Tagged: CotW
CotW: Abroad Edition
While Rory and Troy Merritt had themselves wild days on Sunday at the API, Card of the Week is going down under today to bring you what is most likely the most disappointing 61 in recorded history. It’s a stretch to call it a bad round, because a 61 is… well, it’s 61 – an incredible round and a tremendous feat of golf that is truly the 1% of the 1% for even the best players in the world. Unfortunately, it’s the way that Tim Hart’s score came about that makes it dreadful.
- Tim…
To begin with, the sides at City Golf Club Toowoomba are pretty interesting with a front nine par of just 33 and an overall par of 70. Course quirkiness aside, the numbers Tim Hart was writing on that card were astounding. Going into his 18th hole of the final round of the Coca Cola QLD PGA Championchip, the Queenslander had taken just 54 strokes. For those keeping score at home, that is a stunning average of 3.17 shots per hole. This is good. This put him on pace for a 58 with a par at the last, and a place amongst professional golfs greatest ever rounds. Unfortunately, Hart poked one OB en route to a triple bogey 7 to close his round, leaving him in a playoff for the championship… which he lost. I’ve got a sick feeling in my gut just thinking about it, but just take a look at his back 9. This is sick:
Tim… Tim. Tim. I mean, Tim. Please, Tim, no. Oh God no. Tim.
CotW: WGC Cadillac
Card of the Week is back!! Your weekly update to the best (if not perhaps the actual-best) scorecard of last week’s tournaments returns thanks in large part to one Steven Bowditch.
Mr. Bowditch has shown me the light this past week with a series of truly special performances at the WGC Cadillac. Not only shooting in the 80’s all four rounds, but basically calling it in the 2015 book Slaying The Tiger, saying that he liked WGC events because you can shoot in the 80’s all four rounds and still make money. Sure enough, Steven took home a smooth $48,000 for his prodigious efforts. I’ll only talk about his Friday masterpiece, but rest assured his other three rounds were nothing to sniff at.
Just look at this card for a minute. Drink in that sweet nectar, keeping in mind that he started on the back nine. This means that Bowditch was only +1 through 12 holes (with a 10 on the card!), parred four of his last six, and still shot 80. Every time I look at it, something new gets me. Four birdies in a row! No bogeys or doubles and five birdies! Only three holes worse than par! For the love of God, what the hell is going on. I don’t even know where to begin with this so I guess I’ll just end it here. Good thing he has a sense of humor about it.
The Masters Card of the Week: Justin Rose
So many good cards this week at Augusta National. Lots of birdies. Lots of doubles. A smattering of eagles, and plenty of others. This always makes for a great tournament to watch, but it’s a little harder to pick the most intriguing card when there are so many out there. At first I thought it might be Marc Leishman or Peter Hanson, but those were just not very good rounds of golf. Then Gary Woodland put his name into the ring on Saturday, and Bernhard Langer threw down a similarly spectacular round on Sunday. But no one could do what Justin Rose did over the course of 72 holes.
Justin Rose, beacon of consistency.
Card of the Week: Laura Diaz
No idea how I missed this last week at the Kia Classic, but Laura Diaz had one of the best weekend scorecards I’ve ever seen. Just look at her front nine scores from Saturday and Sunday. Absurdity.
In the two weekend rounds, on the front nine, Diaz made 4 eagles, 2 birdies, 7 pars, and 5 bogeys. All four of her eagles were on different holes, with two holes-in-one, a hole out on a par 4, and a more conventional three on a par 5. That is a good amount of holing out. Pretty solid variety as well with two 1’s, two 2’s, two 3’s, five 4’s, and seven 5’s. I’m sorry I missed this earlier, but glad that I finally saw the greatness that is Laura Diaz’s weekend front nine scorecard.
Valero Texas Open Card of the Week: Ryan Palmer/Chesson Hadley Bestball
Maybe I missed something, but the cards this week were pretty boring all things considered. Plenty of rounds in the 80’s, but most were just pars and bogeys and doubles and blah. No one went too low either, so tough to go that route. With that in mind, I took circumstances into consideration when selecting Ryan Palmer and Chesson Hadley’s Sunday bestball for the Card of the Week.
They look like a formidable bestball team right?
Since this week is the final week to slip into the top 50 in the world golf rankings, thereby making the Masters field, there was a little extra on the line for a few of the players near the top of the leaderboard Sunday. Two of these players were Ryan Palmer and Chesson Hadley. They didn’t need spectacular rounds; after all was said and done 70’s probably would have got both players into the field at Augusta. Tragically, almost comically, both players reached that number on hole 16.
So, let’s take the sting out of it a little bit and make the Card of the Week their round as a bestball squadron. Huh. Well, I guess it didn’t help much. The tandem went 38-38-76 with two birdies. That number would have been good enough for t55 on Sunday, with only 12 players (not including themselves) shooting worse. Woof.
Both are solid players have solid seasons and should bounce back from this, but man, those are a couple of seriously unclutch rounds.
Arnold Palmer Invitational Card of the Week: Michael Putnam
Think he made or missed this?
Ok, normally the card of the week goes to something extremely unique. Funny cards are best cards. My goal every week is to find someone with the perfect 6-6-6 even par round (birdies, pars, bogeys). Barring that I look for huge numbers, wildly erratic play, and interesting number sequences. Anything to set the card apart from boring par-fests. That said, I just can’t go with Bubba’s Thursday round. Other than that number, it was a boring round and he wd’d right after his round. Overall, not fun.
Michael Putnam’s round on Sunday was always going to be a humdinger. Eight over after his first six, he was making Tommy Gainey look like a legitimate professional golfer. Then, after a couple pars, some switch was flipped and Putnam went -5 over his last ten holes with no bogeys. While it might be not be the most erratic card of all time, this dramatic turn-around gives one hope. You have to be playing some bad golf to start off like that, and great golf to finish like that. No idea what happened to turn it around, but I love it. Excellent card Mr. Putnam, maybe try to not hit so many golf shots prior to playing like a flu-stricken Adam Scott next time, huh?
Valspar Card of the Week: John Daly
Of course it’s John Daly’s 90 on Friday. You knew this was going to be about John Daly when you read the title. How does a professional golfer shoot 90? Well, I guess the simplest way to answer that is to mention that the professional golfer in question was John Daly.
I don’t think anyone is really shocked to see Daly put up that monster, though it is a bit shocking to me that he stuck around long enough to sign his card. Just a couple short years ago he was walking off the course at the Australian Open under similar circumstances. Although, in that scenario, it is possible, even likely, that Daly would have carded in the triple digits (that is 100+ for those keeping score at home).
Everything else aside, let’s get down to the nuts and bolts of the thing: 9 pars, 5 bogeys, 3 double bogeys, and one octobogey. It’s easy to look at that 12 (recorded on the par 4 16th) and say,”Well there’s your problem,” but that didn’t even get Daly halfway to the 19 strokes over par that he finished at. The other huge issue was the 37 putts it took him to get it around. Either one of these problems happens by itself, it’s just another round in the low 80’s for Daly, one of dozens he has garnered throughout his career. Both together? Boom, 90.
I’m just surprised it’s taken him this long.
Golf On The Mind 