Thursday, February 12, 2015

News Grab-Bag: 2/12/2015

- As I'm sure you have heard by now, Tiger Woods is taking a leave of absence from the PGA Tour until he starts playing well at his local golf course. I understand the idea of being "Tour ready", but I wonder if he may be better off just playing more and getting reps. Either way, things are dire for one of the greatest professional athletes of all time.

- The first female members of the R&A were announced this week, and among them were Dame Laura Davies and Annika Sorenstam. You can find the full list here. No one is going to argue with any of these selections, and it's good to see the R&A finally get with the times.

- The USGA has another event that they are sponsoring - the US Women's Senior Open. The event will be open to women 50 years of age and older and will begin in 2018. It's a great opportunity for women older than 50 who currently don't have a big tournament to participate in, but I wonder what kind of field we will get by the time 2018 comes around. A lot of ladies are already retiring at 40. I wonder if this new Senior Open will encourage players to continue to play.

- There has been a change in qualifying for the United States President Cup team. Instead of basing the qualification points off of money won, they are now basing it off of FedEx Cup points. This is an attempt to put more weight on the FedEx Cup playoffs, which is admirable, but it also means players like Peter Uihlein and David Lipsky, who are currently making there living on foreign Tours, will not be part of the conversation.

- Paul McGinley rarely plays in the US, so when he does, he expects to have a pretty easy time. Instead, he got his clubs stolen from his rental car this week. McGinley was able to get a second set and play at Pebble Beach, but it has to be disheartening to McGinley for this to happen.

- A few tournaments on the PGA Tour are going to be weighted a little stronger - the winners of the Memorial Tournament and the Arnold Palmer Invitational will be offered three year exemptions on Tour.

- The LPGA has been doing incredibly well lately, but that isn't stopping them from losing tournaments. The event in Mobile Bay, Alabama, has been cancelled after Airbus pulled out as sponsor. It's never a good thing to lose tournaments, but the Mobile Bay wasn't a particularly big tournament for the LPGA Tour and they're still celebrating massive growth, so I think they will get over it fairly quickly.

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