Monday Round-Up: Two maiden victories and a new Tiger video

Find out what you missed this weekend, from two first-time winners to Tiger’s latest video update!

Cameron Davis wins Austrlian Open; 3 Secure 2018 Open spots at Carnoustie

A final hole birdie sealed a first professional victory for Cameron Davis, coming from six shots behind to lift the Australian Open trophy and book a spot in his first major championship. 

Jason Day had held the 54-hole lead and looked poised for his first win of the year, but a disappointing final round allowed 22-year-old Australian Cameron Davis to take the title after firing a final round seven-under-par 64 to win the Australian Open by a single shot.

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Sweden’s Jonas Blixt, who missed a 12-foot birdie putt on the last that would have forced a play-off, and Australia’s Matt Jones, the 2015 champion, shared second place, with Day dropping down to fifth place after a 73. It’s not all bad for Blixt and Jones though; along with Davis, the trio also qualified for The Open at Carnoustie in 2018 – with the Australian Open being the first of 15 events in 10 countries that will make up The Open Qualifying Series for 2018.

“I didn’t know where I was, to be honest, after the third round,” said Davis. “I’m just glad I did enough today to get the job done.

“To know that I can play my best golf under the most pressure you can really feel, is so good. I’m going to take that going forward for sure, and hopefully it’s going to help me over the line in the future.”

After 264 starts, Wade Ormsby wins maiden European Tour title

He’s been on the Tour since 2004, and 264 starts later Wade Ormsby finally has his hands on a European Tour trophy. The 37-year-old Australian finished with a final round of 68 to win the 2017 UBS Hong Kong Open champion, even with a bogey on the final hole.

Despite being four shots behind after S.S.P Chawrasia made it to the 8th, a costly triple bogey put Ormsby back in the hunt. He made three birdies and a bogey on the back nine to finish one shot ahead of Rafa Caberera-Bello, Alexander Bjork, Julian Suri and John Peterson.

Ormsby, who has had four trips to q-school and suffered with various injuries over the last 13 years – has now earned a European Tour exemption until 2020 with his win.

“It means a lot to me,” said an emotional Ormsby. “I’ve played a lot of golf in Europe, everywhere, and a few bumps along the way but it’s pretty cool to get a win this late in your career.

“A few of my mates are over here, so that makes it pretty special, having mates around makes it all the more special. “I probably won’t sleep too much on that flight on the way to Oz tonight.”

Tiger’s latest video

Tiger Woods makes his long-awaited return to competitive action this week at the Hero World Challenge, and gave us a look at his swing with a driver in a video he posted on his TGR Live Events pages.

Taken while playing a practice round, it’s the first video he’s posted in a few weeks, but much like his others it was predictably another slow motion.

According to reports, Tiger said after his round: “The fact that I don’t have any pain in my lower back compared to what I was living with for years, it’s just remarkable.”

“It’s been a struggle for years. To finally come out on the good side of it, it’s exciting. I am stiffer, I’m fused. But I don’t have the pain and if I don’t have the pain, life is so much better.”

It comes a couple of days after Brad Faxon, who played in a fourball with Tiger, Dustin Johnson and Donald Trump, said that Tiger had been hitting it past Dustin Johnson.  

“I was impressed with how far he hit the ball,” he said. “Probably on the 10 holes that they were both hitting driver, Tiger hit it past Dustin half the time and Dustin hit it past Tiger half the time.”

However, not everyone was convinced. Graeme McDowell wrote in comments on instagram “I agree he is the GOAT @smciam but DJ is no slouch and at the peak of his phsyical powers. I just don’t see how Tiger is that long already.”

He followed it up with: “My comment has nothing to do with how great I think Tiger is (I think he’s the best ever), it’s just a BS call based on one of THE best drivers of the ball in the World right now, DJ. Tiger is an awesome athlete but after all his health issues, I just can’t see how he would be hitting it past DJ, half the time, right away.”

Watch the video below!

Spieth on having coach Cam McCormick as his caddie in Australia

Spieth’s normal caddie Michael Greller is taking some time off after his wife had a baby, and instead his coach Cameron McCormick took up the mantle at the Aus Open. He struggled to get the putter going at times, but an excellent final round 67 and a 6th place finish gave him a lot of confidence ahead of the Hero Challenge this week.

“I was just kind of voicing a lot more than I would have ever voiced to Michael,” Spieth said.

“I thought it was important for Cam to kind of hear how I’m feeling hole after hole, day after day and about different situations. I think we actually made a lot of progress in that sense, or at least have a good starting point to make some progress this off-season.”

“The game feels good, so I’ll get in there and having Cam see pretty much all the swings that I hit on the range and on the golf course, and all the putts, I have that kind of extra confidence that I know where things are throughout the swing and, so it should be easy, I shouldn’t have too many questions next week, which will be nice.”