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A new star is born in golf

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    A new star is born in golf

    Golf's been standing around on the 14th tee for a few years now, waiting impatiently for a new star to break through and challenge the status quo of Tiger Woods regularly beating the best players of the generation that came ahead of him, like Mickelson, Goosen and Els. Very few of Tiger's contemporaries have been able to challenge him - Geoff Ogilvy and Zach Johnson are probably the only ones to have broken through so far - and of the players still in their twenties, Immelman's recent Masters win was the first from a generation that includes Adam Scott, Sergio Garcia and Justin Rose.

    Last night, however, 22-year-old Anthony Kim became the first 22-year-old to win on tour since Garcia in 2002, and with it completed a rise into the top 20 of the world rankings. Kim's not a big star yet, but I've got a feeling that he's about to be. I wonder if it's a coincidence that, at just the same point in his major-winning career as Tiger's at now, the 33-year-old Jack Nicklaus was presented with the fresh challenge of the 23-year-olds Johnny Miller and Tom Watson, who between them would be his main challengers for the next decade.

    #2
    Came across this looking for something else. Kim would go on to win twice more on tour in the next couple of seasons, and finish third at the Masters in 2010, reaching 6th in the World Rankings. Then he injured his Achilles in 2012 and hasn't played since. Sad story really, he's only 34 now and would definitely have been challenging the guys who came after him.

    Which brings me to next week, and this season's incarnation of the FedEx Cup, which will be settled at the Tour Championship. The leader going into the final event is Justin Thomas, who as a result will start the finale with a 2-shot lead over Patrick Cantlay, with Brooks Koepka a further shot behind and the rest of the 30-man field further shots back again. It's an innovative format and hopefully creates at least a little excitement, seeing as the champion walks away with an eye-watering cheque for $15m, which I'm fairly sure is the biggest prize in world sport for a single individual tournament.

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      #3
      Thinking of pro golf - and I'm a week late on this - there's finally getting to be some action on my least favourite thing, which is slow play. It bores me to tears when the pros do it, but it's really annoying because it lets the amateurs who're in front of me on the course think that it's reasonable to take several minutes over a shot, changing clubs multiple times, line up, 6 practice swings, line up again, couple more practise swings, get into routine, balance, change balance, blah blah blah.... slice the ball into the woods, spend the permitted 5 minutes (yes, I know, but they don't know the new rules) looking for it...

      Anyway, Bryson DeChambeau, who I dislike for a combination of reasons both rational (clothing) and irrational (I can't read his name without singing it to the tune of Dylan's You're Going To Make Me Lonesome When You Go), is in trouble for taking a ridiculous amount of time over his shots. They theoretically have a clock-shot now where you're meant to play within 40 seconds of it becoming your turn, which is more than long enough because you should have made almost all your choices before you get to the ball. Bryson, though, is totally ignoring it, taking over 2 minutes on many shots, and fighting back when people complain. Rather than just speeding up and making the game a better game he's chosen to be whiny about it and not change his play.

      If you're going to win $15 million for hitting a small ball around, you could at least do it in a slightly less soporific fashion.

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        #4
        Tha advertising on SKY for nearly every golf tournament shows Woods and McIlroy, it's like advertising last week's Man United v Chelsea game with pictures of Wayne Rooney and John Terry.

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          #5
          TBF, you might actually recognise those two, whereas if they advertised with any of the generic hordes of Justins, Dustins, Jasons, Jordans or Brysons who make up the current top tier of golf, you wouldn't know which one you were looking at

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            #6
            The third round of FedEx's $15m extravaganza is suspended due to lightning strikes on the course. It's a good job no-one in Georgia believes in God or divine retribution otherwise you'd think the almighty might be angered by this preposterous demonstration of wealth.

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