Codswallop

A new year and the opening tournament on the PGA Tour, the Mercedes-Benz Championship has already been run and won. Swede Daniel Chopra continued his good form taking out the Mercedes-Benz Championship. I had a chance to see Daniel this summer in the Australian Masters, where of course he lost the playoff to Aussie Aaron Baddeley. This time however Daniel Chopra came out on top in a playoff, defeating one of the hot players from last season, Steve Stricker.

The season opener looked rather different this year with a distinct lack of Aussies, including of course three time champion Stuart Appelby. Only the winners from the previous season are invited to play and although 2007 was a good year for the Aussies it only resulted in two winners, Adam Scott and Aaron Baddeley. We had a lot of round three leaders last year. Hopefully 2008 will see a a few more fall over the line.

I'm looking forward to 2008, I think the Aussies will continue to punch above their weight. After his win in the Australian PGA at Coolum I'm hoping Peter Lonard will be spurred on to have a great year. It will also be interesting to see how the two Aussie young guns Nick Flanagan and Jason Day go in their first season in the big time.

Congratulations to Aussie Aaron Baddeley for taking out the 2007 Australian Masters!

Badds claimed his first golf jacket in a four hole play off against the swede Daniel Chopra. Badds clearly played the better golf in the playoff, ironically winning on the hole where he was behind the eight ball after driving into the trees. (not that channel seven viewers got to witness this)

Stuart Appleby must be the most disappointed player after needing only a par on the final hole to get into the playoff. Unfortunately he had his worse hole of the day finishing with a double bogey. However it was still a good tournament for Stuart. Perhaps he can get his revenge at the Australian Open starting in a few weeks time.

Robert Allenby still leads the 2007 Australian Masters after the second round 68, however the big mover of the day was Badds. Aaron Baddeley shot a second round 66 to be only one shot off the lead at eight under. Round of the day belonged to little known Englishman Dave Horsey who shot a seven under round of 65.

Leaderboard after round 2
-9 ALLENBY, Robert
-8 BADDELEY, Aaron
-5 McILROY, Rory
-5 PILKADARIS, Terry
-5 KULACZ, Rick
-5 CHOPRA, Daniel
-5 STRANGE, Scott
-4 PAMPLING, Rod
-4 BARNES, Kurt
-4 BAKER, Peter
-4 APPLEBY, Stuart
-4 ZIONS, Matthew

Round one of the Australian MasterCard Masters is complete and two time champion Robert Allenby has the lead after carding a five under round of 67. I thought we may have seen better scoring considering it has been wet the last couple of days here in Melbourne. Hopefully it will be a nice day Saturday as I might try and get along at catch some of the action live.

Leaderboard after Round 1
-5 ALLENBY, Robert
-4 ANDERSSON HED, Fredrik
-4 BAKER, Peter
-3 LONG, Michael
-3 CHOPRA, Daniel
-3 APPLEBY, Stuart
-3 PAMPLING, Rod
-3 BARNES, Kurt
-3 MARANTZ, Paul