Tiger, No....Ochoa, Yes....Annika, No....Darren Clarke, Yes....John Daly, Bizarre.

It's a mixed bag in the golf world this week. Even with Tiger Woods on the bench there's plenty of buzz to keep the average golfer interested. So, head to the trough and try some of this fodder....

Wachovia Championship......On the heels of his victory in the EDS Byron Nelson, Adam Scott is pushing hard to cement a position as one of the elite players. He'll be going for two in a row having beaten Ryan Moore last week on the 3rd playoff hole. Three former Wachovia champs are in the field. Jim Furyk, (2006), Vijay Singh, (2005), and David Toms, (2003), head a stacked field as the PGA Tour players line up for The Player's Championship and the two majors to follow. Professional golf season is heating up even with the absence of a wounded Woods. Off crutches and now in a knee brace, it's looking more and more that Woods won't be seen before the Memorial Tournament or perhaps even the US Open.

The SemGroup Championship......Lorena Ochoa's back playing for her 5th consecutive victory. I can only imagine how tough she'll be to beat after a week of rest. Mi Hyun Kim defends. Julie Inkster, 2nd last year, and Cristie Kerr are headliners. Annika's not in the 144 woman field. It would have been nice to see her in action against Ochoa having come off a win in last week's event.

Asian Open Won by Darren Clarke......In the "Feel Good" competition for 2008 Darren Clarke iced the crown. It's over. This is the feel good list. Clarke sunk a 30 ft. putt on the 72nd hole to hoist his first victory flag since the passing two years ago of his wife Heather. Clarke's one the most entertaining and seemingly genuine players on anyone's tour. He's the one guy I don't mind us getting tarred by in the Ryder Cup. Great golfer, better person.

R&A Delays Drug Testing 1 Year......Expected to begin testing by the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, The R&A has pussyfooted around the issue for another year. Perhaps the wait and see posture is to observe how the other tours drug testing plans play out. If the other tour catch any scofflaws then there won't be much to do one year later.

John Daly, Media Legend.....If you haven't seen this I'm directing you to Bob Smiley's site, Fore Right, which is where I tripped over it. No hints or setup from me, just proof positive that truth is always stranger than fiction.

There's the recap from me. Your mission, should you choose to accept it.........Get out and play, come in and watch.

Til' next,

10 Average Golfer Myths Debunked !

If you're like me you're an average golfer. You're handicap is probably 16-20, but in fact it's closer to 20-25. You see, we average golfers are generally fairly honest about the game. If we break a rule it's because we weren't aware of it. When we turn in scores to calculate our handicaps we drift on the side of reverse sandbagging to insure that whoever we're matched against is playing against our "best" game. We're avid players and devour golf magazines and record lessons on The Golf Channel. We enjoy playing with better players because we realize we might observe something to raise the levels of our own games. Consequently we're inundated with too much, and frequently conflicting information and advice. I'm here help you sort through that maze of advice that screws up our games. Let's do it.

1. You need the latest high tech driver. No you don't. What you need is an acceptable 450cc driver with 10.5, or preferably 11.5 degrees of loft. Your swing speed isn't high enough for less loft and the ball will launch better. There's great deals on last year's or used drivers. You also don't need a $150.00 Katsumatsu or whatever shaft. Whatever they do, you can't notice.

2. My average drive is 265 yds. No it's not and thinking that way affects how you play a hole. There was a survey done in real time at a Florida golf course. At the tee of a wide open fairway the players were asked to hit their drives and then guess the distance. Almost all of them overestimated by 30-40 yards. That error affects how you might play a par five by positioning your 3rd shot, the one that really counts. It also causes you to find hazards that are closer than you think you hit it. Fairways are always better than non-fairways.

3. I need to spin the ball. You can't spin the ball, on purpose. You don't have the precision to strike the ball first on every swing. You don't have the necessary club head speed and you're not playing on pro fairways. Their fairways are tighter than your greens. Even if you could back up a golf ball it's unpredictable. Better to hit to a distance you know and then calculate how much the ball will release to the hole.

4. I need a great swing. You'll never have a great swing. You started the game as an adult and you have a job. Players with great swings have that as their job. You do need a good swing. Good basic fundamentals like set up, grip, and ball position are key to any golfer. Weight transfer is often misunderstood. Work on those. You can have Tiger Wood's set up and grip. You can't have his swing. He's still using it.

5. I need to line up putts with surgical precision. No you don't. You need a general idea of how the putt breaks and how much swing to take based on distance. Find a spot on the break line mid way between you and the hole and let her go. Let the size of the swing dictate the speed. Other than that all swings with the putter should look the same. Miss, and you will, on the "high" side of the hole. Occasionally you'll get lucky and it'll drop in. Throw the other crap away. It clutters your mind and creates tension, the killer of golf swings.

6. I need $300.00 golf shoes. No you don't. The alligators don't think you do either. You don't create the torque to require shoes that cost more than my first car. $80.00 shoes are just fine and just as waterproof. I don't think any golf shoes are waterproof. Or, last year's $160.00 golf shoes for $80.00 works too.

7. I need to be a better wind player. Well, you may, but not by swinging harder. If it's pretty windy and will be for most of the day you have to approach the game with a different mind set. Take less back swing. Try a 50% back swing. It'll become a 75% back swing when you take the club back. All average golfers take a bigger swing than they realize. So, take the 50% and two extra clubs. Be smooth and pretend there's no wind. Be prepared for more roll because of the less lofted clubs. See, easy.

8. I need $45.00 per dozen golf balls. Throw your money away in the pond if you like, but here's the balls you need. 10-16 handicap, any $30.00 golf ball. 17-24 handicap, any mid $20.00 golf ball. 25+ handicap, any $16.00-$19.00 golf ball. Balls $15.00 and under are rocks. No one should play them. Balls are basically the same in their price categories. If I blindfold you, you won't know the difference.

9. I need a flop shot. No you don't. It creates more trouble than you started with. First of all you won't recognize when to hit one. Second, your municipal course rarely provides the lie for you to pull one off. Third, you never practice it. The idea around the greens is to get up and down. Your best chance at this is a chip or a pitch, shots you've already been hitting all day.

10. I just shot 84, here comes 79! Easy there. The lower your handicap gets the harder it is to lower it further. I don't mean to discourage, just be aware of that so frustration doesn't rear it's ugly head when your 84 is followed by a 92. Relish in your improvements and make then part of your everyday game. Be less concerned with score than with a sound, smooth swing and making good decisions while you play. Today's 84 can become a 79, but probably not tomorrow.



*These are the opinions of the author alone gleaned from thousands of swings and crazy rounds. They do not reflect necessarily the golfing community at large and are to be interpreted as such. The author is to be held harmless from any bodily injury or public embarrassment resulting from same.

Til' next,

No Tiger Woods, No Lorena Ochoa - Will You Watch ?

I'll go out on a limb and assume you're a more than avid golf fan or you wouldn't be reading this now. Tepid fans turn on The Golf Channel. Rabid ones Google websites.

The men head to Texas this week for the EDS Byron Nelson Championship. Damn these tournament names are getting way too long. Adam Scott and brand spankin' new Masters champ Trevor Immelman lead the way. Last year was the first event since Lord Byron's passing and it was way more than fitting that Nelson disciple Scott Verplank won. Kind of mystical actually.

The women tee it up at the Stanford International Pro-Am. They claim a star studded field. How's that possible without Ochoa? Annika, Creamer, and Pettersen are all there, but it takes some luster from the star without Lorena. Kinda like putting lipstick on a pig. The pig doesn't look any better and it hates it.

With a wounded Woods until at least The Memorial, the men's tour's TV ratings should take a huge hit. Fortunately for the women, Ochoa's only resting for a week. Without the superstars will you watch? I won't. Sure, I'll check in online to see who's ahead and eventually who won, but the interest level for this average golfer is too low to dedicate hours of my weekend to watching the bench players. It's finally spring here in the woolly north. Spring here is about six days. It's too precious a commodity to waste on sub par, (pun intended), viewing. A double edged sword for network television when two super dominate players head both tours. The highs are high, but the lows can be extremely low. It's not their fault, but their eggs are firmly entrenched in just two baskets. Imagine a Patriots/Colts game with Tom Brady and Peyton Manning on the sidelines. Outside of Boston and Indianapolis, who would watch?

Til' next,

It's Ochoa at Ginn & Tonic Open, Naturally.

A rather mundane 69, by her standards, was all it took for Lorena Ochoa to wrap up the 2008 Ginn Open. It was her 4th consecutive LPGA victory and moved her from being in a class by herself to creating a new class. Unbeatable. Yani Tseng finished 2nd, a very impressive showing for a tour rookie playing with the Universe's #1. There's really not much else to write about when one player is so dominant. When Annika and Julie Inkster finish 16 and 15 shots out of the lead respectively, something other worldly is happening. This has been repeated enough that it must be tough for the other ladies in the field to think they're playing for anything other than 2nd place.

Five birdies today for Ochoa, twenty two for the tournament. Yikes! 60% of the fairways hit, low by her standards. A whopping 82% of greens in regulation and and average of 29 putts per round. If she stays even remotely on her game, she will win 75% of the time she tees it up.

Observe the future of women's golf. She has arrived.

Oh by the way, Boo Weekly captured the Verizon Heritage. It's tough to follow a tournament with rapt interest when the top two players on the men's and women's tours are so far ahead of the rest of the field.

Til' next,

Ochoa Leads Ginn Open......Shocker.

What took her so long? Lorena Ochoa waited until the 3rd round of the Ginn Open to fire a 65 and take her anointed place as the tournament leader. What's left to say about this woman? Tiger's next streak will be described as Lorenaesque. She's averaging 279 yds. per drive. That's leaving her 30 yards ahead of most of her competitors. That translates into at least a two club advantage for her approach shots. Even with a lukewarm putter, which she's shown lately, she's uncatchable. Her putting misses are for eagles and birdies, everyone else's for pars.

Rookie Yani Tseng will start tomorrow one behind Ochoa. Her feet will be in the fire and it will be interesting to see how the first-timer responds. I have a touch of ADD, so since no one else is within four shots of Ochoa's lead, I'm not going to list them. Annika's had a tough week. Why, I'm not sure.

Tune in tomorrow. Maybe not for a tantalizing close finish, but for another peek at history.

Til' next,

Ginn Open - Tseng Leads, Ochoa 3 Back.

Let's face it, talk of Tiger Woods winning all three majors was a huge stretch. Not that it wasn't possible, but the odds were better that at 51 this average golfer has a better chance at still being able to dunk a basketball. There's only two persons left with a grand slam chance, Trevor Immelman and Lorena Ochoa. Who's your money on?

Midway through the Ginn Open in Reunion, FL Lorena stands three shots behind the leader Yani Tseng. Good Lord I hope there's no other "Yanni" connection to this. Yanni and Kenny G are two of the reasons my site has no audio and I avoid elevators. Athough, Kenny G fancies himself to be at the top of the "pro sniffing celebrity golfer's set". I digress. Tseng moved to -12 after a sizzling, course record 64. Suzann Pettersen's 66 left her in 2nd place, two off the lead and one in front of Ochoa and Minea Blomqvist. There should be a rule that all golfing Petersons spell their name the same way, you know, like the South Korean Kims do. Much easier on tortured typists like moi.

Having a three stroke lead on Ochoa with two rounds left to play is like having a three step lead on Cujo and 50 yds. to the fence. Expect her to charge and charge hard tomorrow. Tseng, a rookie, earned her card at qualifying school and has 5 top 25 finishes in 5 starts this year. Spending tomorrow with Lorena on her tail will test her rookie experience level.

Notables in the field include Julie Inkster, -6, Cristie Kerr, -5, Morgan Pressel, -3, Annika Sorenstam, -1, and Laura Davies, at level par. That's how the British say even par. Gotta figure something's amiss with Se Ri Pak after missing the cut at +9. I've enjoyed following her resurgence. Stay tuned.

Til' next,

Oh By The Way, John Daly Had Surgery Too.

At the 2007 Honda Classic John Daly's back swing was interrupted by the click of a fan's camera. Daly has claimed that the resultant injury has been the primary reason he's withdrawn eight times and missed the cut 14 times in 33 events. Dr. Steve Whitelaw, who works with the Arkansas Razorbacks, says that in the process of stopping his swing Big John had torn his rotator cuff and dislocated two rib joints. He added further that all that was rehabbed, but while living with the dislocated ribs he tore the ligaments surrounding them.

Whitelaw says that when Daly still complained of pain, a full body scan was performed and a stomach muscle tear was revealed. He said, "When he swings, he uses that area with his stomach and core strength. He could only go on so long without hurting. He was in a cycle he could not get out of." Surgery to repair the tear was performed during Masters weekend.

I know what you're thinking, stomach jokes. Nope, too easy. Plus, Big John's had quite a rough patch and even I won't push him down further. Whitelaw said Daly could begin hitting small shots this week and he expects a quick recovery. Daly is scheduled to play the Spanish Open in Seville in two weeks. He says he's contemplating the Irish Open and Italian Open, and possibly the BMW Championship at Wentworth. This may be a good plan for John. Perhaps some renewed success in Europe, more out of the spotlight, can start to save his sagging career.

Til' next,