McGladrey Classic (Pick of the Week)

Bud at the Frys.com Open
(Photo by Robert Laberge/Getty Images)

The PGA Tour heads to the East Coast after a two tournament stretch in the West Coast for the Fall Series, were players compete to secure their PGA Tour for the upcoming season. This week the players will walk the fairways of Seaside golf course in Sea Island, Georgia, for the McGladrey Classic, hosted by Dave Love III. The defending champion is Heath Slocum who defeated his closest competitor, Bill Haas, by one stroke. Not to much Bill Haas is this year’s FedEx Cup Champion, revealing some players tend to play better towards the end of year with the added pressure. 

This is only the second year that the McGladrey Classic is in existence, slowly developing its popularity within PGA Tour players, who wouldn’t mind adding a fall series event to their schedule. 

In other news Tiger Woods won’t be in the field this week, which is not surprising since the guy prefers a short selective schedule. Certainly respectable with a player of this category. But Tiger will be hosting a charity event,  The Tiger Woods Invitational, in lovely Pebble Beach, benefiting  the Tiger Woods Foundation. 

My pick of the week is William “Bud” Cauley. As you know from The Frys.com Open Experience blog, the folks at HWTD attended the Frys.com Open. During our duration at the event, we got to see Bud hit a few good shots. He finished in third place at the Frys.com Open earning himself a fat-check and a spot into this week’s event, including a spot into the final stage of Q-school. If he is able to fashion another great week, he is closer to joining the list of players who joined the PGA Tour right after college. This list includes names like Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods. After finishing his junior year in college, Bud decided to turn pro.

Frys.com Open (Pick of the Week)

 Trevor Immelman at the PGA
(Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

The Fall series continues in San Martin,CA for the Frys.com Open. The tournament is held at the beautiful and challenging CordeValle golf course. Surprisingly this tournament is bringing in a herd of big names. The list includes Tiger Woods, Ernie Els, Paul Casey, and Angel Cabrera. These players will certainly bring in large crowds during the weekend. 

The golf world is ready for Tiger Woods to return to his normal condition of play, meaning we want to see Tiger in the winner’s circle. It will be interesting to see how Tiger will perform, including his partnership with his new caddie Joe LaCava, the former caddie of Dustin Johnson. Tiger is ready to prove that he still is a fierce competitor and still has a bright career ahead of him. 

My pick of the week is South African, Trevor Immelman. Immelman is coming off  a hot week at the JT Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, with four straight rounds in the 60s. 

Relying on his great play last week, Immelman should be able to fashion a great finish. 

Immelman has not won since the 2009 Masters, were he defeated Tiger Woods by 3 strokes. 

Previous Selections-  Bubba Watson, Martin Kaymer, Tiger Woods, Matt Kuchar, Phil Mickelson, Adam Scott, Jason Day, Luke Donald, Rory Mcllroy, Stewart Cink, Dustin Johnson, Justin Rose, David Toms, Lee Westwood, Webb Simpson, Ryan Moore, Steve Stricker, Ian Poulter, Charl Schwartzel, Jeff Overton, Bo Van Pelt, Rickie Fowler, Sergio Garcia, Anthony Kim, Charles Howell lll,Camilo Villegas, Y.E. Yang, Geoff Ogilvy, and Spencer Levin

Generation... Now?

Ms. Thompson with her trophy (via al.com)

As you may or may not have heard, something HUGE in the golf world happened on Sunday. Young 16 year-old Alexis "Lexi" Thompson dominated an LPGA field at the Navistar LPGA Classic by 5 shots. She finished at a total of 17 under-par, with rounds of 66, 68, 67, 70. She was extremely consistent and obviously didn't falter during crunch time on Sunday when she easily could have.

Lexi showed poise on the final day, not being too agressive and making the other women be agressive and come after her. With the lead she had, she shot exactly just what she needed to stay comfortable all day. That takes maturity, and the only other person that I know that has the ability to execute a game plan like that with a lead on Sundays is Tiger Woods. In fact, this win could have come SOONER. She was in the hunt in a LPGA event back in May, and stumbled a bit down the stretch to come up a bit short. But she clearly learned from that situation and used it to win this event.

The scary thing about this is, the girl is only 16!!! Not any girls my age that I know (and I'm 19, by the way) would seem to have this amount of composure at this young of an age. Her poise and guts are well beyond her true age. It's amazing to be honest. Her talent is limitless, and she's so young its astonishing. This can only help LPGA golf in a huge way, as it will draw huge crowds for the tournaments she plays in. The LPGA also better give her a full time TOUR card for this win, because the rumors of only allowing her to go to Q-School next year will not sit well  with many people. With a talent as rare and as special as she is, we could see a big time leap in ratings for the women's tour in the years to come. She's already become one of my favorite female players ( Unfortunately for Lexi, Paula Creamer will always be my favorite <3). But, I'll certainly be watching now more than ever because of her. Will you be?

Pick of the Week: Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial

This week the PGA Tour visits Colonial Country Club for the Crowne Plaza Invitational, past champions on this course are Sergio Garcia, Kenny Perry, Zach Johnson, even legends like Tom Watson. For this event my pick is Stewart Cink, with great finishes in the past two events, building up momentum coming into this week. Last year at Colonial, he fired over 3 rounds in the 60s, good enough for a top 25. This guy has game, this might be the week to reveal whats cooking in the bag. Hopefully Cink can pull through for me, allowing me to gain a larger lead. The gap between the points is getting pretty large, me and jj might have to use some of our engineering techniques, to make use of such great space. Some notable players to watch this week are: Sergio Garcia, Hunter Mahan, and David Toms. Garcia was able to achieve a T12 with a impressive final round 65, another example of momentum coming into this week. David Toms, veteran player, was firing on all pistols last week at TPC Sawgrass, but was not able to seal the deal Sunday afternoon, but expect a great finish. Hunter Mahan doesn’t have a great record here, but I believe he will pull through this week, finishing in the top 25. 

Fallen Stars

This sport called "golf" is known by many as "deceptively simple, yet endlessly complicated". The two men pictured above, Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia, have been known for making it look just like the first part of that quote. But as of right now, both are living on the end of the last part of that saying. Both of these golf superstars had a lost 2010 season that will both force them to play excellent golf to achieve their once elite forms.

Just 2 years ago, they were the top 2 players in the world, with Tiger ranked 1 and Sergio right behind him ranked 2nd, respectively. Now where are they? Well, by the end of this week Tiger is going to fall out of the top 10 for the first time since April 6, 1997 when he was ranked No. 13 heading into The Masters (according to ESPN). Sergio isn't doing any better. Garcia has fallen to a woeful 73rd in the world, and is in danger of missing a major championship for the first time since 1999. However, he is playing in this week's PGA Tour event, so he still has a chance to improve on his ranking.

Both had extremely subpar 2010 seasons. Let's start with Mr. Woods. Post-scandal Tiger has not been anywhere near the same since that fateful incident. He's not only gone through a divorce, but he's suffered multiple injuries and a massive swing change. All of this culminated in a 0-win year in 2010 with scarce top-tens. This season hasn't been much better, with only 2 top-10s and a shocking first-day bounce at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Champoinship. Also, last weeks WD at THE PLAYERS Championship doesn't help his cause, and keeps the critics alive and well. And with his ranking plummeting week after week, it will be interesting to see how this season is remembered for Tiger, as the months go by without a win and the questions of him being able to get back to form continue to rise.

Little video about Tiger, courtesy of ESPN:


Now, onto Mr. Garcia. The Spaniard had a horrendous 2010 season, with only one top ten, which came in his first start of that season. In fact, his game got away from him so bad that he decided to give himself a 2 month break after the PGA Championship to get his head back on straight. And although he has a relatively OK start to this season (3 top 15 finishes), the break dropped his world ranking to the low 80s, with it being currently No. 73. But, he is still danger of missing the U.S. Open at Congressional in June, with him needing to either crack the top 50 in the OWGR or reach the top 10 in the PGA Tour money list with 2 more weeks to go. If he doesn't, his consecutive streak of 49 majors played will come to an end, and that's something that he's not trying to think about. All he's been trying to do is go out everyday and play as well as he can, and let the chips fall where they may

Video about Sergio, again courtesy of ESPN:


Overall, both golfers have fallen off immensely with their golf skills, and are desperately trying to regain it back. Like I said before, it was only in 2009 when these two superstars were on the top of the golf world at 1 and 2, just as many golf analysts predicted many years back when they were young phenoms. They still both have the talent to reach great heights again, but only time will tell to see if these golfers can regain what they've lost. And if they do play well again, the golf world will happily greet them back, as this game is always more interesting when you see "Woods" or "Garcia" on the first page of the leaderboard.

photo courtesy: www.theage.com

Dazed and Confused

Another tournament, another question, another controversy. This has been the ongoing timeline of what the current state that Tiger Woods has with his golf game. As you may have heard, after shooting a front-nine 42 earlier on Thursday last week, Tiger decided to withdraw from THE PLAYERS, citing his achilles and leg injuries as the reason. Many noted that he was also clearly limping throughout the day, so he chose to not make a bad situation any worse. As a Tiger fan, this only makes me feel worse for the guy. Karma obviously isn't done with him yet, as he continues to have this run of bad luck with the injuries and sub-par play. This can only raise more questions of "Is Tiger Done?" and "When will he return?" and most importantly: "When will he, if ever, win again?". Although these questions have been continually been asked ever since post-Thanksgiving of 2009, this WD at THE PLAYERS will only bring more of questions like these at possibly an alarming rate. It's defintely just going to get worse.

Even though many haters continue to relish the "cheetah's" demise, a majority of the golf contingent are rooting for him now. The math is simple; Tiger+Tiger Win+Big Tournament= $$$. The PGA Tour and the television networks need the guy. Their ratings go up, and their finances increase. The fans also become happier because the man is such a polarizing figure it creates a lot of buzz whenever he can do something like that. This recent setback can only hurt the TOUR even more.

I think the thing we all have to do now is just stay patient for the man. He needs to get healthy and not rush this injury, or we will be back to square one quickly. If we give Mr. Woods patience, space, and time to get his life, golf game, and health back together, I think he can return back to his winning ways. If he can do that, the PGA Tour will soar, because not only will he be back to normal, but since we have a huge amount of players playing great golf right now, we can see how they all stack up with one another. But for now, we just can only hope and believe as golf fans. The greatest golfer of our generation, at one point heralded as our Superman, has at some point been stuck with Kryptonite for about a year and a half now. Faith is needed for our fallen star to get back to normal, and its needed now more than ever. There's no doubt that he still has the potential to bring his game back to form for good. But until then, get well soon, Tiger Woods. I'll be rooting for you like never before.

Pick of the Week: THE PLAYERS Championship

Here we are ladies and gentlemen- THE PLAYERS Championship, aka the 5th major!! The tournament with the biggest purse, the deepest field, and the course that nobody owns. Famed TPC Sawgrass in Florida favors no particular golfer, as nobody here has collected more than 2 wins on this course (and the list of two-time winners is small as well). The one thing that can be said about Sawgrass is this: you better be in excellent form the whole week with your golf game, and you better be mentally tough, or you will get eaten alive. Not having those components usually spells disaster. Generally, another rule of thumb around Sawgrass is you must be accurate and be able to putt on Sunday. Watch out for these things as the tournament rolls on. Also, watch out for a few notable story lines this week, such as how Tiger does and how his injury impacts him (or not), if Luke Donald can back up a great season with a great win, if Martin Kaymer can show people he is World No. 2 worthy, and if Sergio Garcia can continue to find his form to continue his streak of majors played at next month's U.S. Open. Now, off to my choice for this week. I'm going to go with Aussie Adam Scott. The 2004 Champion obviously knows what it takes to win here, capturing that aforementioned win with a clutch putt on the 18th hole en route to his victory. He's been in good form this year too, posting a runner-up finish at the Masters with a sprinkle of other top-10's as well as he continues to roll with the long putter. Adam has arguably the best swing in golf, so once he figured out how to putt well again, his form has returned. I expect good things out of the still young 30 year-old, and a good finish to this tournament to boot.

P.O.W. Re-Cap: Last week things got a bit confusing in our Pick of the Week standings. Bernardo's pick Rory McIlroy missed the halfways cut, while my pick Anthony Kim just made it in. Yet, with the new two-cut policy the TOUR can apply to tournaments nowadays, Kim was cut after the third round. After talking to Bernardo I decided that this should be a tie, since neither of our playing techiniallly finished the required 72 holes last week to post a number. So it sits at Bernardo-6, JJ-3.

Already used- Phil Mickelson, Geoff Ogilvy, Rickie Fowler, Aaron Baddeley, Hunter Mahan, Ricky Barnes, Luke Donald, Justin Rose, Anthony Kim.

Adam before the tournament action this week:

photo source: telegraph.co.uk

Pick of the Week: Wells Fargo Championship

Alright y'all. No more time to fool around. I'm a deep hole against Bernardo, and I need to make up ground FAST or this Pick of this Week competition is going to get out of control. This week the big boys are teeing it up at famed Quail Hollow, which is the site of this years Wells Fargo Championship. The Charlotte, NC golf course usually tends to attract some of the bigger names for this event. Names like defending champ Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson, Justin Rose, Sergio Garcia and Bubba Watson are all in this feeling looking to get a piece of the roughly 6.5 million dollar purse. Former world #1 Tiger Woods originally had planned to compete here as he usually does, but is missing out due to injury. With all that said, I'm going with a guy who still might be under the radar this year: Anthony Kim. This young American is still only 25, and although some may still consider this year a "struggle" for him, he has huge success at this 7,500 yard, par 72 track. He's 4 for 4 on cuts made here, and has set the tournament record here in terms of lowest number of total strokes, and has the lowest score relative to par here as well, with both coming in his 2009 victory. Even though the dude parties a little more than most of us would say is good enough, he is so talented that when he is playing well, he will shoot at pins that nobody else will and will play with literally no fear on every shot. I expect Kim to use his talent and comfortability on this course to snatch a nice win to truly shrug off the doubters, and for him to grab much a MUCH NEEDED point this week.

Already used: Phil Mickelson, Rickie Fowler, Geoff Ogilvy, Aaron Baddeley, Hunter Mahan, Ricky Barnes, Luke Donald.

Preview for this week, courtesy of PGATOUR.com :