This week’s golf recap includes a veteran golfer hitting a birdie on the final hole at TPC San Antonio to win the Valero Texas Open while a pair of surprise winners emerged at the Shenzhen International and Swirling Skirts LPGA Classic over the weekend. And although Tiger Woods isn’t really playing on the PGA Tour these days, he helped design a course just north of Houston, Texas. If you’re interested in playing a round, it’ll cost you just over $75,000 U.S. Dollars. It’s his first design of a golf course on American soil, so a lot of people are going to flock over to the southern part of the country to check it out. Maybe it’s not as challenging as it seems, though, as an 11-year-old has already hit a hole-in-one.
While that’s a cool story, let’s focus our golf recap on what happened on the pro links. Here is a recap of what went down around the golf world this past weekend.
Valero Texas Open
PGA Tour
Charley Hoffman made a nine-foot birdie putt on the final hole at TPC San Antonio to clinch a one-stroke victory over Patrick Reed at the Valero Texas Open on Sunday. Hoffman closed with a 3-under 69 to finish with a 12-under 276 and secure his fourth-career PGA Tour victory. The San Antonio-native Reed put the pressure on Hoffman with a tap-in birdie on the 19th hole but Hoffman delivered with a strong finish to pull out the win. Meanwhile Ricky Barnes, who led after three rounds, shot a 74 in the final round to finish fourth along with Kevin Chappell, Billy Horschel, Ryan Palmer and Martin Piller at 9-under. Other notables included the 2011 winner Brendan Steele who tied for 13th after leading the first two rounds along with Daniel Summerhays, J.B. Holmes, Peter Malnati, Scott Stallings, Chris Kirk, Luke Donald and Canadian David Hearn.
Top 10 Scores From The Valero Texas Open
Charley Hoffman -12
Patrick Reed -11
Chad Collins -10
Kevin Chappell -9
Ryan Palmer -9
Martin Piller -9
Billy Horschel -9
Ricky Barnes -9
Branden Grace -8
Shenzhen International
European Tour
For the EPGA portion of our golf recap, South Korea’s Lee Soo-min completed a 1-under 71 in the final round to earn his first European Tour victory at the Shenzhen International over the weekend. While finishing a stroke below par might not seem that impressive on the surface the reality is that he birdied the par-3 16th and then eagled the par-5 17th in order to put himself in position to win the tournament. It was also a strong bounce back effort from the Maybank Championship Malaysia in which he blew a lead with two late double-bogeys. The wire-to-wire victory will give Lee a European Tour exemption throughout the 2018 season. Meanwhile, Joost Luiten shot a 68 in the final round to finish two strokes back at 14-under, tying Brandon Stone for second place. Bubba Watson was among the other notables after he finished tied for eighth at 10-under.
Top 10 Scores From The Shenzhen International
Soomin Lee -16
Joost Luiten -14
Brandon Stone -14
Scott Hend -13
Lee Slattery -13
Alexander Levy -13
Bradley Dredge -11
Bubba Watson -10
Rikard Karlberg -10
Nacho Elvira -10
Swirling Skirts LPGA Classic
LPGA Tour
For the LPGA portion of our golf recap, the top-ranked golfer on the LPGA Tour finally stumbled at the Swirling Skirts LPGA Classic over the weekend, failing to win the event for the first time in three years. Ko, who is the top-ranked golfer in the world on the ladies’ side and is already a two-time winner this season, shot a 75 on Sunday to finish tied for sixth at one-under. Ko’s struggles opened the door for Haru Nomura to capture her second LPGA Tour win of the season after she closed the door with a 1-over 73 to finish at 9-under 279 and edge out South Africa’s Lee-Anne Pace by four strokes. Nomura won the Australian Women’s Open in February when she edged out Ko by three strokes for her first LPGA Tour title. Other notables included Lexi Thompson and Brooke Mackenzie Henderson finishing tied for sixth with Ko at 1-under.
Top 10 Scores From Swirling Skirts LPGA Classic
Haru Nomura -9
Lee-Anne Pace -5
Gerina Piller -4
Na Yeon Choi -4
So Yeon Ryu -2
Lexi Thompson -1
Jenny Shin -1
Mi Jung Hur -1
Lydia Ko -1
Brook M. Henderson -1
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