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| A Look Back: July 26 1955: Doug Ford defeats Cary Middlecoff, 4 and 3, to win the PGA Championship at Meadowbrook Country Club in Northville, Mich. 1981: Pat Bradley beats Beth Daniel by a single shot to win the U.S. Women's Open. 1987: In a playoff, Laura Davies bests JoAnne Carner and Ayako Okamoto to win the U.S. Women's Open, her first major championship. 1992: Patty Sheehan downs Juli Inkster in a playoff to win the U.S. Women's Open. 1998: With a final-hole birdie, Hale Irwin wins the U.S. Senior Open by one stroke over Vicente Fernandez of Argentina. |
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Sponsorship
The PGA of America and Callaway Golf Company form a multi-year sponsorship
program that will support senior professional and junior national championships,
partner in the PGA Learning Center and Golf Retirement Plus, and develop new education
and competitive programs for PGA Professionals. In addition, Callaway reconfirms
its commitment to participate in the 2003 PGA Merchandise Show scheduled for January
at Orlando.
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Plastic
golf cleat maker Softspikes is named a Participating Sponsor of the 2002
U.S. Kids Golf World Championship. Softspikes will provide its popular Black
Widow cleats to all 700 competing junior boys and girls.
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Left-Tee
Golf.com LLC, an internet portal for left-handed golfers, signs up to be a
corporate sponsor with The Springs For Life Foundation, backed by Seattle
Seahawks defensive back Shawn Springs.
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Real
Estate
Hillman Properties and the Davidson Companies form a strategic
alliance with Watson Realty Corp. to broaden the reach of their current sales
and marketing efforts at the King & Bear in The Neighborhoods of World Golf
Village.
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Technology
Pause Golf Solutions installs the Fore! Reservations Golf Course Management
and Marketing System at Koasati Pines Golf Club in Louisiana.
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Cybergolf
launches new generation of online marketing tools for the hospitality industry
and signs Northwest Country Inns in the Pacific Northwest to use its Broadcast
Email Blast System.
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Johnson
Design Golf Marketing launches an online asset management service, GolfAssets.com,
designed to create a single source for golf properties or event organizers to
store and distribute photographs, graphics, logos and text documents to the media
and key vendors.
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Instruction
Golf instructor David Leadbetter congratulates student Ernie Els for his
win at the 131st Open Championship last weekend. Els has been working extensively
with Leadbetter this off-season at his Academy at ChampionsGate Golf Resort in
Orlando.
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Courses
Trump National Golf Club in Westchester County, N.Y., officially opens
for play Saturday with Donald Trump hitting a ceremonial first drive and starting
an 18-hole tournament for celebrities, club members, corporate CEOs and media.
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Briefly
German golfer Tobias Dier, European Tour member and Maxfli full staff player,
shoots a 10-under-par 60 the TNT Dutch Open using a new Maxfli ball. ...
Golf
car maker Club Car receives the highest quality rating possible from the
International Organization for Standardization. ...
Component maker Coastcast
reports its financial results for the second quarter of 2002. As compared to the
same period in 2001, sales were $19,945,000 vs. $32,184,000, net loss was ($4,143,000)
vs. ($332,000), and diluted loss per share was ($0.54) vs. ($0.04).
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Reader's Forum The 131st British Open is over. Muirfield Golf Links was a fair test, Tiger Woods' quest for the Grand Slam was shut and Ernie Els eventually won a playoff over three other players. What were your impressions of the year's third major? Let us know your opinions by sending your responses to info@gpagolf.com with the subject line RE: Impressions. Also include your first initial and last name, along with your email address. |
Casual Friday
A Perfect
Playoff
Let's see - sudden death, 18-hole or three- or four-hole aggregate playoff to decide ties in major championships? We at The Wire posed that question in last week's Reader's Forum. The overwhelming sentiment favored some form of short aggregate-score format.
And that's probably best.
After grinding out 72 grueling holes over four days, a sudden-death format like that used at the Masters opens the door for too much lady luck. Granted, anyone making the playoff is worthy of winning, but one hole may not thoroughly test a player's entire game - which it should.
An 18-hole playoff, which is used at the U.S. Open and last seen a year ago when Retief Goosen defeated Mark Brooks, is truly a thorough examination of a player's game, but may be a bit excessive. As brutal as an Open can be, adding another 18 holes - and an extra day - to an already exhausting week both mentally and physically generally has not brought out the best golf.
Plus, Open playoffs now spill into Monday and how anti-climatic is that? You spend all weekend watching the Open, and then on Monday you're back at work wondering how it all unfolds. The networks and the fans both lose out.
No, the best way is with the format used by the PGA of America and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club for the PGA Championship and British Open. It's fair and equitable, provides no decided advantage to a certain players' strength and usually can be wrapped up on Sunday evening.
Steve Elkington bogeyed the first of last Sunday's four-hole playoff, yet managed to rebound and stay in contention until the final hole. Ditto for Stuart Appleby, who stumbled and righted himself and still had a chance to extend the playoff. Yet, in the end, it was Ernie Els with five straight pars who ended up winning the extended format.
The only tweak to the R&A's format might be to keep all playoff participants together in the same pairing as opposed to the two two-ball pairings that went out last week. The latter two players have the luxury of seeing the outcome of those up ahead, thus allowing them to change their strategy. Els used the extra time to his advantage in another way.
"Yes, there was another good break," he said. "I got to eat a sandwich, got some food in my system. I watched the other guys tee off, obviously. I started to feel a little better and better as time went on as I was standing on the tee there and I hit a beautiful tee shot."
Els, though, liked the format, regardless of whether he won or lost.
"The two-balls, yes, but I think that's a good thing, too, otherwise it would have taken so long," he said. "A four-hole stroke playoff for four holes and you don't have to play it as a four-ball."
Here's hoping Hazeltine can produce the same kind of drama as it did two years ago when Tiger Woods defeated Bob May in the thrilling playoff at Valhalla.