PGA Golf Talk

Tiger Woods who left the golf course after the Masters, finishing three shots behind Trevor Immelman is hoping to return to the game in the Memorial that will start on May 29th and is hosted by Nicklaus. Woods has already won three times in this course. Woods is returning after a surgery to remove cartilages from his leg. At present Woods is able only to chip and putt and over 30 yards is a difficult task for him. He hopes that he will be able to play full shots within a week. If he is unable to organize his play by the time the Memorial starts, he will definitely return in the U.S Open which starts on June 12th at the Torrey Pines. 

PGA of America launches PGA Profinder, a new feature in their site that aims to further connect PGA to the public, thus making it more accessible and user friendly for all who visit the website.

PGA.com will offer PGA Profinder, a new online searchable directory that lets visitors access all PGA Professionals and PGA-staffed facilities.

Every ardent golf fan will gain the ability to use this cutting edge online tool to search for as well as locate PGA Professionals and facilities so as to find golfing instructions, golfing clinics, events, leagues, tournaments and generally golf playing opportunities. They are free to search via ZIP codes, golf courses, PGA Professional’s name or city. All in all, a grand total of 28,000 PGA Professionals and over 11,000 PGA-staffed facilities are listed on PGA ProFinder.

Next up, another feature will also be introduced in the website. The PGA Golf Instruction Video Series DVDs will be sold. The series will feature PGA Teachers of the Year Laird Small, Peter Krause and Bill Forest, who were world renowned golf players and instructors.

The Australians Geoff Ogilvy and Adam Scott are eager to take on the Woods challenge as they are in the same group with Woods for the third round of the World Golf Championships, the CA Championship. Tiger is on the look out for his 6th straight PGA Tour win and his fourth consecutive win in this championship. Ogilvy said that they are not worried about the golfing prowess of Tiger Woods and would play as per the game’s requirement. Currently Ogilvy is in the lead with 12- in this group with Adam Scott at 9 under.

Ogilvy is at the top of his game right now after a very poor start to the season. Both Ogilvy and Scott will have to be at the top of their golfing skills to play against the number one player in the world. There are also reports that there is a possibility of thunderstorms and the Aussie pair will have their work cut out during the third round of the championship.

Tiger Woods captured his fifth consecutive USPGA tour win when he won the Arnold Palmer Invitational golf tournament last Sunday. The American defeated his fellow countryman, Bart Bryant, by a birdie on the 18th to win the tournament by one stroke. Woods was ecstatic to win the title and his reaction of slamming his cap on the ground and pumping the fists in celebration did tell a lot about how much he wanted to win this title. Woods said that he did not know how he was able to win this tournament and all he did was to get good speed on the ball and was happy that it went in from 20 feet distance.

Woods was tied at the top when he started the game on Sunday and said to himself that he has done this before and has the ability to do it again. By winning this Arnold Palmer title, Tiger Woods has now won eight out of the last nine tours all over the world. Tiger Woods’s all time career title record stands at 64 and is currently tied with late Ben Hogan at the third position in the all time win list. The other two people who are above him in the all time win list are Jack Nicklaus with 73 titles and Sam Snead with 82 career titles.

Vijay Singh, the former No.1 player and the record holder for winning 31 PGA tours, is thinking of extending his record by winning the Arnold Palmer Invitational tournament this week. He has won nineteen titles after 40 years of age. This is the 30th year of the tournament and Vijay has been attending the tournament since 1993. But, this title was out of his reach till 2007. He is the defending champion and wants to win the tournament. He was working hard to change his swing and is hopeful that the change will work out in the long run.

According to Singh, the changing of the swing is the biggest alteration he has done in his style of play. He lost the lead in AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro –Arm championship just because his swinging was not perfect and lost it to Steve Lowery. Singh himself is not happy with his swinging, even though others think it is good enough. He has made 6 top ten finishes and has never missed his cut in the last 15 starts. Vijay Singh loves to take part in different tournaments and to win different titles, and believes that adjusting to different conditions makes one a better player.

Stewart Clink has reached the final group of PGA tour for the third time this year. He played the last 28 holes on Saturday in very adverse conditions. The wind speed was 30mph at the PODS championship for more than 12 hours. Clink was 2 -under 69 before he started on Saturday and was very lucky to get three straight birdies which gave him two-shot lead. He is two shots ahead of Geoff Ogilvy, the former champion of U.S Open. The tournament is still open for grabs and only nine players are remaining under par in this tournament. Clink is determined not to give chance for other players on the next day.

Clink is attracted to the playing style of Tiger Woods and has played some matches along with him. Clink has good chance of winning this tournament as Woods is not playing. Clink is yet to win a tournament after his win in Firestone in the year 2004. This year he has set goals for himself and has plans to take part in more competitions. In the last five events he had played this year, this is his second chance for him to win a major tournament and to set a position in Golf championships.

Sandy Lyle, who turned fifty on February 9th, is thrilled about coming of age to play the prestigious tournament, the Champions Trophy, wherein a player is allowed to compete in the championships only if he is aged 50 years and above. Lyle who is a six time PGA tour champion, with the first win at the British Open in 1985, is absolutely thrilled to take part in the Champions Trophy this week. He will be the youngest player of the Champions Trophy tournament even though he has amassed two majors.

Lyle says that he has been playing the tours in Europe and US along with players about 18 years of age and felt that it was difficult to compete with the younger generation who arte physically very strong and can send the ball many a mile. He is excited to be playing with the older golfers now and wants to end his 16 year old title drought in this season itself. Lyle expects to take part in 20 tournaments in the coming season that includes the British Open as well as the Masters. He has taken several months off from the goal arena and says that he is ready for the challenge of the older golfers and his first assignment will be at the Newport Beach Country Club this week.

Mark Brown, who returned to active golfing after a short break from the game, has won his second tournament title in two weeks. Brown re-entered the golf course in 2006, after taking a three year gap, as he was not satisfied with his earlier performances. After his return, his first title was last week’s Asia Tour’s SAIL Open and this week he is the proud winner of Johnnie Walker Classic title. He won the game by sinking four birdies and finished the final round with a score of 18- under and won the game by three strokes. Second place was a three- way tie between Taichiro Kiyota, Scott strange and Greg Chalmers.

Brown expressed his win as incredible and amazing and said it is a dream comes true for him. According to him this is a huge victory. The Johnnie Walker Classic is a major event in Golf with $2.5 million investment in it. The amount is sanctioned by the Asian and European tours in co-operation. The triumph in the Johnnie walker classic gives Brown exemption in playing on the European tour till late 2010. Kiyota was of an opinion that Mark Brown played great golf in the tournament and is unhappy about his hesitation in the last nine holes, which gave Mark an advantage over him.

The 18 year old golfing genius, Michelle Wie, is much stronger and healthier this year and is pretty confident of doing well in the LPGA tour this season despite suffering from a serious wrist injury last year. She feels that the wrists will never be the same again and hopes to be in the thick of the action this season as she had gone through a rough season of injuries and withdrawals last season. Wie said that, even though her wrists will not be 100 percent okay, she feels pretty strong and healthy and hit the ball a long way this season.

After a disappointing 2007 Wie is set to kick off this years season at home on the island of Oahu for the fifth year in a row. Her swing coach David Leadbetter is of the opinion that the swing is returning back to her game now and the rehab program that Wie has gone through is helping her regain her lost touch. Wie wants to get back into contention this year and possibly win a couple of tournaments this season. Wie is excited about her six exemptions on the LPGA tour and can make an attempt to qualify for the British Women’s Open as well as the US Women’s Open.

The American Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger is bringing in a small change in the playing format in an attempt to be successful over the Europeans who have defeated the American Ryder Cup team successfully for the past three years. The veteran golfer who has so far participated in four Ryder Cups wants the opening session of the Ryder Cup matches to start with foursomes instead of four balls. Azinger told that the team has decided to switch over to the alternate shot that saw the U.S Ryder Cup team win the cup in 1999. The general feeling in the camp is that the Americans are pretty good at alternate shot and once it clicks then the team would have got off to a pretty good opening.

Paul Azinger is also on course to give a face-lift to the wild card system that will encourage four captains’ picks instead of the regular two picks. Azinger is also of the opinion that he will delay the announcement of the these picks and will only announce it after Nick Faldo, the European Ryder Cup captain announces. The fans as well as the players are very hopeful that these changes will bring back memories of the 1999 Ryder Cup season.