TheState.com: Golf

Mathis leads BMW Pro-Am by two shots

Fri, 16 May 2008 20:55 EDT

GREENVILLE — David Mathis shot a 7-under 65 on Friday to take a two shot lead at the Nationwide Tour BMW Charity Pro-Am.

It was the second-consecutive round of 7-under for Mathis, who played Friday at Bright's Creek Golf Club, one of three courses used in the tournament which pairs professionals with amateurs and celebrities.

Matt Weibring is in second at 12-under after birdies on his final three holes to shoot a 7-under 65 at Carolina Country Club.

Former Clemson player Matt Hendrix is three shots behind the leader for third, and Greg Chalmers is in fourth, four shots behind Mathis.

The golfers at the BMW Charity Pro-Am play on all three courses and 14 teams with the lowest scores advance to Sunday's final round.

Greenville County: Regulators approve development permits

Thu, 15 May 2008 21:00 EDT

State regulators approved permits Thursday for a 5,000-acre mountain golf course development that has drawn opposition over its potential impact on the North Saluda River.

The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control issued water quality approval for the Cliffs at Mountain Park, a new resort community backed by professional golfer Gary Player. The DHEC approval says proposed dams, creeks and bridges won’t hurt water quality in the northern Greenville County river.

Some environmentalists and area residents have opposed the project, saying it could pollute the North Saluda. Mountain Park developers have said they are building the project with the environment in mind.

Gillespie: Walking to a different beat

Tue, 13 May 2008 22:45 EDT

GREER

UNTIL SUNDAY, COLT Knost was best known as the amateur golfer who turned professional and passed up the chance to play in this year’s Masters.

Now, after his first professional victory at last week’s Fort Smith (Ark.) Classic, he hopes to be known as the latest player to use the Nationwide Tour as a springboard to the PGA Tour — and, eventually, to Augusta National.

“As long as I don’t ‘dog it,’ I’ll get to the PGA Tour,” the 22-year-old former SMU player said Tuesday while standing at the first tee at Thornblade Club before his practice round for the Nationwide Tour’s BMW Charity Pro-Am. “And if I play good there, I’ll get to the Masters.”

He laughed. “And then I’ll look like a genius.”

Review: ‘The Golfer’s Guide to the Meaning of Life: Lessons I’ve Learned from My Life on the Links’

Tue, 13 May 2008 21:22 EDT

Gary Player

Skyhorse Publishing, New York

132 pages

$9.95 softcover

So who else among golf’s elite would write an uplifting, power-of-positive-thinking book? Only Gary Player, who could make Dale Carnegie seem depressed.

Five things I know

Tue, 13 May 2008 21:22 EDT

REMEMBER SERGIO?

Just when we had written off Sergio Garcia as part of golf’s elite, El Nino snapped a three-year winless streak in a big way. By emerging from the year’s best field at The Players, Garcia sent a signal that perhaps he is finally ready, at 28, to cash in on his world of talent. He also left an impression of apparent maturity: After struggling for years with his putter, he made a clutch par-saver at the 18th to force overtime with Paul Goydos. Such plays make it easier to forget Garcia’s 2007 British Open meltdown.

BACK? ANNIKA NEVER LEFT

When you’re the world’s No. 1, then go nearly a year without a win (albeit due to injury), doubts begin to creep in — unless your name is Annika Sorenstam. By romping to a seven-shot victory at the Michelob Ultra Open, the sizzling Swede won her third title in eight 2008 attempts. Reigning No. 1 Lorena Ochoa, who sat out a week after four wins in a row, has played less than stellar golf her past two outings. By winning handily, with Ochoa in the field, Sorenstam made “Who’s the best?” a real question again in her final season on tour.

CAN TOO PUTT

Golf: USC assistant in running for national award

Tue, 13 May 2008 07:35 EDT

USC assistant coach Michael Burcin has been named a finalist for the 2008 Jan Strickland Assistant Coach of the year Award, the Golf Coaches Association of America announced.

The winner will be announced on May 27.

From staff reports

Golf: Golfweek honors USC’s Toumpsin

Tue, 13 May 2008 07:34 EDT

Golfweek named South Carolina sophomore Benedicte Toumpsin its women’s player of the week after she picked up her first career victory at the NCAA East Regional on Saturday.

It was her first career victory. Toumpsin became the second Gamecock to win an NCAA Regional, joining Siew Ai Lim, who won the East Regional in 1995.

USC advanced to the NCAA championship for the first time since 2003. The four-day event begins May 20 at the University of New Mexico Championship Golf Course.

From staff reports

Timberlake: Refresher course

Sat, 10 May 2008 10:36 EDT

More than 70 new owners took to the Timberlake golf course near Chapin with yard tools instead of clubs Friday.

The landscaping started a face-lift of the course by adjoining homeowners who bought it May 1 to protect it from development.

Those who pruned bushes, weeded sand traps and planted flowers around tees called their work the first step in making the purchase pay off.

“It was looking a little shabby,” said Phil Baker, one of nearly 300 buyers. “It’s not a pristine course like the pros play. Eventually, it’d be nice to be like that.”

The $3 million purchase of the 143.5-acre course is a safe bet, others said.

Dye's work dots state’s golfing landscape

Sat, 10 May 2008 09:52 EDT

Pete Dye never graduated from high school or college, but thanks to a career building golf courses around the world, he has three honorary doctorate degrees — the latest from South Carolina.

Dye, designer of Kiawah Island’s Ocean Course and Hilton Head’s Harbour Town Golf Links and Long Cove Club — three of the state’s five top-rated golf courses — was awarded his Ph.D. in business during USC’s Friday afternoon commencement ceremonies.

School president Andrew Sorensen said the degree was given to acknowledge Dye’s impact on the golf industry in South Carolina for nearly 40 years.

“Well, I think it might’ve (been) as much Arnold Palmer winning the first (Verizon) Heritage,” Dye said with a laugh, referring to the first PGA Tour tournament played at Harbour Town, in 1969. “But South Carolina has been maybe my No. 1 state” for golf courses.

In fact, Dye and his architect son, P.B., have designed and built eight of the top 50 courses in South Carolina. In Columbia, they built The Windermere Club and Northwoods Golf Club in the mid-1980s. One of his most recent projects was a redesign of Heron Point Golf Club at Sea Pines Resort on Hilton Head.

Local helps youth with golf swing

Tue, 06 May 2008 21:53 EDT

Tom Gawinski was a club professional at Columbia Country Club and the University Club and tried his hand in the 1980s as an assistant track coach at USC. But he said he always wanted a job working for himself, and with youngsters.

Now, as local franchise holder for Total Golf Adventures (TGA of Columbia), he has all he can handle of both.

This year, Gawinski, 50, set up after-class programs at eight schools and two YMCAs in northeast Richland County. This summer, he will partner with The Golf Center to organize weeklong summer camps for kids ages 5-14.

The program kicks off Sunday with a free clinic from 9 a.m.-noon. On May 18, Gawinski will hold a “golf Olympics” at the Jeep Rogers YMCA at Lake Carolina, where youngsters will compete in skills competitions.

Starting June 9, the Golf Center will play host to the first of three camps, with half-day (for ages 5-8) and full-day sessions (ages 9-14) from 9 a.m.-4 p.m., lunch included. Players will practice on the driving range and learn rules and etiquette before playing the center’s par-3 course. Sessions are limited to 20, with a 1-to-5 teacher-student ratio.

Resurfaced tradition

Tue, 06 May 2008 21:53 EDT

OKATIE — Your well-struck approach soars into the sky, heading for the short par-4 third hole. You admire the ball flight a moment before handing your 8-iron to Ken Bieschke, who cleans dirt from the clubface and slides the shaft back into your bag.

Then he hoists the bag onto his shoulder and starts striding toward the green. And so do you.

This isn’t a scene from the 1950s, a visit to Augusta National, or even a special occasion. This is everyday golf at Chechessee Creek Club, which is golf the way it used to be, the way some say it always should be.

Walking the golf course — with a caddie. Not just for the exercise or to brag to your cart-bound buddies back home. Because it’s better.

Bieschke, 55, a retired sales/marketing director from San Diego and a lifelong golfer, believes it is. For two years, he’s worked three-five days a week carrying clubs and imparting yardages and occasional advice (he was briefly a club pro with a plus-1 handicap), but mostly enjoying old-style golf in a world that seems to have little time for it nowadays.

Golf: USC, Clemson play role reversal

Tue, 06 May 2008 16:43 EDT

A year ago, South Carolina’s golf team was seen as a post-season long shot shipped all the way across the country — then wound up winning the NCAA West Regional.

Meanwhile, Clemson stayed in the East, but missed advancing to the NCAA Championship for the only second time since 1983.

In nine days, the two arch-rivals will try things from each other’s 2007 perspective.

Coach Bill McDonald’s 12th-ranked Gamecocks earned the No. 3 seed Monday in the NCAA East Regional, as 81 teams and 18 individuals (27 and six per regional) were named to the national playoffs.

The Gamecocks, with top seed Georgia and No. 2 Charlotte (the Atlantic 10 champion) go to Council Fire Golf Club in Chattanooga, Tenn., hoping to repeat their 2007 success, when they finished No. 11 in the national finals. Duke, Chattanooga (Southern Conference winners) and Auburn are the regional’s other top six seeds.

Spear: More mature Kim serves notice to rest of Tour

Mon, 05 May 2008 09:28 EDT

CHARLOTTE

LET’S NOT GO overboard, but, geez, Anthony Kim made his one-time braggadocio look real Sunday as he lapped the field in the Wachovia Championship.

If his long-range prediction matches his short-term look into the future, professional golf soon will have another member in its elite echelon.

What’s that, you ask? You have never heard of Anthony Kim and suddenly his name appears in the same paragraph as a reference to Tiger, Phil, Ernie, Vijay and the gang?

Well, he does not belong yet.

Kim has cushion for today’s charge

Sat, 03 May 2008 23:39 EDT

Anthony Kim is just 22 — Vijay Singh has trophies older than that — but the bulk of his days have been pointed toward a Sunday like this one.

Kim will take a four-stroke lead over Heath Slocum and Jason Bohn into today’s final round of the Wachovia Championship at the Quail Hollow Club, a cushion almost as large as the sparkling belt buckle he wears bearing his initials.

It will be very different from two Sundays ago when Kim was in the final pairing at the Verizon Heritage at Hilton Head Island. He started that Sunday three behind eventual champion Boo Weekley, but today he’s out there all alone — the target for everyone.

If Saturday at Quail Hollow felt like a cloudy dress rehearsal for today, Kim may be 18 holes away from adding a stamp of validity to the claims — some of them his own — that he has the potential to be the next star in the PGA Tour universe.

“I think I’m ready,” Kim said when asked if he’s ready to win his first PGA Tour event. “But you never know. Every day is a new day, especially in this crazy game.”

Wachovia to stay at Quail Hollow through 2014

Sat, 03 May 2008 23:39 EDT

The Wachovia Championship is set at Quail Hollow Club through 2014. The contract extension, which adds four years to the existing deal, had been in place for months and was officially announced Friday in a news release.

One of the key elements of the extension is the guarantee that the tournament will maintain its current early May dates and precede The Players Championship through 2014.

Terms of the extension were not annouced but tax records indicate Wachovia contributes approximately $3 million annually to the event.

—By Ron Green Jr., The Charlotte Observer

Bohn’s day leaves Lefty up the creek

Fri, 02 May 2008 23:09 EDT

CHARLOTTE — As Phil Mickelson’s round imploded with a series of wayward shots, the Wachovia Championship flew in a different direction.

Jason Bohn fired a 5-under 67 on Friday to take a two-shot lead at 9 under after the second round, while Mickelson’s double bogey on Quail Hollow Club’s easiest hole began a horrible closing stretch that left him seven shots back.

Anthony Kim’s 67 put him at 7 under and alone in second place, while 2006 champion Jim Furyk, Dudley Hart and George McNeill were three strokes back after 67s.

Mickelson, the biggest draw in this event with defending champion Tiger Woods home nursing his surgically repaired left knee, finished with two double bogeys in his final four holes on the way to a 74.

While Mickelson was hitting his ball into the creek on No. 18 for another double bogey, the loose Bohn was joking with reporters.

Immelman misses cut again

Fri, 02 May 2008 22:48 EDT

CHARLOTTE — Trevor Immelman had his best round since he was fitted for his green jacket. It still was not enough to get him to the weekend.

The struggles continued for the Masters champion who missed the cut Friday at the Wachovia Championship, failing to reach the third round in the two tournaments he has played since his life-changing victory.

The South African shot a 1-over 73 — the first time he broke 75 since the third round of his victory at Augusta National.

That left him at 148 for the tournament, four strokes below the cut line of 1-over. Playing the Quail Hollow Club course where two years ago he lost in a playoff to Jim Furyk, he missed the cut here for the first time since his first visit in 2003.

Immelman, who also was cut from last week’s Byron Nelson, earlier in the week admitted that the photo shoots, autographs, interviews and other distractions have affected his play.

Touch returns for Toms

Thu, 01 May 2008 23:03 EDT

It only looked as if David Toms had all the answers Thursday at the Wachovia Championship.

By lunchtime, just before the gathering breeze began to blow a touch of uncertainty through Quail Hollow’s oak trees, Toms had posted a 5-under-par 67 that would stand up for the first-round lead with Phil Mickelson and Jason Bohn shadowing him.

On the surface, it seemed a natural fit.

Toms won the inaugural Wachovia Championship in 2003, has his name on a parking spot near the clubhouse and should feel as comfortable at Quail Hollow as the members.

The reality is Toms hasn’t made the cut at Quail Hollow since winning here and hadn’t been back since 2005.

With no Tiger, there’s no circus

Thu, 01 May 2008 09:37 EDT

CHARLOTTE — Allen Reid of Kannapolis (N.C.) Charter Tours greeted fans as they boarded his shuttle bus for Wednesday's short ride from a parking lot to Quail Hollow Club, where 156 of the biggest names in professional golf — minus THE biggest name — were preparing for today's Wachovia Championship.

Reid, in his fifth year as a tournament driver, fashions himself a keen observer of the health of Charlotte's PGA Tour event. The absence of Tiger Woods, the Wachovia's defending champion, was in Reid's opinion having an impact before the first shot is struck.

"I'd say there's a 20-30 percent drop-off" in interest, he said. "There's just not the 'buzz.'

"It's not a big drop-off. Maybe people here are just used to (the tournament) after six years. You shoot for the moon, and they've hit it every other year, (but) you're going to have a year where you don't."

That judgment, unsurprisingly, was not shared by tournament officials, who trumpeted the strong field — 15 of the world's top 20 — while conceding Woods, who underwent knee surgery following the Masters, will be missed.

LPGA: Ochoa a straight shooter

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:27 EDT

MOUNT PLEASANT — Nicole Castrale grimaced ever so slightly. She was too polite to sigh or roll her eyes, though you suspected she might like to do both.

After all, Castrale was here Monday to talk about the Ginn Tribute Hosted by Annika, where not quite a year ago the 29-year-old California native won the first LPGA title of her seven-year career. Many of the questions she fielded, though, were about the player who finished second: Lorena Ochoa.

That’s No. 1 in the world, four-consecutive-victories-and-counting Lorena Ochoa, winner of the past two women’s major championships (last year’s British Open and this month’s Kraft Nabisco Championship), who is being spoken of in Tiger Woods-like terms — terms such as “grand slam” and “best ever.”

On this day, Castrale’s breakthrough victory — she returns to defend May 29-June 1 — was being viewed not as a landmark of her professional life, but as the last time anyone came from behind to beat Ochoa.

Grimace, indeed.