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NOW ON GOLFWEEKTV: Hate to be Rude: Tom Lehman
Jeff Rude’s “I Hate To Be Rude” column appears on Golfweek.com on Friday, the same day as his video show of the same name.• Ernie Els’ victory Sunday at the Honda Classic didn’t just lift his confidence. It lifted hope for the golf fan casting on eye on next month’s Masters. Els has won and had a chance to win another tournament on the 72nd hole. Phil Mickelson has won and had a chance to win another tournament on the 72nd hole. So Augusta isn’t a foregone conclusion. Tiger Woods can actually see people in his rear-view mirror for a change.
• Speaking of Augusta, Tour bomber J.B. Holmes will play his first Masters next month, and he has a power game that can produce good results there. Holmes has never played Augusta National, but he was in the gallery once. That was when he was in high school, when Woods won by 12 strokes in 1997. Holmes said he watched Woods hit drives and told his dad, “That’s not that far ... I can hit it that far.”
As it turns out, he wasn’t kidding. Or lying.
• Lorena Ochoa just dusted an elite LPGA field by 11 shots. Remarkably, she has finished in the top 10 in 42 of her last 51 LPGA starts. She has a chance to do some Annika-like things. But that won’t be easy, for a couple of reasons. Sorenstam is still around. And Sorenstam’s numbers are high: 70 LPGA victories, including 10 majors. Ochoa won’t enter that stratosphere until she ramps up her major total, which currently rests at one.
• As he has said of a few other courses, hyperbolic Johnny Miller maintains PGA National, the Honda Classic venue, could host a U.S. Open. Johnny, Johnny, Johnny. First, the U.S. Open has been played since 1895 – and not once in Florida. And any course with PGA in the title isn’t going to play host to the USGA’s grand jewel.
• To hear the players and see the scores, the Sunshine State part of the PGA Tour schedule is more Florida Sting than Florida Swing.
• Don’t look now, but 12-time Tour winner David Toms has dropped to No. 50 in the world. He didn’t play in October-January partly because of a torn calf muscle he suffered playing tennis in October. And a bad back has plagued him recently. He withdrew during the WGC Accenture Match Play because of a back injury, then missed the Honda Classic cut with 77-75 the next week. If anyone is watching him more closely than his doctor, it’s U.S. Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger.
• The streak watch is on. And, for a change, we’re not talking about Tiger Woods’ consecutive victories or cuts made. This one belongs to Scott Verplank. His even-par round in the first round of the PODS Championship extended his PGA Tour-best streak of consecutive rounds of par or better to 28. He has done so in typical Verplank fashion – under the radar. But he’ll end up on a neon marquee should he rattle off 25 more, for he would eclipse the all-time Tour record of 52. And, yes, you guessed right. Woods holds it, setting the standard in 2000-01.
• As with acting on a Hollywood set, sometimes the hardest part of Tour golf is the waiting. Jon Mills knows. At this point, Mills qualifies as Alternate of the Year. When Arron Oberholser withdrew from the FBR Open, who got the final spot in the field? Mills. And he went on to a season-best tie for 34th. And when Dudley Hart withdrew before the PODS Championship first round, who got the last spot in the field? A fellow named Jon Mills. He was 1 under through 16 holes when weather halted play.
• The more things change, the more they stay the same. So it is with Woods. Masters champion Zach Johnson, for one, knows all we need to do these days is play tape from eight years ago, the one with gushing quotations. “He’s back to those ways (in 2000) where if he plays mediocre to bad, he might finish in the top two or three,” Johnson said the other day. “If he plays good or really good, he’s going to win.”
In other words, Woods has a 15th club in his bag again. It’s called intimidation, and it comes when he enters a tournament.
Posted: 3/7/2008
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