Take a quick glance at the results of the LPGA’s Mediheal Championship and you wouldn’t get a true sense of Stephanie Meadow’s impact. Tied for 32nd place after 72 holes, 11 strokes off the winning score gives no hint that as recently as the day before she was tied for third place.
There seemed to be a pattern to Meadow’s play over the first three rounds in Somis, Calif. The front nine would be difficult but then she would find her stride late in the round, picking up three birdies. She posted rounds of 68, 70 and 71 to nestle comfortably into the top 10, although seven strokes off Jodi Ewart Shadoff’s leading number going into the final round.
Sunday proceeded much the same way for Meadow as had the previous days. She made the turn a stroke over par. But there were no birdies on the back nine, just two bogeys. Yet, contending is always a good place to be and she’ll try to replicate the better aspects of her play next week in South Korea at the BMW Ladies Championship.
As for Ewart Shadoff, she coughed up the lead on Sunday, only to regroup and come out on top by a stroke.
ALPS TOUR
Jonathan Yates won this circuit’s Grand Final in Modena, Italy but Gary Hurley, who tied for eighth place, is an even bigger winner.
Despite winning the season’s ultimate event on this feeder circuit to the Challenge Tour, Yates didn’t accrue enough points to finish among the top five. That final position, instead, went to Hurley.
Yates shot rounds of 67, 66 and 69 to finish two strokes atop Stefano Mazzoli. Hurley’s 67, 70 and 72 left him seven strokes off Yates’s winning number.
“My game was very, very solid,” Yates said. He indicated that he will try to get through second stage of the DP World Tour Q School the first week of November in hopes of winning a card on the prestige circuit. A high enough finish at final stage, should he reach it, could also earn status on next year’s Challenge Tour.
PGA TOUR CHAMPIONS
It was Steve Stricker’s turn this week. The 50-and-over set gathered in Jacksonville for Furyk and Friends, where Stricker’s 14-under-par was good for a two-stroke victory. Padraig Harrington finished five strokes off Stricker’s score, good enough for sixth place.
Harrington combined three rounds of 69, although the first two rounds differed markedly from Sunday’s finale. As has been the case of late, Harrington festooned his scorecards with rafts of birdies and bogeys over the first two rounds. Nothing tepid there.
Then, on Sunday, Harrington was 3-under through six holes. After that, he played evenly; no birdies, no bogeys, just pars.
“Just not my week,” Harrington posted on Twitter.
It was even less Darren Clarke’s week. Rounds of 77, 74 and 69 found him lodged in a tie for 57th place.
This week’s event is the SAS Championship in Cary, N.C. Both Harrington and Clarke are expected to tee off.
CHALLENGE TOUR
Time is running out for Conor Purcell but not without him forging a last-gasp effort to secure a DP World Tour card for 2023 through a top 20 finish on this circuit.
Purcell finished joint-ninth in the British Challenge at St. Mellion Estate in Cornwall, England. He moved up 11 pegs to 64th place on the Road to Mallorca. He alternated the subpar (69 in the first and third rounds) with the over par (73 and 74 in the second and fourth rounds, respectively).
Purcell was in with a shot on Sunday, following Saturday’s immaculate tour of the course that came on the heels of Friday’s two double-bogey debacle. Birdies at the first two holes on Sunday suggested that he might be on his way, but he gave those back at the third and fourth holes. He couldn’t find another birdie the rest of the way, although he suffered two more bogeys. He finished five strokes off Euan Walker’s winning score.
Tom McKibbin shot 3-over-par 291 (74-71-75-71) for a share of 43rd place, which enabled him to remain at 15th place in the rankings.
Tyler Hogarty played well through 54 holes of his Challenge Tour debut – 68, 75, 70 – until derailed by 82 on Sunday. The 11 strokes he lost to par in the final round were more than the nine he suffered through the first three rounds. He sank into a share of 55th place.
Neither John Murphy nor Ruaidhri McGee helped their causes for advancement. Murphy missed the cut after rounds of 75 and 78, while McGee called it a tournament after opening with 78. Murphy dropped from 38th to 42nd on the rankings ladder, while McGee fell from 43rd to 46th.
They get another chance this week in the English Trophy at Frilford Heath in Abingdon, England. Then comes the Grand Final the first week of November.
PGA TOUR
Seamus Power grabbed a share of the lead in the Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas after he opened with four birdies over his first seven holes. A double bogey-6 loomed soon after he made the turn, although he got those strokes back later in the round.
The 70 that Power shot on Friday was only a stroke above Friday’s 69 but TPC Summerlin was playing very receptively, and Power’s 3-under-par through 36 holes was one stroke on the wrong side of the cut line.
