Top Professionals Will Bid To Represent U.S.
The Andersen Consulting World Championship of Golf announced its U.S. field this week with the strongest grouping in that region in the three-year history of the event.
The U.S. competition will be played April 21-22 at Reynolds Plantation in Georgia with British Open champion Tom Lehman playing Scott Hoch and Davis Love III taking on Corey Pavin in the upper bracket.
Fred Couples plays Steve Stricker and Phil Mickelson takes on Mark O’Meara in the lower bracket.
The U.S. winner will advance to the world championship Jan. 3-4, 1998, in Scottsdale, Ariz., along with the winners of the Europe, Japan and International brackets. Greg Norman is the defending champion.
Conspicuous in his absence from the field was Tiger Woods, the one player in the world any tournament official would want in the event. It’s likely Woods wanted to keep that end-of-the year window open for possible overseas commitments or perhaps a high-profile exhibition event of some kind.
Monty is immovable
There has been much speculation that Colin Montgomerie, who led the European Tour money list the last four years, might move to the U.S. and join the PGA Tour fulltime. He shot that down last week.
“The No. 1 priority in my life is my family, and they are very happy where they are right now,” Montgomerie said. “If golf was my No.1 priority, I might move here.”
Montgomerie, who lost 40 pounds last year in a much ballyhooed effort to improve his self-image and to finally win a major championship, has stopped his exercise program.
Montgomerie said he has put on about 10 pounds since he stopped working out, but it looks more like 25.
Make that tee time
The construction of new golf courses in the United States continued at a near-record pace in 1996. According to the National Golf Foundation, 442 courses of various types and sizes opened last year.
The report also indicated that the current surge in production will continue for at least a few more years.
Although the 1996 number was down from the record 468 courses built in 1995, it was only the second time new course openings topped 400 for the year. The NGF says it was tracking 850 courses currently under construction and anticipates that as many as 450 of them could open this year.
Prior to 1987, the U.S. was averaging less than 150 new courses a year.
Divots
John Daly said last year he welcomed Tiger Woods taking over the driving distance leadership because it would take pressure off Daly to bash every tee shot. He must be having second thoughts. Daly leads the tour in driving distance at 309.8 yards - 20.1 yards per hit longer than Woods. Daly is hitting a Wilson Staff Titanium driver (seven degrees loft and 44 inches) and uses the new Staff Titanium Spin golf ball. Each ball is stamped with a red “00” and features the Arkansas Razorback and has the word “Kill” on the ball… . Steve Elkington, who lost his clubs in Thailand, made an emergency visit to the Titleist factory in Carlsbad, Calif., and got a new set of irons built, which obviously served him well at Doral… . The team of Nick Price and Bernhard Langer won the Gillette Tour Challenge Tuesday in a three-way playoff at the TPC at Heron Bay, site of this week’s Honda Classic. Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino and Atlanta Braves pitcher John Smoltz finished second and John Cook and Lee Janzen were third.