Codswallop

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

Summer is upon us which means the Australasian PGA Tour swings into full speed. The MasterCard Masters kicks off tomorrow at Huntingdale, in my home town Melbourne. The MasterCard Masters is co-sanctioned by the Australasian & European Tours, so hopefully we will see a good field this year. We should considering last years champion Justin Rose went on the have a fabulous year which included taking out the European Order of Merit with a win in the final event, the Volvo Masters at Valderrama.

From a last round 80 last week to winning the Shell Houston Open this week. That's a pretty impressive turn around for Adam Scott continuing the great form of the Aussies leading into the Masters. Adam battled another Australian and deffending champion Stuart Appelby up to the 72nd hole. So it's good signs with both players are peaking at the right time. Adam is the second Aussie to win this year, the other being Aaron Baddeley. As of April there are four Aussies in the top ten in the FedExCup Points race. Between last week and this week there have been six Aussies in the top ten placings. So things are looking great for the first major of the year. Bring it on!