PGA Golf Talk

Mike Small was able to pull out a win in this week’s PGA Professional National Championship. He hasn’t won very much in recent years, having won this championship back in 2005 and been a runner up a few times over the last 8 years. He’s a talented golfer and the head golf coach at the University of Illinois. But he always faces some very tough competition at these tournaments. At the same time, the PGA Professional title is a great honor for him, especially since he didn’t expect to have won this year. With the new prestige that he has gained from this win, he will go on with more confidence and a smile too. Congrats to him and stick with PGA Golf Talk for more details on the Tour!

Kenny Perry is aiming to get 20 wins in PGA tournaments before he leaves the Tour. He’s a good player and now has won 14 tournaments altogether. He thinks he can make it too. He won two tournaments last year and three this year so far. So getting six more in the next few years is not too far out of the question. He will have to hope for a lot of high level players to drop tournaments and such. But Perry is a good player and we can expect him to really get himself at least 20 wins total, it not more. He’s a good player to watch, with lots of talent that he shows us everyday. Don’t worry about him being disappointed if he doesn’t get much further this year. He’s only 48 years old, so he’s got a little while until he leaves the tour.

Jeff Brehaut was able to present himself really well at the US Open. In golf, it’s hard to get into the top of the leaderboard. For golfers, a person has to outplay everyone else and get one of the top scores in order to have a breakout competition. During the US Open, Jeff Brehaut got himself into a great position and made the cut to play in the actual competition. But then during the battle, he wasn’t nearly as good. But he gave a decent performance, shooting an 81 ultimately. It wasn’t a win, or even close, but he should be congratulated for working hard to get into the tournament.

The US Open took about 40 times longer to complete than usual, because there was a surprising amount of rain out on the course this weekend. Phil Mickelson came close to winning. Tiger Woods drifted off early on and never seemed able to make it back. But the big story was the competition between Ricky Barnes and Lucas Glover. Barnes was right in the thick of it through most of the battle but then had a meltdown over the last two or three holes, hitting at 6 over 76. He tied for second at -2 with Mickelson and David Duval. Glover is quite pleased with his winning performance and he has proven that he is one of the biggest players in the game right now. He has won a few different tournaments this year, so it will be interesting to see what he’s able to put together for the rest of this year.

The US Open is often the place where Tiger Woods is able to really take charge and do a great job. After yesterday, he was in a good place to start off Friday, sitting right at par. Yesterday’s part of the competition was delayed until today by the large rainstorm that came to New York. Moving forward, Woods slipped to 4 over 74 after the first round. It’s certainly not the start that he would have hoped for, because he trails several players, some who are tough competition, others who are simply doing better right now. He’s going to push himself to catch up or move ahead outright in the rest of the battle, but he has a lot of space to make up. If he can make it, it will be one of his best comebacks ever!

At the St. Jude Tournament, Brian Gay was able to take the title on Sunday. He’s going great guns and has won several tournaments this year. Before this year, he wasn’t all that well known, but he seems to be headed in the right direction! It’s possible that he will be on his way to the US Open in the next few weeks and possibly in several other high profile competitions as well. It’s a little surprising that his story became a big part of the news, despite all the other background stories going on with John Daley and Phil Mickelson reentering the competition. But Gay was ahead of the pack from the beginning to the end, playing a very consistent game and he made it to the end!

At the St. Jude Tournament, Jon Daly and Phil Mickelson are starting their comeback tours. Daly has been out since the end of January after an incident involving intoxication in public. He has been working on this difficulty since then and hopes to keep clean for the rest of his career. He hopes to give that career a good kickstart now during this tournament, perhaps even winning it. Phil Mickelson suspended his current tour a few weeks ago after his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. He was going to be out indefinitely, but her surgery was pushed back and he is resuming his battle for tournaments this year. Hopefully she will be ok after treatment and he will be able to play more fully.

Tiger Woods has been having trouble since he came back from knee surgery at the beginning of this year. But yesterday at the Memorial Tournament, he was able to take his 67th PGA win and show the critics that he’s not actually at the end of his strong career. His last round showed some of his most impressive stuff, including long eagle chip-in and two closing birdies along the way. He was able to win and the runner-up said that the media should stop criticizing Woods. It makes Woods angry and then his game improves again. He feels that he has to prove these critics wrong and plays even better than he was before. His swing is better, his aim is better. It’s a tough year for those who have to take him on!

On the PGA Tour, there are few other such good players as Steve Marino. Marino has been consistently getting better for the last few years. Recently, he was in the Sony Open in Hawaii and he ended up paired up with Michelle Wie. Many people didn’t want to be paired with her, but he welcomed it! He felt that it was good for him to concentrate and hit even more accurately than before. He jumped up into 22nd position on the PGA tour, allowing him to get into the playoffs during the fall. It’s going to be a fun year for him and he’s really showing that he can hit a lot of great shots everytime. He looks like he’s one of the up-and-coming players in the golf world and will be dangerous competition for the other golfers.

Steven Stricker was able to win the Crowne Plaza Invitational in Fort Worth, Texas. This is good for him, although there were some big problems along the way. He was ahead towards the end, but he missed a few shots, leading into a playoff against Tim Clark. Clark is the man who has the most money on the PGA tour, but hasn’t won a single event yet. He had a two stroke lead with only 5 holes left. But then he messed up a bunch of shots and ended up playing catchup ultimately. Clark is disappointed by the end of this tournament, because he was ahead and then he was behind and then he lost. He will need to learn how to finally win tournaments instead of simply coming close again and again.