Justin Leonard has a 5 stoke lead now after round 2 of the St. Jude Classic. (62, 65) He’s just cruising along spanking the field right now. I don’t see any major changes there. He’ll have to melt down or someone will have to shoot pretty low to catch him over the weekend.

Every last piece of his gear has a Nike swoosh on it. That swoosh on the back of his putter couldn’t be any bigger.

Justin Leonard dropped a 62 today at the FedEx St. Jude Classic. He’s averaging 294.0 with the driver which is good enough for T83. Yup…Justin is one of the short hitters.

Speaking of short hitters, John Daly appears to have a case of “golfer’s elbow.” After doing a ton of work on my basement last year I had a case of “tennis elbow” AND “golfer’s elbow” at the same time. The difference? The pain is on top of the elbow with tennis elbow. The pain is under the elbow when you have golfer’s elbow.

I was at the point last year where I couldn’t reach up to touch my nose. I couldn’t lift a glass of water or gallon of milk. It took an entire year before all the pain went away. The strange thing with this ailment is that taking time off doesn’t really seem to help. I took an entire month off from golfing, and within one driver strike the pain was back.

I still get small flareups, especially if I hit harder balls. I have to hit softer balls (like V1’s).

JD is my buddy and I hope he doesn’t have tennis or golfer’s elbow. It is no fun at all.

You will now see that one of the sidebars now has a new section here. This section is a ranking section which currently contains the Top 10 world golf rankings, and the top 10 PGA rankings in earnings per start. My buddy MJ from MJ on GOLF spends a lot of time and effort putting these together and is kind enough to supply the code for posting it on your own site. So here is a thank you to MJ! Go over and visit his golf blog. It is one of the best out there.

Speaking of rankings… Monday this week Vijay Singh snatched back the world #1 ranking, even though he and Tiger didn’t play. There was also some other shuffling around in the rankings. Chris DiMarco and Kenny Perry are climbing up into the mix. Retief is still in the top 5 which kind of surprises me. He hasn’t won a tournament this year on the PGA Tour. Somehow Ernie is still ahead of Phil despite the fact that Phil has won 2 more PGA events than Ernie this year. Ernie’s European Tour Wins must be the reason.

Snapshot these rankings and let us see how different they may be after the US Open.

“They are among a growing group of people exploring the potential of blogs, or Web logs, as a marketing tool and advertising venue.”

CNN has a story about how some of the main stream media are starting to look at blogs as a marketing and advertising tool, rather than the online journal of a web geek.

We knew that already.

Sunday I had a “money” game at one of my favorite local courses with 7 other “players.” These players are all 5 handicaps or less (some scratch). The weather was beautiful and the golf was great. One player shot a nice 32 on the front. I managed one under on the front and even par on the back for a 71 (-1). I had 4 birdies and one double. The biggest birdie was on 18 which was the dagger in the heart for all the other 7 players. I was the big winner, took away all the skins and won every bet.

Why did I play so well yesterday? Simple: PREPARATION. How did I prepare? I didn’t go to bed early. I didn’t practice late on my putting. I didn’t take vitamins. I didn’t watch the golf cybervision video.

Here’s the secret:

As a rock & roll drummer I happen to love very heavy rock & roll. I’ve gotten to be a big fan of OTEP, which is a very mean, mad, heavy, fast, brutal metal band with a very interesting female singer. I attended Otep’s show Saturday night, the night before my big money game. The picture here is actually from the show, taken by my pal Matt Hepworth.

The show was a 4 band billing and the first 3 bands were pretty decent. Otep didn’t even take the stage until about 12:30am. The amazing and brutal show didn’t end until 2:00am. I was about 8 feet from the stage and got caught in the “mosh pit” several times. Note to self: Don’t wear sandals to a mosh pit.

I’ll soon post a complete review of the show at my other blog: Pro Sound Blog.

I got home at 3am, tired, ears ringing and with bumps and bruises from the most pit. I woke up at 6:00am and headed out to the course completely delirious. After starting out par, birdie-birdie, it was all history.

So if you have a big round of golf or a tournament coming up, go down to your local heavy metal club, jump in the mosh pit and bang yourself around. Then get home really late and make sure you only have 3 hours of sleep at the most. You’ll be victorious.

Kenny Perry cruised to his 2nd victory of the 2005 season today at the Bank of America Colonial. His 7 shot victory wasn’t in doubt at any point today. Perry just plain schooled the rest of the tour this week. Here’s a guy in his mid 40’s knocking the ball an average of 327.9 and hitting 77.8% of his greens. Smokin’. The guys at Taylor Made are going to love that.

CBS had some great sponsors for the Colonial. I just loved the rather lengthy 2 minute spot for the “Celtic Woman” CD/DVD. I bet a ton of the (primarily male) viewers were burning up the phone lines with their orders after that ad. Oh, I better not forget to mention the spot for the “50 Most Loved Hymns” CD. I wonder if that same ad would be running if the likes of Tiger, Phil, Vijay, Ernie etc. were battling each other atop the leaderboard…

“These guys….ahem…and gals are good?”

Fifteen-year-old Michelle Wie has accepted a sponsor’s exemption to play in the PGA Tour’s John Deere Classic July 7-10 in Silvas, Ill. She is also attempting to qualify for the men’s US Open. She played earlier this year at the Sony in January where she missed the cut.

The new poll addresses an interesting question: Should women be allowed to play in PGA Tour events?

I’m of the thought that if they can properly qualify and compete then sure. I do not believe it is fair for a popular woman (like Wie) to gain entry into a PGA Tour tournament just because they are a good TV draw. There are guys who are staking their life savings and future on the chance to play on the PGA Tour. Though their playing resumes may be better, they are not 15 year old females who can bomb the driver 290 yards and therefore don’t get the chance?

I believe at some point Wie is going to have to actually live up to her “potential.” She hasn’t even won an LPGA event yet. Let’s stop putting the cart in front of the horse.

I also wonder what image LPGA golfers may get if they do start playing against the men on a regular basis. Will it be an embarrassment for them? Will they just get their lunch handed to them on a daily basis? I believe that scenario is highly likely.

So take a second to cast your vote (lower left column) and we’ll see what the “pundits” have to say.

HOGB’s Player Of The Year poll is now closed.
And the winner is….(drum roll) Vijay Singh with 51% of the vote

The full results:

Vijay Singh 51%
Tiger Woods 18%
Phil Mickelson 18%
Ernie Els 3%
Retief Goosen 0%
Other 7%