John Senden managed this one at the at the second hole of the 2009 Deutsche Bank Championship in the second round. Not sure why the Americans refer to it as a double eagle though.

Proving that there’s hope for almost all of us, Daniel Gaunt has qualifies for The Open Championship.

Ranked 1210 in the world, and struggling a bit, the Victorian gave himself 3 weeks to make some money from professional golf or give up the game.

Let’s hope this is a good kick start to getting his career back on track

Image: Getty Images

Anyway, the breakdown comes out as follows: (Australians in bold)

1 - Lucas Glover $1,350,000
T2 - Phil Mickelson $559,830
T2 - David Duval $559,830
T2 - Ricky Barnes $559,830
5 - Ross Fisher $289,146
T6 - Tiger Woods $233,350
T6 - Soren Hansen $233,350
T6 - Hunter Mahan $233,350
9 - Henrik Stenson $194,794
T10 - Rory McIlroy $154,600
T10 - Matt Bettencourt $154,600
T10 - Sergio Garcia $154,600
T10 - Ryan Moore $154,600
T10 - Stephen Ames $154,600
T10 - Mike Weir $154,600
T16 - Anthony Kim $122,128
T16 - Retief Goosen $122,128
T18 - Michael Sim $100,308
T18 - Peter Hanson $100,308
T18 - Ian Poulter $100,308
T18 - Graeme McDowell $100,308
T18 - Bubba Watson $100,308
T23 - Lee Westwood $76,422
T23 - Steve Stricker $76,422
T23 - Oliver Wilson $76,422
T23 - Sean O’Hair $76,422
T27 - J.B. Holmes $56,041
T27 - Azuma Yano $56,041
T27 - Johan Edfors $56,041
T27 - Francesco Molinari $56,041
T27 - Stewart Cink $56,041
T27 - Vijay Singh $56,041
T33 - Camilo Villegas $47,404
T33 - Jim Furyk $47,404
T33 - Kevin Sutherland $47,404
T36 - Nick Taylor (am)
T36 - Adam Scott $42,935
T36 - Carl Pettersson $42,935
T36 - Todd Hamilton $42,935
T40 - Drew Weaver (am)
T40 - Billy Mayfair $38,492
T40 - Dustin Johnson $38,492
T40 - Tim Clark $38,492
44 - Kenny Perry $35,536
T45 - John Mallinger $33,319
T45 - Thomas Levet $33,319
T47 - Gary Woodland $27,409
T47 - Geoff Ogilvy $27,409
T47 - Tom Lehman $27,409
T47 - K.J. Choi $27,409
T47 - Rocco Mediate $27,409
T47 - Andres Romero $27,409
53 - Kyle Stanley (am)
T54 - Andrew McLardy $22,501
T54 - Angel Cabrera $22,501
T54 - Jean-Francois Lucquin $22,501
57 - Ben Curtis $21,385
T58 - Trevor Murphy $20,630
T58 - Jeff Brehaut $20,630
60 - Fred Funk $19,921

Surprising everyone, except perhaps himself, Adam Scott is sitting at two under about halfway through the second round and is tied for sixth.

Watching the telecast this morning, and what limited shots there were of him, he seemed very relaxed, even sharing low fives with Sergio after both birdied the 12th in their first round.

Other Australians:
Michael Sim +1 (after first round)
Geoff Oglivy +3 (after first round)
Rod Pampling +4 (after first round)
Steve Allan +5 (14 holes into 2nd round)
Robert Allenby +5 (after first round)
James Nitties +7 (14 holes into 2nd round)
Stuart Appleby +7 (10 holes into 2nd round)
Matthew Jones +8 (7 holes into 2nd round)

Real Women Golf put together a YouTube clip of Adam and his playing partners (Camilo Villegas and Sergio Garcia), with quite a catchy tune behind it.

Check it out at this post.

Okay, who isn’t on Twitter at the U.S. Open?

You can follow Stuart over here.

His latest entry -

My pools drier then BethPage right now. Wetter then an otters pocket. Poor spectators will be in slop by the end of tomorrow.

Not a great start to the U.S. Open at Bethpage Black. Only half the field has got a start and they are spread from the 2nd to the 11th, before play was halted due to torrential rain.

Ian Poulter has a good photo of the practice putting green that you could probably row over… Actually check out his Twitter page - the guy has a good sense of humour!

If they ever get playing again, you can check out the live scores.

Michael Sim and Geoff Ogilvy are currently at +1 after seven and five holes respectively, with Robert Allenby and Rod Pampling at +2 (seven and four holes respectively).

One HD has live coverage from 6am EST, however I’m presuming they will be showing a lot of replays of previous years given the weather forecast.

Missed qualifying for the 2009 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black? Want to see how you would go if you were to play the course? Well now you can. Sort of.

From the 25th May 2009 to 21st June 2009 you can go to the official site of the U.S. Open and play qualifying rounds for the Virtual U.S. Open.

From the site:

Developed in partnership with Bethpage State Park in Farmingdale, N.Y., the Virtual U.S. Open will take place on a state-of-the-art simulation of the Black Course at Bethpage, allowing golf enthusiasts everywhere to play an online golf championship from their computers at no cost, at the same time and on virtually the same course as the actual U.S. Open competitors in June.

World Golf Tour has used about 100,000 images to make the simulation as real as possible, and from a quick look, it is very impressive.

For the full story head over to the U.S. Open site and have a read.

Image from usopen.com

Let me know how you go.

The top 10 were:

1 Angel Cabrera $1,350,000

2 Chad Campbell $660,000
2 Kenny Perry

4 Shingo Katayama $360,000

5 Phil Mickelson $300,000

6 John Merrick $242,813
6 Steve Flesch
6 Tiger Woods
6 Steve Stricker

10 Hunter Mahan $187,500
10 Sean O’Hair
10 Jim Furyk

2008 results.

2007 results.

This week Aussie Golfer has done an excellent summary.

Overall, 2008 will be looked back on as a very disappointing year for Australian golfers on the Euro Tour. The Euro tour stretches far and wide these days and if it wasn’t for some wins outside of the European continent itself, the trophy cabinet would be looking very bare indeed.

For the full article go on over to Aussie Golfer and enjoy the read.

It was fair to say that after 2008, big things were expected from the Aussies in 2009. Unfortunately they failed to materialise, with only two wins being put on the board in 2009.

We had to wait until March for Geoff Ogilvy to take out the World Golf Championships – CA Championship. Then in April Adam Scott won the EDS Byron Nelson Championship, and even then needed a 50 foot putt on the third playoff hole to take the title. Kinda ironic really considering the perception about his putting. And that folks was all she wrote for the year.

Of note during the year was Adam Scott’s slide down from 3rd on the world rankings to 17th. Geoff Ogilvy is the highest placed Australian at 11th.

Nick Flanagan will be back on the Nationwide tour in 2009 after finishing 169th on the money list

Positions and earnings on the PGA Tour

11 Robert Allenby $3,606,700
15 Geoff Ogilvy $2,880,099
22 Stuart Appleby $2,484,630
39 Adam Scott $1,979,160
40 Mathew Goggin $1,969,962
47 Rod Pampling $1,702,952
49 Aaron Baddeley $1,665,587
66 Peter Lonard $1,462,894
75 Nick O’Hern $1,370,771
85 Steve Elkington $1,291,114
86 John Senden $1,269,083