No, Canada: COVID concerns lead officials to nix RBC Canadian Open for second straight year https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
Lingering concerns with the border tied into COVID-19 have forced PGA Tour officials and organizers of the RBC Canadian Open to cancel the event for the second straight year.
The event, which was established in 1904, is currently the third-oldest national championship in golf behind The Open Championship and the U.S. Open.
“Even with an extensive health and safety plan in place, we faced a number of significant logistical challenges that led us to this decision,” said PGA Tour President Tyler Dennis. “While we are disappointed to cancel Canada’s National Championship, we are thankful to our partners RBC and Golf Canada – along with our Canadian fans — for their unwavering support and cooperation throughout this process. We look forward to the RBC Canadian Open returning to our schedule next year.”
The most recent Canadian Open was held in 2019 at Hamilton Golf & Country Club in Ontario, when Rory McIlroy won in his debut there. This year’s event had been scheduled for June 7-12 at St. George’s Golf & Country Club in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke.
While organizers of the event were working on a comprehensive plan to revive the event for this year, current quarantine restrictions and other logistical issues made the tournament’s completion uncertain.
“Together with RBC and the PGA Tour, we set a decision timeline based on the most up-to-date travel and quarantine restrictions in effect along with consideration for the Tour’s ability to pivot and successfully fill a significant date on the schedule,” said Golf Canada CEO Laurence Applebaum. “It was also important to be respectful partners to the health leaders and government officials who have helped inform our operation protocols and provided great direction on this journey. The timing simply did not align for us and we are deeply disappointed that the celebrated return of the RBC Canadian Open will have to wait another year.”
The PGA Tour will host a separate FedEx Cup-official event for this year, the details of which are expected in a few weeks.
Check the yardage book: TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
Each year the golf world gets a close look at the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, during the Players Championship, but how well do you really know the layout?
For example, what’s the carry distance to the front of the green at the famed island-green No. 17, or the distance from the tee to the back of the green?
Thanks to fairway maps provided by Puttview – the maker of detailed yardage books for more than 30,000 courses around the world – we can see exactly the challenges that players face in this week’s Players Championship. Check out each hole below.
Golfweek's Best Courses You Can Play: Florida https://ift.tt/3sZ8RUv
Sure, we all know about the 17th hole of the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. That island green soaks up much of the attention every year in the PGA Tour’s Players Championship.
As the No. 1 course in Florida on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list for public-access layouts, the Players Stadium is the epitome of golf in the Sunshine State. Built by Pete Dye – with plenty of inspiration from his wife, Alice Dye – on flat, swampy ground and opened in 1980, it is a perfect example of the challenges that often face course designers in golf-rich Florida and the creative ways in which architects attempt to address them.
Golfweek ranks courses by compiling the average ratings – on a points basis of 1 to 10 – of its more than 750 raters to create several industry-leading lists of courses. That includes the popular Best Courses You Can Play list for courses that allow non-member tee times. These generally are defined as layouts accessible to resort guests or regular daily-fee players.
The Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass is No. 1 on that list, and it can be a beast for amateurs in the 51 weeks a year the course does not host the Tour’s best. Water, long rough, plenty of length – there’s no shortage of challenges. But it’s the creativity of the shaping and the demands on shotmaking that set the layout apart from most courses in Florida.
That famed 17th green is a perfect example of the Dyes’ creative thinking to handle the challenges architects often face when building in Florida. Designers frequently dig ponds all around a course, both to handle drainage from frequent heavy rains and to supply building material to lift fairways and greens above the water table. Dye’s island green certainly wasn’t the first in Florida – it wasn’t even the first on that stretch of A1A, as that honor goes to No. 9 at the nearby Ponte Vedra Inn and Club’s Ocean Course – but the 137-yarder he created faces players at a critical time in one of the Tour’s largest events.
For Pete and Alice Dye, No. 17 was a perfect opportunity to make something special instead of having just another pond – if you must have all that water, why not stick an island green in it? The results have had players shaking over their 9-irons ever since.
Streamsong Red in Florida (Courtesy of Streamsong/Laurence Lambrecht)
Water wasn’t nearly as big a part of the equation at the next four courses on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can Play list in Florida. Streamsong Resort in Bowling Green and World Woods in Brooksville had something even better: sand. Lots and lots of it.
Within the past decade, Streamsong has opened three courses built on sand. The Red, designed by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw, ranks No. 2 on Golfweek’s Best list for public-access tracks in Florida. The Black by Gil Hanse is next at No. 3, followed by Tom Doak’s Blue at No. 4. Built largely on old phosphate-mining spoil, the layouts at Streamsong stand out because of their other-worldly topographies created by all that sand, which once was an ancient seabed – the place is littered with shark teeth – and that provides an ideal playing surface.
Streamsong Black (Courtesy of Streamsong Resort/Laurence Lambrecht)
On top of some of that sand sits new green surfaces for the nearly decade-old Red and Blue courses. Streamsong installed new Mach 1 putting surfaces on those two courses in 2020, ensuring its oldest layouts – dating to 2012 an hour southeast of Tampa or 90 minutes southwest of Orlando – remain fresh and provide world-class conditioning.
Streamsong’s threesome also has broken into Golfweek’s Best Modern Courses list. The Red is No. 39 on that listed, followed by the Black at No. 46 and the Blue at No. 57. The trio also made it into Golfweek’s Best Resort Courses list for the U.S., with the Red at No. 15, the Black at No. 18 and the Blue at No. 21, making Streamsong one of the premium three-course destinations in the world.
Streamsong Blue (Courtesy of Streamsong Resort/Laurence Lambrecht)
Tom Fazio’s Pine Barrens course at World Woods north of Tampa also utilized sand instead of water. Opened in 1993, Pine Barrens’ native, rolling terrain and large sandy waste areas offer a non-traditional Florida experience. Rolling Oaks, the second 18 at World Woods, ranks No. 20 in Florida on Golfweek’s Best Courses You Can play.
So while the Players Stadium Course has made the most of its water, the next four public-access layouts in Florida on Golfweek’s Best rankings took advantage of their sandy environments. For a state that prides itself on beach life, these five layouts are a perfect meeting of water and sand.
Each year, we publish the three lists that are the foundation of our course-ratings program: Golfweek’s Best 2020: Top 200 Classic Courses, Golfweek’s Best 2020: Top 200 Modern Courses and Golfweek’s Best 2020: Best Courses You Can Play.
These are the best courses you can play in Florida.
TPC Sawgrass (Players Stadium), Ponte Vedra Beach (No. 22 m)
Streamsong (Red), Bowling Green (No. 39 m)
Streamsong (Black), Bowling Green (No. 46 m)
Streamsong (Blue), Bowling Green (No. 57 m)
World Woods (Pine Barrens), Brooksville (No. 171 m)
Trump National Doral Miami (Blue Monster), Doral (m)
Black Diamond Ranch (Quarry), Lecanto (m)
Bay Hill Club, Orlando (m)
Innisbrook (Cooperhead), Tarpon Springs (m)
Hammock Beach Resort (Ocean), Palm Coast (m)
PGA National Resort & Spa (Champion), Palm Beach Gardens (m)
The members of our course-ratings panel continually evaluate courses and rate them based on our 10 criteria. They also file a single, overall rating on each course. Those overall ratings on each course are averaged together to produce a final rating for each course. Then each course is ranked against other courses in its state, or nationally, to produce the final rankings.
Better than Most: Tiger Woods' putt dropped and Bones Mackay said a 'wall of sound' followed https://ift.tt/2Oj8Sns
(Editor’s note: All this week, in honor of the 20-year anniversary of Tiger Woods’ “Better than Most” putt, we’ll be looking back at the magical moment at TPC Sawgrass, perhaps the greatest in the history of The Players Championship.
Coming later this week: Adam Scott, who was there and said Tiger would make the putt; Butch Harmon as the witness to Scott’s call and what Tiger said to Butch afterward; Phil Mickelson’s thoughts 20 years later; and more.)
Tiger Woods settled over the ball on the No. 17 green at TPC Sawgrass during the third round of the 2001 Players Championship and took three easy, short practice swings. He then widened his stance and took two more practice swings.
Mary Sullivan, a volunteer who had befriended the star, was at the entrance to the footpath, behind Woods and unable to see the hole, or the ball, once it got a few feet away. At the time, there was no large monitor behind the green and she would have to figure out what happened by Woods’ reaction and the crowd noise.
NBC’s Gary Koch was in the tower behind the 16th green and had a perfect view from behind the hole.
Caddie Bones Mackay was standing next to Phil Mickelson, looking at Lefty’s line.
NBC producer Tommy Roy was in the production truck, while broadcasters Dan Hicks and Johnny Miller were in the 18th hole tower, watching on a monitor.
PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem was in what was called “Commissioner’s Dining,” a room upstairs in the old TPC Sawgrass clubhouse, thinking to himself that the moment, “was made-to-order for golf on TV.”
Woods tapped the Nike golf ball with his Scotty Cameron Newport 2 putter, his hands gently holding the Ping PP58 grip.
The ball started right, but at the crest of the slope was a patch of grass that had nearly browned. The ball hit that patch and took a hard left turn.
When Koch saw that the ball was then starting to swing right and downhill, he said to Miller on the air, “Johnny … this is better than most.”
When the ball was about 8 feet from the hole, Miller said, “how about in?”
Koch said “better than most,” one more time.
When the ball dropped into the hole, he shouted for the third time, “Better than most!”
And for 29 seconds, the NBC crew let Woods and the crowd tell the story.
In TV sports lingo, it’s called a “layout” — the time after a big event or play in which the announcers know they’re to do one simple thing: shut up.
“It’s the NBC way,” Roy said. “We do that in all of our sports, a touchdown on Sunday night, a big moment in the Olympics, the end of the 100 meters in track or a swimming event … you make the call and then you lay out. It’s by design.”
Roy said it’s easier when the athlete is Tiger Woods, who can be counted on to show the kind of emotion that can easily bridge the gap until one of the announcers begins talking again.
“The great thing about Tiger is he gets excited over his good shots and good putts and it creates that much more of an iconic memory,” Roy said. “The crowd going completely ballistic helped create that much more energy.”
The immediate reaction
As Woods began a bit of a victory lap around the green and towards the hole to get his ball, he passed Mackay. The TV broadcast at the time shows Mackay with his head down — just as he described in comparing the roar of the crowd to a wave knocking a swimmer down — and laughing.
“You get crushed by the wall of sound,” Mackay said. “I’ve felt it a number of times when Phil hit a great shot, and this time with Tiger. I was laughing to myself because it was so unlikely, but it was just so Tiger. I was asking myself, ‘Is there anything this guy can’t do?’ You had to laugh. It was that amazing.”
Woods, to this day, credits Funk.
“I was lucky enough to have seen Fred miss that first putt and then four-putt,” Woods said. “If I hadn’t seen him to that, I would never have made that putt.”
Mickelson still had his first putt to hit. The ball slid past the right side of the hole and came to rest 6 feet away. Mickelson then missed the comebacker for a bogey.
“I felt bad for Phil after that,” Sullivan said. “But Tiger was so thrilled … he was so happy. He was grinning from ear-to-ear.”
Sullivan and the other escorts had a tough job after that. There was no tunnel going from the 17th green to the 18th tee then and they had to work with the 17th hole marshals to make sure Woods and Mickelson and their caddies had safe passage to the next tee.
“It seemed as if the whole stadium was trying to follow him to 18,” Sullivan said. “It was all we could do to get the players to the tee, quiet everyone down, and let them hit.”
When Funk saw replays of Woods’ putt when he was in the locker room, he said to no one in particular, “you have got to be —-ing me.”
“I hit it to about 15 feet, lipped out on the high side, missed another, then another,” Funk said. “He saw the whole thing, almost hit it in the water and ends up with a two when it should have been a three or a five. But it’s why he’s Tiger Woods.”
Even though his player three-putted, Mackay said that briefly, after Woods’ putt dropped, he was like any other golf fan.
“For about 10 seconds after the ball goes in, you appreciate what you saw and the sound that came with it,” he said. “It was a ‘smell the roses’ moment that I got a chance to see.”
Hicks came in quickly on the air with the tidbit about Woods’ first tournament at the Stadium Course: the 1994 U.S. Amateur when he nearly hit the ball in the water at No. 17, then made a birdie putt from off the fringe to complete his comeback over Kuehne.
Hicks also noted that Woods hit into the water in the second round, yet blocked that out — and his marginal tee shot that day.
“None of that clutters his mind,” Hicks said on the air. “He still buries an almost impossible putt.”
Hardly anyone remembers that Woods bogeyed the 18th hole for a 66. The next day he and Kelly got through 11 holes before storms ended play and forced a Monday finish, and when they returned, Woods birdied the 12th hole and went on to post a 67 to beat Vijay Singh by one shot.
Two weeks later, Woods became the first man to win The Players and the Masters in the same season.
Tiger Woods pumps his fist after sinking a 60-foot birdie putt at the 17th hole of the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course on March 24, 2001, in the third round of The Players Championship. Woods went on to win the tournament two days later in a Monday finish. [Bob Self/Florida Times-Union]
Is it better than all?
Even though Woods’ putt that day was in the third round and he finished the day two shots behind Kelly, is it the signature shot of The Players Championship?
For the PGA Tour’s Gold Standard event, is it Sarazen’s double-eagle at Augusta’s 15th? Watson’s chip-in at Pebble Beach’s 17th? Ballesteros from the parking lot at Royal Lytham and St. Annes?
After all, Nick Price (1993), Fred Couples (1996), David Duval (1999) and Craig Perks (2002) birdied No. 17 on Sundays on their way to Players titles. Sergio Garcia did it in sudden death to win in 2008. Rickie Fowler birdied the 17th three times in the final round in 2015 — once in regulation and twice in a playoff.
Woods’ putt still tops them all — perhaps because all of those birdie putts combined don’t equal his monstrous roll.
“It has a lot with who hit the shot,” Koch said. “If it had been someone else, I have the feeling it wouldn’t have such a prominent place in history or get replayed as often as it has. And it also was who made the putt and the reaction, both Tiger and the crowd. I’ve been fortunate enough to be there [at No. 17] for a long time, but I can’t think of another shot that generated the level of excitement and energy that putt did.”
Finchem, who measures his words as carefully as anyone, doesn’t hesitate in labeling Woods’ putt with a special place in Players history.
“Is it the signature shot? Probably so,” Finchem said. “It’s had such staying power. There have been other great situations and shots at that hole but they haven’t had the staying power this one putt had with Tiger out there. Plus, NBC did such a fabulous job with the moment, they want the comment on it, got excited about it … it came through on TV. And they won’t let you forget it. They love to go back to that moment but no one ever gets tired of watching it.”
Hicks said he continues to be impressed the putt is etched in Players history because of when it happened.
“It’s amazing we’re talking about a putt that didn’t win the championship and it was on a Saturday,” he said. “But if you did a poll and asked everyone about their most vivid memory of The Players, all the great history, all the great shots, I guarantee you that one would be at the top.”
Rickie Fowler birdied the 17th hole three times in one day — once in regulation and twice in a playoff — to win the 2015 Players Championship.
Another legacy of a great shot is others trying to duplicate it. Finchem went out early the next day with a putter and tried to hit the plugged hole.
“I was there a while,” he said. “It was impossible … for me.”
TPC Sawgrass caddies are often asked by fans where Woods’ ball and the pin were, and attempt to replicate the putt.
Koch still tries the putt once in a while.
“The results are not that good,” he said. “I’ve come close to the hole a few times. There’s a one or two percent chance of making that.”
And it’s never going to be truly duplicated. When the course was renovated in 2006, the slope was softened a bit.
“It’s not as severe as it used to be,” Koch said. “It doesn’t pick up nearly the speed it used to.”
Tiger Woods poses with The Players Championship trophy on March 26, 2001, in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Phil Coale)
‘The perfect call’
The putt also might not be “Better than Most,” without Koch’s call. Like Verne Lundquist’s emphatic “Yes, sir!” when Nicklaus made his putt at No. 17 in the 1986 Masters, and then, “In your life, have you seen anything like that!” when Woods chipped in at No. 16 in the 2005 Masters, Woods’ putt and Koch’s three-word description are linked forever.
“Gary’s call has made it so unique that people call it the ‘better than most putt,'” Roy said. “There have been T-shirts made. Ask anyone about ‘better than most,’ and they know exactly what you’re talking about.”
Hicks referred to it as “the perfect call.”
“All great calls live on and get better with age and time,” he said. “That’s what that one has done.”
Koch said the most frequent joke he hears from people is whether his unscripted call will be chiseled on his gravestone.
“It’s a great honor to be part of that, and when the time comes that I’m not doing this, I may enjoy it even more,” Koch said. “I guess it’s good to be remembered for something positive like that. I’m very appreciative that such a big deal has been made of it over the years.”
But even Koch is quick to add that he had a little help from the magic of Tiger Woods — who truly was better than most.
‘Better than most:’ NBC’s call
A transcript of the NBC golf announcers on March 24, 2001, when Tiger Woods made his historic putt at the 17th hole of the TPC Sawgrass Players Stadium Course in The Players Championship. The commentary is from anchor Dan Hicks, analyst Johnny Miller, 17th hole analyst Gary Koch and walking analyst Mark Rolfing:
Koch: “Well, we’re back at the 17th and what a scene it is. Galleries surrounding … I was here at 9 o’clock this morning to look at hole locations and people were already claiming spots.”
Hicks: “Sky boxes over there, Gary … it’s quite a place to be.”
Miller: “This is a crescendo for all those people for all those people, huh Gary, since 9 o’clock, when Tiger shows up?”
Koch: “That’s exactly right. They certainly are enthusiastic right now, I’ll say that. … Johnny, I have seen a number of players putt from this back part of the green and the results have not been good. The ball wants to break left up on top. Once it comes down the slope it moves hard to the right and it picks up speed.
Miller: “It seems like when Tiger gets really engaged in something difficult, he usually does extra good. And he should be pretty engaged here.”
Koch: “He certainly needs to be.”
Rolfing: ”You can see where he’s standing right now, Gary, that is the brow of the ridge, so it is almost a dead flat putt to there and for the last 20 feet … down to the hole it is very fast and as you said, turns hard to the right.”
Miller: “What’s this do, Gary? Goes sort of a title bit over that way and then comes back?”
Koch: “Correct, but Johnny it goes so much to the right as it comes down the hill, that’s where the players have been fooled. You’ve got to be 3, 4 feet out to the left of the hole as it comes over the ridge and most guys have just not seen that.”
Rolfing: “He almost needs to pretend, Gary, it looks to me, that the hole is up on top of the ridge, as you said, 4, 5, maybe even 6 feet left of the hole and just barely roll it past there. Almost forget about where [Woods’ caddie] Steve Williams is, standing down there next to the cup.”
Koch: “I like what he’s doing there, just swinging the putter, visualizing, trying to track the line that he wants.”
Miller: “Doesn’t look like he’s aiming left at all.”
Koch: “But it will break a little left at the start.”
The announcers go silent as Woods settles over the ball, then hits it. As the ball reaches the crest of the ridge and begins its right-hand turn to the hole, Koch begins the exchange.
Koch: “Johnny … that’s … better than most.”
Miller: “How about in.”
Koch: “That is better than most … Better than most!!!”
As the ball fell into the hole and the crowd exploded, none of the announcers spoke for 29 seconds. Koch was the first to speak amid the roars of the gallery.
Koch: “Johnny I think it’s safe to say that you could hit the putt 50 times and maybe make it once.”
Miller: “That was just another Tiger moment, one of the great long putts I’ve ever seen.”
Hicks: “Remember back in the ‘94 U.S. Amateur championship, kind of where Tiger began this whole magical quest. Way down in that U.S. Amateur, six [holes] down, in fact, took the lead for the first time with a 12-foot birdie putt, on this Island Green.”
Miller: “In fact it almost went in the water [in 1994] and he knocked it in from off the green.”
Then it was time for Mickelson to attempt a 25-foot birdie attempt, downhill, from the center of the green.
Koch: “Now this will show you just how good Tiger’s putt was. Phil Mickelson, known for his putting, and he doesn’t have to deal with nearly what Tiger does.”
Mickelson’s putt slides to the right of the hole and rolls 6 feet away.
Koch: “There you go … there you go, watch this ball roll away from the hole.”
Rolfing: “Gary, to show you just how good it was Fred Funk, a moment ago, before this, took four putts up here on the 17th green.”
Roy then went to a replay of the putt.
Koch: “Let’s take one more look at this putt.”
Miller: “Surprised how much it went left Gary.”
Koch: “Well, there’s a brow on the hill right there, Johnny, that really throws it left. And he’s the first guy I’ve seen that’s gotten the ball that far left of the hole. You know even if this ball doesn’t go in it’s going 6 or 7 feet by. There’s just that much slope in the green.”
Rolfing: “Fun to watch, isn’t it?”
As the ball drops into the hole in slow-motion:
Koch: “Just creeps in on the right side … and his [Woods’] reaction, right about how [when Woods started fist-pumping] … yeahhhh!”
Hicks: “Still the same fist pump that we saw on that green in ’94, Gary.”
Miller: “How about the up and in a 16 [referring to a birdie Woods made on the previous hole] and that in there, that’s just three of four strokes picked up up on the field.”
Mickelson then missed the comebacker for par
Koch: “And that’s example of how difficult this 17th green is to putt from up above. We’ve seen a number of players do just that, three-putt … So, Phil makes a bogey, drops back to 2-under, Tiger makes an improbable birdie now, 10-under par, 7-under in his round and just two off the lead.”
Hicks: “Gary, what makes it just as impressive is that [Woods] was in the water on that hole yesterday [Friday], almost put it in the water again, still none of that clutters his mind. He still buries an almost impossible putt.”
A hole-in-onesie: Players Championship will gift more than 500 newborns this week https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
Every baby born during Players Championship week at 11 First Coast hospitals will receive a tournament-themed “onesie” that says “Crawl, Walk, Golf.”
The parents also will get a birthday card containing tips for safe sleep practices for infants from The Players Center for Child Health at Wolfson Children’s Hospital.
It’s estimated that more than 500 babies will be born this week at Baptist Medical Center – South; Wolfson Children’s Hospital NICU – South; Baptist Medical Center – Beaches; Baptist Medical Center – Nassau; Wolfson Children’s Hospital NICU – Downtown; Baptist Health Labor & Delivery – Downtown; Ascension St. Vincent’s Labor & Delivery; University of Florida Health; Orange Park Medical Center; Memorial Hospital; and Flagler Health+.
“This week is such a special one in our community,” said Jared Rice, executive director of The Players. “We are honored to celebrate and connect with those who share this milestone with us.”
There are additional youth and family experiences at The Players this week:
• Youth days, presented by Nemours Children’s Health System, allows up to two youth ages 15 and under to attend free with a ticketed adult for the Tuesday and Wednesday practice rounds. All youth will need tickets Thursday through Sunday.
• Family Care Suite presented by Wolfson Children’s Hospital, is an air-conditioned space with private rooms for parents to change diapers and feed babies. Diapers, wipes, hand sanitizers and other necessary products will be provided in the suite.
• Strollers, small diaper bags, plastic baby bottles, and other essential baby supplies are permitted. The infant must be with the carrier. Items are subject to search.
Those who take advantage of the amenities in the Family Care Suite will be entered into a daily drawing for a $100 gift card to Buy Buy Baby.
USA Olympics tracker: Five Americans now ranked inside top 15 https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
With her victory at the LPGA Drive On Championship, Austin Ernst moved up 19 spots in the Rolex Rankings to No. 14 in the world. It’s still a long way to Tokyo, but that jump inside the top 15 carries a great deal of significance. The same is true for Jennifer Kupcho, who moved up nine spots in the rankings to 12th with her second-place finish on Sunday in Ocala.
The maximum number of women who can represent the U.S. in the 2021 Olympics is four, and all four of those players must be ranked 15th or higher.
There are currently five American women ranked inside the top 15.
At the 2016 Games, Lexi Thompson, Stacy Lewis and Gerina Piller made up the U.S. Olympic Women’s Golf Team.
The women’s competition for the 2021 Olympics will take place Aug. 4-7 at Kasumigaseki Country Club. The cutoff to qualify is June 28, immediately following the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club.
Ernst joins good friends Jessica and Nelly Korda as the only winners so far in the 2021 LPGA season. There are 13 LPGA events scheduled between now and the qualification deadline, though that number could shrink if any of the three Asian events are canceled due to the pandemic.
“If you talk to anybody this year and they don’t mention playing the Olympics,” Angela Stanford said when asked about her goals, “then they’re lying. So I don’t want to lie to you. Playing in the Olympics is a dream for every athlete … that’s probably the long shot.”
Here are the top 10 Americans in the world as of Monday, March 8.
Women's college golf team of the week: Dallas Baptist https://ift.tt/36CRPTo
Dallas Baptist, an NCAA Division II school, teed it up in last week’s 41-team Kiawah Island Classic for the first time and took home the title. The best part? DBU was the only non-Division I team in the field.
The Patriots were in second place after 18 holes on Kiawah Island’s Cougar Point course, and blindly took that game to the Oak Point course. DBU had never seen that golf course before, but the team went 11 under and effectively put 18 shots between themselves and the rest of the field that day before finishing it of the next day at Cougar Point. DBU was 1 over for the tournament.
“The girls started well, so I thought that was important with a big lead – to make sure we got off to a good start so it kind of left no doubt that no one had a chance to catch us,” DBU head coach Kenny Trapp said of the final round. “On the back nine, we just stayed with it, just shot to shot.”
Women's college golf player of the week: Erica Shepherd, Duke https://ift.tt/36CRPTo
Erica Shepherd, a Duke sophomore from Greenwood, Indiana, owns two USGA titles. Now, she owns a college title, too. Shepherd turned in rounds of 69-70-70 at the Gamecock Intercollegiate for a 7-under 209 total that left her with her first first collegiate title. Shepherd led the field with 14 birdies, five of which came in the final round.
Shepherd’s performance was instrumental in Duke’s win as a team. The Blue Devils finished three shots ahead of fellow ACC power Wake Forest.
Entering the Gamecock Intercollegiate, Shepherd had competed in seven college tournaments and totaled five rounds of even or under par while posting one top-5 finish. She now has a third-place and first-place finish in two tournaments in 2021. The ACC did not compete in the fall season.
“After being in contention last week, it feels really good to come out on top,” said Shepherd. “I had a few things from the last tournament that I wanted to sharpen up, which I did and just those few adjustments allowed me to play some pretty good golf this weekend. I saw a lot of putts drop the last three days and I hope to carry that confidence into the rest of the season. Winning a college tournament this spring was a big goal of mine, so I am really proud of that but I’m even more proud of how our team came together and got the win. All of the girls on the team learned from the last tournament and came ready to play to win this weekend and it’s just special to be a part of.”
Men's college golf team of the week: Oklahoma Sooners https://ift.tt/36CRPTo
Garett Reband missed out on a PGA Tour start, coming up one shot shy of the individual title at the Cabo Collegiate at TPC San Antonio last week.
That said, the redshirt senior’s second-place finish at 4 under led a trio of Sooners inside the top 10, propelling Oklahoma, also 4 under, to the team title amid a loaded field of national title contenders. Transfer Jonathan Brightwell finished T-5 at 2 under with Patrick Welch in ninth at 1 under.
A 10-under-par final round was just enough for Oklahoma to hold off a charging Florida State, who finished second at 3 under after a 12-under third round. Texas A&M also went low in the final round, going 11 under as a team to reach 1 under for the tournament.
“Huge win for our team today, just a big-time three days for our guys and our program,” head coach Ryan Hybl said after the win. “We were able to use a really strong opening day to build the lead and then held off an excellent field over the past two rounds.”
