Well, it's almost Christmas, so we here at Golf Predictor would like to wish all our readers and members a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We thank you for your support in our busy first year and we look forward to it continuing in 2009. It is the season for giving, so as a little Christmas present, we are giving away 3 one month memberships to Golf Predictor.
All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is email our support line with your user name before next year. We'll pick 3 winners out of a hat in early January. This subscription will start from the first week with a tournament in January if new, otherwise it will be added to your existing subscription.
Like the golf tours, we're going to take a little hiatus for the holidays, but we'll be back in plenty of time to cover a new season of exciting golf on both the US and European* PGA Tours.
Happy Christmas everyone!
*We know - the 2009 season has already started on the European Tour!
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
Monday, 22 December 2008
Harrington Wins Yet Another Award!
Unsurprisingly, Padraig Harrington won the Irish Sportsperson of the Year award again last night. Having won two majors for a country not exactly at the pinnacle of many sports, Harrington was a shoe in for the most prestigious award in Irish sport.
It's the third time Harrington has won the award. We here at Golf Predictor hope he wins it again next year!!
It's the third time Harrington has won the award. We here at Golf Predictor hope he wins it again next year!!
Vijay Wins Chevron World Challenge
Vijay Singh took his season earning over the tidy $18 million mark with victory at Tiger's Chevron World Challenge yesterday. Despite taking an unprecedented 3 months off to allow injuries to heal, Singh showed no signs of rustiness with his twin 67s on the weekend. I suppose it's easy to take 3 months off just after you've won a couple of tournaments and the $10 million Fedex Cup!
A notoriously assiduous practicer, Singh is not easing up now that he's back. He plans to hit balls on Christmas Day when it's quiet on the golf course! We look forward to tracking him in the New Year here on Golf Predictor.
A notoriously assiduous practicer, Singh is not easing up now that he's back. He plans to hit balls on Christmas Day when it's quiet on the golf course! We look forward to tracking him in the New Year here on Golf Predictor.
2009 - Week 5 Winner
Richard Sterne (ranked 6th by Golf Predictor) continued his winning streak at home, capturing the prestigious South African Open for his second consecutive victory on the European Tour. Sterne becomes the eight home winner in a row of the world's second oldest Open, mainly thanks to a missed 8 foot putt from Northern Ireland's Gareth Maybin (ranked 67th) on the 72th hole. That unfortunate horseshoed effort cost Maybin his maiden victory as Sterne birdied the first extra hole to seal another victory.
Ernie Els (ranked 3) put in a storming finish, coming home in 64 on Sunday. Unfortunately he missed a tiddler at the last which would have got him into the play-off. However, he probably rues his 77 on Saturday more as it gave him just too much to do. England's Lee Westwood (ranked 2) faded on the final day, surrendering his two shot overnight lead fairly meekly and finishing in a tie for third. In a good week for Northern Irish golfers, Rory McIlroy overcame a very poor start to also finish tied third and secure his place in the world's top 50. That gets him into the US Masters next year; not bad going for a teenager!
Our top ranked player, the usually reliable Henrik Stenson, finished in a tie for 34th but overall we had 5 golfers in the top 10 this week.
Ernie Els (ranked 3) put in a storming finish, coming home in 64 on Sunday. Unfortunately he missed a tiddler at the last which would have got him into the play-off. However, he probably rues his 77 on Saturday more as it gave him just too much to do. England's Lee Westwood (ranked 2) faded on the final day, surrendering his two shot overnight lead fairly meekly and finishing in a tie for third. In a good week for Northern Irish golfers, Rory McIlroy overcame a very poor start to also finish tied third and secure his place in the world's top 50. That gets him into the US Masters next year; not bad going for a teenager!
Our top ranked player, the usually reliable Henrik Stenson, finished in a tie for 34th but overall we had 5 golfers in the top 10 this week.
Sunday, 21 December 2008
Scripts Used in Golf Predictor
You must have JavaScript enabled on your browser for Golf Predictor to work properly. For those of you worried about web security and/or using script blockers, this is a list of what JavaScript is used for on the site:
- AJAX for partial page updating and a more responsive website.
- Trapping AJAX request time outs and reloading the page if they occur.
- The Twitter Bootstrap dropdown menus (across the top of every page), pop- up chart windows and collapsible panels.
- Highlighting the currently selected page in the appropriate menu.
- Displaying all the radial dials, charts and Google Maps on the site.
- Displaying the Golf Predictor Twitter feed widget.
- Google Analytics, for tracking web site usage statistics.
- To protect email addresses on the Contact Us page from spammer harvesting.
- To prevent more than 10 golfers being selected on the 'Compare' pages.
- To prevent more than 3 golfers being selected on the 'Field Rankings (Summary)' page.
- A third party site runs a script on the "Golfer Odds" page to display the odds for the selected tournament.
- To show the sliders on pages such as the 'Custom Predictions', 'Filtered Predictions' and 'DFS Lineup Builder (DraftKings)' pages and to provide validation for them and the associated text boxes.
- To create a DFS lineup and export it to a CSV on the 'DFS Lineup Builder (DraftKings)' page.
New Golf Predictor Golf Blog Widgets
We have added new blog widgets to Golf Predictor. These widgets will allow you to see the latest posts on the Golf Predictor Blog. Should you wish to read the post, you can click on the widget to open the blog or a post title to open that particular post.
There are 2 slightly different versions of the widget. A wider one with the post title plus a preview of the post is on the member home page, while a narrower version with just the post titles is on the 2 Golf Predictor pages (member section and public section) that link to the blog.
There are 2 slightly different versions of the widget. A wider one with the post title plus a preview of the post is on the member home page, while a narrower version with just the post titles is on the 2 Golf Predictor pages (member section and public section) that link to the blog.
Saturday, 20 December 2008
US Tour Commissioner Calls For Shoulders to the Wheel
US PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem has reportedly send a video to every player begging, err, I mean urging them to play in more tournaments and participate more while they're at them with the sponsor who's stumping up their big fat pay cheques.
This will no doubt appear like a video nasty to a lot of the pampered pros, who are very used to doing their own thing. However, I'm sure they realise that it's necessary if they want to keep the large trough that their snouts have been wedged into in these tough economic times.
We here at Golf Predictor presume that Finchem included the story about the goose who laid the golden eggs in his video package!!
This will no doubt appear like a video nasty to a lot of the pampered pros, who are very used to doing their own thing. However, I'm sure they realise that it's necessary if they want to keep the large trough that their snouts have been wedged into in these tough economic times.
We here at Golf Predictor presume that Finchem included the story about the goose who laid the golden eggs in his video package!!
Friday, 19 December 2008
Nicklaus and Sorenstam Recruited to Olympic Drive
Talk about getting the big guns out! The International Golf Federation has named Jack Nicklaus and Annika Sorenstam as Global Ambassadors in support of the bid to get golf into the 2016 Olympics.
No finer man than Nicklaus to have in your corner; a legendary player on the course and a legendary gentleman and ambassador for the game off it. Sorenstam's not too shabby either and she does have some time on her hands now that she has just retired from her illustrious career!
This should really help the cause to be one of the two new sports introduced at the 2016 games. The winners will be announced in Copenhagen in October, 2009 and we here at Golf Predictor are rooting for Jack and Annika to succeed (they usually do!).
No finer man than Nicklaus to have in your corner; a legendary player on the course and a legendary gentleman and ambassador for the game off it. Sorenstam's not too shabby either and she does have some time on her hands now that she has just retired from her illustrious career!
This should really help the cause to be one of the two new sports introduced at the 2016 games. The winners will be announced in Copenhagen in October, 2009 and we here at Golf Predictor are rooting for Jack and Annika to succeed (they usually do!).
Tiger as a Caddie
Ever wonder what it would be like to have Tiger Woods as your caddie? This nice gentleman found out thanks to a Buick competition. And Tiger didn't disparage a fellow player even once!! We here at Golf Predictor urge you not to laugh at the putting - he was under some pressure and not used to such quick greens!
Thursday, 18 December 2008
Golf Predictor Technology Makeover
We are very excited to announce the addition of AJAX technology to Golf Predictor. This will make the site more responsive for all users. AJAX allows the partial updating of a web page and you can continue to interact with the page while the data is loaded in the background.
In Golf Predictor, this means that when you select a new season, tour or tournament from a drop down box, instead of a full page reload (as was the case up until now), just the part of the page with the information (e.g. data table or map) will be updated. This should make Golf Predictor even better to use. If it isn't instantaneous, an updating message and graphic will appear on the page during the partial update.
You must have JavaScript enabled on your browser for AJAX to work. You already need this for Golf Predictor (for the menu and charts), so that is not an issue. Occasionally a partial page update request may time out. If such a time out occurs, you will be alerted and the page automatically reloaded. Often this is due to a transient network problem and you can simply try again.
We hope this major enhancement will add to your browsing experience. Please contact us immediately if you experience any problems on the site.
In Golf Predictor, this means that when you select a new season, tour or tournament from a drop down box, instead of a full page reload (as was the case up until now), just the part of the page with the information (e.g. data table or map) will be updated. This should make Golf Predictor even better to use. If it isn't instantaneous, an updating message and graphic will appear on the page during the partial update.
You must have JavaScript enabled on your browser for AJAX to work. You already need this for Golf Predictor (for the menu and charts), so that is not an issue. Occasionally a partial page update request may time out. If such a time out occurs, you will be alerted and the page automatically reloaded. Often this is due to a transient network problem and you can simply try again.
We hope this major enhancement will add to your browsing experience. Please contact us immediately if you experience any problems on the site.
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