Round 1: Sony Open in Hawaii
January 12 2012
11:53 pm
Tidbits from the first round
HONOLULU – A few notes from Thursday’s first round of the Sony Open in Hawaii:
Graham Delaet had never led after any round in his PGA TOUR career until Thursday when he shot a 7-under 63 to lead by two …
K.J. Choi, who is tied for second after shooting a 5-under 65, has posted par or better scores 10 times in 11 starts at the Sony Open …
Steve Stricker has played 47 rounds at the Sony Open. His 4-under 66 on Thursday was the 42nd time he posted par or better …
Defending champ Mark Wilson played the last 40 holes of the 2011 Sony Open without a bogey. Late in his round on Thursday, he had a stretch of five holes in which he suffered three bogeys …
There are two 16-year-old players in the field: Miguel Tabuena of the Phillipines, who shot a 71; and John Oda, a sophomore at Moanalua High School, who shot a 73. Oda qualified as the lone amateur exemption in the field.
Bogey-free rounds: Carl Pettersson, Webb Simpson, Colt Knost, Pat Perez, Kyle Stanley, Seung-yul Noh, Sean O’Hair and John Senden …
The par-4 first hole was the most difficult, playing 0.257 strokes above par. The par-5 ninth was the easiest, playing 0.660 below par …
Longest drive of the day belonged to Jhonattan Vegas, with a drive of 354 yards at the 14th hole …
Longest putt of the day belonged to Jonas Blixt, who rolled in a 59-foot, 7-inch putt at the par-4 second hole.
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after 5 rounds into 2012 i think it reasonable to suggest that webb simpson is not a one season wonder. he doesn’t have your cla$$ic swing and his putting stroke looks a bit quick and short, but the guy is a “shoot in the sixties” machine.
whether he can maintain that standard is another story, but he looks to have become a guy that can get the ball in the hole. he is a smart player, very rarely doing anything dumb.
a major this year is not beyond him, the masters would be the least likely.
November 19th, 2011 4:34 pm
i would love to see kim stick it to spider,think simpson has a few chinks in the armour & this kid might bring it out he got the better of t/w & d/j yesterday with not a lot of help from yang.i said after day 1 norman should have thrown the two young guns together kim/ryo esp;fourball i realy think they could have come away with a win.
I am glad to see that Steve Stricker is off to a good start this week. After winning last week I though he might have a little letdown that would get him into trouble.
K.J. Choi was my pick to win last week but failed to do anything until the final Round. Hopefully he can stay with the leaders through the 1st three Rounds this week.
Bub Cauley is my pick for “Rookie of the Year”. I don’t expect him to win a bunch of Tournament, maybe just one would be OK. He has to be able to stay in the Top 20 this year to get a gauge on what is expected for 2013.
Where is Jim Stats? I have a question for him.
There are 12 Asians in the field this week, not including golfers with an Asian background (Danny Lee, Kevin Na etc). The domination is about to commence, the male Yani Tseng is coming.
2 Canadians tied for 1st. There are only 4 Canadians in the top 500 in the world rankings.
My fantasty team is looking good once again this week. Opening up a bit of a gap at the top of my league already this season!!
FanTASTY was a pun there by the way. To describe how tasty my team is doing.
stricker, after 5 holes in round 2, is sitting in a tie for 101st place in driving accuracy. he is 2 strokes off the lead. he gets the most out of his game, and he can do very well on courses that are not so penal.
he is to be admired for his impeccable short game, which is why he had 4 solid finishes in the majors last year. but no top tens.
at best, he is an average driver in both accuracy and distance, similar in greens in regulation.
stricker is a great putter. but the pressure on his short game is intense, his game will deteriorate if his putting drops off.
the most recent major winner of over 45′s was jack nicklaus who won the masters in 1986 age 46.
stricker, 45 next month, has very little chance of winning a major.
stricker fans need to take it easy.
and Nicklaus had 17 majors behind him whenever he won at that age. Stricker has none or none of the know-how that Nicklaus had at that age.
but you can only delve into stats for so long, records are there to be broken, if Stricker plays the best the week of the major and wins it then fair play to him.
Dave, i’m not really delving into stats…… more facts than stats.
Steve Stricker fans have many things to be thankful for and await in great anticipation for the Masters and a possible win for a very nice guy.
His chances of winning are alot better than a certain Golfer who is not playing this week but his fans seem to stir up alot of false hope about finishing on Top of the Leaderboard in Augusta.
Just Stating Facts — a short time ago you and Jim Stats came up with a scenario about Tiger Woods regaining the Top spot in the OWGR.
Naturally, this highly unlikely situation would entail Tiger Woods wins all of his Tournaments while Luke Donald wouldn’t get any points at all until the Masters in Augusta starts.
I was naturally going to go along with the plan, just to see how things would pan out…lo and behold…the 1st Weeks OWGR ranking for week ending 8 Jan 12 were posted and although Luke didn’t play his Points went up from 10.027 to 10.211 while Tiger’s Points dropped.
01—08 Jan 12—Luke Donald— #32—10.211
Although the OWGR Stats show that Luke has been the leader for 32 weeks up to and including 8 Jan 2012, I would like to point out that the final weeks of 2011, should read:
Wk ending 18 Dec 2011—Luke Donald #30
Wk ending 25 Dec 2011—Luke Donald #31
(6 days remaining with Sunday the 1st Jan 12)
2012
Wk ending 01 Jan 2012—Luke Donald #32
Wk ending 08 Jan 2012—Luke Donald #33
It’s very easy to look at a calendar and see that this is the 33 Week Luke has lead the OWGR.
007, a battle for #1 between Tiger and Luke seems highly unlikely as any scenarios need to include the performances of guys like: Rory, Kaymer, Dustin, Watney & co.
Tiger will get up there if he stays fit but will his knee, after 4 surgeries, permit him 20 or so tournaments plus practice in 2012? We all hope so.
Also, Tiger’s below his best, and likely to remain so, while others are still improving.
In any event, the OWGR’s are just noise. It’s titles and the potentially exciting competition among 20 or so elite players that will keep us all enthralled this year.
Any battle that takes place for #1 will not involve Tiger Woods in 2012. A skirmish will take place throughout 2013 involving the 5 or 6 players mike miller has referred to. Tiger Woods may in fact come out on top, but he will have great difficulty separating himself from the other elite trenders. Golf is a little bit more competitive at the top for the next while.