Sprinters

While it's nevertheless too early to pronounce any tournament winners this week, there are in reality more than one gamers -- on contrary aspects of the world, no much less -- who seem geared up to submit wins of their respective tournaments.

In Florida (USA), Sandra Gal has a three-shot lead after rounds of the CME Group Titleholders event. After suffering maximum of the yr with swing modifications, she blistered the Tiburon path with a 64 inside the first round and accompanied that with a 69 Friday. (It was plenty windier throughout the second one spherical.) It's exciting to listen what she's been working on; in her after-spherical presser she pointed out it:

Q.  Sandra, I know at the beginning of the year you weren't happy with your swing and you were really searching.  Can you talk about how your confidence has evolved since then and maybe how much Gary Gilchrist has to do with that?

SANDRA GAL: Yeah, definitely.  I started working with Gary in April and he simplified a lot of things, just kind of shortened my swing a little bit and then worked on a lot of ball shaping.  So if you watch me warm up in the morning, that's all I do is hitting just draws and fades and high, low.  I think it really suits this golf course and I think from this kind of more of a childlike attitude just playing more, seeing the shot, reacting to it, that gave me a lot of confidence.  Less thinking.

"More of a childlike attitude, just playing more." Rather than practicing so much, I suppose. It certainly seems to be working -- especially on the par-5 17th, where she hit it deep into the trees and still managed a birdie:

Oh, well, I hooked it into the trees and I was happy to find my ball, and I had a swing, which was very happy.  So it was pretty much like bubba golf -- you have a swing, you're happy.  I got it down there and then I just had an 8 iron in and I was thinking, okay, 8 iron, that's go range so let's go for the pin and I almost holed it out.  It just pitched right on the edge of the cup and then I made the putt.  So it was very simple.  I mean, never in doubt.

Most weekend golfers aren't that confident in their swings, but it's definitely a mindset that we should be working toward. It'll be interesting to see if it can carry her to her first win since the 2011 Kia Classic.

Meanwhile, down in Melbourne (Australia), Jason Day is doing lots better than most people anticipated. As you probably understand with the aid of now, Jason misplaced 8 circle of relatives members to Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. (His grandmother, uncle, and 6 cousins.) I'm positive it allows that his mom and his sisters have come to Melbourne -- he said he hasn't seen them in almost a yr.

Let me rephrase that: I'm certain that it helped. All Jason did in the third round was post a 66, tying the best round of the day. It gave him the individual lead by a single shot over Thomas Bjorn and gave the Australian team (with struggling partner Adam Scott) a one-shot lead over the defending US team as well.

Barring any marvel collapses, the team competition is among the us at -10 and Australia at -eleven. (Third-vicinity Japan is at -4, fourth-place Denmark at -2.) And Jason has by no means won a match in his homeland, so I suspect his fourth spherical might be some thing of a project, understanding that two trophies are inside his hold close. But Jason has been gambling well all 12 months and, along with his family there to watch and aid him, I wouldn't bet in opposition to him.

And wouldn't that be a popular win?

The photographs got here from here (Gal) and right here (Day).