2013 Golf: The PGA Sets Up For a Nice Weekend At Quail Hollow

Both the PGA Tour, and LPGA move to the East Coast this week where the men tee it up at the home of NASCAR in Charlotte with The Wells Fargo Championship. The ladies play The Kingsmill Championship in Williamsburg, Virginia. It sets up a nice weekend for the PGA, as nearly a full field of world-class golfers play at Quail Hollow in preparation for next week’s Players Championship. The only two missing are the world’s number one player, Tiger Woods, and last weeks first time champion, Billy Horschel.

After making over twenty cuts in a row on the PGA Tour, Florida Gator, Billy Horschel picked up his first win at The Zürich Classic of New Orleans on Sunday afternoon. Houston Shell Open champion, D.A. Points fought like a wildcat but Horschel made a twenty-three foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole to get his first win. As you might remember, It was these two in a dogfight in Houston before the Masters, where Points made a putt on the last hole to win. Horschel returned the favor in New Orleans.

14 year-old Guan Tianlang once again made history in the Big Easy by making his second cut in a PGA event At The Zurich Classic. Unfortunately, he fell on bad times for the weekend, and finished last in the field. Guan has indicated he will attempt to qualify for the US Open in Dallas along with Dallas Cowboy quarterback, Tony Romo, and has accepted another sponsor’s exemption to play at The Byron Nelson which tees off the week following the Players.

The PGA schedule has made its halfway point following the Zurich Classic, and writers are already having discussions about the year-end awards. They have decided to put up some halfway awards to test the water. There seems to be unanimous support for Tiger Woods as the winner of the half-season Player of the Year Award, and I don’t disagree. [ref  Is Tiger Woods The First Half Player of the Year? ].  I have also decided to share with you my largest disappointments in the first half. [ ref  Disappointments from the first Half of The PGA Golf Season ]

The other story everyone continues to discuss, is the two-shot penalty Tiger Woods picked up at The Masters when his second shot to the 15th green on Friday hit the flag stick and bounced back in the water. Jack Nicklaus has went on record as saying he agreed with the ruling and also stated if Tiger had disqualified himself after the ruling, he would have then broken another rule. [ ref  The Two-Shot Penalty That Won’t Go Away ]

Inbee Park won her third tournament  of the year on Sunday in the North Texas LPGA Shoutout. The Rolex number one ranked player overcame a two-shot final round deficit over tour rookie, Carlota Ciganda to pocket the $195,000 dollar winners share. The young Spaniard had a two shot lead when she teed off on Sunday, but a bogey, double bogey problem on the 14th and 15th holes would hand the victory over to Park. [ ref Inbee Park Claims Third win at North Texas Shootout ]

Park has a hard lock on The Rolex number one ranking over Texas resident, Stacy Lewis since Masters week. Lewis has struggled since the first round of The Kraft Nabisco Championship, a tournament Inbee Park won. Fifth ranked Suzann Pettersen has played well since winning The LOTTE Championship two weeks ago in Hawaii, and finished with sole possession of  third place in Texas.

PGA Commissioner, Tim Finchem held a press conference at Quail Hollow on Tuesday afternoon, and announced that the sanctions for use of Deer Antler Spray on Vijay Singh had been dropped. Singh was never tested for the presence of IGF-1, and the only proof the PGA had that he used the banned substance was his admitting it in an interview. There is no test for the substance, so The World Anti Doping Association(WADA)  dropped Deer Antler Spray from it’s list of banned substances. [ ref  PGA Drops Sanctions Against Vijay Singh ]

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