Billy Ho celebrating

Everyone on Tour knew it was only a matter of time before Billy Horschel secured his first PGA Tour victory. Horschel was playing too well. He was swinging too pure. He had made a Tour-leading 23 consecutive cuts. He had finished in the top-10 in his previous three starts — runner-up at the Shell Houston Open, T3 at the Texas Valero Open, and T9 at the RBC Heritage. He was simply due.

Despite two rain delays on Sunday at TPC Louisiana, including one that lasted almost an hour after the 26-year-old from Florida had hit his drive, Horschel kept his nerve and holed a birdie putt from 26 feet to clinch the victory at the Zurich Classic. (continue reading…)

Not the leader (Claxton has eluded pics on internet), but close enough -- Harris English is T2

Will Claxton, who fired 64 to share the first round lead with Daniel Summerhays, rolled in a seven-footer to save par on his final hole on Thursday, the 9th at PGA West’s Stadium course, and to maintain the outright lead at ten-under.

As he was waiting for his turn to putt, his swing coach Scott Hamilton, who has six students at PGA Tour Q-school finals, including Steven Bowditch (T15), Boo Weekley, Reid Edstrom, among others, mentioned Claxton didn’t have even an inkling he was leading through two rounds. Which is understandable considering there aren’t scoreboards on the golf course (there’s just one leaderboard — which is old school, handwritten — near the clubhouse), but Claxton wasn’t checking scores online, either. (continue reading…)

Jones on cruise control so far

With the wind blowing steadily at 20-30mph and gusts up to 40mph at PGA West, Matt Jones fired a solid four-under 68 at the Stadium course (the “harder” of the two venues) in the second round of Q-school on Thursday. While there’s still a long way to go, he’s tied for second with a 36-hole total of nine-under — not a bad start. (continue reading…)

There’s about as many positive things said about the FedExCup as there are about Tiger Woods’ 2011 season. Just after we were forced to come to terms with Woods’ unrecognizable (and mediocre) play, so too did we (re)learn how significant the seemingly arbitrary (though improved) design (earn a chance to win an inordinate, ridiculous and borderline disgusting prize of $10 million) of the FedExCup were last Sunday at the Wyndham Championship. (continue reading…)