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Ontario Golf: Foley student Sean O'Hair wins Quail Hollow
Quail Hollow Championship winner Sean O’Hair works with Sean Foley (right) during the 2008 RBC Canadian Open
It was only a matter of time before Sean O’Hair broke through for a win this year. Sean Foley’s most talented student was a near-miss at Bay Hill five weeks back after losing a five-stroke lead to Tiger Woods, but has been on the first two pages of the leaderboard all season. With his win yesterday at Quail Hollow, where he outduelled an all-star field that included Woods, O’Hair moved to third overall on the 2009 PGA Tour money list at just under $3 million (about $100,000 behind second-place Geoff Ogilvy and $250,000 back of leader Phil Mickelson. O’Hair is also tied for first with Kenny Perry for top-10 finishes (six) and ranks third in ball striking (which combines “total driving” with “green in regulation”). That’s an area he has excelled at since hooking up with Foley last year, but then that’s been a trend for several pupils of Foley, who has three in the top seven of ball striking, including Greg Owen (tied for fifth) and Hunter Mahan (7th). Stephen Ames, you have to expect, should work his way up that list as the season progresses. Foley was pulling into the parking lot at PC Sawgrass on his way to work with Ames this morning when I spoke to him. Golf Channel commentator and Golf Digest editor Tim Rosaforte had already beaten me to the punch this morning, asking Foley how the Canadian native termed his relationships with his students. In typical Foley style, he played down his involvement, noting that instructors get too much credit when their students do well. “Sean O’Hair is a Ferrari,” Foley said of the 26-year-old. “I’m just the GPS navigational device.”
Considering the ball-striking prowess of Foley’s students, if guys like Ames or Mahan (the latter of whom couldn’t get up and down on a pogo stick) could find a way to get the ball in the hole, Lord knows how much money they’d have accumulated this year. Even O’Hair’s putting was average this past week–ranking in a tie for 47th. The CBS crew of Nick Faldo and Jim Nantz referred to O’Hair’s tee-to-green performance as Hoganesque, referencing his inability to knock down a single putt of 10 feet or more, but somehow still post the win.
Foley must have loved that description, seeing as the Hawk is an idol of his. But you can’t do what O’Hair has done without a measure of self-confidence too, and Foley helped restore that in the wake of O’Hair’s collapse down the stretch at Bay Hill.
“Losing (stunk) at Bay Hill,” O’Hair told the Associated Press after his victory at Quail Hollow, the third of his young career. “Even though it’s tough to lose like that, to lose a five-shot lead against Tiger, you still learn from it. I talked to (Sean Foley). I talked to my caddie, Paul (Tesori). And we just all said all I have to do is keep putting myself in those situations, and at some point I’m going to learn how to win. It’s just nice to win as quickly as I did after Bay Hill.”
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO…We’re at the midway mark of the PGA Tour season before the FedExCup playoffs begin, and the defending champion, Vijay Singh, sits 132nd on the points list. Only the top 125 make it into the first round of the playoffs. A tie for 17th at the limited-field World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship is Singh’s best finish of 2009.
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