While the top female golfers in the world enjoyed the sunshine and beautiful weather they received for the Pure Silk-Bahamas LPGA Classic, and the top players on the European Tour enjoyed the excellent conditions for the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters, the PGA Tour was hit with absolutely atrocious conditions. It was a truly bizarre situation in the Farmers Insurance Open that that forced play to be suspended with a weird outcome. Here is a quick golf recap of this week’s results from around the world.
Farmers Insurance Open (PGA)
Jimmy Walker held a one-stroke lead through 10 holes of the final round at the Farmers Insurance Open before heavy winds and a torrential downpour forced play to be suspended for the remainder of the day. The fact that the officials at Torrey Pines actually allowed the majority of players to play through the harsh conditions was surprising enough but the fact that they ended up calling play early might have actually been a major blow to one of Sunday’s top players. Brandt Snedeker survived the conditions to climb up the leaderboard with a three-under 69 in the brutal weather. The controversy was that many people figured that his chances of beating out Walker would take a major hit since Walker was able to play in much better conditions on Monday. However, that logic didn’t come to fruition as Walker had a lousy Monday. Walker finished up with a +5 on the final round and ended up three strokes off the pace. K.J. Choi ended up finishing in second place with a score of -5 while Kevin Streelman finished third (-4), Fredrik Jacobson was fourth (-3) and Walker was fifth.
Going back to the end of Sunday, Snedeker clearly preferred for the rest of the field to finish in the same conditions that he was forced to play in but the end result turned out just fine.
Commercial Bank Qatar Masters (European Tour)
Branden Grace successfully defended his title at the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters with a 14-under 274 final score. He edged out Rafael Cabrera Bello and Thorbjorn Olesen by two strokes for the victory over the weekend at the Doha Golf Club. Grace, who hasn’t finished worse than a tie for eighth in four starts on the European Tour this season, posted a 70-67-68-69 to continue his strong stretch of play. He has now registered seven wins on the European Tour. Four of those wins came in 2012 but now he has back-to-back wins at the Qatar Masters to go with a win in 2014 over his last three years.
One of the biggest stories of the weekend was the play of 1999 British Open champion Paul Lawrie, as the 47-year-old Scotland-native was the leader after 54 holes. It’s always a feel-good story when he’s in the mix but he wasn’t able to maintain his unexpectedly strong performance. However, Lawrie dropped an awful 78 as things unraveled for him in the final round and he wound up finishing in a tie for 13th place with a seven-under 281. He was still a fairly good play for anyone who took a shot with him in Daily Fantasy. Sergio Garcia was fairly consistent across the board en route to a T-7.
Pure Silk-Bahamas LPGA Classic (LPGA)
The LPGA Tour season opened with Hyo Joo Kim winning the Pure Silk-Bahamas LPGA Classic on Sunday. She rebounded from a bogey on the 16th hole to hit a nine-foot birdie on the par-three 17th and secure a two-stroke victory over last year’s winner Sei Young Kim, Stacy Lewis and Anna Nordqvist. Kim was one of the betting favorites going into the event and while she cashed for certain props like the Top 10 and Top 5 – including some matchups – she fell just short of cashing in for the win.
Kim shot a 7-under 66 in the final round to finish at 18-under 274 and secure her third-career LPGA Tour victory. Meanwhile, Lewis extended her streak of runner-up finishes as she has now posted nine since her last win back in June of 2014.
