Tiger Woods, the former world No1, has hired Joe LaCava, the former bagman for Dustin Johnson, as his new caddie. Meanwhile Butch Harmon, the former swing coach of Woods and current swing coach for Johnson, is “shocked” at this turn of events.
And so the soap opera continued on just another day in the world of professional golf, during which two important lessons were learned. The first is that this particular sporting community is remarkably tight, with a small cast of interchangeable characters flitting from one role to another, from one camp to the next.
Back in 1968, when she was driving from tour stop to tour stop in her Oldsmobile, not many people from outside her circle took notice of Canadian Sandra Post, but that changed quickly when she beat the iconic Kathy Whitworth in a playoff to win the LPGA Championship a few weeks past her 20th birthday.
There were no college scholarships and no development tours, so Post hit the LPGA Tour at the age of 19 and her LPGA title made her the youngest person — male of female — ever to win a major.
Post hung on to that title for decades until Morgan Pressel won the 2007 Kraft Nabisco Championship at 18 and even that tender age seems senior citizen in comparison to an announcement expected from commissioner Mike Whan about the future of 16-year-old Lexi Thompson.
THEY also serve who only stand … and stand … and direct the spectator traffic. I’m talking about the crowd marshals, all 450 of them, who are on duty at Killeen Castle this week.
David O’Hora of The Curragh GC is the chief marshal and he has an international team working to keep the event moving smoothly.
“The majority are from Ireland, but we have around 120 volunteers from abroad.
MIRABEL, Que. — Soft, receptive greens courtesy of early-week rain have turned the CN Canadian Women’s Open into a $2.25-million putting contest.
There are birdie opportunities galore for players at Hillsdale Golf and Country Club outside Montreal this week.
Round 1 co-leader Ai Miyazato is now the round-two co-leader thanks to a four-under par 68 on Friday.
The smooth-swinging Japanese star teed off in the morning and caught fire in the early afternoon birdieing three of her final five holes to take the clubhouse lead.
“I played really good,” Miyazato said. “I feel like I holed a lot of putts today.”
After sharing the lead for two days, Miyazato is careful not to get ahead of herself.
MIRABEL, QUE. – Heading into this week’s Canadian Women’s Open no two players had more eyes on them than Saturday’s unlikely 10 a.m. pairing.
Lorie Kane is a big deal in Canada. The LPGA veteran is endorsed by tournament sponsor CN and is quite comfortable in her role as de facto tournament host.
Yani Tseng is a big deal everywhere. The world No. 1 is expected to contend every week and seems more and more comfortable in her role as one of golf’s biggest stars.
Both players started the day at two-under after shooting matching 71s on Thursday and Friday.
Although Tseng was just seven years old when Kane made her LPGA debut in 1996, the two are far from strangers and enjoyed each others company during Saturday’s Round 3 at Hillsdale Golf and Country Club outside Montreal.
Sadly, very little of it was created by the competitors in the tournament’s rather humdrum field, as the really big noises were being made by the Perthshire course’s resident insect population.
Player after player trooped off the course complaining of the bug-life hell they had just been through.
“I kept getting wasps flying right by my ball in the middle of my stroke,” said Ross Fisher after a 71 that had included an eagle and a triple-bogey. “It happened about three times in two or three holes. There were wasps on every hole. It was very strange.”
The theories behind the plague of stingers were stranger still. The unlikel