THE PGA Mail is an exclusive weekly email news service which is provided free to subscribers across the golf industry in all parts of the world by the PGA of Australia.
The PGA Mail brings you a complete round-up of almost every professional and major golf tournament involving Australians played around the world at the weekend.
And the PGA Mail also offers some other interesting news from all corners of the golf industry. For instance this afternoon’s PGA Mail newsletter will include these items plus the latest world rankings and what’s on this week:
THE Pro Shop golf show, which is sponsored by the PGA of Australia, will be shown tonight on Ten’s HD Channel One at 10pm. Aimed at entertaining golf fans of all ages and abilities, it is hosted by Andy Maher and PGA Member Grant Dodd. The show will include interviews with professional golfers, tips on how to play by PGA Member Glenn Whittle, behind the scenes segments from the best tournaments in Australia and highlights from the weekend's events around the globe. The Pro Shop will be repeated at 1.15am Friday and at 1pm on Saturday. ONE will also show an hour of highlights from the Subaru Victorian Open from 12 noon Saturday.
FOX sports this week will be showing the European Tour’s Avantha Indian Masters (from Thursday night to Sunday night) the US PGA Tour Pebble Beach pro-am (from Friday morning until Monday morning) and the US Champion’s Tour Ace Group Classic (from Saturday to Monday).
THE Golf Show on Fox Sports, hosted by PGA Member Brett Ogle, will resume tonight at 7.30pm and will be replayed later tonight and three times tomorrow.
PETER Senior will make his US Champions Tour debut this week in the 54-holes Ace Golf Classic in Florida. The $1.8 million event has attracted a very strong field headed by 2009 Champions Tour player of the year Bernhard Langer and multi-winner Jay Haas as well as defending champion Loren Roberts. Senior, the Australian PGA Seniors Champion, made it to the rich US Champions Tour after winning the Tour Qualifying School by three shots. Other new over-50 graduates to play this week will be US Tour stars Fred Couples, Corey Pavin, Paul Azinger and Tommy Armour III.
THE inaugural Moonah Amateur Classic played over the first three days of last week’s Nationwide Tour co-sanctioned Moonah Classic event, was a resounding success attracting 15 teams from all over Australia from corporate and consumer backgrounds. The winning three-player team was from Deloittes ahead of a team from Coca-Cola Amatil and a ClubLinks combination. After playing in Wednesday's official pro-am the Amateur Classic players, were joined by a host of sports and television stars for the second round including Michael Tuck, who was part of the winning team, Sam Newman, James Brayshaw, Michael Roberts and Dean Jones. The Moonah Amateur Classic supported the E.J.Whitten Foundation, which was represented on the day by Ted Whitten Junior. For more details go to www.pga.org.au
The US PGA Tour has named the International Management Group as the operations partner for The Presidents Cup 2011, which will be held at Royal Melbourne Golf Club from November 17-20, 2011. The US Tour’s website www.pgatour.com reports: “IMG will work in concert with the PGA Tour’s Championship Management staff and be responsible for all on-site event operational components. IMG owns, operates or manages nearly 40 tournaments around the world including the Australian Masters. “IMG's extensive experience in operating tournaments around the world, and specifically in Australia, will be a valuable asset to the Tour as The Presidents Cup returns to Royal Melbourne Golf Club,” said Matt Kamienski, executive director of The Presidents Cup. “The Victorian Government and people of Melbourne hosted a first-class event in 1998 and everyone involved looks forward to another exciting event down under in two years.’’
AUSTRALIA will have five players in next week’s World Matchplay Championship in Arizona - Geoff Ogilvy, Robert Allenby, Adam Scott and aussie young gun Michael Sim. The top 64 world-ranked golfers, as of last Sunday, have qualified for the event. However with two of the top three qualifiers – Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson – unlikely to tee it up Sunday’s Northern Trust Open winner Steve Stricker will be the number one seed. Woods has until Friday to decide if he will take his place in the field but Mickelson already has said he won’t play, due to a family holiday, postponed by his wife’s illness. Sunday was the cutoff for players to qualify based on the world ranking. Assuming that Woods doesn't play and no one else withdraws, among the first-round matches would be Japanese star Ryo Ishikawa against Michael Sim.
TIGER Woods is still the world's top athlete brand, according to the authoritative Forbes magazine, despite the golf star's loss of many corporate sponsors recently. The business magazine estimated in its second annual “Fab 40” list that Woods still represents the top sports brand by athlete, with an estimated annual income value of about $90 million. Forbes said Woods' sponsor deals with Nike Inc, Electronic Arts Inc and Procter & Gamble Co's Gillette brand will allow him to remain the world's highest paid athlete this year. His total earnings were larger than that of the next five athletes combined, according to Forbes. Footballer David Beckham (about $23 million), tennis star Roger Federer (about $18 million), NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. ($15 million) and National Basketball Association stars LeBron James and Kobe Bryant ($14 million and $13 million, respectively) rounded out the top six.
AUSTRALIAN Women’s Open organisers are hoping for a world class field at Commonwealth Golf Club in Melbourne next month following Karrie Webb’s commitment to play the event for the next three years. The Melbourne Herald Sun newspaper reported that “a crack field at the ANZ Ladies Masters on the Gold Coast in the first week of March has heightened hopes of most of the world's best coming to Melbourne the following week.” The Masters has announced that its field would contain eight of the top 20 and 15 of the top 50 in the world rankings. It boasts three of last year's four major winners -- American Brittany Lincicome, South Korean Eun Hee Ji and Swede Anna Nordqvist . The talented group will headline the field, the first time any Australian tournament has managed the feat. The ANZ Ladies Masters will be played at Royal Pines on the Gold Coast from March 4.
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