Golf Notebook
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Golf Notebook column which ran in Wednesday’s paper was cut off midway through the story. Here is the missing copy. We regret the error.
TIGER AND SON
The interest in Tiger Woods competing with 11-year-old son Charlie in the PNC Championship is best measured by clicks.
A lot them. The PGA Tour said the video of Charlie hitting 3-wood to 4 feet for an eagle in the first round was its top-performing Instagram post of all time measured by engagements. By Tuesday afternoon, the numbers were still going. The previous post with the most engagements was the Tiger Woods 2010 Masters champion graphic.
The social media team also created a “copy cat” post that shows the mannerisms of Woods and his son side-by-side. The tour said that became the top-performing tweet for the PGA Tour, also surpassing the Masters graphic. And on TikTok, the “copy cat” post already has more than 12 million views, second all-time.
Overall, the tour said it gained 109,752 social followers last week on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok, the latter having a 30% growth in followers.
CATCHING UP
The PGA Tour shut down for three months because of the coronavirus pandemic. The LPGA Tour was out of business for more than five months. So it was natural to expect players would want to make up for lost time when golf returned.
Celine Boutier and Cheyenne Knight took that to heart.
They were the only players to compete in all 18 events on the LPGA Tour schedule this year, including the first four — two in Florida, two in Australia — before golf was halted.
Sungjae Im continues to be the ironman on the PGA Tour. From the time golf returned in June at Colonial, he played 20 out of the 25 weeks available. That’s just on the PGA Tour.
Im then finished out his year by flying to Dubai for the DP World Tour Championship on the European Tour.
FLAT STICK FRIENDS
Jin Young Ko knows how to pick the right friends when it comes to putting.
A year ago, she spoke about studying YouTube video of Brad Faxon from ages 15 through 19, and what a thrill it was to meet him at the U.S. Women’s Open when Fox Sports was broadcasting it in 2018. “He’s good. Sexy,” she said, a reference to his silky putting stroke that came out the wrong way.
This year at the CME Group Tour Championship, she met Steve Stricker, who was helping with the broadcast, and told him she was a big fan.
“I asked him on the course, ‘How long of a time do you practice putting?’ He said, ‘A lot,”‘ Ko said. “And then I said: ‘I want to ask you about putting. Teach me.’ And then he said, ‘Any time.’ He was really good. He was nice.”
DIVOTS
A Lim Kim didn’t waste any time joining the LPGA Tour. She notified officials a week after her U.S. Women’s Open victory that she was taking up membership. ... The British Open has reserved spots for all players who would have been in the field had it not been cancelled this year. Among the changes are to take the top 30 from the Race to Dubai and FedEx Cup from 2019, along with the top 10 from the points races this year. Harris English was No. 7 going into the Tour Championship and wound up 11th. ... Inbee Park ends the year up 12 spots to No. 3 in the women’s world ranking, giving South Korea the top three spots. Jin Young Ko and Sei Young Kim are Nos. 1-2.
STAT OF THE WEEK
With a tie for second in the U.S. Women’s Open and a victory in the CME Group Tour Championship, Jin Young Ko $1,587,286 in the last two weeks, more than anyone else had made all year.
THE FINAL WORD
“I must admit it is nice to beat kids who weren’t born when I won my first tournament.” — Lee Westwood, 47, after becoming the European Tour’s No. 1 player for the third time.