Mercedes Championships PGA 2006 Begins
Right, Max. Hawaii, Max.
It`s not just that California`s had a run of really wet weather lately (possibly forecasting the rain-delayed 2005 West Coast swing that revivified the age-old debate about indoor golf), it`s that the famous line from Annie Hall—”California, Max”, as in, “if we lived in California, we could play outdoors every day, in the sun”—doesn`t apply this week because the PGA Tour kicks off the 2006 season with the Mercedes Championships at the Plantation Course in Kapalua, Hawaii, where the usual weather event comes in the form of trade winds, not steady drenching rains.
Every year I talk about what a great tournament this is: TV cutaways to and fro, commercial breaks of beautiful vistas, sun and sea from the course`s tall hills; a solid field of last year`s Tour winners; 400-plus yard drives on the last hole; and the possibility of long money on quality golfers in a small field. Because Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Retief Goosen and Padraig Harrington are not playing (or Ernie Els, by the way, who didn`t win in his injury-shortened 2005) and because there were so many low-ranked winners on Tour last year, this week`s Mercedes is a smaller (28-player), more bargain-filled field than normal. Mickelson and Goosen didn`t do the Silly Season tour like Woods and Harrington, and the latter`s decision to not play in Kapalua is curious as he`s never played in the tournament. Hawaii`s a long flight from anywhere, fine, but it`s a guaranteed paycheck. And I have to figure the islands are sunnier than Ireland this time of year. Hawaii, Padraig.
There`s always the flipside to the strength-of-field approach. Maybe the favorites—Vijay Singh, Jim Furyk, David Toms and Sergio Garcia—do look more likely to win than 50-1 shots like Jason Bohn, Jason Gore and Ted Purdy. But given that there`s no cut, the pressure is off slightly, and so is the intimidation factor, which is significantly less a factor anyway because Tiger isn`t playing. Even if the world #1 was playing, though, I`d still look at other golfers. Bart Bryant, an unknown, won twice last year: the Memorial and season-ending Tour Championship where he held off guess who? Purdy won the Byron Nelson last May, fending off Singh.
As for the course, there are the peaks and valleys of Kapalua, and those trade winds (which are almost always at the players` backs on the last hole, yielding those 400-500-yard drives). The greens can be slick, which might be a factor for the favorite, Singh. Two months doesn`t account for much of an offseason; who can say if Vijay`s come to a happy place with his putter?
Jeremy Church covers Nascar for Brian Gabrielle Sports.
Jeremy Church is a documented member of the Professional Handicappers League.
Read all of his articles at http://www.procappers.com/Jeremy_Church.htm.
PGA Tour Season Recap
I suppose that after Bart Bryant’s three wins in 15 months, capped by the Tour Championship romp last week, I’ll have to start paying more attention to the soft-spoken Texan with the groovy mustache. But what a fitting way to end the 2005 golf season. With Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh and Retief Goosen in the field, along with most of the rest of the top thirty players in the world, it was Bryant who walked away with the season-ending win in Atlanta, a tournament that has more and more prestige and will have even more by 2007 when it becomes a sort of Super Bowl of golf.
So here’s to you, Bart Bryant. Here’s to you, Ted Purdy. Here’s to you, Wes Short, Jr. Here’s to you, Jason Bohn. Here’s to you, Olin Browne. Somewhere,someone saw something in you that not many others did. Somewhere, someone won big on you guys.
For all my focus on wins by unknowns this year, plenty of lead horses won as well. Woods and Singh won early—Singh in the second week of the season, Woods the third. Phil Mickelson won in the fifth and sixth weeks. By the end of April, all three would win at least one more time, including Tiger’s dramatic win at The Masters in April. Woods would also win the British Open and he contended in all four majors in 2005. This was his best season since 2000.
Mickelson won the PGA Championship later in the year. Also winning in 2005 were Goosen, Sergio Garcia, Adam Scott (an unofficial, rain-shortened win in February at the Nissan Open), Jim Furyk, Stuart Appleby (who repeated in Kapalua to start the year off), David Toms and Padraig Harrington, who won twice (the first in March, his first Tour victory).
Rain again was a frustrating theme for the first few months of the season. It took until the summer to dry out. And by mid-August, the majors in the books, the season limped to its close with unexciting tournament after unexciting tournament, fielded by fewer and fewer stars. Wednesday of last week, before the Tour Championship, Tour commish Tim Finchem unveiled plans to address the issue of flagging interest after the PGA Championship because many top players don’t play in late season tournaments together. I bitched about these lame events just about every week down the stretch, so I’m glad to see the issue is being addressed. What little we know of the plan for 2007, though, raises questions.
The idea is to move the Tour Championship to September as the culminating event in a kind of playoff series called the FedEx Cup. The lame post-PGA-Championship events I referred to will still be played, under the rubric of “Quest for the Card.” Virtually none of the game’s top players will play in these events, as few do now, because they’re not aiming for #125 or better in the world to retain their Tour cards. This will, in effect, become a silly season without star power.
Moving the Tour Championship up is a great idea because it comes closer to the last major and finishes up the season before the NFL really gets going. There’s a potential problem with the FedEx Cup, at least as it stands now (Tiger has said he’s met with Finchem several times about the proposed changes and each time has gotten a different answer, so much is still in the air—you can bet Tiger is in mind by Finchem, et al, down there in Ponte Vedra as they try to put this together), which is that three tournaments leading up to the Tour Championship will comprise the bulk of the Cup, or the bulk of the points earned toward winning the Cup, even though points will supposedly be accrued from the start of the season. This means that a player could win the FedEx Cup without actually winning the season-ending Tour Championship, which is meant to be golf’s Super Bowl. The Super Bowl has one winner, not an accrued winner. Who wants to be doing math on Sunday during the Tour Championship: “Let’s see, Tiger’s eight back of leader Jason Gore, but Tiger had more points coming in because he won one of the three playoff events and finished in the top-10 in two others, so if he can finish in the top 25 of the Tour Championship, where he is now, even if Gore wins by eight strokes, Tiger’ll win the Cup…all he needs is to par out in his last six holes assuming Gore doesn’t go any lower.” That’s no good. It’s like stages in the Tour de France. Who wants to see that? Not I.
None of these changes will go into effect until 2007 anyway. I’m sure we’ll be a hearing a lot more about it as we move into 2006.
I’m already looking forward to Kapalua for all the usual reasons: it’s nice to vicariously visit Hawaii in the dead of winter, to see sun and sea,cutaways of surf, and to watch a small, competitive field. Kapalua also yields prodigious drives and after watching Tiger average well over 300 yards with his drives last week, hitting one 378 on Sunday, I’m wondering if he might just drive the mainland from the top of Kapalua. He’s going to be exciting to watch in 2006, as is Mickelson in the majors. It’ll interesting to follow Singh, to see if he can fix his putting woes of 2005. Will Ben Crane stop shimmying and shaking, speed up his play? Whether he does or doesn’t, his skill with the putter is worth watching in 2006. Gore’s worth watching, too. And O’Hair. Will Charles Howell III go from competitive golfer, always in the mix, to winner? Chris DiMarco? His grit at Augusta was impressive and may portend a win in one of 2006’s majors. I’ve written him off many times, after many second place finishes, but he may have turned a corner. And who of the unknowns—who of the mini-tour set, who of the multiple Q School set—will emerge in 2006?
We have two months to figure it out.
Jeremy Church is a documented member of the Professional Handicappers League. Read all of his articles at http://www.procappers.com/Jeremy_Church.htm
Tags: betting, golf, heisman trophy, Jeremy Church, pga, procappers, professional handicappers league, sportsThe Final Tally
Thanks for the memories, 2006. When I think about seasons past I invariably think of the majors. Other tournaments and memories come to mind when those tournaments come around on the schedule in any given season. Jerry Pate’s dive in the water always makes me think of the TPC when The Players Championship comes around. But it’s the majors of years past that have more memories for me.
I went to the U.S. Open in 1988, and will remember it for that reason and because Curtis Strange won in an 18-hole playoff against Nick Faldo. I remember some of Tom Watson’s wins in the British, and Greg Norman, too, but it was the latter’s epic collapse at Augusta in ‘96 that sticks with me more (Faldo was the benefactor that time). Of course there was Jack’s charge at Augusta a decade earlier.
In more recent years, Jean Van de Velde’s pasty calves come to mind, but so does Retief Goosen’s putting and short game at nasty Shinnecock in ‘04. And Tiger’s stirring win at Augusta a year later.
This year’s majors got off to a good start with a competitive Masters. Phil Mickelson had a small lead Sunday and held on the whole way, fighting off some stiff competition, Tiger among them. It appeared Bad Phil was off his shoulder and/or out of his head.
Bad Phil came back with a vengeance at the U.S. Open. It’s still painful to think about, just as it’s still painful to picture Norman at Augusta all these years later. Jim Furyk and Colin Montgomerie also pooched it, but not as spectacularly as Mickelson. On the 18th hole, needing par to win, bogey to force a playoff, he drove way left and hit a tent. Then, in an effort to try to save par, he tried to blast out of the trees. Of course he hit one and the ball traveled about 30 feet. Next he hit into a bunker. The ball plugged and he shot his next past the hole and into rough. Came back to eight feet from there and made that for double bogey.
The year’s two final majors were pretty easy for Tiger. He took a brilliant strategy to Hoylake and stuck with it, hitting long irons and playing his second shots to greens in some cases 100 yards back of players who took driver. He hit 86% of his fairways for the week—ridiculous.
He added another win, The Buick Open, after the British, and continued his streak with an easy win at Medinah, his third PGA Championship. I’ll probably remember the last round for Woods’s quick start and Luke Donald’s quick fall as much as Donald’s serious mistake in wearing red that final day. As if Tiger needed more motivation.
He’d go on to win his next three tournaments, making it six in a row on Tour, and ending his season by the end of September.
We saw some newcomers shine, particularly the long-hitting J.B. Holmes, who notched a win in his first year on Tour. Other rookies made splashes with exciting play early in the year, like Bubba Watson and Camilo Villegas.
Veteran Davis Love III won late in the season for the first time in years, Vijay Singh won once and would have won many more if he could have made more putts from 6-10 feet. South Africans Ernie Els and Retief Goosen weren’t much heard from, but another steady veteran, Jim Furyk, had a career year. No majors, but he won twice, had 13 top-10s in total, finished second on the money list behind Tiger, and after last week’s performance at the Tour Championship, won the Vardon Trophy for lowest scoring average on Tour.
Last week: My long shots didn’t pan out in the head-to-head. I still think it’s a good gamble for the Tour Championship. I don’t think it’s a good gamble for the next small field on the horizon—the season-opening Mercedes Championships in a couple months. You have two options in that one: Stuart Appleby and Tiger Woods. Anyway, I won the head-to-head last week—Singh over Chad Campbell. The odds were 8-13. With a unit down, that was a net gain of $615.40. Factor in the half unit lost in the outright, that left me up $15.40. I think that’s how much movies cost in New York City these days. The total damage for the season after breaking even last week: down 14.5 units. I made a late push but it was a sorry year, considerably worse than last year. The break out year I had in 2004 is still covering, but barely. I gotta make some hay in ‘07. Stay tuned. I’m already thinking about Maui.
Jeremy Church is a documented member of the Professional Handicappers League.
Read all of his articles at http://www.procappers.com/Jeremy_Church.htm
