By Alex Myers
Playoff losses are never easy, but Joaquin Niemann’s runner-up to Harris English at Kapalua comes with a statistical distinction that might make the result even more heartbreaking. If he even knows about this particular statistical distinction, that is.

We’re pretty sure the 22-year-old golfer was unaware that his 31 birdies during the Sentry Tournament of Champions came within one of the PGA Tour records. And we’re positive he wouldn’t have known whose mark he would have matched. Heck, we’re guessing very few golf fans know about this one.

Turns out, only two golfers have made 32 birdies during a 72-hole event in PGA Tour history. One is Mark Calcavecchia, a major champ with a penchant for going on birdie sprees. Calcavecchia, whose 32-birdie binge came during the 2001 Waste Managment Phoenix Open, also shares the record for consecutive birdies with nine in a row. Yeah, Calc can COOK as the kids say.

But the kids probably don’t know too much about the other member of the 32-birdie club, Paul Gow. Yep, Paul Gow. Oddly enough, the Australian also had his scoring explosion in 2001 at the B.C. Open. But unlike Calc, Gow didn’t win the event, falling in a playoff to Jeff Sluman. Ouch.

In fact, Gow never won a PGA Tour event, and only competed in two majors during his career, missing the cut at both the 2000 and 2002 U.S. Open. Here’s a look at the PGA Tour’s top-10 list of most birdies in a 72-hole event:

At last week's Sentry Tournament of Champions, Joaquin Niemann made 31 birdies, tied for third-most in a 72-hole event in PGA TOUR history. pic.twitter.com/db2a8nmQNR

— PGA TOUR Communications (@PGATOURComms) January 11, 2021

It’s an interesting mix of names to say the least. Also interesting? The fact that only half of the players on the list (Calcavecchia, Andrew Landry, Steve Stricker, Phil Mickelson and John Huston) won those events. In fact, Overton somehow managed to only finish T-27 at that 2013 American Express Championship despite rolling in 31 birdies. How is that possible?!

In other words, don’t sweat it too much, Joaquin. Not that you were. It’s probably for the best the tour didn’t tag the young man in that tweet. . .

The post Joaquin Niemann nearly tied the PGA Tour record for birdies; you’ll never guess who shares the mark appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Mark Calcavecchia went on the PGA Tour’s “Talk of the Tour” podcast last week and told a pretty cool Tiger tale involving the 15-time major champ potentially saving him a lot of money at the 2007 Tour Championship. The two were paired in the final group that Sunday, but like so many other Sundays, Woods had pulled away from the field by the time they reached the 18th hole. As Calcavecchia, a 13-time PGA Tour winner tells it, he blew his birdie putt some eight feet past the final hole and decided to quickly finish up in order to get out of the way for Woods.

That’s when Tiger, who despite being eight shots ahead still knew that Calc was tied with Zach Johnson for second place, intervened with some helpful advice. Have a listen:

Tiger saved @MarkCalc $300,000 at the 2007 @playofffinale. ?

New Talk of the TOUR podcast with @jswanPGATOUR: https://t.co/wOqcDxVsqj pic.twitter.com/smf3PFtYeU

— PGA TOUR Champions (@ChampionsTour) April 25, 2020

Calc converted the par putt and secured one of the biggest checks of his career. “I’ll never forget that, that he came up and said that to me at the time,” Calcavecchia told PGA Tour’s John Swantek. “So that was pretty cool.”

Pretty cool, indeed. Although, somewhere, Tiger’s friend Zach Johnson might have a slightly different take.

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Calcavecchia, 57 and not far removed from contemplating retirement, won the Boca Raton Championship by two shots, his first victory since 2015.

“I just didn’t think it would happen again,” Calcavecchia said, holding back tears. “These guys are so good out here. The level of play is just insane, including Mr. Langer, obviously. It’s so hard.

“I can’t tell you how happy I am and how much this means to me.”

Mr. Langer, otherwise known as Bernhard, has dominated the PGA Tour Champions for several years and made the back nine at the Old Course at Broken Sound uncomfortable for Calcavecchia. But with Langer bogeying the final two holes, Calcavecchia cobbled together enough decent shots to prevail.

It was his fourth PGA Tour Champions victory, following a PGA Tour career that featured 13 wins, including a British Open title in 1989. By today’s standards, it was a borderline Hall of Fame career.

But chronic back pain that was a detriment to his playing decent golf began to wear him down.

“We talked to my wife and she’s like, ‘how much longer do you want to do this?’ And I said, ‘if I keep finishing 60th every week in these tournaments and finishing 66th on the money list, not much longer,’ and I’m only 57. You look at Bernhard and you look at the way some of these guys are playing in their late 50s, I’ve got to do a senior tour 2.0, a second chapter here, otherwise I’m done.”

In December, he had a rhizotomy procedure, “where they burn the nerves in your back,” he said. “So number one, I’m not in excruciating pain for the first time in five years. That helps, which has enabled me to practice, which helps. And I started exercising in December, which helps.”

He has been playing and practicing more than he has in recent years and it paid off. In the first two rounds, he posted scores of 64 and 66 and took a two-stroke lead over Langer into the final round, then matched two-under par 70s with him,

It wasn’t pretty down the stretch. Calcavecchia was leading by one at the par-3 16th hole when he chunked his tee shot into the water. He wound up holing a 15-foot putt for bogey that enabled him to retain a share of the lead.

Langer, who has 36 senior victories that included seven last year, botched the final two holes to allow Calcavecchia to record a wire-to-wire victory.

“Obviously, it was a struggle,” he said, “but thank God I ran out of holes. I made enough putts and sometimes the good Lord just pencils you in. I think this week was just meant to be for some reason.”

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By John Strege
LA JOLLA, Calif. — A jury of his peers did not deliberate long, unlike J.B. Holmes, who deliberated long enough to bring the wrath of its verdict down on him.

The verdict was guilty. Holmes was guilty of slow play at a critical moment—on the 72nd hole of the Farmers Insurance Open on Sunday. Guilty, intentionally or not, of icing a man in the lead, Alex Noren. And guilty, to those watching, of reinforcing the game’s reputation for taking too long.

The situation was this: Jason Day had finished at 10 under par and was tied with Noren, who was in the fairway, 230 yards to the hole, on the par-5 18th on the South Course at Torrey Pines. Holmes, who needed an eagle 3 possibly to tie, was in the fairway, 239 yards to the hole.  

Holmes was away and took four minutes, 10 seconds to decide on a club and to hit his shot. Four minutes, 10 seconds is a good time for a high school miler, but an egregious breach of the rules and etiquette in golf.

The PGA Tour Player Handbook and Tournament Regulations states that “a player is permitted 40 seconds to play a stroke.” It allows an additional 10 seconds for a variety of situations, none of them applicable here. It would have had to allow for an additional 3½ minutes to accommodate Holmes.

Here is a sampling of Twitter reaction from his golf brethren, none of it in defense of Holmes:

Last group was over a hole behind, we can all blame JB…and yes the player should take responsibility for their pace of play, but if they don’t that’s why we have Tour officials – they needed to step in a while ago IMO.

— Luke Donald (@LukeDonald) January 28, 2018

1. JB needs to be fined or better yet given 2 shots
2 Needs eagle to tie. After all that lays up? Really???
3 Horrendous sportsmanship to Noren and Palmer
4 wow ?

— Mark Calcavecchia (@MarkCalc) January 28, 2018

Most tour players aren’t slow but because of a handful of slow ones we all get a bad rep

— Daniel Berger (@DanielBerger59) January 28, 2018

The CBS broadcast crew expressed bewilderment over what Holmes was doing. The crowd ringing the 18th green began to vocally exhort him to hit the shot. Afterward, Golf Channel’s Ryan Lavner asked Holmes whether he regretted his actions. “No, I was still trying to win. So that’s part of it,” Holmes said.

Holmes did not win. He laid up into the rough, made a birdie and finished fourth. Noren, meanwhile, waited patiently, then flew the green with his 3-wood second shot, leading to a par and a playoff with Jason Day and Ryan Palmer.

Related: Torrey playoff spills into Monday as Day-Noren battle for Farmers Insurance Open title

Noren was diplomatic about Holmes’ action. Asked whether it affected him, he said, “Well, not necessarily, not necessarily. It’s just, you know, probably made me switch clubs.”

Noren considered hitting a hybrid, “but I was in a downhill lie and the grain of the fairway was into me. I thought I was going to thin it a bit and I didn’t really fancy being in the water short. I hit the 3-wood. I don’t know where it bounced, but it went past the green.” In hindsight, he said he probably should have laid up, then hit a wedge into the green in an attempt make birdie and win.

In the playoff, Palmer exited on the first hole, and Day and Noren played four more holes without a winner emerging before dark, sending the continuation of the playoff to Monday morning.

Somehow that seemed appropriate, the sun outracing the golfers. The final grouping took nearly six hours to play 18 holes.

We’ll crown a winner on Monday, but the loser on Sunday was the game itself.

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By Kent Gray
Add a world record to the remarkable CV of Dubai golf prodigy Rayhan Thomas.

The 17-year-old Indian amateur sensationally reeled off a record nine successive birdies and flirted with golf’s mythical mark of 59 at the MENA Tour’s Dubai Creek Open on Tuesday.

Thomas eventually signed for a 10-under-par round of 61 to tie the course record at his home Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club, set just 24 hours earlier by Dubai-based South African professional MG Keyser.  After opening with a one-under 70, Thomas’s historic round saw him snatch the clubhouse lead and well and truly rekindle the defence of the title he famously captured as a 16-year-old a year ago, becoming the first amateur to win on the developmental Middle East and North Africa  Pro-Am circuit in the process.

Related: Rayhan’s Dubai Creek Legacy Literally Set In Stone

Tuesday’s nine birdies, achieved courtesy of an impossibly hot putter from holes 2 through 10 at the Creek, saw the correspondence schooled teen provisionally join 1989 Open champion Mark Calcavecchia in the record books with the most successive birdies in an Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR)/professional event.

What a world record equalling card looks like. And signed by 2011 Open champion and Ruder Cup captain Darren Clarke to boot!

Calcavecchia’s run came on holes 12 to 2 (he started on the back nine) at the 2009 RCB Canadian Open on the PGA Tour. Bernd Wiesberger matched the feat at February’s Maybank Championship Open en-route to a 63 although it is not officially recognised as preferred lies were in force at the European Tour event due to wet conditions at Saujana G&CC in Kuala Lumpur.

The world birdie and local course records are further milestones in a young career clearly going places. Before this tournament last year, Thomas was the 1050th ranked amateur in the world. Now he’s up to 50th place on the back of a remarkable run of form which has included making his first professional tournament cut at February’s Omega Dubai Desert Classic and a run to the semifinals of the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship.

“I don’t know what to say” was Thomas initial reaction on learning he was a world record holder. “It certainly wasn’t going through my head, I was just trying to make as many birdies as I could.

“Last year I set the amateur course record [65] in the first round so it feels really good to have the actual course record now and share it with a friend of mine, feels good to have it at my home club.

“I’m very happy. I’ve played well here because I know the course well and to do it front of all the members and my parents was even more special.”

Have you ever had a birdie blitz even remotely close to that before? “Never nine, nine’s a lot,” Thomas conceded after his round in the company of Swede Fredrik From and 2011 Open champion and former European Ryder Cup captain Darren Clarke, the MENA Tour’s patron. “ I just started holing putts. Hit a lot of good iron shots and I was just holing putts all day. Today almost all the putts I looked at, I felt like they could go in. It was just good to keep it going.”

The round was a huge confidence boost for Thomas who is using the tournament as prep for the inaugural Presidents Cup in New Jersey later this month. The 61 certainly won’t have gone unnoticed by International team captain Trevor Immelman, the 2008 U.S. Masters champion.

“It was good to get this good round in, it just shows I have what it takes to go low and going forward for the rest of the season it’s going to be a good memory to fall back on,” he said.

https://twitter.com/JParsonsGolf/status/907535579352616960

Thomas admitted thoughts of shooting 59 “crept in” when he birdied the 10th but his putter cooled every so slightly.

“I just tried to make sure I remembered I have a tournament to play and you know, 59 is not the goal, trying to get myself into contention is, so I didn’t want to do anything silly [in the closing stretch of holes].

“After the first day I was nine back so I know I had to shoot something better than six or seven under to get myself into contention and I was able to achieve that.”

Well done @RayhanThomas , different league @MENAGolfTour #golf #golfer #juniorgolf… https://t.co/MeUSRnvhrd

— Jamie Mcconnell (@JMGolfCoach) September 12, 2017

As for the game plan on Wednesday when Thomas has the chance to emulate MENA Tour record holder Zane Scotland as a back-to-back winner of the Dubai Creek Open? Expect more of the same.

“If I can shoot one more of these I’ll probably be fine [laughs] tomorrow but, no, it will be the same mentality, stick to my game plan, if I can hole putts, I can hole putts, but if not, just be sure I make pars in the right places and attack in the right places.”

The field have been forewarned.

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The 53-year-old Northern Irishman is heading to the UAE early to mix business with pleasure as he prepares for the European Senior Tour season-opener, to be hosted by Sharjah Golf and Shooting Club from March 16-18.

“I have a daughter who lives in Dubai,” the former Ryder Cup star said. “So it will be good to see her and I’ll be heading over to Jumeirah Golf Estates to spend some time at the wonderful European Tour Performance Institute so I’ll be raring to go at Sharjah.”

It is believed the 54-holer is the first main tour event to be played on a 9-hole course. The Ulsterman knows, both as a third year Senior Tour player and from previous experience in Sharjah, that the desire to win while having fun needn’t be mutually exclusive.

“It’s a good course with some tricky greens but it doesn’t feel like a 9-hole course because you’re going in at a different angle on the ‘shared’ holes,” said Rafferty who described the European Senior Tour as “a bit like attending a series of old reunions”.

“The [Sharjah Senior Invitational] Pro-Am last year was a lot of fun and the banter between the players and spectators had everyone inter-acting with each other. That’s one of the features of the Senior Tour.  We’re all totally focused on winning but that doesn’t stop us sharing a few jokes and having a laugh with the galleries.

Rafferty was the European Tour’s No.1 in 1988 thanks to three wins that season, which earned him a place in the 1989 Ryder Cup at The Belfry where he captured a crucial point with a 1-up win over Mark Calcavecchia in the singles to help Europe to a 14-14 draw and successfully retain the Cup.

“The Ryder Cup has a fantastic atmosphere and let’s hope we can create some friendly noise at Sharjah next month,” the seven-time European Tour winner said.

Rafferty (far right, top row) was a star of the 1989 Ryder Cup at The Belfry

“As Senior Tour players we’ve got to do everything we can to give spectators a reason to attend the event and join in and the two days of Pro-Ams on the Tuesday and Wednesday, prior to the main event on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, has all the hallmarks of an outstanding week of fun-filled top-class golf.

“It would be great if next month’s Sharjah Senior Golf Masters were to lead to another Senior Tour event in the region.”

Entry to the tournament, the first European Senior Tour event in the UAE since 2000 and to be held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Mohammad Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah, is free.

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