Author: Cody Thrasher

The 2006 Players Championship is behind us, and it’s time to get focused on The Masters. However, there are a lot of things to talk about after watching the crazy action at Sawgrass this past weekend. I watched every second of the television coverage on Saturday and Sunday, and it made me realize once again why The Players Championship is my favorite golf tournament in the world.

There were some feel-good stories, a great performance by a certain par-three, and a large amount of untimely bad shots played in the process. I want to talk about some of the positives and negatives I witnessed this past weekend. Therefore, I’m going to break down some of the key topics in The Players Championship aftermath, so hold on tight.

Continue reading “2006 Players Championship Tidbits”

Tiger Woods exploded onto the scene nearly a decade ago and proved early and often that he was a force to be reckoned with on the PGA Tour. A few years later, Sergio Garcia stole the hearts of golf fans worldwide en route to stamping his claim as a young up-and-comer. Adam Scott and Luke Donald soon followed Garcia, quickly placing their names into the hat of “young guns.”

Tiger’s résumé speaks for itself. It’s obvious he is one of, if not, the best young golfer to come along in the history of golf. Garcia, Scott, and Donald have all been very successful on the PGA Tour, and they are all currently ranked in the top 10 in the world. That’s pretty awesome in its own right. While these three haven’t been as successful as Woods, they will still be a huge part of golf’s future.

Continue reading “A Bright Future”

I hope everyone had nice weather this past weekend like I did in Oklahoma. On Saturday, the wind was non-existant and temperatures were in the 80s. On top of that, I broke 80 for only the fourth time in my golfing career. That doesn’t really have anything to do with this week’s Thrash Talk, but it is definitely worth mentioning. Now that my personal golf story of the week is out of the way, I’ll get into this week’s article.

Last year at this time, the golf media was going crazy over the “Big Five.” That group included Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, and Retief Goosen. Through the Honda Classic last season, this group had combined for five wins, four runner-up finishes, and five third-place finishes on the PGA Tour. All of the “Big Five” were playing great, and it really made things interesting.

Continue reading “Disappearance of the Big Five”

Welcome to the Sand Trap’s version of the power rankings. At the beginning of every month, we will rank the golfers of the PGA Tour, LPGA Tour, and European Tour as well as a few other members of the worldwide golf landscape. Not only does strong play land you on this list, but headlines and news can get you here too, good or bad. This combination makes “The Bunker’s Dozen” more unique than any other ranking out there.

For our first Bunker’s Dozen we’ve limited ourselves to golfers, though I’m pretty sure someone named “Hootie” will appear next month.

Without further ado, here is the first edition of the The Bunker’s Dozen.

Continue reading “Bunker’s Dozen, March 2006”

Golf fans have had the men’s world rankings to look at and discuss for awhile now, but there wasn’t a women’s power rankings system in place to have the same discussions and debates. That all changed about two weeks ago with the debut of the Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings. Annika Sorenstam’s name was atop the rankings, so everything was dead-on, right? Not exactly.

It didn’t take me long to find Michelle Wie’s name because it was the third on the list, right behind Sorenstam and Paula Creamer. I had to take a second and third look to make sure I saw things correctly. Sure enough, Wie was still ranked third no matter how many times I looked. To make things even worse, Wie finished third last weekend and moved up to number two in the world rankings.

Continue reading “The Other World Golf Ranking”

College basketball has March Madness, which happens to be one of my favorite times of the year as a sports fan. Golf fans get the Accenture Match Play Championship a month earlier than its basketball counterpart, and it has quickly turned into one of my favorite events of the golf season. I’ve showed my support for the World Golf Championship events before, but I want to take this opportunity to do it again. The WGC events get two thumbs up from me!

Continue reading “Match Play Madness”

Last week’s Thrash Talk was on the positive side, but I won’t write something positive two weeks in a row. Last week, I talked about a few golfers who will make great comebacks next year, including David Duval, Mike Weir, and Paul Casey. This week I’m covering the opposite. There are golfers every year that fall out of the spotlight and struggle, and 2006 will be no different.

Continue reading “Disappearing Act”