European Tour: Shubhankar Sharma won his second European Tour title, the Maybank Championship in Malaysia, in just his 13th start, beating second-placed Spaniard Jorge Campillo by two shots. The 21-year-old Indian went to the top of the Race to Dubai rankings and became just the third Indian after Jeev Milkha Singh and Anirban Lahiri to win two European Tour events in the same season.
U.S. PGA Tour: In March last year, Gary Woodland released a statement revealing that he and wife Gabby had lost one of their unborn twins. Just over 10 months later, Gabby and their son, Jaxson, surprised him on the 18th green as the family celebrated a teary Woodland’s first victory since the 2013 Barracuda Championship – after he beat Chez Revaie in a play-off in the Waste Management Phoenix Open. FedExCup and world number two Jon Rahm bogeyed the opening hole and never found his stride in a final-round 72 to finish tied 11th.
Australia: In a rare format popular with both players and spectators, the women teed up in alternative groups to the men in the Vic Open, co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour of Australasia, Australian Ladies Professional Golf Tour (ALPG) and Ladies European Tour (LET). Twenty-one-year-old Australian and three-time U.S. LPGA Tour champion Minjee Lee, who had won the same tournament as an amateur, finished five strokes ahead of the field in this first LET event of the season; while Tasmanian Simon Hawkes required just one sudden-death to win his first Australasian Tour title.
This Week: Now fully regaining its lustre after several seasons when the top stars preferred to sit it out (not thrilled about poor weather, unwieldy fields, long rounds and high-handicap amateur playing companions), the Pebble Beach Pro-Am field this week will include the top three world-ranked players (Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm and Jordan Spieth), former world number ones Adam Scott and Rory McIlroy and Phil Mickelson – as well as celebrities such as Mark Wahlberg, Justin Timberlake and Bill Murray.
The LET stays in Australia for the Canberra Classic; the men’s European Tour moves to the other side of the country for the innovative strokeplay-matchplay ISPS Handa World Super 6 Perth; the U.S. Champions senior tour is in Florida for the Boca Raton Championship (with Miguel Ángel Jiménez and Bernhard Langer in the field); and the LPGA Tour schedule takes another break before resuming with the co-sanctioned Australian Open next week.
