8/30/2010
Colin Montgomerie, the captain of the European Ryder Cup team, made his three picks for the team that wil take on the U.S. in Wales in a month - and two of them, Padraig Harrington and Luke Donald, played with us at the Transitions Championship in March.
Both are great gentlemen, personable and fun to be around.
Luke had played with us before, but it was Padraig's first time on the Copperhead. He told us he had viewed the course on TV and was so impressed he had to play it.
He finished 6th in March and Luke was a shot behind in eighth so we are hoping they will both be back with us in March.
Padraig also spent some extra time with our title sponsor, Transitions Optical, at one of their functions and he was wonderful. Personable, funny, bright - the whole package.
As an American, it will still be hard to root against guys like Padraig and Luke - as well as Ian Poulter and Ross Fisher who also played with us last year.
On the other hand, our American team has five players - champion Jim Furyk, Bubba Watson, Steve Stricker, Dustin Johnson and Jeff Overton - who were with us in March.
Captain Corey Pavin's four captain's picks are still to come and it would not surprise me if Zach Johnson and Sean O'Hair who are Copperhead regulars are among them.
We will be watching lots of familiar faces from Wales in about a month. 8/25/2010
I spent a couple days this week at The Barclays tournament in New Jersey.
It is the first event of the PGA TOUR playoffs and all the big names are there.
Which led me to think, hey, these are the big names and most of them were in our field last March.
I remember coming on these recruiting trips several years ago, trying to convince some of the top players to give the Copperhead a try. Now, I’m hearing them say, “Hey, I’d like the same room as I had in March.”
That’s because thanks to our new spring dates, thanks to the hard work of our sponsor Transitions Optical, thanks to our great course and resort and thanks to the work of so many of our volunteers and Copperheads, only four of 29 “regular” PGA TOUR events had a field that was considered stronger than ours.
Our champion Jim Furyk received 58 points towards the Official World Golf Rankings, a number that is based on a formula determined by the quality of our field. We’ve been in the 40s the last two years, but with players like Padraig Harrington and Ian Poulter playing in 2010 along with people like Furyk, Steve Stricker, Kenny Perry and Retief Goosen (among many others), we had a very strong and deep field.
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Another thought I had this week is that the players who did well in our tournament in March also did well all year. Our top five finishers – Furyk, K.J. Choi, Bubba Watson, Nick Watney and Goosen – all finished in the top 35 in the FedEx Cup Points standings prior to the start of the playoffs and all currently rank in the top 50 in the Official World Golf Rankings. 8/17/2010Like everyone, I felt so sorry for Dustin Johnson after the PGA Championship was over. He certainly hit into the strangest looking bunker I've ever seen, especially with all those fans clustered about.
If Johnson had made the playoff, two of the three playoff participants would have also played in the 2010 Transitions Championship.
Bubba Watson has had a great year, and he really got it going at the Transitions Championship in March when he finished 3rd. 7/28/2010
After Carl Pettersson won the Canadian Open last week, especially as we realized he did so wearing Transitions lenses, we got to thinking that we should do something special when one of ‘our guys’ wins.
So beginning this week at The Greenbrier we’re going to double it if one of our past champions or Transitions Optical spokespersons Kenny Perry or Trevor Immelman win.
Pettersson, Jim Furyk and John Huston are in the field, as are Perry and Immelman, so that’s five fine golfers who might trigger this great value.
Keep an eye out for this week's discount. 7/8/2010Beginning with this week's British Open, the Transitions Championship is offering a special discount program on Weekly Badges and two popular hospitality programs.
For every shot the winner of each event gets under par, we will offer that percentage as a discount for the next week through Friday.
So if the British Open winner is 15-under, Weekly Badges will be 15% off. That's $75 instead of $89. 3/21/2010Jim Furyk’s first par on a par three Sunday proved to be the difference in his first PGA TOUR victory in 59 Tour starts and almost 32 months. Needing to get up and down on 17 from a greenside bunker 28 yards away, Furyk was faced with the same shot to the same pin on the same day in the same tournament one year ago…and he made a triple-bogey 6. However, this year in contention, he hit his bunker shot to within eight feet and made a putt to give him a two-shot cushion heading to 18. He would need it as he drove right, “half-shanked” his second shot and eventually tapped in for a bogey and a one-shot victory over K.J. Choi. Par threes were adventurous for Furyk who made three bogies and a birdie Sunday on Copperhead’s first four par 3’s before his tournament saving up and down par from the bunker on 17.
Furyk off-set three bogies on the final nine with three birdies each time giving him a three shot lead. “It seemed like every time today K.J. got close,” Furyk said in the post-tournament press conference, “I was able to bounce right back and hit some really good shots, make a bunch of birdies and get some more distance.”
The 12th was a key hole for Furyk over the weekend as he drained a pair of 33-foot birdie putts Saturday and Sunday on that hole. In shooting four rounds in the 60’s, he becomes the first champion of this event to accomplish this feat since Vijay Singh in 2004. His 13-under par total of 271 is tied for the third lowest 72-hole score in this event and sets the new mark for lowest score since this event moved to the spring.
Bubba Watson posted the best finish by a lefthander in tournament history with a solo third place finish at 11-under. Nick Watney(-9) was solo fourth with a weekend score of 132, equaling the lowest final 36 holes in tournament history. Defending champion Retief Goosen finished 8-under for solo fifth.
Despite almost five hours in weather delays, the crowds stayed strong on Sunday and witnessed yet another great champion in this event’s history. After two delays totaling almost 5 hours, the action on the course has been well worth the wait. The best players in the world are fighting through wind gusts but attacking unusually soft greens due to the earlier rainfall. At the turn, Jim Furyk (-13) has a 2-shot lead over both K.J. Choi (-11) and Bubba Watson (-11) who just birdied the tenth.
Choi made 4 birdies in a 5-hole stretch including a 58-foot bomb on the third hole. Furyk has mixed in three birdies with a bogey on 4, just his second bogey of the tournament. Choi and Furyk were tied heading to the 8th hole, but a Furyk 23-foot birdie combined with a Choi bogey gave Furyk a 2-shot lead. If he holds on for the win, it will be Furyk’s first win on the PGA Tour since July 2007 when he won the Canadian Open.
Others in contention include Retief Goosen making the turn at 9-under and Nick Watney 9-under through 12. Carl Pettersson is 8-under, solo 6th.
Crowds have been steady all day with some sticking it out since the early morning and others arriving for the afternoon action. Wind gusts could be a big factor on the final nine. It looks like Mother Nature is finally easing up on the Copperhead Course at the Innisbrook Resort. After a morning delay of 1 hour and 15 minutes, players teed off at 9:00 am before the horn sounded at 11:02 am suspending play. Everyone in the field will be on the course when play resumes at 2:45 with the final group on the first tee. Hopefully, if there are no more delays, we will have a conclusion to the tournament in the final hour of daylight today. Players are currently getting loose on the driving range and putting green.
If you’re thinking about heading to the event, you should still be able to see four hours of championship golf, weather permitting, if you arrive by 3:30 pm. After a 75-minute delay to start the round, thunderstorms have hit the area so golfers were called off the course at 11:02 am. The final threesome of Jim Furyk(-11), K.J. Choi(-8) and Retief Goosen(-8) is the only group remaining that hasn’t started their fourth round. They are on the first tee when play resumes. The quartet of players tied for second at 8-under has been joined by Jeff Maggert and Padraig Harrington who both birdied #1.
Ping-Pong was the favored clubhouse activity during the early morning delay and the table action in underway again. After a 1 hour and 15 minute delay due to inclement weather, the fourth round of the Transitions in underway. The leaders should tee off just before 11:00 a.m. and finish around 4:30 p.m. weather permitting. It looks like the weather has cleared for now and the latest forecast shows it should be overcast without rain for the next 5-6 hours. | Edit in Browser | /_layouts/images/icxddoc.gif | /en/blog/_layouts/formserver.aspx?XsnLocation={ItemUrl}&OpenIn=Browser | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xsn | 255 | | Edit in Browser | /_layouts/images/icxddoc.gif | /en/blog/_layouts/formserver.aspx?XmlLocation={ItemUrl}&OpenIn=Browser | 0x0 | 0x1 | ProgId | InfoPath.Document | 255 | | Edit in Browser | /_layouts/images/icxddoc.gif | /en/blog/_layouts/formserver.aspx?XmlLocation={ItemUrl}&OpenIn=Browser | 0x0 | 0x1 | ProgId | InfoPath.Document.2 | 255 | | Edit in Browser | /_layouts/images/icxddoc.gif | /en/blog/_layouts/formserver.aspx?XmlLocation={ItemUrl}&OpenIn=Browser | 0x0 | 0x1 | ProgId | InfoPath.Document.3 | 255 | | Edit in Browser | /_layouts/images/icxddoc.gif | /en/blog/_layouts/formserver.aspx?XmlLocation={ItemUrl}&OpenIn=Browser | 0x0 | 0x1 | ProgId | InfoPath.Document.4 | 255 | | View in Web Browser | /_layouts/images/ichtmxls.gif | /en/blog/_layouts/xlviewer.aspx?listguid={ListId}&itemid={ItemId}&DefaultItemOpen=1 | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xlsx | 255 | | View in Web Browser | /_layouts/images/ichtmxls.gif | /en/blog/_layouts/xlviewer.aspx?listguid={ListId}&itemid={ItemId}&DefaultItemOpen=1 | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xlsb | 255 | | Snapshot in Excel | /_layouts/images/ewr134.gif | /en/blog/_layouts/xlviewer.aspx?listguid={ListId}&itemid={ItemId}&Snapshot=1 | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xlsx | 256 | | Snapshot in Excel | /_layouts/images/ewr134.gif | /en/blog/_layouts/xlviewer.aspx?listguid={ListId}&itemid={ItemId}&Snapshot=1 | 0x0 | 0x1 | FileType | xlsb | 256 |
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