French teammates Raphael Jacquelin and Gregory Havret led Continental Europe to a 3-2 lead over Britain and Ireland after the first fourball matches at the Seve Trophy on Thursday.
Jacquelin and Havret beat Paul Casey and Simon Dyson 4 and 3 at The Heritage.
“It was a great day for golf,” Europe captain and tournament namesake Seve Ballesteros said. “It was top-class golf. I was not surprised by the quality because I expected it. They are all great champions.”
Swedish players Robert Karlsson and Peter Hanson also won, beating Colin Montgomerie and Marc Warren 3 and 1, while Markus Brier of Austria and Mikko Ilonen of Finland downed Justin Rose and Oliver Wilson 3 and 2.
Britain and Ireland got points from Bradley Dredge and Phillip Archer, and Nick Dougherty and Graeme Storm.
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The United States roared in to a record 5½-point lead over the International team after the opening-day foursomes at the Presidents Cup on Thuresday.
The Americans made just about the perfect start, winning five matches and halving the other on a bleak day for the Internationals at the Royal Montreal Golf Club in Quebec
Four matches were very close, finishing on the 18th hole - but that was little consolation to Gary Player’s International team, a collection of the best players from outside Europe - even if they didn’t look like it coming down the stretch.
Even in the only match the Americans did not win, they had a heroic touch abloutn them.
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Lee Westwood of England won the British Masters by five strokes Sunday, finishing with a 7-under-par 65 after making two big putts on the last three holes.
Westwood sank a 40-foot putt for birdie on the 16th hole and a 30-footer for eagle at No. 17 for his second victory of the season. He had a four-round total of 15-under 273.
“I’m delighted to win,” said Westwood, who won the Andalucian Open in May. “This is a very prestigious tournament in Britain, and it’s only an hour from where I live.”
Ian Poulter (70) was second at 278 and was one stroke behind with three holes to play. Mark Foster, the leader after the second and third rounds, shot a 74 and finished third, one behind Poulter.
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Two months ago, Steve Flesch was down and almost out. Now, there seems to be no stopping him.
Flesch, who missed the cut in half of the first 20 PGA Tour events he entered this year, continued his resurgence on Sunday, shooting a 1-over 73 to beat Michael Allen by two shots and win the inaugural Turning Stone Resort Championship.
It was the left-hander’s second PGA Tour victory of the year, and the $1.08 million payday boosted his earnings for 2007 to $2.2 million to vault him from 70th on the money list to 25th.
“Eight weeks ago, I was fighting to keep my job out here,” said Flesch, who also earned a spot in the U.S. Open next year as a multiple winner since the last Open. “I wasn’t playing great, missing a lot of cuts by a shot. And when I did make a cut, I was shooting even par on the weekend. You’re just waving guys by when that happens.
“It’s funny. This game is all confidence,” Flesch said. “One little spark can turn your year around, turn your game around. All my friends and family told me to hang in there, keep working hard. But at some point you want results. You can only hang in there so hard and have these guys beat your brains in for so long before you start losing a little bit of confidence.”
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Lee Westwood defied strong winds to mount yet another title challenge at The Belfry today - and Ryder Cup team-mate Colin Montgomerie was in the hunt as well.
While Swede Martin Erlandsson was still out in front at the Quinn Direct British Masters after his brilliant course-record 63 yesterday, Westwood moved into a share of second place only two behind by covering the back nine in 33.
Montgomerie was only one stroke further back after four birdies in his first seven holes, but did then bogey the difficult 473-yard 18th to match Westwood’s score for the half.
Westwood has finished ninth, sixth and sixth the last three weeks and was particularly disappointed not to win last week’s Mercedes-Benz Championship in Cologne after matching the lowest round of his career with an opening 61.
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Jeff Gove and Chad Campbell are tied atop the leaderboard after the opening round of the Turning Stone Resort Championship.
Both players shot seven-under-par 65s on the first day of the US$6million tournament, leaving them one stroke clear of four players at six under.
Steve Flesch, John Senden, Matthew Goggin and Brendon De Jonge each fired six-under 66s to forge a tie for second place.
Gove offset two bogeys with seven birdies over the first 13 holes at Atunyote Golf Club before punctuating his first round with an eagle on the par-five 18th hole.
The 36-year-old has never finished higher than sixth in a PGA Tour event.
He finished his round before Campbell, who played just as well, recording eight birdies and just one bogey, his closing birdie at the 18th pulling him even with Gove.
John Rollins, who won the BC Open at the same venue last year, is at five under along with John Mallinger, Robert Allenby, Tag Ridings and Matt Hendrix.
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When you talk golf these days, you talk Tiger Woods. And — like it or not — you talk money. A lot of money.
Everyone knows Woods was financially set for life before he teed it up for the first time as a pro on the PGA Tour, having already signed multimillion-dollar endorsement deals with several corporate giants, starting with Nike.
In a decade and change, those endorsement dollars have piled up enormously, in addition to the $76,579,376 US Woods has earned on the PGA Tour, where he’s at 61 victories and counting.
Financial observers have predicted that by 2012 at the latest, Woods will become the first athlete to have a net worth of $1 billion.
But that was before the FedEx Cup came along with the grand prize of a $10-million deferred annuity to go into a player’s retirement plan.
Woods, 31, clinched the inaugural FedEx Cup last weekend at the Tour Championship, and its jaw-dropping to think how much the $10 million will be worth when the world’s No. 1 player turns 60, the age he will be forced to start taking retirement payouts.
Source - www.canada .com/sports
Golf finally joined other major sports Thursday when its leading organizations announced an anti-doping policy that will begin in 2008.
PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, who also serves as chairman of the World Golf Foundation, said the policy includes a list of banned substances, and methods for each golf organization to carry them out.
The list of banned substances includes anabolic agents, hormones, stimulants, narcotics, beta blockers and masking agents. Golf did not adopt the World Anti-Doping Association list because Finchem said it would cause an additional administrative burden and “we do not consider the substances in any way impactful as a performance enhancement.”
The organizations behind the drug policy are the PGA Tour, European Tour, U.S. Golf Association, Royal & Ancient Golf Club, Augusta National Golf Club, PGA of America and the LPGA Tour.
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The $10 million had not been deposited into Tiger Woods’ retirement account when PGA Tour officials huddled at headquarters to begin an exhaustive review of the inaugural FedEx Cup.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for changes.
The big announcement coming out of Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., later this week is a drug policy that will begin in 2008, although the tour continues to move slowly and with an abundance of caution. This is something it must get right the first time.
There was always room for error with the FedEx Cup.
Even before K.J. Choi struck the first tee shot of the season at Kapalua, tour officials conceded they probably would have to make a few changes that wouldn’t be obvious until the FedEx Cup ran its course.
For the most part, they got it right.
They wanted the first eight months of the season to be significant, and one only has to look at Rich Beem for the answer. He played some of his best golf when the PGA Tour Playoffs began, but because he virtually went AWOL from January to the middle of August, he started too far down in the standings to last more than two weeks.
They wanted to define a season champion, and Woods won by a mile. Any questions?
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Tiger Woods shot a final round 66 at East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, Georgia, to win The Tour Championship, presented by Coca-Cola, and the inaugural FedExCup play-off series, with a 23 under par score of 257 - the lowest of his career.
That total was two strokes better than his previous best at the 2000 WGC - NEC Invitational and the lowest score in the tournament’s history, as well as the largest winning margin, by eight shots from Masters Champion Zach Johnson.
“Winning this week is pretty special,” Woods said after claiming his 61st career victory on the US PGA Tour. “Winning the FedExCup is one thing but you always want to win the Tour Championship. There’s history involved and these are basically the hottest 30 players for the year.
”Woods, three ahead overnight, was four shots in front at the turn and the only suspense on the back nine was how much he would win by and what records he would break along the way.
Johnson (68) and Mark Calcavecchia (71) tied for second on 15 under, with Spaniard Sergio Garcia (70) a further stroke back in fourth place. Vijay Singh of Fiji was tied for seventh with England’s Justin Rose and Open Champion Padraig Harrington of Ireland sharing 11th place after final rounds of 67 and 73 respectively
