Getting a Headstart on the Week

The first Limerick Summary of 2014 will be delayed, of course, because the Hyundai Tournament of Champions finishes today instead of Sunday. So I asked myself, "What should I talk about on Monday?"

Ah yes -- the rest of the golfing world slowly but surely shifts into gear this week. I know of only two tournaments this week besides the next PGA Tour event, but today seemed like a convenient time to look ahead. The first is for fans of the women's game.

Although neither the LPGA nor the LET starts until later this month, the TLPGA (that's the Taiwan LPGA) gets underway on Friday. The Hitachi Classic will be played at the Orient Golf & Country Club in Taoyuan, Taiwan and Pornanong Phatlum is the defending champion. (You may recall that she beat Stacy Lewis at the Omega Dubai Ladies Masters just last month.)

I'm afraid I don't have any more info than that. I couldn't even find a home page for the tournament. I'm sure the Constructivist (and possibly Tony Jesselli) will be covering the event on their blogs.



The other event is the Volvo Golf Champions on the European Tour. It starts on Thursday and is played at the Durban Country Club in South Africa. Essentially this is the ET version of the Hyundai, so you can count on seeing many of the big name players from the ET. That means players like Matteo Manassero and Darren Clarke, among others. Of special interest to American fans, Peter Uihlein is in the field.

One player you won't see is Ernie Els. He's mentioned as the headliner in one of the site's main articles (the photo came from there) but he isn't listed on the tournament entry list. A GolfTalkCentral post explains that Els has elected to skip both this event and the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship in order to get some family time. (This is a potential problem that I have already written about at length. Looks like several players have had the same idea.)

Here's the link for the event's leaderboard, in case you can't catch the broadcasts on GC. The first round broadcast is listed at 11:00am ET Thursday morning, so I assume this event will not be carried live.

That's what you'll be seeing this week -- besides the PGA Tour's Sony Open, of course. The first round of the Sony broadcasts live starting Thursday night at 7:00pm ET. More prime time golf!