Golf Special Report: The highlights of golf in 2010 (Part 2)
Where some motivational words encouraged players to do better, wrong decisions also caused empires to collapse. In the second part of the highlights, first up is the downfall of Sea Island.
Luxurious Sea Island
This breathtaking resort and golf course was subject to bankruptcy in August due to the economic recession. The company was in more than a billion dollar in debt mainly due to a wrongly timed renovation project. In November, the resort was sold for $212
million dollar to a group of investment firms. The firms then sold off parcels to Wayne Huizenga, Herb Kohler and many more. If it hadn’t been for Tiger Woods, Sea Island would have been the most popular fame-to-doom story.
Time to Wake up Furyk
Jim Furyk was dismissed from the Barclay’s since he didn’t attend the early pro-am event. It wasn’t really the 40 year olds fault. He had put the alarm on his phone and with his phone dying, neither did the alarm ring and nor did Jim win. Despite not playing
the Barclay’s, Furyk won the Tour Championship and the Fed Ex Cup and also became the PGA player of the year. After the winless 2009, this year was precisely what Furyk needed. Three wins, an award was a perfect wake up call for Jim Furyk.
Juggling the rankings
This year the rankings surely got the attention of all the golf fans. Official World Golf Rankings and even the Rolex Rankings for women golf were very static this year. With Lorena Ochoa retiring, the top stop was tossed back and forth between players such
as Ai Miyazato, Cristie Kerr and Jiyai Shin. Week after week, the ladies got to taste glory one by one.
On the men’s side, the downfall of Tiger Woods was indicating the loss of his top spot as well. Critiques said a player, who hasn’t played for four months and even on his return hasn’t won shouldn’t really be number one. On the other hand, they didn’t really
agree to Lee Westwood being number one either. This was because Lee hadn’t won a major yet and a number one with out a major win didn’t quite sound right. Still somehow, according to the points system, Westwood did become the world number one and ended Tiger
Wood’s reign of five years. That was surely a big thing since Phil Mickelson, who had had twelve chances to become number one, didn’t quite avail the opportunity.
Italian brothers shine through
2010 was a good year for the Molinari’s as well. Edoardo Molinari won the Barclays Scottish Open and the Johnnie Walker Championship. On the other one, Francesco won the WGC-HSBC Champions. It appeared as if either one of the brothers were competing every
week. The Molinari siblings also made the Ryder Cup this year and both of them made their way into the top 20 of the world rankings as well. Francesco finished 6th on the Race to Dubai, whereas Edoardo finished in number eleventh. All in all, this
year was good for the Italians and they hope to continue their success in 2011.
Matt Kuchar
If Kuchar were to win an award this year, it would definitely be the ‘didn’t see that coming award.’ Winning the Barclays and playing very well this whole year, Kuchar showed everyone what a talented player he is. Not letting the media’s low expectations
of him get him down, Matt gave very consistent performance through out the year. He finished number two on the Fed Ex standings and number one in earnings with $4,910,477. Having 11 top ten finishes, and a scoring average of 69.61, Kuchar is headed into 2011
with a lot of confidence.
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