The Irish Golf Club Gazette

11/08/2012

Matthew Defends Ochoa Title

2012 Ladies Irish Open winner, Catriona Matthew, looks to defend her title for her 5th career victory following a powerful performance at last year’s event where she won by four-strokes over Anna Nordqvist and I.K. Kim.

The 18-year veteran enters the week after adding her fifth straight top-10 finish to her résumé this season at the Sunrise LPGA Championship presented by Audi.

The second to last event of the 2012 season kicks off this week in Mexico at the Guadalajara Country Club where tournament host and 27-time winner on the LPGA Tour Lorena Ochoa makes her first appearance since 2010.

The fifth annual Lorena Ochoa Invitational presented by Banamex and Jalisco highlights a star-studded field of 36 players vying for a $150,000 first-place prize from its $1 million purse.

The field also consists of six of the top-10 players in the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings including No. 1 Yani Tseng, No. 2 Stacy Lewis and No. 4 Inbee Park.

Lewis is coming off her fifth-career LPGA victory at the Mizuno Classic where she came from a seven-stroke deficit to defeat second-round leader and JLPGA member Bo-Mee Lee. Lewis strengthened her lead in the Rolex Player of the Year race to 214 points giving her a 58 point lead over Park, who leads the 2012 Official Money list with more than $2.1 million.

Tseng also had strong performances throughout the Asia swing with back-to-back third place finishes in Korea and Taiwan, finishing with a fourth-place finish in Japan.

Mixed Opening Day at Q School

A total of 304 players – 193 qualifiers and 111 exemptions – began the Second Qualifying Stage of The European Tour Qualifying School at four venues across Spain on Wednesday.

At least 17 players from each of those courses – Campo de Golf El Saler in Valencia, Las Colinas Golf & Country Club in Alicante, El Valle Golf Resort in Murcia and Lumine Golf & Beach Club in Tarragona – will earn a the place at Final Stage at the end of November.

In the mix are 16 Irish hopefuls all chasing a place over the next week which Mark Staunton, Niall Kearney, Jonathan Caldwell, Peter O'Keeffe, Tim Rice, Brenda McCarroll, Mark Murphy, Chris Devlin, Simon Thornton, Gareth Shaw, Ruairdhri McGee, Barrie Trainor, Noel Fox and Cian Curley.

David Higgins has been on of the stronger starters at El Saler on day one, after a round of 71, with other end of the leader board showing difficult rounds ahead for Alan Dunbar at Lumine, carding a 75, and Barrie Traunor

The exact number of spots available to the six-round final at the PGA Catalunya Resort in just over a fortnight will not be determined until the conclusion of the UBS Hong Kong and South African Opens (both of which finish on Sunday, November 18), but it is all to play for amongst the 304 hopefuls who all share the same dream of securing a place in The 2013 Race to Dubai.

England’s Jamie Abbot and Welshman Liam Bond made the best starts to the first round with the pair hitting the front at Lumine Golf & Beach Club with a pair of seven under par 64s.

Germany’s Florian Fritsch sits atop the leaderboard at Las Colinas alongside the Dutch duo of Taco Remkes and Tim Sluiter after the trio fired matching scores of four under 67.

The leading score at the remaining two Second Qualifying Stage venues was three under, with American Chan Kim posting a leading 69 at El Saler while four players – England’s Chris Gane and Sean Whiffin, the Swede Jacob Glennemo and German amateur Max Roehrig – posted opening 68s to move to three under at El Valle.

FIRST ROUND SCORES FROM EL SALER

FIRST ROUND SCORES FROM LAS COLINAS

FIRST ROUND SCORES FROM EL VALLE

FIRST ROUND SCORES FROM LUMINE

11/07/2012

Harrington Hopes to Banish Memory

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Fresh from his victory at the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, Padraig Harrington will tee up in this week’s Barclays Singapore Open determined to banish the memories of his “most bitter loss” in 2008.

Harrington captured his first title since the 2010 Iskandar Johor Open when he saw off the American Major-winning trio of Keegan Bradley, Webb Simpson and Bubba Watson in his last competitive outing two weeks ago.

His victory in Bermuda gave Harrington’s confidence a timely lift ahead of this week’s US$6million tournament at Sentosa Golf Club, in Singapore, where the three-time Major Champion feels he has unfinished business after losing out to Indian Jeev Milkha Singh by a single stroke in 2008.

Harrington led by one shot with three holes to play, but made costly bogeys at the 16th and 18th holes – both in unfortunate circumstances – to hand victory to Singh.

The Irishman freely admits that the loss hurt him, but is keen to make amends by claiming his first European Tour title for more than four years.

Harrington, currently in 34th place in The Race to Dubai, said: “In 2008, it was probably my most bitter loss on a golf course. I was two shots ahead with three holes to play, played the last three holes magnificently but managed to play them in two over par. So I can certainly remember those three holes really well!

“I hit a beautiful shot into the 16th that went in the water, and I hit a beautiful a shot at the 18th that got stuck on the bank behind. I felt I got two of the worst breaks I’ve seen coming down the stretch.

“But as much I was bitter to lose in 2008, I was happy to see Jeev win it. You couldn’t ask for a nicer guy to win a tournament. If you’re going to lose a tournament, losing to Jeev is not a bad thing. He really can deliver when he’s on form. He’s a really good player, and a great guy.”

That performance apart, Harrington’s record at Sentosa Golf Club is relatively modest, but the Dubliner feels his form is peaking at the business end of the season.

After this week, Harrington heads to Hong Kong and Dubai for his final two appearances of the year, and the 41 year old will use his Bermuda triumph as a springboard in his bid to end his barren spell.

He said: “There’s no doubt about it, it’s always nice to win. Winning is a habit, it was only 36 holes and there was only four players, but still you get the same feelings when you’re coming down the stretch and you’re trying to hold some guys off and protect your lead. Those are the sorts of experiences you want to have as often as possible, because it makes winning easier when it comes down to it.

“I have been playing quite nicely all year and I have putted well recently, so it was nice to get my rewards. I’m obviously happy to have won, but I’ll need a win or two in regular tournaments to feel I’m really back to my best.”

Sponsor Criticism Deserved - McIlroy

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Rory McIlroy said criticism of his decision to skip last week's Champions tournament in China to watch his girlfriend, Caroline Wozniacki, play tennis was deserved.

The world No1 said a break was necessary despite the disappointment of golf fans. McIlroy, who will play at this week's Singapore Open, said: "I think the criticism is fair ... it's a World Golf Championship event, one of the big ones. It was a tough one to miss, especially watching it on television.

"But I can't play every week. If I had played that I would have finished the season having played in Turkey, after the Ryder Cup and the FedEx Cup stuff. It's just too much and one event had to miss out and that was it. I played the course at Mission Hills a couple of years ago and didn't really like it. I thought it was a course where I would get frustrated and am glad the event is going back to Shanghai next year."

McIlroy, 23, who last week decided to cheer on Wozniacki at the Tournament of Champions in Bulgaria, said that since rising to the top he needs to strike the right balance between playing, fulfilling commitments and resting.

"Managing time is a very important part of my life. I thought I did a little bit better this season than I did last year after I won the US Open in 2011. People want more of you, they want you to do more things and you have to learn how to say 'no'.

"You have to be selfish sometimes. First and foremost, you have to look after yourself and fit in the things that you want to do. I am in a fortunate position that I can dictate where I want to play, what I want to do and where I want to go and as long as I am in that position then that's lovely."

11/06/2012

McIlroy Set for European Tour Title

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Rory McIlroy looks set to win the European Tour money title with nearest rival Peter Hanson and the next four challengers declining to contest the last two tournaments.

McIlroy only has to finish in the top 10 at the Singapore Open this week to clinch the Race to Dubai as he is ?764,776 ($978,000) in front of the second-place Hanson.

English pair Justin Rose and Ian Poulter are next, followed by South African Branden Grace.

Ernie Els had his name removed from the European Tour money list on Monday and is no longer eligible for the £5million DP World Tour Championship in Dubai in two weeks. Or a share of the £2.4million end-of-season bonus pool.

Tour members are required to play 13 counting events in a year and the 43-year-old South African's joint runner-up finish at the WGC-HSBC Champions in China this weekend was only his 10th appearance on the circuit.

To stay on the Order of Merit and play in Dubai Els would have had to compete in this week's Singapore Open and then either the South African Open or Hong Kong Open next week. But his next scheduled tournament is the Asian Tour's Iskandar Johor Open in Malaysia on December 13-16.

All five players under McIlroy are sitting out the tournaments in Singapore and Hong Kong.

Singapore Open organizers were holding an invitation for Hanson but he's cited tiredness and has returned to his Florida home.

"I've been on the road three weeks now since playing the India Open, and that's a long enough time to be away from my young family and they're more important," the Swede said. "It's disappointing that it won't sort of add spice to these next two events but then given the season I've had, winning the KLM Open, playing in a winning Ryder Cup team and beating Rory last week in Shanghai (the BMW Masters) to win three out of four, I have to be very happy."

"In the bigger picture, I still have plenty of years to win the Race to Dubai and besides, given the way Rory has played this year, I feel as though he deserves to end the year No. 1.

McIlroy arrived in Singapore on Monday night for his first appearance in the co-sanctioned event.

Also back home in Orlando is Poulter and Rose. Poulter plans to play in the Australian Masters next week, when the Hong Kong Open will be held.