This year’s Trilby Tour comeback season culminated in a dramatic finale at Dundonald Links in Scotland crowning a successful return for the iconic competition.

In its first season under the ownership of Darwin Escapes, the 2022 edition of the Trilby Tour saw both male and female golfers compete together in the Grand Final at the prestigious Ayrshire venue. Competitors from across the country battled it out in tough conditions on the par-72 course; eventual Champion Golfer Andrew Corssen, from Northshore, needed a stunning three-under-par score of 39 points to top a high-quality field. Wendy Allen earned the highest ladies’ score of the final with a 31-point total.

Corssen, the first Trilby Tour Champion Golfer of the Darwin Escapes era, said: “It hasn’t quite sunk in yet, because we were the first group out. I’ve been patiently waiting and now I’m just overwhelmed.”

The Grand Final saw men and women compete together for the first time in the competition’s 15-year history, with TV cameras on hand to cover the action for broadcast on Sky Sports Golf, hosted by presenter Sarah Stirk, from November 14.

Serving as the climax of an action-packed tour schedule, the final featured amateur golfers from all four qualifying events held over the summer at Darwin Escapes venues – The Springs Resort & Golf Club in Oxfordshire, Dundonald Links in Scotland, Kilnwick Percy Resort & Golf Club in Yorkshire and Carus Green Golf Club in Cumbria.

Ashley Pheasant, Head of Golf for Darwin Escapes, said: “We’ve worked hard to bring this much-loved competition back and make it better than ever, so we’re thrilled with how the Trilby Tour’s first revitalised season has unfolded. The weather was challenging on Monday, but Dundonald Links plays perfectly in any conditions and the quality of golf was excellent too. It’s also great to see male and female golfers competing together in the Trilby Tour for the first time.”

Sarah Stirk, who covered the event for Sky Sports Golf, said: “The whole Trilby Tour has really been elevated in 2022 and it was fantastic to see the culmination of a great year at the final at Dundonald Links.” There was a real sense of camaraderie between all competitors, and it was brilliant to see female golfers competing alongside the men. I’ve been lucky to interview the world’s top golfers over the last few years with Sky, but it was very special to speak to the winner Andrew Corssen about his victory and see him get so emotional. It was a special day in Scotland and I can’t wait to watch the Trilby Tour grow even further in 2023.”

The Trilby Tour will return in 2023, with an extended schedule and dates to be announced in December. In addition to the Trilby Tour trophy and an array of exceptional golfing equipment, Corssen has won the right to return for the 2023 Grand Final and defend his crown without needing to play any qualifying events.

To find out how you can play in the 2023 tournament, visit www.trilbytour.co.uk.

Source link

Czechia’s Sara Kouskova capped off an impressive first year as a professional, which included three wins, by securing the top spot in the LET Access Series Order of Merit and Rookie of the Year standings.

The 23-year-old returned to Europe after graduating from the University of Texas in May, just in time to make her first professional appearance at the 2022 Czech Ladies Challenge being held at her home course in early June.

Kouskova launched her professional career with second place at Prague City Golf Club and followed that with 13th and 22nd placed finishes on the Ladies European Tour in Czechia and Germany, respectively.

“This season has been very long, but extremely rewarding, and I’m glad I chose to play on LETAS this season to earn my LET card for next year,” said Kouskova said, who clinched her first pro win at the 2021 Czech Ladies Challenge while still an amateur.

She continued: “Back in June, I knew that I could secure my card through LETAS, but actually winning the Order of Merit and Rookie of the Year was something I couldn’t even imagine back then and it’s just a cherry on top.”

The Czech rookie focused on the LETAS schedule in the second half of the season, clinching her first professional win at the Santander Golf Tour Malaga before getting back-to-back victories at the Elite Hotels Open in Sweden and the ASGI Lavaux Ladies Open in Switzerland.

“All three wins were a bit different, but all of them are very special to me. I have so many great takeaways from not only these events, but also those where I fought until the very last shot to be in contention.”

Kouskova also added three top-five and one further top-10 finish in her ten starts to claim both 2022 titles on the development tour.

“I think that more than just the results, it was important to gain all the experience and information in my first pro season. I want to utilise everything I’ve learned during the upcoming seasons when I’ll play with the best players in Europe and in the world.”

The top six in the Access Series Order of Merit have earned Ladies European Tour cards for next season. Joining Kouskova on the European women’s top tier tour will be Chiara Noja, Momoka Kobori, Patricia Isabel Schmidt, Lauren Holmey and Anna Magnusson.

England’s Amy Taylor missed out on winning a full Ladies European Tour card by just one spot, finishing in seventh place, less than 10 points behind Magnusson. The 21-year-old from Bawburgh Golf Club won last week’s Calatayud Ladies Open, and had five other top-10 finishes, but it wasn’t quite enough to earn her card.

Gemma Clews took ninth place during a season which saw the Delamere player enjoy an impressive 11 top-10 finishes from 17 starts.

Source link

Jon Rahm arrives at this week’s CJ Cup in South Carolina riding a subtle wave of momentum. Two weeks removed from his runaway victory at the Open de España on the DP World Tour, the Spaniard will make his 2022-23 PGA Tour season debut alongside some of the best players in the world.

By all accounts, Rahm’s prior campaign was a disappointment in relation to his standards. Collecting only one PGA Tour win last season, the man who began the 2022 calendar year atop the golf world saw his name drop outside the top five of the Official World Golf Rankings by the time the season had concluded — something that hasn’t happened in three years.

“After finishing what hasn’t been my best PGA Tour season, even though it was still pretty good to go to Wentworth, have the Sunday and then follow it up by playing good in Spain and having a very, very meaningful win,” Rahm said. “Hopefully, I can keep that good play going and translate those wins to the PGA Tour, which I’ve done in the past. I’ve played great in the fall on the European Tour in the past and I’ve translated it to the PGA Tour.”

The parallels to three years ago are already present. In 2019, Rahm finished runner-up at the BMW PGA Championship and parlayed his success at Wentworth into victories not only at the Open de España but later the DP World Tour Championship. The 27-year-old has already replicated two-thirds of this stretch, and has returned to No. 5 in the world as a result.

Perhaps the similarities won’t end there and this is only the beginning for Rahm, as it was in the 2019-20 season, and another climb to world No. 1 is in the cards. However, if he is to accomplish such a feat and leapfrog a bevy of the game’s elite that includes Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy (who has a chance of his own to ascend to world No. 1 this week), he will need one club and one club in particular to continue to cooperate: the putter.

Rahm’s turnaround on the greens has been as gradual as it has been sudden after experiencing a valley in performance during the early parts of 2022. Visibly angry on the golf course, this discourse wouldn’t stop in between the ropes as Rahm was peppered with questions regarding his putting woes for most of the spring. Eventually, as all greats do, he leveled out and rattled off 10 positive putting performances in his last 12 starts. It wasn’t until the BMW Championship in the FedEx Cup Playoffs, however, that he was able to find a different gear.

“Honestly, it’s a little setup thing, it’s very small. And a lot of it with putting is confidence. When you see a lot of putts not go in, a lot of putts burn the edge, which is what happened earlier in the year. It’s not like I wasn’t close, I just saw a lot of lip-outs and a lot of close calls,” said Rahm. “Confidence can go down a little bit. But I think it was at BMW [Championship] where after 27 holes I saw three putts go in and confidence went right back up, and for the next few events I played amazing.”

Amazing may actually be an understatement. In Rahm’s last 15 rounds worldwide, he has averaged +1.61 strokes gained putting. For reference, that is nearly double what the PGA Tour’s top putter, Lucas Herbert, averaged last season. While this run of quality on the greens is simply unsustainable, if a semblance of this form was to be combined with the ball-striking for which Rahm is known, an all-time season would be the result.

“My ball-striking is so good that my putting’s never going to be really that high up there statistically. And if it were, if I kept this ball-striking level and my short game and putting was top 20 on the PGA Tour, well, we’d be looking at a season where I’m winning eight times and that’s just very hard to do.”

Source link

The PGA Tour’s fall swing is unlike any other part of its schedule. While there are a handful of top-tier events, most of the slate is an opportunity for either youngsters to make a name for themselves ahead of the meat of the schedule next spring or for flailing veterans to rediscover the groove that once made them great.

While we don’t know what the next few falls are going to look like — the Tour will likely move to a completely revamped fall swing in 2023 and beyond — the current fall slate will follow the last few and offer a few opportunities to some players that might go otherwise unnoticed if all the stars were in full swing.

Breakouts can manifest themselves in a number of different ways. Last year, Talor Gooch foreshadowed his leap into the top 40 in the world when he got off to a hot start during the fall swing and eventually won the RSM Classic to close out the schedule. That went a little sideways in 2022 when he disqualified himself from the PGA Tour after joining LIV Golf, but he’s a good example of how the Tour’s fall tournaments can be a springboard into a terrific following year.

The RSM Classic in 2019 provided a different kind of breakout for a fellow Oklahoma State player as Charles Howell III won the third tournament of his career and the first in 11 years. He represented the type of veteran who could take advantage of more inexperienced fields and get a long season on track early with some big performances.

Here’s a look at who could fit into this category as the fall swing in 2022 arrives.

Davis Riley (OWGR: No. 70): Perhaps I’m crazy for believing that Riley could be on the 2023 U.S. Ryder Cup team, but his fall could (could, not will) go like Sam Burns’ did last year when he won the Sanderson and it catapulted him all the way to the U.S. Presidents Cup team the following September. Riley is probably not as talented as Burns, but the U.S. team is not necessarily that deep between the top 12-14, and Riley could absolutely get hot and find his way to Rome for the Ryder Cup 12 months from now. He had nine top 13s last season (including the Memorial and PGA Championship), and if he gets momentum going the right way, he could be a force in 2023. 

Sahith Theegala (No. 53): Speaking of golfers who could be on the 2023 Ryder Cup team in Rome, Theegala is on the short list of players who could jump into one of the final 3-4 spots that could be vacated from this year’s Presidents Cup team because of injuries, poor performance … or LIV. In November 2021, Data Golf ranked him as the 175th-best player in the world. Now he’s all the way up to 56th. If he can make a similar leap in 2023 (which could start with a win this fall that so eluded him throughout the year), then he’s a legitimate Ryder Cup threat.

Rickie Fowler (No. 157): The five-time PGA Tour champion is now ranked behind Kaito Onishi, Ewen Ferguson and Phachara Khongwatmai in the Official World Golf Rankings and needs something — anything –– good to go his way this fall. He’s split with both his caddie and his coach, and will try to regain the form that once made him a Players champion as well as a perennial top-10 player in the world. Coincidentally, I thought Fowler found a springboard last fall when he narrowly lost the CJ Cup to Rory McIlroy; instead, that was his only top 20 of the season. If you’re looking for hope here, Fowler actually improved statistically from 2021 to 2022 after declining in each of the previous three seasons.

Justin Suh (No. 132): He’s probably the player from last year’s Korn Ferry Tour with the most upside. The pedigree is great, he had 10 top 10s on the Korn Ferry Tour last year and is normally a strokes gained menace — though the first two PGA Tour events of his season haven’t gone all that well. Most casual golf fans probably haven’t heart of (or don’t remember) the name, but it’s not difficult to see Suh catching heat over the final two months of play while jumping toward the top 50 in the world and into all the majors in 2022.

Tommy Fleetwood (No. 30): Fleetwood quietly finished the summer on a heater (T4 at the Scottish Open and Open Championship), and while his game is not in disarray like Fowler’s, he hasn’t had the last few years he probably envisioned and hasn’t won a big-time event since the Abu Dhabi Championship in 2018. It would be awesome to see Fleetwood grab a win or two this fall going into a Ryder Cup year and trying to build on what was his first-ever two-top-10 season in majors in 2022 (he added the PGA Championship as well).

Thomas Pieters (No. 33): As I was writing the Fleetwood paragraph, I thought to myself, “I think almost all of these same things about Pieters, too.”  I don’t know that he needs to win this fall- — he won the Abu Dhabi Championship earlier in 2022 — but it would make for a hyped lead-in to 2023 for somebody with silly talent. It would be fabulous to see a swaggering Pieters roll into the four majors in 2023 and then reunite with former Ryder Cup bomb-launching partner Rory McIlroy in Rome.

Source link

Thai teenager Atthaya Thitikul has become the first LPGA Tour rookie in five years to win twice in one season after she defeated Danielle Kang in a sudden-death playoff at the Walmart NW Arkansas Championship held at Pinnacle Country Club.

Kang holed out for eagle on the 18th hole in regulation to take the clubhouse lead at 17 under. Thitikul matched her total with a birdie on the penultimate hole and signed for a closing 68, following up a 10-under-par 62 on Saturday. Thitikul won the play-off with a birdie at the second extra hole.

Victory saw the 19-year-old extend her lead in the LPGA Tour’s Rookie of the Year race over South Korea’s Hye-Jin Choi. Her first LPGA Tour success came at the JTBC Classic in March, where she also won in a play-off.

Last season, Thitikul won the LET’s Race to Costa del Sol, Rookie of the Year and Player of the Year award, joining Laura Davies, Carlota Ciganda and Esther Henseleit as the only players to win the latter two honours in the same season.

Atthaya Thitikul WITB

DRIVER: Callaway Rogue ST Triple Diamond (9°)
FAIRWAY WOOD: Callaway Rogue ST LS (15°)
HYBRIDS: Callaway Apex UW (19°), Callaway Apex 4H (21°)
IRONS: Callaway Apex Pro (5-PW)
WEDGES: Callaway Jaws Forged (48°, 52°, 58°)
PUTTER: Odyssey Toulon Atlanta
BALL: Callaway Chrome Soft X

Source link