What-you-need-to-know-about-golf-in-2011

This week marks the real start of the golf season with the PGA Tour's first full-field event at the Sony Open in Honolulu. The first round was washed out Thursday because of heavy overnight rain that left too much water on Waialae Country Club. The first two rounds will be played today and Saturday, with 36 holes played Sunday.
  

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Free Press sports writer Carlos Monarrez highlights what you need to know about golf -- and its Michigan ties -- in 2011.
WHEN WILL TIGER PLAY?: Tiger Woods is expected to make his season debut Jan. 27 in the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, where he has won seven times. For the first time in his career, Woods, 35, is coming off a winless season. In 12 tournaments, Woods had only two top-10 finishes -- albeit both were four-place ties in the Masters and the U.S. Open -- and he lost the top spot in the world ranking for the first time in more than five years.
MICHIGAN MEN: The Great Lakes State will boast two players on the PGA Tour this year. Rookie Justin Hicks, 36, grew up in Riverview and graduated from Grosse Ile High and Michigan. He earned a promotion from the Nationwide Tour's money list last season. Veteran Tom Gillis, 42, of Lake Orion had a strong season in 2010, when he won $1.16 million and finished 76th on the money list. Gillis will open the season at the Sony.  

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THE MAJORS: This year's rotation features the Masters on April 7-10, the U.S. Open on June 16-19 at Congressional in Bethesda, Md., the British Open on July 14-17 at Royal St. George's in England and the PGA Championship on Aug. 11-14 at Atlanta Athletic Club.
SENIOR MOMENT: Speaking of majors, the U.S. Senior Open returns July 28-31 to Inverness Club in Toledo, which hosted the seniors' most prestigious major in 2003. Let this year's tourney whet your appetite for next year's installment at Indianwood Golf and Country Club in Lake Orion.
FARR ON HOLD: With a major coming to the Toledo area and the economy still wheezing along, the Jamie Farr tournament, a longtime fixture on the LPGA tour, will take a one-year hiatus.
MICHIGAN WOMEN: But as one women's event exits, another enters. The Futures Tour, the LPGA's main developmental tour, comes to the Upper Peninsula when Sweetgrass Golf Club near Harris hosts the inaugural Island Resort Championship on June 24-26.
HAPPY 100TH: The venerable Michigan Amateur celebrates its centennial by going Up North. This year's event will be on the Heather Course at Boyne Highlands Resort in Harbor Springs.
WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR: The 2012 golf calendar in Michigan could be a whopper. We'll have the U.S. Senior Open and the Senior PGA Championship in Benton Harbor, plus the Farr near Toledo and a potential return of the PGA Tour with a General Motors event as a possibility at Detroit Golf Club.  
    

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67-year-old teeing it up in Sony Open field

Dave Eichelberger is a name you might vaguely recognize. The four-time PGA Tour winner and, perhaps most notably, the 1999 US Senior Open winner is now 67-years-old. And this week, he will be making his first PGA Tour start in more than 17 years.
 

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Eichelberger is a part of the field at the Sony Open in Hawaii. How did he manage to get into the event? He won the PGA Aloha Section Stroke Play Championship last September. Shooting his age in the final round of that event to win earned him a berth into the Honolulu PGA Tour stop.
The ’99 US Senior Open winner was an ironman during both his PGA Tour and Champions Tour careers. As Ann Miller of the Honolulu Advertiser shares, Eichelberger is second in career starts among the PGA, Champions and Nationwide Tours. He moved to Hawaii the year before his USSO triumph and has remained there since.
Waialae, host to the Sony Open, provides Eichelberger with a chance to become the oldest player in PGA Tour history to make a cut. Ben Hogan currently holds the distinction, but at 7068 yards, Waialae is short enough to allow the elder player to be able to compete. With knowledge of the tricky greens, Eichelberger is not as much of a long shot to make the cut as one might think.

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Eichelberger last played in this event seven years ago, missing the cut badly with a two round total of 17-over par. Prior to that, his last start at Waialae came in 1991 with a similar MC. His best career finish in 18 starts in the event is a T8 in 1983.
The oldest player to play in a PGA Tour event is Jerry Barber, who played in the 1994 Buick Invitational at age 77. 

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SA stars boost Eastern Cape golf development

South Africa’s leading golfers have again answered the call from golf development, teaming up to support the growth of the game in the Eastern Cape.
At the official gala dinner for the Africa Open, Retief Goosen, Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel announced their joint donation of R100 000 to golf development in the region. “The Africa Open has done an amazing job in bringing top professional golf back to the Eastern Cape, and as players we feel strongly about continuing this process by giving the children here something to aspire to in the game, and also the means to do so,” said double US Open champion Goosen.

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Councillor Zukisa Faku, the Executive Mayor of Buffalo City, was delighted with the announcement.
“We share a common pride for an event that has come to represent honour and prestige for the people of Buffalo City, indeed for the people of the entire Amathole District.


“The Africa Open has been a story of successful cooperation between local government, the private sector and the national and international golfing fraternity.  
“We need to concentrate the willing efforts of national and international professionals in a programme to establish a golf academy here in Buffalo City.

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“We have to think outside the box to anchor golf as an alternative sport for our youth, allowing them to graduate from the pro-ams to the professional stage.”
Khaya Ngqula, the promoter of the Africa Open, also announced the formation of The Richer Future Foundation, which aims to provide further impetus to golf development initiatives in this region.

“The Foundation will focus on golf, and other sports, that can help with deserving causes in this region. We have taken the time to think carefully about this to make sure it runs professionally and makes the kind of real impact it needs to.”

Both Oosthuizen and Schwartzel were also delighted to partner development initiatives in this region, having both been involved in the Development Golf Clinic at the start of this year’s tournament, where they and other professionals hosted children from the South African Golf Development Board.
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“These are our future champions and we feel honoured to be able to share our time and resources with them in helping them to achieve their goals,” said Oosthuizen.
“We all had to start somewhere, with somebody giving us help. I’m proud to be able to do the same now,” added Schwartzel.