- Ogilvy’s Return, Act II:  Perhaps I spoke just a shade too soon when, on March 9th, I commented on Geoff Ogilvy’s return to form, for the talented Australian finished “only” 10th that week in Tampa, then tied for 14th at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.  His closing round at Bay Hill, however, was a stellar 66, which matched tournament winner Tiger Woods for the lowest score of the day, and perhaps set the stage for Oglivy’s exceptional play through two rounds at the WGC-CA Championship, where his 65-67 start lead Woods by one.  With Adam Scott trailing by three and nobody else closer than six, this could well evolve into a two-man battle over the weekend, a particularly interesting prospect given my longstanding sense that Ogilvy is one of the few players out there with the mental make-up to hold together under a Woods onslaught.  I guess we’ll be finding out shortly…

- Quotable:  “It's like public speaking in front of ten people is quite awkward, but 1,000 is easier because you can kind of blend it out. It's quite similar, I think. If you hit a putt and there's one person standing directly behind the hole, it's really quite off-putting. But if there's a whole load of people you don't really notice any of them.” – Geoff Ogilvy on dealing with Tiger’s massive galleries.

- Young(er) Guns:  Much attention has been paid to Japan’s 16-year-old phenom Ryo Ishikawa, and rightly so; Ishikawa won a full-fledged Japan Tour event, the 2007 Munsingwear Open, as a 15-year-old amateur.  But now comes word of Korea’s Noh Seung-yul, another 16-year-old professional with a fast-growing  résumé.  Noh was the 2005 Korean Amateur champion and twice a top-10 finisher in major Korean professional events during 2006.  Turning pro late in 2007, he served notice at the Asian Tour’s SAIL Open in February, where he tied for second with Jyoti Randhawa and Scott Hend, four shots behind New Zealand’s red-hot Mark Brown.  He has come to the fore again this week as co-leader through the first 30 holes of the weather-interrupted Asian Tour International , shooting 64 on Thursday and standing five under par through 12 holes when darkness halted play on Friday afternoon.  And if you’re wondering why more wasn’t made of his groundbreaking finish at the SAIL Open, the answer is that the Asian Tour inexplicably neglected to mention his age, rookie status, etc. in their official press release on the event.  Perhaps their P.R. staff was too busy trying to craft their image as “the official sanctioning body for professional golf in Asia” to notice.

- Lost In Translation:  Once again battling our way through the JLPGA’s hugely garbled “translated” website, we find that another highly talented Korean teen, Ji-Yai Shin, is presently tied for first with Sakura Yokomine mid-way through round two of the PRGR Ladies Cup.  I’ll attempt to keep an eye on this over the weekend but for any interested parties, live scoring is available here.  Click on the “Realtime Scoring” link at upper right, then “To English” at the top-left of the scoring table – and bear in mind that the JLPGA only keeps this leaderboard active during live play.

- Subtly Quotable:  “Palmer To Host 50th Hope Classic; Will Finally Get To See The Classic Club In Person” – Headline announcing Arnold Palmer’s appointment at GeoffShackelford.com.

Friday's Round of the Day

Scotland's Ross Bain may be ranked 510th in the world but that didn't stop him from firing a stunning 10-under-par 62 during the second round of the Asia Tour International in Thailand.  Bain made and eagle and eight birdies over the marginally difficult Pattana Golf Resort layout, lifting himself from 34th all the way to 3rd.