Without Tiger and Phil, PGA creates its own drama on Sunday

To say that the PGA tour is lacking a little excitement right now is an understatement, and the ratings continue to prove that. With Tiger still hunting to find his game and Lefty struggling to stay healthy for 72 holes, the game needs a ‘go to’ guy to fill in into Daddy gets home. With nether of the afore mentioned having an afternoon tee time on Sunday the PGA made due by creating a little drama on their own by calling a 2-stroke penalty on Dustin Johnson on the 18th hole for “grounding his club into a hazard” we could spend a paragraph or two on what that means in English but the long and the short of it is that you simply can’t get a free “lay of the land” with you club, ie; see how firm the bunker is, etc. So a 5 became a 7 and instead of a three player, 3-hole playoff, we had a two. From there Martin Kaymer and Bubba Watson did give us a great sudden death shootout worthy of more notoriety than it received and that’s just my point. You really can’t ask much more from a tournament that we got from the 2010 PGA Championship and it wasn’t good enough to keep the ratings from falling more than double digits. It proves that audiences would still rather watch Tiger, Phil, Ernie, or Vijay than have a new face hoist the trophy at each major. I for one like to know that it’s anyone’s tournament when they tee-off of on Thursday, as it’s a refreshing change from what we’ve seen over the past few years as it only makes news when one of the big two doesn’t win. So, now it seems that the champion is on the canvas and needs to battle to his feet, but to be honest I don’t know if the big cat has it in him to make an Ali-like return to the top. We’ve seen this before with compeer David Duval, Jim Courier in tennis, and even in many individual sports where the player seems to just lose the magic and drop from to upper echelon to obscurity leaving everyone to wonder how it happened. I’m certainly not ready to concede that’s the case with Lefty and Tiger but TW better get a guru swing coach in camp right away and Lefty better hit the meds or Golf may lose all the mo’ it’s been building over the past few years. What do you think about the penalty assest to Johnson? Are we not talking enough about the winners rather than the losers? Would you rather see new faces atop the leader board or the heavyweights doing battle to make history? Let us know here and in any of the quick links.
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Did anyone really want to win this thing?

For a tournament that is hailed as our National Championship it sure wasn’t very impressive. It’s not so much that none the American top players were on top of the leader board at the end, or even because we let someone come into our house and take our National Championship trophy back with them on a plane, but because the play was so poor for a tournament of such high prestige. I understand the Pebble Beach as been revised to be the equivalent of the Green Monster with water hazards, but no course can or should make the winning score an even par. None of the top 5 players had cards with red ink on them in the final round with the best coming from Frenchman Greg Havret and even that was still +1 for round. The best player in the world still can not seem to regain his prior form although he gave us a tease with a 3rd round 66, but it’s clear that Tiger is not the dominating force that he once was and it will take more than criticizing his caddy and changing swing coaches to get him back to form. The old Tiger would have taken this tournament bull by the horns in the last round and immediately crushed any dreams of an underdog coming on to his turf and walking out with his hardware. Not anymore. The stigma of TW being within striking distance on day 4 is all but folklore now. And where was Lefty with his chance to wear the national crown for the first time in his career in addition to taking over the world’s top spot? He also got the better of the course for one round of 66 but paid it back with interest over the other three, including a choke filled final round of +2. I’ll tell ya, this year began with some of the best sporting climaxes American sports has to offer (Super Bowl, NCAA Championship, even the Masters) but this was a major. A major disappointment. What was your take on the final round of the 2010 US Open? Let us know here and in any of the quick links.
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Tiger may have set the table but Lefty carries the day

Now that the lights have all gone out, the non-Georgians have filtered to Ben Epps airport, and the grounds crew is repairing all of the divots, the PGA has a chance to asses the results of the 2010 Masters and it appears they got everything they wanted. Firstly, was Tiger’s return, which had every media outlet with more that two employees requesting media credentials, TV ratings up an phenomenal 50% over last year and 80% over 2008, with 4.94 million viewers, and having the most “current” media friendly participant win the tournament in Phil Mickelson, makes for a perfect weekend. It’s not just the PGA who was pleased, ESPN and CBS who carried the coverage saw ad revenues almost double, and unique internet users increase 89%. Although the final round did not have the drama of year’s past with Lefty winning by 3 strokes by then, everyone seemed to have gotten what they came for. Hopefully what won’t be lost in theatrics of the weekend is another amazing showing by Phil on Golf’s biggest stage. En route to getting fitted for his third green jacket he a stretch that included back-to-back Eagles and was less than 2 feet away from a third, shot a final round 5-under-par 67 with a series of great par saves and clutch shots, and fully shaken the rep of not being ready for prime time. It was the Brits who faded this time as Poulter and Westwood couldn’t close the deal or hold off the charging Mickelson who turned out to be better at darts as the was throwing them with deadly accuracy all day on Sunday. Now, the question is will Phil take over the title as the “people’s champion” and be able to parlay Sunday’s win into creating a consistent challenge to Tiger going forward as no one has been able to consistently ruffle his fur for quite some time although the Rory Sabatinis of the world occasionally have a shining moment or two. If he can this will be the greatest rivalry in the sport since Arnie and Jack used to drop gloves, but it could polarize the sport as now anyone who was on the fence will surely choose a side and in the tournaments without the crowd control of Augusta could get heated. Rest assured there will be more drama to come and either way the sport will benefit from it, and I’ll be one of those 5 million plus watching. What did you think of the Masters final? How do you think Tiger’s return will change golf if any? Let us know here and in World Sports and Golf Blogs.

Was this really the US Open we wanted to see?

The second round played much like the first with the exception for those who were fortunate enough to get on early while there were still some good scoring opportunities. Ricky Barnes and Lucas Glover ( I know I’ve never heard of them either) were two of those people and took full advantage by shooting a 65 and 64 respectively to sit atop the leader board at the end of the second round. An attempt to get the scheduled third round in was thwarted by mother nature. And that’s my point if you can’t play the rounds consecutively, without delay, and you’re going to have to postpone/extend the tournament beyond Sunday anyway, then why not delay the start until all rounds can be completed as planned. Firstly, the delays alone with all of the starting and stopping, make it impossible to get a rhythm. Moreover, it’s not a level playing field, as the players with the luck of the draw in regards to tee time coincidentally have the best scores and sit in the lead. I’m a terrible golfer but if I got to play with stiff greens, no wind, no rain, and sunny I would beat Tiger and Phil too if they were playing in a torrential downpour. This is not what our nation’s national tournament is supposed to be like. The trophy should have an asterisk engraved on it. Would you delay the start of the tournament? How would you deal with the delays/cancelations?

US Open players get a break in the weather but not on ‘The Black”

The weather has cleared and the current conditions look conducive for a long day of golf as the players will need to complete their first round then play a complete round 2. However what they didn’t get a break on was Bethpage Black, as the course was beating up the best in the world early in the morning as Tiger (+4), Vijay (+2), Cabrera (+4), and Westwood (+2), are among those who can’t find red numbers. Phil Mickelson is on the course completing his first round with cheering galleries on every hole. For the second consecutive tournament Tiger is in trouble of missing the cut as he finds himself eight shots back of the leaders, I know what happened at the Memorial but this course is a whole different animal. There are no guarantees they’ll be able to get the full day in or tournament for that matter as the weather looks dicey at best for the weekend. One thing is for sure if there is a break in the clouds you had better get your scoring in as there has been a distinct advantage for those on the course when the sky is clear. Can Tiger pull a rabbit out of his hat for two tournaments in a row? Can Phil ride the wave of momentum to the top of the leader board? Let us know here and in the US Open Live Chat Room.Also view the up to date Leaderboard.

Tiger shows his woodwork in final round victory at the Memorial

With Phil taking the tourney off and the US open around the corner the Memorial need a great showing other than Jack pairing with Tiger in the first round, and it didn’t look good but after barely missing the cut, Tiger displayed his best driving accuracy since returning from his injury, particularly his move in the final round where he came from 5 shots back to win the Memorial with a final round 65 (2nd lowest round of the tourney to Ogilvy’s 63) was one for the ages. The storyline was good enough in itself but the manner in which he did it was fodder for folklore. Hitting 49 of 56 greens in regulation (87% ranking second in the field for the week), once on the green Woods’ irons and putter took over including the shots of the tourney as he chipped in from the rough for eagle, or stuck his 2nd from 175yards out leading to a 9ft birdie put for the lead that he would not relinquish. This answers many questions and comments from pundits on weather Tiger 3.0 has more quirks than Vista or is he ready for the US open. Who do you think is the favorite to win the US Open? Let us know here and in the Golf chat rooms.

US stuns Europe to win first Ryder Cup since 99'

The US Ryder Cup team competing without the world’s best player, Tiger Woods, and heavy underdogs, got off to a fast start on day one and never looked back en route to a 16 ½ to 11 ½ victory over the European side. Captain Paul Azinger’s choices proved to be wise as his last selection to the club, Chad Campbell, won his match against Padraig Harrington, and other selection Ben Curtis bettered Lee Westwood in his as well, to produce the final margin of victory that was the largest since 1981. Most importantly in was Azinger’s idea to overhaul the qualifying system, which he believed was hindering the Americans from fielding their best team. Lastly, he doubled the captains picks and those four players produced 1/3 of the 16 ½ points. We this the type of change the US needed all along? Have the players been there but has the good ol’ US bureaucracy gotten in the way? Or was this simply more of a TEAM without a ‘go to’ guy and just had better symmetry?