US PGA, TW World Challenge, G-Mac attack

 

Graeme McDowell, G-Mac, attacked the Tiger Woods World Challenge with a super second round of  -6 under par 66 at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks in California, at the Tiger Woods World Challenge which is presented by Northwestern Mutual. Graeme  has managed to do a lot of things right this year without actually winning,  but he has created one last chance to fix that right  here after taking a three-shot lead going into the weekend. Just before he was escorted away for a drugs test, Graeme had time to say;

“A good day’s work. I would love to compete and play well this weekend, really to kind of put a little icing on what’s been a mediocre year, despite the fact that I feel like I’ve played some decent golf this year. I really don’t have a lot to show for myself, and this would be a nice way to finish. It’s just been a golf course that’s always fit my eye, great backdrops, nice undulations. It’s just a fun course to play. I just always have fun here. And you know, I think I’m always in a fairly relaxed mood here because I’m off the back of five weeks on the road, and I’m very glad to be back on U. S. soil, you know, which is kind of home soil for me nowadays.”

Graeme intends to take a couple of months off after this tournament, and when asked what he would do with his spare time, he replied;

Try and stay out of the bar as much as possible. December will be very much recharging and relaxing and moving into my new house in Orlando and spending some time with friends and family. And January will be detoxing and practicing and getting ready to do it all again.”

Tied for second place at -6 under par for the two rounds, are Bo Van Pelt, Jim Furyk and Keegan Bradley with Tiger another shot back at -5 under par.

Tournament Host Tiger Woods felt he had played some of his best gold;

“I had a decent warm-up session, but the work I did last night was some of the best I’ve hit the golf ball all year. I just had to come out here and trust it, and when I did, I got into a nice little run there. I just need to do that all 36 holes on the weekend.”

First round leader Nick Watney, who had a 67 on Thursday, fell apart late in his second round, leaving him five shots off the top of the leaderboard;

“Just a terrible way to finish, but we’re only halfway through, so we’ll see if we can make a charge at those guys in the morning.”

Propping everyone else up at the bottom of the table is Aussie Jason Day, perhaps Jason had his mind on the cricket,  South Africa had dismissed Australia for just 163 runs at the WACA Ground.

 

 

 

 

The McGladrey Classic Round 1

Bud Cauley/photo A/P

Bud Cauley shares the lead at the McGladrey Classic on the Seaside Course, Sea Island, Georgia, after the opening round, with fellow American Marco Dawson. Both players took advantage of the course to fire in rounds of -8 under par, 62.

Bud has already earned $1.7 million dollars this year and has moved up to position 55 in the World Golf Rankings, all achieved without a win. He hopes this tournament will change the zero in the win column;

”Obviously, I’ve thought about winning every tournament I’ve teed up in this year. ‘It’s been a long year, and although I’ve played a lot this year, I haven’t won. It’s still a goal of mine, but I’m not thinking about that while I’m out there, or putting any more pressure on myself this week. The season is kind of winding down. It would be great to win here.”

Marco Dawson is in a totally different position, this tournament it is the penultimate PGA Tour event on the schedule that counts toward the money list, with Marco way down at No. 216 on the list and with only $62,026 in his 20 tournaments this year. Realistically Marco has to win The McGladrey Classic to avoid a return to Q-school, his year has gone so awry that  he doesn’t even look at the money list anymore.

”I’m so far away from it that the only thing I can do is just try and play well. And when I am playing well, just to keep it going instead of kind of messing it up like I have during the year.”

Boo Weekly is one of three players tied for third place with rounds of  -6 under par 64. Boo has changed to a new thicker putter grip, something that we at White Dragon Golf always recommend, and it has dramatically altered his putting stats, sinking putts from 14, 7, 15, 8, and 7 feet. Boo is currently at 121 on the money list, and is aware of the danger;

“I’m pretty aware of it, The last two weeks I’ve actually played pretty good but I just seem to get nothing out of my round. It just gets more frustrating. The more frustrated you get out here you start getting negative, you start talking trash to yourself saying, ‘You ain’t gonna make the cut because you can’t make this 5-footer. You missed three already the first five holes.’ It just kind of wears on your mind.  It’s been a long time coming, finally started making some putts. I’ve been hitting the ball pretty good the last few weeks and finally today the putts showed up. It just felt good, started making some putts and that started building some confidence.”

The other two players tied at third with Boo are, England’s Greg Owen and Rod Pampling from Australia.