Golf Central

It may have been blowing a gale in Hawaii yesterday but it was Jerry Pate that breezed to victory in the Turtle Bay Championship (I see what you did there. And I didn’t like it – Ed). The 54-year-old started the day four shots behind the overnight leader Gil Morgan but closed with a 70 for a 5-under total of 211 and a two shots win over Jim Thorpe and Fulton Allem. Irritatingly for Thorpe, it was his putting tip that helped Pate cope with the conditions and take the $240,000 winners cheque. "I'm going to call him and make sure he gives me a little piece of that," said Thorpe, who told pate to shorten his back swing in the 35mph winds.
 
The defending champion Fred Funk, meanwhile, had the kind of final day that makes you want to sell your clubs for scrap, run amok in the locker room and then turn the gun on yourself. Having cantered to an 11-stroke victory last year, the Funkster came home in 81 shots to finish, which is the kind of score that makes us normal golfers feel much better but probably makes Fred pretty damn bad. Mind you, he's been called worse in classical fashion (be mindful of young ears) ... and he no longer has the silliest name in golf. So there ...

US Nationwide Tour: The times we’ve wanted to write a ‘Dunlap Green Flash’ headline and now, just as we get our chance, our search engine optimisation ‘experts’ step in and tell us we can’t. Great. Still, hats off to Scott Dunlap who pipped the field at the Panama Movistar Championship, the opening tournament of the 2008 Nationwide Tour schedule. The Pennsylvanian’s final-round 1-over-par 71 was enough to give him a one stroke victory over Jeff Klauk and Arjun Atwal and a nice cheque for $108,000 which should come in handy for keeping the wolf from the door. Not as handy as a shotgun, mind…