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Matteson outlasts the small Frys
OK, so Troy Matteson butchered the final two holes of regulation and nearly blew the Frys.com Open in suburban Phoenix before winning in a playoff over two kids with training wheels on their professional bicycles, but at least he managed to grind his way to a second PGA Tour victory. I'm a bit confused about the when and where of the first one. Buried in the tour notes from Sunday night was this beauty, which speaks volumes about the revolving, Ferris-wheel changes in sponsors, event names, presenting sponsors and host-course sites of this era: "The victory is the second of Matteson's career, with the first coming at the 2006 Frys.com Open, a separate tournament now known as the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open." So in plain English, this means he won in Las Vegas -- which has been contested with four different titles since 2003 -- the other time.
Augusta National bulldozes itself again (sorta)
Practice makes perfect, but it surely hastens the result when the practice facility is perfect to begin with. Augusta National Golf Club opened their sprawling new practice facility on Oct. 15, and it sounds like they got their money's worth. The former parking lot was converted by Tom Fazio -- how many clubs have used a renowned designer to draw up and build a practice area? -- and will be in full bloom in April. The pros-only facility features target greens at various distances, a short-game area and the ability for pros to hit balls from every conceivable lie, ranging from severe slopes to pine straw. The best part could be the two faux fairways, which might be a practice-tee first. One doglegs left and the other to the right, so players can whack drivers and envision the shot shapes they'll need to produce under duress on the course. A new caddie house was erected before the 2009 event. We're not sure how much more detail will be forthcoming, since the media was never allowed on the old practice tee, but it sounds like yet another reason why the Masters continues to separate itself from every other event as far as staging.
Crashing the money party this time
There's a funny line in Toy Story, recently re-released in 3D, in which Sheriff Woody insists to Buzz Lightyear that he's not really flying, he's just falling with flair. The same sentiment describes Martin Kaymer's go-kart skills, apparently: "You're not driving. You're crashing -- with style." After nine weeks on the sideline with multiple broken bones sustained in a karting wreck, the German returned to the E-Tour last week and finished second, nearly reclaiming his vacated spot atop the Race to Dubai money standings. Kaymer, who led the earnings tote board when he got hurt, moved within 86,000 Euros of No. 1 Lee Westwood, who took over first place last week. Paul Casey, who previously topped the money list but missed the past three months with a rib injury, returns to action this week at the Volvo World Match Play.
Every dude has his day
If you are a golf fan and enjoy reading about guys who have something to say, then you have every reason to be happy right now. Every reason. After starting the Nationwide Tour finale at No. 49 in earnings and needing a Hail Mary-style finish to secure his PGA Tour card for 2010 by cracking the final top 25, former Florida All-American Matt Every put together his best week as a professional to win, finishing 10th on the money list and landing in the bigs next year. Every said to me in an interview four years ago that he detested boring, vanilla players with nothing meaningful to say and swore he would never be one of those guys if he made it to the PGA Tour. Judging by what he said after he won Sunday, the former Walker Cupper, now 25, hasn't wavered. "I'm looking forward to playing on the PGA Tour next year," he said. "It's hard to watch your college buddies play on tour and in the Presidents Cup. You start to think, ‘Are these guys really that much better than me?' and I know the answer to that question. Deep down, I do." He gets his Q-school check refunded, too.
Speaking of which
The Fall Series on the PGA Tour has been subjected to myriad criticisms, mostly because the purses are smaller, the fields are diluted and the TV coverage is limited to cable. But that doesn't mean the events haven't been compelling. Sunday, Matteson had to stare down two guys who were in college three months ago in Jamie Lovemark (USC) and Rickie Fowler (Okie State) and didn't even technically qualify as rookies -- neither has any status -- when he beat them in the Frys.com playoff. Both are former college players of the year, dropped out of school early to play as professionals and are off to promising starts. In fact, as amateurs, they both nearly won Nationwide titles before falling in playoffs. Fowler, 20, waited until after the Walker Cup to turn pro and hasn't exactly paid a price, pun very much intended. In his two PGA Tour starts, he has finished T2 and T7 and earned enough money to jump to No. 135, securing special temporary member status. That means he doesn't have to play in the first stage of Q-school this week after all and can skip directly to finals in December if he retains a spot in the top 150. Instead, he will play the Viking Classic starting Thursday, where he has a chance to crack the top 125 in earnings with another big week. A top 10 at the Viking automatically gets him in the season finale at Disney on Nov. 12-15, too. Lovemark will play in the first stage of Q-school this week. Had he won the playoff Sunday, he would have been set on tour through 2011.
Duval assumes bubble position
Chris Stroud's ninth-inning rally is paying off. Two weeks ago, he was outside the top 125 in earnings and looking at losing his card for the third time in as many tour seasons, but consecutive solid tournaments have put him on the road to the promised land. He began the Frys event on the bubble at No. 125 and finished T8, improving to 111th. He wasn't the only guy operating in a two-minute offense, either. Bill Lunde, who began the week at No. 124 in earnings, finished T4 and jumped to 102nd. The newest guy on the hot seat? Maybe you've heard of him: former world No. 1 David Duval, who is trying not to finish outside the top 125 for an amazing seventh consecutive year. Duval has burned the last of his exemptions (top 50 career money list) and would be playing out of the conditional past-champions status for 2010 unless he cracks the top 125. He has missed six of seven cuts since finishing T2 at the U.S. Open, which is looking more like an anomaly and not a return to former glory, as fans had optimistically envisioned.
Jonzon reigns in Spain
Ranked No. 482 and needing to finish no worse than second to keep his European Tour card, Sweden's Michael Jonzon on Sunday held off established stars such as Martin Kaymer and homegrown Sergio Garcia to win the Castello Masters. It was a watershed win for the journeyman, who joins Richard S. Johnson and Richard A. Johnson as prominent golfing Swedes with the same phonetic surname. The latter pair has played at length on the U.S. tour, joined by Americans Zach and Dustin Johnson, which has created some occasional confusion. Hopefully, Michael will be staying overseas, because as it has been noted, if there were any more swinging Johnsons on stage in the States, they'd have to change the tour name to Chippendales.
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More like a battlefield casualty
You call this a promotion? It's akin to earning a Purple Heart for falling down in the latrine. Michael Sim won his third Nationwide Tour event the week before the FedEx Cup series began, which meant that instead of securing the automatic "battlefield promotion" to the big leagues, he was out of luck. The FedEx fields are limited to the points leaders, and he has had no success landing positions in the Fall Series tournaments, either, as established players jockey to keep their cards. Last week, still locked out of a spot in the PGA Tour event, the 25-year-old Aussie went back to the Nationwide and finished second in that circuit's season finale. Since winning his third Nationwide event in August, he has played in one PGA Tour event, and it was on a sponsor exemption. While the landscape of the tour has certainly changed since the FedEx and Fall Series was concocted, there needs to be some accommodation for the players who earned their spots on the major-league roster. The conditional access needs to be greatly updated or eliminated. As it stands, it's about as meaningful as Elvis Presley's black belt in karate.
Rookies in the raw
It was right there on the table, but Webb Simpson again dropped the fork. Simpson, who played in the final group at The Barclays and faded badly in the fourth round, was tied for second entering Sunday at the Frys event and shot 71, skidding into a T13 finish. With only two events remaining, it's looking like Aussie Marc Leishman is going to win Rookie of the Year by default, thanks mostly to his runner-up finish in the BMW Championship to Tiger Woods. Then again, if Fowler stays hot, despite his truncated at-bats as a pro, he certainly deserves major consideration. As it stands, this is the first time in 11 years that there have been no rookie winners on tour.
First round and down
The second wave of the first stage of Q-school continues this week in various locales, and the carnage in last week's opening sessions certainly included some notable names. Among those who failed to survive the initial hurdle in the annual qualifying ritual were Danny Lee, who won earlier this year on the European Tour and played in the Masters; famous son and former PGA Tour player Gary Nicklaus, who massacred the closing holes to blow his chance to advance; Sam Saunders, the grandson of Arnold Palmer who dropped out of Clemson in order to turn pro early; and mighty mite Tadd Fujikawa, who turned pro as a teen despite having no status on any major tour and limited endorsement potential. On an infinitely more positive note, indefatigable Erik Compton, who created major headlines last fall when he returned to Q-school only five months after having heart-transplant surgery, won his first-stage qualifier by seven strokes.
A different Australian crawl
Of all the names outside the top 125 in earnings, one ranks as the most stunning to aficionados. No player has had a more surprising drop of form than Aussie Stuart Appleby, who entered the year as the only man on Earth to have played in every major championship and WGC event since 1997. After finishing a mediocre T55 last week at the Frys, where he broke 70 on an easy track only once and actually dropped two spots to No. 134 in earnings, he's shutting it down for the year in the States. Even though he could play in his own backyard at Disney in two weeks and possibly make enough cash to retain his card, he is bolting for Australia. "I'll probably get my letter-writing skills together for next year," he told the Golf Channel last week. Translated, that means he's satisfied with playing on conditional status or via schmoozing sponsors for exemptions, which is a disappointing tack for a guy who played on four Presidents Cup teams. "This year has been a learning year," he told the network. "You should learn more when you are playing bad than when you are playing well." Guess the lessons didn't include how to fight to the finish.
It's 2010: Do you know where your kids are?
After some early reports to the contrary, it appears that rising giant killer Rory McIlroy will spend at least one more year playing the European Tour as his primary circuit. Some had speculated the native of Northern Ireland might jump to the PGA Tour in 2010 since he's already playing close to the required 15 stops for membership anyway, but his agent shot down that notion last week. Chubby Chandler, his manager, has maintained all year that they don't want to spread the 20-year-old too thin and reaffirmed that stance last week. It's a veritable lock that he'll end up here soon enough, like Padraig Harrington, Ian Poulter, Sergio Garcia and many E-Tour stars before him. McIlroy made the cut in all four majors -- and had the fifth-best cumulative score overall in the Grand Slam events – while playing in a total of 11 events sanctioned in the States. McIlroy ranks No. 16 in the world. Heck, I'd buy a ticket right now to watch him play Fowler, another 20-year-old with wild hair and all sorts of upside.
