However, all good plans can (and do) go awry it seems. Rory McIlroy has secured the Race to Dubai prize as none of his nearest challengers could do enough over the last 3 tournaments to take the race to the final tournament.
The penultimate tournament at the Montgomerie Maxx Royal Course in Antalya, Turkey (aka The Turkish Airlines Open) was the maiden European Tour win for 24 year old American Brooks Koepka. This win means that neither Marcel Siem, Jamie Donaldson nor Sergio Garcia, who had to win the Turkish Airlines Open and the DP World Tour Championship, can overtake McIlroy. Bit of an anti climax really.
Still, over the season there is no doubt that McIlroy deserved to win the European Tour money list so while being unexciting in terms of drama, he still deserves a huge congratulations!
In other news, Charley Hoffman won on the PGA tour at Playa Del Carmen in Mexico. This is his third Tour win and his first in 4 years. A few interesting facts here; he has had 108 starts since his last win - even winners can find it tough and mentally gruelling on Tour, it would seem. Yet to add a consistency to his game this weekend, in his final round he hit 16 greens in regulation. Nice.
Danny Lee from New Zealand had a 7 in a row birdie streak to turn in 29, but three bogies on the back nine left him 2 shots off the winner.
Russell Knox of Scotland tied 37th, 10 shots back but only 4 shots from a top ten finish. The smallest of margins are important.
The European tour qualifying is in the final stages and the six round competition for places will finish on the 20th November. At the time of writing Anirban Lahiri is leading the way. He is 76th in the world rankings and still has to progress through tour qualifying! Other notables in the field of 156 players include 2 Ryder cup players - Philip Price and Ignacio Garrido and previous European Tour winners that include Ricardo Gonzalez, Kenneth Ferrie, Jean-Francois Remesy and Nick Dougherty. The leading 25 players will qualify for tour privileges.
The web.com tour qualifying for the PGA in the USA is also in progress.
In the second stages, I noticed that Arjuna Atwal, Daniel Chopra and Shaun Micheel have failed to progress to the final stages. Frank Lickliter has finished tied 13 in his second stage qualifying and will progress to the final stage (6 rounds) in December at Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
More on this next month.
Look out for the Australian Masters at the Metropolitan Golf Club in Melbourne this week end. Adam Scott is looking for three wins in a row.
Still lots to keep us golf lovers amused in the winter months! Check back soon for more golf chat.
No comments:
Post a Comment