Notes and Quotes from Bridgestone:
Westwood pines for grunt-and-groan – WGC - Bridgestone Invitational
AKRON, Ohio - Time was when golfers didn't lift weights, for fear of building muscles that would interfere with golf. (They would also avoid strenuous work, partially for the same reason.) Now comes Lee Westwood, confessing he wishes he'd have started doing the grunt-and-groan work in the gym far earlier, trying to catch up with the new-age golfer.This was a light therapy session after he shot a 3-under 67 Saturday to join Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh tied for the lead through the third round of the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational, sharing a one-stroke lead over Australia's Stuart Appleby going into Sunday's final round.
“I'm 35 years old now, and I was 34 when I started doing it, and I probably started 10 years too late,” Westwood said. “I should have taken the warning from Ernie [Els]. He said he wished he would have started before he was 30. You can fall back on youth when you're in your 20s.”
The point is that all the best golfers - Mickelson, Singh, Els, et al. -- lift weights, etc., and get into pretty good physical shape, a direct impact from Tiger Woods.
“All big guys have big shoulders,” Westwood said. “I used to be big, and now I needed to put on a bit of bulk. It's paying dividends now.
“The weights have helped me tremendously. I'm hitting the ball a lot farther, and when I want to make changes in my golf swing, I can implement them a lot faster because my muscles are more responsive to change.”
MAKING AN UNDERSTATEMENT - “I actually didn't play so well, especially on the back nine,” said Northern Ireland's Darren Clarke. This after shooting 65, 5-under for a 4-under total of 206. The downer was the back nine, where he birdied the 11th, then the 16th and 17th, then fell afoul of the 18th and made his second bogey of the day. He started with three birdies from No. 2, bogeyed No. 7, then birdied No. 8.
“I obviously played very well here to win, so I know the golf course,” said Clarke, who won this tournament in 2000, when it was the NEC Invitational. “I know where I should miss and where I shouldn't miss. I made a silly mistake on 18, and so be it. But 65 is a pretty good score.”
EUROPE RISING - A win tomorrow for either England's Lee Westwood or Spain's Miguel A. Jimenez (the latter is much less likely) would be the fourth World Golf Championships win by a European Tour player. The first three: Clarke in the 2000 Accenture Match Play and the 2003 Bridgestone Invitational, Ernie Els in the 2004 CA Championship, and Henrik Stenson in the 2007 Accenture Match Play.
Jimenez has won 15 times throughout the world, but never on the PGA Tour. His best finish in the U.S. was a second in the 1999 WGC-American Express Championship (CA Championship), where he led going into the final round and then lost to Tiger Woods in a playoff.
QUIET SURPRISE - While no one was paying attention, unknown Hidemasa Hoshino, the only Japanese golfer in the field, was quietly putting up a 5-under 65, matching Clarke for low round of the day. He's well out of the hunt, at 3-over 213. He bogeyed only once, at No. 7.
The putter did it for Hoshino, a mere 5-foot-9 and 160 pounds taking on the 7,400-yard course. He chipped in at No. 4, and dropped birdie putts
of 2, 9, 9, 10 and 33 feet. He's won three times on the Japan Tour, but not this year, and came in ranked 169th in the world.
FIRESTONE REPORT CARD - The par-5 No. 2 continued to be the patsy of Firestone, at 4.5 playing the easiest on the course. No. 13, 471-yard par-4, played hardest in the third round, at 4.4, nearly a half-stroke over par. All told, the par-70 course played at 70.612, giving up 237 birdies but taking 262 bogeys and 16 double bogeys, including four each at No. 1 and No. 9, both par-4s.
TIDS AND BITS - Former U.S. Open champ Geoff Ogilvy, after shooting 71-67, crashed to a 79, tops in the third round. The wreckage included three straight bogeys from No. 7, a double bogey at the 13th, and three straight bogeys from the 14th … Chad Campbell (68) and Masters champ Trevor Immelman (68) had the only bogey-free rounds of the day … Chris DiMarco, playing his best golf in some time, has shot 68-70-68 and is tied for sixth at 4-under 206 he has not finished in the top10 this season.
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