The Daily: Beef Secures Card, Chun Notches Major, Thompson Wins Boise, More

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Joel Cook
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This weekend was quiet on the PGA Tour, as they took their traditional week off between the final two FedEx Cup playoff events: the BMW Championship and the Tour Championship. However, golf as a whole was not on a bye.

 
The PGA being off allowed other tours to shine, and shine they did. The LPGA was in France for the Evian Championship, the fifth and final major of the LPGA season.

The winner smashed records, but that winner was not who you think (it wasn’t Ko, Jutanugarn, or Henderson). The second event of the four-week Web.com finals, the Albertson’s Boise Open, also took the spotlight. By the end, a familiar name was the victor and the most unanimously liked player and personable man in golf earned his PGA Tour card, to the delight of the many fans who will be following him next season.

Evian Dreams

Jason Day has become used to being at the top of lists, but he has now been passed by one of the best female golfers on the planet on the list of lowest major championship scores.

 
At the Evian Championship in France, LPGA rookie In Gee Chun, the 22-year-old from the ladies golf superpower that is South Korea went wire-to-wire to finish at an insane -21, winning by four strokes over fellow countrywomen So Yeon Ryo and Sung Hyun Park. The score beat Day’s record -20 at the 2015 PGA Championship.

Final Leaderboard

1 In Gee Chun -21
T2 So Yeon Ryo, Sung Hyun Park -17
4 Shanshan Feng -15
5 Sei Young Kim -14
6 In-Kyung Kim -12
7 Angela Stanford -10
8 Haru Nomura -9
T9 Ariya Jutanugan, Brooke Henderson, Gerina Pillar -7

Other Notables

T22 Lexi Thompson, Anna Nordqvist, Brittany Lincicome -2
T36 Yani Tseng E
T43 Lydia Ko, Cheyenne Woods +2
T55 Michelle Wie, Stacy Lewis +5

Other Notes
  • With the win, Chun moved to #3 in the world rankings, trailing only Lydia Ko and Ariya Jutanaugan.
  • Chun, the winner of the 2015 U.S. Women’s Open as a non-member, now has two career victories, both majors. It is somewhat reminiscent of the PGA’s Angel Cabrera, who for a long time, held two career victories: the 2007 U.S. Open and the 2009 Masters. He has since won the 2014 Greenbrier Classic.
  • Angela Stanford was the low American, finishing at -10, which was good for solo-seventh.
  • Lydia Ko uncharacteristically played poorly on the weekend, going 75-73 and finishing 2-over par, good for a tie for 43rd. Ko finished in the top 3 of the first three majors, winning one, but has two bad major outings in a row with a T40 at the RICOH Women’s British Open along with her disappointing Evian performance. Ko still won the Rolex Annika Major Award, a prestigious honor that goes to the golfer who performed best during the major season.

Here are some of her stats in the victory:

Web.com Finals – Round 2

The weekend was also the Albertson’s Boise Open, the second tournament of the four event Web.com finals, with the 25 golfers who earn the most money being given PGA Tour cards for next season.

 
Michael Thompson won by three by over Miguel Angel Carballo.

Leaderboard

1 Michael Thompson -23
2 Miguel Angel Carballo -20
3 Grayson Murray -18
4 Andrew ‘Beef’ Johnston -17
T5 Ryan Blaum, Mackenzie Hughes, Scott Stallings -16

Thompson has played in at least 22 PGA Tour events each of the past six seasons, but was unable to get his card for next season. He has one career victory: the 2013 Honda Classic. He put himself on the map of American golf with his T2 at the 2012 U.S. Open, but has struggled in recent seasons. In 2016, Thompson had just one top-10 finish, a T4 at the Barbasol Championship. He finished 145th in the FedEx Cup standings.

Albertson’s posted a video of the winning putt.

Exciting News: More Beef on the PGA Tour

In the minds of most people, the best thing to come out of the Albertson’s Boise Open was the fourth place finish of Andrew ‘Beef’ Johnston, which secured his tour card for next season.

 
Beef has become a global phenomenon with his jubilant attitude, everyman demeanor, incredible personality, and his enormous beard. He has gone great lengths to make fans a big part of his life.

Smylie Kaufman believes Beef is ready for his initiation:

Beef had a message for Kaufman and Justin Thomas.

With a fan.

Between Beef, Tiger, and many other amazing players, it looks like the next PGA season will be one of the best seasons yet!

Paradox of the Day

Marcus Fraser, who put himself on the global radar in Rio at The Olympics, was disappointed with his performance at the Italian Open. He expressed confusion of how he finished so far back:

It then led to a humorous exchange between Fraser and Thomas Pieters:

The country Pieters is referring to is Belgium. He represented them at The Olympics, and will represent Europe at the Ryder Cup.

As for the tournament itself, it was won by a home-grown player: Italy’s Francesco Molinari. He finished one stroke ahead of Masters champion Danny Willett.

Molinari appears to be happy about the victory:

Tweet of the Day

Speaking of the European Tour, a number of pros had a festive trip out of Italy. Included in this picture are Danny Willett and Matthew Fitzpatrick, both from England.

Pic of the Day

Lydia Ko posed for a shot with female tennis star Maria Sharapova. Sharapova, from Sweden, has five career Grand Slam Titles, three more than Ko has in golf, although Sharapova is ten years older, so Ko has plenty of time to catch her.

https://twitter.com/LydiaKo/status/777581652943986692

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