'Dawgs on Tour: Little Trouble in Big China

First some news from the current undergraduate squads.

The UGA men's team is currently ranked twelfth in the nation. A successful fall campaign included medalist honors for Junior Greyson Sigg at Pebble Beach in September. They just completed the inaugural East Lake Cup, which is a 2-day, 4 -team match play tournament held at East Lake in Atlanta. The teams are the top four from the NCAA's completed this summer (of which UGA finished 3rd). This time they exacted some revenge by beating defending national champion LSU 3-1-1, but couldn't muster enough on Tuesday and fell to #2 ranked Illinois 1-3-1. Still a successful outing and UGA got much love from the Golf Channel TV crew on how successfully Coach Chris Haack has turned out PGA Tour pros.

The UGA women's team recently finished fifth at the Stanford Classic, but that was the worst finish this fall for Coach Josh Brewer's squad. They have two tournament wins and have been more consistent than any time in recent memory. Having been ranked as high as #2 nationally, they are currently #8 as they start preparing for the spring season.

In other news, Tiger Woods had more back surgery. Click away if you care to.

Now on to the boys playing golf for real money:

The PGA Tour has a split schedule this week, with a World Golf Championship event (top 78 players in the world invited) going against a minor tournament that is considered a "regular Tour stop". The WGC-HSBC Champions is held in Shanghai China, and thus is playing about 12 hours ahead of us. The Sheshan International Golf Club is nice as far as China goes, and will likely have a few openings considering the Communist party recently banned golf as contrary to their updated moral and ethical code. Golf memberships for all 88 million Party members are banned, and is apparently akin to having "improper sexual relations with others.". I admit my game isn't where it needs to be, but I have yet to compare it to improper sexual relations. Wait.. scratch that. Yes I have compared it to improper sexual relations. Like performing a certain "giving" act on a donkey. But hey, I was just kidding. I don't think the Politburo is kidding. Anywhoo, they're still paying millions of dollars/yuan to have Americans and Europeans play for guaranteed cash right in front of their emphysematous citizens. Go figure. Rory, Spieth, Fowler, Dustin Johnson and most of the big names have already teed off and are competing against our boys.

Formerly residing in Athens and playing this week are:

Chris Kirk (T14 last year and T54 after round 1)
Bubba Watson T16 (defending champion)
Harris English T9 (four shots off the lead)
and Kevin Kisner who is T2 after an opening 64 and one shot off the pace.

Closer to home, the regular Tour stop is the Sanderson Farms Classic in Jackson, MS. This is not to be confused with the fallow field where we held keg parties in high school. It's an actual golf course, specifically the Country Club of Jackson. (c'mon, think of a really witty crack on golf in Mississippi! Heck, it just speaks for itself). Brendon Todd is the lone UGA product representing Red & Black in Jackson, and the first round is just underway this morning.

Here's the 2015-16 season thus far and some results of note:

Frys.com Open: Swafford T17, Compton T26, Todd T26, Henley T41, Kirk and Harman missed cut.

Shriners Hospital for Childrens Open: Henley 10th, Kisner T25, Harman T56, Todd/Swafford/Compton missed cut.

CIMB Classic (in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia): Harman T7, Swafford T24, Kisner T37, English T43.

So we've already had great success by our granduates and former players, a couple of wins by those currently matriculating, and nationally ranked programs that have very low scoring averages. Yep, that would be the University of Georgia.

GO 'DAWGS!!!!