Breaking Down Corey Pavin’s Most Likely Ryder Cup Picks

Filed under: PGA, Ryder Cup

Flick the lights. It’s last call.

Tuesday in New York, one day after this week’s Deutsche Bank Championship is scheduled to be completed, U.S. Ryder Cup team captain Corey Pavin announces his four at-large picks for the October matches in Wales.

Eight players — Phil Mickelson, Hunter Mahan, Bubba Watson, Steve Stricker, Jim Furyk, Jeff Overton, Dustin Johnson, and Matt Kuchar — already have secured spots on the team off a two-year points system.

Now Pavin gets the chance to put his lasting fingerprints on the team that will be a heavy underdog at Celtic Manor.

Only Mickelson (seven), Mahan (one), Stricker (one) and Furyk (six) have Ryder Cup experience.

“I am excited at the mix of youth, experience, aggressiveness and consistency of these players,” Pavin has said.

But the team’s success will inevitably be determined by Pavin’s four captain’s picks.

 

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PGA Tour Suspends Rule That Led to Jim Furyk’s Barclays Disqualification

Filed under: PGA

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem has suspended the regulation that resulted in Jim Furyk’s disqualification last week from the Barclays after he was late to his pro-am starting time.

For the remainder of the year, a similar situation will be handled as a matter of unbecoming conduct. A player guilty of a similar offense will be required to participate in the remainder of the pro-am round and may be required to perform additional sponsor activity. A player who misses his pro-am obligation in its entirety will still be ruled ineligible for the tournament unless he has been excused in accordance with the provisions of the regulations.

The matter will receive further discussion at the Policy Board meeting in November.

Phil Mickelson made a solid argument why the old rule was a bad one: not all players are required to participate in pro-am competitions.

“The rule itself applies to only half the field,” Mickelson says. “So if you’re going to have a rule that does not apply to everybody, because not everybody played the pro-am, you cannot have it affect the competition.

“It’s got to be a different penalty. It can’t be disqualification if it only applies to half the field. So this rule — it’s not protecting the players. It’s not protecting the sponsors. It applies to only half the field and yet it affects the integrity of the competition.

“I have no idea how the commissioner let this rule go through.”

 

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Matt Kuchar for Player of the Year? Yeah, It’s Been That Weird of a Year

Filed under: PGA, Ryder Cup, FedEx Cup, Sports Business and Media

The only way the PGA Tour 2010 season could get much stranger is if right in the middle of this week’s Deutsche Bank Championship at TPC Boston — the second in the four-event FedEx Cup playoff series — a hurricane hits the New England coastline and …

Uh, oh.

So far this year Tiger went tabloids and Phil went to an arthritis specialist, meaning the top two players in the world ranking have a combined one victory. Three guys who couldn’t get through the clubhouse buffet line without photo ID when the year began have won the last three majors. Dustin Johnson learned that a bunker does not always look like a bunker. Jim Furyk, not exactly a night stalker, overslept and was disqualified from last week’s FedEx opener. And Matt Kuchar suddenly is the leading candidate for player of the year.

Unless he gets blown away this weekend.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center is projecting a strong possibility of Hurricane Earl swiping New England, warning coastal residents from North Carolina to Maine to watch the storm closely. Early predictions suggest a weekend arrival.

 

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Dustin Johnson Moving on From Bunker-Gate

Filed under: PGA, PGA Championship, FedEx Cup

Dustin Johnson’s introduction to the frequent unfairness of golf came quickly, back when he was an early teen growing up in South Carolina and playing in a junior tournament.

Johnson remembers owning a two-shot lead going to the final hole. He was in the middle of the fairway. His opponent was not.

“He had blown it right up underneath a tree and I remember he skulled it,” Johnson said. “And there’s a big mound in front. It went over the mound. You could hear it hit the flag and went in the hole. Probably never happen again in a million years.”

Johnson missed the green, chipped up and failed to save par.

“He beat me by one,” he recalled.

Johnson told the story this week at Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J.. before Thursday’s opening round of the Barclays, the first event in the PGA Tour’s FedExCup playoff series. The walk down memory lane came as the result of a more recent surprise flogging the game inflicted on Johnson.

Less that two weeks ago on the final hole of regulation play at the PGA Championship, Johnson received a two-shot penalty for grounding his club in a bunker that he didn’t know was a bunker. It was his fault. Whistling Straits has some wacky local rules and Johnson didn’t read the pre-tournament announcement.

 

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Dustin Johnson Moving on From Bunker-Gate

Filed under: PGA, PGA Championship, FedEx Cup

Dustin Johnson’s introduction to the frequent unfairness of golf came quickly, back when he was an early teen growing up in South Carolina and playing in a junior tournament.

Johnson remembers owning a two-shot lead going to the final hole. He was in the middle of the fairway. His opponent was not.

“He had blown it right up underneath a tree and I remember he skulled it,” Johnson said. “And there’s a big mound in front. It went over the mound. You could hear it hit the flag and went in the hole. Probably never happen again in a million years.”

Johnson missed the green, chipped up and failed to save par.

“He beat me by one,” he recalled.

Johnson told the story this week at Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J.. before Thursday’s opening round of the Barclays, the first event in the PGA Tour’s FedExCup playoff series. The walk down memory lane came as the result of a more recent surprise flogging the game inflicted on Johnson.

Less that two weeks ago on the final hole of regulation play at the PGA Championship, Johnson received a two-shot penalty for grounding his club in a bunker that he didn’t know was a bunker. It was his fault. Whistling Straits has some wacky local rules and Johnson didn’t read the pre-tournament announcement.

 

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Notebook: Tiger Woods Still Has Chance in FedExCup

Filed under: PGA, Ryder Cup, FedEx Cup

The PGA Tour’s FedExCup, a four-tournament playoff series that culminates with the Tour Championship and a boat-load of bonus money for the ultimate winner, gets under way this week with The Barclays. And the more things change the more they have remained the same.

As has been the case since the postseason competition was introduced in 2007, Tiger Woods will draw much of the focus. He has won two of the three years, giving way to Vijay Singh in 2009 only when he was missing because of knee surgery.

This year, however, the attention is being created by the very-real possibility that the playoffs will advance without the world’s No. 1 ranked (at least for now) player.

The top 125 players off the current points list earned invitations this week to Ridgewood CC in Paramus, N.J. After play is completed Sunday, the top 100 advance to the second round.

 

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Arjun Atwal a Surprise PGA Tour Winner

Filed under: PGA

The six-foot putt for par that Arjun Atwal jarred on the 72nd hole Sunday to win the PGA Tour’s Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C., was more than the deciding stoke in a one-shot victory. It was just crazy significant.

Count the ways.

The 37-year-old from Asansol, India became his country’s first PGA Tour winner.

Without PGA Tour status after losing his card when a minor medical exemption ran out, he earned a spot in the tournament field through Monday qualifying — and a Monday qualifier had not won on the PGA Tour in 24 years.

Also, not only was Atwal previously winless on the PGA Tour, just three times in seven seasons had he held a tournament lead and never after 54 holes. But he set the pace at Sedgefield Country Club from an opening round 61 and headed into Sunday with a three-shot advantage.

If you need a reminder of the difficulty that accompanies a final-round lead, consider last week’s PGA Championship: Nick Watney held a 3-stroke lead three days before a final-round 81 resulted in a T18 finish.

So give it up for Atwal.

“I don’t think it’s sunk in yet, you know, seriously,” he said. “Obviously, (it) was a long time dream of mine to win out here but, you know, until it happens, you know, you just keep doubting yourself. And believe me, I had my doubts teeing it up today even with the lead, with a three-shot lead or whatever it was.

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The Ryder Final Four, Another Golf Scandal and Lefty Inching Toward No. 1

Filed under: PGA, PGA Championship, Ryder Cup, Sports Business and Media

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — U.S. Ryder Cup captain Corey Pavin now has eight of the 12 players who will go Wales to compete against the Europeans in early October.

There are four Ryder Cup veterans: Phil Mickelson, Jim Furyk, Steve Stricker and Hunter Mahan. There are four who will be making their first appearance in the team competition: Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson, Jeff Overton and Matt Kuchar.

In three weeks Pavin will make his four captain’s picks that complete the squad. So how does the current roster impact the captain’s selections?

In Watson and Johnson, the team will have two of the longest hitters in golf. Does Pavin attempt to build around that?

“I believe the eight players that have qualified are really going to allow a lot of flexibility for the four picks,” Pavin said. “I couldn’t have drawn it up any better for the eight players that are on the team and the types of players that are there.

“So I believe that there’s going to be many choices to be made there. I think it’s not just going to be about a type of player. I think there’s going to be a lot of room for maneuvering, which I’m very pleased with.”

The first question, of course, is whether Pavin will use one of his picks to invite Tiger Woods?

Most likely, he will.

 

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Dustin Johnson’s Penalty Overshadows Martin Kaymer’s PGA Win

Filed under: PGA Championship

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — Martin Kaymer defeated Bubba Watson in a three-hole aggregate playoff Sunday to win the PGA Championship, golf’s final major of the year.

Now, on to the day’s big story.

Dustin Johnson, after making bogey on the 18th hole to join Kaymer and Watson at 11-under for the tournament, assumed he would be part of the overtime play. Instead, after walking off the green he was blindsided by a two-shot penalty, courtesy of the strangeness that is Whistling Straits and its 1,000-plus bunkers.

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Beginning the final hole with a one-shot lead, Johnson’s demise happened after his tee shot strayed way right, well beyond the gallery ropes. Not realizing the bare ground was a bunker — outside the ropes, the sand traps here are not raked and it was filled with spectator foot prints and litter — Johnson grounded his club, a golf no-no, before taking the approach shot.

 

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Young and Restless: New Wave of Talent on Display at PGA

Filed under: PGA, PGA Championship

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — Wake up, laddies, and pay attention. We’ve got a major championship to watch. Saturday afternoon at Whistling Straits, when it was least expected, something interesting started to take place.

The PGA Championship got its groove back.

No fog. No rain — despite a forecast that included heavy rain and hail. Only a good day of good golf.

When it ended and third-round play was complete, Sunday’s final 18 holes had been set up as a viewing of the game’s coming attraction.

Going into the last lap of golf’s final major championship of the year, the top three players are 20-something up-and-comers, poised to make a charge toward membership in golf’s most exclusive men’s club.

American Nick Watney, the elder of the group at 29, will go into final-round play 13 under and three shots in front of 26-year-old countryman Dustin Johnson and Northern Ireland’s 21-year-old Rory McIlroy.

“I think it’s pretty simple because A, this is a tough golf course, and B, (these are) the best players in the world,” Watney said of his final-day challenge. “So they’re going to be coming, and it’s going to be a long day. There’s a lot of mistakes out there, so I just have to trust my game and give it my best.”

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Saturday’s effort worked nicely. Watney birdied five of his first seven holes on the way to a 6-under 66. Johnson, meanwhile, showed some accuracy to go with his long-ball power and shot 67 to earn a place in the final group of a major for the second time this year. McIlroy also had a 67.

 

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