despite being assessed a two-stroke penalty, Johnson won finally

Johnson won despite being assessed a two-stroke penalty for failing to restore his ball to its original position after marking it on the 18th hole. That left him with a two-over-par 72 and a one-stroke victory over Jason Dufner.

Johnson moved his ball mark out of the discount golf clubs line of Dufner’s putt on the 18th green. But he forgot to move it back to its original position before rolling in his final 5-foot putt.

After winning last week at the Byron Nelson Championship, Dufner was trying to match Ben Hogan, his hero, as the only players to win both PGA Tour events in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in the same year. Hogan did it in 1946, when the tournaments were not played in consecutive weeks.

In what was essentially a match-play final round for the winner’s plaid jacket, Johnson took command at the 414-yard 15th hole. Dufner’s approach shot hit the left side of the green but rolled into a ditch, leading to a triple bogey that left him four strokes behind after Johnson made par.

It was the eighth PGA Tour victory Taylormade R11 irons for Johnson, the 2007 Masters champion, who won $1,152,000 even though his record streak of 15 consecutive under-par rounds at Colonial ended.

There had already been four two-stroke swings between Dufner and Johnson before the much bigger one at the 15th hole, where Dufner’s trouble began when he drove into a fairway bunker. His next shot trickled over a ledge on the green into the water. He then pitched his drop all the way over the green and missed a 4-foot putt for double bogey. Johnson had regained the lead with a 9-foot birdie putt at the 445-yard 14th after having blown a two-stroke lead.

Displaying his usual consistency with his driver and putter, Donald won the biggest event on the European Tour by four strokes. He shot a four-under 68 at Wentworth on Sunday for his fourth straight round under 70; he finished at 15 under.

Even with the penalty assessed before he signed his scorecard, Johnson’s total of 12-under 268 was enough to edge Dufner, who closed with a 74. Tommy Gainey was a distant third at seven under after a 67, one stroke better than Jim Furyk.

Dufner’s only two PGA Tour victories came in the last four weeks, a stretch in which he also married.

Dufner, who entered the final round with a one-shot lead, insisted fatigue was not a factor in his defeat. “I feel pretty good actually,” he said. “I just played really poorly today.”

“I’m going to focus on the positives, because I hit a really solid putt, and it’s a good thing I made it,” Johnson said. “No harm, no foul. It was my fault.”

Dufner was not as fortunate with his Taylormade R11 driver wayward drive, which settled under a tree. He had to punch a low shot around the branches before hitting his approach into a greenside bunker and two-putting from 23 feet for bogey.

At the 616-yard 11th, a straight par 5, Johnson’s drive to the left hit a tree and ricocheted back into the middle of the fairway. He took advantage with an 18-foot birdie putt to reach 15 under.

Alabama women's golf team won NCAA Championships

At 2-under-par, Alabama was the only team to break par. It leads the four-day event by two shots over Virginia. Duke is in third place, three shots behind the Tide. North Carolina is fourth.

The Crimson Tide's top four golfers combined for six birdies and no bogeys on their last three holes to surge into the lead at the Vanderbilt Legends Club in Franklin, Tenn.

Top-ranked UCLA is tied with fifth-ranked Taylormade R11 irons Arizona State at 4-over par, six shots behind Alabama. Third-ranked USC trails the Tide by 12 shots.

At 2-under-par, Alabama was the only team to break par. It leads the four-day event by two shots over Virginia. Duke is in third place, three shots behind the Tide. North Carolina is fourth.

Pancake finished with four birdies - including one on her last hole - for a 4-under-par 68. That tied her for third place, two shots behind Virginia's Portland Rosen and one shot behind Purdue's Laura Gonzalez.

"I felt really comfortable out there today," said Pancake, a Chattanooga native. "I had a really good mindset going into the round. It is nice to be playing my last college tournament in my home state with a lot of support out here. I had the mindset that good or bad, I'm going to enjoy myself."

The Crimson Tide's top four golfers combined for six birdies and no bogeys on their last three holes to discount golf clubs surge into the lead at the Vanderbilt Legends Club in Franklin, Tenn.

"It was a nice start to the tournament," Alabama coach Mic Potter said. "You can lose today, but you can't win. You have to keep yourself in position. ... It is all about positioning right now. There is a lot of golf to be played. It is as much endurance, patience and staying calm as it is anything."

"It was a nice start to the tournament," Alabama coach Mic Potter said. "You can lose today, but you can't win. You have to keep yourself in position. ... It is all about positioning right now. There is a lot of Taylormade R11 driver to be played. It is as much endurance, patience and staying calm as it is anything."

"I felt really comfortable out there today," said Pancake, a Chattanooga native. "I had a really good mindset going into the round. It is nice to be playing my last college tournament in my home state with a lot of support out here. I had the mindset that good or bad, I'm going to enjoy myself."

Pancake finished with four birdies - including one on her last hole - for a 4-under-par 68. That tied her for third place, two shots behind Virginia's Portland Rosen and one shot behind Purdue's Laura Gonzalez.

greatest strikers of the ball golf

"It's a mystery to me why someone who could dominate so much would want to change anything," Price said Wednesday. "We're always trying to get better, but sometimes guys try to make a quantum leap instead of putting one foot in front of the other. That's when they get into trouble."

Price, a 55-year-old native of Durban, South Africa, was the best player in the world in the mid-1990s. He topped the PGA Tour money list in 1993 and '94 with records for single-season earnings Titleist 910 D2 Driver each year and spent 43 weeks atop the Official World Golf Rankings. Price's best season was 1994, when he won the British Open and PGA Championship before capturing his second Canadian Open at Glen Abbey to cap a six-win season.

"It's very difficult to change one's golf swing," Price added. "You get into bad habits. You get lazy with your posture and lazy with the discipline of your address position, ball position, all those sorts of things.

"I did that early in my career," he said. "I was a very streaky player. When I was on, I played really well. But it didn't happen enough for me.

Price, an 18-time winner on the PGA Tour - including three majors and two Canadian Opens - added his name to a growing and impressive list of players committed to play in the third edition of the Montreal Championship, slated for June 22-24 at Richelieu Valley. It will be Price's first trip to Montreal since 2001, when he tied with Woods for 23rd at the Canadian Open at Royal Montreal.

"When I started working with (David) Leadbetter back in 1982, I basically tried to refine my golf swing to make it efficient without any extraneous moves, which I had plenty of before working with (the renowned swing coach). I just tried to streamline my golf swing."

Price didn't. "I think it's one of the reasons in that five-year period I played as well as I did," he said. "I just kept working on all the idiosyncrasies that sort of crept into my game.

"I think the guy was fighting off demons," he said. "That's what it looked like the way he was backing off. You have Mizuno MP-69 Irons so much going through your head when you're not playing well. When you're playing well, you keep the game as simple as you possibly can.

"I think it's kind of like a disease, where if you let it get out of hand it's very hard to rectify. If I had any advice for Kevin Na, I'd just say try to simplify your thought process and pull the trigger a little quicker, because indecision is the root of many, many bad shots."

Like many of us, Price tuned into the struggles of Kevin Na last weekend at The Players Championship. Na, who held a one-shot lead after 54 holes, came unglued with endless waggles, half-swings and intentional whiffs of the ball before almost every shot before finishing five shots back, tied for seventh.

Price, who has won four times on the Champions Tour since joining the 50-and-over circuit in 2007, said the injury has affected his play this season. He has managed only one top-10 finish, a tie for seventh at the Allianz Championship in mid-February, and had to withdraw in his last appearance a month ago.

Price figured "bad habits" have contributed to a forearm injury he is rehabilitating with physiotherapy. It began with tennis elbow and, ultimately, led to two torn tendons.

Price hasn't hit balls for five weeks, but received the green light from his physiotherapist on Wednesday and expects to start some light hitting next week.

Na, who was warned for discount golf clubs slow play, angered his playing partners, verbally admonished himself and felt the ire of spectators. He attributed his struggles with trying to get comfortable with a new pre-shot routine.

Magnine fired a 35 in the first nine holes of a preseason intrasquad match

Some of the factors that led to the school becoming a golf powerhouse are clear. It's got a respected golf management program and an 18-hole course on campus, allowing the Monarchs to attract players from more far-flung regions than most schools on its level.

"I had not played (for an NCAA title) and I was a junior, I was a captain, I had to do something," Sullivan said. "It was nerve racking."

When the top-ranked Methodist's women's golf team heads to the NCAA Division III Championships on Tuesday in Angola, Ind., the Monarchs will hope to push their string of national titles to a staggering 15.

DePauw (Ind.) University and Washington (Mo.) University - the two schools ranked in the top three alongside the TaylorMade R11S Driver Monarchs - feature no more than eight players on their rosters. Methodist lists 21.

But what turns Methodist from a golf-friendly school to one that's become dominant on the Division III level are the competitive fires that are stoked quite regularly within the team. That's because, with a large roster and a handful of tournament spots, if your game hits a snag, you'll likely find yourself with plenty of free time to work on it.

"We take our five best girls," said senior Andrea Daly, who missed out on a spot in this week's lineup but will go as an alternate. ". As a team, we really think we'd rather win than take the five that have been going for the rest of the year - when one might not be playing as well - and have a chance of losing it."

Of course, things get tricky when you figure that a team can only take five players to a TaylorMade RocketBallZ Driver tournament. The top four scores are all that are counted. So to determine which players get to go, the Monarchs hold intra-squad qualifying tournaments a few times a season.

By the time her senior season dawned, she'd found a swing and a mental approach that worked. The result was that she grabbed her spot in the lineup in the first qualifier and hasn't let it go since. At Methodist, that's a feat in itself.

The competition in the qualifying events can be fierce. Scattered throughout the schedule, the events usually consist of 72 holes played on the on-campus course or at nearby King's Grant Golf Club.

After a difficult performance discount golf clubs in the NCAA championship as a sophomore, her swing deserted her. Nothing felt right. She reworked it with a private coach over the summer and had to do it again when her struggles continued once back at Methodist.

The five players headed to the championship match are set. Several have experience on both sides of the Monarchs' internal competition.

She made appearances the next year but was again out of the lineup when the season ended. When she clinched her spot for this week's match, it was a relief.

dispense golf tips to consistent ball-striking

“Keep playing,” said Alex Green, Free State’s No. 1 player. “Don’t let one bad shot affect the rest of your round.”

Logan Henrichs, Lawrence High’s No. 1 player, expressed a similar sentiment about burying a bad shot in the past and offered a putting tip.

Raised to respect their elders, they obliged, talking golf near a fire pit that produced the cracking and snapping sounds that called to mind the backdrop on Neil Young’s recording of the song “Soldier.”

LHS junior Brett Van Blaricum stressed, “Keep a steady tempo. Slow yourself down. Don’t get into a hurry. Take your time on each shot. Think about each shot. Don’t just go up and hit it.”

“No penalty shots or anything like that. No three-putts and no two-chips.”

Firebirds junior Wilson Hack said, “When I start swinging bad, I resort back to my tempo, and that kind of fixes Taylormade Burner 2.0 irons everything for me. I just try not to swing too hard. I don’t try to slow the clubhead down because then I’ll probably lose distance, but just mentally trying to slow everything down and trying not to swing too quick, too hard at it. Just let it flow.”

Firebirds frosh Austin Kastl doesn’t believe in cluttering his head with too many thoughts: “Whatever you think you can do to hit it well, just do that. Everyone’s swing is different.”

The best young golfers in Lawrence marvel at how far Free State senior Colin Becker launches a 3-wood off the tee, especially when he doesn’t try to blast it. He credits teammates with urging him to swing slower, and when he has the discipline to follow that advice, he said he hits longer drives. Becker said when he fell into a rough stretch of slicing the ball during his junior season, Green and Hack told him to stand farther from the ball at address, and it became the key for him to stop slicing the ball — which robs distance and invites tree trouble on the right — and start drawing it, which adds distance.

On the green, Kastl said, pick your line first and then think about nothing but speed.

“I ask what the course record is, especially if they’re from the host school,” Baker said. “Most of the time they say, ‘You’re not breaking the course record. That’s not happening.’ It helps me relax because then I think they’re thinking about me. If I can get them callaway razr x irons thinking, ‘This kid’s a stud,’ then I can relax and play my game.”

“Getting too fast was my main thing, so I need to slow down and keep my head down through impact.”

Firebirds sophomore Hunter Dedloff, coming off playing nine holes with friends from both schools, said: “Swing slower, keep my head down. I swung pretty hard today. You feel like you need to crush it, especially on the tee. And I topped like four drives today. I didn’t follow this tip today. That’s why I’m saying it now, trying to get it in my head.”

“Not only down (as in) up and down, but minimize your head movement left-to-right as well,” he said. “You don’t want to be swaying with your body.”

Firebirds senior Levi Baker doesn’t discount golf clubs claim to rank at the top of the city’s high school golfers, but he does profess to have a special talent for bringing out the worst in opponents by asking a question on the first tee box.