There are a number of levels of competitive golf and this past weekend was no exception to the rule. Our review of the occurrences of the past week include the best golfers in the world, the bubble boys, the up-and-comers, and the college guys.
Dustin Johnson ran away from the field to win the World Golf Championship-Mexico tournament. A limited-field, no-cut tournament for 72 exempt golfers, DJ was in a league all his own as he romped to a five-stroke victory over Rory McIlroy and finished 10 shots ahead of the trio of Paul Casey, Ian Poulter and Kiradech Aphibarnrat. It was Johnson’s 20th career win on the PGA Tour and will earn him a lifetime exemption. Only 38 golfers in the 100-plus years of the PGA Tour have won 20 or more events, and in the modern era, only Tom Watson, Johnny Miller, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods have matched that feat prior to age 35. Dustin is 34 years old.
Last week at the WGC-Mexico, Dustin Johnson’s runaway victory was attributable to two profound statistics. He was first in strokes gained putting as well as first in greens in regulation. It was the 12th consecutive year that Johnson has won a tournament on the PGA Tour. Next week he will eclipse Justin Rose and once again ascend to the top of the world golf rankings. A past United States Open champion, Dustin Johnson needs to take advantage of the next few seasons and add to his major championship totals to certify his place in the World Golf Hall of Fame.
If you can’t get into a World Golf Championship event and yet are an exempt player on the PGA Tour, then there is usually a secondary event to enter. Last week the also-rans were at the Puerto Rico Open. The leader board was a pretty impressive one featuring such name pros as Aaron Baddeley, Johnson Wagner, Charl Schwartzel, Ben Crane and Daniel Berger. A relatively unknown tour rookie, 27-year-old Martin Trainer, birdied the final hole, posted a final-round 67, and beat Berger, Baddeley and Wagner by three shots.
Of course, no one is truly a relative unknown and such is the case for Martin Trainer. He was born in France but spent his formative years on San Francisco’s Peninsula. Although Puerto Rico was Trainer’s first PGA Tour win in just 11 events – he had missed five cuts in his last eight starts – past performance showed that he had learned how to win. Martin won twice on the Web.com Tour last year and added an earlier victory on the PGA Latinoamerica Tour in 2016.
Of course, I could add a whole lot more to the Martin Trainer story because he was a contemporary of my son Nick in the world of junior golf some 12 years ago. A golfer at Gunn High School in Palo Alto, Trainer was good enough to quality into the U.S. Junior and the U.S. Public Links as a 16-year-old in 2007. He also played his way into the California State Amateur. He shocked a lot of people when the following March he beat well-known Bay Area super amateur Randy Haag in the finals of the San Francisco City Amateur. He was the youngest champion in the history of the S.F. City and parlayed his success into a collegiate career at the University of Southern California. Now he’s a PGA Tour champion with an invite to the Masters.
Hoping to join Trainer someday on the PGA Tour is another one of his junior contemporaries, namely Doug Quinones of Hidden Valley Lake. The former Middletown High School star has been the dominant player on the Dakotas Tour during the past four years. Quinones survived four intense rounds in the PGA Tour China Qualifying Tournament last week and now has exempt status on that developmental tour for 2019. Quinones shot 68-75-73-70 to attain exempt status on the button. His final-nine 31 was just enough to get him his PGA Tour China card.
The PGA Tour China began in 2014 and is a developmental tour like the Canadian (Mackenzie) Tour and the Latinoamerica Tour. Top-five finishers at the end of the 14-tournament circuit gain exempt status onto the following year’s Web.com Tour. The poster boy for PGA Tour China is Haotong Li. Li won three times on the China tour in 2014 and advanced to the Web.com Tour. He got into the 2016 Volvo China Open, a European Tour event, and won that tourney. Suddenly a regular on the European Tour, Li added a second Euro win in 2018, beating out Rory McIlroy by one stroke to win in Dubai. Li is currently 35th in the world rankings, ninth on the European Tour Order of Merit, and just might be the first citizen of China to represent the World Team in this year’s President’s Cup in Australia in December. Part of the reason for Li’s success is that he learned how to win on PGA Tour China.
Of course, it took lots of research for me to realize that I know very little about the China tour. After all, I’m not all that clear about the Haiku Championship or the Kunming Championship, nor can I tell you much about the Hunan Dragon Lake International Golf Club or the Yantai Nanshan Mashanzhai Country Club. The PGA Tour China basically runs two tournaments each month from March through October and the total purses are $1.5 million RMB (yuan). After scoping out the exchange rate, that comes out to 15 percent on the American dollar or $225,000 in total purse cash. Hey, it’s all about the experience and Doug is attempting to climb to the next level.
Quinones played two years at the University of Kansas, but prior to that he played junior college golf at the College of the Desert and Monterey Peninsula College. Former Kelseyville High School star Matt Wotherspoon is taking that next step by playing on the golf team at Cypress College. Located in Orange County, Cypress is the defending state junior college team champion.
This past Monday Wotherspoon shot even-par 72 at the Victoria Golf Club to help his team surge to victory in the Riverside Invitational. Cypress College is once again in a quest to win the state and the five low scores for the Chargers included Matt’s 72, joined by another 72, a 73, and a pair of 74s. That’s pretty impressive stuff. Their team total of 365 (low five scores) was 5-over-par and was four shots better than a trio of runner-ups, namely Orange Coast, Reedley and Palomar. There were 11 teams in the field. Matt finished tied for sixth among the 66 contestants.
Victoria Golf Club originally opened in 1892. It was designed by Englishman Charles Maud and has been revised by Max Behr, and later on by Billy Bell. The recent closing of Mare Island Golf Course in Vallejo means that Victoria is perhaps the oldest golf course in the West. This past Wednesday Matt shot a 73 at Candlewood Country Club as Cypress romped to a 20-stroke victory in league play.
