Editor's Weekly Word

Firstly, I must apologize for the disruption to our normal publication schedule over the last few weeks. This has been due the arrival of our bouncing baby daughter, Aníka, at the end of last month. Regular weekly publication of the newsletter will resume when the new PGA Tour season starts in January. There will also be a couple more issues between now and the end of the year as well as articles that will be published on our news feed.

There have been lots of great happenings in the golf world that I would have liked to have written about while I was occupied elsewhere, not least Phil Mickelson's 59 using a golf bag filled with 14 clubs supplied by his new sponsors, Callaway.  Also, Annika Sorenstam picked up her tenth worldwide victory of 2004 at the LPGA Tour's season-ending ADT Championship, the USA team beat the Rest of the World team 14-10 in the UBS Cup (like the Ryder Cup, but for the over 40s) and Tiger Woods finally won a stroke play tournament (see article).

The European Tour 2005 schedule is already under way and top European Tour members continue to show excellent form in official and unofficial events worldwide. U.S. Open Champion, Retief Goosen won the Nedbank Challenge by six shots at Sun City in his native South Africa, while Miguel Angel Jiménez opened his account for the new season in Hong Kong, to add to his four victories earlier in the year. Meanwhile, at the PGA Tour Q-School Final Tournament, England's Brian Davis took top honours to gain his first Tour card to play in the US.

As we approach the end of our first year of publication, we are already looking forward to the future. Golfing Weekly is here to stay and is currently being incorporated in the United States with a view to expanding into other areas of golf publishing. Our first golf instruction book is already well under way and will be published early in the New Year. As a loyal subscriber you will receive a review copy prior to the official publication date. If you think you might be interested in becoming involved in Golfing Weekly's expansion in any way there may be opportunities to do so and I would be interested to hear from you regarding anything you feel you could do to make a contribution to our growth.

That's about it for now.

All the best

Andy Smith
Founder/Editor
www.golfing-weekly.com

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The 2005 European Tour Schedule got under way on November 25 with the Volvo China Open. It was the first of three tournaments being staged in Asia and Africa before Christmas. Welshman Stephen Dodd took the lead after the second round and kept Denmark's Thomas Björn at bay to secure his first Tour win by three strokes.

Björn, who went through a bad slump for much of last season, continued to show his renewed confidence in his game by also posting a top ten (T4) in last week's event, the Omega Hong Kong Open. The final threesome group maintained their dominance of the event throughout Sunday's play and in the end Miguel Angel Jiménez broke away from the defending Champion Padraig Harrington and South Africa's James Kingston to notch up his fifth European Tour win of 2004 to give him the perfect start to the new season. The victory also moved Jiménez up to #12 in the official world golf rankings.

As I write this, the second round of the final pre-christmas event, the Dunhill Championship in South Africa, is in progress and Ernie Els is maintaining his overnight position one shot off the lead as he starts the back nine. It would be a major upset if the world number three does not go on to win this tournament on his home soil against a field which does not contain any other world top 50 ranked players.

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"Off the Cart Path" by Roy Doty

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Official World Golf Rankings

The full standings can be found at the Official World Golf Ranking website, www.officialworldgolfranking.com

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