TELFER’S THOUGHTS 11.5.26

It’s probably the oldest cliché in golf. “You drive for show, but you putt for dough”. Those famous words were uttered 70 odd years ago by the man many believe to be the greatest putter of all time, South African Bobby Locke, four-time winner of the Open Championship. Gary Player summed him up neatly when he said once, “I’ve never seen anyone putt better than Bobby Locke.”

Locke must have known something about this mysterious golfing art because he won four British Opens (The Open Championship) in 8 years between 1949 and 1957.

Part of his legend apparently centres around the fact that he never lost a 72-hole tournament in his homeland for 20 years, thanks to his putting.

Probably not far behind Locke in the all-time putting stakes was Sir Bob Charles. Both these players were regularly out-driven by many of their peers, but more than narrowed the gap on the big hitters when they got to the green.

That maxim is absolutely still as true today as it was 70 years ago. No better example of this at work surfaced in Barcelona over the weekend when our own Kazuma Kobori, playing in the Catalunya Championship, came storming home and grabbed a share of 6th place thanks to his putter.

Kazuma shot 67 on the last day, needing only 24 putts to complete his 5 under par final round. Now if a golfer only needs 24 putts to complete his 18 holes, it means in all probability he’s chalked up no less than 12 1-putt greens along with 2 putts on the remaining 6 holes. Kobori is by no means a big hitter. At this tournament he was only the 42 nd longest hitter off the tee on the last day, averaging 287 yards per drive, nearly 10 yards longer than his season average. But what he does is hit a lot of fairways, in fact he now tops the driving accuracy stats on this tour so far this season. He hits on average 78% of fairways off the tee, more than anyone else and remember, he’s playing his second shots sometimes 25-30 yards behind his playing partners.

His 6th placing in Barcelona was his first top 10 finish of the year and has lifted him from 91st to 63rd on the all-important Race to Dubai season-ending Championship.

Once again he was the personification of consistency, all four rounds under par and finishing off the final rounds with birdies on the last three holes. This has become a feature of Kazuma’s golf. When he finishes high, it’s often due to a late flurry of birdies on the last day.

However the truly remarkable story at this tournament was the showing of the winner, little-known 22-year-old South African, Yurav Premlall, who won the tournament by 14 shots, the second-highest winning margin on either the DP World Tour or the USPGA Tour. The record margin is 15 strokes, Tiger Woods’ victory margin at the US Open some 25 years ago.

It’s hard to believe this is just Premlall’s 9th start on the DP World Tour. From those 9 starts he’s missed the cut in 4 of them. Then he comes out and does this, rounds of 70, 64, 63 and 63 and for good measure he chipped in on the last hole to get within 1`shot of Tiger’s record margin. All up the South African had 33 birdies in his 72 holes.

On American soil our two highest ranked golfers, Ryan Fox and Lydia Ko, had weeks to largely forget. Foxy finished 67th in a field of 72. He fared much better over the last two rounds than he did the opening two. Lydia was up there with the leaders after an opening 67 but couldn’t break 70 again for the week and finished in a tie for 18th place.

Now all eyes in the golfing world this week will be on the men’s second Major of the year, the USPGA starting on Friday morning at the Aronimink Golf Club in Philadelphia, and good news for us back in NZ. We’ll have two starters in the field, Ryan Fox lining up in his 28th start in a Major and Daniel Hillier playing in his 6th Major. He’s in the field because he now ranks inside the top 100 so gets an invite to this Major.