Feature Story

The PGA tour has been a fun season to watch so far this year. Many unexpected events have happened so far this year. Also many expected events have happened this year. People have been following Tigers return and his attempt to come back and dominate the PGA tour again.

The PGA tour started out strong again with its first two tournaments being played in Hawaii like normal. Two PGA tour veterans won the first two events in Hawaii, the winners being Geoff Ogilvy and Zach Johnson. After spending the first two weeks in Hawaii the PGA tour went on its west coast swing. Pat Perez got his first career win and other tournaments being won by PGA tour veterans like Phil Mickelson and Kenny Perry. The PGA tour had ten events before the great Tiger Woods made his return after his epic win the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines last year. He just came off having knee surgery and his wife Elin, having his second child Charlie. The first event he decided to come back to was the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championships. Tiger made it past the first round winning 3 & 2 against Australia’s Brendon Jones. The second round was not as good for Tiger and he lost to South Africa’s Tim Clark 4 & 2. Geoff Ogilvy went on and continued his up and coming but yet still quiet dominating career with a win over Paul Casey. My friend Blake said “Geoff Ogilvy is a dominating golfer he will start to get more credit and soon will be considered one of the best in the game.” This is Geoff’s second win of the season and with the other tournaments he played this year has him in second play only behind Zach Johnson who also has two wins this year including one in Hawaii like Geoff Ogilvy.

Phil Mickelson has been off to a great start this year winning the Northern Trust Open and CA Championships. Phil is currently third in the FedEx Cup race and has had very early success this season. He made a run on the Sunday of the final day of the Masters while charging up the leader board on the front nine dual with rival Tiger Woods. He unfortunately pulled a Phil Mickelson choke and hit one in the water on the back nine and his chance on winning was gone. Phil has been struck with some bad news recently when he learned his wife has breast cancer. He has made the decision to stop golfing to be with her and his family when they go through this hard time. I asked my dad what he thought about the situation and he said “I think this is a tough moment for Phil and his family he is at the top of his career but, family comes first and hopefully everything works out for him.”

The Masters is the first of four majors that they have in the PGA tour season. This year’s Masters was from April 9th-12th. This year’s winner was Angel Cabrera of Argentina. Angel shot a nice twelve under par and won on in a playoff with Chad Campbell and Kenny Perry. In the first playoff hole Angel hit his ball in the trees to the right of the fairway, then on his next shot he hit a tree and the ball hit the tree and flew to the middle of the fairway. Chad Campbell missed a putt on the first playoff hole to be eliminated. Then on the second playoff hole Angel Cabrera beat Kenny Perry and won his second major and it was his second PGA tour event! My brother Ryan said “In all it was a good Masters I wanted Kenny Perry to win the playoff but Angel just played better at the end and deserved it more.”

There a three more Majors this year including the U.S. Open at Bethpage Black in New York, the British Open Championship in Scotland and the PGA Championship. The PGA Championship this year is at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minnesota. Last time when the PGA Championship was at Hazeltine I went to the event and Rich Beem won and Tiger Woods got second place. It was a popular event then and I bet it will be popular again this year. I asked my friend Joey if he was going to go and he said “I would love to go to the PGA Championship but I am sure the tickets will be expensive and you would not be able to see much of the tournament.

The season has been a very fun one to watch and I bet will be fun to watch from now on. Hopefully Tiger can turn it around and start winning events and hopefully Phil’s wife gets better and he gets back on the course. Overall it should be fun to watch and to stay tuned for all summer.