One way to look at the
2009 LPGA Tour Championship is that, having been pushed back to a Monday finish, not many golf fans were paying attention. Another way to look at it is that the tournament had Monday all to itself, guaranteeing any golf news leads with the LPGA.
Either way you look at it, the LPGA Tour Championship wound up providing a fantastic finish: Lorena Ochoa overtook Jiyai Shin to win the points-based Player of the Year Award ... by one point.
And Ochoa did it with a couple clutch putts on the last two holes, making a great bogey save on the 17th, then rolling in a great birdie on the last. That moved Ochoa into solo second and forced Shin - coming off her own bogey at No. 17 - to birdie the last to win the award. Shin nearly chipped it in, but settled for par and a tie for eighth place.
And that combination moved Ochoa, who started the week eight points behind Shin in the Player of the Year standings, one point in front. It is the fourth consecutive year Ochoa has won the award.
Oh, there was also that other golfer, the one who actually won the LPGA Tour Championship: Anna Nordqvist. A pretty compelling golfer in her own right. Imagine you're Nordqvist, a rookie. You won twice in your rookie season, two pretty big wins: The LPGA Championship, and the Tour Championship. And you can't even win Rookie of the Year. (Because Shin ran away with that award.)
So despite Michelle Wie's withdrawal, despite Paula Creamer's absence from the leaderboard, and despite those terrible weather problems, the LPGA's final tournament provided a great end to the 2009 season.
Slang is a big part of most golfer's vocabularies. We talk about
banana balls and
hosel rockets,
Bo Derek and the
snowman, and some of us who simply talk a lot might be accused of carrying a
mouth wedge.
Some golf slang terms are universal; many more are regional or local. And some golf slang might exist only within your foursome, invented by you or one of your golf buddies. And that's what we want to hear about: What golf slang does your group sling?
Tell us about your self-created or favorite slang terms.
Catching up on news from the weekend:
- The LPGA Tour Championship, delayed by rain (and mud), wraps up today after being shortened to 54 holes. The Golf Channel covers the final round from 3-5 p.m. ET. The Player of the Year race is down to the wire, with Jiyai Shin holding an 8-point lead over Lorena Ochoa; the winner of this tournament earns 30 points. At the completion of the second round, Shin is in second at 7-under and Ochoa is tied for third at 6-under. Leaderboard
- The European Tour's first Race to Dubai also came down to the wire, with Lee Westwood winning the final tournament, earning a nice bonus check from the Race to Dubai bonus pool, and overtaking Rory McIlroy to win the money title and claim the No. 1 ranking in Europe. Nice work for a weekend. See the European Tour's tournament wrapup.
- Six second-stage qualifiers on the road to PGA Tour Q-School finals were completed on Saturday. Ty Tryon, double-heart transplant recipient Erik Compton, and Jaime Lovemark failed to advance. So did some familiar names: Peter Lonard, Eric Axley, Dean Wilson, Robert Gamez and Kirk Triplett, among others. Justin Peters, the very first Big Break winner, moved on to Q-School finals, along with familiar names such as Shaun Micheel, Arjun Atwal, Carlos Franco, Jason Gore, Brandt Jobe and Mark Hensby. Q-School finals take place Dec. 2-7. See the PGA Tour's Q-School hub for scores from all the qualifiers.
There is nothing seriously wrong with
Michelle Wie's injured ankle - it's just your basic sprained ankle. That was the result of an MRI that Wie underwent on Friday, according to the Golf Channel's Tim Rosaforte.
Wie has apparently been fitted with a walking boot to protect the ankle - she tweeted today, "Got my boot for walking so I'm good!!" - and should be OK to play in the LET Dubai Ladies Masters in a couple weeks.
Although Rosaforte did say that Wie re-injuried the ankle following the LPGA Tour Championship pro-am on Wednesday while "signing autographs." I don't know. If signing autographs is all it takes for Wie to aggravate an injury, I might advise her not to go to Dubai. Shut it down for 2009 and focus on being healthy for 2010.
