Bookies baffled by the aura of Tiger Woods
Ochoa wins her second major in a row
What a perfect time to win, with it Johnson Wagnor goes to the Masters
Is Freddie Couples back and can he contend in the Masters?
Bookies baffled by the aura of Tiger Woods
The dominance of Tiger Woods has stretched well beyond the world of golf. In fact, it has also made plenty of waves in Las Vegas and beyond as bookmakers try to get a grip on handicapping a guy who wins nearly every time he tees it up.
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The absurdness of Tiger’s odds hit its peak two weeks ago at the World Golf Championships - CA Championship in Miami. Facing a field that included 49 of the top 50 players in the world, Tiger was as much as a –160 favorite, meaning that bettors had to risk $160 to win $100. The next favorite on the board in that tournament was Phil Mickelson, who was 15-to-1 in most spots, meaning you would win $150 for every $100 wagered.
There was also a proposition bet offered in that event where you could bet Tiger Woods or the rest of the field. Incredibly, the field was the underdog in that matchup, bringing home as much as $120 for every $100 bet. Of course, Tiger did not win that tournament as he saw his streak snapped when Geoff Oglivy prevailed. And while that little bump in the road has brought Tiger’s odds back down to earth a little bit, they are still the kind of numbers that have never been seen in the world of betting on golf.
“Before Tiger lost the WGC he was around a –110 favorite to win the Masters and since then he’s gone to around a 6-to-5 favorite,” said Sherman, who runs the website www.golfodds.com. “But despite those odds, we’re still getting action on Tiger.”
Another form of wagering on golf comes in the form of match-ups where the sports book pits two players against each other and the bettor wagers on which player will finish better. Tiger is a –450 favorite over Phil Mickelson in this week’s Masters.
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“Considering Phil has won the Masters twice that’s just incredible,” Sherman said. “But that’s the kind of odds we’re forced to put out there.”
The numbers are just as warped in the off shore world of sports betting.
“The Tiger Woods phenomenon has just begun to hit its peak,” said Richard Gardner, a bookmaker for the off shore sports book, Bodog.com. “The reaction [to his winning streak] was met by bettors betting him at an unprecedented level.
“He’s [even money] to win the Masters and the odds will only get worse for bettors as the hype around a Tiger Slam starts to pick up.”
Speaking of the prospects of Tiger winning the Grand Slam, Sherman said that at the start of the season the odds of him pulling it off were more than 20-to-1. But as Tiger kept winning in the early parts of the season the money kept pouring in on him to pull it off.
“We dropped it to 15-to-1, then to 10-to-1, but the money kept coming in on Tiger,” he said. “We’ve now got it all the way down to 5-to-1, which is incredibly low for someone to pull off a feat as difficult as winning the Grand Slam. But people love to bet on Tiger and to root for him.”
Will Tiger Woods get a Hole in One during the tournament? Yes: 35-to-1
Will Tiger Woods lead after Day 1? Yes: 4-to-1
Over/under on how many Birdies will Tiger Woods get? 16 ½
Over/under on how many bogeys or worse will Tiger Woods get? 11 ½
Over/under on what will Tiger Woods’ first-round score will be? 70 ½
----------------------------------------------------------------Ochoa continues to set a “Tiger-like” pace on the LPGA Tour
Every week here at The Buzz we seem to make comparisons to Tiger Woods and Lorena Ochoa. And for good reason.
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Overall, Ochoa finished the final round with eight pars, closing with a 5-under 67 to become the only player not to make a bogey and the only player in the field to break par all four days. She has won the past two majors by a total of nine shots and has won three of four tournaments this year by a combined 23 shots.
Ochoa has won 14 of the 21 events she has led heading into the final round and leads the Tour with a 68.3 scoring average per round. Next in line is Annika Sorenstam, who is a full stroke behind at 69.3 in second place.
Ochoa has 26 of the necessary 27 points required to gain entrance into the LPGA Tour and World Golf Halls of Fame. She will not be fully eligible for induction until 2012 when she completes the required 10 years on Tour. Ochoa has 20 wins overall, including the two major championships, as well as a pair of Rolex Player of the Year awards and two Vare Trophies.
She also became the first player since Annika Sorenstam to win two straight majors. She claimed her first major in the Women's British Open at St. Andrews last summer by four shots. Since winning that first major, she is 8-for-13 on the LPGA Tour. She leads the LPGA Official Money List with $855,550 and Rolex Player of the Year race with 123 points over Sorenstam, who is a distant second with 75.
Sounds a little bit like the guy who dominating over on the PGA Tour, doesn’t it? Suddenly there is talk of a “Lorena Slam” on the LPGA Tour.
“I think it's possible,” Sorenstam said of the prospects seeing the same player win all four LPGA majors this year. “I've said it before and I really do think it is. Lorena is playing great golf, and you need obviously to peak at a certain time and you need a little luck, but I certainly do think it's possible.”
Speaking of Sorenstam, she made a valiant effort to try and catch Ochoa, especially if you consider that she was suffering from a stomach virus that sent her to the hospital following Saturday’s third round. She struggled early on during Sunday’s final round with a front-nine 40, but shook off the ill-effects of her condition to fire a gutsy 33 on the back nine to finish at 2-under, four strokes off Ochoa’s winning pace.
“I'm very proud of this week,” Sorenstam said. “Like I said, there was a time [on Saturday] I didn't know if I was going to finish and I'm glad I hung in there, and then come out [on Sunday] and post a really solid score. I thought, well, I gave it [my] all, I can tell you that.”
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Wagner Johnson comes out of nowhere to win Shell Houston Open
This week’s Shell Houston Open was a perfect example as to why golf is such an unpredictable sport. To call Johnson Wagner’s wire-to-wire victory at the Redstone Golf Course in his home state of Texas would be a vast understatement if you take into consideration where this 28-year-old came from to secure his maiden PGA Tour win.
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For starters, you can look at what kind of year Wagner was having in 2008, just his second full season on the PGA Tour. Wagner came into this week having made just three cuts in nine starts, including a string of six straight missed cuts from the Buick Invitational on Jan. 27 through the PODS Championship on March 9. And in the three cuts he had made, Johnson’s best finish was a T38 at the Bob Hope, giving just a little more than $40,000 in earnings. His world rank coming into the week was 313 and he was 193rd on the money list.
No wonder Johnny Miller said at the start of the final round telecast that what Wagner was doing “made absolutely no sense.”
But there Wagner was late Sunday afternoon on the 18th green, pumping his fist and celebrating not only his first PGA Tour win, but the ensuing invitation to play in this week’s Masters that goes along with the victory. Wagner said that four years ago he got an invite to play Augusta from his grandmother’s brother, who is a member. Wagner spent two days at Augusta without leaving the property, playing 36 holes each day. Before Sunday’s final round at the Shell Houston, Wagner referred to his time at Augusta as his “best golf experience to date.”
Now, he’s got one even better: a PGA Tour win.
“This is something I've wanted to do my entire life, and to win at the highest level of golf,” Wagner said after the win. “I'm just thrilled and not shocked, but just -- I just can't believe it.”
So, how did Wagner do it? Here’s a few keys to his stunning victory: • Wagner’s most impressive and probably his most important stat was the manner in which he destroyed Red Stone’s par-5s. It’s very difficult to overpower the par 5s at this course because the shortest one is 557. On the back nine they are 590 and 608 yards. But Wagner, who is ranked just 125th in driving distance, managed to play the par 5s in 10-under for the week with no bogeys.
• Wagner is fortunate that he did so well on the par 5s, because it is playing the par 4s well that has been a key to winning this tournament since it made its home at Red Stone two years ago. Last year’s winner Adam Scott was 7-under on the par 4s and the year before winner Stuart Appleby was 13-under. Johnson, however, was just 2-under and if you take away the 4-under he shot on the par 4s during his course-record round of 63 on Thursday, Johnson was 2-over on the par 4s, with four bogeys in the final three rounds.
• Wagner proved that when you hit a lot of greens and carry a hot putter, good things will happen no matter how far or accurate you are off the tee. Wagner ranked just 53rd in the field in driving distance and was T41st in driving accuracy. But he was T4 in greens in regulation. He finished T20 in putts per round and 10th in putts per GIR. And he didn’t suffer a three-putt until the 14th hole on Sunday.
Other tidbits from Wagner’s win: • Wagner became the first first-time winner of the Shell Houston Open since Mike Heinen in 1994, the sixth since 1980 and the 14th since 1946, the year the tournament began.
• He snapped a string of four straight International winners at the Shell Houston Open (Adam Scott in 2007, Stuart Appleby in 2006, Vijay Singh in 2004 and 2005). ). In fact, international players had won seven out of the last nine events dating back to 1999, with the only American winners being Fred Couples in 2003 and Hal Sutton in 2001.
• Wagner became just the third player to win his first Tour event in wire-to-wire fashion. The other two were D.J. Trahan in the 2006 Viking Classic and Joel Edward in the 2001 Air Canada Championship.
• For obvious reasons, Wagner will be a “player to watch” when he shows up to defend his Shell Houston Open title next year. Last year, he finished T9 and overall in his eight rounds at Red Stone he is 26-under par. For the second straight year, Wagner broke a course record when he fired a blistering 63 during Thursday’s first round with seven birdies, an eagle and no bogeys. In the third round in 2007 as a rookie, he fired what was a record 8-under-par 64, breaking the course record of 65 set by Greg Owen in the second round in 2006.
• Entering the week, Wagner had $1,053,718 in earnings in his 19 career starts, but in just four short days he almost doubled that figure, taking home the $1,008,000 first-place check from the Shell Houston Open. He also gets a two-year exemption on Tour and jumps from 188th in the FedEx Cup standings to 18th.
• Wagner becomes the 101st different Nationwide Tour player to win on the PGA TOUR, with his victory, the 225th by a former Nationwide Tour alumnus. He is the fifth winner this season in his 20s, joining D.J. Trahan, J.B. Holmes, Sean O'Hair and Andres Romero.
What was most impressive about Wagner’s victory was how he fought off the guys trying to overtake him on Sunday. Coming into this week, Wagner had played in 19 career events and had landed in the Top 10 just twice, including last year’s Shell Houston where he was T9. Meanwhile the players chasing him were grizzled veterans like Chad Campbell (134 events, 24 Top-10s, four wins), Fred Couples (451 events, 156 Top-10s, 15 wins), Geoff Oglivy (118 events, 32 Top-10s, three wins) and Billy Mayfair (393 events, 61 Top-10s, five wins).
There were plenty of times when Wagner very easily could have coughed up his lead, considering both the circumstances and the players chasing him. He lead by one-stroke coming into Sunday and by the fourth hole he had extended that lead to five strokes. But after a bogey on the sixth hole suddenly shrunk the lead to three strokes through seven holes.
After a after a horrible front nine, Campbell suddenly started to heat up, ripping off four birdies in five holes, including one on 15 that cut the lead to just one stroke after Wagner bogeyed the 14th.
But Wagner composed himself and on the par-3, 16th he put his tee shot on the green and then placed a beautiful lag putt from more than 40 feet to within a few inches for a tap-in par, while Campbell put his tee shot into a very difficult greenside bunker, which led to a bogey.
Then on 17, Wagner all but clinched the win when, after a poor effort on another long lag-putt for birdie, he calmly drained a nine-footer for par, prompting a fist pump that would have made Tiger Woods blush.
Wagner said that he planned on leaving Texas Sunday night and heading straight for Augusta where he plans on soaking up every second of the entire experience.
“I don't care if I shoot 90 both days and miss the cut,” he said. “I'm so excited to be there, and it's just a dream come true.”
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Freddie “Boom Boom” heads to Augusta with a full head of steam
Fred Couples has just one PGA Tour win to his name in the last 10 years. And at 48 years old, he may never make it back to the winner’s circle.With that said, after watching his performance at last week’s Shell Houston Open, nobody would be stunned if Couples got it gear this week at Augusta and got himself into contention over the weekend.
Couples, one of the most popular players to ever tee it up on Tour, finished T4 this past week at the event where he recorded his last win back in 2003. He shot a 67-66 over the weekend, which marked his best back-to-back rounds since the 2005 Memorial.
His swing looked as smooth as ever and for a guy who is well past his prime he was still bombing it pretty good off the tee, ranking fifth in the field with a driving average of 309.5 yards. Couple that with a T5 ranking in putting and, well, you’ve got to think even Freddie is thinking about a chance to at least be in the mix for his second green jacket come Sunday afternoon.
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The resurgence has not come by accident. According to this story written last week by Steve Campbell of the Houston Chronicle, Couples spent five days last week in Las Vegas working with Butch Harmon.
Couples has one of the best records of any player at Augusta. In addition to his win in 1992, Freddie has made 23 straight cuts at the Masters. He’s also got six Top-10 finishes, his most recent coming in 2006 when he was T3.
Now, as we mentioned, he heads to Augusta with momentum. In his 23 career starts at the Masters, Couples has recorded a Top-10 when playing the week before just three times. And all three times he fared well at Augusta. See chart.
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Does Michelle Wie have a new beau?
Cut-rule mistake causes Cejka to criss-cross the U.S. on Saturday/Sunday moring.
Thomas Levet beats health problems to win again on the European Tour
Lorena leaves the field in the dust at the Safeway International
Anders Romero surprises all at the Zurich
Michelle Wie dating Stanford hoop star in what some will call a match made in Disney heaven
Fans of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament became quite familiar with the Lopez Twins from Stanford during the last few weeks. Brook and Robin, the sophomore 7-foot identical twins, played key roles in their team’s success this season, a ride that came to end when the Cardinal was drilled by Texas, 82-62, Friday night in the NCAA South Regional semifinal.
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According to Sports Illustrated’s Ramona Shelburne Robin, the twin best-known for his grown out hair, is dating none other than Stanford freshman Michelle Wie. According to the report, it has been a hush-hush relationship, which is no surprise considering the manner in which the 18-year-old Wie has been handled by her parents since she burst onto the scene as the precocious “next big thing” in golf.
Which begs the question: Do B.J. and Bo, Wie’s father and mother, know about this? And, if so, do they approve?
Unlike in recent years, it appears that Wie has had plenty of time to concentrate on her personal life rather than her golf career. She’s played in just one event this season – when she missed the cut at the Sony Open in Hawaii. Last season, she injured both wrists and kept playing, making only three cuts and breaking par twice in 19 rounds.
Maybe leading a “normal” life is exactly what she needs, although if you read the SI report, there seems to be nothing “normal” about Robin Lopez, who, along with his twin brother, is apparently obsessed with Disney characters. In fact, their dorm rooms at Stanford are filled with Disney figurines and they both are quite adept at answering Disney trivia questions, including obscure characters, the actors who voiced every part and even Walt Disney's favorite color.
Robin is an artist and reportedly spends a lot of his spare time getting into “spirited intellectual debates on the relative merits of traditional animation versus computer generated characters.”
The story goes on to say that, “along with a couple of their friends, [Brook and Robin] created a bunch of cartoon characters they hope could someday be starring in their very own comic book.”
Sounds like to the Buzz that Robin has the kind of personal make-up that will suit the fantasy world Michelle Wie has lived in for most of her life just fine.
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It was all about Planes, Trains and Automobiles for Alex Cejka
You may have been amazed to hear about the lengths that Alex Cejka went to make it back to New Orleans for the final round of the Zurich Classic on Sunday morning, but the news certainly didn’t surprise the folks at RDI Sports, the firm that represents the 37-year-old German.
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A “brave heart” that is feeling downright exhausted today as he heads to Houston for this week’s Shell Houston Open.
It all started late Saturday afternoon when Cejka shot a third-round 75 and thought, due to the PGA’s new rule that cuts the field on Friday and again after Saturday’s play when more than 78 players remain after the first cut, his weekend was over. It turned out, however, that he had actually made the cut when the third round had to be completed Sunday morning due to a long rain delay. Unfortunately, before this was realized, Cejka was on an airplane heading to his home in Las Vegas.
When his plane landed in Vegas at 7:40 p.m. he got a message on his cell phone telling him that he had actually made the cut. He immediately began searching for a flight back to New Orleans, but none were available that would have got him back in time. So instead of simply withdrawing, he took the flight that could get him as far east as possible. Within 15 minutes he was boarding a flight heading for Houston where he landed at 1 a.m. From there he rented a car and drove through the night – 350 miles – and pulled into the course’s parking lot just after 6:30 a.m. He said that he drank six Red Bulls to stay awake.
“It was 4 a.m. in Germany where we are based so we couldn’t help him,” Sirsch said. “Alex did this all on his own.”
As for his clubs, well, they were still on a plane in Las Vegas so Cejka was given a two-year-old set of rented Callaway clubs that is normally reserved for amateurs. He was given a Zurich Classic shirt and since all he had for pants were the jeans he was wearing, someone let him borrow a pair of rain pants. Oh, and his flip flops were traded in for golf shoes.
So with rented clubs and no sleep, how did Cejka fare? Well, he shot his best round of the week with a 71. He finished the tournament T-75 and collected a check for $11,656.00 as well as 47 FedEx points.
“This wasn’t about the money, trust me on that,” Sirsch said. “For $11,000 a lot of players would have just stayed home, but Alex told me that he didn’t want to finish last. That was his main concern.
“This reminds me of the 2004 PGA Championship when he hurt his back six holes into the first round. The injury went up his neck and he could barely move. But he refused to withdraw. He missed the cut (shooting a 75-71) but he was just happy not to have to withdraw. That’s the type of competitor he is.”
Brandt Jobe and Retief Goosen were the other players to leave New Orleans before finding out they were still alive in the tournament. Jobe landed in Dallas and then immediately hopped on a return flight to make it back in that night. Goosen had the benefit of flying in his own personal plane. When he landed in Orlando, the plane took off minutes later and headed back to New Orleans. Goosen’s caddie, however, had already flown back to Europe so he used his pilot as his caddy and shot his best round of the week, a 69, to finish T-57 and collect $13,640.
Hopefully that was enough to pay for gas and a generous tip for his versatile pilot/caddy.
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Another victory for Lorena
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Lorena Ochoa continues to put up "Tiger-like" numbers on the LPGA Tour. The world No. 1 took a one-stroke lead into Sunday's final round of the Safeway International and, much like Woods, she kept a tight grip on the lead throughout the day, as her competition simply fell by the wayside.
Ochoa, who also won here last year, maintained her slim margin through the first five holes and briefly fell into a tie for the lead with Jee Young Lee, who came into the day one-stroke back and moved into a share of the lead when Ochoa when bogeyed the par-4, 406-yard sixth hole. But that was as close as things would get. Ochoa promptly followed with back-to-back birdies on holes eight and nine to reclaim a two-stroke lead and then went bogey-free on the back nine to set the lowest 72-hole score at Superstition Mountain Golf and Country Club (-22) and pick up the winner's check worth $225,000.
It was all over but the crying after Ochoa carded a trio of birdies on holes 13, 14, and 15, as she sprinted to a compelling seven-stroke victory in front of the largest crowd in tournament history, which was pro-Lorena all week long since she played her college golf at the University of Arizona and is from nearby Mexico.
In 2008, Ochoa has two victories in three starts and is the first multiple winner on the LPGA Tour this season. In her last 26 starts, she's won 12 tournaments and finished second five times and has 23 Top-10 finishes. Overall she's won 16 times in her last 48 starts since 2006.
The 11-stroke tied for Ochoa's largest margin of victory and was just the second double-digit margin of victory in her 19 career wins, the first one coming in 2006 at the Mitchell Company Tournament of Champions where she defeated Juli Inkster by 11 strokes.
In fact, Ochoa's average margin of victory in her 19 wins is just four strokes. She's had two playoff victories (at the 2007 and 2006 Wegman's) as well as a one-stroke win that came in her first-career victory at the 2004 Franklin American Mortgage Championship when she became the first Mexican to win an LPGA Tour event. In addition, Ochoa has four victories by just two strokes (2007 ADT, 2006 Samsung, 2006 Sybase, 2004 Wachovia) and four victories by three strokes (2007 Canadian Open, 2007 Sybase, 2006 Wendy's, 2006 Takefuji Classic).
She admitted after this week's comfortable victory that it was nice to breathe easy as she played the 72nd hole.
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Ochoa was alarmingly consistent all week long. She birdied the 18th hole in all four rounds and overall in the tournament birdied 28 of the 72 holes. She hit 43 fairways in regulation and an incredible 59 greens in regulation while needing just 113 putts – or an average of just over 28 putts per round – in four rounds of golf.
Her performance on Sunday during those three straight birdies at holes 13, 14 and 15 was a microcosm of juts how complete her game her game is right now. On the 552-yard, par-5, 13th, Ochoa, who averaged 283 yards off the tee this week, landed a pitching wedge to within 12 feet where she drained the birdie on putt. On the short, 310-yard, par-4 13th, she drove the green and two-putted before showing off her short game once again on the 15th when she placed a sand wedge to within two feet for a tap-in birdie.
One major difference between Tiger Woods and Lorena Ochoa is their mindset coming into a tournament. While Tiger has always said – rather convincingly – that he expects to win every single tournament that plays in, Ochoa has a different way of looking at things.
"I don't think it's good to get in a position where you expect to win and you feel comfortable with a win," she said on Sunday after her round. "Because then everything will turn back and just -- you know, I like how I'm playing, how I feel playing on Sunday, the last group. I like to win, and I'll hopefully continue that."
As for the chances of being able to three-peat at this event, Ochoa said she may use her influence to make sure she gets that chance. Safeway, the nation's third-largest grocery store chain, has been the sole title sponsor since 2004, but announced two weeks ago it was ending the relationship. Currently, the tournament does not have a title sponsor for next year and will either move elsewhere or cease to exist.
"I'm going to ask my sponsors to see if they want to support the tournament, hopefully, anywhere in Arizona," Ochoa said. "It's such a great venue, and you can see with the fans. I would love to be back. Yeah, it would be a shame to lose the tournament."
Very quietly, Annika Sorenstam, who beat Ochoa in a playoff at this event back in 2005, notched her fourth consecutive top-10 finish of the season with a tie for ninth at the Safeway International Presented by Coca-Cola. The 70-time winner finished the week at 11-under-par in a tie with three others. Sorenstam won the season-opening SBS Open at Turtle Bay this season and also finished fourth (Fields Open in Hawaii) and second (HSBC Women's Champions) prior to this week.
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Thomas Levet beats vertigo, returns to winner’s circle
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It was just two years ago that Thomas Levet was thinking his career as a professional golfer was over. The Frenchmen was suffering from vertigo – a specific type of dizziness that causes a balance disorder – and didn’t pick up a club for more than six months.
At the time Levet explained the disease like this: "Imagine being in a car that is spinning for 45 minutes - or a hamster spinning on its wheel, except I'm not the hamster, I'm the wheel."
That’s why Levet’s victory this week at the MAPFRE Open de Andalucia by Valle Romano was so gratifying. The 39-year-old Levet beat teenage sensation Oliver Fisher in a sudden-death play-off for his first win since capturing the 2004 Barclays Scottish Open.
Levet trailed by two strokes with two holes to play on Sunday. He sank a 20-foot birdie putt on 17 to get within a stroke heading into the 18th and that’s where Fisher put his tee shot into a water hazard, resulting in a bogey to set up the playoff.
The players went back to the 18th hole, Fisher suffered another errant tee shot, this time landing in a fairway bunker that led to another bogey. Meanwhile, Levet, a 2004 member of the European Ryder Cup team and the runner-up of the 2002 British Open, managed a routine par that was good enough for him to taste victory once again. The win also helped Levet gains some satisfaction from a 2002 playoff loss he suffered to Ernie Els at this same event.
After the win, the classy Levet dedicated his victory to the late father of European Tour colleague and fellow Frenchman Raphaël Jacquelin, who passed away earlier this month.
"I was just happy to be standing up,” Levet told Reuters. “When you play the Ryder Cup two years before and then are trying to keep your card it's a low goal, but when you see what I've been through it's a tough goal. Now I've got a card for at least the next two years. It was an unbelievable battle today and it just shows you that it's never over until it's over. We've seen it so many times."
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Romero surprises all with win at New Orleans
At last year’s British Open, Argentina’s Andres Romero was on his way to posting potentially winning early number until a double bogey, bogey finish left him with a 67 and ultimately in third place. At the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, Romero was in a similar position, and this time he got up and down for par on 17 and parred 18 for a 13-under total in the clubhouse. He had nearly three hours to wait, but the score stood up to give the 26-year-old his first PGA Tour victory by one stroke over Australia’s Peter Lonard.
Romero was tied for second through 54 holes, just one stroke back, so it was an unusual circumstance that he teed off so early in the final round. Because a long rain delay on Saturday suspended the third round and left so much golf to be played on Sunday, players were sent off in the same pairings as the third round rather than waiting to make new pairings based on 54-hole totals. Romero had two holes to play on Sunday morning, making birdie on both for a 65. He then went out early in the final round and took the lead in the clubhouse with a 68.
The 133 total for the final two rounds by Romero was four strokes better than anyone else managed at the TPC Louisiana (Padraig Harrington and Tim Petrovic were at 137). It was an impressive display, and the thing that Romero said he was most impressed with was that he had only one bogey in the final 36 holes. An aggressive player, he tends to make a lot of birdies but also a fair share of bogeys. But this time he hit 17 greens in the third round and 15 in the final round to keep things steady.
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Lonard was tied for the lead with two holes to play after a birdie on 16, but bogeyed the par-three 17th for a final-round 69 and 12-under 276. New Zealand rookie Tim Wilkinson shot a 67 to take third place at 277, with Woody Austin, Padraig Harrington, and Nicholas Thompson at 278. Austin had a share of the lead with five holes to play, but made a bogey on 14 and a double bogey on 18, where he drove into the rough, barely advanced it, and hit his third into the water.
Here are some of the keys to Romero's victory:
- So how did he win you ask? The main reason was his finishing holes, he was 10-under on the last four holes, the best of anyone in the field.
- Romero had a good week putting from 15 feet and over. Of the 38 putts he had in this range he made nine of them.
- Romero overpowered the par 5s, playing them in 8-under as only two players played them better.
- Made the most birdies of anyone in the field.
- After the second round Romero was six shots back and T-32nd. His position after three rounds is the biggest second-round comeback on the PGA Tour this year and the six-shot comeback was just one off the pace that Tiger Woods accomplished at Bay Hill where he won after being seven back after the second round (he was T20th).
- This is the third time that the TPC of Louisiana has held the event and every winner (Tim Petrovic, Nick Watney and now Anders Romero) was a first-time winner. What's more, if you look back to 1996, of the 12 different winners, nine of them have been first timers with just Brad Faxon, David Toms and Vijay Singh having won before. (Carlos Franco was also a first-timer, but since he won it twice we only only counted him once).
Romero stats (with rank in parentheses):
Fairways hit: 30 of 56 ..... (T73rd)Driving average: 290.0 ..... (T17th)
Greens hit: 54 of 72 ....... (T6th)
Putts: 113 (28.25 a rd).... (T35th)
Putting breakdown:
0-putt greens: 1
1-putt greens: 29
2-putt greens: 42
3-putt greens: 0
Play on par 3s: -2
Play on par 4s: -3
Play on par 5s: -8
Eagles: 0
Birdies: 21 ................ (1st)
Scrambling: 10 of 18 (55.56%)... (T64th)
Scrambling measures how many times a player gets up and down for par or better on the holes where he missed the green in regulation.
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So what ever happened to Tiger's Hampton estate?
Shell Houston Open becoming a popular place
TaylorMade suing Nickent over false advertising
Ogilvy has a great week to break Tiger's win streak
So what ever happened to Tiger's Hampton estate?
One of the biggest problems of the internet age is how many reports become major news, even if the report is false. That happened last week when the New York Post published this Braden Keil story on how Tiger Woods was spending $65 million dollars on a house in the Hamptons of Long Island. Once this story was up, unfortunely thanks to websites like our own, the story spread like fire as everyone was amazed and wondered why Woods was trading Florida for New York.
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Only problem, this story got lost, nobody followed up on it. Normally when Tiger does anything it gets big news on every site and magazine but the story seemed to die on the vine and for a pretty good reason, it wasn't true.
What is sad is how these stories get started. How about this gem that Officespam.Com had three years ago trying to show off Tiger Wood's Hawaiian home. Nice pictures, only problem this isn't Tiger Woods home on Maui, matter of fact Woods doesn't even have a Hawaiian home. What happened was that a zealous real estate company in Maui that had a high price $5,000 dollar a day house for rent in Kapalua, worded an advertisement saying, "rent a oceanfront home that Tiger Woods would love to own." That ad got misread by other sites that within days was showing off to people pictures of this Kapalua home saying it was Tiger's home. Nice dream house but nothing to do with Tiger.
As for the Gin Lane home on six acre's in New York it's not going to be Tiger's new home. According to Woods manager Mark Steinberg he didn't buy the home, matter of fact he has never looked at the home and is in the process of building a new home on Jupiter Island just north of Palm Beach. As for other places that Woods has he owns a home in California in Corona Del Mar which is in Orange County. This makes sense because his mother lives near there so he has family to visit in Southern California. Woods is also going to have another home in the future as he is involved in a building of a house in Dubai but we don't know much about what he plans on doing with that other than he is involved with building a course there.
As for moving up to Long Island that really makes no sense for several reasons. First I would say that a person with Tiger's income would not want to leave a tax haven like Florida for high taxes in New York but more importantly Woods is building his dream home in Florida. So the next question, how did this report happen? Of course the New York Post is mum about all of this and in a report on CNBC.Com, editors of the Post are still standing by it's story. But as one real estate agent who handles high profile "stars" that buy million dollar homes in Bel Air told the "Buzz", sometimes when a home is not selling, especially in this bad economics you can get a lot of "buzz" for the stagnant property by "planting" the rumor seeds with reporters in tabloid publications. They always run with rumors and it's funny how many people are interested in properties when famous people are thinking of buying a home. Off the record our real estate mogul friend said that this Hampton property has gotten millions of dollars of free publicity via this report so he can see how something like this happened. But this may not be the case as Newsday ran this story before the Post article saying that Sotheby's International had sold the property and weren't saying who the buyer was.
So the truth on how this story got started may never come out but Tiger isn't moving up north and the report in the New York Post was wrong.
----------------------------------------------------------------Shell Houston Open becoming a popular place
For years the Shell Houston Open languished as one of those middle class events that always got a fair field but never achieved stardom like the WGC events and the Palmer, Memorial and Wachovia tournaments. Of course it's number one problem is the lack of having Tiger Woods attend, they came close to having Woods come in 2002 but at the last moment one of Woods friends changed his wedding date to conflict with the Shell and Woods went to the wedding.
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Another thing to help the Shell was the new Masters rule in which PGA Tour winners would get an invite. So with the Shell being the last event before the Masters it's the last chance for players to get a Masters invite. So players like Davis Love III and Colin Montgomerie, who have been a part of the Masters for many years but don't have an invite this year have one last chance for a trip to Augusta. As for Love, he didn't have an invitation to the 1995 Masters and got the last spot with his win in New Orleans the week before. For Love it almost proved to be a golden ticket to a major win as he finished just a shot in back of winner Ben Crenshaw.
So with all of this working in Shell's favor they are going to have the best field they ever have had. Already six of the top-ten players in the World, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Steve Stricker, K.J. Choi, Adam Scott and Padraig Harrington are in the field and with others like U.S. Open champion Angel Cabrera, Justin Leonard, John Daly, Davis Love III and Chad Campbell things are looking very rosy for the tournament. As for Montgomerie, no decision has been made but he indicated to the Houston officials that if he was in the Masters he would like to come. Now it's not that easy since Monty has no stature on the PGA Tour so he would have to get a sponsor invite. So it may be as late as Friday, the deadline for entries to see if Monty is going to play. With his wedding the week after the Masters and his game not very good, the odds on Monty going to Houston are getting slimmer by the day.
Still it's nice to see an underdog event like the Shell Houston Open doing so well.
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TaylorMade suing Nickent over false advertising
So how far is too far in advertising? Of course in the case of golf club manufactures, everyone wants to be number one on the PGA Tour. Titleist is the undisputed king on golf balls and TaylorMade is the king of drivers. Matter of fact TaylorMade has been number one since 2001 and they also make the same claim on the Nationwide Tour.
Many wonder how clubs are counted on the PGA Tour, there are some folks from a group called the Darrell Survey that hang out at each of the major tour stops, the PGA Tour, Champions, LPGA even the Nationwide Tour. Each week they chart each player and what clubs they are using, what balls they are playing with even what shoes and spikes they wear. This information is then sold to all of the manufacturing companies so that they can see what the players are using and then take that information and put it in their advertising campaigns.
But just like any kind of information it should be buyer beware. Advertising is sometimes manipulated to sound better than what it really is and that is the basis of a weird legal action in Golf. In a lawsuit filed by TaylorMade in San Diego last week, they claim that Nickent is going overboard with this ad (below) on there website which TaylorMade feels is misleading to golf consumers.
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Now in a statement released by Nickent they say: "We are a small company with great products, and we wanted to tout the fact that we have a driver that is good enough to finish as the #1 driver model in a Nationwide Tour event. There has been no misleading information disseminated by Nickent, as the Darrell Survey, the mechanism responsible for keeping track of golf club equipment usage at professional events, clearly shows that the Nickent 4DX T Spec was the #1 driver model at the Nationwide Tour Moonah Classic with 28 clubs in play. It was the first time Nickent has taken the #1 driver model distinction on the Nationwide Tour and it was deemed worthy of a small advertising campaign, especially since the event was the Nationwide Tour's most recent. Of course Nickent is citing that the advertising is right and they put in the small type that it was number one for this one event but lets be real about something, how many people read the small print? In this age of slick advertising does companies really have to go this low in trying to get people to buy their product? On top of that, when they get caught in something like that claiming that they are a small company trying to promote their product is no excuse. The same with shaft companies, some advertising make it sound how appealing and great shafts are on clubs but people don't realize in buying brand X shaft in clubs that it may not be the same shaft that is used by PGA Tour players. Most of the time it's an inferior shaft, a lot cheaper to make and not what people think they are getting just because it's stamped with a company logo. This bait and switch tactic is big and is in many areas of golf equipment.
The "Buzz" just wonders how long golf consumers have to put up with this kind of "misleading" advertising. So in further additions of the "Buzz" we are going to point out some of these "misleading" ads and ways that manufactures mislead the consumer. For you folks at home you can help us, just email us at "Golfbuzz" telling us your stories of misleading ads that you have run across, we will look into you claims and point this out so that all of these companies will think twice before they run some slick advertising that mislead us all. Another thing we would like to see is how much bait and switching of equipment is going on, everyone would be shocked at how much this tactic are used.
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Geoff puts an end to Tiger's streak
What an amazing career that Geoff Ogilvy has had. Four PGA Tour wins but three of them have been in very important events with double World Golf Championship wins and a U.S. Open victory. In a way it's almost as remarkable as Andy North winning just three times with two of them coming at the U.S. Open. But the difference is that Ogilvy is just 30 and entering the prime of his career and we know he will win a lot more in the future.
Many wonder what ever happened to the Aussie who won the U.S. Open at Winged Foot just four months after winning the Accenture Match Play. Many thought that he would be a power to reckon with for many years to come, but he fell completely off the radar scoop. Between his U.S. Open win 20 months ago and his victory at Doral, he only had three top-five finishes, T4th at Barclays last year, his runner-up finish at the Match Play and his T3rd finish at the WGC-CA Championship last year at Doral. But a lot has happened in his life, since Winged Foot he has been a father twice and been finding his feet so to say with the family.
It's been a struggle, as Ogilvy said after the first round, "The family thing off the course, I've had periods where I haven't practiced like I used to. I'm just getting used to being a dad and juggling, just managing the time, and sometimes you don't want to go out when you've got kids to play with. It's more fun than hitting balls in a left-to-right wind."
So at the start of the year after missing three straight cuts, then losing in the first round of the Match Play things didn't look very good. But he has finally gotten the family thing under control, Geoff, his wife and two youngsters have been on the road the last three weeks in Florida and things have been better with a new nanny helping them out. Over the period of the last three weeks Geoff's game has improved with a T10th at PODS and then a T14th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational which was capped off with a final round 66.
So he came into Doral, a place he likes to play, on a bit of a high and it showed with his fast start of 65-67-68. Despite all of the delays which started on Saturday and carried over to Monday, Ogilvy has been able to bounce back and keep his game crisp with the possible exception for his last nine holes on Monday.
Fortunately Ogilvy had a two-stroke cushion. When nobody mounted a huge charge, Ogilvy’s nine pars on the back nine—none bigger than a chip-in for par on the 13th hole—left him with a one-stroke victory with a 17-under 271 total.
The one man who did make a charge was Tiger Woods, but he started five strokes behind. Woods had seven holes remaining when play resumed on Monday, and played them in 3-under but that still left him two strokes behind in fifth place. It put an end to his various winning streaks: five straight on the PGA Tour, six straight official events worldwide, seven straight overall events worldwide, three straight at Doral, and three straight WGC events. Woods shot a 68 in the final round, but it was a 72 in the third round, plus a number of missed short putts during the week, that did him in. Three of the world’s top players tied for second at 272, all of them with 68s in the final round: Jim Furyk, Vijay Singh, and Retief Goosen. Singh had three birdies in nine holes on Monday, but bogeys on 13 and 14 were costly as he had his second runner-up finish of the year.
For Ogilvy, it puts a giant kick start to his year and it will be interesting to see if this is the start of something good. People have always know him to have good nerves and despite playing the third round with Tiger, Ogilvy never flinched outscoring Woods 68 to 72. Even more remarkable was being able to withstand all of the pressures of weather delays and still play well, even with nine pars on Monday it was a remarkable week.
Here are some of the keys to Ogilvy's victory:
- No matter how well he played, making only one bogey over the course in his last 81 holes at Doral (including last 9 of 2007), the shot that he will probably remember the most was the chip in for par on the 13th hole on Monday. The chip was hit too hard and if it didn't hit the pin solidly and go into the hole, the chances of him having a 20-footer for bogey loomed.
- Ogilvy hit the most greens in regulation of anyone, hitting 55 of 72. With that Ogilvy becomes the 93rd winner of a PGA Tour event since 1997 that also was the leader in greens hit. But of the 93 winners, Ogilvy has the 3rd worst rank in driving acccuray. At Doral Ogilvy hit only 25 of 56 fairways for a 44.6%. That ranked T62nd. The highest was Scott McCarron who was the leading greens hit guy at the 1997 AT&T Classic but ranked T65th in driving accuracy.
- Ogilvy played the par 4s in nine under, tied with Graeme Storm for best of the week.
- Not only did Ogilvy hit the most greens, missing just 17. But to show how good his game was, of the 17 greens he missed he got it up and down 16 times the best of anyone in that stat this week.
- Ogilvy took 110 putts for the week which was T21st but in the 2nd round he took only 23. Ogilvy missed three putts inside 10 feet this week and finished ranked T2 in that category making 61 out of 64.
- In addition to 28-year-old Sergio Garcia, Ogilvy becomes the only player 30 years of age or younger to have three victories in events in which Tiger Woods is in the field. Ogilvy’s wins with Woods in the field have come at the 2008 WGC-CA Championship, 2006 U.S. Open and the 2006 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship.
- Ogilvy joins Tiger Woods and Darren Clarke as the only mulitiple winners of a World Golf Championship event.
Ogilvy stats (with rank in parentheses):
Fairways hit: 25 of 56 ..... (T62nd)Driving average: 289.1 ..... (35th)
Greens hit: 55 of 72 ....... (1st)
Putts: 110 (27.50 a rd).... (T21st)
Putting breakdown:
0-putt greens: 2
1-putt greens: 30
2-putt greens: 40
3-putt greens: 0
Play on par 3s: -2
Play on par 4s: -9
Play on par 5s: -6
Eagles: 0
Birdies: 18 ................ (T13th)
Scrambling: 16 of 17 (94.12%)... (1st)
Scrambling measures how many times a player gets up and down for par or better on the holes where he missed the green in regulation.
The streak ends for Tiger
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It's amazing watching Woods lose these days, you have to think that the secret for his success is not his tee to green game but putting. Last week in his Arnold Palmer win Woods made 61 of 63 putts of nine feet and under. This week Woods was 65 of 74 on putts of 10 feet and under. So while Ogilvy was missing just two in that range, Woods was missing 9 so that accounts for the difference in score. But there were other reasons that caused Woods to lose:
- On Sunday Tiger ended his round in a ugly manner. On nine on his tee shot to the par 3, a camera went off right at impact that threw him off. Woods missed the green and wasn't able to save par. Then on the next hole a par 5, Woods was just short of the green with his second shot. From off the green he decided to putt it and didn't hit a very good putt, leaving him a putt that he missed, making a par on a par 5 hole. So you have to wonder if Woods could of played those holes in one under instead of one over things could of been different.
- Woods had two three putts, but the kiss of death for Woods had to be taking 60 putts in the last two rounds.
- Woods third round 72 was only the third round in 24 in which Woods didn't break par at Doral
Woods stats (with rank in parentheses):
Fairways hit: 30 of 56 ..... (T37th)Driving average: 301.9 ..... (T9th)
Greens hit: 53 of 72 ....... (T3rd)
Putts: 114 (28.50 a rd).... (T44th)
Putting breakdown:
0-putt greens: 2
1-putt greens: 28
2-putt greens: 40
3-putt greens: 2
Play on par 3s: -1
Play on par 4s: -3
Play on par 5s: -11
Eagles: 2
Birdies: 18 ................ (T13th)
Scrambling: 14 of 19 (73.68%)... (12th)
Scrambling measures how many times a player gets up and down for par or better on the holes where he missed the green in regulation.
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Daly makes his Wednesday pro-am partners happy
George Lopez sacked as Bob Hope host
Ode to Ben Hogan
Another great Tiger Woods win, a recap and statistical look
The good side of John Daly
Last week on the "Buzz" we documented the reports that surfaced about John Daly's day in the Hooters' hospitality tent and then Butch Harmon's words in parting ways with Daly. Things got worse on Wednesday when he missed his tee time and was disqualified from the Arnold Palmer Invitational. This brought on a rash of stories, most of them dealing with his drinking and the common theme that Daly needs some help.
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Now, according to Daly, he got a wrong tee time in a phone conversation with someone at the tournament. We have to take his word that this is what happened. Daly has taken responsibility for not being there on time since there is really no excuse for him other than plain stupidity. The PGA Tour provides a lot of different ways for players to officially get their tee time and calling the tournament is not one of them.
There is still a side of Daly that you have to love and that is the fact that he doesn't want to disappoint anyone. Daly tried to get the three people that he was suppose to play in the pro-am with to play a round with him over the weekend, but according to Garry Smits of the Jacksonville Times-Union those three were executives with UBS in the New York office and had returned home. So Daly did the next best thing, he got three UBS executives from the Orlando office to play with him on Sunday and they all had a good time. Now, this could be spin control on Daly's part and he got some mileage out from the gesture as it was a note in Mick Elliott's Arnold Palmer coverage in the Tampa Tribune and, of course, Golf Channel had a camera crew there, making it seem more like a propaganda report than a news story. Unfortunately for the Golf Channel they didn't get the story right and made it sound like Daly was playing with his original pro-am partners, that wasn't the case. But hey, Daly tried to make amends, just wonder if any of those three original playing partners feel bad that they didn't fly back down to Orlando to play with John.
Still we just hope that Daly can reflect on all of this and realize that he is his worst enemy. Unfortunately, Daly is going to have to find that one special person who will slap him on the head when he gets out of hand. Being an alcoholic has no cure, even those that have completely stopped drinking for decades will tell you that they are still an alcoholic today.
The most important thing to realize is that Daly isn't a total monster as some may write and this little round of golf on Sunday at a golf course in Orlando proves that Daly has a lot of good in him. Hopefully he can master his problems.
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George Lopez was never able to fill the shoes of Bob Hope
We can see how much the stature of John Daly has eroded over the years. The same can be said for the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. For years this was a can't-miss event. Every great player (except for Tiger) between 1960 and 2000 would make it his business to be at the Hope.
Once upon a time the Hope was a very prestigious event that got top billing on the PGA Tour. It was always played on a week that football or basketball didn't have much going and it would get the best ratings in television. NBC Sports covered it for years and everyone enjoying watching the Saturday show in which Bob Hope and his celebrity friends got top-billing along with PGA Tour stars. Over the years its champions list included all of the big names of golf: Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Billy Casper, Craig Stadler, Lanny Wadkins, Jay Haas, Peter Jacobsen, Fred Couples, Tom Kite, David Duval and Phil Mickelson.
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A combination of trying to rekindle the past in a marketplace that isn't getting any younger is the main problem, but adding to the woes is the fact that the pros of today don't like playing in five-day events with amateurs. What's more, the event's home course, the Classic Club, could be on the Top-10 list of worst courses on the PGA Tour because of the element of high winds. On top of all this, it doesn't help that its been kicked off the rotation of having a major network cover it and the stigma of the Golf Channel around gives it a low esteem in a lot of minds. Making things even worse is the fact that in 2009 it will be played the week before the Super Bowl, so even with an off week from football, the Bob Hope doesn't have a chance of getting good ratings since it's not on a network.
Another black mark on the tournament is the fact that officials have thrown in the towel on the grand experiment of having comedian George Lopez host the event, dropping him in favor of Arnold Palmer, who will take on the role for one year in 2009. In a way, this really isn't the Bob Hope's fault, but we can't put the blame on Lopez either. It was just a marriage that broke up because of the differences between the two.
The Palm Springs area is probably one of the smallest markets on tour, along with Pebble Beach and Hilton Head. Its demographics are made up of folks that are over the age of 45, a good chunk of them being Canadians and folks that don't fit into the mold of people that spend a lot of money. Right now it has a sugar-daddy of a sponsor in Chrysler, which has a contract to sponsor the event through 2010, but the big question is if Chrysler, with all of its problems, will even be around to sponsor the event in 2010.
What Lopez brought to the table was a younger Hollywood figure who could help bring a new attitude to an aging event. Unfortunately, the present fan base didn't like what Lopez represented and their complaints didn't help things. Lopez was also a different type of person than they expected, one that every now and then let out a cuss word, one that wanted the event to change and be more like the FBR, which has a big party atmosphere of younger folks and one that would make jokes about the Classic Club, the course that many don't like. The last part happened in December in a news conference as Lopez made references about the wind at the course, which didn't settle very well with the folks that run the event. Many also didn't think that Lopez helped in bringing in new stars to the event in 2008 and by winning the pro-am with Samuel Jackson and Luke Wilson, which raised some eyebrows, especially when he played to a 13-handicap during the Hope and a couple of weeks later was an 11 at the AT&T.
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Is Arnold Palmer the answer? Yes and no. Yes, in the manner that he will make the 2009 Hope, which will be celebrating its 50th anniversary, a success in the minds of the older group of people who are from the Palm Springs area. But it will be doubtful that Palmer will sway a lot of professionals and celebrities to play in the event next year. So in a way this will be temporary fix. The problem of 2010 still looms large. Palmer will be great in helping the event forget about its other problems but the marquee pros on the PGA Tour will still take the week off. Palmer won't be able to help with the problem if high winds strike the Classic Club next year again making the course unplayable and the laughing stock of the PGA Tour. Lastly Palmer won't be able to help ease the pain of six-hour rounds for four days, plus the fact that nobody will be watching the event on the Golf Channel. Ratings would surely be high if a network were to broadcast the event next year since it won't be up against football or basketball but I have a funny feeling executives at both NBC and CBS that have covered the Hope in past years don't want to deal with it again.
So the big problem will be that the event will go another year without solving any of its real problems and at the end of the event executives from Chrysler will have to decide if it wants to continue its relationship with an event that is on a downward spiral. Who knows if in a year the executives of Chrysler will even be in a position to continue, with Chrysler laying off thousands of workers and forcing the ones that are still around to take their two-week vacation when they want them to do. Who knows if Chrysler will even have a choice in renewing with the economy being as bad as it it. For an organization like the Bob Hope, which has had just one sponsor for decades, the thought of having to get someone else to pony up $8 million dollars for this event could be a death sentence.
So what are the answers? They have to do a number of things. The first is easy: find another course, since the players hate the Classic Club. The last couple of years the owners of the Palmer Course at PGA West didn't want to host the event any more but with new owners they now wouldn't mind hosting a tournament again, so maybe the answer is to return to that club as the host course. They also need to reduce the event from five days to four days. This will be difficult since they get $15,000 from 375 players to attend the four day pro-am. If it's reduced a day they will get a quarter less folks playing in the pro-am, which means less money for charities. Still if it's a better event, they would be able to charge more money for the spaces to make up the difference. Lastly, and this is something that there isn't any answer to, they have to figure out a way to attract more fans to the event. Since the population of the area is just around 500,000 that time of year, it's a lot less that Phoenix with a population of 4 million. They have to figure out something that will make it attractive and draw more folks.
Is there a future for the Hope? Many don't think so, but I can remember a time that the FBR Open and the Northern Trust had image problems and were able to solve them. The Hope has to find the solution. But by getting Arnold Palmer for a week in 2009 they are just prolonging the problem and making the future of the event look very bleak.
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Tiger catches Hogan with Arnold Palmer win
Since Tiger Woods' 20th win at the 2000 U.S. Open, you had this funny feeling that he was going to run the table and beat every record in golf. At that time he was only 25 years old and already destined for greatness. By the end of the year he added four more wins and was tied with other legends like Tommy Armour and Johnny Miller.
It didn't take him long to pass players like Lee Trevnio and Tom Watson and when he tied Lloyd Mangurm at the 2003 Match Play, Woods was in the Top-10 with just nine players in front of him. Of course, the players he passed were great, but in looking at the names ahead of him (Sarazen, Hagen, Casper, Nelson, Palmer, Hogan, Nicklaus and Snead) it was quite a list. The "Buzz" had dinner with Billy Casper during the 2006 Masters while Tiger was at 48 wins and just three away from catching Billy and he wasn't shocked at Tiger's progress. But what did surprise him was the speed in which it was happening. As Casper said, it took him 44 years to get to 51 wins and he was shocked that Tiger was going to pass him up after just turning 31. He thought it was incredible that someone that just turned 31 was beating history.
This week, with his win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Woods tied Ben Hogan's 64-win total. This a quite a mark and while we have a second before Woods wins again, we should pay homage to Hogan. Snead and Nicklaus were great players in their own right and many feel that Nicklaus is probably the best of all time, but Hogan had a really great record that could of been even better if he was born at a different time and didn't have that accident in 1949.
| Here is a chart of the four top players in PGA Tour wins: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Player | Starts | Wins | 2nds | 3rds | 1st, 2nds & 3rds | Percentage | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sam Snead | 549 | 82 | 57 | 49 | 188 | 34.2% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Jack Nicklaus | 594 | 73 | 58 | 34 | 165 | 27.7% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ben Hogan | 294 | 64 | 44 | 27 | 135 | 45.9% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tiger Woods | 233 | 64 | 23 | 17 | 104 | 44.6% | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
For Hogan he turned pro at the age of 17 and wasn't the type of talent that Woods was at 17. It took a lot of hard work, determination and will power before Hogan finally won for the first time at the age of 26 and that wasn't really a true victory even though it's official on the PGA Tour. That's because he won the 1938 Hershey four-ball with partner Vic Ghezzi. It took him another two years before he was finally able to claim his first solo victory in the 1940 North & South Open. As with Tiger winning his first event just two months after turning professional, Hogan took 11 years and a lot of hardship to figure out the way to cure all of his ills from a nasty hook to a inconsistent putter. But over the next eight years Hogan was able to finally find his golf game while World War II unfortunately just about put a stop to things. Despite all of the problems of the war, Hogan won 20 times before the war ended and when things got back to normal Hogan's game took off. Many talk about Nelson's 18-win season of '45, but in some circles Hogan's 13-win season in 1946 and his 10-win season of 1948 was just as good. Between the end of January in 1946 and the end of January in 1949, Hogan won 30 times, playing the best players in the world. Of course, Nelson's streak was unbelievable, but the talent that he played against in 1945 didn't compare against the talent that Hogan played in those three years.
| Age that the all-time career winners were when they won their 64th PGA Tour victory | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Player | Total PGA Tour wins | event, age of 64th win | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sam Snead | 82 | (1952 Palm Beach Round Robin) at the age of 39 years, 11 months, 21 days | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Jack Nicklaus | 73 | (1977 Memorial Tournament) at the age of 37 years, 4 months, 1 day | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ben Hogan | 64 | (1959 Colonial National Invitation) at the age of 46 years, 8 months, 20 days | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tiger Woods | 64 | 64th (Arnold Palmer Invitational) at the age of 32 years, 2 months and 17 days | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
But on a fateful day on the Feb. 2, 1949, Hogan's life took a serious turn when on a foggy back road outside of El Paso, Texas, his car went head-on into a Greyhound bus and Hogan almost lost his life. Doctors were able to save Hogan, but gave him no chance of ever playing again and just a slim chance of walking. But Hogan proved them wrong a year later when he almost won the 1950 Los Angeles Open and then 15 months after the accident won the 1950 U.S. Open. Hogan was able to win nine majors after the accident, but could only muster up 15 PGA Tour wins. That's because Hogan played only a limited schedule as he only played in 49 events in the decade of the 50s.
But the thing that we remember and are told the most about Hogan was his determination and power of concentration. Yes, Jack Nicklaus was great at this, but many believe that Hogan had more determination than anyone else. That is until Tiger Woods came along.
Nobody detests losing more than Woods. While he was a youth, Tiger's father Earl instilled in him lessons that the former Green Beret learned in Vietnam. One of the big things that Earl taught his son was that any mistakes in judgement or planning didn't mean just a lose, but in Vietnam it meant losing your life. To this day Woods treats things not as a game, but as a loss of life scenario. Woods is the closet person to the way Ben Hogan thought about golf than anyone. Hogan learned the lessons of the Depression and the war that made him such a serious player. Dave Marr once told me that one of the biggest traits of Hogan's life was that he could never achieve perfection. In Hogan's mind he never had a perfect round and for him to achieve that he had to hit every fairway and make every shot perfect to the green and make every putt. Since he always wanted to be perfect he always had to practice, even in his later years in life after his career was over.
The same goes for Woods. While many in contention on Sunday laid in bed and took it easy trying to rest up for the final round of the Arnold Palmer, Tiger was up before the sun and was running a few miles and then following it up with a session in his gym. This is all part of his routine to be physically and mentally ready to play golf and just like Hogan no matter how well he plays and how many events he wins you can always hear him say, "I need to go home and work on this." But more importantly, just like with Hogan, Woods has the mental toughness that we bet you on the Monday morning after his Palmer victory he got up at the crack of dawn and again ran those miles and worked out in the gym. Tiger is always striving to be perfect every time he plays, just like Ben Hogan.
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Tiger's win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational
Tiger Woods entered Sunday with a 42-3 record on the PGA Tour when holding at least a share of the lead entering the final round, including the last 12 times going back to the 2004 Tour Championship. Was that record in jeopardy because he was tied with four other players entering the final round at the Arnold Palmer Invitational? Not really.
Woods shot a four-under 66 for a 270 total to grab the title at Bay Hill, but he did have to work hard for it. In fact, it went all the way to the wire before Woods, playing in the final group, holed a 24-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole for a one-stroke victory over Bart Bryant. The downhill slider was the longest putt he made all week.
The putt was on a similar line to the one he made to beat Phil Mickelson in 2001. In fact, that was the last time that Woods birdied the 72nd hole to win a PGA Tour event by one stroke.
That victory came in the midst of winning at Bay Hill in four straight years from 2000-3. This one his fifth career Bay Hill title and also his fifth PGA Tour victory in a row dating back to 2007 (he is three-for-three in 2008). He’s now won six official tournaments in a row worldwide and seven in a row counting his own 16-man invitational.
Woods went in front with a three-under 32 on the front nine, but a careless three-putt bogey from six feet on the 10th hole left him tied for the lead with 45-year-old Bryant, who needed a win to make the field at the WGC event at Doral next week and the Masters next month. He remained either tied with or one behind Woods for the whole back nine, but, as usual, it was Woods who had the winning formula.
Bryant’s 67 got him second place alone at 271, followed by Cliff Kresge (67), Sean O’Hair (69), and Singh (69) at 273.
Here are some of the keys to Woods' victory:
- I think that Woods' most important aspect was not giving up after his first-round 70. Many wrote that Woods had finally was about to lose, but Woods still was in contention. But his second-round 68 could of been even better, because he didn't hit the ball very well, but was still able to grind out a 68 to keep himself in contention.
- Putting was the key to Woods' victory as he made 61 of 63 putts from nine feet and in. What is strange on this stat the two putts inside nine putts he missed was on the same hole, the 10th in the final round, which was his only three-putt. As for long putts, Woods only made one putt over 20 feet and it just happened to be the 24-footer that he made on the 72nd hole for birdie to win the tournament.
- Not only did Woods putt well, but he scrambled well also, getting it up and down on 17 of the 22 greens he missed. Only only other player had a better average than Woods and that was Retief Goosen.
- This is a new way for Tiger Woods to win. In 18 of Woods' stroke play events he has led the greens hit category and has finished in the Top-10 47 times. This week Tiger only hit 50 of 72 greens. He has only hit less greens five times in his stroke play wins.
- Number of times that Tiger Woods birdied or eagled his final hole to win a tournament (includes birdie playoff wins for victory)
1 – 1997 Mercedes-Benz Championship - Birdied first playoff hole to beat Tom Lehman
2 – 1999 Buick Invitational – Eagled the 72nd hole to win by two
3 – 1999 WGC-American Express – Birdied first playoff hole to beat Miguel Angel Jimenez
4 – 2000 Mercedes-Benz Championship – Birdied 2nd playoff hole to beat Ernie Els
5 – 2000 AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am – Birdied 72nd hole to win by two
6 – 2000 Canadian Open – Birdied 72nd hole to win by a shot
7 – 2001 Arnold Palmer Invitational – Birdie 72nd hole to win by a shot over Phil Mickelson
8 – 2001 Masters – Birdie 72nd hole to win by two shots over David Duval
9 – 2001 WGC NEC – Birdied 7th playoff hole to beat Jim Furyk
10 – 2005 Masters – Birdied 1st playoff hole to beat Chris DiMarco
11 – 2006 WGC-Bridgestone – Birdied fourth playoff hole to beat Stewart Cink
12 – 2008 Arnold Palmer Invitational – Birdied 72nd hole to win by a shot.
Woods stats (with rank in parentheses):
Fairways hit: 37 of 56 ..... (T47th)Driving average: 281.4 ..... (38th)
Greens hit: 50 of 72 ....... (T14th)
Putts: 113 (28.25 a rd).... (T19th)
Putting breakdown:
0-putt greens: 1
1-putt greens: 30
2-putt greens: 40
3-putt greens: 1
Play on par 3s: -1
Play on par 4s: -5
Play on par 5s: -4
Eagles: 0
Birdies: 16 ................ (T3rd)
Scrambling: 17 of 22 (77.27%)... (T2nd)
Scrambling measures how many times a player gets up and down for par or better on the holes where he missed the green in regulation.
Other notes from Woods' win:
- This week’s Arnold Palmer Invitational marks the 100th time in PGA Tour history that a first-place prize of over a million dollars has been given out. With his win, Tiger Woods has won a million or more 28 times, a quarter of the number of times a million have been won. Next in line for number of events winning a million is Phil Mickelson with six and Vijay Singh with five.
- This is the fourth PGA Tour event that Tiger has won five or more times. The others are WGC-Bridgestone, WGC-CA Championship and Buick Invitational, which he has won six times.
- Tiger has now won 11 times in Florida. If you put that with his 12 wins in California, he has 23 wins in those two states, which would place him 27th in the career PGA Tour win total. Just think if you add his nine wins from Ohio into the mix along with his seven wins in Georgia, he would have 39 wins in just those four states, which would be tied for 10th on the all-time list with Gene Sarazen and Tom Watson.
- A bit of a sad story for Bart Bryant. He shot rounds of 68-68-68-67 and was the first player to have four rounds in the 60s at Bay Hill since Payne Stewart and David Frost did it in 1987. Since the event has been played at Bay Hill, the only other four rounds in the 60s was Andy Bean in 1981 and George Burns in 1984. So of the 3,656 attempts playing at Bay Hill since 1979 Bryant was only the fifth player with four rounds in the 60s, but still wasn’t able to win.
- Tiger Woods has played in 17 PGA Tour and European Tour events in the last year and he has destroyed his playing partners in those events. Of the 103 that he has played with in each round, he has beaten them 78 times, has lost 13 times and tied 12 times
In this streak, two players -- Phil Mickelson and Henrik Stenson -- have beaten him twice, but the best stat is that in the final round Tiger has only lost twice to his playing partners - Phil Mickelson in the Deutsche Bank and Brett Wetterich in the WGC-CA Championship.
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Feathers get ruffled over Tripp's stupidity
Daly's day in a hospitality tent at the PODS
*Will Mt. Monty appear?
*Ernie's problem
*A look at Sean O'Hair's win and Stewart Cink's loss
*Golf Channel does a nice job on the Champions Tour
Lots of problems this week in golf. First of all, Tripp ruffles some feathers
What a week of news and scandals between Barack Obama rejecting the suggestion that he would run on the Democratic ticket as Hillary Clinton's running mate to New York Governor Eliot Spitzer apologizing to his family and the general public for being involved in a prostitution ring. Of course this is the real world, but golf had its fair share of "problems" this week as well.
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It started with the revelation back in December when Tripp Isenhour was taping a segment of "Shoot Like A Pro." The taping got disturbed when a creature flying around the video crew started squawking. Apparently, Isenhour wanted to make the show live up to its name, as he started hitting balls at the bird. Little did Isenhour know that the flying bird was a red-shouldered hawk, which is protected by the federal government as a migratory species. But according to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer Brian Baine in his report, Isenhour got into a golf cart and drove closer to the bird and started hitting balls into the sky. When the hawk moved within about 75 yards, Isenhour allegedly said, "I'll get him now," and aimed for the hawk. After getting closer and closer to hitting the bird and getting more excited, Isenhour hit the hawk and it fell to the ground and died.
What is strange is that it took close to three months for the news to get out and once it did it was as big as the Michael Vick trial. Every animal group has come down hard on Isenhour, who said it was a "million to one shot" and that he wasn't trying to hurt the bird. But nobody is buying this because he shouldn't of been hitting balls at the bird, accidents are things that happen by chance or unintentionally. In this case there is no two ways about it, Isenhour was intentionally hitting balls at the bird.
A lot of folks and groups were unhappy over the incident. The head of the Humane Society of the United States faxed PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem a letter urging "appropriate remedial action against Isenhour up to and including fines and suspension." According to government sources Isenhour is in trouble and could spend up to a year in jail and be fined close to $5,000 if convicted.
Now, since Isenhour has never been in trouble before and has quickly accepted the blame for the incident and apologized over the matter it will be interesting to see what action will come of all this. As for the "Buzz" we feel the right sentence would be to send Isenhour off to the same facility that Michael Vick is in and spend the day with Vick so the two can talk about their killings, maybe that will have some bite, not only for Isenhour but anybody else,. whether he is a professional golfer or just a regular person to realize how bad this really is.
John Daly
John Daly is back in the news. He got some more ink for not playing stellar golf, but for his caddy of choice for the day and for drinking on the same course that held the PODS Championship.
Even with the help of Tampa Bay Buccaneer coach Jon Gruden caddying for him in the first round, Daly shot 78-80 and once again missed another cut as he only beat one player at the PODS.
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