A roque road for Fasth

Niclas Fasth woon the Spanish Open at the 4th extra hole of a sudden death play off at the San Roque Club. He beat England's John Bickerton who had managed to force himself into the play-off with a 63 in the final round which included 9 birdies and no dropped shots. To be honest Fasth should have won the title during regulation play as he had a 2 shot lead with 2 holes to play but then bogeyed the 17th and 18th to tie with Bickerton.

There was also a play-off required to decide the winner of teh Challenge Tour's Tessali-Metaponto Open di Puglia e Basilicata. France's Snobeck was victorious in this beating Wales's Sullivan at the first extra hole. This was Snobeck's first Challenge tour victory.

Riikka Hakkarainen was victorious in the Teneriffe Ladies Open with a 72 hole total of level par. England's kirsty Taylor dropped to 3 over par with a final round of 77 (5 over par).

I hope you all had a good weekend of golf and although I'm sure there will have been mixed success don't worry as next week it might be better and the whole season is still ahead to improve... well at least for those in the Northern Hemisphere.

Keep Swinging

News

Scott Jamieson and Craig Watson shared the Edward Trophy Open tournament at Glasgow Gailes yesterday. They both had a 36 hole total of 1 under par. Alice Kim from Northwestern was victoriuos in the Big Ten Women's college championship. Scotland's Keir McNicoll won the Male Scholar - Athlete of the year at Lynn University in Florida.
Christine Watson won the English Senior Women's closed Championship at the 20th hole in final against Chris Quinn. Europe beat the Asia- Pacific in the Michael Bonallak trophy by 18 to 14. Kirsty Taylor is leading the Tenerife Ladies Open by a shot from Finland's Rikka Hakkarainen.

Thomas Bjorn is leading the Spanish Open at the san Roque New Course by a shot from Storm Fasth and Griffiths after 4 holes of the final round. Bjorn is 3 under par for the 4 holes he has played. Chris Couch is leading at 12 under par after 3 rounds of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.

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“You've just one problem. You stand too close to the ball--after you've hit it.” - Sam Snead

Equipment

There is so much equipment now available for golf that I sometimes think that I'm buying a car when I look at golf equipment. That is part of the reason why I am using a set of my dad's old irons at the moment... they are working well for me at the moment so why should I bother to change them. Obviously each person has different preferences about golf clubs and therefore I am wary about giving out advice but here is some points and opinions I have formed and been given about the current market.

I have been given very good reports about the Ping G5 driver and have even heard rumours taht it is better than the G2 which is quite impressive. The Ping G2 was known as being one of the best drivers for ladies and I think that the G5 lives up to this same ability. I curently use the Callaway Big Bertha driver which I got last season and personally find it very effecive and attractive at set up. In terms of irons it all depends what you are looking for but I think ping are good for cavity backs and also now beginning develop irons for the better player. The callaway X-series has never disappointed and are reliable clubs for all players with the Pro-series being available for the better ball strikers. If it is Blades you are looking for I would say that Mizuno and Titleist are still leading the way. My main advice for irons and woods would be to go along to your local stockist and try various clubs until you find one you like.... custom fitting is also to be highly recommended. When trying clubs don't hit more than 5 balls with any club without hitting one of your current clubs in between as this way you can ensure that you are not adapting your swing to the club but that the club suits your swing.

I hope you have found this insightful.

Keep Swinging

News

England's Kirsty Taylor is leading the Tenerife Ladies Open at 3 under par after two rounds. Scotland's Kathryn Imrie (formerly Marshal) who was the first round leader has dropped to 14th equal at 4 over par. Lynn Kenny is currently at +14 after 12 holes of her second round. This is not the start to the tournament or the season that Lynn would have been looking for but the end of May to June is always her strongest part of the season so hopefully there is plenty more still to come.

Graeme Storm is leading the Spanish Open at -12 after rounds of 65 and 67 round this tough par 72 course. he leads by one from a group of players at 11 under including England's David Griffith and Sweden's Robert Karlsson. Colin Montgomerie is tied 12th at 8 under while Raul Ballesteros is putting up a good performance (tied 20th at 7 under) on the course where one of his uncle's is the professional and the other, Seve, has a house.

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Thought for the day:

I've always made a total effort, even when the odds seemed entirely against me. I never quit trying; I never felt that I didn't have a chance to win." -Arnold Palmer

p.s. keep this in mind the next time you start abysmally!

News

Taylor Made and Adidas have extended their sponsorship of the Scottish mens amateur team until 2008. Colin Montgomerie is playing in the Spanish Open this year and is headlining the event at the San Roque. It should be a good competition which is being staged on a fantastic course.

The Ladies European Tour is getting underway for the 2006 season in Tenerife this weeek. Kreutz is defending it and Lynn Kenny is flying the flag for Scotland along with Kathryn Imrie and Clare Queen.

Lynn Kenny is a former Scottish Ladies Champion and U21 champion as well as British ladies Universities champion in 2002 and 2003. She also won the Catriona Lambert Medal for Outstanding Sporting Achievement in 2000. Last year was her first year on tour and she managed to keep her card finishing 63rd on the Order of Merit which in my opinion is a pretty mean feat for a rookie. I wish her the best of luck for the new season and I hope that she manages to win her first tour event this season. Best of luck to her and I will continue to track her progress through the season.

Keep Swinging

Thought for the day:
"The fundamental problem with golf is that every so often, no matter how lacking you may be in the essential virtues required of a steady player, the odds are that one day you will hit the ball straight, hard, and out of sight. This is the essential frustration of this excruciating sport. For when you've done it once, you make the fundamental error of asking yourself why you can't do this all the time. The answer to this question is simple: the first time was a fluke." -Colin Bowles

Risk-reward... Congrats

Well Done to Fernandez-Castano on winning in the play-off yesterday and in my opinion the wood he hit out of the trees in the play-off epitomised golf. Golf is a game where risk-reward is extremely important and this shot shows why. It is stupid to play too safely at times and take out of the equation the chance to make birdie but at other times caution is needed so as to limit the possibilty of a very large score.

Well done to Heather Macrae and Jenna Wilson who won the team event at the Helen Holm Strokeplay championship for Scotland at Troon. However, England cleaned up with a 1-2-3 in the singles with Melissa Reid the victor. Considering there was only 12 scots in the field out of 72 so winning the international team event was no mean feat.


Appleby won his second PGA tournament of the year at the Shell Houston Open yesterday. This shows the depth of golf in Australia at the moment due to this victory being the fifth Aussie victory of the year on the PGA tour.

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Thought for the day:
Golf is so popular simply because it is the best game in the world at which to be bad. ~A.A. Milne

O'Malley goodness!

The second day of the BMW Asian Open in Shanghai was completed with Stenson leading at 5 under par and Paul Lawrie on his own in second place at 4 under par. Below this the leaderboard was pretty bunched so it is anyone's tournament.

The third round is underway as I am writing this and Peter O'Malley is in the lead now at 5 under... 4 under through 11 for today's round!! Gonzalo Fdez-Castano is also at 5 under while Stenson has dropped to 4 under along with Paul Lawrie, Mahal Pearce and Paul Casey. Lets hope the remainder of moving day in China can continue to excite making way for an enticing final round tommorow. Monty is currently tied 9th at 2 under so hopefully if he can shoot a few birds then he'll be able to mix it up a bit on Sunday. Although ,aybe he'll be trying to finish as far down the field as possible to make himself feel better:
"To be truthful, I think golfers are overpaid. It's unreal, and I have trouble dealing with the guilt sometimes." Colin Montgomerie

Keep Swinging

Thought for the day

"Golf is very much like a love affair, if you don't take it seriously, it's no fun, if you do, it breaks your heart. Don't break your heart, but flirt with the possibility."
Louise Suggs

Stop Press

Paul Lawrie is currently ina tie for first place in the BMW Asian Open in Shanghai. After two rounds of 70 he is sitting at 4 under par along with Henrik Stenson and Frankie Minoza. Although both Stenson and Minoza are still only on the front nine of their second rounds it looks like Paul won't be far away going in to moving day! After his form from last Sunday you would have to be brave to count him out!

Other news:
16 year old Megan Briggs won the Renfrewshire County Ladies Championship held at Eastwood Golf Club. She beat Donna Jackson 6 and 5 in the final. Well done

The Scotland men's amateur team are beating Spain 7-5 at Crail after the first day of their two day international. Good luck and bring it home boys!!

Callum Nicoll won the BAE Systems Young Professionals' Scottish Championship by three shots at Forres Golf Club.

There is also hope for Scottish golf in the future as therewas a Scottish 1-2-3 in a US collegiate event. Duncan Stewart from Grantown on Spey retained the title beating Russell Knox from Inverness in a play-off and Jordan Findlay from Fraserburgh finished third. Well done. (Maybe in the future the Ryder Cup could be Scotland against the US!)

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US Open

In a comment one of my readers speculated about the chance of Paul Lawrie playing in the US Open. At the moment it is not looking like he will qualify automatically as he is sitting at 177th in the World Rankings. To be honest I think for the quality of ball striker that he undoubtedly is this ranking is unjust but it does unfortunately represent his performances in the last two/three years. He may though be able to qualify through the European tour qualifying round at Walton Heath Golf Club Surrey on June 5th. The courses at Walton Heath would suit Paul with the running fairways and linksy feel especcially as the wind is never far away. It must also be remembered that last year's US Open Champion Michael Campbell qualified to play the US Open at this same event so could there be a fairy tale in there for Paul? Watch this space to find out!

Keep swinging

p.s. a thought for the day:

Golf appeals to the idiot in us and the child. Just how childlike golf players become is proven by their frequent inability to count past five. ~John Updike

Paul Lawrie and more

I would like to congratulate Paul Lawrie (as one of my readers prompted me to) on playing "awesome" on Sunday during his round of 67 in China which moved him up to equal 10th place. This is encouraging for Paul and all of his die hard fans even those who are dedicated enough to read his website (of course not me!) Hopefully Paul will go on to greater things this season and add to his current tally of tournament victories.

Further congratulations should be extended to Judy Shields who on her debut for Stirling and Clackmannanshire juniors won her singles match versus Fife. Although unfortunately she was the only one from Stirling to win and the team went down 3-1.

To update the news on Krystle Caithness she lost in the first round of the French Junior Ladies open championship. Scott Jamieson won the Craigmillar Park open birdieing the last hole to avoid a play off.

I hope you have found this news update informative and I hope to be able to continue so much news in the future.

Keep swinging / reading

p.s. I found this and thought I would share it with you

A golfer was in big trouble when he forgot
his wedding anniversary.

His wife told him; "Tomorrow there better
be something in the driveway for me that goes
zero to 200 in 2 seconds flat".

The next morning the wife found a small package
in the driveway. She opened it and found a
brand new bathroom scale.

Funeral arrangements for the husband have been
set for Saturday at his favorite golf course.

Sorry.... Masters update

Sorry for the loack of posts being added to my blog over the past week. I am away at the moment and have not had much time to post and I appear to have upset some of my readers. However, I do hope that you will gicve me another chance as I will be home on Tuesday and regularly posting from then on.

As you can expect there is plenty of news for me to update you with so I here goes. Phil Mickelson won The Masters in a tightly fought contest until the last few holes and as expected there was some tension while Tiger was dressing him in his green jacket. Lynn Kenny from Dunblane won a pro-am event and is therefore moving in to the start of the season on the Ladies European Tour on great form. Krystle Caithness qualified in second stage for the French Girls Matchplay championship and hopefully she will continue to progress to eventually lift the trophy!!

A last little bit of advice is that anyone planning a golf holiday should consider Melbourne as there is loads of courses (100) and some of them can be played for peanuts!! I would thoroughly advise it and remind anyone that is planning on taking up this advice that they can always take a tour to Ramsay Street, Erinsborough to meet Harold and friends.... who doesn't want to hear Harold's sneeze in the flesh!!

Keep Swinging and reading (so long as you forgive me!!)

The Masters

Will he win??

I hope everyone is as excited as I am about the start of the 2006 Masters at Augusta National. I just watched a highlights programme on last year's tournament and it's got me well in the mood. I think that Tiger has a good chance of defending the title but Ernie is in with a good chance after his enforced layoff at the end of last year. Unfortunately one of my favoured golfers will not be appearing due to having a barren couple of years (Paul Lawrie) but lets hope that we will be able to seem him there again next year! Mickelson also has to be in with a chance as his win last week is a sign of his superb form.

Let me know your views on who will be crowned the Masters champion 2006 and lets all hope for an exciting tournament matching last year's.

Keep swinging (and reading /commenting)

Morag!

Frustration!!

The game I love and i'm sure you also love is unbelievably frustrating. No matter how well you have played you are never fully satisfied with your round. It is also frustrating in that it is so unpredictable. Playing well the day before or hitting the ball well on the driving range are no guarantees that you will play well in your next round. Take today for example I had been hitting the ball well on the range and then when playing in the medal I just seemed to make bogey after bogey and thus my score added up.

I just thought I would share my frustration with you and let you know that there are other's out there suffering with you. Anyway lets keep trying to play that perfect round of golf.

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Welcome

Hello. This is my first post!! It's quite exciting really. I hope you coontinue to read my future posts on the golfers-paradise and enjoy it.

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