THE BATTLE TO finish top of PGA Tour money list will go down to the wire after both Luke Donald and Webb Simpson signed up for the last event of the Fall series in Florida next week.
Simpson trails Donald by $68,971 and entered this week’s McGladrey Classic in Georgia in the hope of passing his English rival. However, the commitment deadline for the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals Classive was 5pm om Friday – too early for Simpson to know if he was playing well enough at Sea Island to make progress or whether Donald would sign up for Disney.
Donald is in England for his caddie’s wedding this weekend and only confirmed his decision to play Disney on Friday afternoon. Simpson then went out onto the Seaside course and handled the coastal breeze for a three-under 67, keeping him well in contention.
Billy Horschel did even better though, making it through a tough stretch of holes that are exposed along water with pars, to close eagle-birdie-par-birdie. It left him at 12-under, two shots ahead of Simpson and Michael Thompson.
“I figured Luke was going to play,” Simpson said. “I think he’s kind of thinking the same thing I’m thinking – that if one of us was going to play, the other one really needed to.
“It’s going to be fun. He’s one of the most competitive guys on tour and so I’m sure he’s going to come guns loaded. He’s going to play great like he has all year.”
It will be the first time since 2003 – when Vijay Sinigh held off Tiger Woods in the Tour Championship – that the PGA Tour money title has gone down to the wire and Donald is in fighting form despite his absence from the golf course.
Louis Oosthuizen and Nick O’Hern are well poised to challenge for the McGladrey Classic title on eight-under after both carded rounds of 67. Johnson Wagner and Scott McCarron are two strokes further back, while best of the Europeans is Swede Richard S. Johnson, who’s in a tie for eighth on -5.
- AP
