Adam Scott file photo – image Australian Golf Media

With a place in next week’s Tour Championship in Atlanta up for grabs in the final two rounds of the BMW Championship in Colorado in addition to the significant prizemoney for this event, this weekend takes on an important period in the FedEx Cup Playoffs.

The three Australians in the event have suffered mixed fortunes over the opening 36 holes with Adam Scott’s 9 under par round of 63 sweeping him into a three-shot lead over Keegan Bradley with Ludvig Aberg another shot back in 3^rd place.

Scott finished runner-up at the recent Scottish Open, 10th at the Open Championship and 18th last week in Memphis, finding impressive form at a time when some serious money is up for grabs

Scott was in 3^rd place after an opening round of 68 but his brilliant round on day two has him not only leading this event but, having jumped a projected 37 places in the FedEx Cup table, a solid weekend will see him comfortably into next week’s playoff finale.

Despite the fact he was outside the all-important top 30 for next week’s event leading into this week, Scott mentioned he felt there was nothing to lose.

“Leaving the range, I just kind of wanted to keep moving in the right direction, grind out and shoot under par and keep going that way. Then by the middle of the round I was thinking of how many birdies can I make. It’s funny how that happens.

“But I do, I feel like I really don’t have anything to lose this week. I can’t go out of the top 50. I’m going to have a good schedule in the Signature Events next year. Of course I’d love to make it to East Lake, but now I’d love to win this event.

“It’s a big deal for anybody to make it through to the top 50 on TOUR, and I think that was a relief last week. I have to say playing the last — the back nine last week was quite stressful. I knew I was a shot here or there from being in or out, and getting through that was good.

“I felt like I’ve been kind of a bubble boy all year for things, and now it doesn’t really matter. It’s more about getting out there and playing.

“My game is in a good place, and that freedom is helpful.”

Australia’s other two representatives this week Jason Day and Cam Davis both have work to do if they are to force their way into next week’s field.

Day recovered well from a horror opening round of 78 for a round of 69 today but is in 46^th place this week and outside the top 30 in a projected 34^th place in the FedEx Cup standings.

Cam Davis has fared better this week at least and is in 22^nd place through 36 holes but needs a big weekend if he is to improve from his current 48^th place in the standings.

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Australia’s greatest major titleholder, Karrie Webb, playing at St Andrews – image Australian Golf Media

The world of professional golf plays its final major of the year this week when the AIG Women’s Open is played over the Old Course at St Andrews, the third occasion the home of golf will host the event.

Lorena Ochoa and Stacey Lewis are the two previous champions when the event was played at St Andrews, the women getting the opportunity to play some of the Open Championship’s best layouts over the last 25 years.

Eight Australasians have made the field including seven-time major winner Karrie Webb who will play just her third LPGA Tour event in the last two years.

Webb, who won this event in 1995,1997 and 2002, the latter of which was just after the event became a major, explained why she is teeing it up this week given her lack of competitive play in recent times.

“I think this will be my last opportunity to compete at St Andrews. So even if it’s on the rota before I’m 60, these girls are too good for me to be trying to tee it up when I’m 56, 57.

I didn’t think I would be playing professional golf at 49. So, yeah, I’m just looking forward to having a good time out there as much as you can with the weather forecast, but just see what happens.

“It’s always meant a lot to me, actually. Even winning it the first couple of times, as a non-major, I always came into the Women’s Open thinking of it as a major. I think because it’s the men’s Opens had such a long history in Australian golf and growing up and getting up in the middle of the night to watch it, you know, for me playing in a Women’s Open was always as important as any of the majors we played.

“In 2001, it becoming a major, I think was long overdue. And the tournament’s only grown a lot since then. We started playing the Old Course and Carnoustie and Troon, places where women’s golf had never been played before.

“So it’s very special to be back here. I was looking for my yardage book from 2013. I missed the cut when I played in 2013, and I was, like, next time it’s here I won’t be playing golf again, I won’t be playing again. So I threw it out, so I couldn’t find it.

“But it’s good to be back here. I wouldn’t have thought 11 years ago I’d be teeing up here again.”

Webb is the only Australian to have won the event as a major although Karen Lunn won before the event joined the LPGA Schedule when successful in 1993.

Webb will be joined by fellow Australasians, Hannah Green, Minjee Lee, Lydia Ko, Gabi Ruffels, Grace Kim, Stephanie Kyriacou and Hira Naveed.

TEE TIMES

Richard Green – file photo 

Richard Green has added another US$211,000 to his season’s earnings on the PGA Tour Champions with a runner-up finish at the Rogers Charity Classic in Alberta this morning but the elusive win is still to come.

It was Green’s third runner-up finish of the 2024 season to go with four other top tens and with US$1.584 million for the season he stands in 4^th place in the Charl Schwab earnings behind Ernie Els, Stephen Ames and Steve Alker.

Green actually appeared to control the event with five holes to play but two late bogeys and a strong finish by the eventual winner Ken Tanigawa saw him finish two behind Tanigawa who won his second PGA Tour Champions event but his first in five years.

Green had begun the final round one ahead of Steve Alker and Boo Weekly and despite a bogey at the first, he recorded five birdies in six holes through the middle of the round to lead by two before the frustrating finish.

“It’s nice to be competing and contending to do what I want to do, said Green. “It’s just a shame that things at the end there didn’t really fall my way.

“I thought they were going my way there a little bit through the middle of the round, and probably my start today didn’t really help me very much.

“It’s nice to be competing and contending for golf tournaments. It’s fun. I enjoy being out there contending week in, week out, and I’ll keep rattling the cage.

“Everybody wants to win. We all want to do it. I think that’s probably what is the hardest thing to not let that get in your way.

“I probably am battling that at times, you know, just thinking about trying to get it done instead of actually letting myself go.

“Look, at the end of the day you’re playing on the Champions Tour and doing very well, competing in the Schwab Cup for one of the top positions, and I’ll just keep pressing on.

“Hopefully the gods fall for me in the right order someplace soon. We’ll see.”

Darren Clarke and Jason Caron finished one shot behind Green in a share of 3^rd place.

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Gabi Ruffels – a final round of 68 results in 6th place finish – file photo PGA of America 

Australia’s Gabi Ruffels has produced one of best rounds of the day (68) in today’s final round of the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open to finish in a share of 6^th and earn a cheque for US$54,000.

For the 24-year-old Ruffels, who is in her first season on the LPGA Tour, the finish takes her earnings for the 2024 season to US$708,000 and further emphasises the path she is on to a hugely successful career. It was her fourth top ten of the season to go with three 3rd place finishes earlier in the season.

Ruffels finished eight shots behind the winner, American Lauren Coughlin, who won her second event of the season after winning in Canada earlier.

Ruffels a former winner and runner-up in the Women’s US Amateur Championship, the only Australian to do so, spent a season on the secondary Epson Tour in 2023 after mistakenly failing to enter LPGA Tour qualifying in late 2022 but that season has clearly assisted her cause in building the confidence needed to have competed so well in what is now her rookie season in the big time.

The finish will ensure Ruffels, currently in second place, moves even closer to the current Rookie of the Year leader, Mao Saigo of Japan who finished 57^th this week.

While the news was good for Ruffels, both Lydia Ko and Minjee Lee struggled in the heavy winds that buffeted the Dundonald Links and finished 9^th and 12^th respectively.

Ko’s round of 74 and Lee’s 78 cost them dearly although Loughlin’s four-shot victory ensured that everyone was facing an almost impossible task in round four.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Coughlin. “Two wins in three events is pretty crazy, but I just stuck in there, tried to stay as present as I could, and got some putts to drop at the end. If you would have told me, let alone beginning of this year, but beginning of last year, I wouldn’t believe this is what I’ve done and it’s incredible. It’s just how hard I’ve worked to get here, and it’s amazing.”

The LPGA and Ladies European Tours now head for St Andrews for the final major of the year in world golf, the AIG Open Championship at the Old Course.

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Minjee Lee during her first round – image Ladies European Tour 

Just a few players were still to complete their opening rounds of the ISPS Women’s Scottish Open at the Dundonald Links in Ayrshire in Scotland. But when rain then eventually darkness stopped play at 9.00pm Minjee Lee led the way with an opening round of 5 under 67.

“Yeah, I mean, I feel like I played pretty solid today,” said Lee perhaps stating the obvious.

“No bogeys today. So always a happy girl after a bogey-free round. So yeah, I feel like I played smart golf, I’d say. I gave myself a lot of opportunities for birdie, but you know some putts went in, some putts didn’t.

“I feel like when I was in trouble, I kind of missed it in the right spots and could get up-and-down, so that was good.

“I think I kind of got a little lucky with not playing in the morning with the rain but it was pretty windy out there. So I guess we just didn’t have the rain. But yeah, I thoroughly enjoyed my day out there today.

“I like the creativity of links golf. You know, obviously there was a lot of wind today so it was playing like a true links kind of golf course. Sometimes we don’t get as much wind but today was blowing a gale and I feel like just picturing the shots and just having to execute those shots, I think I find it fun to play.

“Just when you execute it correctly, you get rewarded. So I like that aspect of playing in the wind and obviously there’s a lot of things like if you’re off the green, you can putt or chip or you can hit a hybrid. There’s so many options. I also think that’s kind of fun as well.”

Amongst the chasers and just two off the lead is last week’s Gold Medallist in Paris, Lydia Ko. Ko recorded as many birdies as Lee but two bogeys saw her finish with 69 and in a share of 5^th place.

“I think it was crucial to make a few up-and-downs, especially on my front nine because there weren’t many greens that I hit I would say in the first few holes,” said ko referring to the demanding conditions.

“I’ve played in sunny but I’ve played in a bit of bad weather. I was trying to go through some of the worst British Opens I’ve ever played. Hoylake was really horrible in 2012. Even when we were at Troon just down the road here a few years ago, that was really bad, where I had to play with my hat backwards.

So yeah, I think when you come here, obviously like at the British Open last year, we had beautiful weather at Walton Heath. So we could potentially expect that but we could expect the weather that we had this morning and that’s just part of the experience of coming over. If you don’t like it, you’re probably not going to play that good, anyway.

“But luckily since the wind was so strong the two par 5s on the front nine were reachable and I could take advantage of that. But it was almost so hectic that I think I was having more like fun out there rather than getting so stressed.”

This week’s event comes ahead of next week’s AIG Women’s Open at the Old Course at St Andrews.

Gabi Ruffels and Stephanie Kyriacou also managed to finish their rounds, both with one under par 71’s.

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