“Hooks and Slices” will bring you our view on whats happening in the golf world.
There was a television first yesterday on NBC during The Players Championship. With Tiger Woods in the
final group on Sunday afternoon NBC choose not to show every shot by Tiger. It usually doesn’t matter if Woods it out of the tournament, they always focus on Tiger. Yesterday was different. Woods was invisible during most of the telecast and with good reason. He couldn’t hit the ball where he wanted all day and struggled to a 73 to finish in eighth place. Henrik Stenson won by four strokes over Ian Poulter, but we were the real winners. With NBC’s decision not to focus on Woods we got to see dozens of shots from many different players. NBC’s ratings will probably suffer, but that’s Tiger’s fault. After he plopped one in the water on the second hole he was done, and we got to see the rest of the field.
Stenson was a deserved winner. He shoots six under with no bogeys, the best round of the day and only missed two fairways on the weekend. Stenson’s philosophy was to keep the driver in the bag and use his three wood most of the time. He only used driver a half dozen times all week. He put the hammer down on the back nine with a thirty two to close. When Poulter couldn’t manage a charge, it was Stenson’s tournament. This is a great win for Stenson. He is a talented golfer currently ranked fifth in the world. Afterward he said, “This gives me a lot of confidence for the Majors.” Let’s see if he dares to strip down to his boxer-briefs in front of those crazy fans at Bethpage.
It was painful to watch Alex Cejka over the first few holes. He was having more trouble than Tiger. Cejka was six over after eight holes as he shot 42 on the front and finished with a 79. Mercifully, NBC stopped showing Cejka about the same time they left Woods.
Talk about a home field advantage. Nice tournament for rookie Jeff Klauk, who grew up playing Sawgrass with his dad as superintendent, he tied for fourteenth. Rookie Scott Piercy had a strong week and tied for twenty second.
Cristie Kerr shot a one under 70 for a two stroke win over In-Kyung Kim at the LPGA’s “fifth major,” The Michelob Ultra Open. Kerr has been playing well lately with six top ten finishes this season. The $330,000 winner’s check is huge for the LPGA.
The John Daly Comeback continues. Daly shot a final round 66 to jump into a tie for second at the BMW Italian Open. That’s another big step for Daly. He still has a ton of golfing talent, but playing good golf is only a small part of his comeback. Daly had worn out his sponsors and lost many supporters over the last few years. He looks like he may be on the right track, but we have seen this before. Let’s hope he can control himself as well as he controls his golf ball.
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