PGA Championship Round One Thoughts

Written by: Tony Korologos | Friday, August 12th, 2011
Categories: European Tour • Golf • PGA Championship • PGA Tour • Pro Golf • Tiger Woods
Tags: PGA Championship • Phil Mickelson • Tiger Woods

I don’t pass up an opportunity to golf with my dad, especially at his fantastic club Hidden Valley CC. So yesterday when the email rolled in with an invite I hit record on the DVR to record round one of the PGA Championship and flew out the door. When I left Tiger Woods had played 5-6 holes and was -3. It was looking like he was in control of his game. I was amazed when I got back to find out that he’d apparently completely lost that control and finished with his worst ever opening score in a major championship, 77. Some how TW had lost 10 shots to par after I stopped watching. Wow.

The quote below is very telling. It seems Tiger has no control over his shots at this point. I’m sure this isn’t good news to his swing coach Sean Foley.

“My shots don’t shape like they used to. I don’t shape the ball as much. I went ahead and, as I said, just played by feel and I just hit it, aimed too far right and it didn’t move. And a lot of fades out there did the same thing. I aimed left for a fade and it doesn’t move, it moves about a yard or two and I’m used to having it cut a lot more than that. And my draw used to move a lot than that as well.” ~Tiger Woods following first round of 2011 PGA Championship

Steve Stricker posted a major championship record tying 63 yesterday. I’d sure love to see him win a major. Stricker is certainly one of those who could qualify as “current best player who hasn’t won a major.” I just wonder if he can keep it together all weekend. Typically super low rounds aren’t followed up by another.

Rory McIlroy should have dropped away from that tree root yesterday. Round two is underway as I write this and his wrist is wrapped as he has some tendon damage. Judging from his swings, he’s a bit worried about it but he’s still hitting some great shots.

I’m very surprised by the performance of Jerry Kelly who shot a 65 yesterday (2nd) and Shaun Micheel shooting 66. What is it with Micheel and the PGA? Just plays well in this event?

Phil Mickelson was quite outspoken about his low opinion of the design work on the course by Rees Jones, namely the very long par-3 holes. He was saying that these holes were fine for tour play, but too hard for the average golfer. Strangely though, some of what he said was removed from the transcripts from the event. Hmmm. Phil is still in it, shooting a +1 71.

There are many other interesting story lines from day one, but I can’t possibly cover them all. Comment in your thoughts.

2011 PGA Championship Round One Leader Board

Written by: Tony Korologos | Friday, August 12th, 2011
Categories: European Tour • PGA Championship • PGA Tour • Pro Golf • Tiger Woods
Tags: PGA Championship • Phil Mickelson • Rory McIlory • Tiger Woods

2011 PGA Championship Round One Leader Board

1	Steve Stricker	-7	63
2	Jerry Kelly	-5	65
3	Shaun Micheel	-4	66
4	Scott Verplank	-3	67
T5	Brendon de Jonge	-2	68
T5	Matteo Manassero	-2	68
T5	Davis Love III	-2	68
T5	John Senden	-2	68
T5	Bill Haas	-2	68
T5	Brandt Jobe	-2	68
T5	Anders Hansen	-2	68
T5	Simon Dyson	-2	68
T13	Bob Sowards (CP)	-1	69
T13	Adam Scott	-1	69
T13	Stewart Cink	-1	69
T13	Brendan Steele	-1	69
T13	Brian Davis	-1	69
T13	Miguel Angel Jimenez	-1	69
T13	Mark Wilson	-1	69
T13	Trevor Immelman	-1	69
T13	D.A. Points	-1	69
T13	Ricky Barnes	-1	69
T23	Gary Woodland	E	70
T23	Jason Dufner	E	70
T23	Luke Donald	E	70
T23	Nick Watney	E	70
T23	K.J. Choi	E	70
T23	Robert Garrigus	E	70
T23	Alexander Noren	E	70
T23	Pablo Larrazabal	E	70
T23	Jhonattan Vegas	E	70
T23	Robert Karlsson	E	70
T23	Rory McIlroy	E	70
T23	Camilo Villegas	E	70
T23	Michael Bradley	E	70
T36	Ross Fisher	+1	71
T36	Phil Mickelson	+1	71
T36	Peter Hanson	+1	71
T36	Spencer Levin	+1	71
T36	Keegan Bradley	+1	71
T36	Bill Lunde	+1	71
T36	Jim Furyk	+1	71
T36	Steve Marino	+1	71
T36	Johan Edfors	+1	71
T36	Johnson Wagner	+1	71
T36	Y.E. Yang	+1	71
T36	Justin Rose	+1	71
T36	Ryan Palmer	+1	71
T36	Charl Schwartzel	+1	71
T36	Jason Day	+1	71
T36	Matt Kuchar	+1	71
T36	Lee Westwood	+1	71
T36	Zach Johnson	+1	71
T36	Jonathan Byrd	+1	71
T36	Ben Crane	+1	71
T36	Sean O’Hair	+1	71
T36	Scott Piercy	+1	71
T36	Seung-yul Noh	+1	71
T59	John Rollins	+2	72
T59	Tetsuji Hiratsuka	+2	72
T59	Andres Romero	+2	72
T59	Angel Cabrera	+2	72
T59	David Toms	+2	72
T59	Paul Casey	+2	72
T59	Charles Howell III	+2	72
T59	Stuart Smith (CP)	+2	72
T59	David Horsey	+2	72
T59	Chris Kirk	+2	72
T59	Brian Gay	+2	72
T59	Martin Kaymer	+2	72
T59	Sergio Garcia	+2	72
T59	Hunter Mahan	+2	72
T59	Robert Allenby	+2	72
T59	Harrison Frazar	+2	72
T59	Francesco Molinari	+2	72
T59	Steve Schneiter (CP)	+2	72
T59	Kevin Na	+2	72
T78	Kevin Streelman	+3	73
T78	Charlie Wi	+3	73
T78	Martin Laird	+3	73
T78	Alvaro Quiros	+3	73
T78	Padraig Harrington	+3	73
T78	Scott Stallings	+3	73
T78	Bo Van Pelt	+3	73
T78	Mark Brooks	+3	73
T78	Brad Lardon (CP)	+3	73
T78	Yuta Ikeda	+3	73
T78	Mike Small (CP)	+3	73
T78	Hiroyuki Fujita	+3	73
T78	Rory Sabbatini	+3	73
T78	Steve Elkington	+3	73
T78	K.T. Kim	+3	73
T93	Stephen Gallacher	+4	74
T93	Ian Poulter	+4	74
T93	Bubba Watson	+4	74
T93	Thomas Bjorn	+4	74
T93	Sean Dougherty (CP)	+4	74
T93	J.J. Henry	+4	74
T93	Fredrik Andersson Hed	+4	74
T93	Ernie Els	+4	74
T93	Anthony Kim	+4	74
T93	Brandt Snedeker	+4	74
T93	Rickie Fowler	+4	74
T93	Rich Beem	+4	74
T93	Bryce Molder	+4	74
T93	Graeme McDowell	+4	74
T93	Cameron Tringale	+4	74
T108	Ryan Moore	+5	75
T108	Edoardo Molinari	+5	75
T108	Jeff Overton	+5	75
T108	Jeff Sorenson (CP)	+5	75
T108	Webb Simpson	+5	75
T108	Marty Jertson (CP)	+5	75
T108	Charley Hoffman	+5	75
T108	Ryuji Imada	+5	75
T108	Dustin Johnson	+5	75
T108	Retief Goosen	+5	75
T108	Geoff Ogilvy	+5	75
T119	Craig Stevens (CP)	+6	76
T119	Vijay Singh	+6	76
T119	David Hutsell (CP)	+6	76
T119	Gregory Bourdy	+6	76
T119	Louis Oosthuizen	+6	76
T119	Tom Gillis	+6	76
T119	Thomas Aiken	+6	76
T119	Fredrik Jacobson	+6	76
T119	Raphael Jacquelin	+6	76
T119	Jeff Coston (CP)	+6	76
T129	Mike Northern (CP)	+7	77
T129	Faber Jamerson (CP)	+7	77
T129	Wenchong Liang	+7	77
T129	Tiger Woods	+7	77
T129	John Daly	+7	77
T129	Jerry Pate	+7	77
T129	Aaron Baddeley	+7	77
T129	Jamie Donaldson	+7	77
T129	D.J. Trahan	+7	77
T138	Brendan Jones	+8	78
T138	Arjun Atwal	+8	78
T138	Rob Moss (CP)	+8	78
T138	Dan Olsen (CP)	+8	78
T138	Jose Maria Olazabal	+8	78
T138	Larry Nelson	+8	78
T138	Darren Clarke	+8	78
T138	Robert McClellan (CP)	+8	78
T146	Rocco Mediate	+9	79
T146	Richard Green	+9	79
T148	J.B. Holmes	+10	80
T148	Scott Erdmann (CP)	+10	80
T148	Lucas Glover	+10	80
T148	Heath Slocum	+10	80
T152	Daniel Balin (CP)	+11	81
T152	Tommy Gainey	+11	81
154	Todd Camplin (CP)	+12	82
T155	Ryo Ishikawa	+15	85
T155	Brian Cairns (CP)	+15	85

Who will win the PGA Championship, glory’s last shot? Or should I say which Irishman?

Written by: Tony Korologos | Wednesday, August 10th, 2011
Categories: European Tour • PGA Championship • Pro Golf • Tiger Woods
Tags: Phil Mickelson • Rory McIlroy • Tiger Woods

During this week of the PGA Tour season I get a little bummed out. Glory’s Last Shot means the season is winding down. Before I know it there will be snow on the ground here in Salt Lake and every other blog post will be me whining about it. There’s still some good golf to be be played though, both by the tours and locally.

Aussies?

Jason Day is my PGA Champ pick

My PGA Championship Pick: Jason Day

I think Jason Day‘s “day” will come, this week. Day has been playing some spectacular golf and knocking on the door of major championships for a year now. He seems to be close to winning every major these days, 2nd place finishes in this year’s Masters and U.S. Open. Just looked at Day’s money list stats for the last 4 years a minute ago and it shows a total rising star. Back in 2008 he made $700K, 2009 $1.2M, 2010 $2.9M and this year already at $3.1M and counting.

The one thing which could derail Day would be his confidence level. He seems to be a bit fragile and hard on himself. Perhaps a little too emotional sometimes on the course. Can he keep it in check?

After watching Adam Scott‘s big win last week, there doesn’t seem to be a better ball striker playing right now. Name me one? Another Aussie with a good chance of winning.

Irishmen?

Seems like Ireland owns major championships lately between Darren Clarke, Graeme McDowell and Rory McIlory. I’d mention Padraig Harrington too, but his game seems to be a jigsaw puzzle right now, for him. Which Irishman has the best chance this week? To me that is obviously the future PGA Tour member Rory McIlory.

American Players?

Tiger Woods

As I’ve been saying for a week or two now, Tiger Woods‘s comeback will be a work in progress and cannot be judged by a few rounds, or a tournament or two. How well will Tiger fare this week? I don’t think Tiger will win, and I doubt he’ll be a huge factor. But by saying that, I wonder if I’m putting part of my foot in my mouth already. I just haven’t seen anything yet to lead me to believe he will perform really well.

(more…)

Thoughts on Tiger Woods, Steve Williams and Adam Scott

Written by: Tony Korologos | Monday, August 8th, 2011
Categories: PGA Tour • Pro Golf • Tiger Woods
Tags: Steve Williams • Tiger Woods

Greetings from my local auto garage, where the official HOG World Tour vehicle is undergoing some maintenance and a safety inspection. Unfortunately I’m going to need a new windshield…

Quite an entertaining weekend of golf and soap opera drama this week. First let’s talk about the golf.

Adam Scott

Adam Scott put on quite an impressive display of GOLF this past weekend. GOLF! He was in total control of all parts of his game en route to an impressive WGC victory. Kudos to Adam for playing so well amidst the the circus which is Tiger Woods and Steve Williams. I really look forward, and hope that the novelty of the Woods/Williams drama wears off and it gets less and less air time. But knowing the media and their seemingly never ending hunger for anything related to Tiger Woods, I’m not sure that will happen. Even more Kudos for the way Adam Scott has handled himself in staying out of the drama.

Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods made his return to tournament golf for the first time since leaving THE PLAYERS back in May after nine holes. As I mentioned in my previous Tiger Woods commentary, regardless of the outcome of the WGC Bridgestone event Tiger’s comeback should not be based on one round or one tournament. Though he said he was in the WGC Bridgestone to win the thing, I didn’t quite expect that. What else is he going to say anyway?

New same old Tiger?

What plagued Tiger before this comeback? Driving accuracy was a big issue. So how did he do in that department this past week? His four rounds’ stats for the week in fairway percentage were 36%, 57%, 29% and 36% for a 39.3% average. I hit more fairways than that, which isn’t saying much.

Tiger’s putting was decent for the most part, except round two where he had 33 putts. T43 in putts per round and T26 for putts per greens in regulation at 1.745.

Tiger’s greens in regulation for the tournament was 65.3%, tied for 26th.

A blaring issue is in the mistake department–the making of bogeys and doubles. TW had 11 bogeys and two doubles. We used to see periods where Tiger would go very long stretches without bogeys and rounds upon rounds without doubles. Even if Tiger cut his bogeys in half and eliminated the doubles, he still would have lost to Adam Scott by 7-8 shots.

Steve Williams

Many press and bloggers are worked up about Steve Williams’s post round comments yesterday after Adam Scott’s win and for good reason. His comments seemed to be more of an FU to TW. And to me it is a bit sad and odd that after a win, a player’s caddie gets more press time than the player himself.

Williams comments like “that’s the best win I’ve ever had,” and “best week of my life” even had Jim Nantz puzzled. Me too. How one could put this WGC event above say a 15 shot win in the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble, the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines with the classic playoff battle between TW and Rocco Mediate, the playoff in the PGA Championship with Bob May etc., is beyond my comprehension.

One final thought on Steve & Tiger for now

I’ve had my share of the Woods/Williams drama for now but I’m sure it is far from over. For now it is obvious that Williams has the lead following winning with Scott last week. Hell, as a caddie his 10% of Scott’s winning share is over 3x what Tiger’s winnings were. Stevie is ahead of Tiger on the money list.

And now…

And now it is time to focus on the coming week. It is PGA Championship time baby!

A Tiger Woods comeback isn’t determined by one swing, one hole, one round or one tournament

Written by: Tony Korologos | Friday, August 5th, 2011
Categories: PGA Tour • Pro Golf • Tiger Woods
Tags: Tiger Woods

If you were to closely follow the twitters of golf fans, golf writers and golf bloggers like I do, you might be a little dizzy right now. It seems that most of these people base Tiger Woods’s comeback on one swing, one hole or one round.

For instance, today Woods has just finished his first nine, the back at Firestone at even par for the day and still -2 for the WGC event. As of his bogey on hole #14, his 5th, writers were saying that the comeback was “off” and confirmed it when he bogeyed the next hole. Then a bounce back birdie happens on the 16th hole, his 7th of the day, and they say the comeback is back “on.” Another birdie confirms that it is on, I’m sure at least until such time as another bogey is made and then the comeback will once again be off.

A “comeback” isn’t determined by one swing, one hole, one round, one tournament

I know these people (golf media) are excited because their gravy train is back on the train tracks for now, but I really have to say that a comeback isn’t determined by such a small set of events like a hole or two, a round or even one tournament. Hell, even if Tiger won this week, I wouldn’t say his “comeback” was complete. A full comeback for a player of this level, in my opinion, would have to be determined by many tournaments, a longer season and performance in major championships.

Thoughts On Tiger’s Swing So Far

I watched most of Tiger’s round yesterday and have watched his interviews this week. I admit that a few weeks ago I thought he was done for the year and that his injuries were more serious. But after watching this week so far, I think things look pretty good for TW. He’s not going full torque on the knee, and not bringing the club back quite all the way sometimes. The swing looks more controlled and balanced.

Tiger also is wearing new Nike FREE shoes. This marks the first time he has worn any kind of golf shoe which does not have metal spikes. I think this could help on the wear and tear of the knees, even if the shoes give a bit. In the long run it will help his balance, a la Sam Snead playing in bare feet.