Season-long running golf thread

Welcome to the Hope, where you have no Hope of winning unless you shoot sub-66 for five rounds. Unless the wind's blowing at the Classic Club, which is the new host course north of the 10 Freeway and in the center of a wind tunnel, the winning score will be somewhere in the 26-30-under neighborhood.

And actually, it's also the land of scorekeepers who -- shall we say -- are rather oblivious to simple things like golf scoring. Allenby's scorekeeper rang him up for eagles he didn't deserve. He never cracked 9-under that round, but cracked his scorekeeper the next day in the LA Times.

I'm out at one of the courses every day helping track down players for interviews back to the main media center at the Classic Club. The scoreboards are useless to follow.

As for Philly Mick, shooting 70 each day will get him an early ticket home Saturday. He'll be the first one to tell you that.

 

Dangerous ground. I've gone out on this limb before and watched it crack under the weight of Adam's putter, which apparently weighs a lopsided 300 pounds from the way he uses it to blow his chances most weeks. The main reason he's not winning majors is because of his putting, and Augusta's one hell of a place to try to rectify that.

Top 10 on the money list and a couple of wins? I'm in for that much.

I think Phil's training is going to be big (really, no pun), assuming he doesn't cheeseburger the weight back on by June. Tough to fit in that cardio and tai chi when you're in the middle of a seven-hour practice round, charting flops with Rick Smith until your hands bleed. That said, if he can better keep up physically in the dog days of summer Fridays and Saturdays, he might have big enough Sunday leads that he can stand on top of the friggin' tent on 18 at the U.S. Open to hit his ninth shot and it won't matter -- OK, at that tournament, it'll obviously matter, but elsewhere ...

CH III ... it's no excuse, really, but you have to wonder about the overall mental state of the crowd that came up right around Tiger. It's got to be a strange effect in feeling like you are constantly jockeying for second-best. Again, no excuse, but it's a strange phenomenon in an individual sport that hasn't really been seen since Nicklaus. With the lives of luxury that can be attained by finishing in the top 50 or 60 on the money list every year, is a guy like CH III motivated to become the next Watson or Faldo -- awesome players who will never be the best, no matter what they do -- or is a couple million a year for No. 51 good enough? I don't know, just blabbering on the subject because it interests me, I guess ...

I wonder if Duval wil ever get back to anything resembling his No. 1 ranking. That's a guy who was always seemed motivated by anger or something darker ... it built him up and it took him down. Is Duval the Family Man motivated enough to get back to anywhere close to where he was? Most days I've seen him around the course recently, he moves almost likes he's in a bubble ... unaffected by expectations, by media (other than his general disdain for talking), by much of anything, for better or for worse. That ain't the No. 1 Duval and it probably ain't the No. 25 or 45 Duval either. I'm rooting for him, honestly, but I just have doubts.

By all means, let's keep the golf thread on top as long as possible!

 

donnie, that's an interesting observation on CH III and the people who came up with Tiger. You're right. PGA purses are so big now that even finishing consistently in the top 20 is enough to set you for life. How motivated are you after that to then go after Tiger? If there's one thing about Tiger, it's that when he turns it on, no one really seems to be able to match his intensity and focus. He's like Jordan in that respect. If he wants it, it seems there's no way to stop him.

Nice week so far for recent Nationwide guys too ... Johnson Wagner, Charley Hoffman, Matt Kuchar all playing well. I know Kuchar's got a PGA tour title, but he was more Nationwide than PGA last year.

 

What are the odds Daly doesn't withdraw from tournaments when he's out of the running early this year? Now that he's got no status, he can't afford to piss off sponsors.

 

Great point.

 

Thank God Phil Mick finally dropped some lbs. I agree with others who think it will help him, if he keeps it off.

 

Anyone paying attention to the train wrecks at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic?

 

This... after Hoffman (a San Diego boy, BTW) eagled 18 to force the playoff -- after blasting a 372-yard drive and draining the putt from 11 feet. Then, he hit a 366-yard drive on the first playoff hole as Rollins drove into the right fairway bunker, from where he had no chance to reach the green. Hoffman irons to 37 feet, then two putts for birdie.