PGA Tour: The International Swing, Part 2, "Canada": Notes from the Ballwasher

First topic message reminder :

With Kwini apparently MIA... here's a starter for RBC Canadian Open

It's time for those on the outside looking in to start making a move to get into the FedEx playoffs.

Noteworthy players outside the top 125 in the RBC Canadian Open field

*Brad Fritsch 125 Alberta native will be making his sixth RBC Canadian Open start]
*Stuart Appleby 129 Last player to shoot 59 on the PGA TOUR (2010 Greenbrier Classic)
*Woody Austin 130 Winner of last week’s Sanderson Farms Championship
*Tommy Gainey 135 2012 McGladrey Classic winner has one top-10 finish in 24 starts
*Vijay Singh 143 2008 FedExCup champion
*Casey Wittenberg 161 2012 Web.com Tour Player of the Year
*Stephen Ames 164 4-time PGA TOUR winner
*Mike Weir 170 2003 Masters champion

A look at the field

Nine of the top 30 in current FedExCup standings: Matt Kuchar (3), Brandt Snedeker (4), Billy Horschel (5), Hunter Mahan (14), Dustin Johnson (23), Graham DeLaet (25), Graeme McDowell (26), Chris Kirk (27), Scott Stallings (29).

Eleven major championship winners, representing all four majors:

Ernie Els (1994, 1997 U.S. Open, 2002, 2012 Open Championship),
Jim Furyk (2003 U.S.Open),
Trevor Immelman (2008 Masters),
Justin Leonard (1997 Open Championship),
Graeme McDowell (2010 U.S. Open),
Geoff Ogilvy (2006 U.S. Open),
Charl Schwartzel (2011 Masters),
Vijay Singh (1998, 2004 PGA Championship, 2000 Masters),
Bubba Watson (2012 Masters),
Weir (2003 Masters)
Y.E. Yang (2009 PGA Championship).

Seven former RBC Canadian Open champions in the field:
Scott Piercy (2012), Nathan Green (2009), Chez Reavie (2008), Jim Furyk (2006, 2007), Vijay Singh (2004), John Rollins (2002) and Scott Verplank (2001).

Notable Canadians in the field: Stephen Ames, Graham DeLaet, Brad Fritsch, David Hearn, Jason Kokrak and Mike Weir.

OTHER NOTES

*2012 FedExCup champion Brandt Snedeker is poised to make his fifth RBC Canadian Open start. Of his previous four starts, he has collected top 10s in 2007 (T7) and 2009 (T5). At No. 4 in the FedExCup standings thanks to seven top-10 finishes including a victory at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Snedeker is on track to become the only defending FedExCup champion to make it to the TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola, the Playoff Finale, the following year. Snedeker captured the RBC Canadian Open’s sister tournament, the RBC Heritage, in 2010.

*Scheduled to make his seventh start at the RBC Canadian Open, Matt Kuchar comes to Canada this week in search of win No. 3 on the year. Kuchar has wins at the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship and the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide Insurance. Kuchar, No. 3 in the FedExCup standings, comes to Canada this week with six top 10s in 16 starts.

*Four-time major champion Ernie Els is scheduled to make his fifth start at the RBC Canadian Open. Els sits 90th in the FedExCup standings, his one top-10 finish being a T4 at the U.S. Open.

*Graeme McDowell, the 2010 U.S. Open winner, captured the RBC Heritage earlier this year and sits 26th in the FedExCup standings.

*Billy Horschel, winner of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans earlier this year, is tied for second on TOUR with seven top-10 finishes.

*Two-time RBC Canadian Open champion Jim Furyk will make his 11th start north of the border. Furyk returns to Canada with 15 starts this season, in which he has made 13 cuts. His best finishes of the season are T3 at the Valero Texas Open and T7 at the Tampa Bay Championship.

*Dustin Johnson comes to Canada this week having made 15 starts, where he has collected one win and an additional two top-10 finishes. In the season’s first event, Johnson claimed his seventh PGA TOUR title at the rain-shortened Hyundai Tournament of Champions. He also finished T4 at the Shell Houston Open and T10 in defense of his FedEx St. Jude Classic title.

*Woody Austin, who played for the U.S. Team in the 2007 Presidents Cup in Montreal, returned to the PGA TOUR winner’s circle last week with a playoff victory at the Sanderson Farms Championship.

+++++++

And on a personal note... I sure am glad there's no pay for play on the PGA Tour

But that got me to thinking...  I wonder if that big RBC logo on the sleeves of McDowell, Snedeker, Donald, Mahan, Els, Furyk and Kuchar had anything to do with them shuffling all the way over from the UK to make the RBC Canadian Open... Naaaaah... probably not... {wink, wink, cough, cough}

But granted... I would expect Canadian RBC guys like Weir, DeLaet, Hearn and Ames to play the Canadian Open even if not sponsored by RBC.

But just checking... what are the odds of all 11 of those players would have participated in the RBC Heritage Classic as well?  WOW what a coincidence...  they all did.... Imagine that... {wink, wink}

Pay for play? Noooooooooooooooo... not on the PGA Tour... that would be against the rules... {wink, wink, cough, cough}

And from Kwini:

1).Phive Majors for Phil, and always good to see great tournaments won in style. Disappointment for Lee Westwood, however brave a face he might put on things, but Mickelson now finds himself in increasingly rarified air as he only has Nicklaus, Woods, Hogan, Player, Watson, Palmer, Snead, Trevino and Faldo with more Majors in the (largely) post-WWII era. Now he's tied with Peter Thomson and Seve on five and, whilst he may not have had Seve's impact, I'd place him first among equals for overall playing career accomplishment. Congratulations to him.

2).And so to Glen Abbey and the "RBC Canadian Open", just outside a chilly Toronto. This is the final qualifying week for next week's WGC Bridgestone (just the Glen Abbey winner and anyone climbing in to the owgr Top Fifty will make it) and almost the last gasp for Oak Hill's PGA Championship field; just next week's Tour winners and any invites from outside the owgr Top Fifty (usually all within the Top 100) will be added to those currently exempt, plus the top 70 PGA Championship points-getters. Increasingly loud rumours that the E.T's Uihlein and Koepka might receive invitations.

3).Whichever way you look at it, this is a busy time of year for golfers, especially PGA Tour members. Ernie Els, for instance, will be planning to be teeing it up for the third week running at Glen Abbey; he'll play Bridgestone next week and the PGA the week after. A week off and he'll play The Barclays and hope to have qualified also for the DeutscheBank. Another seven days beside the pool and he'll hope to have got himself in to the BMW and, if all goes well, the Tour Championship. That would be 9 (mostly) big tournaments in 11 weeks.

4).The Els example is extreme and, perhaps academic as he might not qualify for the final two weeks, but others who will have a better chance of playing 8 events in 10 weeks include Mahan, Kuchar, Schwartzel, Snedeker, Watson, Horschel, DJohnson, and McDowell, while Luke Donald and Furyk will be hoping to play well enough to join them following their weekend's rest. Expect some of these to be going through the motions this Thursday and Friday and possibly skip The Barclays but golfers in the heat of Sundays' battles (including Mahan last week for instance) will become fried.

5).Meanwhile, the position of some top golfers who don't have an exemption for the 2013/2014 PGA Tour season grows ever more precarious.
Peter Hanson seems to be busy throwing his status away, Colsaerts is still not assured of finishing in the Top 125 (he'll be about 125th after taking this week off), Ben Slowcoach Crane looks done for, while Messrs Baddeley, Appleby, Immelman, Karlsson, Fisher (why on earth isn't he in Canada - has he given up?), Ishikawa and O'Hair (another who appears to have thrown in the towel) are all in danger of having to participate in the "web.com Finals" or losing their status completely. Does opportunity knock for George O'Grady?

6).For a select few, end of season fixture congestion is compounded by participating in this year's Presidents Cup, at Muirfield Village in early October.
Following two good weeks Zach Johnson has reached the top ten of the US qualifying list, which currently reads:
Woods, Mickelson, Kuchar, Snedeker, Haas, Mahan, Bradley, Simpson, Stricker, Zacher.
Bubba and Dustin the next two, currently in 11th and 12th places respectively. I'd say the top 6 (thru Hunner) are secure.

7).And Nick Price's International Team currently looks like this:
Scott, Oosthuizen, Schwartzel, Els, Day, Grace, Sterne, Matsuyama, Cabrera, Clark. Jaidee just adrift (as he often seems to be at this time of every other year. A distinctly South African accent to that lot.
For Captain's choices, Thongchai must have some chance, DeLaet also while I can't see them not picking KJ Choi given the 2015 edition will be in South Korea.

8).And so to Glen Abbey, an early Jack Nicklaus design with a 35 / 37 par of 72. There are three par-5's (13, 16, 18) in the final six holes so there should be much leaderboard turbulence on Sunday. Glen Abbey used to be used for this Championship much more often than in recent years and has been the site of some memorable finishes:
Peter Oosterhuis with a very dodgy up and down on the 18th to beat Lietzke, Nicklaus and North in 1981 for his only PGA Tour win.
Wayne Levi winning his fourth Tour event of 1990 while regularly consulting the early-tech mini-TV in his bag to check on the NY Giants game.
Tiger Woods with arguably the shot of his career out of sand, across water, a 200+ yard carry, to make birdie and beat Grant Waite (an increasingly successful swing guru by the way) in 2000.
Vijay Singh breaking Mike Weir's heart in 2004 (although to be accurate Weirsy broke his own heart by squandering strokes over his final holes and play-off). Have seldom seem an apparently more relectant winner. Weir only won once subsequently, the "Fry's" in 2007.
And Nathan Green blatantly choosing to overclub at the 18th greenside grandstand (twice, complete with ridiculously beneficial free drop - as close to "cheating" the spirit of the game as you're likely to see) to beat Goosen in 2009.

9).For reasons detailed above, investing this week should carry a health warning - don't go for the guys at short prices unless this is a crucial week for them - Donald and Furyk have some incentive, for instance, other big names not so much, though they might get interested if they're within reach on Sunday afternoon. A time for small-scale each-way speculation at long prices most likely!

10).One of my first 606 articles had a headline, the gist of which is worth repeating:
Woody Austin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just as his 2007 win in Memphis came completely out of the blue, last Sunday's miracle in Mississippi was his first Tour cut made since, well, 2012 in Mississippi.
Since then he's been arguably more famous as "Aquaman" following his trip to Royal Montreal's lake later in 2007 (I watched in disbelief from the side of that lake) after which his game disintegrated. Now he's headed to the Champions Tour in six months' time with an unexpected $half mil to pad his exemption status - and perhaps pgatour.com will retrieve his "player profile" from their cyber-archives as they have seemingly deleted it and chosen so far not to restore it following his win! No respect.

Went all over Mac, stank of urine a lot, lot of it quite run down. There were nice parts to it and I didn't go to alcatraz but I thought it the most over-rated city I've ever been to.

Coastal road Highway 1 was a let down too, we have better driving roads in Highlands and over in Norway which are much more scenic.

If you like food and drink there is just so much to enjoy.  The science museum might be one of the best in the world.  

The roof is an exhibit in itself

SF science museum roof:

plus it's full of hippies and "art".

Sorry you didn't enjoy San Fran, super_; plenty of warts to be sure, but still feel there's an eclectic vibe to the place that I love - great restaurants and bars among favourite attractions of course!
Thought you were going to fly up to SFO and avoid wasting time on the PCH? I like it, but perhaps not so great unless you make some strategic Sideways stops. Like Santa Barbara and others.

San Fran was dead as well, so quiet, in fact much of the western coast was.