Paul Casey has moves up to 14th in the world following his victory at the European Open in Hamburg. The Englishman shot a bogey free 66 that took him to 14 under and squeezed out Scotland’s Robert Macintyre, Austria’s Matthias Schwab and home hope Bernd Ritthammer by one-stroke.
We very much like the prize being offered to the winning professional at this year’s Highland Golf Links Pro Am. As well as a cheque for a few bob the winner will receive a bottle of Tomatin 50-year-old single malt, which has been bottled exclusively for the tournament and is valued at more than £10,000!
The Solheim Cup is just three weeks away and Team USA captain, Juli Inkster, used her picks to add some experience to her rookie Solheim Cup line up last night. This will be Stacy Lewis’ fifth Solheim Cup and Morgan Pressel’s sixth.
There was lots of concern that the new format of the Tour Championship was going to result in the FedEx Cup leader running away with things and there being a lack of drama at East Lake Golf Club over the last big weekend for the PGA Tour. Well things didn’t really work out like that as Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele and Brooks Koepka all start day two tied on 10 under with Rory just one behind.
We often read about how a club has been designed for the tour players and is now being released to us mere mortals and, to be honest, it sells a great idea that by adding said stick to our bag will result in us playing like Brooks, Tiger or Rory. Sadly, in real life this is rarely the case so the idea that Cleveland have launched their CBX2 wedges with the majority of golfers in mind is a refreshing change of pace.
The new product launches are coming thick and fast from the team at TaylorMade and the third generation of the Kalea range looks pretty natty. Designed for players with a slightly slower swing speed, and targeted at female players, the aim is to use all the technology to maximise clubhead speed and ease of launch for all abilities.
Well we nearly got the final line up right in that we predicted three of the four captain’s picks. European Captain Catriona Matthew went for France’s Celine Boutier, English stars Jodi Ewart Shadoff and Bronte Law and Norway’s Suzann Pettersen.
Less than 24 hours after the Evian Championship was wrapped up by Jin Young Ko, 49 of the top 50 women in the world hightailed it to Milton Keynes to somehow prepare themselves for the very different test that Woburn Golf Club’s Marquess Course will offer. Or at least most of them would have been preparing had Lexi Thompson not left her passport in her bag!
The men’s majors are over and so attention turns to the women, or ladies as they were referred to when I was growing up. We have a double header with the Evian Championship in France this week followed straight away by the Women's British Open. And we thought the men were compressing their majors too much!
Ok time for a rerun of our GolfPunk rant. The three-minute rule is a good one and it is intended to speed up play like the other good rule change, putting with the pin in. I am sure most pros did not expect to suffer too much from the rule change but then they are not playing Royal Portrush every day.
There have been many incredible Open debuts, here is our Top 10... Eight pros. One day. Twelve holes. Three rounds. No prize money. One winner. Willie Park Sr.
It’s Manic Monday, so here is a very quick round up of all the results and stories from the weekend on the PGA Tour, European Tour, LPGA and Women’s European Tour.
