It was good to be back again at Whistling Straits, a wonderful golf course that was in absolutely fantastic shape for this year’s PGA Championship.
Big congratulations to Jason Day – one of my fellow members of Team RBC – on a classy and gutsy performance to win his first Major. What a way to do it, 20-under par, the lowest score in the history of the Majors. Jason is a great guy and after a couple of close calls he showed his talent and determination to win. Also, hats off to Jordan Spieth, the new World No.1, and still only 22 years of age. What a season he’s had. Lastly, a quick mention for my buddy and former member of the Ernie Els & Fancourt Foundation, Branden Grace, who has won tournaments before and showed at Whistling Straits that he’s got the game to compete for Majors and I think his time will come too.
For me, I played some great golf and am happy with my ball striking and definitely my driving. I putted well during the week but sadly more putts than I wanted burnt the edges and that can make a huge difference over four rounds. But overall my game is in good shape and moving in the right direction.
Swapping Tours just for a brief moment, Brooke Henderson – another member of Team RBC – deserves a big shout out for becoming only the third player in LPGA history to win a Tour event before turning 18. And like Jason she broke the tournament record, shooting 21-under par! RBC clearly were expecting big things of Brooke and she’s wasted no time repaying the faith they had in her. To win so soon is a great achievement.
Moving on again, this time from the under-18s to the over-50s! A few of the guys that were competing at Whistling Straits will have headed straight to Seattle for this week’s Champions Tour event, the Boeing Classic at TPC Snoqualmie Ridge. People will have seen that I am a proud ambassador of Boeing. We were lucky enough to visit one of the factories when we were in Seattle and it was an amazing experience. It looks like the guys are in for a wonderful week. The golf course – a Jack Nicklaus design with dramatic elevation changes and beautiful views – is an amazing venue. I send my best wishes to everyone involved.
For me, this week began with a really significant day on Monday when Liezl and I performed the ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the opening of the first two buildings at the Els Center of Excellence – the Lower School and the Auditorium Building (pictured below). Thank you for all the messages of support and for those that were able to be there with us. It was nice to also see some of the guys from TOUR out there with their families. This dream has been in the pipeline since 2009 and when the first kids, including our son Ben, walked through the door on Monday it was an incredibly special and proud moment. We have only reached this point thanks to the collective support of a huge number of individuals and organizations. Whether people have donated $1 or $1million everyone who has supported us has literally been a building block for this Center. Please click here to read the full story.
We’ll now head over to North Carolina for this week’s Wyndham Championship, my fifth appearance in this event. This is the final qualifying event for the FedEx Cup playoffs and with me currently 170th on the points list it’s going to take a win or at worst a second-place finish for me to get into the top-125. That’s not specifically my mindset coming in here, though, as I am always teeing it up to win. My focus is on just this week. The Wyndham Championship is a wonderful tournament in its own right, played on a beautiful old Donald Ross design, the Sedgefield Country Club, one of the premier private clubs in America and host venue for the Greater Greensboro Open for more than 50 years. In fact, Sam Snead won his last, and all-time record 82nd Tour event here! There is a great field again this year with many Major Champions and it is a golf course that I’ve enjoyed playing over the years and, having shot 65 a couple of times, there are some nice memories for me here.
That’s it for now. Follow me on Twitter @TheBig_Easy.
