subject: Duo leads Callaway to Industry Cup title [print this page] Duo leads Callaway to Industry Cup title Duo leads Callaway to Industry Cup title
Who needs Phil Mickelson or Graeme McDowell, anyway?
With two spectacular shots on the final hole, Callaway Golf won a major championship Sunday without any help whatsoever from Lefty, (Taylormade R9 Forged Irons)G-Mac or any other member of the Callaway touring staff.
OK, to call it a major championship is an embellishment, but this tournament named the Industry Cup is an extremely serious golf competition attracting teams of players from several prominent golf companies.
Played at the scenic Barona Creek Golf Club, the Industry Cup, sponsored by Golfweek, came down to the 36th and final hole. Ultimately it was decided by two amazing shots on that 475-yard par 4, which features an ominous lake to the left of the green. (Taylormade R9 Max Irons)In addition, the golfers were playing directly into a freshening wind.
First, Nick Arther, a top golf club fitting specialist who works at Callaway's Test Center in Carlsbad, Calif., made a closing par after hitting his tee shot into a bush. Arther chipped his ball out of the bush, then saved par from 173 yards.
After hitting a full 7-iron to the green, Arther sank an 8-foot putt.
Randy Peterson, playing in the group behind Arther, hit the green with a 3-iron from 202 yards, then drained a 12-foot birdie putt. Peterson is director of fitting and instruction at the Callaway Test Center.
Those heroics gave the Callaway No. 1 team also including Peter Booth and Jeff Colton a one-stroke victory over TaylorMade's No. 1 team (Greg Cesario, Tom Kroll, Pete Roberts and Joe Ryon) and Callaway's No. 2 team (Frank Firman, Matt Grau, Jay Poletiek and Marc Zien).
The format was complicated but intriguing, with each team's four members further divided into two twosomes.(TaylorMade R9 Irons) For each twosome, the first 27 holes included three separate nine-hole formats Shamble, Better-Ball and Pinehurst. Then the two twosomes added their 27-hole scores together to produce a 54-hole total.
The final nine holes required each golfer to post a medal-play score. The highest of a team's four individual scores was thrown out, but the other three were counted.
Each team thus ended up with an 81-hole score, 27 holes coming from the individual competition. Par for 81 holes was 324.
The winners finished at 19-under 305, while the two runner-up teams posted 306 totals.
Most golf companies boast a large number of skilled players as full-time employees. All, including professional golfers, were eligible for the Industry Cup.
Mike Nicolette, a former winner on the PGA Tour and a golf club designer for Ping, anchored a Ping team that finished fourth. Also playing on that team were David Bray, Jeff Brown and Matt Rollins.
Marty Jertson, another Ping golf club engineer, qualified to play in the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospital for Children Open on the PGA Tour (he missed the cut) and was unable to participate in the Industry Cup.
Perhaps Callaway CEO and president George Fellows summed it up best. "The (business) competition is so intense among golf companies that the people (normally) don't seem to talk with each other," he said. "So something like this, bringing everybody together, is a wonderful concept."
