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Singh and Woods Rise to Top Wachovia Leaderboard
Intermittent rain showers and cool temperatures could not stop Vijay Singh and Tiger Woods from finding their way to the top of the leaderboard following the completion of Friday’s round at the Wachovia Championship. Players continued to praise the course and conditions at Quail Hollow Country Club, and mitigated some of the very hard and fast conditions which made scoring extremely difficult on the first day of competition.
Following his first round score of 70, Woods shot an impressive 68 in the second round despite continued struggles with finding fairways. Impressive ball striking from the rough and consistent putting combined to keep Woods in contention, although a bogey on the par-4 ninth hole alluded to the swing difficulties he has been facing. Former champion Vijay Singh began the day tied for second and fought his way through a round consisting of an eagle, three birdies, and five bogies for a round of 71. When asked about his round, Singh said, “That’s the way the game is. You just can never keep trying, and all of a sudden something good is going to happen. I wasn’t playing bad, I just wasn’t putting it together.”
Despite the big names on the leaderboard, Quail Hollow itself was a big part of the story since the difficult course took many of the world’s best golfers on a roller coaster ride. No golfer typified this better than first round leader Padraig Harrington whose four birdies were negated by seven bogies including a triple on the eighteenth hole. Harrington was admittedly struggling with his ball striking and was saved by his putter during the first round, but no putting could cover him missing every fairway on the front nine. However, one golfer did not succumb to the weather and course conditions. Arron Oberholser quietly found his way right next to the leaders after consecutive rounds of 69 put him at -6 and tied with Singh and Woods.
With the marquee pairing set Saturday afternoon and 12 players within three shots of the lead, all eyes of the golfing world will be focused on the Wachovia Championship in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Pos Player Tot R1 R2 T1 Tiger Woods -6 70 68 T1 Vijay Singh -6 67 71 T1 Arron Oberholser -6 69 69 T4 Ted Purdy -5 70 69 6 Ken Duke -4 70 70
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Tour Rundown: Surprise USWO winner | Sepp surges
I know it’s not the tour, and I know it’s a shell of its 1912 US Open self, but a 59 in a legitimate tournament is a thing. The Erie County (NY) Amateur was played at the course where I learned the game, and a collegiate named Ryan Edholm posted 59 on Sunday, to win by eight shots. I was glued to the feed, and jumped up when I saw them finalize the score.
To the tours! The USGA celebrated its Women’s Open championship at storied Pebble Beach Golf Links this week, and the USA was treated to prime-time golf viewing for a second consecutive, national championship. Neither the competitors nor the golf course disappointed, and it is a pleasure to provide an extended look at the tournament. The PGA Tour visited TPC Deere Run in Illinois, while the DP World Tour found a home in Denmark. Let’s have a look at how each event concluded, with this week’s Tour Rundown.
USGA/LPGA: Corpuz arrives from nowhere to claim United States Open title
If you hurry up and check Allisen Corpuz’s wiki page, you’ll see the one professional win on her record is the Hawaii Women’s State Open. Venerable an event as it is, it’s not an LPGA-calibre title, nor even a Symetra Tour win. Even more important, she won that event when she was all of 16 years of age, so she wasn’t even a pro! After schooling at Southern Cal and a stint on the 2021 USA Curtis Cup side, Corpuz turned pro, and earned two top-three finishes in her first two years on tour.
Forgive us for a moment if we talk about that other wain who won her first tour event in her first tour start. Yup, Rose Zhang was at Pebble Beach, but she only finished one-over par and only tied for 9th position. What did Corpuz do? She won the whole thing, lock, stock and barrel. Corpuz began the week 69-70 to not only make the cut, but earn herself a final-pair spot with Bailey Tardy on Saturday. While Tardy struggled to a 75, AC held it together and posted a fine 71. Her reward was a second-consecutive day in the final duo, this time with the on-fire Nasa Hataoka. Hataoka delivered a 66, the only score below 70 on the day. That’s one hot round.
Hataoka had been here before. She finished runner-up in two other major championships, and was eager to shelve the mantel of almost and replace it with certain. Sunday was not her day, however, and she struggled to five bogeys and a birdie, a 76, and a tie for fourth with the aforementioned Bailey Tardy. Tardy came back from her 75 with a 73, earning a top-five major placement.
Back to Corpuz. The lass from Honolulu made six birdies on the day. She began with stroke-savers on holes one and three, then made bogeys at four and nine, along with another birdie at seven. She turned in one-under 35, and began to put distance between herself and the field. Then came Charley Hull, and things began to change.
Hull found the same flint that Hataoka encountered on day three. The English pro made birdie at four of her first five holes, and turned in 32. Three birdies against one bogey on the inward half gave her a 66, the low round of the day. Her reward was a tie for second spot with another Sunday Queen, Jiyai Shin of Korea. Shin signed for 68 and reached the same, 6-under par total as Hull. No one, on this day, would track Allisen down.
Corpuz put the doubters to bed with three birdies over the first seven holes on the vaunted, back nine at Pebble Beach. A meaningless bogey at 17 meant that her margin of victory was reduced to three strokes. After safely walking the final fairway, Corpuz was an LPGA tour winner, a major champion and, in all likelihood, a member of Team USA in Spain’s 2023 Solheim Cup matches.
What pressure?
Allisen Corpuz is putting on a historic performance at Pebble Beach
Watch now on NBC! pic.twitter.com/6fzRYGPVYa
— LPGA (@LPGA) July 9, 2023
PGA Tour: Straka survives double bogey at last for second tour title
Josef Straka (no intel on how he earned the nickname “Sepp”) had golf social media ablaze this afternoon. He turned for home in 28 shots, and still had more in the tank. His front-nine eagle and five birdies were followed by four consecutive chirps from 11 to 14. Folks were talking 60, 59, 58. All that the boy from Austria had to do, was dock the boat. Well, he didn’t, finding water on 18 and a double bogey. He finished four days in Silvia at 21-under par, and didn’t think for a moment, that it would hold up.
Until it did. Neither Brendan Todd nor Alex Smalley could close with anything spicey, and Ludvig Aberg started too far back for his 63 to give him a shot. Todd and Smalley tied for second at 19-under par, with the precocious Aberg another stroke back, tied for 4th with Adam Schenk. It was Straka in the end, whose final-round 62 held up. Now, it’s off to Scotland for many, as preparations begin for the Open Championship at Royal Liverpool.
This man can not miss.@SeppStraka needs to shoot 1-under in his final four holes for a round below 60 @JDClassic. pic.twitter.com/5mYhLtu84e
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) July 9, 2023
DP World Tour: Second Chance for Højgaard in home country
Rasmus Højgaard did nothing right down the stretch of the Made in HimmerLand stop on the DPWT. He finished well ahead of the leaders, and began to applaud his home-country fans for their presence. Then, Nacho Elvira and Richie Ramsey forgot how to finish the tournament, and just like that, Højgaard found himself in a playoff with Elvira for the title. We’ll get to the playoff (all six holes of it) in a moment. How did we get there?
Højgaard had himself a weekend, to the tune of 65-64. For a time, he thought that his 129 over the final two days would earn him a top-three finish, until tires started falling off. Elvira played his final six holes in plus-one, with three bogeys against two birdies. Robert MacIntyre stood three-under on the day, when his tee shot on 14 nearly went OOB. Six shots later, he posted a triple bogey on his card, added another bogey, and missed overtime by two shots. For Richie Ramsay, the knife cut the deepest. He had quietly worked his way to the top spot, only to see all his day’s efforts undone with a watery double at the 72nd hole. He finished solo third.
So it was left to the astonished Højgaard and the Spanish Elvira, to settle matters on the 18th hole … and the 18th hole … and the 18th hole again. Six times they returned to the final teeing ground, and five times, each man made par. On the sixth go-round, Elvira cracked and Rasmus claimed his fourth DPWT title. Three have come in playoffs — Luke Donald, you paying attention?
Shots of the week from Made in HimmerLand ?#MIH23 | @DP_World pic.twitter.com/deVZZStyEI
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) July 9, 2023
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Morning 9: Co-leaders at USWO | Blixt fires 62 | DQ at Pebble
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Morning 9: Wie West’s last hurrah | Garcia fails to qualify for Open | Block clarifies Rory comments
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