August 15th, 2011 | 
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Posts Tagged ‘arnold palmer’
2011 Majors Aggregate Champion
Champion Golfer of the Year...?
Charl Schwartzel is the Majors Aggregate Champion of 2011! That means that among the golfers who made the cut in all four major championships Schwartzel used the fewest strokes over the 16 round marathon. In fact I’d love to see more made out of this “event” which entails 288 holes played on 16 days spread over a period of 5 months. What do you think? Read on.
Schwartzel bested Steve Stricker and Sergio Garcia by 10 strokes. This year there were only 11 golfers that made the cut in all four majors – an average number. Charl actually made the cut in all four majors last year too!
Here are the standings:
Charl Schwartzel: 274-280-285-279–1118
Steve Stricker: 283-283-283-279–1128
Sergio Garcia: 288-279-282-279–1128
Rory McIlroy: 284-268-287-291–1130
Y.E. Yang: 284-278-285-292–1132
Ryan Palmer: 282-284-289-280–1135
Phil Mickelson: 287-291-278-280–1136
Gary Woodland: 286-285-289-279–1139
Bill Haas: 290-285-294-279–1143
Bubba Watson: 289-293-289-281–1152
Edoardo Molinari: 283-291-297-292–1163
I was surprised by the finishes put up by Sergio and Ryan Palmer – might be a sign of things to come.
Colin McGillivray tracks the majors aggregate each year on his website www.golf-majors-champion.com and has compiled the annual results going back to 1960.
Here are a few interesting points:
Largest margin of victory – 35 strokes Tiger Woods (2000)
Could this be the greatest year of golf ever? I believe so.
Most wins – Jack Nicklaus (10)
Who is the greatest golfer of all time? Tiger Woods has won this “event” 5 times – good enough for second best, and while he’s not done (maybe?) it’s a tall order to expect him to do this 5 more times. Not even close folks – Jack rules!
Jack is Best
Most golfers to qualify – 2000 18 players
Fewest golfers to qualify (in the modern era) – 1988 4 players
Highest winning total - Gary Player (1963) 1156
Lowest winning total – Tiger Woods (2000) 1095
Longest timespan for qualifying - Jack Nicklaus 29years (1962-1991)
Most times qualified – Jack Nicklaus 21
Highest recorded score while qualifying – 1182 Arnold Palmer (1983) and Tommy Aaron (1970)
The King and the Best
Looking through the list of qualifiers it is uncanny how many exceptional golfers appear on a regular basis. Based on this year’s Majors a few players are moving up while some notable players are moving down – and just about out.
Up – Schwartzel, Yang, Bubba, Garcia, McIlroy, Woodland, Watney, Stricker, Kuchar, D. Johnson, J. Day, Karlsson and Scott.
Down – Woods, Stenson, Els, Goosen, Villegas, Weir, Casey and Vijay.
Do yourself a favor and take a look at the list of results over the years. It really does speak to the quality of the players that appear on the list time and time again. In my opinion measuring a golfers play in the year’s four biggest events is an excellent barometer of who has had an exemplary year. Thoughts?
Interview with Ernie Els
Jeff Rude from Golfweek gives a candid video interview to Ernie Els. Interesting to hear Els’ commentary about his ‘94 US Open win and the significance that Nelson Mandela and Arnold Palmer had for him that year.
Posted in Commentary | 
Tags: arnold palmer, ernie els, golfweek, jeff rude, nelson mandela | 
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Swing Methods and the Fifteen Second Flameout
Butch Harmon
Have you ever noticed how various swing fads seem to come and go? It seems like just the other day that Bennett and Plummer’s “Stack and Tilt” swing was the only way to hit a ball properly. How about David Leadbetter? When was the last time you heard from him or one of his players? Do you remember Jimmy Ballard and “connection”? What about Jim Hardy and his “One Plane Swing”? It boggles my mind how these methods pop up, become the hot item and then flare out almost as quickly as they arrived on the scene. They all have one thing in common that led to their ’success’; a tour golfer who wins an event or two with this ‘new and amazing swing’ they just learned. The golfer, feeling indebted to the teacher, proudly proclaims that they could not have achieved their success without this newly discovered way to swing. Please!
Understand that most of these ideas are thought up by very intelligent and well educated golf teachers. The problem I have with these methodologies, however, is that they set their own style of swinging the club. In other words, the club must be swung in a certain fashion for it to work or function correctly. I say an emphatic, “Nonsense!” I do not claim to know everything about the golf swing, but I do know that every great player has a different swing that produces fantastic results – or they would not be great! There cannot possibly be one ‘correct’ way to swing the club!
David Leadbetter
It’s a classic case of putting form before function! “If you swing this new and amazing way you will achieve desired results!” The best players of all time have always had a knack of getting the club on the ball correctly and the game today is no different. A feathery needed to be stuck the same way a ProV1X needs to be hit. Well almost! If every golfer out there could understand impact and physics that make the ball go in the right place AND the wrong place they would be far better off. What difference is perfecting the wrist angle at position seven in the moveaway going to make in your game and ability to compress a golf ball! Form will always follow function. Just ask Lee Trevino, Arnold Palmer, Raymond Floyd, Bobby Jones, Nancy Lopez, Walter Hagen, Bobby Locke…….
Function must be King when you work on your game. Get the ball to sound, feel and fly like you want it to and you are a happy, and very good, golfer!
Things to Ponder:
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Watching the AT&T on Sunday looked like the King (Tiger) was taking his young Prince (Kim) out for a little schooling.
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Anyone got an over under on the number of days before Carolyn Bivens is out as the LPGA commissioner?
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Why when a golfer sets up with their body aiming left it is an ‘open’ stance and when their clubface is aiming right it is an ‘open’ face? Blame the Scots and single malt whiskey for that one.
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I have a feeling Paddy Harrington will be back in contention at next weeks ‘Open’ Championship.
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A claim could be made that Phil has choked away both majors so far this year!?
Hey, thanks for reading and please tell your friends about this amazing new website that is the latest and greatest golf blog in the whole wide world!!
Posted in Commentary, Swing Philosophy |
Tags: arnold palmer, bennett and plummer, bobby locke, butch harmon, carolyn bivens, david leadbetter, feathery, Harrington, jim hardy, jimmy ballard, kim, lee trevino, LPGA, phil, stack and tilt, swing method, tiger |
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