golf articles golfarticles001.blogspot.com: 08/27/13

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Woods has stiff neck and back from hotel bed

August 21, 2013AP - Sports

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) -- Another week, another nagging injury for Tiger Woods - this from a soft bed in his hotel.

Woods did not play the back nine of his pro-am Wednesday at The Barclays. He still walked with his amateur partners, but only chipped and putted at Liberty National.

He says his neck and back were stiff in the morning. He attributes it to a soft bed in his hotel and says he didn't want to push it.

Woods was seen grabbing his back in the final round of thePGA Championship. He had an elbow injury that troubled him for two months this summer. Woods says he's not concerned. He says everything felt fine when he was home.

Asked about getting a new bed, Woods smiled and said, ''We'll have something.''

Amateurs Fitzpatrick and Ko win Mark McCormack medals

August 21, 2013

Amateur Matthew Fitzpatrick of England watches his tee shot on the second hole during a practice round …

(Reuters) - England's Matthew Fitzpatrick and New Zealander Lydia Ko have won the Mark H. McCormack Medals as the leading men's and women's amateur players based on the 2013 World Amateur Golf Ranking.

Fitzpatrick capped an outstanding season by winning the silver medal at the British Open as top amateur, then became the first Englishman to clinch the U.S. Amateur Championship in 102 years at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts on Sunday.

"I'm absolutely delighted to win the McCormack Medal," the baby-faced 18-year-old Fitzpatrick said in a statement. "For this to come along at the same time as winning the U.S. Amateur Championship is really special.

"I had a fair idea that if I had a good finish I might be able to scrape it but it was great that it went my way. It has been an amazing few weeks for me ever since the (British) Open and I am really happy to have achieved so much."

Ko earned the McCormack Medal for a third successive year after another excellent season in which she competed in four of golf's major championships and several other events on the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) Tour.

The 16-year-old's best finish in a professional tournament was a tie for third in the Australian Women's Open while she finished joint 17th in the Wegmans LPGA Championship and shared 25th place in the Kraft Nabisco Championship.

"It means a lot," said Ko, who last year at the age of 15 became the youngest winner on the LPGA Tour with a three-shot victory at the Canadian Women's Open. "And to have won the medal three years in a row makes it more special. It's awesome.

"I won the U.S. Amateur last year. I wanted to win that championship so much and to have won it, it was great. Without winning it, I may not have been able to maintain my position."

The Mark H. McCormack Medals are named in honor of Mark McCormack, a pioneer and founder of the sports marketing industry who also created the world ranking system for professional golf. He died in 2003.

His International Management Group is widely known as the world's largest representative of sportsmen and sportswomen.

(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Simon Evans)

Golf-Dufner back in the swing of things after PGA triumph

August 21, 2013

By Larry Fine

JERSEY CITY, New Jersey, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Happily, life soon returned to the mundane for Jason Dufner following his PGA Championship triumph 10 days ago at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, New York.

"As far as me personally, nothing's changed," Dufner told reporters at Liberty National on the eve of Thursday's first round of The Barclays, the opening event of the FedExCup playoffs.

"I still took the trash out on Tuesday morning and we actually got a new puppy, so I was up at three in the morning every night taking him out to the bathroom, and still going to my favorite breakfast spot in town," dead-pan Dufner said.

"So not too much has changed in my life. My wife hasn't treated me any differently and people around me are still treating me the same."

And that is just the way the impassive Dufner, 36, likes it, even after stepping into the spotlight with his first major championship triumph and third career PGA Tour title.

There was a whirl of media attention that brought him to New York City right after the PGA for a flurry of TV appearances, but now the glamorous metropolis serves as backdrop for the high-powered golf to come this week.

With the Statue of Liberty and Manhattan skyline looming over a course built over landfill on the edge of New York harbor, Dufner joins world number one Tiger Woods, British Open winner Phil Mickelson, U.S. Open winner Justin Rose and Masters champion Adam Scott among favorites in the elite 125-man field.

Unsurprisingly, Dufner aims to stay on an even keel.

"I don't put too much pressure on myself," he said. "Just try to do the same thing as I've been doing the last couple years.

"We've got a great set of events coming up. You can really kind of make a year out of it. I know that winning a major can make your year, but I'm focused on trying to get back to Atlanta (Tour Championship)."

The Tour Championship is the climax of the four-event playoffs with a field whittled down to the top 30 players on the points list with the overall series winner banking a $10 million bonus.

Dufner admitted that success had whetted his appetite.

"I think winning one made me a little hungrier to be competitive and win more events, more majors, be part of the Ryder Cup team, part of the Presidents Cup team," he said.

"I'm pretty good at thinking ahead and moving forward. Maybe in this case, it's kind of a weakness because I haven't maybe enjoyed what I did a couple weeks ago as much as maybe some other people would."

Dufner said he was hoping for continued success, but understood the reality of life on the PGA Tour - at least for players other than Tiger Woods, who is gunning for his 80th career PGA Tour title.

"I think he spoils the media, the fans, with how well he plays, because then people think that other players should play at that level," Dufner joked with his stone-faced delivery.

"You know, 79 wins is pretty remarkable. I've got three. If you look at the history of golf, if you win two percent of the time, you're pretty much a Hall of Famer.

"Pretty much the average guy is about one percent of the events he plays, he wins. I think Tiger is probably around 23, 24 percent.

Woods is actually winning at a rate just under 26 percent with his 79 wins coming from 305 events, including five victories this season.

"So he's way above the norm, and we don't worry about him too much, unless you've got to face him on a Sunday," said Dufner. (Reporting by Larry Fine, Editing by Simon Evans)