Category: PGA

Vijay Singh holds a two-stroke lead over lefty Canuck Mike Weir going into the third round of the Mercedes Championships. Weird pulled to second place with a blistering 10-under par 63 in the second round. Ernie Els, Sergio Garcia, and Tiger Woods remain within five shots.

Singh opened his round by going six under through seven holes, then cruised to finish the round eight under at 65. “He shows no signs of slowing down,” said Weir. “It’s just a given he’s going to be there.”

Woods, currently at -10 and five strokes back, would be leading the tournament if he could figure out the grainy Hawaiian greens. On Friday, he missed three straight birdie chances from inside of eight feet on the front nine and three-putted for par on 18 from 35 feet. As noted here, Woods also missed eight birdie chances inside of 18 feet on Thursday.

Pos.  Player          Total     R1   R2   R3   R4  Total
1     Vijay Singh      -15      66   65    -    -   131
2     Mike Weir        -13      70   63    -    -   133
3     Ernie Els        -12      69   65    -    -   134
T4    Jonathan Kaye    -11      68   67    -    -   135
T4    Sergio Garcia    -11      68   67    -    -   135
T6    Chad Campbell    -10      69   67    -    -   136
T6    Tiger Woods      -10      68   68    -    -   136
T6    Stewart Cink     -10      68   68    -    -   136

Coverage continues on ESPN at 7pm ET both Saturday and Sunday.

Some things never change. Or at least it doesn’t look like things are changing yet. After Vijay Singh’s record setting year in 2004, he continues his hot play by firing a bogey-free 7-under 66 in the first round at the season-opening Mercedes Championships. After birdies at holes 3 and 5, Vijay shot up the leaderboard thanks to short birdie putts on 10, 11 and 12, then added two more at 15 and 16 to take a one-shot lead over Craig Parry.

Just behind those two standouts lurks groups of people at -5 (Stewart Cink, Tiger Woods, Jonathan Kaye) and an even larger group at -4 (Bart Bryant, Vaughn Taylor, Woody Austin, Steve Flesch, Chad Campbell, Adam Scott, Health Slocum and Ernie Els).

Continue reading “Vijay Still Hot at Mercedes”

I’m a TOUR Pass subscriber (hey, it was on sale!), and today I got an email that says:

For the next two weeks, PGATOUR.COM will be running an early-season free access promotion of TOUR Pass.

Currently, the TOURCast site mentions the 20% off annual pass ($59.95 down to $47.95), but no mention of the free pass. If you can find the two-week free trial, well, congratulations.

For those of you on Mac OS X, TOURCast runs only in Internet Explorer. Safari, Firefox, iCab, OmniWeb, and Camino all fail. Some pop up an empty window, others load empty regular TOURCast pages, and all manner of anomalies. Only Internet Explorer – a browser that has not been substantially updated within the last four or five years – works.

Tiger Woods fans, we’ve heard your worries. “When will he win again?” “Will he be able to catch Jack now?” Last year’s Japan win and Target Challenge victory may have assuaged your anguish somewhat, but you know those weren’t your typical full-field PGA Tour event. We know you know they weren’t Majors.

Well, here’s our attempt to make you feel better: a comparison between Tiger’s 1998 and 2000 seasons:

            1998     2004
Events        20       19
Wins           1        1
Top-5          8        9
Earnings     4th      4th
Driving    67.9%    56.1%
GIR        67.6%    66.9%
Scoring    69.21    69.04

How’s that? If that doesn’t settle you down just a wee bit, well, I suppose only a Tiger victory in the Masters will calm you down. Here’s to that!

A random smattering of notes leading up to this week’s first PGA Tour event of 2005, the Mercedes Championship.

• Here’s our preview. And, uhh, well that’s all we have to say about that one.
• Vijay Singh is going with a new caddie, having run into problems with Dave Renwick. Said Renwick, home in Scotland, “I’m not retired. I spoke to Vijay the other day and said I would call him the first week in March. If I don’t come back with Vijay, I’ll look for someone else.” Singh will use his trainer, Joey Diovisalvi, for now.
• Todd Hamilton doesn’t like golf? Said Hamilton, “I didn’t like golf as much as I thought I did” said the British Open champion when asked about his busy silly season in which he played in India, Japan, Hawaii, South Africa and California.
• Thank you to the commenters on the Grouchy Golf blog. We appreciate the kind words, and also think highly of Grouchy Golf and many of the other good golf blogs that are out there.
• When the first person tees off, your chance to join our 2005 Fantasy League comes to an end! Instructions have been posted here in our forum.

Television Coverage
Thursday, 7-10:30 pm ET, ESPN
Friday,   7-10:30 pm ET, ESPN
Saturday, 7-10:30 pm ET, ESPN
Sunday,   7-10:00 pm ET, ESPN

Easy enough to remember. I’ll be watching quite a bit this weekend as my Steelers have the week off.

Ask golf fans which professional has had the greatest fall from greatness and immediately names such as Duval, Beem, or Micheel come to mind. However, few people remember the name Ian Baker-Finch. Although it was only fourteen years ago that Baker-Finch hoisted the Claret Jug high over his head, it might has well been a century ago. After Baker-Finch won the Open title at Royal Birkdale in 1991, he attempted to re-tool his swing which lead to him losing confidence. In an interview in the January 2005 issue of Golf Digest, Baker-Finch described the frustration of playing well in practice rounds, but during competition simply hitting snap hooks off the tee and duffing chips on the green. These problems forced Baker-Finch to leave competitive golf and take up a career as a commentator on the ABC sports team.

Continue reading “Ian Baker-Finch Contemplates Return”

It’s been a long few weeks since the Target World Challenge when the big dogs last teed it up. The Mercedes Championships should soothe the nervous twitches some of us have after this break as the event kicks off the PGA Tour season in Hawaii at the Plantation Course at Kapalua, Maui.

Qualification for the event can only come by winning an official PGA Tour event the previous year. With Vijay Singh dominating the tour win column last year, the Mercedes field is limited to just 32 players out of a possible 48 tournament winners; however, only 31 will be in attendance as Phil Mickelson has once again decided to skip the season-opener.

Continue reading “Mercedes Championships Preview”

The days of Palmer, Nicklaus, and Player going shot for shot against each other are likely to be remembered as some of the greatest in the history of golf. Now, with the PGA tour set to kick off next week at the Mercedes Championship, it looks as though golf is about to enter another memorable era. The names Player, Nicklaus, and Palmer may very easily be replaced by Woods, Singh, and Mickelson. With all the strong performances in 2004, it is very difficult to point to one player and identify them as the definite favorite. The editors at GolfWorld have dubbed Ernie Els as the man to beat in 2005. The editors point to Els’ great performances but disappointing finishes in last year’s majors as motivation to break through in 2005. His only question mark: whether his globe trotting travel schedule will manage to catch up to him.

After leading the United States Ryder Cup team into a trouncing by the Europeans, captain Hal Sutton admits to having lost some desire to compete on the PGA tour in 2005. The last event Sutton competed in was the Chrysler Championship in October where he failed to make the cut. At the time, Sutton expressed a desire to leave the turmoil of the Ryder Cup behind him and get back to playing golf. However, he recently said, “It’s tough to get back. I’ll be honest with you I’ve lost a little desire.” Sutton is not the first Ryder Cup captain to experience such feelings. Of the five captains that preceded Sutton, only Tom Watson was able to finish in the top 150 on the PGA tour’s money list.

Sutton’s two years of time consuming captaincy in the years preceding the Ryder Cup certainly contributed to his diminished focus. However, Sutton also dealt with a nagging injury in his left palm which required surgery earlier this month. There are also off course distractions tugging at Sutton such as his burgeoning golf course design business and charity work with the Hal Sutton Foundation which just approved plans to build a children’s hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana. While playing golf used to be Sutton’s number one priority, he now says: “One thing I learned by not playing as much this year as I normally do is that I can live with that… But right now, I’m content with the things I’m working on.”