Tag: Ms.59

Jim Furyk joins a very exclusive club

This past Friday we saw PGATour great Jim Furyk fire a magnificent 59 in the second round of the BMW Championship at Conway Farms outside of Chicago.  That is a fact.  What is also a fact is that this was only the 6th such 59 ever inPGA Tour history.

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ThePGATour estimates that there have been somewhere just north of 1 million total rounds in its history.  That makes this round about a 175,000 to 1 happening.  Remarkable and further in all 6 of them the final hole has either been a birdie or an eagle to complete the mighty task.

The 6 are Al Geiberger, Chip Beck, David Duval, Paul Goydos, Stuart Appleby, and now, Jim Furyk.  Not too much of a common thread.  Geiberger, Duval and Furyk all have won majors, Goydos, Beck and Duval have gone from top level golfers to the bottom of the barrel, with Appleby not too far behind in that category.  But, they do have one thread they all on at least one day outperformed what even they might have thought was possible.

The list is missing Tiger, Jack, Arnie, Hogan, Snead, Sarazen, Player, etc. You get the point.  This accomplishment is fantastic no question about it.  It is also a snap shot, not a full-length movie.

The other point I want to make here is Jim Furyk is one of the true gentlemen on the Tour.  It could not have happened to a nicer man.

Bob’s top 10 women golfers of all time – #1

Annika Sorenstam

 

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Annika Sorenstam—The Swedish superstar is our number one female golfer of all-time. She came to the U.S. to play college golf at the University of Arizona and it was quite clear as to her immense talent. She won the NCAA Championship as a freshman a feat never accomplished before or since.

Annika turned professional after two years at Arizona and promptly went out and won the 1995 U.S. Open as her first tour win. She amassed 72 LPGA tour wins including 10 majors.  She is the first woman to surpass 20 million in prize money and has been voted LPGA player of the year a record 8 times.. Sorenstam is also the only woman ever to break 60—firing a 59 in the 2001 Standard Register Ping event in Phoenix; forevermore she is called “Ms.59”.

In 2003 she accepted an invitation to play in the Bank of America Colonial Invitational in Ft. Worth,Texas.  She missed the cut but was heralded for her efforts to play against the men in a PGA Tour event.  She retired from competition in 2008 to start a family and direct her efforts into her golf academy, golf course design, to assorted  business interests and  many charitable causes.  Annika Sorenstam is our number 1 female golfer of all-time.