Golf Capsules: Palmer's birdie gives him Sony title
HONOLULU — Ryan Palmer expected the worst when his chip from 50 feet short of the 18th green came out a little strong.
Seconds later, he never felt better.
His chip struck the pin squarely, and instead of running about 8 feet past the hole, it settled a few inches away. Palmer tapped in for a birdie and a 4-under 66, giving him a one-shot victory in the Sony Open when Robert Allenby missed a 10-foot birdie putt.
"What a way to start the year," Palmer said.
All week long at the Sony Open, he tried to stay in the moment, a lesson he picked up earlier in the week while reading an article about defending champion Zach Johnson. The chip turned out to be the greatest moment of all.
"It was a good chip," Palmer said. "The grain was running against me. It was either going to hit it fat or do what I did. Fortunately, I got the good break."
Palmer’s three PGA Tour victories include one at Disney with Tiger Woods in the field. This was far more meaningful. The 33-year-old Texas was atop the leaderboard every day, and kept his composure in a tight final round at Waialae against Allenby and Steve Stricker, who was briefly tied for the lead and eventually finished third.
"What I got out of this is beyond words," Palmer said. "It’s a great field. To do it every day ... my bad round was 2-under par. I never once got upset or impatient. What I did today was the best round of golf I ever experienced."
And it came with some pretty good perks.
Palmer, who finished 150th on the money list last year, is exempt on the PGA Tour through 2012. He’s going to the Masters for the first time in five years. He can add The Players Championship and PGA Championship to his list, along with at least one World Golf Championship.
Allenby was trying to win his third consecutive tournament on three tours, a feat believed to have never been accomplished, and he gave himself every chance. He played bogey-free on the back nine, but he needed one more birdie. His second shot out of the rough on the 18th came out hot and over the green, and he did well to give himself a realistic chance at birdie and a playoff.
Allenby, who won the Nedbank Challenge on the Sunshine Tour and the Australian PGA Championship on the Australasian PGA Tour at the end of last year, closed with a 67.
"I had a couple of chances out there," Allenby said. "It’s so easy to look back and say, ‘I could have made that, I could have made that.’ But at the end of the day, realistically, I needed to make a birdie at the last."
Palmer finished at 15-under 265 and earned $990,000.
Stricker had a 65 and finished two shots back. Two-time U.S. Open champion Retief Goosen closed with a tournament-best 62 and was atop the leaderboard as Palmer and Allenby were making the turn, although his 12-under 268 never looked as though it would be enough.
Palmer might not have been in this position without reading the article about Johnson and his strategy of not thinking ahead.
"I played each day for that day," Palmer said. "I wanted to win today."
About the time Goosen finished, Stricker hit a hybrid from the grassy collar of a bunker onto the par-5 ninth green for a birdie, then hit a good pitch to 3½ feet on the 10th to join Goosen at 12 under. With so many holes left, and Palmer and Allenby behind him, it turned into a three-man race over the final two hours.
Stricker certainly had his chances, although it was an example that even one of the best putters in golf doesn’t make everything. He lipped out a 5-foot birdie chance on the 12th and missed from 8 feet on the 14th. He also holed a birdie putt on the 13th that briefly put him in a tie for the lead, and a 25-footer on the 17th that kept alive his hopes.
But he found a bunker on the 18th, and Waialae sand makes it tough to get spin on the ball. His long bunker shot went 20 feet long and high of the hole, and Stricker’s birdie putt to join the leaders grazed the edge of the cup.
"I did leave a couple out there," Stricker said. "It’s a little disappointing. I hit the ball great today, gave myself a lot of opportunities. All of a sudden, I found myself doubting a couple of reads. I was getting confused a couple of times."
Allenby might have saved his chances early in the round. He had a sloppy three-putt on the fourth, then went through the green on the fifth with a sand wedge. His chip came out hot and ran 15 feet by the hole, and Allenby was so disgusted he kicked at the ground — with his left ankle, at least — but then holed the par putt.
Palmer’s volatility came with his scores. He had a one-shot lead going to the back nine, then didn’t make a par until he missed an 8-foot birdie putt on the 15th hole. He birdied the 10th, 12th and 14th, all from inside 12 feet. He bogeyed the 11th and 13th from bunkers.
Allenby caught him again with a tough shot inside 3 feet on the 15th, and the duel was on.
Charles Howell III, who learned in the offseason his wife is expecting their first child, ended a stretch of 17 tournaments without a top 10 with a 66-64 weekend to tie for fifth with Carl Petterson (66) and Davis Love III, who holed out for eagle from the 16th fairway and closed with a 67.
Notebook: Fujikawa headed for another island
HONOLULU — Tadd Fujikawa doesn't get many opportunities on the PGA Tour these days, so it was disappointing for the 19-year-old from Hawaii to fail to break par in both rounds and miss the cut in the Sony Open.
Next up is a big move, from one island to another, and a chance for Fujikawa to experience life on the tour.
Just not the PGA Tour.
Fujikawa has been spending most of his time at Sea Island in Georgia working with Todd Anderson and the stable of coaches who also work with Zach Johnson, Jonathan Byrd and others. He has signed up for eGolf Professional Tour — formerly the Tar Heel Tour — which features an 18-tournament schedule from February to October.
The membership fee is $2,000, and it cost $1,110 to enter each tournament, which is roughly last-place money. The tour pays the entry fee for PGA Tour qualifying for the top 20 players on its money list.
"Just try to go out there and play as much as I can and get some good experience playing tournaments," Fujikawa said.
Leaving paradise won't be terribly difficult, for Fujikawa and his mother, Lori, have rented a house at Sea Island for the last few years. Besides, an island is an island, right?
"It's sort of like this, except the water is kind of ... brown, to stay the least," Fujikawa said with a laugh. "I don't know, I never really went in the water there. I don't think I want to. Usually, if you can't see the bottom, that's not a good thing."
The golf? That's a different story.
"All of the tour pros there, and Davis (Love) and J-Byrd and all of those guys ... it's a good atmosphere," he said. "It really helps."
ZACH'S BIG BREAK
Zach Johnson was headed home from two weeks in Hawaii and might not resurface again until Arizona, giving him a full month away from the PGA Tour.
The former Masters champion played the Shark Shootout and the Chevron World Challenge in December and believes his game is sharp. He wants to concentrate heavily on the Florida swing, and doesn't want to overdo it on the West Coast. Of course, that would mean missing Riviera, one of his favorite stops.
"I just think it's the best thing to do," Johnson said. "I've talked to my counsel on that, and that's kind of how we are pointing right now. I don't think I can hit it hard if I don't take that time off."
Johnson also took a month off in 2008, returning to Riviera (the schedule was different that year) and the Match Play. He didn't win that year until the Fall Series, although that was the year after he won the Masters and he was coping with being a first-time major winner.
What he recalls about that year was being ready to play.
"I learned a lot in '08," Johnson said. "I took four weeks off in a row, and then I took six weeks off at the end of the year. I don't have the itch to play very often, and I had it. So I'm going to get that itch."
GLOBAL GOLF
The field was particularly strong at the Sony Open, with the winner to receive 50 world ranking points. That's up from last year, and is the equivalent to the field at the AT&T National last summer at Congressional.
PGA Tour points will dip significant next week with so many highly ranked players at Abu Dhabi, and none of the top 30 in the world expected to play at the Bob Hope Classic.
Chalk that up to more PGA Tour players taking up membership in Europe, and appearance money available in the Middle East.
Ernie Els wonders how long that will last.
"It will be interesting to see if they sustain that," he said, referring to travel habits of U.S.-based players. "Myself and Vijay did it for 15 years, and then he kind of stopped doing that because he came to live over here."
For players like Els, and several Europeans, traveling is simply a way of life, not a burden.
His global schedule has been questioned over the years, and Els jokingly said he might have done things differently had he won more than three majors.
"No, I come from South Africa," he said. "I've gotten this question my whole career. I don't think I would have done it any differently. That's just the way we were — we are. Gary Player was that way because he started in South Africa. And he started spreading his wings, I just kind of followed suit."
ANATOMY OF AN 8
For a guy whose young PGA Tour career has been solid but not spectacular, John Merrick received quite the perk when Nick Watney invited him to be his partner in the World Cup last fall in China.
The only bad memory was an 8 on a par 5. That's not unusual, except that it happened in the better-ball format.
"It would taken an hour for me to explain the comedy of errors we made," Merrick said. "We were just shaking our heads."
He at least offered an abridged version.
In short, Watney was in a bunker off the tee and laid up to 80 yards, in good shape. Merrick went for the green in two with a hybrid, leaks it a little right and goes into the water. Watney had 65 yards to the front of the green and it went 64 yards, into mucky grass near a lake. He tries to play out of the hazard and whiffs, then takes a drop and is on his way to an 8.
As for Merrick? He took his drop, caught a flier lie and sailed fourth shot over the green into a bunker, short-siding himself. He chunks his bunker shot, chips to 10 feet and misses the putt.
Merrick was first in the cup, so he got credit for the 8.
-- Doug Ferguson
Rumor and fact: Chasing a Tiger’s tale in Miss.
HATTIESBURG, Miss. — Trying to unwind after a 14-hour day Saturday, I popped on the History Channel and watched hapless documentarians search in vain for the abominable snowman.
Nothing, not even an extra-large footprint to report.
I know how they feel.
I’ve been chasing a Tiger’s tale across the rolling piney woods of south-central Mississippi with nothing to show for it but a notebook full of rumors. It seems that everyone has seen Tiger Woods in this town of 45,000, supposedly undergoing treatment for sex addiction at one of the country’s finest facilities.
Like the sherpas of Nepal, locals in the Hub City report new sightings all the time.
Someone swears they saw him on horseback the other day. Another watched a convoy of black SUVs with windows as dark as midnight pull into a gas station, and Woods popped out of one.
Details relayed from friends of friends of friends are circulating like crazy, each with its own hint of truth, but no proof. It’s the most exciting thing to happen here in a while, and everyone’s talking about it.
Most stories go a little something like Steve Brantley’s: "I know someone whose sister-in-law’s cousin saw him. But I’ve yet to talk to anyone who’s actually seen him."
Same for me, Steve.
This all started Friday when celebrity Web site radaronline.com reported that Woods was at Pine Grove Behavioral Health and Addiction Services, one of the nation’s top treatment centers. The place is owned by Forrest General Hospital, a couple of miles down the road.
Problem is the Pine Grove clinic is locked up tight. Celebrities apparently pass through there all the time, yet employees are bound by confidentiality agreements. And let’s face it: Celebrity rehab clinics are supposed to be in towns like Palm Springs or Los Angeles.
But it kind of makes sense that a sex addiction program is here. No one could possibly expect to find celebrities at a converted cottage-style motel, nestled between a rental car place and a windshield repair business in an aging part of town.
"Rock stars and big-name people come through here, and one of the reasons is no one would think they’re here," Brantley says.
Rumor has it there’s a former NBA player and a well-known female country music singer there now. Or last week. Or pretty darn recently. Probably.
I met Brantley a couple of hours into my hunt Saturday. He was one of the few folks in town willing to brave the rain and chilly wind for a round of golf.
Like everyone else I’ve talked to, the conversation was full of jokes, rumors and a discussion about whether sexual addiction is really a malady or a state of being.
"Did you know we had a sex clinic in town before this?" Brantley asks. "I didn’t."
Everyone knows now, though, that’s for sure.
For the record, Woods hasn’t been swinging clubs at the Hattiesburg Country Club, where I talked with Brantley and club pro Russ Fransted, who’s heard all the stories out there.
"He’s been spotted more places than Elvis," Fransted jokes.
Richard Walsh, the pro over at Timberton Golf Club, hasn’t seen Woods, either. He was manning the clubhouse at sunrise Saturday, and his tee time card showed just three golfers signed up for the day — and none was named Woods.
"I had 30 calls yesterday," Walsh says. "Just from people saying, ‘I hear Tiger Woods is in town. Is he out practicing?’ It’s just kind of ridiculous. I feel sorry for the guy."
Still, the rumors have the tantalizing feel of truth.
"Does it seem reasonable that he’s here?" Walsh asks. "Sure. Hattiesburg is in the middle of nowhere."
I started my day at nearby Timberton because of another rumor that seemed to have a kernel of possibility to it. I got a call from a friend who said Tiger was staying at Ash-Leah Manor, a beautiful bed and breakfast on the outskirts of town.
The friend had a friend who was positive that Pine Grove owned the manor.
Not true, says Peggy Gates, the woman who runs the business with Bob, her husband of 55 years. While the B&B does play host to families of patients from time to time, Peggy says that neither Tiger Woods nor his wife, Elin, have been there.
Since the six-week program is inpatient, she notes, Woods would be staying at the facility on the corner of Broadway and Emerald. So I head back there, where a few reporters had gathered around the building, enough to draw an increased presence from local authorities. But most were camped out at the wrong place Friday and there didn’t appear to be anyone on watch Saturday.
If it wasn’t for the 8-foot-tall wooden fence surrounding the facility, there would be nothing of note about the buildings that make up the clinic.
The compound has several refurbished cottages, the roofs just visible over the fence. Vehicles can drive onto the property through a couple of gates, making it impossible to see who’s coming in and out. Signs say "No Trespassing" and "Video Surveillance in Progress," but the only apparent cameras are pointed inside the fence.
With no real activity, I head over to the Bobby L. Chain Municipal Airport, south of town.
The airport itself is a single small building and the guys I encounter inside are clearly bored. No one wants to give their name, but they’re free with information: No Tiger sighting. No NetJets planes landing.
That mystery flight that came in last week around 4 in the morning?
"That was an organ donor," one of the guys says.
Of course, Woods could have driven in (remember that convoy of SUVs?), taking Interstate 10 across the Florida Panhandle and US Highway 98 north from Mobile, Ala. Or he could’ve flown to nearby Laurel or Jackson.
I see a trio of Hattiesburg policemen roll up, so I stop them. I need directions to the police station and tell them I’m one of the reporters looking for Tiger. Before I finish the sentence, they raise their arms and say in unison, "We don’t know anything!"
They send me to see Capt. D.J. Davis at the department.
"He’s really here?" Davis asks, when I inquire if the clinic has asked for security help. "I thought that was just a rumor."
While the department does help the hospital from time to time, Davis assures me there’s been no request for help with Woods, as far as he knows. Another dead end.
So I head back to the clinic where there seems to be a pretty regular stream of gawkers, but no other media. I know they’re around. One guy, whose car was filled with gear, paid a nearby property owner $200 to let him sit in view of the clinic for a few hours.
At a Cracker Barrel restaurant, my waitress says a group there was looking for directions to the clinic. And I hear that ESPN is sending a van.
I talk to the hospital’s security chief. He’s been pleasant in what is clearly a stressful situation for employees. A fancy SUV rolls up while we’re talking and the window comes down. The hospital police officer inside says, "The AP’s back."
Turns out he ran my plates earlier.
I call the clinic to leave a message for the director, Patrick Carnes. I figure if nothing else, I can write about the clinic. But the lady who answers hangs up on me — twice.
With all reasonable leads exhausted, I turn to chasing ghosts. I hear from a couple of people that Elin Woods has been spotted at Canebreak, the toney subdivision north of town, looking for a house to rent. It’s built around one of the state’s best golf courses, it’s secluded and it has a gate manned by a security guard.
This rumor feels false, though, filled with too much detail: Elin supposedly telling someone she couldn’t believe she could walk around the mall without being identified.
I drive around and write down the names on every for-sale sign and start calling real estate agents, who are often great repositories of local knowledge. I call 10 and five answer, all of them amused by the question. None has heard even the faintest of whispers.
"There was a rumor about five years ago that Tim McGraw and Faith Hill were going to buy a house in Canebreak and it just wasn’t true," Dottie Farris says. "It’s a small enough town that if one person says something, it takes off like wildfire."
There’s a clear message in that story, so 48 hours after starting the hunt for Tiger, I’m packing up and leaving Hattiesburg. I’m wearing the same shirt for the third day in a row and I feel like I’ve failed.
We know he’s not in New York or South Africa, and he’s probably not in Arizona. So maybe Woods really is here.
I’m really not sure, but if you hear anything, give me a shout.
Chris Talbott is an Associated Press writer based in Jackson, Miss., who covers news and sports in the region.
Nicklaus and Watson win Champions Skins
KAANAPALI, Hawaii — Old guys still rule on Maui.
Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson held off defending champions Fuzzy Zoeller and Ben Crenshaw to win the Champions Skins Game on Sunday.
"Who played? I don’t remember," said Nicklaus, who will be 70 on Thursday. "That’s part of being old, isn’t it? You don’t have to remember what happened 5 minutes ago."
He won’t forget this one.
Nicklaus and the 60-year-old Watson birdied two holes to win three skins and $130,000 on the back nine. The Hall of Fame duo and the oldest team in the tournament finished with 10 skins and $350,000 for their second victory in the event in four years.
It was an early birthday present for Nicklaus and a little redemption for the team after being blanked last year. The victory means Nicklaus will be back next year.
"If Tom will put up with me, we’ll be back," said Nicklaus, wearing a golden orchid lei.
On a balmy day, Zoeller-Crenshaw took five straight skins for $230,000 to finish second in the alternate-shot, made-for-TV event. They were trying to become the first team to repeat after winning a record $530,000 last year.
Fred Couples, making his Champions Tour debut, and Nick Price sank a 4-footer for birdie on the playoff hole with two skins and $150,000 on the line — including the 18th-hole, $100,000 "Superskin" — to finish third with $190,000.
Gary Player and Loren Roberts were shutout.
Couples, who turned 50 in October, was the biggest hitter by far. But he struggled finding his range and with his short game. He also missed a 7-foot putt on the big-money 18 that sent it to a playoff.
For the "King of Skins," Couples felt more like a prince among kings.
"For me personally, I’m going to see Fuzzy, Crenshaw, Watson and Loren Roberts for a long, long time," Couples said. "But I don’t know that I’ll ever, ever be in the same group with Jack Nicklaus or Gary Player."
After taking seven skins and $220,000 the first day, team Nicklaus-Watson looked to put it away early by taking the par-5 10th worth $80,000 and two skins. After a high-arching wedge shot by Watson, Nicklaus made the 8-foot birdie putt to push his team’s take to $300,000 and nine skins on the first 10 holes.
"We’re about to get skinned by the two older guys," Zoeller commented.
"I guess we felt sorry for those guys after that," Nicklaus said.
That’s when the defending champs made a move, winning the next five skins.
Zoeller, who kept his partner and the crowd entertained all day with one-liners, sparked the rally on par-3 11th by draining a 25-foot putt to halve the hole after Watson made a 40-footer that drew a roar from the gallery of several thousand.
Zoeller sank 3-foot birdie putts on Nos. 12 and 15 before Watson ended the run by crawling in a 25-foot putt for birdie on the par-4 16th for a $50,000 skin.
The players were loose, signed hundreds of autographs and even walked behind the ropes with the fans on several holes. The fans were so enamored with the players, they didn’t even notice the humpback whales a few hundred yards away in the Pacific.
Nicklaus made his 20th appearance in the Champions Skins Game, which will be televised next month, and added to his record for skins (114) and money ($2.6 million).
"Nothing shocks us. We’ve seen it. I’ve seen it for 34 years, it doesn’t shock us when he makes it," Zoeller said.
Watson and Nicklaus spent Saturday afternoon studying and playing the back nine, which they said gave them an advantage over the others, including newcomers Couples and Price.
"They were the team to beat with their length, but they’re inexperienced," Watson said. "With Kaanapali, you need experience."
Watson said the home-field advantage was similar to what he had at Turnburry last year where he lost in a four-hole playoff to Stewart Cink.
"I had local knowledge. I knew where to hit it, where not to hit it, how the course was going to play in the wind," Watson said. "The rest of the kids, yeah, they had the length, but there’s situations that came up when they said, ‘What club do I hit?’ I kind of knew. Same thing here."
Watson didn’t win the British last year, but between Nicklaus and Watson, they still own 112 PGA Tour titles and 26 majors.
For Nicklaus, the Skins Game was his only event of the year. So he’s beginning and finishing 2010 as a winner.
"It’s always fun to win. Good gracious, I play one tournament a year," he said. "That’s a 100 percent a year. That’s pretty good isn’t it?"
-- Jaymes Song
Schwartzel wins by 6 shots at Joburg Open
JOHANNESBURG — Charl Schwartzel of South Africa claimed his second straight European Tour title on Sunday, shooting a 5-under 66 to pull away for a six-stroke victory at the Joburg Open.
Schwartzel overcame some early nerves on the Royal Johannesburg and Kensington East course to finish at 23-under 261.
"With the confidence I've got right now, you pretty much feel like you can win anything. And the way I played this week, I don't need to stand back for anyone," Schwartzel said.
Keith Horne of South Africa shot a 64, the day's best round, to share second place with Darren Clarke of Northern Ireland. Clarke eagled the last hole for a 68.
Schwartzel bogeyed the 475-yard third and admitted to some nerves ahead of his final round despite starting the day leading Clarke by four strokes.
"It's not easy leading by four shots," the South African said. "Your mind can start playing games, and while you feel if you can just carry on playing the way you have been, you should win it, you still actually have to do it."
Schwartzel settled down quickly with two solid pars after No. 3, and was back on track after a birdie at No. 6.
He made another birdie on the eighth hole to make the turn at one-under, and then birdies at Nos. 10 and 14 took him clear of the field as he coasted home for his second victory in two weeks after he won last week's Africa Open.
He underlined his dominance with birdies on Nos. 17 and 18.
"This week has been probably the best golf I have ever played," said Schwartzel. "You don't go round courses like these and only make three bogeys in the week without playing well."
Danny Willett of England had a battling round of 68 to finish in a share of fourth with South African James Kamte, who also closed with a 68.
The $1.87 million tournament is the richest of the four Sunshine Tour events co-sanctioned by the European Tour, and is the fourth in the 2010 Race to Dubai.
