Match-play event returns to LPGA Tour

The LPGA has added another event to its schedule with the announcement of the Sybase Match Play Championship. The tournament, which will be held at Hamilton Farm Golf Club, New Jersey will be played between May 20-23. It will be the first official match-play tournament on the LPGA since 2007.

A field of 64 players will be invited to contest a $1.5million purse, for which the winner will collect $375,000 – a joint third largest payout on the LPGA Tour for the 2010 season.

Sybase was the title sponsor of the Sybase Classic on the LPGA tour between 2001 and 2009, with that tournament being played at the Upper Montclair Country Club in Clifton for the past three years. However, the club and sponsor decided not to renew their contract to stage the event and it appeared that the sponsor would be without an event for 2010.

Hamilton Farm Golf Club was the venue for the Women’s World Match Play Championship in 2005 and 2006, when sponsored by HSBC. The 2007 event was played at the Wykagyl Country Club in New Rochelle, New York before being shelved.

Past winners of the event are Marisa Baena (2005), Brittany Lincicome (2006) and Seon Hwa Lee (2007).

Biodegradable Golf Balls to Feed the Fish?

Whenever a player dunks their ball into a water hazard, the chances are they won’t be thinking about the environmental impact their wayward shot has had.

Research teams at the Danish Golf Union recently discovered that an average golf ball takes between 100 and 1000 years to decompose naturally, and given that there are an estimated 300 million golf balls littering the lakes of the United States, or lost in rough then golf balls clearly present a problem.

To illustrate, the Danish Golf Union devised several tests to determine the environmental impact of golf balls on their surroundings and found that as the ball degrades it releases high quantities of heavy metals, such as zinc. In the synthetic rubber centres used in solid-core golf balls, it was found that the levels of zinc reached danger levels, and when submerged in water the zinc attached itself to the ground sediment and poisoned surrounding plant and marine life.

Now, a Spanish golf ball manufacturer has developed a means to actually help the environment whenever a stray shot ends up in a watery grave with a fully biodegradeable golf ball which not only dissolves quickly in water, but has a core made of fish food! Called the ‘Ecobioball’ the ball has an outer layer constructed from a recyclable plastic polymer which can completely degrade in water in less than 48 hours claims Albert Buscato, CEO of Albus Golf.

However, don’t expect to play a round of golf with these balls just yet – the balls are lighter than standard golf balls at under 51grams meaning they don’t travel as far when hit. They have been developed to allow players to practice playing shots over water and will only survive a single stroke.

And with more than a year spent on the design and construction of the ‘Ecobioball’, there’s likely a ways to go before biodegradable golf balls become advanced enough to be able to be used during a round of golf.

Biodegradable Golf Ball Demonstration

Qatar Masters Preview

Qatar is the next stop for the European Tour after an exciting finish in Abu Dhabi and this week it’s the Qatar Masters. Alvaro Quiroz will be bidding to defend the title he won in 2009, and with seven of the world’s top 14 players in the field, including last week’s winner, Martin Kaymer the scene is set for another top event on the Middle East swing where Doha Golf Club provides the venue for this week’s event.

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Farmer’s Insurance Open Preview

After the five-round extravaganza of the Bob Hope Classic, the PGA Tour moves onto Torrey Pines and the new Farmer’s Insurance Open. The event had formerly been known as the Buick Open.

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Haas follows in Father’s footsteps to claim Bob Hope prize

Bill Haas won his first PGA Tour championship when he sank a short birdie putt on the 18th hole to earn victory at the Bob Hope Classic. Haas beat Matt Kuchar, Tim Clark and Bubba Watson following his closing 8-under par round of 64 gave him a one-shot victory.

The final round, played over the Arnold Palmer Private course could have seen any of the quartet lift the title, and co-leaders Kuchar and Clark missed birdie putts on the par-5 closing hole, while Watson’s birdie lifted him into a share of second place and a play-off chance if Haas failed in his birdie attempt. Haas was the last of the co-leaders to tackle the 18th hole and a sublime approach to the green in two left him two-putts for the title from inside 30 feet.

With the tournament delayed by a day due to heavy rain on Thursday, Haas – son of Jay Haas, himself a former winner of the Bob Hope Classic – ground out the victory which comes as something of a shock to the player who missed the cut at the Sony Open the previous week. For Jay Haas, his arrival just in time to see his sun finish with back-to-back birdies to seal the win would have been worth the journey from his own Champions Tour event in Hawaii.

Kucher had threatened to demolish the field in the final round, carding eight birdies in the first eleven holes to storm into the lead. But the birdies dried up for the American over the last seven holes, which only yielded one more.

Tour rookie Alex Prugh shared the lead with Watson entering the final round and started slowly, but closed with three straight birdies to finish fifth at 28 under in his third career PGA Tour event; while veteran Canadian player Mike Weir – the YourGolfTravel pick for the title – finished just outside the top five in sixth place at 26 under.

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