Another big week in golf with major Championships on the Champions Tour, the US Senior Open at Inverness in Toledo, Ohio and the LPGA has the Women's British Open at a very tough Carnoustie in Scotland.
In addition the Irish Open has a week of week's with McIlroy, Harrington, Clarke and McDowell with all their major trophy's in a very strong European Tour field.
PGA Tour
Event: Greenbrier Classic
Where: The Greenbrier, Old White Course (7,274 yards, par 70) in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.
Purse: $6 million; winner's share $1.08 million.
Canadians : Adam Hadwin, David Hearn, Chris Baryla, Matt McQuillan. Hadwin gets his reward for his T4 last week at Shaughnessy.
Complete tee times http://www.pgatour.com/tournaments/r490/tee-times.html
Last year: Stuart Appleby shot the fifth 59 in PGA Tour history to win the inaugural event by a stroke.
Tom Watson is in the field instead of playing the US Senior Open and that is one of the big story lines here this week.
pgatour.com: Watson has a relationship with The Greenbrier that runs very deep. Sure, there are financial ties involved; Watson is the golf professional emeritus at the resort. But there are intensely deep personal ties that bind him to Greenbrier owner Jim Justice and the resort. Those turned out to be too strong to overcome, even for a major championship.
Justice and Watson go way back.Watson was a member of the Ryder Cup team that routed the Europeans 17-11 at The Greenbrier in 1979. But Watson's wife was expecting a child and he was summoned home to be with her and wasn't able to compete. It was Justice's father who piloted the small propeller plane back to Kansas City so Watson could be there for the birth of his daughter Meg.
But that was only the beginning of Watson's love for The Greenbrier. He began to bring sponsors to the resort for a few days of friendly golf starting in 1980, something he continues to do. And shortly after Sam Snead died in 2002, Watson was asked to assume the role of golf professional emeritus that Snead had embraced for many years.
Champions Tour
Event: U.S. Senior Open
Where: Inverness Club (7,143 yards, par 71) in Toledo, Ohio
Purse: TBA ($2.6 million in 2010); winner's share: TBA ($470,000 in 2010).
Canadians: Rod Spittle, Jim Rutledge
Complete tee times click http://www.usga.org/ChampEventScore.aspx?id=17179869345&year=2011&type=tee1
Last year: Bernhard Langer completed a British Senior-U.S. Senior Open sweep, beating Seattle favorite Fred Couples by three strokes at Sahalee in Washington.
LPGA Tour
Event: Women's British Open
Where: Carnoustie Golf Links (6,490 yards, par 72) in Carnoustie, Scotland.
Purse: $2.5 million; winner's share $408,700 million.
Canadians : Alena Sharp, Lorie Kane, Stehanie Sherlock, although they have her listed as an American on the leaderboard !!
Complete scoreboard click http://www.lpgascoring.com/public/leaderboard.aspx?TournamentID=27836
Last year: Yani Tseng won at Royal Birkdale for her second major victory of the year. Tseng made a 6-foot par putt on the final hole for a one-stroke victory over Katherine Hull.
European Tour
Event: Irish Open presented by Discover Ireland
Where: Killarney Golf & Fishing Club
Purse : 1 €250,000 2 €166,660 3 €93,900 4 €75,000 5 €63,600
Defending Champion : Ross Fisher of England
Complete tee times click http://www.europeantour.com/europeantour/season=2011/tournamentid=2011053/teetimes/index.html
Big year for the Irish Open with Rory McIlroy, Darren Clarke, Graeme McDowell and Paddy Harrington in the field and the celebrations are already underway with McIlroy and Clarke being presented with Honourary Lifetime Memberships to the European Tour last night..
Now remember this, as I was so rudely reminded yesterday by an Irish friend of mine, Seamus from County Kerry where Killarney is. Like the Scots the Irish are a feuding bunch. First of all Clarke, McIlroy and McDowell are all from Northern Ireland, a wee chunk of land on the NE corner of Eire (Ireland) that is British and mainly Protestant and you should know about the troubles in Belfast between the minority Catholics and the Protestants... Hatred is not strong enough a word. It is not considered part of Ireland or Eire by those in the 'south'
Paddy Harrington is the only one from Ireland, he was born in Dublin.
So all the rest of Eire or Ireland is predominantly Catholic and have a historical distrust for the Protestants from the "north". The IRA would run and hide in the 'south' at the height of the "troubles".
Further the "county's" that make up Eire like the clans that make up Scotland have been at each other's throats in that country's long history.. Said Seamus " I'm not sure who I dislike more, a big Proddy from the north or a bas---d from County Limerick !!"
So while on the surface "Irish Eyes will be Smilin'" with all their major champions in Killarney this week, they'll be keepin' at least one of those eyes on who's around them !!
Bryan Angus also on twitter@mummmbles
.
No comments:
Post a Comment