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Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Golf-World rankings

August 19, 2013

Aug 19 (Reuters) - World rankings on Monday (U.S. unless

stated, last week's positions in brackets):

1. (1) Tiger Woods 13.87 average points

2. (2) Phil Mickelson 8.61

3. (3) Rory McIlroy (Northern Ireland) 8.44

4. (4) Adam Scott (Australia) 7.93

5. (5) Justin Rose (England) 7.44

6. (6) Matt Kuchar 6.71

7. (7) Brandt Snedeker 6.42

8. (8) Jason Dufner 6.02

9. (9) Graeme McDowell (Northern Ireland) 5.94

10. (10) Henrik Stenson (Sweden) 5.78

11. (11) Luke Donald (England) 5.26

12. (12) Keegan Bradley 5.08

13. (13) Steve Stricker 5.00

14. (14) Lee Westwood (England) 4.96

15. (17) Ian Poulter (England) 4.59

16. (16) Ernie Els (South Africa) 4.57

17. (15) Charl Schwartzel (South Africa) 4.57

18. (20) Jason Day (Australia) 4.57

19. (21) Jim Furyk 4.49

20. (19) Sergio Garcia (Spain) 4.49

(Editing by Toby Davis)

Golf-PGA Tour FedExCup points table

August 19, 2013

Aug 19 (Reuters) - PGA Tour 2013 FedExCup points table on

Monday (U.S. unless stated):

1. Tiger Woods 3,059 points

2. Matt Kuchar 2,293

3. Brandt Snedeker 2,218

4. Phil Mickelson 2,166

5. Bill Haas 1,505

6. Billy Horschel 1,487

7. Justin Rose (England) 1,447

8. Jordan Spieth 1,436

9. Henrik Stensen (Sweden) 1,426

10. Keegan Bradley 1,416

11. Adam Scott (Australia) 1,347

12. Boo Weekley 1,335

13. Kevin Streelman 1,333

14. Jason Day (Australia) 1,284

15. Jason Dufner 1,256

16. Dustin Johnson 1,226

17. Webb Simpson 1,188

18. Zach Johnson 1,141

19. Harris English 1,134

20. Steve Stricker 1,117

(Editing by Toby Davis)

Has American Golf Hit a New Low?

Adam Fonseca August 19, 2013

COMMENTARY | When the final putt dropped Sunday at the 2013 Solheim Cup, the European team erupted into celebration as it finally defeated the United States team on American soil.

The truth of the matter, however, is that the victor had already been decided late Saturday afternoon as the Europeans opened a massive lead heading into Sunday.

If the 2012 Ryder Cup taught us anything, of course, it is that no lead is safe when it comes to team competition. In that event, the Americans once again got the short end of the proverbial stick, relinquishing what was believed to be an insurmountable lead to Jose Maria Olazabal's Euro squad. For Davis Love III's US team, it will always be remembered as the "Meltdown at Medinah."

Two team events, two massive defeats for the United States. What the heck is going on with Team America?

There may not be one specific reason why the last two team events have ended poorly for Old Glory, which only compounds the issue. There were multiple shortcomings on both the men's and women's teams, starting with two respective captain picks.

For the men, Tiger Woods -- undoubtedly the best golfer of this generation -- was a controversial captain choice for Love's Ryder Cup team. At the time, Woods was struggling substantially with his game and was nowhere close to qualifying for the team by way of point earnings. While Woods' individual career is that of legend, his Ryder Cup record flat out stinks. Woods went winless at the 2012 matches, appearing to be a mere mortal in the wake of Europe's torrid run to victory.

United States captain Meg Mallon's decision to include Gerina Piller on her Solheim Cup team is equally confusing. While Piller did manage a half-point for her team (0-2-1 overall), the inclusion of a rookie Cupper beside Mallon's second pick -- the unpredictable Michelle Wie -- did not seem like a strong option heading into the event. Hindsight is always 20-20, but Piller's inexperience showed throughout the weekend.

A similar story unfolds when you look at individual performances in this year's major championships. On the LPGA side, South Korean Inbee Park has dominated the major scene by winning the first three of the season. American Stacy Lewis managed to win the Women's British Open earlier this month -- her second career major -- but not without a sense of it being a consolation prize to history's missed opportunity. Park still has a chance to win four (!) majors in a year should she capitalize at the Evian Masters Championship in September.

For the men, Phil Mickelson's victory at the British Open gave the United States its first major of the year after Australia's Adam Scott and England's Justin Rose won the Masters and US Open, respectively. Jason Dufner's memorable performance at the PGA Championship this month tied the major scorecard to 2-2.

As the 2014 Ryder Cup is set to take place on European soil next year in Scotland, captain Paul McGinleywill lead a confident team of players against the underdog American squad lead by Tom Watson. The 2015Solheim Cup will also take place on foreign soil in Germany, where that Euro team will once again defend the cup.

For the American teams, now might be a good time to start working on a game plan for both events -- if it even matters.

Adam Fonseca has covered professional golf since 2005. His work can also be found on the Back9Network. Follow Adam on Twitter at @chicagoduffer.

Europe rallies around an English teenager

DOUG FERGUSON (AP Golf Writer) August 19, 2013AP - Sports

PARKER, Colo. (AP) -- Of all the autographs Paula Creamer signed at the Solheim Cup for young girls, this was by far the strangest request.

It came from a 17-year-old who had just steamrolled her.

Charley Hull, fun and fearless over three days at Colorado Golf Club, put the finishing touch on a tone-setting match by driving the green with a 3-wood on the 291-yard 14th hole for a 5-and-4 victory. It was the shortest match all week, and the first point Sunday for Europe in what became a record rout over the Americans.

That's when Hull approached Creamer with a golf ball, a marker and a favor for a friend back home in England.

''Honestly, it was for my friend.'' Hull said. ''He's like, 'Can you please get Paula Creamer's autograph?' And I said, 'OK, then,' so ... I just like, I got it.''

Once the laughter subsided, Hull looked straight ahead, oblivious to the moment, and said, ''But anyway, it's been a really good week.''

It was a spectacular week for Europe, which brought six Solheim Cup rookies to the mile-high air outside Denver and left a strong American team out of breath.

''That was my concern, that with such a young team, with nothing to lose, it just seemed like they were a little bit looser,'' U.S. captain Meg Mallon said. ''They were making more putts, and we were not. And that's what it came down to.''

The Europeans seized control by sweeping the Saturday afternoon fourballs, with five rookies among eight players in the lineup. That gave them a 10 1/2-5 1/2 lead, and no team from any professional cup competition has ever lost from that position. Europe never let up, and the 18-10 margin was the largest since the Solheim Cup began in 1990.

On its seventh try, Europe won the Solheim Cup for the first time on American soil. It was the perfect gift to captainLiselotte Neumann, who 25 years ago became the first Swede to win a major in the U.S. Women's Open.

Her best move was using two of her four captain's picks onHull and Jodi Ewart-Shadoff of England, a rookie partnership that led off the Saturday afternoon sweep by winning the most dynamic match of the week, 2 up over Creamer and 18-year-old Lexi Thompson.

''She has a special game and she brings a lot of energy to our team, and she's just a terrific player,'' Neumann said of Hull. ''She plays fearless, and it was just awesome to have her on our team. We all love Charley.''

In a battle of teens, Hull and Thompson traded birdies throughout the day until Hull hit 9-iron just over the edge of the bunker to 4 feet for birdie on the par-3 17th for a 1-up lead. Ewart-Shadoff finished it off by blasting a driver some 30 yards past Thompson, setting up a 9-iron to 10 feet for a conceded birdie.

Caroline Hedwall, the 24-year-old Swede who played at Oklahoma State, was the star of this European team. She asked Neumann to play every match, and then earned her spot in Solheim Cup history as the only player to win all five. Her birdie on the 18th to beat Michelle Wie assured that Europe would retain the cup.

Carlota Ciganda of Spain, who couldn't break 80 on her own ball in her debut Friday afternoon, was unstoppable the rest of the way and won three points. Catriona Matthew, the 43-year-old Scot, made the winning putt for Europe for the second time in 10 years.

Hull, however, seemed to be in the middle of everything.

She only turned pro in February, and while she hasn't won on the Ladies European Tour, Hull had five runner-up finishes to get everyone's attention. She throws all her energy into every swing, with a corkscrew finish and then body language that leans left or right, whichever way she needs the golf ball to go. On one swing, the shaft of her driver got tangled up in her blonde ponytail.

''I didn't really feel that nervous, to be honest,'' Hull said. ''Because this is how I always look at golf. I'm not going to die if I miss it. Just hit it, and find it, and hit it again.''

Creamer could relate. She was 19 when she made her Solheim Cup debut. Creamer's personality is brasher, and she said in the weeks leading up to the 2005 Solheim Cup that Europe should prepare to get beaten. The American teen won her singles match, 7 and 5, against Laura Davies.

Hull was so refreshing that even the ultra-intense Creamer couldn't help but smile when the teen knocked in a 45-foot birdie putt on the sixth hole that gave Hull the lead for good. As for that autograph request? That was more surreal.

''Charley, she was ... that was ... I don't know,'' Creamer said, trying to contain laughter. ''I'm going to take it as one of the highlights of my career right there. ... And that's cool. But Charley is going to be around for a long time, and it's pretty neat to see the future of their team. She was a good player and she presented her country very well.''

As for the Americans? Mallon attributed the outcome to putting, which is the case in most every cup competition, and was the case at Colorado Golf Club. Despite the record margin of victory for Europe, 21 of the 28 matches reached the 17th hole.

The Americans now have lost back-to-back for the first time, and have to wait two more years to try to win it back in Germany. Hull most certainly will be waiting for them, by then beyond the stage of asking for autographs.

Monday, August 26, 2013

Lateral Hazard: Measuring Tiger Woods' quantity vs. Adam Scott's quality

That little patch of grass between the Nike swoosh on Tiger's golf ball and the 18th hole at Liberty National Golf Course on Sunday (maybe, what, three-quarters of an inch?), was that the difference between Adam Scott and Tiger Woods winning PGA Tour Player of the Year?

Could be. The whole scene was enough to make a world number one player grimace twice – first from the kind of back spasm a soon-to-be 38-year-old suffers; second, because his golf ball stayed one rotation away from forcing a playoff with Scott, the man who right now appears to be the lead horse in the POY race, which is determined by player vote.

After all, here is the New Math: Tiger's five wins are not equal to Scott's two wins. Nope. Not when one of the two wins is the Masters, and second of the two wins is the first leg of the FedEx Cup playoffs. That math is made more striking when the second win is one stroke ahead of the guy with five wins – none of which is a major or a Fed Ex playoff leg.

Now, just think if Tiger, doing that Willis Reed thing we've seen him do through the years, walking stiffly, making obvious his pain, had rolled home that 20-footer from the fringe for birdie, then gone on to win the playoff hole against Scott. We'd be looking a guy who birdied the final three holes atLiberty National, just three holes after falling to his knees on the 13th fairway with what he later admitted was a crippling back spasm. We'd be looking at a guy with six (!) wins in 2013. We'd be looking at a guy with career win No. 80, two short of tying Sam Snead.

In that case, one could argue, six wins are greater than one win, even when the one win is the Masters.

Yep. That little patch of grass. Three-quarters of an inch. The difference between rose petals tossed towards a gritty Tiger comeback; and a Steve Williams bro-hug for the 2013 Flavor of the Year Scott, the impossible-to-dislike Aussie who employs as his caddie the impossible-to-like Kiwi. Not only is Scott now No. 2 in the world, he is the kind of guy who is gracious and thoughtful enough to use his 30 post-tournament seconds on CBS to give a shout out to his newborn niece, Olivia – the sort of quality that endears one to Scott and helps you overlook the fact that he putts with some sort of alien contraption that goes up to his neck and requires the kind of grip better used on an oceanic oil platform.

Adam Scott celebrates after a narrow win at Liberty. (Getty)There is still time for Tiger to leave his mark on 2013. There are still three stages of the FedEx Cup playoffs to go, starting with the second stop this Friday at TPC Boston for the Labor Day finish. Tiger wouldn't say if he'll be healthy enough to play, but one might imagine the guy who uses drama as adrenaline wouldn't miss it. He has a damsel to please, too. His main squeeze, Lindsey Vonn, tweeted out moments after Tiger's final-round 69 was one stroke shy: "Proud of my man for fighting back. He's the toughest person I know. #fighter #nothingcanholdhimdown."

A cynic might say major championship events of the last five-plus years have held him down, but that would only be a cruel reminder. Right now, it's Adam Scott's world, and Tiger has work to do if he wants to salvage 2013's major-less campaign with an ongoing record 11th Player of the Year. It's a game of inches, after all. Sometimes less than an inch, even.

SCORECARD OF THE WEEK

66-65-70-78 – 5-under 279, Matt Kuchar, tie-19th, The Barclays, PGA Tour Fed Ex Cup playoffs,Liberty National GC, Jersey City, N.J.

Philosophical question: When you are known for your infectious grin on the golf course, are you allowed to not grin when you completely and totally implode on the doorstep of victory?

Matt Kuchar, feel free to scowl.

The guy everyone calls 'Kooch' because we all feel like we know him because he's always so easy and breezy and smiley on the golf course went south on Sunday. Kooch pretty much watched his golf game end up somewhere in the swamps of Jersey. As a Jersey guy named Springsteen might sing to that thought: May the Lord have mercy.

One of the more curious facts about Adam Scott's win was that he started his final round six shots off the lead, with some serious names ahead of him. Among those names was the guy six shots ahead of him, Kuchar, who already has two wins in 2013.

How unusual was Kuchar's train wreck, which began with a bogey on No. 1, moved swiftly and earnestly with a triple bogey on No. 9, then asserted its argument with bogeys on Nos. 10, 13, 15 and 17 before an almost comical birdie at the last hole?

Consider: It was Kuchar's worst final round of 2013. It was starkly uncharacteristic of a player who ranked top-30 on Tour in final-round scoring average (70.11). And it was only better than Josh Teater's 79 and Jonas Blixt's 81 in the entire field Sunday.

Plus, Blixt had an excuse, since he was distracted by dressing in Rickie Fowler's all-orange outfit in some sort of ill-conceived stunt because he was paired with Fowler.

Matt Kuchar searches for his ball with caddie Lance Bennett during the final round. (USA Today)(Quick side note on Blixt dressing like Fowler to show solidarity with his Puma brother: A buddy once told me that he and his friends got an adrenaline rush in college and thought it would be hilarious to hop in the car in L.A. and drive to Vegas to party all night – while dressed like Mr. Furley from "Three's Company". You know, the vest and the polyester and the scarf and all that. True story. As my buddy said to me: "Once we got to Vegas, let me assure you – there was nothing hilarious or cool about being dressed like Mr. Furley from 'Three's Company'.")

That's how I sort of felt about Blixt's all-orange. Hey, it's a scream if you shoot 65. But let me assure you – there is nothing cool about being dressed in all-orange when you shoot 81 on a Sunday at a FedEx Cup event. To Blixt's credit, he delivered a droll tweet after the round: "Not wearing orange again …"

It's the ellipses after the tweet that makes it, full of possibility as to what he left out.

Anyway, back to Kuchar. I'm in a fantasy betting league, and one of our challenges was to select a top-25 player from the FedEx Cup rankings, other than Tiger, for the four-tournament duration. It was almost a stampede in the league to draft Kuchar, who seems born for these kinds of events; no major championship pressure, consistency rewarded, et cetera. And then, the Sunday 78. The plummet from tie-1st to tie-19th.

There's almost no explaining how a guy that steady can go that sideways. Except, you know, it's golf. And golf is hard.

BROADCAST MOMENT OF THE WEEK

"That's a hypothetical. Right now, I'm not feeling my best." – Tiger Woods, to CBS' Matt Gogel, about whether his back felt good enough to play Friday at TPC Boston.

Credit to two people here. One, to Gogel, who is not exactly Mike Wallace in those on-course interviews. But here, he asked Tiger what treatment his back would need, and when Tiger did what he's been doing since age 10 and completely blew off the question by recounting his back nine, Gogel re-loaded and asked again.

Tiger Woods walks in the rough during the final round. (USA Today)Will you play in the next event, he asked?

Nice work, young Jedi! Tiger, having fired his non-answer bullet, gave the above answer, then didn't do any more media. So, we at least have that on record.

The second hat-tip goes to Golf Digest's Sam Weinman, a sharp cookie who accurately tweeted out: "Actually, Tiger, a hypothetical would be: Suppose there was a golf tournament next week. Now, suppose you were asked to play . . . "

Rimshot! He's right, of course. We all expect more from our Stanford products, right? Maybe if Tiger had stayed long enough to graduate, he'd differentiate between a hypothesis and a question from Matt Gogel.

MULLIGAN OF THE WEEK

On a day of so much wreckage – Gogel's 78, Gary Woodland's failed three birdie tries on 16, 17 and 18, Kevin Chappell's back-nine lead disintegrating into a 7-over finish over his final eight holes – the mind still drifts back to Tiger.

After the back spasm on the 13th fairway – on a swing that sent his ball into an algae-ridden swamp, no less – he spent the next six holes curtsying to remove his ball from the cup. He was clearly not right, and yet here he came with those birdies on 16 and 17 and then the roll from the back fringe on 18.

So close, and yet so far.

Nick Faldo had surmised on CBS that Tiger's back was so tender, we wouldn't have seen the trademark Tiger fist pump had the final birdie fallen on 18, but I'm not so sure. The frustrated shut of Tiger's eyes as his ball stubbornly stayed above ground showed how much it hurt. Had it fallen, the adrenaline rush might have overcome any pain, and we might have seen the kind of Tiger reaction we hadn't seen since Torrey Pines in '08, the holy-moley-am-I-hurting-but-man-does-this-feel-sweet body spasm of joy.

Plus, then we would have had a Tiger-Adam Scott playoff, with Steve Williams there and all that. Fun, denied.

So let's go back out to the back fringe of 18, give Tiger another roll, remind him to give it one extra iota of oomph and ... give that Tiger a mulligan! Then, let the celebration begin.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

Onward the top 100 players in the rankings go, to TPC Boston for Leg 2 of this four-tournament FedEx Cup playoff, starting Friday for a Labor Day finish. My stance on the FedEx Cup has been consistent for the last few years: I will never hardly remember who won a FedEx Cup; I have trouble firing up for a guy winning a $10 million jackpot when that's really the only thing he's playing for; these events have none of the majesty or prestige of the majors and never will ... and yet, I am thankful the PGA Tour came up with something (in this case, $$$) to keep the best players playing into September.

After all, 10 years ago at this time, Phil Mickelson would be off doing Philly Mick things, like working on a machine that reverses the process of aging, or studying the San Diego Chargers depth chart. Instead, we got to enjoy Lefty's sterling Sunday charge at Liberty National on Sunday, a 65 that ended just two strokes shy of a playoff. That'll work for my couch potato viewing experience.

Will Tiger play? The bet here says he will. And we don't traffic in hypotheticals around here; only solid conjecture.

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