- With Saturday’s final round of the LPGA’s SBS Open starting with Annika Sorenstam and 23-year-old Erica Blasberg tied for the lead, who would you have bet on?  Blasberg did roughly what was expected of a non-winner in serious contention for the first time, carding a two-over-par 74 and tying for 8th, but still earning a career-best $23,432.  Annika, on the other hand, did precisely as she has done so many times before, making clutch birdies at the 16th and 17th to pull away from Laura Diaz and rookies Russy Gulyanamitta and Jane Park and win by two, firing a well-timed warning shot across the bows of Lorena Ochoa and Suzann Pettersen in the process.  The win, Sorenstam’s 70th on the LPGA Tour, leaves her in 3rd place in career victories behind Hall-of-Famers Kathy Whitworth (88) and Mickey Wright (82), and – if one considers the comparison valid – also behind Sam Snead (82) and Jack Nicklaus (73) for overall major tour titles won regardless of gender.  Ochoa was not in the field this week, nor will she play at next week’s second Hawaiian event, the Fields Open.  But beginning at the HSBC Champions in Singapore (Feb 28-March 3), look for her head-to-head battles with a rejuvenated Sorenstam to take on a particularly compelling flavor.

- In comparing the records of the LPGA’s all-time greatest, it is not-often-enough noted that Kathy Whitworth took 32 seasons and an astonishing 733 starts to claim her 88 titles, while Mickey Wright amassed her 82 victories in only 19 seasons (many part-time) and only 336 starts.  So where does Annika fit in numerically?  Her 70th victory came in just her 286th career LPGA start, a pace which is a virtual match for Wright’s and light years ahead of Whitworth.  The question (relative to comparisons with Wright anyway) will be whether Sorenstam can maintain this 24.5% winning clip as she continues to chase these female golfing icons while approaching age 40.

- Predicting the play of any one golfer on any given day is a dicey proposition, but here’s an interesting scenario: Phil Mickelson played some loose golf over Riviera’s final holes on Saturday, but managed to hole enough dicey par putts to maintain a one-shot lead over Jeff Quinney going into today’s final round of the Northern Trust Open.  As his opening rounds of 68-64 indicate, Mickelson is obviously swinging the club well, and we know he is highly motivated to win in Los Angeles, both because he never has and because he largely gave the event away last year, bogeying the 72nd before losing a playoff to Charles Howell III.  Throw in a bit of simple golfing psychology – that Saturday’s closing holes can be viewed as the inevitable blip one encounters over four long medal-play days – and Mickelson would appear poised to go low today, and perhaps win going away.  Of course, as last year’s finish (among other prominent late-tournament adventures) shows, he might need to go low simply to provide a necessary cushion for the closing stretch.

PowerHouse Update

The young PowerHouse (who’s actual name, I have finally discovered, is Peter-Henric) flamed out in qualifying this week, failing to make the Vodacom Championship field after carding a 77 which included bogeys on both of his outgoing par 5s.  The FQ leaves him snugly ensconced at 82nd in the Order of Merit, and, lacking any points in official events, still very much outside of the Official World Ranking.

- Gary Player, 72 years old and going strong, shot a second-round 70 at the ACE Group Classic in Naples, FL, an age-beating round that left the legendary Black Knight tied for 64th at 144 – and looking down the board at Jim Thorpe (145), David Edwards (145) and Ben Crenshaw (147), among others.  Player will be paired in today’s final round with two 54-year-olds, Mark McNulty and Mark James, both of whom, quite amazingly, he is tied with.  Bravo.

Saturday’s Round of the Day

Tom Jenkins made seven birdies and an eagle en route to a second-round Champions Tour 64, and Annika Sorenstam’s closing 69 was certainly clutch in Hawaii, but we’ll go with rather a surprising round, the four-over-par 75 shot by Robert Allenby at Riviera.  Allenby, who won this event in a memorable six-man playoff in 2001, began play tied for 2nd, four back of Phil Mickelson, and looked every bit Mickelson’s primary weekend competition.  But a double bogey at the par-4 8th derailed him before three subsequent bogeys finished him off, leaving Allenby tied for 30th – and largely going through the motions – entering today’s final round.