September 21 — While the golf world counted down the days to Thursday’s start of (anti?) climactic FedEx Cup playoff finale, Tiger Woods added a stop to his 2010 schedule and Phil Mickelson opted out of one of his.
Following Mickelson’s turn at Atlanta’s East Lake Golf Club this week, Golf’s No. 1 and No. 2 will meet up in Wales at the beginning of October for the Ryder Cup and then take different routes to closing out a trying 2010 season for both.
Woods commits to Chevron. Tiger, who has struggled with his mental game and shot-making since returning to golf in April, will brandish his new Sean Foley-inspired swing at the year-ending Chevron World Challenge. This, after playing in back-to-back events in China and Australia in November.
Lefty, who’s had to deal with a serious arthritic condition, will go home to rest instead of teeing it up with other 2010 major champions at next month’s PGA Grand Slam of Golf.
Woods announced on his TigerWoods.com website that he’ll go after his fifth Chevron title at the tourney he hosts at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, Calif., in early December. Woods, you may recall, pulled out of last year’s Chevron tilt, ostensibly because of injuries he sustained in his infamous Thanksgiving-night car accident.
Jim Furyk won last year’s 72-hole, stroke-play event that this year will feature 18 of the world’s top golfers duking it out for the $1.2 million first prize.
* For extra credit, can you name the golfer who replaced Woods at last year’s Chevron World Challenge?
No Grand Slam for Lefty. Mickelson, who has yet another chance this week to overtake the absent Woods for the top spot in golf, won the Masters in April and has played since then as if he could use a break. No doubt, that went into his decision not to play in the Grand Slam, an annual tourney in which the winners of all four majors go at it for 36 holes.
This year’s Grand Slam event will take place October 19-October 20 at Port Royal Golf Course in Bermuda. Ernie Els will replace Mickelson on the course that Roger Rulewich (of Massachusetts’ Crumpin-Fox Club fame) redesigned to the tune of $14 million in time to host the 2009 Grand Slam. Els will join PGA Championship winner Martin Kaymer, British Open champ Louis Oosthuizen, and U.S. Open victor Graeme McDowell.
Woods, winless in 2010, did not earn enough FedEx Cup points to qualify for the silly-season playoffs finals that begin Thursday. Mickelson won the last of the four playoff contests last year, while Woods collected the FedEx Cup.
* Answer to today’s trivia question: 2010 U.S. Open champ McDowell
Want to know more about Rulewich’s masterpiece, Crumpin-Fox? Read a review of Crumpin-Fox Club, the course Golfweek tabbed as the Bay State’s best public course in 2010.
(Emily Kay is a regular contributor to New England Golf Monthly. Check her out at the Boston Golf Examiner and National Golf Examiner websites.)
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