IMPORTANT NOTE: Due to scheduled maintenance, Squarespace websites will not be accessible from approximately 1:00 a.m. - 3:00 a.m. on Monday, May 12th.  This may delay posting of the upcoming Week In Review page slightly...but we'll see. 

It's not a Major, but...  Sergio Garcia ends a three-year PGA Tour victory drought at the Players Championship, while Annika Sorenstam makes a BIG statement at Kingsmill.  Though exciting events all, everything else was, by comparison, largely irrelevant...

PGA Tour:  The Players Championship – Ponte Vedra Beach, FL

One might not have expected the golfing gods to respond favorably to Sergio Garcia’s self-pity-fest following last year’s Open Championship at Carnoustie, but perhaps they have.  Under difficult, wind-driven playing conditions, Garcia finished with a fine 71 in the final round of the Players Championship, then sat back and watched tournament leader Paul Goydos miss a 10-footer to bogey the TPC Sawgrass’s demanding 18th hole, leaving the pair deadlocked at five-under-par 283 and forcing sudden death.  The playoff naturally commenced at the ultra-dramatic par-3 17th, where Goydos, perhaps emotionally spent, plunked his tee shot in the water.  But taking immediate advantage of this second good break, Garcia rose to the occasion, hitting a clutch pitching wedge that trickled down to within five feet of the back-right Sunday pin, and two putts later, he was the Players Champion.  The 28-year-old Spaniard began the final round three shots behind Goydos and did little to improve his position with an outgoing 37.  However, clutch birdies and the 11th, 12th and 14th (built around a bogey at the par-3 13th) represented about as much of a charge as the firm, windy TPC layout would allow, placing Garcia in position to be the beneficiary of Goydos’s 72nd-hole bogey.  A third player, Jeff Quinney, might well have found himself in the playoff as well, but he too bogeyed the last, Pete Dye’s famous 462-yard par 4 which curves gently leftward around a lake.  Quinney thus took solo 3rd at 284, while Briny Baird and Stephen Ames claimed 4th and 5th respectively, with 287 and 288 totals.  Goydos’s Sunday playing partner Kenny Perry, who began the day one off lead, stumbled badly to an 81 and a tie for 15th, while Ernie Els attempted to mount several back-nine charges before a double-bogey at the last left him tied for 6th at 289.  The victory is Garcia’s first on the PGA Tour since 2005, and easily his biggest career triumph to date, its elite field helping to bump him from 18th to 10th in the World Golf Ranking.  Or this one afternoon at least, it seems that he wasn’t playing against “more than just the field.”

      FINAL RESULTS          MONEY LIST          PGA TOUR STATS          INTERVIEWS
 
 
European Tour:  Methorios Capital Italian Open – Milan, Italy

South African Hennie Otto narrowly missed claiming his first victory on the European Tour back in March at the Madeira Island Open, when he lost a sudden-death playoff to Scotland’s Alastair Forsyth.  In the aftermath, Otto missed the cut at Andalucia, then tied for 15th at the Spanish Open, before unleashing spectacular rounds of 65-66-63-69 (for a 25-under-par 263 total) to capture this week’s Italian Open in Milan.  The 31-year-old Otto played exceptional golf over the first 36 holes, yet his 131 halfway total could only tie him for 2nd, two back of Sweden’s Robert Karlsson, whose second-round 61 set a new course record.  But Otto stepped up with an 11-birdie, two-bogey 3rd round that vaulted him into a lead he would not surrender.  England’s Oliver Wilson closed with 64 (Sunday’s low round) to finish alone in 2nd, two back, while Karlsson, who was ranked 48th in the world but passed up a bid to the Players Championship in hopes of racking up valuable Ryder Cup points, finished with a 67 to claim 3rd.  With the victory, Otto jumps 78 places in the Official World Ranking, from 154th to 76th.

                      FINAL RESULTS          ORDER OF MERIT          E TOUR STATS
 
 
Japan & Asian Tours:  Pine Valley Beijing Open – Beijing, China

One week ago, Japan’s Hiroyuki Fujita suffered heartbreaking defeat at the J Tour’s prestigious Crowns tournament, birdieing the 72nd hole to tie Tomohiro Kondo, only to lose in sudden death when Kondo holed a long putt at the second playoff hole.  But the 38-year-old Fujita, a six-time J Tour winner, showed championship resilience following his loss, opening the Pine Valley Beijing Open with rounds of 67-65, then posting a pair of solid 72s to coast home to a three-shot victory over countryman Shintaro Kai with a 72-hole total of 12-under-par 276.  While the Asian circuit has thus far resisted overtures for a regional OneAsia super tour, it did agree to co-sponsor this event with the Japan Tour – and despite the world elite being in Florida, and the second tier largely in Europe, the field was apparently strong enough, as Fujita climbs some 40 spots in the World Ranking, from 148th to 108th.

                 FINAL RESULTS          ASIAN ORDER OF MERIT          ASIAN STATS

                                    JAPAN ORDER OF MERIT          JAPAN STATS
 
 
Sunshine Tour:  Samsung Royal Swazi Sun Open – Swaziland, South Africa

Having finished no worse than 6th in his last three Sunshine Tour starts, South African Jean Hugo wasn’t a bad bet going into the Royal Swazi Sun Open, an event played under the Modified Stableford scoring system.  After trailing 17-time Sunshine winner Des Terblanche by six points following Wednesday’s opening round, Hugo fired a stunning 61 on Thursday, an obviously spectacular round which translated to 26 points and a huge 15-point lead.  A third-round 67 kept the 54-hole lead at 14 points, a margin which, despite a missed-putt-ridden 73 in the finale, ultimately proved unassailable.  The victory was Hugo’s sixth on the Sunshine circuit, with the final margin being six points over Neil Schietekat and seven over the 42-year-old Terblanche.

                    FINAL RESULTS          ORDER OF MERIT          SUNSHINE STATS
 
 
LPGA Tour:  Michelob Ultra Open – Williamsburg, VA

Now, perhaps, we’re going to have a contest.  Proving herself eminently capable of still winning when Lorena Ochoa – or, for that matter, anyone else – is in the field, Annika Sorenstam claimed her 72nd LPGA victory in hugely impressive fashion at the Michelob Ultra Open, her 19-under-par 265 total proving good enough to route the foursome of Allison Fouch, Jeong Jang, Christina Kim and Karen Stupples by seven.  It was truly a virtuoso performance by the 37-year-old Hall-of-Famer, beginning with a flawless seven-birdie 64 on Thursday, a statement-making opening which Sorenstam methodically followed with rounds of  66 and 69.  Thus staked to a three-shot 54-hole lead, the world’s second-ranked player went out in one-under-par 35 before turning on the jets on the final nine, recording six birdies between the10th and 17th before logging an utterly irrelevant bogey at the last for a closing 66.  Ochoa, meanwhile, stumbled a bit for the second straight week, although she remained in contention through 36 holes with rounds of 65-68.  A Saturday 74 left her eight back of Sorenstam, however, with an uninspired closing 70 ultimately seeing her home in 277, tied for 12th some 12 shots in arrears.  With her third victory in eight 2008 starts, Sorenstam will still remain well behind Ochoa in the Rolex Rankings – but perhaps not so very far behind her in real terms, an impressive turn of events given Ochoa’s overwhelming dominance during the month of April.

         FINAL RESULTS          MONEY LIST          LPGA STATS          INTERVIEWS
 
 
Elsewhere…

Sweden’s 24-year-old Lotta  Wahlin claimed her first LET victory in epic fashion, carding a seven-under-par 285 total to win the Turkish Ladies Open by 12 shots in Antalya………Former two-time LPGA Tour winner Akiko Fukushima claimed her 22nd career JLPGA title at the World Ladies Championship on Tokyo, defeating Korea’s Ji-Yai Shin in sudden death after the pair deadlocked on four-under-par 284………One-time LPGA Tour player Aram Cho won the KLPGA’s KB Star Tour in Chungcheong event in a three-way playoff with Young Ran Jo and Sun Ju Ahn after the threesome tied at 209………Reigning U.S. Amateur champion Colt Knost claimed his first Nationwide Tour victory at the Ft. Smith Classic, closing with a fine 65 to edge Darron Stiles by one.