Position	Score	Par	Name	R1	R2	R3	R4	AU$
1	276	-12	Rod Pampling	71	68	70	67	270,000
2	276	-12	Marcus Fraser	73	67	71	65	153,000
3	279	-9	Robert Allenby	73	66	67	73	101,250
T4	280	-8	Tim Clark	67	70	76	67	62,000
T4	280	-8	Alexander Noren	73	71	68	68	62,000
T4	280	-8	Nathan Green	72	68	70	70	62,000
7	271	-7	David McKenzie	72	70	71	68	48,000
T8	282	-6	Marc Leishman	71	70	71	68	40,500
T8	282	-6	Martin Erlandsson	74	71	70	67	40,500
T8	282	-6	Anthony Summers	70	68	71	73	40,500

The full PDF document is here.

The leaderboard is here.

They have somehow transposed the “Hole” and “Today” columns, but hopefully they will sort that out soon.

When playing, high handicappers tend to be risk takers. However, if you learn to control yourself, you are much more likely to come out with a better score in the end. Here are some simple guidelines to decide whether or not the risk outweighs the reward:

1. Will it eliminate a shot?
There is no point in risking cutting a corner if you’re going to be one shot away from the green if you hit to the dog-leg instead. If a risk does not come associated with a reward, then there is absolutely no reason to take it.

2. Are you having a purple patch?
If you’re having a good day, it might be worth taking the risk. You’ll need confidence and accuracy to make the shot worthwhile. If you’re getting to the end of the round and have had a horrible day, then you probably should just play it safe.

3. Have you practiced the shot?
If you have only read about how to play a shot like the one that you want to try, then you should play it safe. The driving range is where you need to get the funky shots worked out, not during the actual round.

4. Play bogey golf.
Change your thinking to playing bogey golf. If you have a high handicap, chances are, you won’t be scoring par, and this can frustrate people. However you have more chance of scoring bogey, so make that your “par”.

This week The Year In Golf and Aussie Golfer have a look at the Nationwide Tour.

Out of all the tours this year, Australians had the most success on the Nationwide. Seven wins over the course of the season.

Jarrod Lyle - Mexico Open
Ewan Porter - Moonah Classic
Gavin Coles - Chitimacha Louisiana Open
Aron Price - Livermore Valley Wine Country Championship
Greg Chalmers - Henrico County Open
Jarrod Lyle - Knoxville Open
Marc Leishman - WNB Golf Classic

Jarrod Lyle showed some consistency through the year with two wins and four other top ten finishes, helping him to fourth on the money list, and securing his PGA Tour card for 2009.

Perhaps the most consistent though was Greg Chalmers, who we will see back on the PGA Tour again in 2009 thanks to one win and nine other top ten finishes. His short game and putting have improved this year, and hopefully he can keep that up on the main tour.

In his first full year on the Nationwide Tour, Marc Leishman steps straight into the big time in 2009. A win, a second and three other top ten’s helped Marc finish inside the top 25 that automatically gain entry to the PGA Tour.

Perennial struggler (if you can call winning over half a million US dollars struggling) Gavin Coles will probably be spending all his time on the Nationwide Tour in 2009 after finishing 159th on the PGA Tour money list. It must be the underdog thing, but I would love to see him win a PGA Tour event and really secure his future on the main tour.

Positions and Earnings on the 2008 Nationwide Tour

4 Jarrod Lyle $382,738
8 Greg Chalmers $321,930
18 Aron Price $249,144
T19 Marc Leishman $244,224
41 Ewan Porter $159,124
48 Gavin Coles $142,000
50 Won Joon Lee $137,694

This week Aussie Golfer has done an excellent summary of the LPGA.

There’s no doubt the big story for the year in terms of Australian Women’s golf has come from Katherine Hull. She’s made a mockery of her previous years on the tour earning close to a million dollars. She finished 2nd on the weekend with lipped putt on 18 denying her a playoff berth. She won the Canadian Open in August and has finished in the Top 10, 4 of the 8 times since. Her ranking of 35th in the world will be a lot higher this time next year

For the full article go on over to Aussie Golfer and enjoy the read.

Next week TYIG tackles the Nationwide Tour.

Can’t afford to join a club? Prefer to play at many different courses rather than predominately at one? Want a nationally recognised Australian handicap so you can play in some of those competitions you read about?

Then Golf Access might be for you.

Golf Access is an initiative of Golf Australia. It provides an opportunity for social golfers to participate more fully in golf competitions and also assists and supports golf clubs through a variety of nationally coordinated club development initiatives.

Social golfers joining Golf Access receive the following benefits:

• A Golf Australia Handicap, administered through GOLF Link and giving access to various golf competitions and providing a monitor of your progress.
• Golf Australia’s Player Insurance Coverage, through Sportscover, which includes cover for loss and damage of clubs, personal liability and personal accident insurance.
• Access to Rules books, general information and a GOLF Link Card.

Cost is $99 per year with a pro-rata amount payable depending on when you join.

If you are interested in joining the program, see the Join A Club page at the Golf Access website.

The Victorian Golf Association has a list of courses you can nominate as home courses.

In NSW see the NSW Golf Association.

If anyone can find a link on the Golf Queensland site, let me know and I will update this post.

South Australia and Western Australia seem to miss out entirely.

I actually signed up today and nominated Goonawarra as my “home” course.

The Australian Masters has entered into a strategic partnership with the Victorian Government to grow the event in Melbourne over the next three years.

In a series of announcements, the Australian Masters will adopt a venue rotation policy starting in 2009 to showcase the finest golf courses on the famed Melbourne sandbelt.

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Still being a co-sanctioned event with the European Tour, the organisers have also promised to attract at least three players in the worlds top 25. Assuming Geoff Ogilvy and Adam Scott play, there’s two of the three already, so it shouldn’t be too hard to get at least one more player from the top 25…

Full story at Fox Sports.

Past winners of the event are:

2007 - Aaron Baddeley (275)
2006 - Justin Rose (276)
2005 - Robert Allenby (271)
2004 - Richard Green (271)
2003 - Robert Allenby (277)
2002 - Peter Lonard (279)
2001 - Colin Montgomerie (278)
2000 - Michael Campbell (282)<
1999 - Craig Spence (276)
1998 - Bradley Hughes (268)
1997 - Peter Lonard (276)
1996 - Craig Parry (279)
1995 - Peter Senior (280)
1994 - Craig Parry (282)
1993 - Bradley Hughes (281)
1992 - Craig Parry (283)
1991 - Peter Senior (278)
1990 - Greg Norman (273)
1989 - Greg Norman (280)
1988 - Ian Baker-Finch (283)
1987 - Greg Norman (273)
1986 - Mark O’Meara (284)
1985 - Bernhard Langer (281)
1984 - Greg Norman (285)
1983 - Greg Norman (285)
1982 - Graham Marsh (289)
1981 - Greg Norman (289)
1980 - Gene Littler (288)
1979 - Barry Vivian (289)

October 21 to 24

East Valley Golf Club - Champions Course
Adam Wilcox
Dean Kinney
Jens Nilsson
Matt Melrose
Michael Etherington
Scott Draper

Dayton Valley Country Club
No Australians

Florence Country Club
Andrew Tschudin
Brendan Chant

Crandon Park Golf Course
Matt Ballard

The Clubs of Kingwood - Forest
Aaron Townsend

St. Johns Golf & Country Club
Paul Marantz

Dreams and hopes.

Check out PGATour.com for up to the minute results.

Sarah-Jane Kenyon moves to third on the Duramed Futures Tour after a win at the last event of the season; the ILOVENY Championship. She now has a fully exempt status on the LPGA Tour in 2009.

The 2009 Women’s Australian Open is to be played at Metropolitan Golf Club in Melbourne from the 12th to 15th February 2009.

Golf Queensland has launched a new website to enable players to keep tabs on all their Golf Queensland Tournament bookings and results via the players own profile.

An Australian website that offered golfers the opportunity to play for money has breached the Rules Of Amateur Status. Golf Cash (formerly Putt For $$$) had their model reviewed by Golf Australia ( pdf media release)and the R&A with both organisations determining it breaches the rules.

Golf Australia have announced the appointment of Stephen Pitt as the organisations Chief Executive Officer. He takes over from Tony Hallam in what could arguably be a very testing time for Australian golf given the current economic climate.

Adam Scott has expanded the Adam Scott Foundation into Asia. Headquartered in Singapore, the Foundation will support and offer opportunities to young people in Asia.

Geoff Ogilvy had this to say (in part) about the revised FedEx Cup Playoff System “If I make the Tour Championship I make it. If I don’t, I really don’t give a f#$k”. Tell us how you really feel Geoff…

Greg Chalmers has had ten top ten finishes on the Nationwide Tour this year (the highest number of any of the players on the Nationwide) and this will enable him to return to the US PGA Tour next year. He currently sits third on the money list for the mens’ secondary tour.