Season-long running golf thread

First is $900,000. Second is $540,000

 

The Classic Club, which is in the wind tunnel north of the 10 Freeway, produced a final-round average of 74.76. That's 4 1/2 strokes higher than the averages for Rounds 1-4 and more than five higher than the first-round average.

In case you didn't notice, the winds were gusting 30mph-plus today and the carnage was complete and indiscriminate. Out of the 76 players who teed off today, seven broke par. Joe Oglivie's 68 -- the round of the day -- moved him 42 spots up the leaderboard (from T-60 to T-18).

Mickelson shot 78, complete with five bogeys and two doubles.

 

Yeah, the wind was crazy today. They had Duval on the Golf Channel talking about how he had to ask rules officials if he could hit his ball while the wind was making it oscillate on the green. Crazy day. That approach shot Hoffman hit on 18 was sweet. Good tournament.

 

Big congrats to Hoffman. I've spent my share of time covering him and his fellow college alums, and he is a guy who has busted his ass on the mini-tours and the Nationwide and so on, and greatly deserves this win (and this run-on sentence.)

 

I talked to Hoffman at a tournament last year and he seemed like a good guy. Refreshing in that he isn't your stereotypical, bland PGA Tour player.

 

Hoffman was already up last year when I covered a Nationwide event, but I remember a lot of the guys I talked to raving about Hoffman and how he was playing at the Byron Nelson that week.

 

If I'm understanding this correctly, they had a cut after the fourth of five rounds last weekend. So a guy can play four rounds of golf and get no check?

 

Two things:

1. Did anyone catch the Nationwide Tour promo today, where one of the players calls it "the second-best tour in the world" and claims the "top 20 players on the Nationwide Tour are capable of winning on the PGA Tour"? That's gonna piss off the Europeans and it's hard to blame them. They've got many players who are not only capable of winning on the PGA Tour but have done so. Several times. Plus, there's that little thing called the Ryder Cup.

2. Say what you want about his personality, but Tiger is amazing. He tries to hit a 5-wood out of the bunker on 18 Friday to reach the green in two but tops it, almost goes into the water and scrambles for par. Today, same situation, he's unfazed by yesterday and knocks the same shot over the green. I've said it before and I'll stick to it: Best player ever.

 

So, he misplayed both shots but is the greatest player ever?

 

Yeah, that's why he's the best player ever. Idiot.