Ko breaks Kiwi course record twice in one tournament

The 15 year old teenage sensation Lydia Ko continued to impress after she notched a 17 shot victory at a tournament in New Zealand last week.

Lydia became the youngest ever winner of a professional tournament at the NSW Open last year. Last week she fired two course records in three rounds at the  Muriwai Open event on New Zealand's Charles Tour in Auckland.

Lydia’s opening round of 67 set the bar and her final round 65 broke it by two shots.

The Charles Tour has mixed fields of elite amateur and professional men and women compete in a series of events around the Shaky Isle.

Her 13 under par total was a massive 17 shots better than her nearest rival, fellow New Zealand amateur Emily Perry.

Lydia was the only female competing to break 70 in any of the three rounds.

An estatic Lydia she had no idea how much I won by, after the event

“I really felt confident as I knew that the score difference was quite large so there was no added pressure on me.

"Hopefully my course record will stay a bit longer, I seem to play the best here on the windiest days I must be a wind-girl or something.”

Lydia will be a starter  at the US Women's Open in July and for the rest of the year will entirely focus on that event.

“I am really excited about it. I will be practicing hard for that as it is not a tournament that anyone can play. It is going to be awesome.”

Rickie Fowler's exciting breakthrough win on the PGA Tour made plenty of headlines but one thing missed by many in the aftermath was the presence of a Leuk the Duck pin on his hat, worn to support Jarrod Lyle in his battle with leukaemia. Rickie  was one of the first golfers to publicly acknowledge Jarrod’s' diagnosis wearing a hat with “JL” written on it the week the news broke. Rickie’s wearing of the pin escaped a few  but not the eagle eye of Australian golf commentator Luke Elvy who was in the US to cover several of the Tour's events this year. Within hours of the play-off finishing Elvy sent Fowler the following tweet: “@RickieFowlerPGA class act with your Leuk the Duck badge front & centre. Jarrod needs every ounce of support that is given”.

As do, all we Aussie golfers.

All the best Jarrod

The Golden Bear Movie

2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the first major victory of Jack Nicklaus and the USGA has commissioned the production a one hour documentary on the event to celebrate. Jack beat the game's then most popular player, Arnold Palmer, in a 8-hole playoff at Oakmont Country Club in 1962 kickstarting the most impressive professional career in golf. The one hour documentary will be shown on American network NBC in the lead up to this year's US Open at Olympic Club in San Francisco unfortunately it is a little unclear yet whether we Aussie golfers will get to see it.

Digital magazine, Global Golf Post, carried a three minute trailer of the film this week.

The Masters at Augusta National again provided a thrilling finish to with Bubba Watson claiming the green jacket after one of the most memorable shots in tournament history.

One of Golf’s most recognizable brands, Top-Flite, has been sold. Callaway Golf, acquired Top-Flite in 2003, sold the entity to American retailer Dick's Sporting Goods. Callaway purchased both Hogan Golf  Top-Flite and in 2003 but with the sale of the predominantly ball making Top-Flite, they will now focus on flagship brands Callaway and Odyssey. The sale price is believed to be around $20 million.

Read more…….

 Louis Oosthuisen's incredible albatross at the second hole of the final round not only catapulted him into the lead but made another note in the history books: it now means each of Augusta's four par-5's have had an albatross recorded in The Masters. The three previous double eagles came at the 15th (Gene Sarazen, 1935, 4-wood), 13th (1994, Jeff Maggert, 3-iron) and by Aussie golfer 8^th (1967, Bruce Devlin, 4-wood)

Louis Oosthuisen's albatross wasn't the only unusual hole-out caught on tape last week. During Wednesday's practice round 2010 US PGA champion Martin Kaymer canned his tee shot at the par-3 16th after skipping the ball across the water.  Sergio Garcia unfortunately has been tagged as being possibly the  “best player never to win a major” but looked a chance to break the hoodoo at Augusta when he was just one shot off the lead through 36 holes of the Masters. Alas a disastrous third round 75 saw any chance slip away and an obviously frustrated Garcia made an astonishing and frank statement to the Spanish press on Saturday evening. “I’m not good enough …I don’t have the thing I need to have,”Garcia told reporters from his homeland for players to deliberately skip balls across the water and onto the green at the famous one shotter but Kaymer's found the bottom of the cup, only the second time this is known to have happened since Vijay Singh holed out in 2009

The Decline of Golf in Australia

When are the powers of Golf and people who front our organizations going to get serious about the decline of golf in Australia?

Golfer membership is down, golf clubs are closing at an alarming rate and it just keeps getting worse.

And by the way, who appoints these people? The game, for those of us who play this great game is one of the most challenging and rewarding pastimes someone can participate in, however the game has been high jacked by self interest and egos.

I will be commenting in another blog soon on how some in authority in the game seem to go out of their way to to make it difficult for new golfers being introduced to the game.

The Australian Open, once unofficially regarded as the 5^th Major, struggles to get major sponsorship, we have had a Japanese philanthropist  who was grateful for his education received in Australia as young  man the benefactor and person responsible for the staging and existence of our most prestigious tournament. Many other great events have disappeared while we have the same people at the helm are doing the same thing year after year with same disasterous results.

Of the other events, if  it were not for state Governments, many  of these events would not exist; and what do lesser sports who struggle to get support for their sports think Millions of dollars of taxpayer’s money going to multi millionaire sports people and Management groups and the entourages of administration people who appear at these events for the 4 days of their life span.

Things have to change, an overhaul and audit has to be done, the salary’s have to looked at, the money doled out has to be revised, maybe the millions of dollars paid to elite golfer’s may have to be redistributed; or the millionaire golfer’s strutting the world fairways legged up by the Australian taxpayer  be compelled to contribute to local events, let’s try to make it go round. Like society, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting ………

The business model is not working, so it has to change. For people reading this blog time has come, no good contacting  your Club or State organization,  please contact your local member and let’s try to turn this around. Our golf courses and our clubs are one our community’s greatest assets, let’s try to preserve them.

Good Golfing & Stay in the Zone

John Lyons

Please email me at info@golfzone.com.au

This month’s newsletter begins with words of support to Jarrod Lyle who has been diagnosed with leukaemia.  After returning from Mexico, Lyles visit to the doctor for a spider’s bite led to the diagnosis.  Social media has led to an out pouring of support alongside players such as Ricky Fowler who displayed Jarrod’s initials on his cap at the recent Cadillac Tournament in Doral.

While on the Tournament at the Blue Monster, viewers of One HD were left scratching their heads as to the scheduling of a Nascar race instead of the live feed of the final round.  It wasn’t one of Sergio Garcia’s most  memorable moments, nor for his Taylor Made sponsors. The final round had all Taylor Made players don the Number 17 uniform to represent the extra 17 yards you can gain from their new ball. Something he could have done with on the third hole where 3 consecutive shots found water. He also found water on the 18^th as his Taylor Made umbrella buckled in the wind. The tournament went on to be won by Justin Rose.

The PGA has signed a three year deal with Danish technology company Trackman.  Trackman has a long list of endorsing professionals including, Martin Kaymer, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickleson.  Trackaman is one of the most widely used technologies for Tour Professionals, club fitters and teachers.  It measures the swing path of any shot and corresponding ball flight.  “ Put simply, the TrackMan system will enhance the PGA’s capacity to assess scoring ability, create training programs and benchmark performance and improvement which will further compliment our already robust learning platform.”  Says Craig Sharp PGA’s Executive Officer for Training and Education

The St Andrews Festival of Golf gets underway later on this month at the home of golf in Scotland. Exhibits will include Art exhibitions, including the unveiling of the Official Ryder Cup 2012 Print and the Seve Ballesteros Exhibit. The festival goes from March 20 through to April 1 and further details can be found at www.standrewsgolffestival.com

 Paul Casey returned to the PGA tour this week at the WGC this weekend. Prior to teeing off at the 15^th hole, his caddy had a handshake deal for a 50 / 50 split of any prize should he score an ace. This deal was soon realised when a jovial caddy erupted in celebration after Casey holed in one. However his celebration was short-lived when he was advised that the prize was only on offer for another hole. Still he managed a few beers later, I bet.

 The WGC tournament was overshadowed with an injury scare to Tiger Woods. Signs of the old Tiger were starting to appear with some impressive performances. Woods withdrew part way through the final round with an achilles complaint not wanting to risk continuing with the Masters not far away.

“ I felt tightness in my left Achilles warming up this morning and it continued to get progressively worse," Woods said in a statement.
"After hitting my tee shot at 12, I decided it was necessary to withdraw.
"In the past, I may have tried to continue to play, but this time, I decided to do what I thought was necessary."

Playing through rarely is associated with danger, until this week at the Resort On Eagle Mountain Lake in Fort Worth Texas.  Having been waived through by one of the players on the green, events quickly turned nasty when one of the group members on the green oblivious to his playing partners request, took to the approaching players. A putter was allegedly used as a stabbing advice and inflicted substantial injuries that may eventuate into a leg amputation.

"Obviously my shoes were filling up with blood and at that point I passed out." 

 Many of us had the pleasure of witnessing some great talent at the Presidents Cup last year, no more than up and coming Japanese golfer Ryo Ishikawa. Already with several Japanese titles under his belt, he had his highest ever finished on the PGA Tour finishing runner-up at the Puerto Rico Open. Ranked 53 he narrowly missed out in qualifying for Doral and his prize money for 2012 on the US tour now exceeds $550,000.

Ishikawa had already received an invitation to the Masters in April and he is now ranked 47.

For those of you that have been subscribing to the GolfZone newsletter we remind you of the article we wrote over 4 years ago signalling the talents of one Rory Mcilroy. This week Rory took over the mantelpiece of world number 1 from Luke Donald, with his win at the Honda Classic. A week prior he was denied with a runner up finish at the World Matchplay. Four players have been ranked No.1 since Woods relinquished the title 16 months ago.  Luke Donald was No 1 for 40 weeks.

While at the Honda Classic, Tiger more than stirred with a blistering 62 on the final day, his best last round score and rocketed to runner up failing by only 2 shots.

The World Golf Championship get under way this weekend at TPC Blue Monster at Doral. The tour event will boast the entire PGA Tour money list,  the European Race to Dubai Rankings, The FedEx Cup rankings and the official world Rankings.

Doral has hosted a PGA Tour event every year for the past 50 years and has just been purchased by Donald Trump for $150 Million. Like many golf course it was facing bankruptcy and Trump has purchased the Florida property with a view on establishing a casino if the gambling legislation gets passed.

I have played in several amateur tournaments and has dreamed of the day of scoring a hole in one and taking away the prize the sponsor has on offer. This dream came true for 48 year old, West Australian John  Stewart, who scored is Ace at the Jeep Australia 4 Ball Pro Am. The $55,000 prize would have seen Mr Stewart relinquish his amateur status but a PGA ruling  has ruled he is able to keep the car and not affect the 13 Handicappers status.

The tournament was won by New South Wales professional Peter Shaw and amateur partner Chris Gentle.

Following on from GolfZone’s David Diaz  highly publicised call for a Caddy at the British Open, Andrew Whiley has called for bag carriers for the return of New Zealand PGA Pro-Am to the PGA Tour of Australasia.

Do you know of any serious or casual golfers that would be keen to caddy in the event for our leading golf professionals and amateur golfers that will be participating in the weekend competition?  Andrew emailed.

If you are interested you can contact Andrew nzpgacaddy@hotmail.co.nz

Padraig Harrington’s sponsors have made a special allowance for him to auction off advertising space on his clothing and equipment to raise funds for a family member that was seriously injured in a car accident.

My sponsors have agreed to allow me to offer all the branding on my clothing and bag to the highest bidder for three tournaments in March and April," Harrington said.

"We have a bid of 100,000 euros for the front of my cap and 50,000 euros for a space on my chest,"

Family member Gerald Byrne has been left paralysed from the accident and the money will be raised to help him renovate his home and to purchase a wheelchair enabled car amongst other things.

In preparation for Brazil ’16 the President of the International Golf Federation has met with Brazilian officials to decide who will be the architect for the Olympic golf tournament.  Greg Norman and Peter Thomson are amongst the finalists and the decision is expected to be made this week. It still remains as to the importance of this tournament in the players eyes. The tournament is set to clash with Majors scheduling and it is extremely unlikely that the any of the Majors will be rescheduled.  George O'Grady, the chief executive of the European Tour saids "Initially, if you ask what do you want the Masters or the Olympic gold medal, players would likely take the Masters, but time will tell and the history books will show there is only one guy with a gold medal every four years,"

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas and your golf is going well.

What a success the Presidents Cup was. I couldn’t believe how serious the US team was in representing their country. And Freddy Couples; what a great captain and asset to the team he was.

Interesting to hear Mr. Bruce Green, friend, wonderful supporter of Australian Golf and Royal Melbourne head Golf professional  for over 30 years state that he was surprised to see Freddy and his team walking the course many times – learning about the nuances and subtleties of the wonderful layout at RM, one of the world’s great courses.

As an aside I was driving into RM about 10 years ago and Bruce was coming the other way, I was parked outside the few pieces of antique machinery on display at the entrance, a few specimens used by Dr Alister MacKenzie team when commenced building this masterpiece, where Bruce commented that this was a special plot of land developed by god for the great Doctor to spin his magic.

 And Boy did this great Golf Course not did not disappoint, while not all that long the, the cement hard greens made it very difficult indeed and throw in the predictable unpredictable Melbourne weather and what a test of golf it became. I am sure the International team wished they were as diligent in their preparation as the US team was!

Any how the event was a success, however I was a little perplexed by the selection of the International team but as we all know hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Well done again to the Us Team and Freddy Couples all great ambassadors for the game.

Good Golfing & Stay in the Zone

John Lyons

BTW, Bruce Green is a regular contributor to our Golf show – GolfZone and many of his lessons are uploaded to our web site, simply click the GolfZone TV tab on the web site.

President’s Cup

Well the President’s Cup is not far away and is sure to be a massive event. Mr Obama will be in the Australia around this time (officially in Sydney) but being a golf fan I am sure he will get around to dropping down to Royal Melbourne Golf Club.

Both golf course that make up the composite course at Royal Melbourne Golf Club are in superb condition, although this has not always been the case and herein lies dilemma. Many purists believe that golf courses the ilk of RM should be served up as the elements allow. As most people will know, Australia has been in the grip of drought for the last 10 years and Royal Melbourne had been badly affected. The club held off installing dams obviously to the detriment of the course, however as members who played the other courses  in the area; who had ample water on hand for irrigation, many tapped into the artesian water table( consequences yet to be quantified) saw golfers from these clubs hitting off manicured Santa Anna fairways that RM members would die for.