I was looking forward to the Shuksan Best-Ball Sunday morning. But after working late, very late, on Saturday I eventually crawled out of bed just as everyone was reaching their fourth or fifth hole probably. To be perfectly honest though, I wasn't too upset as I'm not at my best in the pouring rain. Ben Harvey tells me there was still a decent turn-out despite the conditions, and BellinghamGolfer applauds those that braved the wet.
Congratulations to John Bennett and Dane Renkert who won 1st place gross with a remarkable nine-under-par 63 which beat Colin Bolton and Matt Cowell by three.
Renkert also won the long drive contest at the 4th with a tee shot that Ben described simply as 'very long'.
I was surprised to read the comments Graeme McDowell made, after he won the Wales Open at Celtic Manor with a 63 Sunday, about how the US Ryder Cup team might struggle there later this year. The Northern Irishman suggested - no he didn't suggest it actually, he just came right out with it - that the European team members were better drivers of the ball and that this was because Americans 'play a lot more wide-open resort courses than we do'.
Two things sprung almost immediately to mind (well, three if you include how McDowell arrived at his opinion when the chances of building a useful statistical comparison is virtually nil) - First; apart from the quartet of courses used for the Bob Hope Classic where par is about as well defended as the proverbial house built on sand, it's hard to identify exactly which courses McDowell was referring to. The Plantation Course at Kapalua, home of the SBS Championship, is certainly a resort layout, but when the wind blows it can be a bit of a beast. The Transitions Championship's Copperhead Course at the Innisbrook Resort is generally considered one of the finest challenges on the PGA Tour, and the newly remodeled Four Seasons Resort at Las Colinas where the Byron Nelson is played is now a TPC venue and certainly no pushover. A quick look down the list of venues on europeantour.com, however, reveals well over a dozen host courses that were built primarily for vacationers playing recreational golf, not century-old championship courses with long-established vegetation and untouchable course records.
The second thing that occurred to me was that when McDowell is called to the 1st tee for the first morning's fourballs, he had better stripe one 300+ yards down the middle of the fairway.
Sunday was a good day for Washington golfers (and I don't just mean John Bennett and Dane Renkert). Ryan Moore had his best finish on the PGA Tour this year, finishing T5 at the Memorial. Gig Harbor's Kyle Stanley likewise recorded his best finish of the year, tieing for fourth in Maryland. And Brock Mackenzie of Yakima, a former All-American at UW, won the Canadian Tour's Times Colonist Open in Victoria, BC.
