Cam Davis stays alive in FedEx Cup Playoffs


Cam Davis – in fine, end-of-season form – file photo

Cam Davis’ impressive effort to share 6th place at the opening event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs in Memphis will ensure he progresses to next week’s BMW Championship in Illinois, the Sydney golfer’s final round of 67 having him in a seven-way tie for 6th.

Despite creating several opportunities over the closing nine holes, Davis was unable to secure the one birdie to follow his third birdie of the day at the 10th which would have allowed him to break clear of the large line-up in 6th place.

Davis will however pick up a cheque for US$584,000 in the US$20 million event and gets a chance at next week’s BMW Championship to advance inside the top 30 on the FedEx Cup table from his now 44th position and make it to the Tour Championship.

“I was doing my best,” said Davis when asked about that elusive one extra birdie. “I mean, I had a rough sort of estimate of where I felt like I needed to finish based on little things that I had seen throughout the day, but I wanted one more birdie, but it looks like I didn’t need it.

“That was a nice stressful but, at the same time, well-played sort of day for me.

“I would say the last three Sundays in a row have all been about the same level of stress and the same level of achievement for me. I’ve managed to put really good clean rounds together when the pressure has been on to keep moving forward, and yeah, it’s really satisfying to be able to know that I’ve got a tee time next week, so I can start looking forward to that.”

Jason Day was the only other Australian in the field and, although finishing 52nd this week, is now 21st on the FedEx Cup list and will also be at the BMW Championship. Day produced a final round of 66 and heads to Chicago with the confidence that will bring.

The winner of the event was Lucas Glover who birdied the first extra hole of a playoff to win his second event in succession following his win in Greensboro seven days ago and advanced to #4 in the FED Ex Cup standings after being outside the top 100 two weeks ago.

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Four Aussies and two New Zealanders in field for US Am


The US Amateur Trophy – Image Chris Keane USGA

Four Australians and two New Zealanders have made the field for this week’s US Amateur Championship at the Cherry Hills Country Club in Cherry Hills Village south of Denver in Colorado.

The 36-hole stroke-play phase begins tonight following which the leading 64 players advance to the knock-out, match play rounds.

Australians Harrison Crowe, Karl Vilips, Jeffrey Guan and Tony Chen will be joined by New Zealanders Kazuma Kobori and Josh Bai as they seek to emulate the deeds of Nick Flanagan (2003), Danny Lee (2008) and Curtis Luck (2016) as champions of golf’s greatest amateur event.

Crowe is the current Asia Pacific Amateur Champion and former NSW Open Champion, Vilips plays his golf at Stanford University and is a former winner of the Southern Amateur and a Quarter Finalist at the US Amateur, Jeffrey Guan qualified to gain a start this week via qualifying in New Jersey and Tony Chen moved to Australia from China as an 8-year-old but now plays collegiate golf in California and played his way into the field via qualifying in California.

Of the two New Zealanders in the field, Kobori is the current Australian Amateur Champion and qualified via qualifying before winning the recent Western Amateur near Chicago and Bai finished runner-up at the recent US Junior Amateur Championship.

Cherry Hills Country Club is no stranger to USGA events having staged nine previously including a women’s US Open and has been the home of three PGA Championships.

TEE TIMES

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Golf’s new star Lilia Vu adds second major of year


Lilia Vu with her second major trophy of 2023 – image Ladies European Tour

25 year old American, Lilia Vu, continued her breakthrough 2023 season overnight by winning not only the third LPGA Tour event of her career and of the season but her second major following on from her win at the Chevron Championship in April.

Vu not only won the AIG Women’s Open at Walton Heath she dominated the final day’s play after sharing the lead through 54 holes with England’s Charley Hull.

A final round of 67 saw her win by six over Hull with Korea’s Jiyai Shin another shot away in third place.

After struggling with her game for much of the time since her win at the Chevron, Vu was overcome with the win.

“It feels surreal to have this kind of Sunday and just to come out with a win, given the past couple months, I’ve been struggling with my game and just feeling good, and yeah, I’m really happy.

“Honestly I just wanted to win golf tournaments out here on the LPGA. It’s just been a crazy year for me, just doing pretty well at the beginning of the season and just hit a lull in the middle, just struggling. I thought at the U.S. Open after I played so bad, I didn’t know if I could ever win again.

“I mean, I was still just getting out the scar tissue from the U.S. Open and just playing so horribly there, and just not feeling like myself. I thought the Chevron and winning in Honda and Thailand, that was going to be it for me for my career.”

It is projected that Vu will vault up to #1 in the world following this victory, another milestone she is coming to terms with. After being outside the top 30 at the start of the year it has been an amazing surge.

“I never even imagined that I would win that honour and to be here today with that is so amazing. I just really want to thank my team for believing in me and helping me get to this point.”

The leading Australian was eventually Grace Kim who tied for 36th in an otherwise disappointing week for the Australasians.

Minjee Lee who began the week so well and was well placed heading into the weekend faded to finish in a share of 50th.

Kim and Lee were the only two of seven Australasians to make the weekend.

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Cam Davis well placed at FedEx St Jude Classic

 

Cam Davis – finding form at a great time of the season

Cam Davis, one of only two Australians to have made it to the opening event of the FedEx Cup Playoffs, finds himself in a share of 8th place and three shots from the leader, Lucas Glover, at the halfway mark of the FedEx St Jude Classic in Memphis.

Davis added a second round of 67 over the TPC Southwind layout and has now moved to a projected 47th in the FedEx Cup rankings, needing to be inside the top 50 to advance to next week’s BMW Championship in Illinois.

With consecutive top tens at his last two PGA Tour starts Davis is finding some nice form at a crucial time of the year given the lucrative nature of the Playoff events where each is worth a minimum of US$20 million.

Jason Day began the event well with a round of 68 yesterday but slipped to a 72 today and is now in 51st place this week and  20th place in the FedEx Cup standings overall but safe as far as reaching the BMW Championship is concerned.

The leader Lucas Glover backed up his win at last week’s Wyndham Championship (his 5th PGA Tour title and which he needed to gain a start this week) with rounds of 66 and 64 to lead by one over Jordan Spieth.

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Minjee Lee heads Australasian hopes at AIG Women’s Open


Minjee Lee in action today – image Ladies European Tour

Minjee Lee leads the Australasians at the halfway mark of the AIG Women’s Open at Walton Heath in Surrey, England and although a massive seven shots from the leader, Ally Ewing of the USA, she is just two behind the second-placed golfers and tied for 9th.

Lee put together a strong second round of 69 to go with her opening round of even par 72 over the heathland layout west of London and is well poised in the event of Ewing who despite a bogey at her final hole today was round in 66 to open up a five-shot margin over the field.

Lee was satisfied with her round but is aware she needs to improve over the weekend if she is to contend for a third major title.

“Yeah, I mean, today was pretty steady, especially with the wind, I think I drove it really well, put myself in really better positions,” said the West Australian. “Probably a little bit disappointed in my shots into the greens, probably didn’t hit it close enough for those birdie putt ranges.

“But we always have a weekend. So, yeah, I’m really looking forward to it. I think she (Ewing) put two great scores up, and, yeah, we’re all chasing her at the moment. So I think we can be pretty aggressive. I can be pretty aggressive come the weekend.”

Ewing is a three-time LPGA Tour winner but the weekend offers an opportunity to win a major title and while she has dominated to date this week, things will likely tighten up over the final 36 holes.

In what has been a disappointing week for the Australasians overall, Grace Kim (28th) was the only other of the seven original starters to make the cut.

Stephanie Kriacou (74th), Lydia Ko and Sarah Kemp (89th) and Hannah Green and Kelsey Bennett (99th) will all miss the weekend.

For Ko, the current world #5, it continues a run of disappointing finishes of late and in this event also. She has not finished better than 33rd in any of her last seven events in 2023 and has recorded only two top tens in now 12 starts at the Women’s British Open.

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Mixed fortune for Caitlin Peirce at US Am

After controlling her morning, Round of 31 match throughout before winning 3&1 on day two of match play at the US Women’s Amateur in Los Angeles, South Australian, Caitlin Peirce, staged a strong comeback in her afternoon Round of 16 match against Florida’s Megan Schofill to square the match after being 3 down at the turn.

Peirce played the closing nine in 3 under 31 to square the match with a birdie at the last but then proceeded to bogey the first hole of extra time and her impressive run at the female game’s greatest amateur event is over.

Given her comparatively low world ranking compared to many of those she was competing against this week, Peirce had done well to reach the third round and will feel aggrieved that she was unable to capitalise on what had been a spirited bounce back after a slow start to the match in which she lost three of the first four holes.

Earlier in the week, Queensland’s Justice Bosio and Victorian Sue Wooster had failed to make it into the leading 64 players to make the match-play phase.

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Golf NSW enhances women’s events

 

 

Bonville Resort ,  Coffs Habour – host of the Australian Women’s Classic

Australia’s best up-and-coming female golfers are set to test their skills on some of New South Wales’ finest courses, with the Australian Women’s Classic – Bonville and the Women’s NSW Open returning in early 2024.

The Women’s NSW Open will take place at the magnificent Magenta Shores Golf & Country Club on the NSW Central Coast from March 29th to 31st, 2024, while the Australian Women’s Classic returns to Bonville on the Coffs Coast beginning on April 5th and running until April 7th.

The back-to-back tournaments will see a sizeable jump in prizemoney, with the purses for each now set at AUD 500,000. The two tournaments – already key events on the Women’s Australian PGA Tour Schedule (WPGA Tour) will also return to the Ladies European Tour (LET) schedule in 2024.

And in a first for women’s golf in New South Wales, an additional six 36-hole Regional Open Qualifying Tournaments, each carrying a purse of $50,000, will be part of the 2023- 2024 schedule prior to the back-to-back championships in late March.

It was also confirmed that the Australian Women’s Classic and the Women’s NSW Open TV will be broadcast through Foxtel and Kayo via SEN, with the final rounds of all Regional Qualifying Series events to be live-streamed on the SEN network and Golf NSW social & digital channels.

Dates and venues for six $50,000 NSW Open Regional Qualifying Series events are:

Mollymook Golf Club (Hilltop Course): November 18th to 20th, 2023.
Wagga Wagga Country Club: November 22nd to 24th, 2023.
Duntryleague Golf Club:  March 3rd to 5th, 2024.
Bathurst Golf Club: March 6th to 8th, 2024.
Dubbo Golf Club:  March 10th to 12th, 2024.
Narrabri Golf Club: March 14th to 16th, 2024.

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Caitlin Peirce advances to second round at US Women’s Am


Bel Air Country Club in the suburbs of Los Angeles – photo USGA

Australian Caitlin Peirce has survived a tight encounter against Canadian Savannah Grewel to advance to the second round of the US Women’s Amateur Championship at the Bel Air Country Club in Los Angeles.

South Australian, Peirce, rallied from a two-hole deficit through ten holes to win with a par at the final hole of their 18-hole match and she now heads to the Round of 32.

Peirce’s next opponent has yet to be decided, the match-up between Thailand’s Thanana Kotchasanmanee and American Casey Weidenfeld, the last encounter of the day, still undecided through 22 holes and carried over until Thursday US time.

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South Australian Caitlin Peirce makes it to matchplay at US Am


Caitlin Peirce – in action in Los Angeles – photo USGA 

South Australian, Caitlin Peirce, is the only one of three Australians to have made it to the knockout stage of the US Women’s Amateur Championship at Bel Air Country Club in Los Angeles, the Royal Adelaide member adding a second round of 71 to finish in a share of 45th and make it into the 64 players to take on head-to-head elimination rounds over the next few days.

Pierce is currently in the US playing a series of amateur events amongst which she recorded a solid 9th place finish at the recent Women’s Western Amateur Championship.

Peirce fought back from outside the top 64 with four holes to play, birdies at her 15th and 16th holes moving her into a safe position.

Tomorrow Peirce takes on 11th qualifier Savannah Grewel of Canada.

Queensland’s Justice Bosio and Victorian Sue Wooster missed out on making it into the top 64.

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Seven Australasians attempt final women’s major of the year

Walton Heath’s Par 3 9th of the Composite Women’s Open Course – photo David Cannon Getty 

Six Australians and one New Zealander are in the field for this week’s AIG Women’s Open at Walton Heath, the first time the event has been played at the heathland layout in Surrey.

Lydia Ko, Minjee Lee, Hannah Green, Grace Kim, Stephanie Kyriacou, Sarah Kemp and Kelsey Bennett have made it into the fifth and final major of the year for women’s golf.

It has been 21 years since Karrie Webb won the third and last of her Women’s British Open titles, adding to the other Australian names of Karen Lunn and Corinne Dibnah.

When Webb won all those years ago she earned a cheque for US$236,000 but in 2023 the winner will take home nearly US$1.1 million of the US$7.3 million total purse.

Ko’s record in the event has been below that of her overall record in tournament golf. This will be her 12th appearance in the event and on only two occasions has she finished inside the top ten, her best being when 3rd behind Inbee Park in 2015. Ko’s other problem is her lack of recent form.

Lee, on the other hand, has enjoyed a consistent run in the event with four top tens in her last five appearances, her best, also, a 3rd place behind Sophia Popov in 2020 and appears to be in better form than Ko at present.

Green has made every cut in her five appearances to date but a 16th-place finish in 2019 is her only top 20 finish till now.

Kyriacou is one of Australian golf’s rising stars and a 13th and 7th place finish at her last two of three starts in the event, suggests she enjoys playing in Britain.

Grace Kim is also one of Australian golf’s most promising young professionals having already won in her rookie season on the LPGA Tour in 2023. This is her first time in this event.

Sarah Kemp has shown in recent weeks that her game is nearing its peak especially her impressive share of 9th place last week to secure a place in this week’s field. Having played in Europe for much of her career, Kemp will enjoy the type of layout that Walton Heath provides but her record in the event is poor having missed eight of her eleven starts.

Kelsey Bennet has done remarkably well to make the field having survived a mammoth playoff at Final Qualifying and gets her first start at this level.

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