Se Ri Pak Wins McDonalds Championship
LPGA
Se Ri Pak surprised everyone by coming from behind to win in a playoff in the LPGA McDonalds Championship on Sunday. Pak defeated Karrie Webb on the first playoff hole by sticking her 2nd shot about three inches from the pin. Webb could have extended the playoff by making her birdie attempt, but it was not to be for the surging Webb. This was definitely like old times with Pak and Webb going head-to-head in the playoff; the only thing missing to make it complete was Annia Sorenstam.
Michelle Wie shot an even par 72, but left numerous opportunities on the course because she’s lacking consistency with her putter. If I was David Leadbetter (her swing coach), I’d hire the best putting coach I could find (or hire Ben Crenshaw away from the Champions Tour) and have her concentrate almost entirely on her putter between now and the Women’s U.S. Open. From tee-to-green, Wie is as good as anyone on the LPGA, but she took 35 putts on Sunday and that will get you nowhere fast playing professional golf.
Mike Ritz from the Golf Channel had a very revealing interview with Annika Sorenstam after she completed her round on Sunday and it was refreshing to hear Sorenstam talk openly about a number of topics. She’s obviously not happy with the state of her game, but she continues to work very hard to try and find the magic again. She made a great comment about seeing parts of the golf course she’s not used to seeing! Ritz asked her to talk about the penalty stroke she incurred on Saturday when she removed a divot that was next to her ball, in order to make it look better. She was very candid and said she has no idea what prompted her to remove and replace the divot, but she knows it was wrong and had no problem with the penalty stroke.
PGA
Vijay Singh is back! Singh won the Barclays classic on Sunday by two strokes over Adam Scott. It’s good to see Singh win again as he’s a refreshing interview in the press room after he’s won a tournament. With his win, Singh moved to 3rd place in the world rankings replacing Retief Goosen. Speaking of which…Goosen and Els have yet to win this year on American soil, which is very surprising considering their place in the top 5 every year. Word is that Els is still having knee-related recovery problems and has in fact created other swing problems because he’s tried to over=compensate for his knee by doing other things with his swing.