This Week in Golf -- Aug. 16 through Aug. 19
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}PGA TOUR - WYNDHAM CHAMPIONSHIP, Sedgefield Country Club, Greensboro, NC - One week after the PGA Championship, and one week before The PGA Tour Playoffs, we have the Wyndham Championship.
This is the final week for players to accumulate FedExCup points and get into the first Playoff event next week, The Barclays. The top 125 in the standings after Sunday will make it into the field at Bethpage next Thursday.
Rod Pampling holds that tenuous 125th spot heading into the Wyndham Championship. Immediately behind him are Brendan Steele, Retief Goosen, Heath Slocum, Y.E. Yang and Gary Woodland, who finished ninth in FedExCup points last year.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}All of those players, with the exception of Goosen, are also in the field. Goosen may not mind missing the remainder of the season since he's been battling a back injury.
Last year, Webb Simpson posted a bogey-free, 3-under 67 Sunday to win the Wyndham Championship by three strokes. Simpson ended his first PGA Tour title at 18-under-par 262.
Earlier in the year, Simpson lost a tough battle to Bubba Watson in New Orleans.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Simpson was one shot ahead and lagged his long birdie putt close at the 15th. Simpson grounded the club before he tapped it in and with the putter grounded, the ball moved. The penalty, called by Simpson on himself, cost him a stroke, but neither player could birdie the last three, forcing the playoff.
"It probably moved half an inch. It's a bad rule," Simpson said in a televised interview.
Well, the rule changed and made it easier on players.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Simpson changed as a player too.
He won the Wyndham Championship, followed two weeks later with a victory at the second Playoff event, the Deutsche Bank Championship. Simpson made the U.S. Presidents Cup team and this year has been even better.
He earned his first major championship at the U.S. Open. Simpson, who missed a lot of time after his victory at Olympic Club to be with his wife after the birth of their second child, a daughter named Dowd, also made his first Ryder Cup team.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Golf Channel has the first two rounds, then CBS takes over on the weekend.
Next week is the first Playoff event, The Barclays, which was won last year by Dustin Johnson.
LPGA TOUR
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}SAFEWAY CLASSIC, Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club (Ghost Creek Golf Course), North Plains, Ore. - The LPGA Tour has a 54-hole event in Oregon this week and maybe this is when world No. 1 Yani Tseng can get back on track.
Tseng missed her third cut in her last four starts on Friday at the Jamie Farr Owens Toledo Classic. In between the missed cuts, Tseng has a tie for 59th at the LPGA Championship and a share of 50th at the U.S. Women's Open.
Tseng tied for 13th at this event last year.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}She got to watch a heck of a show.
Suzann Pettersen fired a 7-under 64 on Sunday, waited two hours, then bumped off Na Yeon Choi in a playoff for the title. Pettersen trailed Choi by nine shots at the start of the final round, but Pettersen's 64, coupled with Choi's 2-over 73, which was highlighted by a bogey at the last, led to the extra session.
After Choi found the fairway on No. 18 in the extra session, Pettersen's tee ball got a good bounce out of the rough into the fairway. Her second bounced just off the back of the green.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Choi, who had nearly the same shot as she had on No. 18 in regulation, dumped her second shot into the water right of the green. She played her fourth to 18 feet, but missed the bogey putt on the right side.
Pettersen chipped to five feet and poured in the par putt for her eighth LPGA Tour title.
Golf Channel has all three rounds.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Next week is the Canadian Women's Open, which was won last year by Brittany Lincicome.
CHAMPIONS TOUR
DICK'S SPORTING GOODS OPEN, En-Joie GC, Endicott, NY - The Champions Tour returns after a brief break and John Huston is this week's defending champion.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Last year, in only his third start on the elder circuit, and just 25 days after his 50th birthday, Huston shot a final-round 65 and earned a 3-stroke victory over Nick Price.
This championship was contested in June last year, and Huston has not visited the winner's circle since. He had five top 10s after the win in 2011, but only two in 2012. One of those came last month at the U.S. Senior Open.
Roger Chapman is back in action on the Champions Tour this week. He had to withdraw from the Senior British Open, but teed it up last week at the PGA Championship. Chapman, who has two majors this year on the Champions Tour, missed the cut at Kiawah.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}En-Joie hosted the B.C. Open on the PGA Tour from 1971 to 2005. Past winners of that event include Gil Morgan, Tom Kite, Jay Haas, Wayne Levi, Fred Couples, Hal Sutton, Fred Funk, Brad Faxon, Jeff Sluman and Craig Stadler, all of whom are in the field this week.
Golf Channel will show all three rounds.
Mark Calcavecchia will defend his title next week at the Boeing Classic.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}WEB.COM TOUR
MIDWEST CLASSIC, Nicklaus Golf Club at LionsGate, Overland Park, Kan. - James Nitties can make Web.com Tour history this week.
Nitties can become the first player in the history of the tour to successfully defend a title.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}He will need to play better than he has this season. Nitties has missed nine cuts in 13 starts so far in 2012 and he picked up his first top 10 last week at the Price Cutter Charity Championship.
Last year, Nitties shot his second straight 6-under 65 and cruised to a 5-shot victory. It was his first Web.com Tour victory and he smashed Michael Sim's tournament record by six shots.
There is no television coverage this week.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Next week is the News Sentinel Open, which was won by Kirk Triplett last year.
CANADIAN TOUR
WINDSOR ROSELAND CHARITY CLASSIC, Roseland Golf & Curling Club, Windsor, Ontario, Canada - This is a new event on the Canadian Tour schedule and the top-four players on the money list are in the field.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Matt Hill, Cory Renfrew, Michael Gligic and Andrew Roque will tee it up this week. The only other winner this year, Chris Killmer, is not in the field.
There is no television coverage.
Next week is the Canadian Tour Championship, which was won last year by Stuart Anderson.