Sportandfashion-news PGA: Bubba Leads the Tour to Arizona for a Match Play Showdown

As the sunset over the beautiful clubhouse at Riviera on Sunday, Bubba Watson won the day, he won the weekend and he won the 2014 Northern Trust Open. Bubba fueled himself to victory behind two consecutive rounds of 64 on Saturday and Sunday. Most notably, he did not card a bogey at all on the final 39 holes of his tournament. Bubba looked lethal with the putter, which could be a dangerous companion to go along with his distance off the tee. As most know, this was Bubba’s first victory since his famous win at Augusta but it may be a sign of things to come.

A player knocking on the door is Dustin Johnson. He got himself another runner up finish last weekend. DJ keeps competing and his impressive Sunday rounds are bound to lead him to breakthrough one of these weeks. Keep an eye on Johnson, especially on the longer courses where he often finds himself putting for eagle while the rest of the field has to take an extra approach shot into the green.

Now, I feel I have made it pretty clear that this week’s event is one of my favorite on the calendar. The top touring pros will shift down to Arizona for the WGC-Accenture Match-Play Championships. This tournament also hits close to home as it was first one I covered last year with Sportandfashion-news and successfully predicted Matt Kuchar’s victory. But enough about me, let’s get to the golf.

There will be 64 pros teeing it up on Wednesday in a one of kind, head to head tournament. There are a few players who have proven to strive in this type of format; Matt Kuchar, Ian Poulter, Steve Stricker, and Keegan Bradley to name a few. Dove Mountain will play host to these elite talents, and hopefully the weather will be cooperative, as opposed the Arizona snow we saw here last year.

I, along with many others, have filled out the whole bracket and see a pretty clear cut final four. I like Justin Rose, Rory McIlroy, Keegan Bradley, and Brandt Snedeker to make it out of their respective draws and face off at weeks end. Along the way, I also see a few upsets; including a first round defeat for Sergio Garcia, Gary Woodland making it to the elite eight and Billy Horschel taking out Jason Day in the second round. Just like in the NCAA March Madness brackets, upsets are easy to predict but are not justified until they really happen. As for your champion, I am feeling confident about my pick.

I see Justin Rose catching an early season groove and winning his first WGC-Accenture Championship. In order for Rose to win, he would have to battle through the likes of Jason Dufner, Jordan Spieth, Kuchar, Bradley, DJ, or Zach Johnson but I think he has what it takes. He only won a single match here last year but turned it on right after the Match-Play to notch four consecutive top 10’s. I like Rose to show his major talent and get his first win of 2014.

When golf ceases the opportunity to provide that cutthroat environment other sports offer, it provides for some pretty awesome entertainment. Tune in this weekend to check out golf strategies like you may have never seen it and a whole different style of play.

Bryan's Bracket... 

Sportandfashion-news PGA: Walker's Hot Start & West Coast Swing Begins

Bryan Reynolds is on vacation for the next two weeks so I decided to write about golf for a couple weeks.  Truth be told, I did not have much for Thursday so I went with it and I hope it turned out alright. I will return next week.  

In golf, there are many people whom have to grind their way to the top. It is the beauty of golf and tennis because there are only a few cases where the golfer's ascent is very quick and easy. Jimmy Walker won the Nationwide Tour in 2004 essentially a sign that he could be ready for big times to come in the future as guys like Stewart Cink, Zach Johnson and Jerry Kelly had won before him. It did not happen for Walker as he went up and down for the next several years yet in late 2013, everything seemed to click for him.

Walker has been a professional since 2001 and went without a PGA win until October of 2013 and now is a multiple winner as he took home the Sony Open with a closing round 63 giving him a one-stroke win over Chris Kirk. Walker's back-nine is what won him the tournament. He went five under in the final nine holes, and it vaulted him over Kirk who had the three-day lead. Walker is now eligible for all majors, World Golf Championships meaning he puts himself in the mix for a Ryder Cup spot. Now it is still way too early to talk like that yet it is always fun to see a golfer break through. Walker now earned victories in two of his last six starts which is a hell of a way to start the PGA season.

The PGA West Coast swing begins on Thursday with Humana Challenge which what used to be the Bob Hope event where golfers played five rounds of golf. People realized this sounded a bit nuts therefore it scaled back to a regular tournament out at PGA West in La Quinta, California. Brian Gay took home the title last year in a tournament where he and two other golfers broke the tournament four-round record. Basically if you enjoy guys going low like that Flo Rida song, this is your tournament.

It is hard to really peg whom will actually make birdies when out on the course so it is tough to make a prediction. I honestly do not know how Bryan does it each week, but we will throw out some names worth watching this weekend. The first one is Webb Simpson. He leads the PGA in scoring average thus far and second in Greens In Regulation. Also Simpson is in the top five in Par 4 and Par 5 birdies which is important with a Par 72 course. If Simpson stays with how his season has went thus far, he will probably be hunting another PGA trophy this weekend.

Let's stay with the theme of converted birdies because that's what it will take to win this tournament for a couple more picks... Rickie Fowler seems like a natural choice to take control of the course and win the tournament. He also does very well with coverting Par 5 birdies. Same goes for Keegan Bradley who tees off for the first time this season. For an international flavor, David Lingmerth made his name known here last year and I see no reason to believe he will not be near the top of the leaderboard this time around.

I feel like this is the calm before the storm. We have a tournament away before Tiger Woods makes his debut along with some others. This should be a good one to keep us at bay for another week.

Charlie.