Stat profiles for 1500 golfers
Victory moves him to sixth in the world, and he could go higher
After winning both the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship and U.S. Open in 2006, Geoff Ogilvy has been on the verge of reaching the highest echelon in golf. That's where he has remained--on the verge, but not quite there.
But a victory in the season-opening Mercedes-Benz Championship has observers feeling that he could be ready to take the next step. Of course, it's easy to jump on the bandwagon of the player who wins the first event of the season, especially when he has a sweet swing like Ogilvy and wins by six strokes. It takes more than one event to make a season, but Ogilvy is certainly off to an impressive start and is now ranked sixth in the world.
It's a dramatic contrast from last year, when Ogilvy's West Coast swing consisted of three missed cuts and a first-round exit from the WGC-Accenture Match Play. This time he was better prepared entering the season (his second child was born in January 2008), and it showed.
Doug Ferguson of the Associated Press writes that Ogilvy needs only to gain more consistency in order to join the elite, and the signs are good since he is coming off a win at the Australian PGA Championship and is on a hot streak. Martin Blake in The Age writes that the thing that makes Ogilvy the top Aussie, separating him from Adam Scott, Stuart Appleby, and Robert Allenby, is his performance in the bigger events.
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Second-place finish at Mercedes helps his push to make the Masters
Davis Love III made a big move towards making the field at the Masters as his second-place finish at the Mercedes-Benz Championship moved him to 54th in the Official World Golf Ranking. The top 50 as of a week before the Masters automatically get invitations.
It's a big difference from the start of 2008, which Love missed due to ankle surgery the previous September. He wasn't able to start his season until February and didn't post a finish better than T19 until the Fall Series.
The 44-year-old proved last fall that he wasn't finished yet, with four top-11 finishes capped by a victory at the season's final event at Disney. Now he looks like he might be poised for a run at regaining a spot among the elite.
Love was ranked 166th in the world before winning at Disney, which helped him move up to 77th entering the Mercedes. He missed last year's Masters, breaking a string of playing in 70 straight majors, but did play in the other three majors in 2008.
Bill Kwon in the Honolulu Adversiter writes about Love and his affinity for Kapalua. Love has had a lot of success there, winning a total of $1.9 million in 16 starts, counting both the old, unofficial Kapalua Invitational and the Mercedes-Benz Championship. He has two wins (both at the Kapalua Invitational), four seconds, and two thirds.
The second-place finish was the 30th of Love's career, coming on the heels of his 20th victory at Disney. In addition to moving him closer to his Masters goal, the runner-up finish puts Love in very good position to qualify for the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship at the end of the West Coast Swing. The top 64 in the world ranking make the field.
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Feels that he is ready to win again, but you have to wonder what the hills of the Plantation Course will do for the injury
According to Todaysgolfer.co.uk Vijay Singh has switched from Titleist to Srixon for 2009. Very strange after having a career season like he did winning the FedEx Cup and money title.
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Singh used the new Launcher driver from Cleveland in his win at last months Chevron World Challenge and was happy considering the risk of putting new equipment in during a tournament. But he felt happy keeping it play at Sherwood C.C.
One thing that is a bit of a mystery is why Singh decided to skip playing in the Sony Open in Hawaii, withdrawing on Monday.
(Updated, Wed Jan. 7th)
In a late development it has been learned in this report from Paul Arnett in the Honolulu Star Bulletin the reason for Singh pulling out of the Sony Open in Hawaii and has an effect for all fantasy golf players. Despite not getting official announcement from the PGA Tour or Singh, Arnett has learned that Singh has a torn meniscus in his knee and needs to have surgery to repair the injury. Supposedly he will be out for five weeks due to the surgery and even with the problem and the hilly Plantation Course Singh still plans on playing. Still for fantasy golf players it doesn't seem like he will be a good choice for the week, still you know what they say, "beware of the injured player",
More on Singh's problems come from Dave Shedloski on Golf Digest site. Singh seems to have hurt the knee three weeks ago while winning the Chevron World, An MRI revealed the small tear two weeks ago. As for the reason for withdrawing from the Sony Open, a tournament he won in 2005 it seems that Singh wants to play in the AT&T Pebble Beach where he will be paired with son Qass. So with a recovery of between three to five weeks having the procedure done next week helps him get ready for the AT&T. Still a bit strange that he would of flown all the way from Florida to Maui, almost 6,000 miles with a bum knee just to turn around and go back for the surgery. Why he didn't have it done over the holidays is a bit of a mystery who knows, maybe the hills of the Plantation Course took it's tool on Singh during practice rounds and that was the reason for the change.
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One of the big things that Geoff Ogilvy wants to do at the Mercedes is play well. He told Cameron Morfit in his story at Golf.Com: "'m looking forward to getting started. Before last year I had a pretty crazy off-season and then had my second baby in January. The clubs were in the closet and I didn't really do much. I had a real traditional off-season that everyone used to have 30 years ago, but now everyone practices harder in the off-season."
Ogilvy missed his first three cuts and then in the WGC-Accenture Match Play lost in the first round. Things did get better for him as he was T10th at the PODS, then T14th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational followed by the win at the WGC-CA. The next week he was T2nd at Shell Houston but didn't have a finish higher than 7th at Colonial.
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Despite playing at the Mercedes for the first time has played the Plantation Course over a dozen times.
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'I would probably say I have played that course 25 times,'' McLachlin said to writer Robert Collias who wrote this story. ''I know the course is built for the trade winds, and having grown up in Hawaii, I always enjoy playing in the wind. I would be at a disadvantage with no wind, but usually there is a fair amount of wind there. Hopefully I will be able to use that to my advantage.''
McLachlin got to Maui thanks to winning the Legends Reno-Tahoe Open. In 2008 he made 17 of 27 cuts, earning $1.3 million and finished three times in the top-ten. One of those top-ten was in the Sony Open in Hawaii were he finished T10h so look for him again as another sleeper pick. McLachlin is one of just four PGA Tour winners from Hawaii - Ted Makalena, David Ishii and Dean Wilson are the others - and he will take the time to talk to Wilson about his experience here in 2007 when Wilson finished 29th.
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Imada to take over the ''the man from Japan'' status from Shigeki Maruyama
Ryuji Imada is the only Japanese-born player in the 31-man field. According to Robert Collias in his story at Maui News, in the recent past, Japan's headliner on the PGA Tour has been Shigeki Maruyama, who played at the Kapalua Plantation Course in 2002, 2003 and 2004. Maruyama has scaled back his PGA Tour slate, however, catapulting Imada to, as he puts it, ''the man from Japan'' status. So he knows he will have extra commitments to keep the Japanese media and fans dialed in. He looks forward to the Kapalua challenge even though its a new experience for him:
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''If it is playing firm and fast, then sure it fits me,'' Imada said. ''If it is kind of slow and wet, I don't know that it fits my game. I am definitely not a long hitter. I am definitely hoping that is fast and firm. Your short game has got to be in great shape. If the golf course is that long, you know you are going to miss some greens, so it comes down to putting, mainly. You just have got to make some putts. It is not as much, 'How you are playing?' It is, 'How you are putting?'
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Photo by Stan Badz/PGA Tour
Feels that he has a great shot despite short hitting
Marc Turnesa's life changed last year when he won the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. With the win it got him to the Mercedes-Benz Championship which he has seen many times on TV but playing for the first time. According to Robert Collias in his story at Maui News, Turnesa feels that he has a great chance at Kapalua, despite hitting it so short. Turnesa averaged 285.1 yards with his driver in 2008, 117th on tour, said he hopes the wind shows up on the 7,411-yard Plantation layout. By far his best statistical rank last season was putting - an average of 1.758 strokes per green - where he stood 18th on tour. "I like playing in the wind,'' he said. ''I usually like the wind and I seem to play well in the wind. I know I don't want it to be a driving contest.''
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So what is Greg Norman doing to get himself ready to play in the Masters this spring.
A year ago Greg Norman was nothing more than a former player that had interest in other areas other than winning golf tournaments.
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Norman played in a few PGA Tour events last year, at the AT&T so that he could be paired with his son Gregory, an aspiring golfer. He also played at the Mayakoba Golf Classic and the AT&T Classic, held on his signature designed courses. He also played in the Champion tour majors, but when he teed it up at the British Open he didn't expect that it would change his future, at least for the next nine months.
Norman, who got into the event as a past champion, played beyond himself and didn't look like the 52 year-old part-time golfer that enjoyed playing more with his son and wife than in competition. After rounds of 70-70 he was in second place one off the lead and with a third round 72 he led by two shots. The final round was ugly to be truthful, we honestly don't know if that old major jinx just got to him or if Norman couldn't hide the pressure that he honestly hadn’t experienced since the 1986 Masters the last time he led a PGA Tour event going into the final round.
One thing that came out of the British Open was that Norman finished T3rd and with it gets an invitation to the Masters, a tournament that he has played in 22 times, the last being in 2002. But what makes the Masters so intriguing is the fact that he has finished runner-up three times, contented nine times on the back nine in the final round and probably has the reputation as the best Masters player not the win the event. Despite always being a very positive person, he has always regretted not winning the Masters. Many thought that when he played the last time in 2002, when he left on Sunday afternoon it would be his last trip down Magnolia Drive.
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"If you're going to go play in the Masters, then you've got to start getting your game into preparation," Norman said. "Quite honestly, I don't play a lot of golf. I still work out a lot, but my workout routine is different than what my golf routine workout is. So I have to get back into that schedule and the special exercises and stretching and stuff like that which is golf specific. I'm going to have my expectation the same level as when I went into the British Open, because I haven't played that golf course for, I think, six years now."
In a story done by Bob Harig for ESPN, Norman didn't play that much between the U.S. Senior Open in August and the Merrill Lynch Shootout in December. He will play in the Senior Skins Game in a couple of weeks then really focus in on it with a lot of practicing. Norman has tentative plans to compete in the Dubai Desert Classic in the United Arab Emirates and is committed to play the Johnnie Walker Classic in Perth, Australia, both European Tour events. Then he'll return to Florida, where he is considering playing in a couple of March PGA Tour events and maybe in Houston the week prior to the Masters. He also plans a spring visit to Augusta National before tournament week.
He also told Harig that his som e Gregory will caddie for him and "I will go there with good feelings, but I know people are going to bring up the bad ones, too," he said. "You have to go there with an open mind. Bring it on. Because it's going to be brought up anyway. I'll go there with more good feelings than bad."
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Photo by Ian Walton/Getty Images
Singh had a great year in '08 but wants it to be even better in '09.
One of the players to look for in 2009 could be Jeev Milkha Singh. Despite being 37 he won the Asian Order of Merit and won four times around the world on the European Tour, Asian Tour and Japan Golf Tour. He played in two majors and finished T25th at the Masters and T9th at the PGA Championship. He has quietly raised himself up to 35 on the world ranking and will contend on the PGA Tour in '09.
According to himself in this story he wrote for the Gulfnews.com , he says how very tired he was toward the end of the season and how he plans on cutting back. In his words: "It's a New Year, and my resolution for 2009 is to take better care of my body. I suffered numerous injuries last year, and as I step into what could be my biggest season yet, I want to be physically fit and mentally refreshed for every tournament I enter. In this regard, I have decided to cut down my number of tournaments. On an average I play 38 weeks in a year, but I will play around 32 from now on. Let's see how this works out."
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Since he won't be at the Mercedes, Furyk won't start 2009 until the AT&T Pebble Beach pro-am
For a guy like Jim Furyk he has always been use to playing in the Mercedes-Benz Championship. Since the event moved to Kapalua in 1999 he has only missed one, in 2005 and that was because he was hurt most of '04.
One of the reasons Furyk loves the event is because he has a vacation home across the canyon from the 18th green at the Plantation course at Kapalua, so in a way the Mercedes is like a vaction for him. So it's a perfect place for him to start the year and then travel over to Honolulu for the Sony Open.
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"It's basically the same schedule I've run in the past. I'll miss the first five weeks, which is basically the same schedule I've always played in the past, but without being at Mercedes, I chose not to go out to Sony. That's actually one of my favorite events, but to get ready around the holidays -- honestly, if I had one spot that I disliked about our schedule year in and year out, it's that the day after Christmas I'm worried about getting ready for an event and going out to Mercedes. It's actually probably not fair to my family, not fair to my kids, and I have the opportunity this year to not go and maybe pick up another event along the way.
I love the Sony Open, love the golf course. I've won there and lost in a playoff, and I've had a lot of great finishes, so I'll miss it. But that'll be good family time for me. Hopefully I win a bunch this coming year and I'd love to go back and play Mercedes and Sony. "
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