Golf Tidbits: Youth is served on PGA Tour

Philadelphia, PA (SportsNetwork.com) – The fall events on the PGA Tour are perfect stops for young players to pick up their first tour win, and that has happened in the first three events of the 2014-15 wrap-around schedule.

Sang-Moon Bae, who won the season-opening Frys.com Open, was the grizzled veteran of the first three winners. Bae, 28, is starting his fourth full season on the PGA Tour.

The other two winners – Ben Martin and Robert Streb – are both 27 years old and at the start of their third PGA Tour season.

Of the three, Bae has had the most success. He earned his first tour title at the 2013 Byron Nelson Championship. Bae was also runner-up at the 2012 Transitions Championship.

Martin, the 2009 U.S. Amateur runner-up, had four top-10 finishes and 10 top 25s in his first two seasons combined. He spent the 2012 and 2013 seasons back on the Web.com Tour after failing to keep his PGA Tour card following his rookie season in 2011.

Last season, Martin tallied three third-place finishes and finished 76th on the FedExCup points list.

Streb combined for two top-10 and 12 top-25 finishes in his first two seasons. He was the runner-up at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, an event that included just 10 of the top-30 FedExCup leaders at the time.

The field that Streb topped on Sunday had six players — Matt Kuchar, Zach Johnson, Chris Kirk, Bill Haas, Webb Simpson and Brendon Todd — ranked in the top 50 in the world. Not a powerful field by any means.

Regardless of how weak or strong the fields at the first three events have been, these three came out on top. It helps when guys like Rory McIlroy, Adam Scott, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods, to name a few, aren’t around.

The depth of the tour is greater than it has ever been, and it proves that anyone can win on any given week. You want more proof?

Bae had missed the cut in six of his previous nine starts, and he missed the cut in his next start in Las Vegas as well.

Martin shot 78-79 and finished next-to-last at the Frys.com Open, the week before his victory. He came back with four rounds in the 60s, including a third-round 62, to win the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open.

Streb, who won in 2012 on the Web.com Tour, was the anomaly of the three. He had tied for 31st and 10th at the season’s first two events and carried the momentum with him to Sea Island. Streb has shot in the 60s in nine of his 12 rounds.

They might be no-names to the casual golf fan, maybe even die-hard fans, but they are among the core of the tour membership that keeps the machine that is the tour going.

Bae, Martin and Streb may never challenge McIlroy for the top spot in the world rankings, but they are PGA Tour winners. And each has made at least $2.9 million in their career.

I’m not sure about you, but I would take that if I were still in my late 20s.

LANGER’S DOMINATION OF THE CHAMPIONS TOUR

There is an overabundance of statistics that one can use to measure a golfer and his success. Bernhard Langer tops most of those statistical categories on the Champions Tour this year.

Here is a sampling of the categories Langer leads – birdie average, scoring average, par breakers, top-10 finishes and ball striking.

Armed with that knowledge, it is not difficult to see why Langer has already clinched the $1 million annuity that comes with winning the season-long Charles Schwab Cup race.

Langer has truly been “the ultimate driving machine.”

Over the weekend, Golf Channel’s Brandel Chamblee was heaping praise on Langer for his dominance. Chamblee pointed to Langer’s proficiency in hitting greens as the greatest display in golf history.

Chamblee was not exaggerating, either.

At the height of his domination, Tiger Woods hit 75.15 percent of greens in regulation in 2000. Woods won nine times that season, including the final three majors.

Langer hasn’t been that dominant results-wise, though he does have nine top-2 finishes in 20 starts. He has accomplished those numbers by hitting a remarkable 79.01 percent of greens in regulation.

Overall, Langer has posted 17 top-10 finishes in 20 starts. In the three events he wasn’t in the top 10, Langer still averaged 7-under par.

In the majors this year, Langer has two wins, a tie for third and he shared ninth place at the other two. He also tied for eighth at the Masters.

Langer has five wins this season, and that marks the second time in his career he has won five times in a single season on the Champions Tour. In both of those seasons, Langer won two majors.

He may not have matched some of Hale Irwin’s best seasons on the Champions Tour, but Langer has been far and away the best player on tour this season.

MINI-TIDBITS

– Tough weekend for the LPGA in China: Several rain delays trimmed the event from 72 to 54 holes, and they still needed to go into Monday morning to finish the tournament. South African Lee-Anne Pace claimed her first tour win a week after she won in her homeland.

– Speaking of Irwin, the Champions Tour’s all-time wins leader, he shot 69 in the second round last weekend at the AT&T Championship. That marked the 17th time he has shot his age or better on the Champions Tour.

Categorized in: PGA