The post Martin Kaymer planning 3-month paternity leave after birth of first child appeared first on Golf.

The post Martin Kaymer planning 3-month paternity leave after birth of first child appeared first on Golf.

Martin Kaymer, a two-time major champion and the world’s 118th-ranked player, is not only expecting his first child soon, he also plans to step away from the game for a significant period to settle in with his new addition.

According to an interview Kaymer gave to a German golf magazine (reported by the Associated Press), Kaymer and his partner, Irene Scholz, are expecting a baby in January.

“Our child will be born in Germany and I won’t play any tournaments for three months and only start again in March,” Kaymer told the magazine.

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Scholz, who is also German, is fitness enthusiast and former Peloton instructor, and accompanied Kaymer to the 2021 Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits, where Kaymer served as an assistant captain to Team Europe’s Padraig Harrington.

Kaymer has straddled both the PGA Tour and the European Tour for the majority of his career — a difficult prospect when you have a family.

That’s why, once his child is born, Kaymer says he wants to live in Florida. “Commuting between America and Europe just hasn’t worked for me,” he said.

Kaymer has three victories on the PGA Tour, including his majors, and 12 additional international victories, though he hasn’t won on any tour since 2012.

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The post Viktor Hovland closes out ‘very stressful’ victory with clutch finish appeared first on Golf.

The post Viktor Hovland closes out ‘very stressful’ victory with clutch finish appeared first on Golf.

After finishing off the BMW International, Viktor Hovland expressed one emotion above all others:

Relief.

“I’m kind of glad it’s over,” Hovland said after his win. “It was a long day, it was very stressful, but it feels great and it will be nice to relax for a couple of weeks.”

Hovland had a particularly strange WD from last week’s U.S. Open when he got sand in his eye. This week went decidedly differently. He entered the final round at Golfclub München Eichenried in Germany with a three-shot lead and posted a final-round of two-under 70 to win by two. Still, there was nothing easy about it.

“That was a long day. Sleeping on the lead you start thinking about winning, but there’s a lot of things that can happen,” Hovland said.

And happen they did. Hovland’s fiercest challenge actually came from well behind when hometown hero Martin Kaymer, eight shots back after an opening birdie, started to make his run. Kaymer birdied 2, 5 and 6. He birdied 9, 10, 11 and 12. When he made another birdie at the 15th and then two-putted for yet another at the drivable par-4 16th, he’d played his way into a tie for the lead with Hovland.

Accessories

“Making those putts in the end, on 15 and 16, it feels good,” Kaymer said after his round. “I haven’t putted that well in a really long time. I putt consistently okay — but today I needed everything and I pretty much made everything.”

Several groups behind, Hovland was stalled out. He made bogey at No. 2 and birdie at No. 5, but settled for pars on holes 6-12, a stretch that included three gettable par-5s.

“I saw [Martin] was climbing the leaderboard pretty quickly and I saw he was at 16 under for a while,” Hovland said. “I was at 17 for a while but I knew he had 18 left and was probably going to make a birdie.”

Kaymer bogeyed 17 but added his 10th birdie of the day at No. 18 to post the clubhouse lead of 17 under. All that was left was for Hovland to beat the number.

No problem. Hovland birdied No. 13 to take a one-shot lead to the finishing stretch. Then he went for the green at the reachable 16th and got up-and-down for a big-time birdie. He gave that shot back at No. 17, but finished things off in style with a closing birdie at the par-5 18th to beat Kaymer by two.

“I still had to get after it and make a couple of birdies,” Hovland said. “My strategy didn’t change much at all. I still decided to go for it on 16 and still decided to hit it on the green on 18. I knew I had to close this thing out, I couldn’t just roll over.”

In finishing off the win, Hovland became the first Norwegian man with a victory on the European Tour. He earned the $274,000 first prize. And he got a congratulations from Kaymer, who greeted Hovland by the 18th green.

“I didn’t see he was on the 18th green until he said something to me,” Hovland said of his closest competitor. Hovland offered his own congratulations in return. “Sixty-four today was really good with the greens firmed up and some tricky pins.”

Kaymer is still chasing after his first victory since the 2014 U.S. Open. He was disappointed to come up short but generally thrilled with the result — particularly the putt he made at 18 to apply some pressure to Hovland.

“I am very pleased to make that many birdies — that gave me a chance. It was important on 18,” he said. “I haven’t felt that in a long time.”

Instruction

Kaymer, one of the most popular European pros, is just 36 but was recently named a vice captain for this year’s Ryder Cup. Still, he has designs on making the team. He ranked 21st in European points heading into the week and only improved on his chances.

“If I’m in great form and I can put myself in contention a few more times until then, maybe Pádraig [Harrington] has something to think about,” Kaymer concluded.

One thing is for sure: Hovland will be on that team, with one European Tour victory — at least — under his belt.

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The post Why this ‘unhappy’ major champ turned to YouTube to regain his mojo appeared first on Golf.

The post Why this ‘unhappy’ major champ turned to YouTube to regain his mojo appeared first on Golf.

Martin Kaymer wasn’t feeling quite right.

There was plenty to be excited about, of course. It was the eve of this week’s PGA Championship, the first major in over a year and (with apologies to last week’s Barracuda Championship) the first big start for Kaymer since before the pandemic. But as he drove home from dinner in San Francisco, something didn’t sit right.

“I didn’t feel that good. I was not that happy for some reason. I don’t know, sometimes that happens.” It’s worth admiring the simple honesty in those lines; Kaymer is a rare combination of thoughtful and direct. It’s also worth admiring Kaymer’s strategy for turning his week around.

When the 35-year-old got back to his hotel room, he fired up YouTube. Specifically, he loaded up the final nine of the 2014 U.S. Open — a tournament he won by eight shots. Eight! “I thought I needed to lift my spirit a bit,” he said.

The video is about 100 minutes long, but no worries: Kaymer says he generally doesn’t have much to do at night, anyway.

Kaymer admitted that part of the reason for his malaise was a lack of recent competition — and a long run of substandard form.

“I just haven’t played well enough. I mean, it’s very simple. My priorities, they’ve shifted a little bit. I didn’t practice as much as I should have. I didn’t feel as motivated as I maybe should have, also.”

It’s understandable that Kaymer would turn back the clock to 2014, when golf was particularly simple. His stint at World No. 1 was still fresh in his mind. Then he won the Players Championship — and a few weeks later, blitzed the field at Pinehurst. He hasn’t won an event since.

The video has just shy of 180,000 views, but Kaymer insists most of those aren’t from him — before the pandemic, he hadn’t watched a replay of the event in four or five years. But he credited Wednesday night’s viewing with getting him in the right frame of mind as he headed to the par-5 10th on Thursday morning.

“I was thinking if I can start off nicely with a birdie, that would be great,” he said. “Definitely that video from last night, that helped me to believe that my putting was good enough, that my ball-striking was good enough. Even though it’s a few years back, it’s always nice to remember those moments and feel the same that you felt that day.”

Kaymer didn’t birdie the 10th, but something clicked midway through his round: after playing his first 7 holes in even par, Kaymer went birdie-par-birdie-par-birdie-eagle to jump into a share of the lead. He bogeyed his final hole of the day but posted four under 66 to get himself right into the mix.

The performance was buoyed by his putting, which has been a fickle beast in recent years. “It’s very rare to have days like this, but something to build onto,” he said. On the day, he ranked 4th with 3.231 strokes gained on the greens.

Kaymer sounded energized after his round. To be sure, opening a major championship with 66 would energize anyone. But he talked of feeling motivated by the game’s next generation. He hasn’t contended much recently; by world ranking points, just one of his top 20 career starts has come since Pinehurst at 2014. He’s got a long way to go to stay in the mix at TPC Harding Park, but at the 10-year anniversary of his first major championship, what better time to turn back the clock?

“I like to go back to those moments,” he said. “I know you shouldn’t live in the past, but if the past can help you in the present moment, I’ll take it.”

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The post WATCH: 9 Euro Tour players perform hilarious Zoom conference spoof appeared first on Golf.

The post WATCH: 9 Euro Tour players perform hilarious Zoom conference spoof appeared first on Golf.

As the world has been upended over the last few months by the coronavirus pandemic, Zoom and other video conferencing platforms have become a newly ubiquitous part of life for many, both professionally and socially.

The European Tour has made a name for itself in recent years by producing a slew of viral content, from the popular Hole-in-One and 14-Club Challenges to interviews with the Awkward Reporter. On Monday, the Tour produced yet another hilarious edition to the canon: The Conference Call.

The premise: Martin Kaymer attempts to gather eight of his Tour peers (Henrik Stenson, Colin Montgomerie, Padraig Harrington, Tommy Fleetwood, Sergio Garcia, Justin Rose, Lee Westwood and Gary Player) for an important discussion on some logistics concerning the upcoming BMW PGA Championship. The problem? As everyone knows, when gathering any sizeable group on Zoom, chaos easily reigns.

The best part about this video is the way each of the participants is willing to laugh at himself — or rather, the perceptions others have about them. Kaymer plays the straight man, exasperated by the antics of the others on the call, while the rest are free to ham it up.

Fleetwood is great as the Zoomer who can’t stop making distracting noises, interrupting the meeting with a blender, a hair dryer, and by tending to his toddler son. Harrington gets a laugh as an inept video conferencer whose frustrated profanity is luckily muted by a poor connection. Rose gets to poke fun at his image as Mr. Polished Professional, by first praising Kaymer for getting everyone together for the meeting, then forgetting to mute his microphone as he drops a F-bomb while lamenting how lame and unorganized Kaymer’s meeting is.

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Westwood joins in by explaining that he’s just about finished with a workout on his bike, and proceeds to pedal through most of the rest of the conversation. Monty explains that he’s taking the meeting in his car, even though he’s not going anywhere, because “I just like to spend a couple of hours in here everyday.”

Garcia is the designated note-taker, and earns a laugh by attempting to transcribe everything — including bleeped outbursts by Harrington and Rose. Stenson plays the guy who can’t get enough of seeing himself against different Zoom backgrounds, like the Coliseum (“Hey guys, that’s weird. I didn’t know we were holding this meeting in … ancient Rome!”), and even Kaymer gets to poke a little fun at himself, when a screen share with the group reveals a moody portrait of Kaymer as his desktop background, and a Wikipedia page open to “Martin Kaymer.”

The best part of the video, though, is courtesy of Gary Player. Kaymer greets Player at the beginning, and when Player immediately launches into a “back-in-my-day” storytelling session, Kaymer quickly mutes him. It’s a running gag, since we see see Player throughout the video as he continues to unspool the same unending story. By the end of the call, Player is the only one left, asking “Hello? Hello? Nobody’s here.”

For anyone who has taken part in a multi-person video conference, the video is hugely relatable and offers some humorous respite during these decidedly trying times. You can watch the video in its entirety below.

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The post 2019 Memorial Tournament: Sunday tee times for final round at Muirfield Village appeared first on Golf.

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The post Here’s what you missed from Round 3 at the Memorial Tournament appeared first on Golf.

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Tiger Woods starts fast, struggles late to fall out of contention in Round 3 at Memorial

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The post Masters 2019: Tiger Woods’s win was an inspiration in the players locker room appeared first on Golf.

The post Masters 2019: Tiger Woods’s win was an inspiration in the players locker room appeared first on Golf.

AUGUSTA, Ga. — The 2019 Masters was still in question when Martin Kaymer plopped down in the men’s locker room. The 34-year-old German had just signed for a Sunday 71, and a two-over total for the event.

As his brother Philip got comfy next to him, Kaymer cracked a Diet Coke and pulled out his iPhone. He yanked off his cleats and propped up his feet. It was time to watch history. In the middle of the television screen hung in the locker room at Augusta National, Tiger Woods stood on the 17th tee box, holding his driver and a two-shot lead at Augusta National.

A flurry of other pros had come through the locker room Sunday afternoon. It was grab and go with sliders, shrimp and salad on the menu. For many of the pros here — including Patrick Cantlay, Rafa Cabrera-Bello, Corey Conners and Eddie Pepperell — another PGA Tour event begins in just a few days. Each man checked the broadcast for a few moments, but the Kaymer brothers were glued to it for the long haul. So was the wait staff.

Woods smashed his drive up the 17th hole, confirming its accuracy with a club twirl. “Oh, there he goes now,” Martin Kaymer said excitedly. That driver led Woods around Augusta National better than it has in a very long time.

“I’m gonna head out to 18 to see it,” one over-eager locker room attendant said. “You’re gonna do that and some green jacket is gonna see you on TV,” a cook said in retort. Yes, sometimes the signature moment of a Masters can send even a rigidly-ruled Augusta National into frenzy.

Patrick Reed helps fit Tiger Woods with a fifth green jacket.

Getty Images

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Woods nearly aced the 16th hole, and with that birdie he grabbed the 2019 Masters by the throat. Two tricky par 4s remained. Up ahead on 18, Dustin Johnson missed a birdie putt. Brooks Koepka missed a birdie on 17. Did they see that old, familiar name atop the leaderboard?

Alex Noren momentarily paused his locker clean-up to watch Woods’s approach at 17 spin back to nine feet. He had to shove off to Harbour Town. Woods made his par, and then Rickie Fowler joined the watch party. “Where’s T at?” he asked.

Woods had pushed his tee shot on 18 to the right edge of the fairway, up against the collar of the second cut. Then he overcut his second shot 38 yards short and right of the green. “Gotta get this thing on the lower level. Come on, now,” Fowler said. Kaymer agreed. “Gotta get it just scootin’… Just like…that!”

Woods had pulled off the pitch shot exactly as his Jupiter, Fla., pal drew it up. He was safely aboard the 18th green, where he won for the first time 22 years ago. He won his second green jacket in 2001, which was also his fourth straight major. His third Masters title came a year later in defense. He beat Chris DiMarco with a 15-foot birdie on the first playoff hole in 2005. That was 14 years ago.

Tiger Woods reacts immediately after clinching the Masters.

USA Today

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The putt Woods had left on 18 was no sure thing, and it’s possible Fowler was even more nervous than Woods. Tiger eased the ball toward the cup, almost catching the right lip for what would’ve been a historic par save. “I would have limped that up there a little more! I’d feel a lot better about this, short,” Fowler said, separating his hands by half a foot. “Not that, long.”

“But he’s already at 14 [under],” Kaymer replied. “When’s the last time he missed one of those?”

The whole room pondered for a quiet second or two. Fowler knocked on the wooden wall for good luck.

Suddenly they realized the broadcast was on a 10-second delay. About 200 yards away, the crowd roared louder than ever. Woods had made the putt, and the Masters was over. Fowler didn’t wait to see it on TV. He was already out the door to congratulate his friend.

Kaymer stayed put. Like Woods, this two-time major-winner has endured highs and lows — but none as severe as Tiger’s. No public scandal, no train of debilitating injuries, no DUI arrest. But it’s fair to say Kaymer isn’t nearly the same golfer now that he was at his peak, either. His world rank of 194th in late March was the lowest it has been since September 2006. Woods was No. 1 back then by a ridiculous margin.

As his brother leapt to watch Woods walk by the locker room window, Martin stayed focused on the television, chin resting on his right hand. Not far away, Woods signed his card to close the book on major no. 15.

Kaymer sat for another minute or so before rising to clean out his locker and head out. “I had to watch it. It’s so good for you to watch something like that,” Kaymer said. “It is just proof that whatever you set your mind to, you can do it. You can come back.”

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The post Valero Texas Open: Fantasy Drive appeared first on Golf.

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Fantasy Correspondent Jeff Eisenband has the six picks for this week’s event including Tony Finau as a lock.

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The post Martin Kaymer Q&A: A PGA, a U.S. Open, a Players, what’s next? appeared first on Golf.

The post Martin Kaymer Q&A: A PGA, a U.S. Open, a Players, what’s next? appeared first on Golf.

In 2010, you edged out Bubba Watson in a three-
hole playoff to win the PGA Championship, the first of your two majors. Eight years later, is there a particular memory that sticks out?

Yeah, how clear it was, the 
way I was going to win. Before Bubba and I even went into 
the playoff, I already had in 
my mind how the 10th, 17th 
and 18th holes would look. 
The 10th was very clear for me—he would make birdie, because he’s so much longer than me. Then I would need to pick up a shot on 17 and 18. And I did. In my mind, I had it already played through. It was huge proof to me of how strong the mental approach can be.

It was a crazy scene that day, with Dustin Johnson grounding his club in a fairway bunker on the 72nd hole. His two-stroke penalty effectively eliminated him from playing extra holes. You finished before DJ, so you got 
to watch the chaos unfold. Did you get emotionally involved with what was going on?

Honestly, I was a bit overwhelmed, because my goal on that Sunday was not to win the golf tournament. I thought I wasn’t ready yet. It was only my second year on Tour and for me it was more important to make that year’s Ryder Cup team. If I played well on Sunday, I would make the team. And then I found myself in a playoff, and because I was so overwhelmed I didn’t really have time to think about winning my first major. On the other hand, it’s a bit of a shame that I was not fully aware of my situation and how great it was.

When did it set in?

Well, the next morning, I flew to Jamaica. It was a vacation I had already planned with my girlfriend at the time. And I was walking to the plane, and people had the newspaper out, and I was on the front page. I was so embarrassed, because some people recognized me and I didn’t really know how to react. On the flight, I had a chance to reflect on what had happened. But where it 
really got to me was when I 
got home to Germany. There 
was a press conference set up 
in Düsseldorf, where I’m from. And the media interest was huge.

You’re one of the rare 
ones: a PGA champion, a 
U.S. Open champion and 
a Players champion. How 
does the Players win compare to your two major titles?

It’s always a very difficult test. [Sawgrass] is one of those golf courses that really requires everything from you. You need to hit good tee shots, and once you hit fairways you get some chances here and there to make 
birdies. But if you miss the fairways, it’s very difficult to stop 
the ball on the greens. I know there are a lot of players who 
treat it like a major, because, mentally, it can be that tough. 
So for me being successful there in 2014 was a huge achievement.

Should it be a major?

We have four majors. That 
title belongs to those four 
tournaments, and it’s the way 
it should be, I believe. But at 
the end of the day, if you win on Sunday afternoon, that’s what 
it comes down to. For me, it doesn’t really matter if it means you won another major or not.

As someone who has won 
a U.S. Open, at Pinehurst 
in 2014, do you consider 
it the toughest test in golf?
It depends on the golf course. 
The toughest test for me is, I think, the Masters. It’s the toughest golf course that we 
play, in my opinion. The U.S. Open can suit your game—
or not. And Pinehurst really suited my game. I felt comfortable in many ways that week.

You made it look easy: an 8-stroke, wire-to-wire win.

Well, it might have looked 
easy, but it was quite difficult. Leading by six, seven shots on Sunday, you’re kind of playing your own tournament, and you need to keep the pressure on, because if you play lousy a little bit or if you play a little defensively, the other guys—they’re not holding back. So it required more of a mental approach.

You won your first major 
in 2010 and your second 
in 2014. And now here 
we are, another four 
years later. Think you 
can continue the trend?

I hope I give myself a chance. 
I think I’m trending in the 
right direction. And it’s a Ryder Cup year, so I’d love to play for Europe and for Thomas Bjorn. Hopefully, I can set myself up 
for another Sunday afternoon.

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