DAVID LYNN TO GO ON HOLIDAY INSTEAD OF PLAYING IN US OPEN

  FROM THE DAILY TELEGRAPH WEBSITE
By JAMES CORRIGAN

David Lynn has taken the extraordinary decision to skip his debut in the US Open next month and has opted to go on holiday instead.

The Englishman was beaten by the unheralded American rookie Derek Ernst in a play-off at the Quail Hollow Championship on Sunday, but the runner-up finish hurtled Lynn back into the world’s top 50 and earned him a spot at Merion. 

Yet despite having finished second in his first American major at the US PGA Championship last year and then having led in his second American major, the Masters last month, the 39-year-old is adamant that he will take time out from his Stateside adventure and head for the beach rather than the tight layout in Pennsylvania.

“This is the problem,” Stoke-on-Trent-based Lynn said. “I wasn’t in the US Open, so I’ve made other plans. I’ve actually booked a holiday and I need a holiday now, to be honest. So I’m going to do that.”

In fairness to Lynn, the Players Championship at Sawgrass this week will be his 12th event in the past 13 weeks as he has set about retaining his US PGA Tour card for next season on an exhausting run.

The $723,600 (£466,000) prize money in Charlotte all but achieved that aim taking this former European Tour journeyman’s earnings for the season towards the £1 million mark.
Lynn, who has not won a tournament since the KLM Open in the Netherlands in 2004, will return to Britain next week and does not plan to return to America until the US PGA in August.

This means that he would not only miss the US Open but also the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, where he would be guaranteed more than £25,000 just for turning up. But the Merseysider is plainly fed up with living in hotels and will take time off to decide on his future.
Lynn is not even certain that he will permanently commit himself entirely to America, regardless of the trophies and riches on offer. He is 25th in the FedEX standings with a $35 million (£23 million) bonus pool up for grabs.
“I’ve enjoyed the experience so far but I can’t carry on living like this – out of a suitcase and flying back home to England once in a blue moon,” Lynn told The Daily Telegraph.
“I’ll have a big decision to make as I would have to get a base over here and, of course, get my missus to come out here as well. There’s a lot of factors. I’ll have to sit down and think about it.”
“What is there to think about?” will come the cry. What makes Lynn’s choice to sidestep Merion seem all the more bizarre is the nature of his performance at Quail Hollow.
In leaving behind the likes of Phil Mickelson, Lee Westwood and Rory McIlroy down the stretch, Lynn claimed “not to have played well at all”.
“All I did was scramble really well,” he said.
 If the pros will need to do one thing well at Merion it is scramble. Another good showing at Sawgrass, where he will face the likes of Tiger Woods, McIlroy and Adam Scott and he will surely have to reset his ambitions completely.

WELL BLOW ME DOWN, NOW OFF-THE-HOOK VIJAY IS SURING US PGA TOUR

By Bob Harig | ESPN.com

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Florida -- Vijay Singh has a mansion just down the street, a tribute to his hard work, his success, skill. But it is also a nod to the US PGA Tour, which provided a place for the man, originally from Fiji, to display his talents while greatly enriching him to play a game.
And so Singh picks this week to sue the US PGA Tour?

It says more than a little something about the man, a Hall of Famer for goodness sake, to stick it to the tour on the eve of its signature event at the TPC Sawgrass, the place where the Players Championship begins on Thursday and where he will play in the event for the 21st time.
This is the same tour that, incredibly, let him slide without a penalty last week due to a technicality in its anti-doping policy. Putting the legal mumbo jumbo aside: Singh took a substance that was on the tour's banned list, one all players had been warned about; he admitted it in a magazine article; such admissions are deemed under the policy to be the same as failing a drug test; such failures can mean up to a year suspension.
But after a sanction was levied and Singh appealed, the US PGA Tour submitted the substance to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which recently determined that deer antler spray should not be on the list after all.
Vijay Singh, even though the US PGA Tour essentially let him off the hook, decided to sue it on the eve of its marquee event.
Bottom line: when Singh took the substance, it was on the banned list. After the fact, WADA changed its mind. And PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, after initially suspending Singh, withdrew all punishment. Singh should have thrown a party. He should have held a news conference, proclaimed his innocence, explained why he took the deer antler spray in the first place, taken some accountability (the tour two years ago warned against its use), apologized, asked the tour to be more diligent about what substances are on its list, then headed back to the driving range.
Instead, Singh – a 34-time winner with three major championships, who brought his alleged used of a banned substance to light himself, is choosing to fight the tour because he has "been humiliated, ashamed, ridiculed, scorned and emotionally distraught.''
Remember, it was Singh who disclosed that he had taken deer antler spray in a January Sports Illustrated story. Deer antler spray can contain IGF-1, a banned substance that acts like growth hormone. Singh, 50, suggested he was optimistic about its ability to help him.
"I'm looking forward to some change in my body,'' said Singh, who has suffered through injuries in recent years and has not won since 2008.
"It's really hard to feel the difference if you're only doing it for a couple of months.''
Singh clearly did not know he might have been taking a banned substance, but ignorance is no excuse and an admission is the same as a failed test.
There is a good deal of chatter about deer antler spray and whether it is effective, the levels needed to have any benefit, and the fact that the tour does not even have a test for it because it does not draw blood at this time.
All of that misses the point, something that Singh should be keenly aware of, given the sport he plays for a living.
In a game that has its share of strange, complicated rules, one thing is certain: you break a rule, you pay the penalty. It might not make sense, it might not have any bearing on the outcome, but you suffer the consequences anyway.
Singh was given a pass by Finchem, and is still taking the tour to court.
Several of Singh's Tour peers expressed disappointment over the move, but declined to comment because they were not aware of all the facts in the matter.
Joe Ogilvie, a longtime tour player, tweeted: "He's getting incredibly poor advice.''
Geoff Ogilvy, 2006 U.S. Open champion, was puzzled by the development.
"After the drug program started in 2008, since then, all the questions have gone away and all the speculation about whether golfers were on drugs,'' Ogilvy said. "It's been great. It's not evasive, we all get tested five or six times a year, and it probably helps anybody who is tempted to doing drugs from not doing them. It has achieved what it wanted to achieve.
"So I think anything that hurts the tour's anti-doping program and affects how well it has worked will not be great. This is a weird one. Everyone should be on the same side here, shouldn't they? The tour is the players, technically. We're all in it together, aren't we? Hopefully this works out fine.''
That is difficult to envision.
Singh, who has earned more than $67-million in official earnings on the PGA Tour and millions more in endorsements, has put his reputation on the line and the tour's drug testing ability in question.
Still, the tour did all it could to protect Singh during the process of carrying out its policy. 
Other than acknowledging Singh's original statement, it never disclosed that it had sanctioned Singh (for 90 days, which is disclosed in the lawsuit) or that he had appealed (almost immediately) or that it had sent Singh's deeer antler spray to WADA to be tested (hence it subsequently took it off the banned list.)
Singh also took issue with his earnings (about $100,000) being held in escrow while the appeal played out – a stipulation that is clear in the policy.
So Singh brought these troubles on himself. The tour let him off without a penalty, but he remains mad at the organization for which he is a member and whose rules he must abide.
Amazing.

BRAEMAR GOLF'S OPERATIONS DIRECTOR RECEIVES PGA ACCOLADE

                Michael Braidwood (right) receiving his award from Scottish PGA Chairman Alan White

PRESS RELEASE

Braemar Golf Operations Director Michael Braidwood has been awarded the PGA’s second highest accolade, Advance Fellow Professional, in the latest recommendations from the Accreditation for Professional Achievement and Learning (APAL) Council.

“I am delighted to have been awarded the Advance Fellow Professional status as it will really benefit me in my role as a management consultant for Braemar Golf, giving me credibility in front clients and prospective client’s ”

"The reason I applied for APAL was that I realised it was getting noticed in the industry and people were looking for it," he said.

"Coincidentally I was speaking to our client at the PGA National in Russia last summer and he was talking about Pestevo’s director of golf Stephen Dundas and he said 'do you know he is the highest qualified professional in Russia as a PGA Fellow Professional'.

"I thought that was great and decided to make my submission. I found the whole process rewarding just looking back on my career and it also helped brush up my CV at the same time because it was quite a reflective process.

"I think it is great that The PGA has come up with a system to recognise members who have gained experience and worked hard on their own to get more training and education and I would encourage other PGA members to do it."

Michael is currently responsible for all of Braemar Golf’s management properties which sees him support these contracts in Bulgaria, Oman, Morocco, Russia and the UK.

PGA Advanced Fellow Professional David Colclough, the PGA's head of member education, was pleased to see the APAL applications increasing and the growing recognition within the golf industry.

"One of the key principles of the PGA is to promote the abilities and skills of the PGA golf professional to the wider industry and the public," he said.

"Role descriptors and industry guides on membership and education have played a part along with informing influential managers and employers via conferences and seminars, about the attributes required for PGA professionals to fit positions within the industry.

"APAL recognition fits within this as it identifies the qualities and levels of expertise of PGA professionals and alongside the role descriptors it helps committees, owners and others who employ golf professionals to identify those abilities and skills beyond the norm.

"It is because of this we are seeing an increase in APAL applications and they are assisting PGA professionals to identify their skills and put them at the forefront of the profession.

"I anticipate this will encourage more PGA professionals to apply for an APAL status due to the fact they are becoming a key indicator within the industry."

The APAL Council was founded in 2004 and to date 492 awards have been made.

+Braemar Golf is an international golf services company head quartered at the home of golf in St Andrews, Scotland. They construct, support and manage high quality golf developments in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

For more information contact – 

Michael Braidwood

michaelbraidwood@braemargolf.co.uk

Related web sites

www.braemargolf.co.uk 

www.pga.info

PHILIP McLEAN MISSES CUT IN GERMANY

Peterhead's Philip McLean required 41 shots for the inward half in a second-round 77 - a repeat of his first-day score - for an eight-over-par tally of 154, which saw him miss the cut by one stroke in the GreenEagle Classic at Winsen an de Luhe, near Hamburg, Germany.

Dutchman Daan Huizing (73-71) and Dennis Kupper (Germany) (73-71) lead the field by two shots on two-under-par 144 over the par-73 lay-out.

LEADERBOARD

Par 146 (2x73)

144 Daan Huizing (Netherlands) 73 71, Dennis Kupper (Germany) 73 71

146 Berni Reiter (Austria) 74 72, Florian Fritsch (Germany) 70 76, Craig Farrelly (England) 72 74.

SELECTED SCORES

152 Darren Wright (England) 76 74.

MISSED THE CUT  (153 and better qualified)

154 Philip McLean (Scotland) 77 77

ADAM SCOTT'S CLUBS

Adam Scott and his Masters winning golf clubs
Adam Scott became the first Australian to win the Masters after beating Angel Cabrera in a play-off at Augusta National in April. Having posted eight top-ten finishes at majors, including three top-ten finishes at Augusta, it was a relief to see Scott finally realise his potential and win the Green Jacket.  
Driver: Titleist 913 D3
The 2013 Masters was the first time Scott used the 913 D3 (9.5 degree) in competition, although he continued to use his Graphite Design Tour AD DI-8 shaft which he has used for years now, one of its kind and only for him. Most players don’t tend to make too many equipment changes before a major, but clearly the switch to the new driver paid dividends.
The key difference between the 913 D3 and its predecessor, the Titleist 910, is the newly developed face insert. The insert is designed to give improved ball speeds on off-centre strikes. The 913 delivers an 11 per cent increase in the maximum ball speed area on the face, resulting in 2 mph more ball speed that will produce an additional 4 to 6 yards that would not be achieved in the older 910 model.
Fairways: Titleist 910Fd
Scott also played with the Titleist 910Fd (15 degrees) fairway metal. It has a larger volume head design for enhanced distance and control from the tee compared to a traditional fairway metal, maximising the chances of hitting the fairway more often. It’s patented, SureFit Tour, dual-angle hosel technology provides the ability to make precise loft and lie adjustments to fine tune ball flight for more distance and accuracy.
Irons: Titleist MB Forged Irons + Titleist 712U Utility Iron
They say you learn more in defeat than in victory; this certainly seemed to be the case for Adam Scott having blown a commanding lead at the 2012 Open Championship to finish tied for second behind Ernie Els. Scott certainly did not let his nerves show during the Masters, hitting 83 per cent of greens in regulation on both the third and fourth round, and averaged the highest of any player with 76 per cent.
The tools behind his success are the Titleist MB Forged Irons. MB irons feature a uniform muscle shape that provides more mass behind the impact area to achieve the quintessential soft, solid feel. This weighting also produces consistent launch angle, backspin and ball speed in order to provide precise distance and shot control demanded by better players.
In addition, Scott used a Titleist 712U Utility Iron. The forged utility iron is designed to deliver consistency and control to high-ball speed players.
From April 2013 Titleist’s 712U utility iron was officially introduced for retail, not just as a Tour-only prototype.
Putter: Scotty Cameron by Titleist Futura X
All four major championships have now been won using belly or broomstick putters. For many, the anchoring ban can’t come soon enough.
Scott has been using Scotty Cameron putters for over a decade but moved from a regular putter to a broomstick in 2011 after some inconsistent performances. Scott’s move to a long anchored belly putter has clearly had a positive effect, moving up from 145th on the PGA Tour putting statistics to 78th before the Masters this year.
Scott’s Futura X prototype is crafted for him specifically following several rounds of design at the Cameron Putter studio. The putter is milled from aluminium and includes a balance bar and four tungsten weights that are positioned under four adjustable stainless steel weights in the far four corners of the putter giving it an extremely high resistance to twist at impact.

This advertisement placed by Harvey at Web Marketing Group

MONTY TO PLAY FULL-TIME ON UNITED STATES' SENIORS TOUR

FROM THE REUTERS WEBSITE

By Mark Lamport-Stokes

Scotland's former world number two Colin Montgomerie repeatedly resisted the lure of the US PGA Tour during his prime but now says he intends to compete full-time in the United States on the Champions Tour for players aged over 50.

Perthshire-based Montgomerie, who won a record eight order of merit titles on the European Tour between 1993 and 2005, will be eligible for the senior circuit after his 50th birthday on June 23.
"I look forward now in many ways to starting a new life, a new chapter of my life to come over here now," Montgomerie told reporters this week before he was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, Florida.
Monty said he was often tempted at the idea of playing full-time in the United States and was even asked on numerous occasions by former PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman and current head Tim Finchem to come over.
"Family commitments kept me in Europe. I was very happy and comfortable at home, and my wife and children were in school. I felt there was no need at that stage to come over here," said Montgomerie.
"I was number one in Europe. I was very happy in Europe and I was comfortable in that position, and therefore I stayed there. If it's not bust, you don't fix it, and that was why I really didn't come over here."
Montgomerie, winner of the Scottish amateur championship at Nairn in 1987, became one of the first British golfers to attend a U.S. college, earning a degree in business management at Houston Baptist University in May of that year  before he decided to embark on a career as a playing professional.
However, he opted to leave the U.S. to play full-time on his home European Tour where he piled up 31 titles and clinched the order of merit crown for a record seven consecutive years from 1993-99.
"Seven in a row, that was something that I look back on and realize how special it was," said Montgomerie, who also compiled a stellar record in the biennial Ryder Cup team competition where he never lost in eight singles matches.
"So I'm probably most proud of that. But I look back at my career and raising the Ryder Cup as captain in 2010, to regain the Ryder Cup from the victory that the States had in 2008, was a very proud moment.
"It's funny because I never hit a golf shot that week. In terms of proud moments without hitting a ball, then it has to be raising the Ryder Cup."
Known for his natural swing, an aversion to practice and a temperament that could be prickly at times, Montgomerie had one glaring omission from an otherwise glittering career resume - a failure to win a major title despite several close calls.
"I've enjoyed thoroughly my exploits in major championships," said the 49-year-old Scot, who recorded five runner-up spots in the majors among a total of 10 top-10 finishes.
"I just haven't been fortunate or whatever it takes, I've never, ever stood up and made a winner's speech ... I never will.
"But I look forward to the Seniors Tour and trying to win them (majors) there. Gary Player counts them as majors, doesn't he?" Montgomerie added with a broad grin.
South African Player has won nine major titles on the regular PGA Tour, and a further nine in the senior events.
Sandy Lyle, a Scot who DID win major titles - the Masters and the Open - campaigns on the US Champions Tour.
(Reporting by Mark Lamport-Stokes in Los Angeles; Editing by Frank Pingue)