Friday, March 7, 2014

European Tour Notebook: Calls to put Seve Ballesteros on European Tour logo increase

european tour logo
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The current European Tour logo is a silhouette of Harry Vardon, the British Open champion a record six times between 1896 and 1914.
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PA Sport 

Series:
Colin Montgomerie and Nick Faldo have added their names to the campaign to have the image of the late Seve Ballesteros on the logo of the European Tour.
The logo is currently a silhouette of Harry Vardon -- British Open champion a record six times between 1896 and 1914 -- but the two Ryder Cup captains gave their views after attending Ballesteros’ funeral last Wednesday in Spain.
"I think you will find it does change and let's hope it is sooner rather than later," said Montgomerie. "I would vote for that immediately. When you talk about the European Tour you talk about Seve, and I think it's only right he should appear on our logo."
Faldo, who flew from in America, added: "I think they (the tour) would have a very difficult time not changing the logo.
"From Day 1, I said to (European Tour Chief Executive) George (O'Grady), 'Come on -- we are not 110-year-old golfers',” he said. "There will never be another Seve. He had everything -- the good looks, the charisma, the smile, the walk and the swashbuckling golf game.
"We shared lots of battles and it's tragic. We would have been mates and we've lost out on that,” he added. “We always had mutual respect, but we never realized the level of feelings that we had for each other."
WENTWORTH TO CELEBRATE SEVE: Six major champions will be among the players gathering at at the BMW PGA Championship later this month to honor the memory and celebrate the life of the late Seve Ballesteros -- and to raise considerable funds for his foundation.
All proceeds from the 'Ole Seve!' pro-am over the West Course at Wentworth will be donated to the Seve Ballesteros Foundation and Cancer Research UK.
A minimum of 22 teams will include Jose Maria Olazabal, Graeme McDowell, Michael Campbell, Retief Goosen, Martin Kaymer and Paul Lawrie. Olazabal will take on the role of tournament host and the pro-am will be followed by an evening reception and auction. The event, which kicks off BMW PGA Championship week, will be open to the public and admission will take the form of a donation to the Ballesteros Foundation.
Other players taking part include Colin Montgomerie, Paul Casey, defending BMW PGA champion Simon Khan, Anders Hansen, David Howell, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Peter Hanson and 18-year-old Matteo Manassero.
The second round of the BMW PGA coincides with the 20th anniversary of Ballesteros' second win, and everyone attending that day is being encouraged to wear navy blue in his honor.
RYDER CUP TRIO JOIN WALES OPEN FIELD: European Ryder Cup heroes Ross Fisher, Miguel Angel Jimenez and Peter Hanson have confirmed that they will be joining defending champion Graeme McDowell and former Ryder Cup Captain Colin Montgomerie in returning to Celtic Manor for the Saab Wales Open on June 2-5.
McDowell will be the defending champion for a tournament that has also attracted former British Open champion John Daly, who will be participating as well in the inaugural PowerPlay Golf event there on Monday May 30.
That features two flags on every green, with extra points for taking on the tougher one, and Gary Player, Ian Woosnam, Ian Poulter, Paul Casey, Paula Creamer and Helen Alfredsson are also taking part in that.
TRIO COMPLETE MATCH PLAY LINE-UP: British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen, Australian Aaron Baddeley and Korean Noh Seung-yul will complete the 24-man field for the upcoming Volvo World Match Play Championship in Spain.
Oosthuizen's inclusion means the four current major champions will all be playing at Finca Cortesin as well as the following week in the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth.
"I am very grateful,” said Oosthuizen, who is the only player invited into the field. “With such an elite field, I know there were any number of great candidates who were hoping they would get the call-up. I hope I can make the most of the opportunity and am really looking forward to playing in this historic tournament that I watched Ernie Els win so many times."
Six of the world's current top seven are competing as well: Lee Westwood, PGA Champion Martin Kaymer, Luke Donald, U.S. Open champion Graeme McDowell, Rory McIlroy and Paul Casey.
Baddeley is the Australasian representative after Adam Scott, Jason Day, Geoff Ogilvy and Robert Allenby turned down the chance to compete. Nineteen-year-old Noh represents Asia because Y.E. Yang had already qualified and their fellow Koreans K.J. Choi and Kim Kyung-tae and Japan's Ryo Ishikawa, Yuta Ikeda and Hiroyuki Fujita opted not to play.
The 24 will be divided in eight groups of three based on their world rankings on Monday, with the top two in each progressing to the knock-out on Saturday and Sunday.
The complete field includes: Lee Westwood, Martin Kaymer, Luke Donald, Graeme McDowell, Rory McIlroy, Paul Casey, Charl Schwartzel, Ian Poulter, Francesco Molinari, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Retief Goosen, Alvaro Quiros, Louis Oosthuizen, Y.E. Yang, Ryan Moore, Anders Hansen, Ross Fisher, Aaron Baddeley, Noh Seung-yul, Jhonattan Vegas, Nicolas Colsaerts, Soren Kjeldsen, Johan Edfors and Paul Lawrie.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Golf-PGA Tour money list

Golf-PGA Tour money list

Reuters 
Dec 16 (Reuters) - Leading money winners on the 2013/14 PGA
Tour on Monday (U.S. unless stated):
1. Ryan Moore 1,520,350 US Dollars
2. Dustin Johnson 1,400,000
3. Harris English 1,361,817
4. Jimmy Walker 1,330,500
5. Webb Simpson 1,251,417
6. Chris Kirk 1,072,308
7. Jason Bohn 859,000
8. Ian Poulter (England) 850,000
9. Gary Woodland 756,000
10. Brian Stuard 746,200
11. Chris Stroud 718,000
12. Charles Howell III 688,074
13. Ryo Ishikawa (Japan) 622,875
14. Vijay Singh (Fiji) 593,400
15. Scott Brown 565,225
16. Tim Clark 563,883
17. Briny Baird 548,375
18. Sergio Garcia (Spain) 526,000
19. Graeme McDowell (Northern Ireland) 480,000
20. Graham DeLaet (Canada) 449,667
(Edited by Caroline Helly)

2014 Golf Preview: The Year Sergio Garcia Finally Wins a Major

2014 Golf Preview: The Year Sergio Garcia Finally Wins a Major

Other Predictions: Tiger Woods Won't Win a Major, and the Resurfacing of Anthony Kim

Yahoo Contributor Network 
COMMENTARY | The 2014 golf season will be remembered as the Year of El Niño.
Dating back to Lucas Glover's triumph at the 2009 U.S. Open, 15 of the past 19 major tournaments have been won by first-time major winners.
That trend should continue in 2014, with Sergio Garcia taking the British Open to remove perhaps the biggest monkey to ever grace a golfer's back.
Here's why the time is right for Garcia to break through: For all his struggles and high-profile collapses in recent years, he's still only 33. Another "best golfer without a major" ended his drought at the same age: Phil Mickelson.
Next year's Open Championship will be held at Royal Liverpool Golf Club, a course Garcia has played well at. Royal Liverpool hosted the 2006 Open Championship, a tournament won by Tiger Woods with Garcia finishing in a tie for 5th. A brilliant 65 in the third round catapulted the Spaniard into a tie for second heading into the final round.
Garcia turned around a disaster-filled year, highlighted by his collapse at the Players and controversy with Woods, by winning the Thailand Golf Championship this past weekend.
Other predictions for 2014:
Tiger Woods will not win a major. Mentally, he is simply not the same golfer he was before The Scandal. He can't hold a lead, not even at his own tournament while paired up for the final two days with about as comfortable a playing partner as you can find in Zach Johnson.
The pressure is so intense right now for Woods to win another major to prove to critics that he really is back. But his mental game, the one that helped him become the greatest closer of all time in golf, is not there and may never return.
Woods will win another major, perhaps two. But the next major victory will come when we least expect it, when there's less pressure on him, a la Ernie Els at the 2012 British Open or Jack Nicklaus' 18th and final major in 1986 at the age of 46.
Another young American golfer on the rise -- Dustin Johnson, Brandt Snedeker or Hunter Mahan -- will also break through to claim his first major title. In 2011, it was Keegan Bradley. In 2012, Bubba Watson and Webb Simpson. Last year, it was Jason Dufner. The trend will continue, and my bet is on the long-hitting Johnson, who scored his biggest win to date in November at the HSBC Champions in China.
Anthony Kim and Camilo Villegas will resurface. It wasn't that long ago when these two were near the top of golf's elite. Injuries and partying derailed Kim's career over the past couple seasons, while Villegas' freefall to 273rd in the World Golf Rankings has just been puzzling. Villegas showed some signs of life last season and is still just 31 years old, so a bounce-back isn't far-fetched.
Kim is a bigger question mark. He skipped the entire 2013 season to recover from surgery to repair his Achilles tendon. He has three PGA Tour wins, the last coming in 2010. Kim must ditch his "Entourage" lifestyle to regain his form from 2008, when he was today's version of Rory McIlroy, the golfer Nike threw millions of dollars at and perhaps the most popular outside of Woods and Mickelson.
The Tap In
In a recent edition of Sports Illustrated Golf PGA Tour Confidential, a panel of experts weighed whether Woods winning another major or Mickelson winning the U.S. Open to complete the career slam would be the bigger story. The group tied 2-2.
I'll break the tie with an unequivocal vote for Woods winning another major as the bigger story. If that happens, it won't just be the biggest story in golf, it'll rank as one of the top stories in all of sports. That feat would essentially complete his turnaround and, depending on how many other regular tournaments he wins, would likely give him the title as Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year.
Andy Vuong golfs year-round in Colorado and consistently shoots in the 80s when he doesn't hit 90 or higher. Follow him on Twitter @andyvuong.

14 added to Masters field through world ranking

14 added to Masters field through world ranking

AP - Sports
14 added to Masters field through world ranking
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Billy Payne, chairman of Augusta National Golf Club, speaks during a media conference before the Masters golf tournament Wednesday, April 10, 2013, in Augusta, Ga. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Augusta National added 14 players to the field for the Masters when the final world ranking of the year was published Monday.
That brings the field to 90 players who are expected to compete April 10-13, and again raises the possibility of the Masters exceeding 100 players for the first time in nearly 50 years. Augusta National has the smallest field of the four majors and prefers to keep it under 100 to enhance the overall experience at its tournament.
This is the third time in the last four years that the field was at least 90 players going into a new calendar year. There were 99 players for the 2011 Masters, the most since 103 players competed in 1966.
Those who qualified by being in the top 50 of the final ranking were Hideki Matsuyama, Thomas Bjorn, Jamie Donaldson, Victor Dubuisson, Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano,Miguel Angel Jimenez, Francesco Molinari, Rickie Fowler, Matteo Manassero, David Lynn, Thongchai Jaidee, Peter Hanson, Joost Luiten and Branden Grace.
Players can still qualify by winning a PGA Tour event (except for the Puerto Rico Open) or being in the top 50 on March 30, a full week before the Masters.
Matsuyama qualified at No. 23. It will be his third appearance at the Masters, and his first as a pro. Matsuyama was a two-time winner of the Asia-Pacific Amateur, which awards an exemption to the Masters. He made the cut both times as an amateur.
''I'm ecstatic I qualified for the Masters through my play for this year,'' Matsuyama said through an interpreter in October, when it was clear he would be in the top 50.
He won four times this year on the Japan Golf Tour and had a pair of top 10s in the majors.
Fowler was the only American of the 14 from the world ranking, though two other players (Peter Hanson, David Lynn) were PGA Tour members, who have more options available to them during the year.
The Masters changed the criteria for the 2014 tournament, though that appears to have little bearing on the number of qualified players. Because the PGA Tour went to a wraparound season (October through September), the Masters awarded spots to the winners of tournaments held in the fall. Jimmy Walker, Ryan Moore and Chris Kirk qualified by winning those events. The other winners of fall events - Webb Simpson, Dustin Johnson and Harris English - previously were eligible for the Masters.
Augusta National eliminated the category for top 30 on the money list, though that didn't keep out any player who qualified.
The club now takes the top 12 and ties from the previous Masters (instead of the top 16) and the top four and ties from the U.S. Open (instead of the top eight). That eliminated only one player - David Toms - who would have been eligible under the previous category. The others would have made it through other criteria.
When the FedEx Cup was created in 2007, Augusta National returned to its practice of inviting PGA Tour winners (at events that offered full FedEx Cup points). Since then, the largest increase in the field from January until the Masters was the addition of 11 players for this year's tournament.

Qualifiers for the 2014 Masters

Qualifiers for the 2014 Masters

AP - Sports
AUGUSTA, Ga. (AP) -- The 90 players who have qualified and are expected to compete in the 78th Masters, to be played April 10-13 at Augusta National Golf Club. Players listed in only first category for which they are eligible.
MASTERS CHAMPIONS: Adam Scott, Bubba Watson, Charl Schwartzel, Phil Mickelson, Angel Cabrera, Trevor Immelman, Zach Johnson, Tiger Woods, Mike Weir, Vijay Singh, Jose Maria Olazabal, Mark O'Meara, Ben Crenshaw,Bernhard Langer, Fred Couples, Ian Woosnam, Sandy Lyle, Larry Mize, Craig Stadler, Tom Watson.
U.S. OPEN CHAMPIONS (five years): Justin Rose, Webb Simpson, Rory McIlroy, Graeme McDowell, Lucas Glover.
BRITISH OPEN CHAMPIONS (five years): Ernie Els, Darren Clarke, Louis Oosthuizen, Stewart Cink.
PGA CHAMPIONS (five years): Jason Dufner, Keegan Bradley, Martin Kaymer, Y.E. Yang.
PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIPS CHAMPIONS (three years): Matt Kuchar, K.J. Choi.
U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPION AND RUNNER-UP: a-Matt Fitzpatrick, a-Oliver Goss.
BRITISH AMATEUR CHAMPION: a-Garrick Porteous.
U.S. AMATEUR PUBLIC LINKS CHAMPION: a-Jordan Niebrugge.
U.S. MID-AMATEUR CHAMPION: a-Michael McCoy.
ASIAN AMATEUR CHAMPION: a-Lee Chang-woo.
TOP 12 AND TIES-2013 MASTERS: Jason Day, Marc Leishman, Thorbjorn Olesen, Brandt Snedeker, Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood, Tim Clark, John Huh.
TOP FOUR AND TIES-2013 U.S. OPEN: Billy Horschel, Hunter Mahan.
TOP FOUR AND TIES-2013 BRITISH OPEN: Henrik Stenson, Ian Poulter.
TOP FOUR AND TIES-2013 PGA CHAMPIONSHIP: Jim Furyk, Jonas Blixt.
PGA TOUR EVENT WINNERS SINCE 2013 MASTERS (FULL FEDEX CUP POINTS AWARDED): Derek Ernst, Sang-Moon Bae, Boo Weekley, Harris English, Ken Duke, Bill Haas, Jordan Spieth, Patrick Reed, Jimmy Walker, Ryan Moore, Chris Kirk.
FIELD FROM THE 2013 TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP: Steve Stricker, Dustin Johnson, Roberto Castro, Nick Watney, Brendon de Jonge, Luke Donald, Gary Woodland, Kevin Streelman, D.A. Points, Graham DeLaet.
TOP 50 FROM FINAL WORLD RANKING IN 2013: Hideki Matsuyama, Thomas Bjorn, Jamie Donaldson, Victor Dubuisson, Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Francesco Molinari, Rickie Fowler, Matteo Manassero, David Lynn, Thongchai Jaidee, Peter Hanson, Joost Luiten, Branden Grace.
TOP 50 FROM WORLD RANKING ON MARCH 30: TBD.
SPECIAL FOREIGN INVITATIONS: TBD.