US TOUR NEWS:SOUTH AFRICAN Rory Sabbatini, energised by his victory at the Byron Nelson Championship, bids to build on his winning form at this week's Colonial Invitational.
A five-times champion on the USPGA Tour, Sabbatini has long targeted greater consistency at the highest level.
“One of the things I’ve always been struggling with is to try and maintain a consistency,” the 33-year-old said in the build-up to today’s opening round at Colonial Country Club.
“It’s nice to see that that consistency is starting to develop. Obviously, I had two bad weeks but I was able to flush those out and come back and play well.”
Sabbatini, who won the 2007 Colonial tournament in a three-way play-off, had missed the cut in his previous two PGA Tour events before sealing victory by two strokes on Sunday.
“I got sick at Wachovia and tried to play when I was really weak,” said the Texas-based South African, who has recorded three missed cuts and four top-10s in 13 PGA Tour appearances this season.
“I just let a few bad habits creep into my swing trying to develop some power to carry it over to the next week.”
Like Sabbatini, Britain’s in-form Paul Casey will tee off at Colonial fresh from victory last week.
Casey clinched his third title of the year by a one-shot margin at the European Tours flagship PGA Championship, a win that lifted him to a career-high number three in the world rankings.
“There’s lots of things on the list to try and accomplish and certainly major success is at the top of that list,” the 31-year-old Englishman said.
“I’ve tried to give equal weight to every event I’ve played in this year and try and prepare with equal weight, equal measure for every event. Maybe that’s why things are going pretty well this season.”
Casey, who also won in Abu Dhabi in January and in Houston last month, heads a strong field at Colonial that features three other members of the world’s top 10, and 10 of the top 20.
Sixth-ranked Australian Geoff Ogilvy, twice champion Kenny Perry of the US and former world number one Vijay Singh are also taking part.
Last year’s champion Phil Mickelson will not be defending his title as he has suspended his PGA Tour campaign after his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Colonial, Texas
Course: Colonial CC, Fort Worth
Length: 7,054 yards. Par: 70.
Prizemoney: €4.5 million, €800,000 for the winner
Field: 126.
Last year: Phil Mickelson won by one shot from Tim Clarke and Rod Pampling with a birdie at the last.
Layout: Plenty of doglegs with small bentgrass greens. The three hardest holes, third, fourth and fifth are known as the Horrible Horseshoe.
On TV: Setanta Golf (8pm tonight).
