To help get the New Year off to a great start, two-thirds of the GolfersWest staff are going to Kauai, the northernmost island in Hawaii, to play four of the best courses anywhere in this small world of ours.
We are calling it “The Kauai Grand Slam.”
Bob Sherwin, the CEO, and senior writer Jim Street, will spend next week playing Makai, Kauai Lagoons, Poipu Bay and Prince and reporting on each of them. There have been major improvements done at several of those courses in the past couple of years and we’re looking forward to writing about our experiences on each course and passing them along to our plethora of readers.
Be sure to check out our upcoming stories and photos of paradise.
Jimenez breaks leg in skiing accident
The New Year has gotten off to a bad start for longtime PGA Tour star Miguel Angel Jimenez.
The cigar-smoking Jimenez suffered a broken leg during a skiing accident, an injury that could sideline the seemingly ageless Spanish golfer for several months.
The injury reportedly occurred when the 48-year-old fell while skiing in the Sierra Nevada range of Andalucia in southern Spain. Jimenez was taken to a hospital in nearby Malaga, where he was operated on successfully.
“Miguel Angel Jimenez underwent an operation yesterday and he will not be able to play again for about five months due to a serious injury to his right leg,” said spokeswoman Maria Acacia Lopez-Bachillez in a press release. According to the statement, Jimenez broke his right tibia below the knee.
The injury comes at an unfortunate time for “El Mecanico,” who just last month became the oldest winner on the European Tour with his triumph at the UBS Hong Kong Open. Jimenez, who served as a vice-captain for the victorious European team at this year’s Ryder Cup, displayed veteran perspective while first addressing the injury.
“It will take me three, four or five months to fully recover and play again at a competitive level,” he said according to the statement. “I have been playing well but that’s just the way it goes in life.”
PGA Tour sets fall tournaments in 2013
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FL – The PGA Tour has announced the first six tournaments, through the end of the 2013 calendar year, for the newly structured 2013-2014 season. The full schedule will be announced later next year.
All six tournaments will award full FedExCup points and be televised on Golf Channel. Three will be contested outside the United States including the final event, the OHL Classic at Mayakoba in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. It moves to its own unencumbered week of November 11-17 after having been held in February opposite the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship in previous years.
“We are very pleased that the start to the 2013-2014 PGA Tour Season features such strong events, including several international tournaments,” said Andy Pazder, Chief of Operations for the Tour. “Due to the change from the traditional calendar season to the newly configured schedule that bridges two calendar years, we felt it was important to announce this first portion of the schedule.”
The 2013-2014 season will get underway with the Frys.com Open October 10-13 in San Martin, CA, the week following The Presidents Cup 2013. The PGA Tour then moves to the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open in Las Vegas October 17-20 before going overseas for two straight weeks.
The CIMB Classic becomes an official Tour event for the first time and will be held October 24-27 at The MINES Resort & Golf Club in Selangor, Malaysia. That is followed by the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions at Sheshan International Golf Club in Shanghai, China, November 1-4. As with all official Tour events, the winners will qualify for the Hyundai Tournament of Champions.
The Tour then returns to the U.S. with The McGladrey Classic November 7-10 at Sea Island, GA before ending with the OHL Classic at Mayakoba, which will be contested November 14-17. The official PGA TOUR season then breaks before resuming in January 2014 at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions.
The 2013-2014 schedule will not include an event at Walt Disney World Resort.
Perry-O’Hair win Shootout
NAPLES, Fla. – A two-shot lead heading into the final round of the Franklin Templeton Shootout on Sunday held up for Kenny Perry and Sean O’Hair.
The duo birdied five of the final six holes to hold off Rory Sabbatini and Charles Howell III by one shot.
The 52-year-old Perry became the oldest player to win the Shootout, and also won for the third time with a different partner. He won with John Huston in 2005 and Scott Hoch in 2008.
“All three have been different,” Perry said of his Shootout victories. “John and I were pretty even partners, and then the year Scott and I won, I played fantastic that week. … This year, my roles have been reversed, and I was complementing Sean.”
Jason Dufner and Vijay Singh finished third at 28 under.
“I think that was kind of the best thing about this was just we had a ton of fun, just like being a kid enjoying what you’re doing,” O’Hair said.
A torrid back nine, including an eagle on a par 4, enabled Sabbatini and Howell to put some heat on the winners at the Gold Course at Tiburon Golf Club.
“We played really well and gave ourselves a lot of opportunities,” Sabbatini said. “We put a good number up there and that’s all we can really do. We had a lot of fun and Charles hit the ball fantastically.”
Perry and O’Hair became the seventh second-round leaders to go on to win the tournament in the last 12 years. While other teams were making charges at them, and sometimes briefly catching them, they had fewer holes left to play than Perry and O’Hair.
“I knew they were going to probably catch up to us at some point, but I knew we had holes to catch back up to them,” Perry said. “You can’t really get too far ahead of yourself out there in that field. You just kind of play each hole.”
Stewart Cink and Carl Petterssson, first-round leaders Davis Love III and Brandt Snedeker, and 2009 champions Jerry Kelly and Steve Stricker and were another shot back in a tie for fourth.
Love and Snedeker could never get going.
“We put the ball in the fairway all day, but never really got close into the greens,” Love said. “We were 15 to 30 feet all day today, and we weren’t as sharp this weekend as we were Friday.”
Perry and O’Hair led by two shots going into the final round. They will split $750,000 of the $3 million purse.