2005 and in 2007.
World number 64 Jones hopes that he can continue the trend.
“It’s a chance of a lifetime,” said the Australian. “I’m very, very excited,” said Jones.
“It is one of the most anticipated comebacks in any sport and to have a front row seat is a great honour.”
“Tiger came out and said that he was going to play and I was overjoyed. It’s the chance to play probably the best player of my generation.”
“My friends have all said, ‘you can beat him, you can beat him. It’s a different format, matchplay’s a funny game, anything can happen.”
Jones, 33, has spent much of his career in Japan, where he has won eight titles – most recently the Tsuruya Open in April 2007.
His only season on the USPGA Tour was 2005, when he finished 144th on the money list.
With his Japanese schedule not due to start until April, Jones said he had not even been practising in the run-up to the Match Play.
“Obviously, I know I’m a longshot. I have got nothing to lose. I can just go out, be a lot more aggressive than what I normally would be. And if you say what are my chances, I have some sort of chance,” he said.
“I didn’t fly all this way to try to lose. I’m here to try to beat him.”
But in saying that he has to feel ominous that Woods will come out with all guns blazing, proving to himself and the world of golf that he is back with all his prior prowess.
It is also good for golf that he is returning and with his personality, skill and media pulling power the game will get an undoubted boost. This comes at a time when all sport is starting to feel the heat from the ‘credit-crunch’ and tournemant organisers will be be pleased to have the draw that Tiger brings to any event.
19 Nov
09
Confident
he can still be competitive at the majors after his stunning British Open performance last year, Greg Norman is using the Johnnie Walker Classic in Perth this week to start fine-tuning for a 23rd shot at the U.S. Masters.
The 54-year-old Norman led the British Open at Royal Birkdale by two strokes after three rounds last July and finished in a tie for third place. That was good enough to earn an invitation to the Masters in April.
He last played the Masters in 2002 and his most famous run at Augusta National was six years before that, when he lost to Nick Faldo after holding a six-stroke lead going into the final round.
“I’ve had some great experiences there and I’ve had some bad experiences there, but at the same time it all neutralizes over my whole career there,” Norman said Wednesday.
He’s aiming to make the cut this year, saying experience allows him a mature approach.
“I’ve always been a believer: Age is really not anything but a number, as long as you keep yourself in good shape,” he said. “That’s why I don’t really need to be like a 21-year-old or an 18-year-old thinking about (the Masters) months and months and months in advance.”
Norman, who won the 1994 Johnnie Walker Classic in Thailand, will tee off in a group with No. 9-ranked Carmilo Villegas and No. 12 Lee Westwood when the tournament starts today at The Vines.
News Flash Update
Robert-Jan Derksen fired a blistering eight-under-par 64 to take the first round lead in the Johnnie Walker Classic on Thursday with Singaporean Mardan Mamat leading the chasing pack.
The flying Dutchman crafted a flawless round which included eight birdies at The Vines Resort and Country Club to lead by one stroke from Mardan, who carried Asia’s charge for a first victory in the prestigious tournament, and Australian Tony Carolan.
Irishman Damien McGrane and English duo Lee Westwood and John Bickerton were a further stroke back while last week’s Maybank Malaysian Open winner Anthony Kang of the United States and newly installed European Ryder Cup captain Colin Montgomerie were amongst those bunched on 67.
Australian great Greg Norman, making his first appearance on home soil since 2006, endured a frustrating day on the greens en route to a 75. American Anthony Kim opened with a bogey-free 68 and Camilo Villegas of Colombia, ranked ninth in the world, sank a last-hole eagle to salvage a 72 on a sun-baked day at The Vines.
American Anthony Kim is skipping a tournament in California to get a feel for the European Tour, while India’s Shiv Kapur and China’s Liang Wenchong are among the leading candidates to be the first Asian Tour player to win the tournament that started in 1990 at Hong Kong.
Norman said he was serious about trying to win another Johnnie Walker, joining Tiger Woods and Faldo as two-time winners.
“If I come and play a golf tournament, I’m going to give it my best shot,” he said. “I always stay focused in what’s happening right now. If I start thinking about what’s going to happen in five weeks from now or six weeks, then I’m not preparing myself.”
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