Golf Tips

Mallorca, Spain (Sports Network) – Chris Wood played rather conservatively all day Saturday, shooting a one-under 69 to increase his lead after three rounds of the Iberdrola Open.

Wood entered the clubhouse at nine-under 201, four shots better than anybody else at Pula Golf Club. He has an excellent chance to post his first European Tour win after recording his second career 54-hole lead.

“It was one of those days where everyone just had to hang in there a little bit,” Wood said. “The course has definitely firmed up a lot, and it’s playing shorter and shorter. I was hitting four and five-irons off tees to start the week, and now I’m hitting six and sevens.”

He previously led after three rounds of the 2010 BMW PGA Championship, but recorded a 77 on Sunday to finish in a share of sixth.

Read more info…

Thoughts of Seve Ballesteros filtered into the Ontario Golf Hall of Fame induction dinner last Wednesday as news of the Spanish star’s deterioration in health began making the rounds.

Sam Young of the Shelburne Golf and Country Club and Gar Hamilton, the head pro at Mississauga Golf and Country Club for the past 22 years, were inducted, with Hamilton making a brief, solemn note about the international star in his speech.

After a battle with brain cancer, golf lost one of its most charismatic figures on Saturday at the age of 54. Hamilton remembered happier times back in the ’70s when Ballesteros was winning event after event.

Hamilton, who won numerous provincial and national titles, played on the PGA Tour in 1976-77 and part of 1980.

Read more info…

PHILADELPHIA – Lexi Thompson, all of 16, nearly made LPGA Tour history this week.

She shared the 54-hole lead of the Avent LPGA Classic and if she would’ve won, she would’ve been the youngest winner in LPGA Tour history by almost two years.

Thompson isn’t a member of the LPGA Tour. She’s not allowed to be based on the tour’s rule that doesn’t permit players under the age of 18.

Per the tour, “women between the ages of 15 and 18 may be granted special permission to apply for membership by satisfactorily demonstrating to the Commissioner their capacity to assume professional and financial responsibilities of the association’s Tour Division members.”

So, Thompson isn’t a member of the tour because of her birth date.

Read more info…

In this age of advanced medical technology, it’s almost unthinkable that Tiger Woods could become the Bobby Orr of golf: the game’s best, sidelined by bad knees.

That comparison may be a bit of a stretch, but not as bad as one fan’s on Tiger’s own website, who compared Woods to Elvis, saying “Don’t worry about records, all we need is you being fit and come back to (sic) intertain us. ”

OK, so he’s not retiring, and he’s certainly not ready to be entombed in front of his gaudy Jupiter Island, Fla., mansion, but another injury is reason for concern.

Woods announced this week he will not be competing at the Wells Fargo Championship next week because of what his camp is calling a “minor” knee injury.

Read more info…

It can’t continue, can it? Rookies, teens and twentysomethings continue to thrive in the pro ranks and, every week, those in the know say this is the tournament where experience will win out.

That’s what they said would happen at the Masters, but PGA Tour rookie Charl Schwartzel came along and blew that theory, and the likes of Tiger and Phil, out of the water.

And, when three of the four sitting major champions — Schwartzel, Louis Oosthuizen and world No. 1 Martin Kaymer — teed it up in Malaysia last week, it was Matteo Manassero who snuck in his second European Tour victory two days ahead of his 19th birthday.

Already holding the title of the European Tour’s youngest victor after taking the Castello Masters last year, Manassero shot up to No.

Read more info…