NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) — Rory McIlroy led by one shot on the 17th hole of the final round when he left a bunker shot and bogeyed, entering a playoff and losing on the third extra hole to Graeme Storm.
Such was the 2017 South African Open. Most memorable was McIlroy being diagnosed with a stress fracture in his rib that sidelined him for two months.
But it stands out for other reasons worth noting during this week when two of golf’s oldest national championships are played: the South African Open (1903) and the Australian Open (1904).
McIlroy has won all five of the oldest national golf Opens, except for South Africa.
He won the British Open (1860) at Hoylake in 2014, the US Open (1895) at Congress in 2011, the Canadian Open (1904) the last two times in 2019 and 2022, and the Australian Open in 2013.
He will most likely not return to South Africa, having played in 2017 as a favor to Ernie Els, and then it was held the second week of the year, rather than the first week of December.
Arnold Palmer and Gary Player have also won four of the five. Palmer will miss the South African Open. The player competed 14 times in the Canadian Open without winning. His best chance came in 1964 when he entered the final round two shots off the lead, shot 71 and tied for fifth.
As for the more national Opens, McIlroy still has work to do. He also won the Irish Open and the Hong Kong Open.
The target appears to be Seve Ballesteros, Bernhard Langer and Peter Thomson, who have each won a national open in nine countries.
Ballesteros won the British Open, along with national titles in the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Japan and Kenya.
Thomson, a five-time British Open champion, has also won the Italian, Spanish, German, New Zealand, Australian, Philippine, Indian and Hong Kong Opens. Langer’s list is Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Ireland, Spain, Austria, the Czech Republic, Colombia and Hong Kong.
WEBB’S GREAT VICTORY
Karrie Webb already has a big win this year, and now it’s time to drink.
Australia’s most prolific major champion played Cameron Smith at her home course in Florida before Smith headed to the British Open. At stake was a bottle of wine.
Webb said he was ahead in the match when it was rained out. Smith paid, anyway.
“He brought a bottle of Grange,” Webb said. “If he had told me on the first tee what we were playing for, I probably wouldn’t have played as well.”
Wine starts in the neighborhood of $1,000 depending on the vintage.
“I asked him to sign the bottle and I said, ‘I’m not going to drink this until one of us wins a big tournament,'” Webb said. “And then two weeks later, he did it. So now we have to have a drink to celebrate.”
The “rematch” is this week at the Australian Open, where men and women play simultaneously in separate competitions on the same courses for the same prize.
Webb, 47, won the last of her 59 world titles in 2014. Smith won last week at the Australian PGA and is trying to become the first player since Greg Chalmers in 2011 to win the Australian Open and the Australian PGA in the same year.
ASIAN TOUR ADVANTAGE
Scott Vincent played all seven LIV Golf events and won nearly $1.5 million. He is now one tournament away from securing a full season in 2023.
The winner of the Order of Merit in the new Asian Tour “International Series” gets an exemption to play in the 2023 LIV Golf League.
Entering the BNI Indonesian Masters this week, Vincent leads with $493,125, just over $68,000 more than Sihwan Kim. Other LIV Golf players on the course include Peter Uihlein, Chase Koepka, Anirban Lahiri, Lee Westwood, Graeme McDowell and Bernd Wiesberger.
With a bid of $270,000 to the winner, the top 10 players on the Order of Merit have a mathematical chance of earning a spot in LIV for next year. That includes Andy Ogletree, who played in the first LIV event and finished last. He won an International Series event in Egypt for his first professional victory.
KO BACK TO NO. 1
One week after the LPGA Tour season ended, Lydia Ko gained another lead: She returned to the No. 1 spot in the women’s world rankings.
The math worked in Ko’s favor, whose three wins included the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship. that allowed him to win the LPGA player of the year award. Ko first peaked at No. 1 in 2015 when he was 17 years old. This is the third time he has reached No. 1.
“I am very grateful to be number 1 in the world again. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if he would ever come back here,” Ko said.
She is the fourth player to reach No. 1 in 2022, joining Nelly Korda, Atthaya Thitikul and Jin Young Ko.
LEAGUE MEMBERS
Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy are putting together a big roster for Monday night’s tech-infused “TGL” golf league kicking off in 2024.
Justin Thomas and Jon Rahm join TGL.
“World-class golfers like Justin and Jon are the cornerstones of TGL as we blend elements of the traditional game with a new short format designed specifically for modern media consumption,” said Mike McCarley, CEO of TMRW Sports. .
The league will eventually field six three-man teams playing 18-hole matches at technology-infused venues over 15 regular-season games on Monday nights, concluding with semifinals and finals.
THE LANE DIVIDER
The most famous athlete to come out of tiny Lincoln Memorial University in Tennessee might be Scot Shields, a setup man in his 10 years with the Anaheim Angels that included a World Series title in 2002.
Maybe it’s time to make room for Dan Bradbury.
LMU coach Travis Muncy recruited Bradbury in Yorkshire, England, to play for the Railsplitters (the mascot comes from the nickname Abraham Lincoln used for his 1860 presidential campaign).
Muncy saw him win nine times in his four years at the Division II school, graduate with honors in business administration, and be named South Atlantic Conference male athlete of the year as a senior.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bradbury had a senior year at Florida State to see how he would fare against Division I competition, then turned pro in June.
Six professional starts later, Bradbury was on a sponsor waiver and won the Joburg Open last week, which comes with a two-year waiver on the European tour and a place at the British Open next summer.
“I am so happy for him. I probably got a thousand text messages,” said Muncy, a golf coach of 17 years at LMU. “Everybody thinks you have to play Power Five or be at the highest level. This is a tribute to Division II. You can play Division II and still make it.”
DIVOTES
On the day in July 1999 that Tiger Woods won the Western Open to replace David Duval at world No. 1, 19-year-old Sergio Garcia won the Irish Open for his first professional victory and moved into the top 100 in the world ranking. . The Spaniard had been there ever since until this week, when he dropped to No. 103. Phil Mickelson is the only other player to have been in the top 100 longer, getting there in August 1993 and staying until March 21. . … The best players on the PGA Tour Latinoamérica up to the Brazil Open on April 2 will get a waiver for the Mexico Open. … Thriston Lawrence has won the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year award on the European tour. A two-time winner last season, he is the first South African to win the award.
STATISTICS OF THE WEEK
Adam Svensson was the only first-time winner in all nine fall events on the PGA Tour.
FINAL WORD
“I will never take a golf cart until I am sanctioned. He is sanctioned in the Champions Tour and the PNC is part of that. As for a regular event, no, I would never do that.” — Tiger Woods, when asked if he would ever use a cart at a PGA Tour-sanctioned event.
___
AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
