Sabbatini holds his nerve

admin — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 01:00:31 +0000

Rory Sabbatini held off a final-round charge from YE Yang to close out his sixth PGA Tour victory at the Honda Classic.

The South African was under pressure as his overnight five-shot lead was whittled down to just one when playing partner Yang birdied the 15th.

But Sabbatini responded in kind at the next to restore a two-shot cushion before play was briefly suspended to allow a storm to pass through the PGA National Champion Course in Palm Beach Gardens.

Sabbatini returned to par the final two holes and complete his first win for almost two years.

His level-par 70 on Sunday gave him a nine-under-par total for the week, one better than 2009 winner Yang, who birdied the 18th to complete a four-under 66.

Emotional

“I’m just beside myself,” said a tearful Sabbatini, who underwent surgery for skin cancer three months ago.

The 34-year-old’s wife, Amy, also had a stay in intensive care after a difficult childbirth and Sabbatini added: “There is a lot that has occurred since my last win and it’s just fantastic to be here again.”

American Jerry Kelly birdied the final two holes in a 67 to take third place at seven under.

Kelly’s compatriot Ricky Barnes was alone in fourth at four under after a 67 and Tommy Gainey’s 68 saw him end up one further back in fifth.

Earlier, US Open champion Graeme McDowell equalled Sabbatini’s two-day-old course record with a six-under 64 that moved him up from 30th to joint sixth on two under.

After turning in 33 the Northern Irishman holed from almost 45 feet at the 11th, added another birdie on the 13th and then finished with two more.

McDowell, who sank a 35-footer at the short 17th and then was on in two at the

last, said: “it was a very different golf course today.

“The wind had switched and the ‘Bear Trap’ was a lot more civilised.”

He will stay fourth in the world rankings, though, because last week’s World Match Play winner Luke Donald was only a stroke behind him following a bogey-free 66.

Disappointment

Lee Westwood had required a top three placing to regain top spot on the rankings from the resting Martin Kaymer, but that was never on long before he double-bogeyed the 17th.

Round in 70, Westwood finished four-over-par, while Ian Poulter (67) was five over and Rory McIlroy, who closed with scores of 77 and 75, was down on 16 over.

They all now head to Miami for this week’s WGC-Cadillac Championship. The event won by Ernie Els last year will see Tiger Woods’ fourth appearance of the season.

Sabbatini, up now from 102nd in the world to just outside the top 50, has qualified by climbing into the top 10 on the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup standings.

Sabbatini holds his nerve

Related Websites

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 multiplayer review (Xbox 360)

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 18:00:42 +0000

Ads by Google’; } } //only display the google bottom unit if there is no chitika ad document.getElementById(‘top_unit’).innerHTML=s; } //–> What workedDestruction 2.0 is amazing

Bad Company 2′s “Destruction 2.0″ system lets you do everything from shooting fire holes through cover to completely destroying structures and watching them come crashing down in the most convincing manner I’ve seen on a console to date. if you’re taking cover inside a building, a tank can completely obliterate the wall you’re hiding behind with one blast, so you’ve got to be smart and know where you’re headed next. it adds a unique element to the “Rush” multiplayer game type, where you have to plant charges on objects in buildings and stop the enemy from defusing the charges. You might be tempted to level the building to wipe out some defenders, but where are your teammates going to hide when they’re planting and defending the charge?

Tactics and teamwork, not twitch

Only the most elite players will be able to survive for long on their own, and a team who actually plays like a team will always win over a bunch of lone wolves trying to rely on their reflexes. You can “spot” enemies and they’ll show up on the maps of all your teammates, the assault class can drop ammo for their teammates, medics can drop medical kits to heal or use defibrillators to revive their fallen teammates, and engineers can repair damaged vehicles – and in all of these cases, you’re rewarded with experience points for doing so, which means many people who otherwise wouldn’t are now playing like a team.

Grounded in reality

While you unlock extra weapons and gadgets as you progress through the ranks, there’s no “perks” that allow people to perform logic-defying (and ultimately fun-defying) feats like running around stabbing people from ten feet away, which is in stark contrast to Modern Warfare 2. (There’s also no kill-streak rewards that give the players who are already dominating the match additional high-powered ways to keep dominating.)

Dedicated servers

EA’s long-running arrangement with Microsoft means that bad Company 2 (like all EA-published games) can use dedicated servers. this removes the “host advantage” problem found in every non-EA shooter to date and offers a far more level playing field. Having said that, I have experienced intermittent latency/lag issues – just not in nearly every single game, like the competition. this makes me think that there may be a limited number of servers in countries outside the US, and once they’re full, you’ll end up on a server in another country with less-than-ideal latency. I contacted both EA and DICE to ask where their servers are, but had not heard back at the time of publication.

Unmatched scale and depth

There’s only four game types across ten maps, but they’re all unique and highly tuned. There’s 15 vehicles on land, sea and in the air, including several different tanks, boats and helicopters, an ATV, a Hummer, and a controllable (and lethal) UAV. Unlocking new gear is a slow but steady process. the maps are truly massive, and will take a very long time to learn inside out. and of course, I’ve already talked about how much the Destruction 2.0 system adds to the gameplay.

What didn’t workVoice chat only for your squad

You can only use voice chat with your squad, which is a maximum of three other players out of the 12 on your team, and quite often, no one. As a result, most people end up using Xbox party chat rather than in-game communications. this means that if you’re not playing with friends, you’re not likely to hear anyone, which creates a lone-wolf dynamic that almost every other aspect of the game is set up specifically to punish. Not being able to communicate to a teammate that you’re an engineer who can fix the badly damaged tank he just drove past you at 40 miles an hour is incredibly frustrating.

No effort to balance games

I’ve seen a team of ten with three people around level 20 (which I’d guess to mean something like 50 hours of play since the game launched last week) go up against a team of ten with eight unranked players (which means they’ve played for less than an hour). They were unsurprisingly beaten swiftly and without a challenge. I’ve also found myself on a team of two, against a team of four. the servers made absolutely no effort to add players to our team while we were unrelentingly punished by the other team for 45 minutes.

Throws players into the deep end

The campaign isn’t nearly enough training for the multiplayer games. As my friends buy this game and jump online, the first question is always “what’s going on?” (and not as in the “how are you?” version of the question). It’s clear that many players still have no idea you can actually defuse a charge once it is planted by the enemy – and with the voice chat issue I mentioned above, you can’t even tell them. Helicopters in particular have a learning curve like a brick wall – every time you’re on a level with helicopters, you’ll see at least one teammate jump in, fly for a couple of hundred meters and crash spectacularly into a mountain or building. a couple of training scenarios that you can run through offline would be a big help.

Issues with servers

Over the weekend there were extended problems with the servers, originally with PC and PS3, then on the 360. I’d hoped that things would be smooth sailing from there, but last night I experienced the dreaded “Cannot connect to EA Online” message again. it does seem odd that EA and DICE ran a beta over several months, and a multiplayer demo for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 that saw 2.5 million downloads, but are struggling to keep up with demand.

Spawn camping is prevalent

If you’re not familiar with the lingo, this means the defending team can sit in the attackers base, where defenders reenter the game (or respawn) after being killed, picking them off as they respawn. It’s annoying enough before a team of four playing against a team of two start doing it. this would be incredibly easy to stop, with an existing game mechanic (you can’t leave certain areas of the map at all times, or you’ll die after 10 seconds).

Worthy?

If you’re into online warfare, you simply cannot miss this game. It’s that good.

If you’re relatively new to online warfare and don’t have friends already playing who can show you the ropes, it might be a little tough to get started here, for reasons I’ve already covered.

If you’re only looking for a fantastic single player campaign, you might be a little disappointed. I wouldn’t say it’s been bad at any stage, but it’s missing some of that edge-of-your-seat factor present in other shooters (including one that it has unashamedly borrowed from). I’ve only gone back to it once after my initial session, and that was when the multiplayer servers were down. (Looking over the review excerpts at Metacritic, it appears I’m not the only one that’s found the single player campaign a little lackluster.)

If you’ve got access to multiple platforms and can’t decide which version to go for, DigitalFoundry has a stunningly in-depth look at the differences between PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game. (They also perfectly sum up my thoughts on bad Company 2′s 30 frames per second versus Modern Warfare 2′s 60 frames per second – a gaming experience of this magnitude simply could not be achieved at 60 frames per second on this generation of consoles.)

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 multiplayer review (Xbox 360)

Foilball.com » holes

Sabbatini holds his nerve

Related Websites

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 multiplayer review (Xbox 360)

Related Websites