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CHAMPIONSHIP
TICKETS AND HOSPITALITY
GENERAL INFORMATION
HOST COURSE
WORLD GOLF CHAMPIONSHIPS
| CA Championship: First-Round Notebook  PGA TOUR Staff MIAMI -- Thursday's weather: Cloudy and breezy with a high of 76 degrees...Showers throughout the day with total of 0.9 inches of rain... Wind 20-25 mph with gusts up to 30 mph.  Robert Allenby is a regular in the top 10, if not the winner's circle. (Reuters/WireImage)
• A number of players who have been playing well are looking to end a victory drought. Co-leader Robert Allenby has five top-10s in seven starts in 2007, including four consecutive to start the season. Among the current active full-time players on TOUR, Allenby has the most the most Top-10 finishes since his last victory. The leaders in this category are Allenby, Chris DiMarco and Billy Mayfair. Allenby's last win came at the 2001 Marconi Pennsylvania Classic and DiMarco last won at the 2002 FBR Open. • 2007 Accenture Match Play Champion Henrik Stenson shares the first-round lead at the CA Championship with Robert Allenby. Tiger Woods is the only player to win back-to-back World Golf Championships and Darren Clarke is the only other player with more than one WGC victory (2003 Bridgestone Invitational and 2000 Accenture Match Play Championship). • Thomas Bjorn has four runner-up finishes in his 76 PGA TOUR starts, and all have come at either a major championship or the CA Championship. He also finished third at the 2000 PGA Championship. His four seconds were a tie for second at the 2000 British Open, a tie for second at the 2003 British Open, a solo second at the 2004 CA Championship and a tie for second at the 2005 PGA Championship. • Ernie Els and Tiger Woods are the only players in the field to have won the CA Championship and Ford Championship at Doral. Els won the 2002 Ford Championship at Doral and the 2004 CA Championship in Ireland. Woods has won back-to-back titles at Doral and has collected five CA Championship titles. • Including this week's event at Doral, Stuart Appleby has competed in all 25 official World Golf Championships events -- tops among all players since the series inception in 1999. His best finish among the 24 was T2 at the 2003 American Express Championship held at the Capital City Club's Crabapple Course. Padraig Harrington is competing in his 24th consecutive WGC event -- he did not qualify for the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in 1999 but has played in every event since. He has also played in every unofficial WGC-World Cup event since 2000. • Thirteen players are competing in the first World Golf Championships-CA Championship of their careers: Aaron Baddeley; Joe Durant, Paul Goydos; Nathan Green; Anton Haig; Charley Hoffman; Prom Meesawat , Geoff Ogilvy, Jeev M Singh, Kevin Sadler, Steve Stricker; Hideto Tanihara and Mark Wilson (note: Baddeley, Durant and Stricker qualified for the 2001 event in St. Louis, which was cancelled). No player has won a World Golf Championships event in his first start, except Jeff Maggert -- who won the 1999 Accenture Match Play Championship, the first WGC event.
• Six of the 73 players in this week's field are competing in their first World Golf Championship event. They are Americans Mark Wilson and Charley Hoffman, Hideo Tanihara of Japan, Anton Haig of South Africa, Nathan Green of Australia and Prom Meesawat of India. • Living up to its billing as a World Golf Championships event, the CA Championship features 73 players representing 17 different countries. The United States has the most representatives, at 27, followed by South Africa (9) and Australia (8). • Tiger Woods fired a 1-under 71 on Thursday. The 71 ends his streak at eight consecutive rounds in the 60s at the CA Championship. In 29 rounds at the event he has just one over par round (72 in final round in 2003 at the Capital City Club in Woodstock, Ga.). • The World Golf Championships start and end with Tiger Woods. In 23 career official WGC starts, Woods has 12 victories and 21 top-10 finishes -- the only two non top-10s were at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship. Including his two unofficial World Golf Championships, Woods has 13 wins in 25 starts. His earnings of $16,490 in the 21 official starts would equal No. 25 on the PGA TOUR career money list. Copyright 2007 PGATOUR.com. All rights reserved. |
HEADLINES
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