FedEx St. Jude Classic - June 05, 2012
E-Notes – June 5, 2012
PGA TOUR
Marquee groupings – FedEx St. Jude Classic
Thursday, 1:27 p.m. ET No. 1 tee (Friday, 8:27 a.m. ET No. 10 tee)
David Toms, Brian Gay, Davis Love III
Thursday, 1:36 p.m. ET No. 1 tee (Friday, 8:36 a.m. ET No. 10 tee)
Zach Johnson, Kyle Stanley, Robert Garrigus
Friday, 1:27 p.m. ET No. 1 tee (Thursday, 8:27 a.m. ET No. 10 tee)
Rory McIlroy, Graeme McDowell, Padraig Harrington
Friday, 1:36 p.m. ET No. 1 tee (Thursday, 8:36 a.m. ET No. 10 tee)
Harrison Frazar, Justin Leonard, Dustin Johnson
Zach Johnson enters the FedEx St. Jude Classic as the highest-ranked player in the field in the FedExCup standings at No. 4. Johnson claimed his eighth PGA TOUR victory two weeks ago at the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial and has three additional top-10 finishes on the season. Johnson’s best FedEx St. Jude Classic finish came in 2006, when he finished T5. Rory McIlory is the next highest-ranked player in the field at No. 8. Johnson or McIlory would take over the top spot in the FedExCup standings with a win this week in Memphis.
All-time PGA TOUR victories
1) Sam Snead – 82; won 73rd (1955 Insurance City Open) at the age of 43 years, 3 months, and 8 days
2) Jack Nicklaus – 73; won 73rd (1986 Masters Tournament) at the age of 46 years, 2 months, and 23 days
3) Tiger Woods – 73; won 73rd (2012 the Memorial Tournament) at age of 36 years, 5 months and 4 days
Winning percentage en route to 73 PGA TOUR wins (professional starts only):
Tiger Woods: 27 percent (73 of 269)
Sam Snead: 23 percent (73 of 324)
Jack Nicklaus: 17 percent (73 of 443)
Tiger Woods largest final-round come-from-behind victories
Year and Tournament Status entering final round Result Final-Round Score
1996 Las Vegas Invitational 4 back Black (90-hole event) Playoff over Love 64
2000 AT&T Pebble Beach 5 back Brooks, Gogel 2 over Gogel/Singh 64
2009 Arnold Palmer Invitational 5 back O’Hair 1 over O’Hair 67
2009 the Memorial Tournament 4 back M. Wilson, Bettencourt 1 over Furyk 65
2012 the Memorial Tournament 4 back Levin 2 over Sabbatini/Romero 67
Tiger Woods and Charl Schwartzel led the field last week in Greens in Regulation (73.61 percent). It marked the 20th time in 70 stroke-play victories when Woods has led the field in GIR. Forty-four of his wins have come when ranking inside the top five for greens hit and 55 of them have come when ranking inside the top 10.
Tiger Woods finished 42nd (of 71) players in Strokes Gained – Putting (.037) at the Memorial Tournament, and made just three of 41 putts inside of 10 feet.
Where he’s won: Tiger Woods – 73 PGA TOUR victories in 16 states and five countries
13 California, Florida
12 Ohio
7 Georgia, Illinois
3 Michigan
2 Texas, Scotland, England
1 Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Arizona, Canada, Ireland, Spain
Rickie Fowler’s TOUR-best string of 19 consecutive rounds at par or better was snapped with his final-round 84 at the Memorial Tournament. He entered Sunday three strokes behind the 54-hole leader Spencer Levin. At the age of 23 years, 5 months and 21 days, Fowler, was attempting to become the youngest player to win multiple times in the same season since Anthony Kim won twice in 2008 (Wells Fargo Championship and AT&T National), his second coming at the age of 23 years and 17 days.
CHAMPIONS TOUR
Jay Haas claimed his third title in the Principal Charity Classic, becoming the 16th different player to win a Champions Tour tournament three times or more. Jeff Sluman was the last player to achieve this feat, capturing his third Nature Valley First Tee Open at Pebble Beach last year.
The winner of the last 20 Champions Tour events has now come from the final group.
Kirk Triplett set a new course and tournament record when he closed with a 9-under-par 62 and finished T2. This was just Triplett’s fourth tournament since joining the Champions Tour in April.
Graham Marsh had success on the par-3 holes at Glen Oaks Country Club at the Principal Charity Classic. Marsh aced the second hole with a 5-iron from 180 yards in Friday’s first round. In Wednesday’s pro-am, Marsh aced No. 5 with a 5-iron from 192 yards. Sadly, Marsh, who shot 73, withdrew from the tournament before Saturday's second round with a sore back.
Roger Chapman is the Champions Tour Player of the Month for May after making a major championship his first victory on the Champions Tour. The Senior PGA Championship was the 16th career start, and first this year, for Chapman on the Champions Tour. He earned 756 Charles Schwab Cup points and rocketed from nowhere to third in the Charles Schwab Cup points race.
Peter Senior was honored with the Australian PGA’s highest accolade of Life Membership at last week’s Annual General Meeting.
Sectional Qualifying for the U.S. Open Championship is conducted this week and several Champions Tour players are scheduled to try and gain a spot in the field at Olympic Club June 11-17. Tom Kite, the 1992 U.S. Open champion, will play his 36 holes in Texas and is the oldest participant in sectional qualifying. Michael Allen, a member at Olympic Club and a two-time Champions Tour winner this season, will try to qualify in California. Tom Pernice, Jr. will tee it up in Illinois, Lee Rinker in Ohio, Stan Utley in Tennessee and Fred Funk, the 2009 U.S. Senior Open winner, in Maryland.
Fifty-seven players in the 78-man Regions Tradition field own titles on the Champions Tour. This year’s field also includes six members of the World Golf Hall of Fame, the most recent inductee being Sandy Lyle, who was inducted on May 7.
Jay Haas earned 263 Charles Schwab Cup points with his Principal Charity Classic win and jumped into fifth place in that race with 566 points. Michael Allen leads with 923 points followed by John Cook (789), Bernhard Langer (761) and Roger Chapman (756).
On 6/10/77 – Al Geiberger became the first player to break 60 in a PGA TOUR event when he shot 59 in the second round of the Danny Thomas Memphis Classic.
NATIONWIDE TOUR
Sunday's Rex Hospital Open winner James Hahn flew overnight from Raleigh, NC to San Francisco to compete for a spot in next week's U.S. Open. Remarkably he had enough gas left in the tank to take co-medalist honors at the Daly City, CA qualifier. A native of Seoul, Hahn was raised in the Bay area. "I've dreamt all my life of playing in a U.S. Open......I grew up on that course (host Olympic)," he said on Sunday.
Successfully qualifying on Monday at various U.S. Open sites were 2012 Nationwide Tour members Hahn, Brice Garnett, Darron Stiles, Jeff Curl, Nicholas Thompson, Paul Claxton, Casey Wittenberg, Alistair Presnell, Steve LeBrun and Jim Herman, and Panama winner Edward Loar.
With joint sanctioning of the Nationwide Tour and the Mexican Golf Federation, this week's 144-player Mexico Open features 22 invitations to golfers as determined by the Federation, plus the four leading money winners from the Tour de Las Americas.
This week's Mexico Open is the fourth and final stop for the Nationwide Tour in Latin America this year (Colombia, Panama, Chile).
Eleven young men were named last week to the 2012 Ping first-team All-America team at the NCAA Championship. Headlining the group are Division I Jack Nicklaus Award winner Justin Thomas of the University of Alabama and NCAA individual champion Thomas Pieters of the University of Illinois. All 11 will be invited to play in next month's Nationwide Children's Hospital Invitational at Ohio State University's Scarlet Course. Playing on a similar invitation, Harris English of the University of Georgia won last year's event. Another collegian, Daniel Summerhays of Brigham Young University, won the first tournament in 2007.
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