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Safeway Open golf: Stewart Cink clinches first title since 2009 British Open to end 11-year winless run

San Francisco: Stewart Cink ended an 11-year drought with a victory in the US PGA Tour Safeway Open on Sunday, his first win since his 2009 British Open triumph. Cink fired eight birdies in a seven-under par 65 at Silverado Resort in Napa, California, his 21-under total of 267 giving him a two-shot win over Harry Higgs. Cink, 47, acknowledged that he sometimes wondered in the years since he out-dueled Tom Watson in a playoff at Turnberry if he would reach the winner’s circle again. But he kept his nerve Sunday, following a three-putt bogey at 17 that reduced his lead to one stroke with a birdie at the par-five 18th — where he reached the green in two and two-putted from 44 feet. “When you get (to be) 47 like I am, you just don’t really know if you’re ever going to be able to close the door on another one,” said a beaming Cink. “I’ve been at times in the position to get it done and haven’t. This was just a really special week where I’ve had a lot of good things going with my golf.” Cink started the day two shots off…

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Tweaks Rory McIlroy would like to see the PGA Tour make

ORLANDO, Fla. – Rory McIlroy made it clear in Mexico that the floated Premier Golf League isn’t for him. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t interested in making a few tweaks to the PGA Tour. Speaking to the media after his Wednesday pro-am at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, McIlroy was asked again about the “Premier League” and what structural changes he might like to make to the PGA Tour’s setup and schedule. “Are we talking about football or golf ” he joked, in reference to the Premier League. Then he turned a little more thoughtful and prefaced that he didn’t want to come across “as all sort of elitist.” But McIlroy’s general point was that he’d like to see the PGA Tour increase the numbers of no-cut events with smaller fields. He specifically cited tournaments on the Asian swing, the CJ Cup and Zozo Championship, as examples. Of course, an increase in events that cater to fewer players might cut into playing opportunities for Tour members of lesser stature, be it Korn Ferry graduates trying to establish themselves or guys playing out of categories further down the priority list looking to improve their standing. This…

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These insanely fast racing drones capture golf shots as you’ve never seen them

We may have reached a new frontier in golf video content, thanks mostly to racing drones and one helluva pilot. A Seattle drone pilot named Ross Beck recently released an incredible video of golf shots, up close and personal, from tee to green, all shot via a drone that can fly 85 mph. Beck and the production company Motion State spent an afternoon at Avalon Links (just north of Seattle) flying a racing drone alongside approach shots into a par-3. The results are mesmerizing. Real-life footage that mimics the type of tracking shots only seen in video games. Check it out for yourself. Beck does this type of drone work in all kinds of places (not just golf courses), but a number of golf- and drone-loving followers flooded his account Wednesday. By the time it was afternoon on the West Coast, his following had doubled to the north of 4,500. As he detailed in his Instagram story, the drone Beck uses can top out at a speed of 85 miles per hour and is custom-built by a company called HOVER. “I averaged about 60 [mph] on the approach for the shot and then right when…

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A look at this week’s golf tournaments around the world

INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF PGA TOURS WORLD GOLF CHAMPIONSHIPS-MEXICO CHAMPIONSHIP Site: Mexico City. Course: Chapultepec GC. Yardage: 7,355. Par: 71. Purse: $10.5 million. Winner’s share: $1,787,560. Television: Thursday-Friday, 2-7 p.m. (Golf Channel); Saturday, noon to 2:30 p.m. (Golf Channel), 2:30-6 p.m. (NBC); Sunday, 1-2:30 p.m. (Golf Channel), 2:30-7 p.m. (NBC). Defending champion: Dustin Johnson. Last WGC: Rory McIlroy won the HSBC Champions. Notes: Tiger Woods decided to skip the first World Golf Championships event of the year, saying he was not ready. Woods is among three players from the top 10 not in the field, joining Brooks Koepka and Patrick Cantlay. Cantlay is having surgery for a deviated septum. … Dustin Johnson won last year for his 20th career victory, and now needs 15 years on tour to become a Lifetime Member. … Johnson has not won since Mexico last year. … The course is at roughly 7,500 feet altitude. … Two Mexicans are in the field this year. Abraham Ancer earned his spot from the top 50 in the world, and the tournament is allowed to add the highest-ranked Mexican player, Carlos Ortiz. … Jordan Spieth became eligible by reaching the top 50 in the…

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Women’s golf legend Mickey Wright dies aged 85

(CNN)One of the most successful women’s golfers of all time, Mickey Wright, has died at the age of 85. The American won 13 majors and 82 LPGA Tour titles to sit second on the all-time women’s major list behind countrywoman Patty Berg (15), who died in 2006. Wright was the dominant force in golf in the late 1950s and 1960s, winning four US Women’s Opens and four Women’s PGA Championships among her major haul. She retired at the age of 34 in 1969. “We lost a legend, but we may also have lost the best swing in golf history today,” LPGA Tour commissioner Mike Whan said on the organization’s website. “Our thoughts are with her family and friends.” ‘I guess they call it burnout’ US player Kathy Whitworth, who holds the LPGA record of 88 titles, said of Wright: “Today the golf world lost one of its greatest champions. She contributed so much to my career success and to my life as well. “What a blessing to play alongside Mickey. It was impossible to be around her without knowing she was someone very special.” Wright was born in San Diego on February 14, 1935, and…

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Denny Hamlin reviews Michael Jordan’s new golf course after playing it with Rickie Fowler

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — The good news for NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin is he didn’t lose any money playing golf against pro-Rickie Fowler this week. The bad news for him is he didn’t win any, either. Hamlin, Fowler and former NASCAR driver Michael Waltrip visited Michael Jordan’s new exclusive golf course, Grove XXIII, in Hobe Sound, Florida (near Jupiter), and the defending Daytona 500 champion said he bet Fowler “a lot and ended up with nothing.” “I tied Rickie on the final hole,” Hamlin said Wednesday at Daytona International Speedway. “Thank goodness that got me back square, so that was a lot of fun. But it’s just amazing to see how good the pros are. You think you’ve seen people that are good at their craft; go see a professional athlete do his craft. And it’s just amazing to watch.” Although Hamlin is an avid golfer — he and some other NASCAR drivers are in an amateur (but super serious) league called The Golf Guys Tour — he, unsurprisingly, said Fowler has “an absurd unfair advantage” on the course. “Unfortunately, he uses the same clubs, and he has the same body type,” Hamlin said comparing…

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What is butterhead MOI? One of the smartest minds in golf explains

When it comes to putting — the area of my game which is the most troubled — I tend to run down some pretty nerdy rabbit holes. Maybe if I keep digging, I’ll learn about something I never knew before, and bingo! My putting woes will be a thing of the past, and my game will hit a new level. I haven’t had much luck with that second part, but the first part works flawlessly. It proved so once again when I called up Guerin Rife, one of the smartest men inputting and, indeed, golf. He invented Rife’s innovative two-bar technology and is the mind behind EVNRoll’s line of putters. MOI is a driving force behind Guerin’s designs, so I asked him for an explanation about what it is, and how it can help golfers. MOI measures how much the putter twists on off-center hits MOI stands for Moment of Inertia. Every putter has it, and you measure it using an MOI machine. A putter with high MOI won’t twist as much as a putter with low MOI. “MOI is a measurement of a putter face’s resistance on off-center hits,” Rife says. “The higher the…

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Explore Ireland’s Most Beautiful New Golf Destination

For fans of Irish golf, the name Waterville is synonymous with greatness. Now, five minutes from Waterville Golf Links, in County Kerry, Ireland, another club has joined the party. Hogs Head Golf Club is set to make the town of Waterville into even more of a golf destination. Overlooking scenic Ballinskelligs Bay, Hogs Head Golf Club comprises a Robert Trent Jones II–designed golf course—Jones’s first in Ireland. The 7,140-yard, par-72 headlands course features Atlantic Ocean views and tee-to-green fescue (grass cover). The property also features a 17,000-square-foot clubhouse, 48-guest-room lodge, and seven private, four-bedroom cottages. For the construction, owners Bryan Marsal and Tony Alvarez II enlisted Dublin-based architecture firm Henry J Lyons, as well as American designer Robert Rizzo of Cobble Court Interiors. From the start, the buildings at Hogs Head were designed to fit into the Irish landscape. “We started with the stone and the slate,” says Rizzo. “All the stone on the buildings is local Kerry stone.” The clubhouse, which was built first, proved a guiding force for the other buildings. Rizzo adds, “When we first designed the clubhouse, that material—the stone, the zinc gutters, the slate roofs, the glass and bronze—those were…

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2019 Solheim Cup tee times, viewer’s guide

The 16th edition of the Solheim Cup will take place this upcoming weekend starting Friday at the Gleneagles PGA Centenary Course in Scotland. With a similar format to the Ryder Cup, 12 of the top professional women golfers from the United States and Europe will play the biennial three-day match-play event. Juli Inkster will captain the U.S. team for the third time against the first-time European captain Catriona Matthew. There will be six Solheim rookies competing for the Americans, the most since the inaugural event was played in 1990 (when everyone was a rookie). In 1992 and 2002, the American team had five rookies on each squad and won both years. The U.S. is currently on a winning streak, defeating Europe in 2017 on home soil at Des Moines (Iowa) Country Club (16½-11½) and in 2015 at Golf Club St. Leon-Rot, in Germany (14½-13½, the closest finish in Solheim Cup history). The event is comprised of morning four-ball and afternoon foursome sessions on Friday and Saturday (four matches in each session), and singles match on Sunday (all 12 players competing). The team that wins 14½ points out of the 28 available wins the Cup. If…

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Golf: Rookie of the year I’m celebrates with Greenbrier ace

A day after winning the Arnold Palmer Award as the 2018-19 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year, I’m Sung-Jae celebrated the start of the new season in style with a hole-in-one during the opening round at the Greenbrier Classic in West Virginia on Thursday. The feat helped the South Korean to a four-under 66 that left him four shots behind American leader Robby Shelton in White Sulphur Springs. It’s four-iron from 223 yards at the par-three 15th landed a couple of yards in front of the hole and trickled in for his second race of the year, making him the first since Tiger Woods to notch two on the U.S. tour before the age of 22. Woods’s ace in his first professional start in Milwaukee in 1996 is part of sporting folklore. He added another at Phoenix the following year. Its budding career has not generated the buzz that surrounded Woods’s start, but the 21-year-old is quietly impressing his peers. He finished 19th in the FedEx Cup standings in the season that ended last month and was the only rookie to make it to the Tour Championship. Leader Shelton, meanwhile, described his nine-birdie effort at…

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