KARACHI: Pakistan’s Tariq Mehmood secured first position in the men’s individual open event of the 2nd CISM World Military Golf Championship on Thursday.

He scored an excellent 72 while his total gross score over three days of play was 220. Jensen from Canada claimed second position with a total score of 228 while Ansar Mehmood from Pakistan got 3rd position with a total score of 232. In the senior’s category, Loubser of South Africa secured first position with a total of 225 . Stuckless of Canada was 2nd with a score of 234 followed by Theron of South Africa with 235.

Men’s team event was won by South Africa with a total score of 935 over three rounds. Canada and Pakistan were equal with a score of 938 each. But as per the rules of CISM Golf, Canada were declared second and Pakistan third. In the women’s individual competition, Dunbar of Canada was first with a total score of 265 followed by Derman-Macisaac again from Canada with 278. The prize distribution ceremony will be held at Pakistan Maritime Museum on Friday (today). Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Sahhid Karimullah will be the chief guest.

Source: Pakistan Daily Times

Wouldn’t it be cool if golf was a part of the Olympics? Certainly the R&A and IGF think so, and I’d be inclined to agree. To quote from an article on the R&A site:

The proposed format for an Olympic golf event is two competitions - one for men and one for women - each consisting of 72 holes of individual stroke play, with 50 players in each field. The leading two players, from any country, who are in the top 300 of the official world rankings, would be eligible. Wild card spots would be allotted to ensure representative continental fields.

Golf is played by more than 60 million men and women on all the world�s continents, and is ever increasing in number of participants. It is an extremely popular event for television viewing and offers several benefits to an Olympic Organizing Committee. No costly stadiums need to be erected as the game takes place in natural outdoor settings, and these venues already exist worldwide. Also, golf could become part of the Olympic games by adding only 100 athletes, with no qualifying heats necessary and scores are positive and verifiable, with no recourse to subjective judgements.

Developing the game of golf internationally - an invaluable and inevitable side effect of the sport�s possible inclusion in the Olympics - offers several benefits. It is a game that teaches honour and integrity, as players often serve as their own referees. It teaches patience and discipline.

Golf is one of the few sports where people of all ability levels can play a fair and even match, thanks to the game�s widespread handicap and multiple tee system. It has proved to be an avenue for unity and opportunity for minorities, juniors, and athletes with disabilities. It is one of the few sports that can be enjoyably played for a lifetime, therefore offering perpetual health benefits to its participants.

Source: The R&A Homepage

Duncan, British Columbia, June 3 /PR Direct/ - Canadian University and College golfers will look to conclude the school year on a high note as Duncan Meadows Golf and Country Club prepares to host the Canadian University/College Golf Championship conducted by the Royal Canadian Golf Association from June 6-10 in Duncan, B.C.

In all, 154 College and University golfers from across Canada will compete during the five-day team championship which gets underway with a practice round on Monday, June 6. The championship is open to universities, colleges and other post-secondary institutions (professional and technical schools) in Canada. In total, the field will be comprised of 20 male teams and a record 11 female teams - including both defending champions.

In the men’s division, Ryan Lamb of Bradford, Ont. is the lone returning member of the 2004 champion, Humber College team. Joining Lamb to defend Humber’s title will be Lee French of London, Ont., Dave McDonald of Smith Falls, Ont., Sean O’Malley of Pembroke, Ont., and Michael Zizek of Mississauga, Ont. Zizek and French are sure to aid in Humber’s defense as both finished one-two at the 2004 Canadian Colleges Athletic Association (CCAA) PING Golf Open Nationals last October. Humber claimed that championship for the second consecutive season.

On the women’s side, the University of British Columbia (UBC) will count on four returning players to lead the charge in the defense of their title. Newcomer Heather Cronkwright of Calgary will join Erica Bennett of Dieppe, N.B., Jana Haggins of Calgary, Alison Kirk-Owen of West Vancouver, B.C. and Morgan Lederhouse of Calgary. University of Victoria, who took the title in 2003, will look to topple UBC as will the University of Western Ontario who were last year’s runner-up.

Also competing in the championship will be the University of Toronto (UofT). Both UofT and UBC were last year’s recipients of the Arnold Palmer Golf Fund. The fund was created by the RCGA Foundation to aid Canadian colleges and universities create and develop first-class competitive golf programs giving Canada’s top young golfers the opportunity to pursue their studies at home while continuing to perfect their games.

“This will be our third Canadian University and College Championship and has the makings to be the best ever,” said Brent McLaughlin, Director of Amateur Competitions for the Royal Canadian Golf Association. “Competition in our University and College golf programs is becoming stronger and stronger and I’m sure Duncan Meadows Golf will prove to be up for the challenge.”

Championship Format
The team championship will involve five-player teams competing over 72 holes with the top four individual scores counting towards the team total. After 54 holes, the field will be cut to the low 10 male and low four (4) female teams. Any team within 15 shots of the lead will also make the cut.
(more…)

China is a nation that is alive with economic growth as well as the resulting social change. Golf offers an interesting insight into this transformation, and certainly it’s quite neat to see such enthusiasm for the great game. Here’s an article that’s framed around the Johnnie Walker Classic being played in China. To quote:

IMG is close to announcing details of a tournament this November in Shanghai that will be the richest in Asia and will be limited only to tournament winners outside the PGA Tour. The field will include Tiger Woods, who won the Dunlop Phoenix in Japan late last year.

Along with being Woods’ agent, Mark Steinberg is co-president of IMG’s golf division. He has taken several trips to the Far East, and he can’t help but notice a market that is ripe with opportunity.

“I see major, major multinational conglomerates that want to establish a business presence now in hopes of what could happen, especially in anticipation of the Olympics,” Steinberg said Tuesday. “Golf has been a pretty strong ticket so far. It is really booming there. It’s really remarkable.”

Jack Nicklaus has designed 12 golf courses that have opened since 1993 in China, and he has eight more being built. He recalls meeting with a group of businessmen some eight years ago who wanted to put together a professional tour.

Source: MSNBC.com

It’s interesting to see Michelle Wie go up against some of the world’s best golfers, regardless of gender. More power to her. Hopefully at the upcoming John Deere Classic she can make the cut and show she can hold her own while playing with the best. To quote:

Michelle Wie accepted a sponsor’s exemption Monday to play in the John Deere Classic, the second time this year the 15-year-old from Hawaii will take her promising game to the PGA Tour.

The John Deere Classic, played on the TPC at Deere Run in Silvis, Ill., will be held July 7-10.

Playing in the John Deere Classic, a 7,193-yard course that plays to a par 71, will be part of a busy summer schedule for Wie. She has exemptions or has qualified for all four women’s majors this year, and she plans to try qualifying for the U.S. Open in May and the U.S. Amateur Public Links in June.

Source: Yahoo! Sports - Golf

This is a hilarious little tidbit. While I’ve never played at Augusta, I can assume I’d never forget to bring my clubs To quote:

Jesper Parnevik couldn’t believe it when he arrived at Augusta yesterday to prepare for the Masters without his clubs.

Parnevik, 40, made the trip from Orlando by private jet and believed a colleague had taken the clubs from his home along with the rest of his luggage, put them into a car and loaded them on to the plane.

It wasn’t until the Swede arrived at Augusta Airport that he realised the blunder.

He said: ‘I’m probably the first person ever to compete at the Masters who has left his golf clubs back home in the garage.

‘I guess I just thought someone else had packed them.’

Parnevik, who was forced to borrow a set of clubs from an Augusta National member friend to practise yesterday, asked his wife, Mia, to arrange for his clubs to be sent on

Source: Dailyrecord.co.uk

As the heat turns up on the race to be the World’s number one ranked golfer, comparisons are being drawn between the guys at the top today, and the three greats of Palmer, Nicklaus, and Player who used to battle head-to-head-to-head a few decades ago.

There’s an interesting article published by Newsday that gets into this comparison and analysis. To quote:

Any given Sunday can turn out like the one four weeks ago, one that was four decades in the making. Tiger Woods beat Phil Mickelson in an eardrum-rattling final pairing at the Ford Championship, with Vijay Singh right behind them, tied for third because of a balky putter. Only a few hours earlier, Ernie Els sank a 23-foot eagle putt on the 18th hole to win a European Tour event in Dubai.

That foreshadowed the Masters and the entire season: This is a big year because of the Big Four.

Woods, Mickelson, Singh and Els — in whatever order they happen to fall on a particular week — are giving golf the old what-for.

Publicly, their attitude is, “Big Four? Big deal.” They say no one should overlook Retief Goosen, an elite (yet bland) player who won the U.S. Open last June at Shinnecock Hills. Or they imply they don’t want anything to do with the whole thing. And aside from the friendship between Els and Singh, they really don’t want anything to do with each other.

Read more on Newsday.com

Here’s a great story about a young woman in Japan who is inspiring others to become interested in the game of golf. To quote from the article:

TOKYO, March 30 (Reuters) - With commentators calling her a new Tiger Woods, teenager Ai Miyazato is starting to have a similar revolutionary effect on golf’s image in Japan.

After turning professional and earning more than a million dollars last year, 19-year-old Miyazato led her teammate Rui Kitada to victory in the inaugural Women’s World Cup of Golf in South Africa in February.

The 154 cm (five foot) golfer from Japan’s southernmost island of Okinawa is not short on talent, but her popularity is not based on the speed of her swing.

Miyazato has succeeded in making golf look like fun again.

“I think the best part of my game is that I am really enjoying my golf,” she told journalists in Tokyo on Wednesday, when asked about her strengths. “That’s very important and I don’t want to forget it.”

Though she finished last year as number two in Japan, the teen sensation already outflanks the much-loved Woods in terms of popularity on her home turf and pulls in higher ratings for her televised games.

Miyazato comes from a golfing family — her two brothers are also golfers — and she pays tribute to her coach father for years of advice on positive thinking as well as to Japan’s number one player, Yuri Fudo, for showing her the value of practice.

Read More: Reuters.co.uk

Here’s some news regarding Arnie and the upcoming Masters Tournament:

Four-times champion Arnold Palmer, who played at the Masters tournament for 50 successive years, said Wednesday he would attend but not play this year’s event that begins on April 7.

“I have no intentions of going on the golf course,” said Palmer, during a news conference at the Bay Hill Invitational in Orlando, Florida. “I’m just going to socialize.

“I may change that in the years to come but at the moment, I just feel like I want to get a feel for not playing in Augusta.

“For 50 straight years I played and I loved it. I enjoyed it tremendously and I would still enjoy it, but I just want to get the feel for not doing anything.”

Arnold Palmer will be playing in September at the Weston Golf and Country Club to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his first PGA victory at the 1955 Canadian Open held that year at Weston.

Source: Reuters.com

Excerpt from Press Release:

Story after story is being written this week by sports writers around the world about the rain delayed Accenture Match Play Championship at La Costa Resort. This is the latest edition of the World Golf Championships that replaced the old World Series of Golf event called the NEC Invitational that was played at Firestone five of its first six years. Accenture features an elite 64-man field of pros playing for a $7.5 million purse with $1.3 million going to the guy who makes it five matches.

Few golfers know that the World Series of Golf (WSG) is back and will truly offer golfers from around the world, not just 64 elite pros, a chance to walk away with a slice of a $3.8 million purse where the winner pockets a cool $1 million! Anyone who has heard of this new tournament soon realizes that it is for good golfers with nerves of steel where driving, chipping and putting only represents half of the skill set needed to win. Unlike the Accenture Match Play Championship format, the new World Series of Golf format combines the excitement of golf with one of the world’s most popular card games… poker. It is designed to give non-professional golfers a fair opportunity to compete in a world-class golf event where they can win big money playing against equal or better golfers, even professionals. The equalizing element comes from an exciting hole-by-hole bet-and-play format that is modeled after the game of poker.

Source: emediawire.com
See Also -> http://www.worldseriesofgolfinc.com/

Always happy to read more news about Arnold Palmer returning to the Weston Golf and Country Club, to commemorate his win at the 1955 Canadian Open, which was his first professional victory.

Today the Globe ran an article confirming that Palmer will be playing in the Return of the King pro-am to be held at Weston in September. To quote the article:

“Palmer, whose charisma helped take the PGA Tour into the sporting big leagues, will play on Sept. 12 in a pro-am dubbed the Return of the King along with Canada’s first member of the World Golf Hall of Fame, Marlene Stewart Streit.

Then the next two days, the Kings & Queens Senior Amateur Championship will be held at the Weston. The new event on the golf calendar is being inaugurated by the Greater Toronto Area Golf Association to benefit the Hospital for Sick Children as well as junior golf and underprivileged kids.”

For more info, keep an eye on the Weston GCC Website.

Looks like Michelle Wie may have something to shoot for after she achieves her first goal of playing in the Masters. The Open Championship held by the Royal and Ancient Society (a/k/a the Men’s British Open) is going to open qualifying for the 2006 event to Women. Explicitly what is being removed is the “male only” clause.

This is a great development, as there really is no need to have total segregation in golf. Women should be allowed to try and qualify for any male professional golf event. Going further, it helps break down old boundaries of prejudice and ignorance. Quoting from an article in the Times of London, John Hopkins, their golf correspondent says:

“Gender-based restrictions are gradually being removed and every new wave of publicity weakens the remaining rules. Many of the Open venues, such as St Andrews, Royal St George’s and Muirfield, have men-only clubhouses but this will change eventually. Royal Liverpool, where the Open will be held in 2006 (the first year a woman theoretically could compete) also currently only allows men into the clubhouse. But it is like grains of sand passing through an hour-glass. It’s a slow process but eventually they will all be gone, which can only be a good thing.”

Source: Q&A: John Hopkins on women playing in the Open

Riviera Country Club, site of this weekend’s Nissan Open, is as much an L.A. icon as the Brown Derby, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre or Marilyn Monroe. It links the old L.A. with today’s L.A., maintaining its old-style feel while remaining a popular stop on the PGA Tour.

This was Hogan’s Alley, after all, where he won the 1948 U.S. Open, and the place where Babe Didrickson Zaharias became the first woman to play in a pro event in 1938. It’s also where a 16-year-old Tiger Woods made his PGA Tour debut under a sponsor exemption in 1992. The Nissan Open, nee the Los Angeles Open, also has a special place in the world of sports broadcasting, being the first golf tournament broadcast on radio (1929), the first golf tournament to be locally televised (1953) and the first golf tournament to be televised nationally (1966).

Source: PGA.com

Japan’s formidable duo of 19-year-old Ai Miyazato and Rui Kitada had hordes of golf spectators on the edge of their seats when they won the inaugural Women’s World Cup of Golf title and a $200000 first prize after a rollercoaster final round at the Links at Fancourt yesterday.

Japan, in joint third place at six-under 140 on day two of the event, leapt to the top of the leader board at the start of play yesterday, thanks to a sterling performance by Miyazato.

Source: AllAfrica.com

Well, it had to happen sometime, and if anyone were to do it, Vijay Singh certainly deserves to be that one. Perhaps the hardest working man in showbiz, what with James Brown slowing down, Vijay is now the world’s number one golfer, surpassing Tiger Woods who has held the spot for quite some time. This has obviously been big news, with loads of media coverage, but the real story has yet to come.

Will Tiger rally back and reclaim his title? Will Vijay be able to fend off a charge by Ernie Els? Certainly this makes professional golf that much more competitive, and adds even more excitement to what has oft been criticized as an archaic and misleading world golf ranking.

Official World Golf Ranking

Recently I stumbled across the website for the Great Lakes Tour, a mini-tour based largely in Ontario, and affiliated with the Canadian Tour. Providing an opportunity for local pros to work their way up and gain experience, this mini-tour seems like a fine way to develop home grown talent. Unfortunately there are currently no events in Toronto, although the Tour Championship, o/k/a the Moe Norman Cup is played in Brantford.

So the Masters Tournament in Augusta Georgia is at the half way mark, and that means time for the field to be cut. Unfortunately John Daly missed the cut by one stroke. He played well, but made a few small mistakes to put him over. Similarly Mike Weir, last year’s champion, also did not make the cut. His first round was horrendus, and even though he had 2 under for his second, it was not enough.

With two rounds to go, look to Phil Mickelson to be the one to beat. K.J. Choi also has that air about him that suggests he has what it takes to win the tournament. This will be a difficult finish, the current leader Justin Rose is at 6 under, a small margin with a strong field in pursuit.

John Daly has at the last moment qualified for the Masters Tournament in Augusta Ga. John was able to hold on to 10th place in this year’s PGA Money List, which is how he has gained entry into golf’s most prestigious tournament. Now the real piece de resistance will be for John to win the actual tournament.

Defending champion, Mike Weir will have his work cut out for him, if he intends to repeat as Masters Champion. The competition this year should be fierce, and while John Daly is our sentimental choice to win, look to Phil Mickelson to make a charge at winning his first major.

This weekend Annika Sorenstam had little difficulty cruising to a seemingly easy victory at the ANZ Ladies Masters. She shot 65s for her last two rounds, and was 4 strokes ahead of the next competitor, and a full 8 strokes ahead of third place. That is an incredible showing.

Clearly Annika needs a more competitive field and the results of this tournament definitely show that she could and should play against the men.

In the future I think its inevitable that the top tier of professional golf competition will be free of gender discrimination or distinction.

More on Annika’s Victory

This coming weekend 64 of the top ranked players in the world will compete in a match play tournament in Carlsbad California. Tiger Woods is the defending champion, and needs to win six of six matches to repeat.

Upsets are definitely possible, and drama is sure to be high in this head to head elimination tournament. For more information, and the full set of player brackets, see the Accenture Match Play Championship - World Golf Championships website.