Sunday, April 15, 2012

The Week after the Masters--Around the World of Golf: PGA Tour, European Tour, Official World Golf Rankings

After a long couple of weeks leading up to the first major of the year, many top golfers decided to take the week off.  We may not see Rory McIlroy again until the Quail Hollow Tournament, the Wells Fargo Championship.  That is also the next week we will see Tiger Woods play, as this week he committed to Quail Hollow and The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass.  But even without playing this week, Rory McIlroy has assumed the #1 ranking once again from Luke Donald.

Donald needed a T8 or better finish at The RBC Heritage at Harbor Town Golf Links.  After almost missing the cut, Donald was only able to scrape out a 39th place finish and could not hold on to his ranking.  Carl Peterson played great golf this week and won his 4th career PGA Tour event by 4 strokes over Zach Johnson, earning an invitation to next year's Masters tournament and securing a place in the top 4 of the FedEx Cup standings.

Overseas in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Masters runner up Louis Oosthuizen took the Maybank Malaysia Masters title, ending a 3-week streak of 3rd, 2nd, 1st.  Louis may be the hottest golfer on the planet right now and is swinging the club better than ever.  Will he keep it up and live to his potential?  Who knows.  But it sure has to be nice for him to get a win after coming so close at the Masters.  But he can't really be too disappointed, as he also was 2 shots back entering the final round at Augusta and just didn't quite have enough with a 69.  But I expect him to challenge at the other 3 majors this year and possibly take another one home.

Other stories:

David Lipsky, a young American from California via Northwestern University, has continued a great run on the Asian Tour.  After a Win and a second-place finish, Lipsky finished T3 in the Malaysian Open co-sanctioned by the Asian and Euro tours.  In the process, he beat top players Mateo Manessero, Charl Schwartzel and Martin Kaymer.  At 23 years old, he may be a player to watch in the future, and might be on the PGA tour next year.

Harris English continued a strong rookie season on the PGA Tour by carding his first top-10 finish with a T8 at Harbor Town.  Look for him to continue to improve, with a solid long game as well as one of the best GIR percentages on the PGA Tour.

Michael Allen bested Kenny Perry by 3 strokes on the Champions Tour this week.

That's all for today.  Get out there and play, summer is coming fast.

Hit em straight!

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