golfweloveit

Walking on frozen grass on the course or practice ground can kill the grass. Please stay off it until it has thawed. Greenkeeping 101.

Marcus Kinhaut, the 22 year old Swede, held off Matt Wallace, defending champion Eddie Pepperell and superb left handed rookie Bob MacIntyre, to win the British Masters at Hillside GC. He was excellent on the greens showing nerves of steel as he rolled in a 10 foot putt for birdie at the last after recovering from bogeys on the 15th and 16th holes. He said “my knees were shaking, my hands were shaking, I don’t know how I managed it”.

While the tournament, which dates back to 1946 and has been won by many of the top European players, suffered from its position in the calendar, the week before a major championship, and thus not putting out a strong field, it was lucky to attract a new 2 year sponsorship deal with Betfred after Sky Sports pulled out.

The good news is that next year the tournament will be moved to a better date July 30-August 2 2020, and will be hosted again by Lee Westwood at Close House, Northumberland. This is a repeat of the successful combination of host and venue in 2017 which attracted crowds of 70,000 during the week.

Lee Westwood said “It will be fun to host a second time, we’ll do some interesting things. Last time we were hitting balls off the Tyne Bridge and in St James Park football ground”

If the European Tour would only get behind this tournament and make it a Rolex Series event like the BMW PGA, also held in England, then it may return to its former prestige.

What an extraordinary rise for Max Homa who has won the Wells Fargo Championship with a -4 under 67 final round, Justin Rose took 3rd place. A distinguished amateur Homa won the 2013 NCAA individual title and played in the Walker Cup alongside Justin Thomas. But his professional career got off to a shaky start which saw him going back to the web.com tour. After getting through Q School again in 2017 he made only $18000 all season after making only two cuts. He said that he was streaky, very bad.

This season didnt start well either. Homa began as 836th in the World Rankings and he missed the first six cuts. He says that the improvement has been in his driving (in the week of the PGA Championship Max won the Long Drive Competition) and also his attitiude, he says he doesnt get down on himself.

He’s now won $1.42 million with this win, what a comeback. Looks like his caddie is a member of ZZ Top.

The 7th of May has come round again. Eight years ago we lost Seve. Destino.