Monday, April 27, 2015

Rose And Ko Both Win Their 7th

- How long will it be before Lydia Ko has more victories than she does years on Earth. On the weekend of her 18th birthday, Ko won her 7th LPGA title, firing a seven under 70 in difficult conditions to defend her Swinging Skirts title. It's almost impossible to talk about Ko at this point without repeating myself, so I will save any more adjectives for when she finally wins that first major title.

- Morgan Pressel had plenty of opportunities to win to win her first title since 2008, but she has to be encouraged by her recent good play. Pressel hasn't missed a cut all season, and has finished inside the top 25 in her last four starts, including a T3 and a runner up finish. This is very similar to how Michelle Wie began her come back last year, so Pressel has to be thinking that her time is coming.

- The final round pressure may have gotten to her, but I am impressed by how Brooke Henderson played this week. She played against some of the best female golfers in the world, and she was still able to finish in solo third and cash a pretty sizable check in one of her first tournaments as a professional. She is marching her way towards Tour status, and the more she plays in front of big crowds on Sunday, the more that pressure will start to ease off her shoulders.

- She got off to a tough start, but it's starting to look like Sakura Yokomine is going to be a rather fine LPGA professional. After missing her first three cuts by a mile, she has cashed four straight checks, with one top 10 and a T11 this week. Yokomine needed some time to adjust to the new courses, the language barrier, and living in America, but it appears as if she's putting those learning curves behind her. I would love to see a victory by Yokomine on the LPGA Tour.

- If I didn't care about the Zurich Classic before, this week sent me over the edge. Not only were there weather issues all week, but when ten under par is only good for T48, I tend to not take your tournament seriously. Birdie fests are boring.

- Luckily for the Zurich Classic, they got a great champion, as Justin Rose rode his momentum from Augusta National into his seventh PGA Tour victory. Rose really struggled out of the gates this season, but now he looks to be back to where he was last year when we considered Rose to be a favorite for his second major title.

- You would be forgiven if you didn't know who Ashun Wu was prior to the Volvo China Open. Wu, who plays on the Japan Tour, has not played well this season - in fact, this was only his second start, and he missed the cut in Japan in his only previous start in 2015. Still, Wu's victory in front of his home country on the European Tour is a life changing moment. It will be interesting to see if Wu takes this as a boost in his career, of it this is going to he the highlight of his professional life. Time will tell.

- Hao-Tong Li is going to have an interesting decision to make. After two top 10 finishes on the European Tour, he could continue to play in Europe, and rack up some more World Golf Ranking, or he could go back to playing on the Web.com Tour, where he has full playing privileges and could win a PGA Tour card at the end of the season. Li may just end up playing on both Tours, as long as he has the ability to do so, but picking up a PGA Tour card will be harder if he doesn't focus full time on the Web.com Tour. Either way, the future is incredibly bright for Li, who is starting to make China proud.

No comments:

Post a Comment