Here's a countdown of the Top 10 most surprising/interesting/significant storylines that happened on the week of the 2011 Heritage Classic. That does not only include the Heritage Classic, but also the other events that happened during that week.
10. Camilo Villegas' comeback and backslide. Camilo Villegas has had a uncharacteristically mediocre season for the first half of 2011. I think one significant thing that derailed him was when he intentionally broke a rule and a viewer called in resulting in disqualification. http://msn.foxsports.com/golf/story/Camilo-Villegas-disqualified-at-Kapalua-in-PGA-Tour-opener-010107. He actually shot a quite decent first round and was in contention until the disqualification occured. After that disqualification, he never got in contention until the Heritage week. At the Heritage week he played very decently the first 2 rounds, and a lot of people thought he was back. But then he played very in consistently the last rounds, shooting 66-68-74-73 for the week and with a T36 finish.
9. Volvo China Open's cakewalk. The Volvo China Open was played in Luxehills Country Club in Chengdu, China, on a Jack Nicklaus design. By looking at the leaderboard http://www.europeantour.com/europeantour/season=2011/tournamentid=2011023/leaderboard/index.html?showLeaderboard=Y, it's easy to tell that the scoring had been ridiculously low this year. 24 under par winning score, 51 players shooting 10 under or better, and the cut line being 5 under par. Very uncharacteristic for a Nicklaus design. The reason being? The good weather. The course received lots of rain prior to the tournament, resulting in the greens being VERY receptive. Plus, the winds were absolutely still, and the temperature was warm to enable the ball to go longer. Perfect recipe for cakewalk scoring.
8. Brandt Snedeker's final round. Brandt played an absolutely lights out final round that day, shooting a 64 in which he made every single putt that mattered, including a 12-foot putt on the final hole (a very tough hole) in regulation which got him in a playoff with Luke Donald. Then he made a clutch 10-foot birdie on the 1st playoff hole (the 18th) and made another clutch 4-foot par on the 2nd playoff hole (the 17th hole) to move on and win. He has shown quite a few timees to have a tendency to "choke", missing short putts in critical situations. But this time he handled the situation surprisingly calmer than he did previously.
7. Luke Donald's mediocre iron shots late-round. Luke Donald was well-known for being a great iron player. But late in the round he hit some surprisingly inaccurate iron shots. On the Par 5 15th hole, he had a wedge for his 3rd shot, and him being a great wedge player he is you'd expect him to hit it very close and make a birdie. Instead, he flies it 30 feet past and had to settle for a 2 putt par. Then on the 18th hole, he hit his 8-iron 2nd shot well short and right, into the greenside bunker. He had to work hard just to save par. In the playoff, more of the mediocre iron play showed up. He hit an iron well short in the 2nd playoff hole (and worked hard just to save par), and on the 3rd playoff hole (18th hole again) he again hit a shot short and right into the bunker, and made bogey to lose the playoff. A win would have made him the #1 player in the world, so some would speculate that this was caused by the pressure to become #1.
6. Brian Gay making a 9 on one hole. Coming into the Par 4 6th hole (his 15th hole of the day) for his second round, Brian Gay (who won this tournament by 10 shots in 2009, by the way) was only 3 back and very much in contention. Until this hole. He hit a tee shot that ended up well right of the hole. His second shot hit a tree and ricocheted out of bounds. Two-stroke penalty. He took 2 more shots to get onto the green. Having lost his focus, he three-putted from 5 feet for a quintuple-bogey 9. What makes this so surprising is the fact that Brian Gay is one of the most accurate and consistent players out there, and yet he goes out and makes such a big mistake on one hole. He shot 66-73-70-72 for the week to finish 10 back, T46 finish. Side note: Just the previous week, Kevin Na made a 16 on the Par 4 9th of TPC San Antonio. A 16!
5. Graeme McDowell's weekend backsliding. Graeme McDowell's game looked invincible when 2010 ended. But in 2011, his game was surprisingly mediocre given his high standards that were set in 2010. After two straight missed cuts, his game seemed to finally be back on track when he played himself into contention after 2 rounds. At one point in the third round he was only 2 back of the leader. But then his ball striking totally fell apart, and ended up tied for 61st, finishing 13 back. His scorecard? 68-69-74-74. Very surprisingly given his calibre.
4. Ernie Els's disappointing week. After a very strong 2010 season, a lot of people expected Els to do well this year. He did alright in his first two starts of the year, but afterwards he had been a complete non-factor in every tournament. Especially this week. He shot 11 over par on a course that he's had a lot of success on over the years. One strange decision he made this week was switching to a belly putter. A belly putter is often used by Seniors Tour players because they're used to avoid the "yips". Els is still far from the age of playing on the Senior Tour, so that was a very surprising, and maybe desperate, move. That move proved to be unsuccessful. A 75-78 over the 2 rounds, missing the cut by 10 strokes. He was missing the fairways left and right, and missed just about every putt.
3. Jim Furyk's Sunday back-nine stumble. Jim Furyk played very solidly the first 63 holes. He made all those clutch par putts when it mattered. He hit solid iron shots to close range and made birdie when it mattered. He played what he needed to do in order to win. He looked like a much bigger threat to Luke Donald than the eventual champion Brandt Snedeker was. Then, he started struggling on the 10th hole. After a decent drive, he pulled his second shot well left. It caught a tree and landed well short of the green, and he would make bogey. Then after a good drive and a decent second shot on 11, Furyk missed the short birdie putt. Then he failed to get up-and-down on 12 when his second shot flew over a green. He did make birdie on 13 and a hard-working par on 14. But what surprised me the most was what happend on the Par 5 15th hole. He hit two perfect shots and was left with a short wedge shot for his 3rd shot. Furyk was an excellent wedge player. You would think he would knock it close and birdie. But just the opposite happened. His shot landed well short of the green. Then as he was about to hit the putt for his 4th shot, he thought he accidentally moved the ball when it oscillated by a millimetre. After a long wait for the rules official to analyze the situation, the conclusion was that he didn't deem to cause the ball to move and would receive no penalty. But that moment was what really made Furyk totally lose focus. He inexplicably blew his putt 35 feet past the hole. Then he blew his comeback par putt 7 feet past the hole. He would miss that following putt, tapping in for a double-bogey 7. That loss of concentration carried on to the 18th hole, when Furyk hooked his approach shot well left into Calibogue Sound, making another double bogey. He shot 76 and dropped from 2nd place to 21st.
2. Scott Hoch/Kenny Perry missing short par putts at the Liberty Mutual tournament. On the Senior Tour, the tour played in a team play event, where they played in better-ball format, and the team with the lowest score after 54 holes wins the tournament. Scott Hoch and Kenny Perry were one team. They were tied with the David Eger/Mark McNulty team after 3 rounds and went into a sudden death playoff. On the first playoff hole, Scott Hoch had a 3-and-a-half-foot par putt to extend the playoff. He missed the putt to the right. Then Kenny Perry had only a 18 inch (45 centimetre) putt. And he too, missed it right. 18 INCHES! 18 INCHES! Does that ever happen? That's supposed to be an almost gimme putt and he missed it! Side note: Scott Hoch and Kenny Perry both happened to players who are notable to have very close calls at the Masters Tournament but neither had won one. In the 1989 Masters, Scott Hoch had a 29-inch putt to win the Masters but he missed that. And Kenny Perry had a two-shot lead with 2 holes to play but he made a bogey-bogey finish, and lost in the ensuing playoff with Angel Cabrera.
1. Poulter-geist anyone? Ian Poulter's claim that his rental house is haunted. Yes, it's true. http://sports.yahoo.com/golf/blog/devil_ball_golf/post/Ian-Poulter-claims-his-Hilton-Head-rental-house-?urn=golf-wp1268 Ian Poulter is notorious for being one of the most "macho" tweeters who joke about everything, and says a lot of absurd things. But this time he claims that he wasn't joking. He claims that there was a ghost in his rental home for his residence while playing in the Heritage tournament. That's one of the most absurd things I've ever heard. Really, a ghost? I'm an atheist who's always taught to not believe in anything supernatural. But a lot of people on the golf blogs sure seemed to believe very muchly. For me, it's hard to take anything Poulter says seriously becaue 1) He's always joking and 2) He's often wrong. Like when he said Tiger would finish out of the Top 5 of the Masters. And lo and behind, a 4th place finish! Maybe Tiger Woods told the ghost to haunt him after all the brash statements Poulter made to Woods? Or maybe Tiger Woods himself did all that to retailiate to Poulter's comments? Kidding. But still, it's just hard to buy into a story this absurd. By the way, in case you have no idea what is a "Poulter-geist", it's a pun derived from the word "poltergeist". http://www.google.ca/search?sclient=psy&hl=en&site=&source=hp&q=define%3Apoltergeist&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1.
So this was the countdown to a very bizarre but exciting week in golf.
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