Dustin Johnson stormed to number one in the world ranking after a superb 11-shot victory at the Northern Trust at TPC Boston. It was somewhat of a formality after the American took a five shot lead into Sunday's round and never looked in trouble. Johnson's finished the event thirty under par which is just one shot off the record for the lowest score in a PGA event.
The European Tour today confirmed the cancellation of the BMW International Open and the Open de France and the postponement of the Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open, a Rolex Series event, due to the continuing threat posed by the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19). At the same time, the PGA Tour announced its plans to resume the 2019-20 season with the Charles Schwab Challenge between 11th and 14th June.
With all due respect to Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods et al we think the Golf Writers Association of America (“GWAA”) were spot on in voting for Brooks Koepka as Player of the Year for 2019. Koepka’s performance at the four majors was undeniable impressive – to win one, finish second in two and tie fourth in the other is quite some feat.
There has been much debate about parity for women golfers and there have been attempts to move in the right direction, for example the Jordan Mixed Open and the ISPS Handa World Invitational promoted by Niall Horran’s Modest media. With all respect to these other events, finally, there is a big one with some serious money attached.
It’s Manic Monday, so here is a very quick round up of all the main results and stories from the weekend!
The Sanderson Farms Championship from the Country Club of Jackson delivered another first-time winner when Sebastian Munoz saw off 2019 Rookie of the Year, Sungjae Im, on the first hole of a playoff. It was the Columbian’s first tour victory and follows the win by Joaquin Niemann of Chile at last week’s win at the A Military Tribute at the Greenbrier.
Following the debuting of the Titleist 2020 branding at the FedEx Cup playoffs the rather sleek looking bags are being launched on the European Tour at this week’s BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth. We still want one!
Matt Wallace is a man in form. Following a third place in the KLM Open in Holland last week he shot a flawless seven under par 65 to take a one stroke lead at the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth yesterday. Londoner, Wallace leads Spain’s Joh Rahm and Sweden’s Henrik Stenson by one shot. With Justin Rose a further short back after a five under 67.
At the Wednesday press conference with Rory McIlroy at the BMW PGA Championship the subject inevitably turned to slow play. It transpires that the world number two had been watching the Solheim Cup, or as GolfPunk had renamed it the Slowheim Cup.
What happens when you pair one of the world’s biggest pop stars with the world’s number two golfer at a Pro-Am event? Well it’s no joke but what you actually get is a lesson in bunker play in the middle of the round, oh and a very near miss!
It’s a hot topic and one that is not going to go away. Slow play is killing our game and GolfPunk for one will not stand idly by and accept that nothing can be done. We believe our manifesto can speed up play will go a long way to get the guys round quicker!
After exhaustive reseach, including feedback from tour players, their caddies and PGA professionals, Titleist have produced their latest tour bag collection. This is a glimpse of what is to come from Titleist in 2020 and clearly the theme is a sleak jet black look.
