michelle wie, 2nd place

Michelle Wie finished 2nd at the SBS Open in Hawaii, 2 strokes back of Jennifer Rosales. She's getting closer.

The Accenture Matchplay... Too Difficult to Predict?

After three days of the Accenture Matchplay, thegolfblog.com bracket challenge for the Public Interest Law Foundation is already complete. None of the 6 participants have any players left.

Thus, the results are as follows:

Jasholn1 - 56
Oakhaven - 49
Extractor - 48
ASUGolf - 46
Lost Cause - 45
FloJo - 39
Mulligan - 38

The results are based upon 32 pts a round, thus a perfect score would have been 192.

I wonder how difficult it would have been to predict all of the results. Also, it shows that over any 18 holes of golf there still is plenty of parity in the golf world!

friday massacre: tiger, vijay, phil ousted

Carnage, no better word to describe it. I didn't see any of it, but Tiger, Vijay, and Phil were all ousted in the second day of match play (rounds 2 and 3). Phil lost to David Toms, who has made it to the final before. Vijay's never made it past the second round, so maybe his loss is not surprising either. But Tiger losing to Nick O'Hern? To be honest, I've never heard of the guy. Have you?

UPDATE: If someone saw the Tiger match, please write in. I consider this defeat one of the biggest's in Tiger's match play career. I remember his amateur days when he would always come up with something dramatic to stave off defeat. Even in the Ryder Cup, Tiger has a decent singles record. To lose to Nick O'Hern...that's a shock to the system.

accenture match play

The Accenture Match Play has been delayed until Thursday, due to what else? The rain. Two-time defending champion Tiger Woods will have a tester in the first round: Nick Price. If given the chance to close out Tiger, Nick will unlikely pull a "John Rollins," who was beating Tiger last year until the very end when the nerves kicked in.

rain, rain, go away

Maybe Retief Goosen knew about the bad weather because it looks like he didn't miss anything by being DQ'd. The Nissan Open has been drenched with rain. Only 36 holes have been completed. Chad Campbell and Adam Scott are tied at -9, with a host of others chasing. Tiger's at -5. Leaderboard here. They're going to try to tee off at 7:30 a.m., but that's only if the weather cooperates.

Meanwhile, the Match Play Championship is this week, so all those guys who skipped the Nissan (like VJay and Phil) may have an edge.

UPDATE: Well, the weather didn't cooperate. They couldn't play any more today, except a sudden death playoff between Adam Scott and Chad Campbell. Scott won, parring the 1st hole of sudden death. The win doesn't officially count, though, because it was after 36 holes.

wake up call

Retief Goosen didn't get his wake-up call and missed his 6:40 am tee time in the Pro-am at the Nissan Open. Consequence: Retief's been DQ'd from the entire tournament. Harsh. The tournament should have cut the guy some slack (unless they are hoping to reduce Tiger's competition, so he can draw big ratings on Sunday).

UPDATE: Apparently, Goosen was hosting a Grey Goose party for the media, the night before. That's why he had trouble getting up. Also, the automatic disqualification is a PGA tour rule. OK, so maybe there's no exception. Finally, Tiger insists on always getting the 1st tee time if he has to play a pro-am. Doesn't want to deal too long with the riff-raff.

UPDATE 2: Tiger's in the lead so far at -5. Meanwhile, David Duval is tied for last place, at +5.

nissan open

The Nissan Open begins on Thursday at Riviera Country Club in LA. Mike Weir is 2-time defending champion.

Here's one amazing tidbit about this tournament (formerly the LA Open). In 1952, the tournament host defied the PGA's ban on black golfers and invited former heavyweight champion Joe Louis to play. I saw a clip of Joe's swing -- pretty sweet. Bravo to the tournament for its bravery in standing up to the PGA.

valentine's email from tiger

Tiger sent out a nice Valentine's Day email. Tiger reports that he went skiing for a week with Elin and family, and the practiced golf for another 2 weeks. Stevie Williams had his 48 stitches removed and should be on the bag this week.

Finally, Tiger has taken note of Phil's play. Here's what Tiger says:

"Many of the big names on Tour - Stuart Appleby, Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson and Justin Leonard, are off to great starts in 2005. That's good for golf and should make the Masters even more exciting. Phil is playing especially well and I have never seen him drive the ball so far."

Sound like the makings of a rivalry?

natalie who?

Some of you may not heard of Natalie Gulbis. She hasn't won a LPGA tournament yet, but, then again, she's only 22. Even if she doesn't win, you may be hearing more about her, a lot more. In this week's Sports Illustrated (golf plus section), there's an article about Natalie indicating that she's been in talks with several networks about doing a reality show about her golfing life. Reality show? Golf? Is this for real?

Sure, it might be entertaining, but I think it'd be a huge distraction. Natalie doesn't need more exposure without winning; she needs more exposure from winning.

what will phil do next?

Phil's on a roll, shooting 10 under, 62 at Spyglass yesterday. If you've ever been to Spyglass, a 62 is a mind-boggling score.

Meanwhile, David Duval shot, well, 85. Unfortunately, we all seem to know what DD will do next.

pebble

My favorite tournament to attend is here: the AT&T Pebble Beach tournament. When I lived in the west coast, I used to go for most of the rounds. It was great because that's when Tiger was still playing the tournament with his good buddy Jerry Chang. Now, he doesn't, purportedly because of the bumpy greens. What a shame. The Golf Channel has this excellent article about the big-name no-shows.

the (dis)equilibrium theory: what brought duval's fall

I have a theory to explain what happened to David Duval. It goes something like this: some golfers, particularly those with unorthodox swings, have a certain comfort level or equilibrium that allows them to play well, even with quirks in their swing. But if you change the equilibrium, you run the risk of throwing off the swing.

Putting aside Duval's dramatic changes in his personal life, Duval had one big change in his golf game before his dramatic fall: he switched from a Titleist driver and Titleist irons to Nike. The stats are pretty telling (from Golf Channel):

Duval's victories with Titleist driver: 12 wins (including British).
Duval's victories with Titleist irons: 11 wins.

Duval's victories with Nike driver: 1 win.
Duval's victories with Nike irons: 2 wins (including British).

Now that David's changing his grip, the (dis)equilibrium may be getting worse. How does he get back the equilibrium? I don't know, but I'd think about a change in clubs, starting with the driver, his bugaboo. It's worth a shot.

Jack Wins Career Record $340,000

Surprise, Surprise, Jack Nicklaus won the Senior Skins Game yesterday winning 11 skins and a career best $340,000. Not bad for a guy who is 65 years old and has not played competitive golf since June 2004.

Honestly, it is hard to fathom that the greatest golfer to ever play the game at the age of 65 makes more money in a made for TV event than he did throughout his entire career. I guess that is what money and TV does for sport.

I just hope that he'll be back to play in another Masters and Open Championship (that'd be the British Open for those novice golf fans).

Sha Na Na Na.... Hey Hey Hey... Goodbye!!

165,000 attended the FBR Open hosted by the Thunderbirds on this Saturday. The 165k in attendance broke a the previous record for the FBR Open by 1000 patrons. Granted most of the fans are on the 16th hole, doing the wave, signing songs, cheering, and chanting "U of A" when ASU alum Phil Mickelson deposited his 8-iron into the bunker. However, today was Phil's day, posting a solid 66 and opening a 4 shot lead on his nearest competitor... Kevin "Sha Na Na" Na, who started to leak oil coming down the stretch.

Watching the tournament, it brought back memories of Phil at Augusta. He missed a short putt, made a couple long ones, and after everyone he made, the crowd went nuts and the camera shots looked like the 18th at Augusta. Unfortunately, the only thing he did not do was do the patented "Phil Leap," but instead used a calm "Phist" pump.

My shout outs for the day go to fellow "claw" user Mark Calcavecchia and Scott McCarron, who posted day lows of 65. And everyone's favorite "chicks dig the long ball" bomber Hank "Drive for show, and I cannot do anything for Dough" Kuehne, who put up a solid 80, dropping him from a T5 to T71.

Tomorrow's final round will hopefully put me into the mood for a good Super Bowl. Go Eagles!

Phil Shoots "Easy 60"

After the 2nd round of the FBR Open, Phil reduced his score by 13 strokes and posted a nice 60. While interviewed, he was told that one of his playing partners said that he shot an "Easy 60" because Phil was hitting it so close. In my days, I've shot easy 80s, but never easy 60s.

Another interesting part of his round was his eagle 2 on the drivable 17th. Phil said something like, I was 90 some feet away and I just wanted to get it close and it went in. No real smirk or laugh, it was like he had planned on the 90 footer to go in.

Anyways, I'm glad that Phil finally is starting to get his game back in gear. This golf season looks like it could be a very interesting year.

In other news, Ty Tryon finally won his first ever Professional Event. A hooters tour event. Not bad for the former high school phenom. I just hope that Wie doesn't follow Ty's footsteps.

The FBR Open... The Best Crowd in Golf??

Call it whatever you want... "The FBR Open", "The Phoenix Open", or "The Golf Tournament Played Super Bowl Weekend." But, this week's FBR Open at the TPC of Scottsdale, I believe has the best venue on the PGA Tour.

From the performances of the wave, signing happy birthday, booing players who don't go at the pin, to cheering like it is the Super Bowl for a hole-in-one, the 16th hole at the TPC of Scottsdale is the closest thing to Caddyshack 2's "Hockey" or "Pinwheel" holes or the 18th hole at the Player's Championship in Happy Gilmore. Imagine 10,000+ people drinking since they opened the gates and getting ready to hit your tee shot at 3pm. A calm hush goes over the crowd while you approach your ball, grip, re-grip (or many more if you're sergio), you take the club back and "whack"... The 10,000+ fans in a frenzy begin to scream hoping for that elusive hole-in-one, yet you miss the green in the bunker, and they begin to boo and yell to the guy 40 feet away how they could do better...

I watched a story on the Golf Channel tonight and they described the hole as anything from "intense" to "crazy" to "hostile"... Honestly, I love to watch this tournament and I hope that there are many great shots and the occasional bad shot that gets plenty of jeers...

But, is this good for golf? I think it is... It brings the "Super Bowl" excitement to a pretty amazing tournament.

IR: tiger's caddy

Stevie Williams hurt his hand in a racing car accident. Apparently, he may be out of action (from Tiger's bag) while his hand heals.

justin, just do it

A follow up to the Leonard story. Here are his new Nike clubs.

ernie: the end of tiger's domination

Ernie Els makes some interesting remarks about how technology of golf equipment, as well as competition, have made it unlikely that Tiger will ever dominate golf as he once did. He could have added swing changes and coaching changes into the mix, but I'm still not convinced that we've seen the end of the Tiger era.