Vijay Singh. The name is synonymous with golf. However, for the first time in fifteen years the Tour Championship will be without Vijay. And this is the year after he won the FedEx Cup and it’s $10 million prize. Last year, all Vijay had to do was finish the tournament and the check was his. After winning the 2008 Barclays (which I attended) and the Deutsche Bank Championship, Vijay seemed to be at the top of his game. This year is a big change from the guy everyone is used to seeing walking triumphantly down the fairway. At 46, Singh is also recovering from surgery (in his knee) and has not won a tournament all year. In an interview with Golfweek Vijay was quoted as saying, “A lot of mishaps along the way, and it ended up being a real crappy season.” No kidding.
As for the future, Singh looks to play in some of the tournaments in the fall following the Tour Championship. These events are recognized by the PGA but are not counted toward the rankings and money list that ends with the tournament at East Lake. Hopefully this tour favorite can right his ship and return to playing golf at the best of his abilities.
From humble beginnings, no one could see Y.E. Yang becoming a professional golfer, let alone leave his home town in South Korea. The son of a farmer, Yang was often pressured into joining the family farm and forget his time consuming hobby of golf. However, Yang never gave up his dream of playing on the world’s highest competition, the PGA tour, even though he started playing the game at the age of 19. Now at 37 years old, Yang has become the first Asian born player to win a major championship and has given a new sense of pride to both the nation of South Korea and the continent of Asia as a whole.
After all, golf was invented in Scotland and had only become a worldwide phenomenon relatively recently for many nations outside of North America and Europe. Many Asian nations, like South Korea and Japan are relatively new to the sport, only being introduced to it by foreign soldiers stationed in their countries in the mid 20th century. Nowadays, golf has become an obsession for much of the Asian continent and Y.E. Yang breathes a fresh breath of air into a game that was predominantly controlled by Americans and Europeans. Now there is a growing number of Asian golfers on the tour (K.J. Choi, Anthony Kim, Ryo Ishikawa to name a couple) and who knows what the future holds.
Since Se Ri Pak’s victory at the 1998 Women’s US Open, Asian golfers have been slowly climbing the rankings and getting a good amount of respect for the way they play the game. Finally there is a face of a continent for the men’s game. That is the media proclaimed ‘Tiger Killer’, Y.E. Yang.
In the day after the surprising win by Tiger Woods at the Bridgestone Invitational, the PGA tour will be fining Tiger Woods for speaking out against an officials ruling on Sunday. Although Tiger ultimately won, he realized that Padraig Harrington was rushed and forced to take a couple of shots that he could have used more time to think about. Paddy acknowledged this rushed play as a factor to his horrific triple bogey on the 16th, but accepted the ruling because he thought that the final group should not get preferential treatment. Tiger was more adamant in his response even though he hit a wonderful shot after being warned.
You may be asking yourself, why didn’t Padraig just wait longer than the officials predetermined 40 seconds? The answer is that it would not have helped him at all. After the initial warning, players are subject to a $5,000 fine and a one stroke penalty if the rule is not followed. This would have ended just as poorly for Padraig and may have added extra strokes for him in the end.
This is garbage. The PGA tour needs to lighten up and not allow these rules to overtake the drama of a historical event. Even though the group was about 15 minutes behind pace, it was the final group, coming up on the final three holes, with a one stroke difference between the players. Because of this stupid rule, the fans were robbed of another great end to a tournament, just because they didn’t want to give “preferential treatment” to the leaders. Well obviously these guys were playing better than everyone else, and should be subject to a little more leeway in these type of situations. Bad call for golf and unfortunately nobody wins from this debacle.
Don’t take my word for it, hear it from the British Open Champ (Stewart Cink) and some of his collegues about how tough a course Firestone Country Club is. Besides the challenge, the tournament has produced a long and rich history of good golf from Jack Nicklaus back in 1976 to 1980 where a 24 year old Jose Maria Olazabel shot a 61 to the most famous 1999 Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson duel to the very next year where Tiger won the tournament in the dark. But like I said before, don’t trust me, watch the video!
After almost two months off from the grind of the tour, it is reported that Phil Mickelson will return to play in the Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, Ohio next week. The site of the tournament is the Firestone Country Club which interestingly has three courses, each of which has hosted a separate professional golf event. Phil has always played well at this event, scoring five top ten finishes and a runner-up finish in 1999. He looks to shake the rust off a week before the final major of the year, the PGA Championship at Hazeltine a week later. If this is any indication of how his family is doing, it seems to be a good sign that Phil is back on the course and looking to get back into the tour schedule. Even though he missed the British Open and snapped his consecutive major streak at 61, he is always a competitor and should play well in the coming weeks.
Other notable golfers that are going to be playing at the Bridgestone include Tiger Woods, who has won the tournament six times and looks to get back on track after losing to Vijay Singh last year after winning the previous three in a row. Also competing will be new British Open champ Stewart Cink, who has also won the tournament back in 2004. Although not a major, this event is the third event in the WGC circuit and is an important pre-PGA round for many of the top golfers. Look for a strong field and some inspired play that could lead into momentum for the PGA Championship.
