LPGA Picture of the week 2

Paula Creamer at the Evian Masters in 2005.

What a difference a year makes!

Geoff Ogilvy tries on his 2005 conquistadore helmet trophy,

after winning the Chrysler Classic of Tucson in a sudden death playoff.

2005 was a breakout year for Geoff Ogilvy. While the big boys were dabbling in the mega money WGC Accenture Match Play, Geoff was slumming over at Tucson National in the Tucson Open. He grinded out his first PGA Tour victory in a playoff and the volunteers all wished him well. They all told him, “We hope we don’t see you here next year.” Not the normal thing you tell the champion of your event, but the Tucson was the “other event” the last week of February. There were “no worries” on seeing the Aussie back in Tucson this year. Geoff had top tens in both the British Open and the PGA last year in route to his #53 ranking going into this year’s WGC Match Play Championship.

Ogilvy was four down with four to play against Mike Weir, before winning four straight to force extra holes. He went 19 holes against Michael Campbell, 21 holes against Nick O'Hern, 21 holes against Mike Weir and 19 holes against David Howell, all of them looking like losses but Ogilvy found ways to survive and advance in each match. There was no overtime on the weekend as he disposed of Tom Lehman 4&3 and beat Davis Love (the III) 3&2 in the final with an eagle birdie flurry to claim the $1,300,000 top prize.

There was also a grand slam of players disposed by Ogilvy on his way to victory. Campbell (U.S. Open), Wier (Masters), Lehman (British Open), and Love (PGA). Ogilvy’s who was a 2000 Q-School graduate has slowly been coming into his own over the last five plus years. It is safe to say he has arrived on the big stage. He is anxious to get his first look at Augusta.

Ogilvy said the decision to play in the match play instead of defending his Tucson title wasn’t a tough choice, but he was afraid he might be knocked out in the first round and feel frustrated by not playing anywhere while the Tucson was being played. Tucson will host the WGC Match Play Championship in 2007 as part of the revamped schedule. Ogilvy will be defending champion of a new event in the city he never got the opportunity to defend his first title. Tucson is also home to Jackson Julson, who has signed on as a contributing “Goffshots” editor. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Look for additional contributing editors to sign on as we get some more folks (and opinions) in the fray.

While we eagerly await additional amateur journalism, we congratulate Ogilvy and old man Kirk Triplett on their victories this week. Triplett shot a final round 63 (-22 total) for the win in Tuscon and first since the prestigious 2003 Reno-Tahoe Open. Triplett shines in the big ones, but we are proud of the “bucket hat bandit” nonetheless and have always wanted to see him in the crazy conquistadore helmet trophy. I guess that is the one down side to losing the Tuscon, but maybe they can give the helmet to next year's match play champion.

What a difference a year makes. Going from funny metal hats to check's that are $1,200,000.00 phat.

Ames gets taken to the “WOODSHED”

ESPN began their opening day coverage of the WGC Accenture Match Play Championship at La Costa with the 11:01AM starting time featuring Tiger Woods (1) vs. Stephen Ames (64) standing on the first tee.

ESPN flashed a Stephen Ames quote before the opening tee shots had been hit. “Anything can happen, especially where he’s hitting the ball,” Ames was quoted saying about his chances against Woods today. Last year Woods lost to unheralded lefty, Nick O’Hern, in the first round. Tiger barely squeaked out of the 2004 first round with John Rollins’ choke job and eventually went on to win that year. 2004 was the year Davis Love the III had his heckler in the gallery. That was quite a moment for Davis taking justice into his own hands. He could have just asked Steve Williams for help, he has a good track record with spectators.

I digress, anyway back to today. Steven Ames chances of beating Tiger Woods apparently were not enhanced with this seemingly harmless quote. Let’s face it Tiger doesn’t really know where his drives are going. It also doesn’t seem to matter.

Here is a hole by hole look at the Woods vs. Ames match.

WOODS 1UP 2UP 3UP 4UP 5UP 6UP 7UP 8UP 9UP 9&8 Woods
AMES


This match reminds you of some absolutes we should always remember:

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape.
You don’t spit in the wind.
You don’t pull the mask off the ol’ Lone Ranger.
And you don’t mess around with Mr. Woods.

Can we get some bulletin board comments for this year’s Ryder Cup? Anyone?

Handling a "Couples Only" crowd

South Africa's Rory Sabbatini,29, blew a four-shot lead, then quickly emerged from a four-way tie Sunday with a flag molesting tee shot, to 5 feet for birdie on the pivotal par-3 16th to escape with a one-shot victory in the Nissan Open. He managed to hang on, firing a one over 72, capturing his third PGA Tour victory. The 72 was the highest final round by a winner at Riviera since 1977.

Rory kept from losing his mind as several putts lipped out or missed all on the left side, Pacific Ocean side, of the hole. Rory played the villain in the black hat. Fred Couples 46 donned the white cap, as the crowd favorite playing in his 25th L.A. Open. It is rare on Tour to see such disparity in crowd support. It was one of those fun days when everyone knows who they want to win. The only problem is they still have to play the round before handing out the hardware.

Both Couples and Sabbatini bogeyed the 15th hole as Craig Barlow, also in their group, though no one noticed, birdied to leave a four-way tie with club house leader Adam Scott who shot a sizzling 64. Turns out it was Couples feeling all the pressure down the stretch. Sabbatini just had to keep from puking on his shoes. He did not have the pressure of letting the fans down. Outside of his wife (Amy), son (Harley), and caddie (Kevin) he didn’t have many others cheering for him. Couples’ seemed to stumble with the weight of the gallery on his shoulders.

Was it just me, or did Fred Couples take FOREVER to play his shots? He seemed to take “a time out on the floor” before each shot. ABC would get a shot of Rory looking like he was ready to blow a freeze plug, but Rory's clutch birdie at 16 put him back in the lead for good.

Sabbatini got ripped for his handling of his group’s slow pace of play at last year's Booz Allen. He and Ben Crane were paired together for the first two rounds and the final round at Congressional Country Club. They were put on the clock, Crane is very slow, and Rory just lost his mind. Sabbatini walked up behind the #17 green, while Crane was still 150 yards out in the fairway. Rory chipped up, putted out of turn, and angrily walked on to the 18th Tee box. Paul Azinger was furious and Sabbatini had created the worst P.R. move this side of Paul Casey’s post Ryder Cup dumb American comments. You can read more from Golf Digest on the Sabbatini/Crane fiasco, written eight months after the incident.

Rory might not have been the favored player today, but you have to give him some serious props. While Paul Casey hides out in Europe, Sabbatini faced his nasty behavior head on and became a better player through the adversity. He realized things needed to change, if he was to be successful on tour. He now keeps his own yardage book to slow himself down and occupy his mind. I think he will have to deal with the “slow play” gamesmanship the rest of his career. He handled Freddy’s stall tactics today. Now there were times when he looked like he could put his head through a refrigerator, but he had a four shot cushion that allowed him to squander three strokes and still came away with the “W”.

Just one other thing about Rory: The picture above in the camo pants... Rory donates money to the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, which has distributed over $14 million in aid to families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The gallery could have given him some charity support, with all the support Rory gives to charity.

Phil Mickelson deserves his “fan favorite” status as much as Rory deserves his label as a villain. A friend of mine, Rob Mahle, went to the Memorial last year, and Rory gave him a tour of his RV. That doesn’t sound like what Phil will do next.

LPGA Picture of the week

Memory Lane: 2004 Ryder Cup

It might be more relevant to recap the wonderful week at Pebble Beach. Arron Oberholser followed up two years of top ten finishes with a five stroke victory just down the road from where he grew up. Watching the AT&T is therapy for every golfer who has clubs collecting dust in the midst of another cold winter. It is one of my favorite weeks and deserves lots of ink. But I thought we would take a trip down memory lane and revisit the 2004 Ryder Cup.


Let us Re-cap:

Despite coming to Oakland Hills, Mich., as underdogs, the European team handed the Americans their worst loss in the 77-year history of the matches, 18 1/2 to 9 1/2. Europe has now won the Ryder Cup four of the last five times, and seven of 10.

Hal Sutton’s captaincy, of the 2004 US Ryder Cup team, was pathetically pathetic. My wife, honestly, would have done a better job. She would have used conventional wisdom. She would have talked to the players and got their opinions. I am convinced she would have worked circles around Cowboy Hal. Her pairings would have not been so bizarre and her quotes far less painful to listener’s ears. Otherwise, ol’ Hal did a pretty darn rooting-tooting good job.

The Sutton legacy, from the ’04 Ryder Cup, is a long list of wrongs moves and what to avoid when making pairings. It was Friday morning and Hal drew up Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson as the super duo. The bright side is they can’t lose. It is two guaranteed points, right? I didn’t like the pick the night before. Even if they swept both matches, I felt they could have been more effective for the team split up. (They actually went 0-2, losing both matches that day) David Toms and Mickelson had chemistry in past team events and Tiger teamed with Jim Furyk, at the 2005 Presidents Cup, proving like-mindedness is more critical than star power.

The Woods/Mickelson pairing had more significance than just deflating the U.S. squad and helped lead to the most lopsided European rout in Cup history. It is significant because it put the two biggest U.S. stars under a microscope revealing how vastly different each golfer approaches the game. Mickelson’s dopey smiles and Tiger’s steely focus were oil and water, and we will not live to see the two paired as teammates again. We can thank Hal for letting us see it once. I was there for the first day matches and it was like being at a UK – Athletes in Action game. Such a yawner and a bore, but the bright side of the pairing was Amy and Elin riding in the same golf cart. We at least had that going for us, so it was not all bad.

The golfers still hit the shots, BUT I am convinced if Molly was at the helm, we would have had a better showing than 18.5 EURO - 9.5 US. Hal’s ability to hinder a team of elite professional golfers was impressive in its own right and we all owe him a big thank you for the Woods and Lefty pairing.

I will leave you with Hal’s thoughts after the first day matches:

“I wished y'all would have gone through what I've gone through in the last hour trying to mix 'n' match, because I didn't see a lot out there that gave me some conclusive points on what I should do. I was at as big a loss as anybody in this room could have been.”Sutton, on his picks for the Friday foursomes.

Goffblog regular Holmes wins FBR by 7

Last Year John Holmes was living through one final Kentucky winter as a graduating senior at the University of Kentucky. In less than a year since the 2005 winter ended, Holmes has been busy getting on with his plans to be a force on the PGA Tour. I wonder if he will head over to the Monterey Peninsula to try out a few courses on the coast. Pebble Beach’s bumpy greens in February keep Woods away, but I bet Holmes will gut it out and show up at the AT&T. J.B. Holmes won Q-School with six rounds in the sixties. He showed up at the Sony to make his pro debut amid the Spectacle of Wie. Sony and Nike dropped $10M on Wie, while the guy who blitzed Q-School got a modest “six figure deal” with Acushnet’s lesser-known brand “Cobra Golf.” Holmes got around 20 seconds of coverage in his T-10 finish at the Sony. I guess covering Wie and the “Bubba Watson long drive love fest” was a sexier story than a kid from Kentucky who showed up with the Q-School victory in hand. Give kudos to ESPN for focusing on the real stories and not fluff. Too bad they will not have the broadcast rights to cover PGA Tour golf in ‘07. Holmes sported a Titleist hat through Q-School, but he and his agent signed on to revive Cobra’s presence on tour. Cobra has been missing from the PGA Tour for a few years. Somebody dug deep and found Camilo Villegas (Ve-j-gus) and Holmes to headline Cobra’s return to the tour. Recently, Cobra enlisted a bunch of long drive show ponies and David Feherty to peddle their sticks. Feherty should be out of a job with the arrival of JB Holmes. My only question is where Callaway, Taylor Made, and Cleveland were in the negotiations for Holmes services. They were caught sleeping. It is safe to say the party has just begun over at Cobra's little wing of the Titleist compound.

I must admit, I visited the Cobra site over the last month waiting to see a write up on Holmes. Today they only have the lead photo and no other info on Holmes. What's a guy gotta do to get some dap from his title sponsor. Even Google Images struggles to find more than a handful of pictures of Holmes. At least for now, Holmes is still a relative unknown to the golf-watching world.
Holmes is the most exciting player not named Woods to hit the scene since a young Spaniard (who also sported a Cobra lid) burst into our living rooms in 1996. Expect more from Holmes first ten years than Sergio’s. JB looks to be for real and it should be fun watching a new era in golf begin. Tiger turns 30 and JB arrives, the 2006 season looks more exciting than a four-month Mickelson family vacation. Holmes will win again in 2006, how many more title’s is the question. It will be easier for him to possibly qualify for the Ryder Cup with the changes rewarding good play during a Ryder Cup year. That would be awesome to see Holmes at the K-Club. (clue: the one in Ireland, not the one down Leestown Road)