What does it take to upstage Lorena Ochoa's absolute domination of women's golf?  For this week at least, there is an answer...

PGA, European & Asian Tours:  The Masters – Augusta, GA

In an era where any storyline carrying even the faintest hint of adversity is pumped into high drama by the media, Trevor Immelman wrote himself an epic suitable for Hollywood at the 72nd Masters, capturing his first Major championship only four months removed from having a benign tumor removed from his upper back.  Though the victory surely came as a surprise to those peddling Tiger Woods Grand Slam narratives, the reality is that Immelman’s career path has pointed him squarely towards this level of success since his late teens – a progression broken only by his recent health problems and, perhaps, the decision to delay playing full-time in the United States until 2006.  At Augusta, Immelman was never really off the lead, tying England’s Justin Rose for Thursday’s low round with a 68, then matching that number on Friday to top the field by one at the halfway mark.  A splendid birdie at the 18th gave him a Saturday 69 and a two-shot advantage on Brandt Snedeker going into Sunday, and then it was a matter of survival.  On a day when swirling winds made playing conditions tough enough that virtually no contending player mounted a significant charge, Immelman made bogeys at the first, the eighth and the 12th, and birdies at the fifth and 13th.  Pars at the 14th and 15th left him five clear of his nearest pursuer, which was fortunate; it made his double-bogey at the 16th more something to laugh at than to stress over.  In the end, a pair of closing pars brought Immelman home at eight-under-par 280, three ahead of Tiger Woods (who missed numerous makeable putts during a closing 72) and four up on Stewart Cink and Snedeker.  The victory jumps Immelman from 29th to 15th in the world ranking, but this figures to be only an intermediate step; he climbed as high as 12 late in 2006 and now, healthy and having broken through to the ranks of the elite, seems likely to find is way into the top 10 relatively soon.

                     FINAL RESULTS          MONEY LIST          PGA TOUR STATS
 
 
LPGA Tour:  Corona Championship – Morelia, Mexico

We are beyond repetitive now, well on our way to boring.  Of course, with nearly all of the LPGA Tour’s other top stars taking the week off, Lorena Ochoa was a strong favorite to win the Corona Championship in her native Mexico – but there’s winning, and then there’s winning.  Ochoa sailed through the first 54 holes with three straight 66s on the par-73 Tres Marias golf Club layout, before closing with a matter-of-fact 69, her 25-under-par total of 267 leaving 2nd-place finisher Song-Hee Kim a fat 11 shots (!) in arrears.  The victory is Ochoa’s third straight and her fourth in five 2008 starts.  Perhaps even more impressively, it is her second 11-shot victory of the season (the first coming over an elite field in Singapore), giving her the rather astonishing average margin of 8.5 strokes per win.  With all due respect to Annika Sorenstam, her goal of returning to number one seems to have gone the way of the buffalo.  Much like Tiger Woods, Ochoa is building a large enough lead in the Rolex Ranking to make the prospect of anyone overtaking her a distant proposition at best.

                          FINAL RESULTS          MONEY LIST          LPGA STATS
 
 
Elsewhere...

Following a runner-up finish at last week’s Yamaha Open, Korea’s Hyun-Ju Shin claimed her third career JLPGA victory at the Studio Alice Open, her a six-under-par 210 total edging Miho Koga by one.........So Yeon Ryu posted a 54-hole score of 211 to claim a four-shot victory at the Korean LPGA Tour’s first event of calendar 2008, the Sports Seoul – Kim Young Joo Open.........Nationwide Tour player Spencer Levin closed a six-shot final nine deficit to win the Canadian Tour’s Spring International in Modest, California, posting a 273 total before defeating Andrew Parr in sudden death.........In Bogota, Colombia, Wil Besseling of the Netherlands shot 268 while running away for a seven-shot victory at the Il Club Colombia Masters, the last of three South American events co-sponsored by the Tour de Las Americas and European Challenge Tour.........Asian Tour veteran Lu Wen-teh shot 283 in winning the Omega China Tour’s Kunming Championship, defeating 16-year-old Benny Ye Jianfeng by seven.

                                    The Masters - Augusta, GA

                     CURRENT LEADERBOARD          SUNDAY TEE TIMES 

                                                    INTERVIEWS

And As They Turn For Home...

One round to go now, and when we consider that 16 of the last 17 Masters champions have come from Sunday’s final pairing, it would be easy to say that the list of still-viable prospects is a short one.  The thing is, looking at the top four players on the board – Trevor Immelman, Brandt Snedeker, Steve Flesch and Paul Casey – we see a group with relatively limited experience contending on Sunday afternoon for a Major championship.  Thus while even non-golfers will note the presence of one Eldrick “Tiger” Woods in the fifth spot, the reality is that with such limited experience on the lead, the list of players still at least vaguely in the hunt might run a bit farther down the board than usual.  Combine this with the likelihood that a tournament committee will place some back nine pins in fairly accessible spots in attempts at generating some drama and I’m willing to say that it is possible – certainly not likely, but possible – that someone as far back as two under par could still sneak in.

So, as Trevor Immelman sleeps (?) on his two-shot 54-hole lead, here’s one final assessment of the favorites (and longshots) for Sunday.

Trevor Immelman (68-68-69  205): There may be nothing harder in golf than sleeping with the lead in a Major for three straight nights; by Sunday you’re just trying to keep the momentum going for one final day, and with the stifling pressure, your first real mistake too often deflates you right back into the pack.  But that said, I think Immelman stands a great chance to close the deal today.  This is a player who, prior to his health scare of 2007, finished 7th in earnings (and won the Western Open) as a 26-year-old PGA Tour rookie in 2006.  Perhaps more importantly, he has also been through the wars internationally, winning back-to-back South African Opens in 2003 and ’04 among his seven overseas victories.  Those who have followed his career from his early days in South Africa are in no way surprised by his presence here, nor will they be at all surprised if he dons a Green Jacket before nightfall.  Oh, by the way, in winning the ’06 Western, he defeated Tiger Woods (and Mathew Goggin) by two.

Brandt Snedeker (69-68-70  207): For a young player whose previous best Major finish was tied for 18th at last year’s PGA, Snedeker showed some major league resilience on Saturday, potentially blowing himself out of with bogeys at the 11th, 12th and 13th…then rallying wonderfully with birdies at the 14th, 15th and 18th to get right back into the fray.  Can he win?  Starting only two back of a solitary leader, absolutely.  The problem is that by any measure, both Immelman and Paul Casey are considerably more battle-hardened – and that’s not even considering the prospect of his potentially having to battle it out with Woods.

Steve Flesch (672-67-69  208): The likeable Flesch is a four-time PGA Tour winner (including the 2004 Colonial) so he’s hardly a stranger to playing late in the day on Sunday, however…  This is an entirely different sort of stage, and there’s little on his CV to suggest he’s ready to triumph on it.  Of the top five, he seems easily the least likely choice.

Paul Casey (71-69-69  209): This guy is sneaky good, being an eight-time European Tour winner at age 29, and with two Masters top 10s to his credit in only three starts.  He can also really pound it which, all things considered, never hurts (especially at the potentially crucial 13th and 15th on Sunday).  Of course, he’s never won in America, and has only limited experience in this rarified Major air.  It's easy to see him going either way, but my guess is he'll hang around.

Tiger Woods (72-71-68  211): What can we say?  It’s a virtual certainty he’ll make a move, likely on the order of another 68, at least.  But that would only get him to nine under par, and I'm thinking that won’t be enough.  Can he go lower?  That’s too dumb a question to dignify with a response.  But truthfully, he's likely going to have to if he wants to win, and so far this week Woods hasn’t looked like a 65 was imminent.  But then again, this is truly a different breed of cat.

Which Leaves Us With...: Stewart Cink, the only man at four-under-par 212, has been playing well all season, but his career best round at Augusta is 69, and he’ll need to go a good three strokes lower if he’s to have any real chance.  We then face a logjam of no less than nine players at two under, but realistically, only those who seem capable of going really low are worth considering.  The two that most readily fit this description are two-time Masters champ Phil Mickelson and two-time U.S. Open winner Retief Goosen, with the recent winner of the Zurich Classic, Argentina’s Andres Romero perhaps representing a longshot.  But for these boys, everything – and that means everything – must go just right.

PS - Lorena Ochoa leads the LPGA's Corona Championship by seven (!) entering today's final round, and a win will make her the youngest ever to qualify for entry into the golf Hall of Fame (she'll also set a record for the longest wait to actually be inducted since that won't be done until she's been on Tour for 10 years).  Bad timing for Ochoa as only three events - the Masters, the U.S. Open or the Open Championship - clearly have the juice to bump her completely from page one.  Then again, with her present form, she may continue winning for a while, so we'll have plenty of time in the weeks ahead to (re)ponder her greatness.

                                     The Masters - Augusta, GA

                       CURRENT LEADERBOARD         SATURDAY TEE TIMES   

                                                    INTERVIEWS 

In Their Own Words...

As we move into day three of the 2008 Masters, wondering how things will ultimately be resolved on Sunday, one trend has become fairly obvious: the players are not reacting warmly to the rough-, tree- and steroid-enhanced Augusta National layout.  That’s not to say they absolute hate it, of course, for Augusta remains one of golf’s hallowed grounds, an historic, almost surrealistically manicured layout which still includes several of the game’s most thrilling holes.  But when the normally diplomatic Tiger Woods states on national television that “You don’t really shoot good rounds here anymore.  You’ve just got to plod along” and likens the event more to the U.S. Open, I’m guessing that even the greenest of the Green Jackets had to take notice.

A little.

Augusta is a place that celebrates its “tradition” with as much vigor as any club in the game, and why not?  When the iconic Bobby Jones and Dr. Alister MacKenzie are responsible for bringing your course into the world, you’ve certainly got a lot to crow about.  But there’s a problem: Many of the changes wrought upon the course in recent years appear to fly directly in the face of the goals laid out by these illustrious creators.  Has the club really abandoned their vision despite basing so much of their P.R. upon it?  Here are a few excerpts on the subject from the writings of Jones, MacKenzie and Augusta’s legendary boss of bosses, Clifford Roberts.  I’ll throw in my own thoughts, but in the end you can be the judge.

“I believe it is true that with modern equipment and modern players, we cannot make a golf course more difficult or more testing for the expert simply by adding length.” – Bob Jones.

Undeniably true, as the many gargantuan courses shredded by modern professionals ably prove.  But make no mistake: the lengthening of select holes – especially the par fives, whose delicate go-for-it-or-not balance largely defines Augusta – has been mostly worthwhile.  It is hardly the club’s fault, after all, that equipment has gotten out of hand, and short of introducing a scaled-back “Masters ball” (as former Chairman Hootie Johnson once hinted at), a bit of lengthening represents a legitimate reaction to that problem.  [That said, the man responsible for blowing up the old championship tees – some of which would have really come in handy in the course’s current softened state – hasn’t a clue.]  (Continue)

                                     The Masters - Augusta, GA

                       CURRENT LEADERBOARD          FRIDAY TEE TIMES

                                                    INTERVIEWS

"It's a shame. They are missing the point really. Surely what we shoot should not matter. The original point of the Masters was that it should be fun to play and fun to watch." – Geoff Ogilvy

- You Can’t Win It On Thursday, But…:  Apparently, unless you’re Gary Player, Fuzzy Zoeller or one or two others, you can’t really lose it either.  As hard as the golf course may be playing, there isn’t a whole lot of separation between the haves and the have nots after Thursday’s opening round.  In fact, if you believe that there might be a 66 out there somewhere, and that even-par on Friday night could still have a chance to win, then anybody currently sitting at +6 is potentially still viable – which means that exactly nine golfers played themselves out of it after one round.
 
- “We Are Quite Willing To Have Low Scores…”:  So Bobby Jones once wrote, but it’s a different game at Augusta National now.  No less than Tiger Woods referred to yesterday’s round as “plodding” and drew comparisons with the U.S. Open – hardly surprising since he opened with 12 straight pars.  But perhaps the most damning thing Woods noted was the lack of noise on the golf course.  With rough, extreme length and intrusively planted trees adding up to a marked shortage of birdies and eagles, Masters “patrons” don’t have a whole lot to cheer about these days.  Is this a good thing?  I guess that depends who you talk to.  For both players and fans, the drudging succession of pars posted by the leaders cannot reasonably be seen as even approaching the dramatic excitement of yesteryear – though it does amaze me how many apologists still exist, largely arguing that since “it’s not that bad,” that somehow means it’s all still good.  The club, on the other hand, seems perfectly happy with things (at least outwardly), which suggests to me that they somehow value not suffering the “embarrassment” of low scores (St. Andrews seems to survive okay) ahead of running the sort of thrilling event that made the Masters famous.  One thing I know for certain: If this version of the Masters had debuted in 1934, the tournament would enjoy about one-tenth the prestige that its legendarily dramatic finishes have since bequeathed it.  Indeed, given its relatively humble beginnings as “The Augusta National Invitational,” I wonder if it would even be viewed as a Major championship...
 
- And Yet…:  Despite such tricked-up conditions,Thursday’s leaderboard actually was not a bomber’s paradise, with most of the lowest scores being posted by players not known for hitting wedges into par fives.  Certainly an interesting trend if it keeps up...but lets see how things look on Sunday night before drawing any conclusions.
 
- The Big (Par) Three:  Okay, so the new, made-for-television, “spending-time-with-my-family” Par Three Tournament did seem a bit over the top, what with four-year-olds running wild, caddies hitting shots, slow play rampant and both the late Clifford Roberts and the present greenkeeping staff surely cringing (albeit in utterly different places) as they watched.  But...  The opportunity to see Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player and Arnold Palmer play together remains…priceless.  Am I overly sentimental?  Perhaps, but even as someone who never particularly rooted for two of the three, I find the chance to see history parading vibrantly before us far too engaging to ignore.  Of course, much of this may be due to the present state of Augusta National; by turning the main course into a plodding sort of monster, club officials have (among other things) made it nearly impossible for the legendary past champions to break 80 on Thursday or Friday.  Thus while it would still be neat to see, say, Nicklaus and Palmer start things off with a Thursday morning 18, watching them on the par three course (where their games are not beaten bloody by 505-yard par 4s) now takes on a particular sort of charm.  That’s not to say that things weren’t a bit over the top on Wednesday, however.  All that was missing was a seven-foot NBA star carrying the bag for Corey Pavin…but we’ve seen that already.

                                      The Masters - Augusta, GA

                  CURRENT LEADERBOARD          THURSDAY TEE TIMES

                     INTERVIEWS:     WOODS     MICKELSON     ELS     SCOTT

                           GOOSEN     HARRINGTON     ROSE     JOHNSON    

"Historically, golf has enjoyed unprecedented periods of expansion when the role model has been an erratic player.  Walter Hagen never knew where his ball was going and he had to invent six or seven new shots every time he played just to get his ball back into play.  Arnold Palmer was the same, with the added element of excitement that at any moment his trousers might fall down."  - Peter Dobereiner

The Ones That Got Away

It is the harsh reality of competitive golf that only one player gets to win each tournament. 

Unlike most team sports, where half of the participants will go home victorious, golf’s ratio for success is a bit less generous – roughly 155-1 in most full-field events.  Consequently, the stories of those who’ve lost are often more compelling (and certainly more plentiful) than the tales surrounding those who’ve won, and nowhere is this more true than at the Masters.

Why has the road to a Green Jacket been so disproportionally littered with heartbreak? 

First, surely, because it is a Major championship.  The bigger the stage, the larger the audience, magnifying both success and failure exponentially.  Of even greater importance, however, is the once-unique design of Augusta National, where the back nine’s blend of thrilling all-or-nothing holes was the perfect breeding ground for high drama, of both the positive and negative variety.  And this distinctiveness of design has been a huge factor in another important way, for Augusta is a golf course which long favored – or, at least, gave the distinct appearance of favoring – a specific kind of player.  If you hit it long, it was generally believed, you had a leg up.  If you could work the ball consistently from right-to-left, that advantage was magnified.  And if you were an aggressive sort, well, this was a golf course built largely with you in mind.

Thus in addition to its long and distinguished roll of champions, the Masters also possesses a celebrated list of non-winners, a ledger of golfing greats who somehow never quite got over the hump.  In a handful of cases, they’re players who came oh-so-agonizingly close one memorable time.  For others, their inclusion here represents more of a lifetime non-achievement award.

So, with no further adieu, 10 players whose Masters failures have most haunted the hills and pines of Augusta…

10) Jim Ferrier – Ferrier finished 2nd in 1950, two shots behind Jimmy Demaret, and was six times among the top seven between 1946-52, but his inclusion is based more on the type of golfer he was.  An big, powerful man once described by Bernard Darwin as “a magnificent specimen of humanity,” Ferrier easily possessed the length necessary for Augusta success, yet he was chiefly celebrated for his marvelous skills on and around the greens.  With only one Major championship (the 1947 PGA) against 18 official PGA Tour wins, it might be argued that Ferrier was, in general, a Major underachiever, but Augusta surely seemed built for his game.

9) Ernie Els  - In many ways Els might be viewed as a modern-day Jim Ferrier, being of similar size and possessing a comparable range of skills – with, perhaps, even a bit more length.  Of course, Ernie has also logged about 30 more worldwide victories than Ferrier, and two more Majors…making his Masters disappointments that much more palpable.  He was never out of the top six from 2000-04, highlighted by solo 2nds in 2000 and, especially, 2004, when his flawless Sunday 67 included two eagles, yet came up one shy when Phil Mickelson birdied the last to win.  With his power and shotmaking skills, how has he not won here?  Then again, he’s the only man here who still has a chance to remove himself from this list.

8) Tom Kite – The rare non-power hitter in this bunch, Kite strung together an impressive 10 top-10 finishes over a 12-year span (1975-86) with seven of those actually being top 5s.  His nearest miss came in 1986, when he missed a 10-footer at the last that would have forced a playoff with Jack Nicklaus – a disappointment historically overshadowed by Greg Norman’s 18th-hole meltdown minutes later.

7) Lloyd Mangrum – Against an impressive ledger of 36 PGA Tour victories, Hall-of-Famer Lloyd Mangrum must rate among the game’s more disappointing Major championship players, claiming only a single Major (the 1946 U.S. Open) in 40+ starts.  But this is hardly to suggest he didn’t play well; indeed, from 1940-56, he logged a remarkable 26 top-10 finishes in 35 Major starts, including 10 straight at Augusta from 1947-56.  Twice a Green Jacket bridesmaid (1940 and ’49), but never, unfortunately, a bride.

6) Johnny Miller – A dominant force during the early 1970s, Miller was three times a runner-up here, twice in heartbreaking fashion.  In 1971, he led through 68 holes before being overtaken by a charging Charles Coody, and in 1975 he fell victim (along with fellow sufferer Tom Weiskopf) to Jack Nicklaus’s famous 40-foot birdie putt at the 16th, losing by one.  The rest of his Masters record was less imposing, but those two occasions were mighty close.

5) Ed Sneed – A four-time PGA Tour winner, Sneed had only one chance to win at Augusta, but what a chance it was.  In 1979, he led by three strokes going to the 70th hole, then missed three consecutive par putts of six feet or less to surrender the lead, before losing in a three-way playoff (with Tom Watson) to Fuzzy Zoeller.  Even under the throttling pressure, who would bet he’d have missed all three?

4) Tom Weiskopf – Not many players have finished 2nd on four occasions here, but then not many players have done a lot of things on Tom Weiskopf’s résumé.  He finished one back of George Archer in 1969, three behind Jack Nicklaus in 1972, two back of Gary Player in 1974 and, agonizingly, one behind Jack Nicklaus in 1975, when three putts at the 16th and a missed 10-footer at the last did him in.  Once they tire of Tom Fazio, perhaps the club hire him as “consulting architect…”

3) Ken Venturi – Venturi very nearly won the 1956 Masters while still an amateur, leading by four through 54 holes before a closing 80 (in very windy conditions) saw him lose to Jack Burke, Jr. by one.  Two years later, he looked to be on his way after Arnold Palmer’s apparent five at the par-3 12th – but tournaments officials later accepted Palmer’s version of a disagreement over an imbedded ball ruling and retroactively gave Arnold a three, and, ultimately, the championship.  Finally, in 1960, Palmer birdied the 17th and 18th holes to edge Venturi by one.  It’s unlikely that any golfer has been tormented more by Augusta National, unless it’s…

2) Greg Norman – Perhaps the all-time poster boy for Masters futility, the powerful, hugely skilled Norman’s failure to win at Augusta must rate the most surprising cases of futility in Major championship history.  Eight times he has finished among the top 5 (!), three times suffering utterly agonizing defeat.  In 1986, he blew a 4 iron right of the 18th green, the ensuing bogey costing him a chance at playing off with Jack Nicklaus.  The next year reached a playoff, only to lose to Larry Mize’s miraculous chip on the second hole of sudden death.  And then there was 1996, when a his closing 78 allowed Nick Faldo to make up a six-shot 54-hole deficit and win going away.  Once upon a time, Jack Nicklaus suggested that Norman would claim multiple Green Jackets.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.

1) Roberto de Vicenzo - Everyone else on this list could have won the Masters, but Argentina’s Roberto de Vicenzo essentially did – or, at least, a piece of it.  In 1968, de Vicenzo closed with a dazzling 65 to finish in an apparent tie with Bob Goalby, necessitating an 18-hole Monday playoff.  Unfortunately, playing partner Tommy Aaron had mistakenly marked de Vicenzo’s birdie at the 71st as a par. Thus while the card’s total of 65 was correct, the rules dictated that de Vicenzo be credited with the incorrect higher score of 66 – and with it 2nd place.  Forty years later, with non-stop TV coverage and live internet scoring rendering such clerical points 100% moot, professional golf still hasn’t adopted a local rule to prevent this sort of thing from happening again.

Why not?

“We are quite willing to have low scores made during the tournament.  It is not our intention to rig the golf course so as to make it tricky.  It is our feeling that there is something wrong with a golf course that will not yield a score in the sixties to a player who has played well enough to deserve it.”

So wrote Bobby Jones some 48 years – and 48,000 changes – ago, of his beloved Augusta National.

Speculation on what Jones (or, for that matter, his design partner Dr. Alister Mackenzie) might think of Augusta today has become an annual part of pre-Masters coverage, right up there with handicapping the favorites and wistfully recalling how Martha Burk went out with more a whimper than a bang.

Suggestions that Jones would be opposed to any alteration of the original design are flatly wrong; he was alive for – and largely presided over – numerous early changes, including the flattening of several greens, and the move away from the replica-style holes that once dotted the front nine. [Aside: how the often-cantankerous Mackenzie might have rolled with this is anybody’s guess.]  It is safe to say, on the other hand, that Jones certainly would not have embraced the rough which now flanks the club’s narrowed fairways (frequently removing a great measure of tee-shot strategy), nor the quasi-gimmicky tree-planting that came with it.

In any event, other then the color green, change has likely been the single most consistent theme at Augusta over the decades, so with apologies to readers of 2003’s Lost Links (from which I’ve adapted parts of this text) here’s an encapsulated look at the back nine, comparing how Jones and MacKenzie built it with what exists today.

Hole Number 10: Camellia   495 yds, Par 4  (1934: 430 yds) 
The 10th began life as a strategic, downhill 430-yard par four whose green was perched...  (Continue)

Virtually everything stops worldwide as we reach the year’s first Major championship, the Masters.  Thus this is one week where even if she wins by 10 shots at the Corona Championship, Lorena Ochoa gets overshadowed.  Probably.

PGA, European & Asian Tours:  The Masters

Site: Augusta National Golf Club  -  Augusta, GA
Yards: 7,445     Par: 72
Defending: Zach Johnson 289  (beat Retief Goosen, Rory Sabbatini & Tiger Woods by 2)
Field:   Everyone who’s physically able   Other Notables: All living past champions except Tommy Aaron, Seve Ballesteros, Jack Burke Jr., Billy Casper, Charles Coody, Nick Faldo, Doug Ford, Bob Goalby, Jack Nicklaus & Arnold Palmer.

Notes: This will be the tournament’s 72nd playing, having run consistently since 1934, save for World War II-oriented cancellations in 1943, ’44 and ’45.........Jack Nicklaus owns more green jackets than anyone (6), with other multiple winners being Arnold Palmer (4), Tiger Woods (4), Jimmy Demaret (3), Nick Faldo (3), Gary Player (3), Sam Snead (3), Seve Ballesteros (2), Ben Crenshaw (2), Ben Hogan (2), Bernhard Langer (2), Phil Mickelson (2), Byron Nelson (2), Jose Maria Olazabal (2), Horton Smith (2) and Tom Watson (2).........Inevitably, Tiger Woods (the Lorena Ochoa of men’s golf) enters the week as a strong favorite, but before people buy into any thoughts of invincibility, they should at least consider that he’s won only once here in the last five years.........Of the 94 entered players, 20 will be making their first Masters appearances, three will be amateurs, and 13 will be in the field as past champions.........Seven players were invited solely as a result of the recently reinstated PGA Tour tournament winner exemption, and three (Prayad Marksaeng of Thailand, Jeev Milkha Singh of India and Liang Wen-Chong of China) are playing on special invitations from the committee.........Realistically, if we write off the older former champions as well as the amateurs, the number of realistic possible winners is roughly 81.  Drop current professionals whose chances would seem extremely limited (e.g. the special invitees) and that number likely falls into the mid to low 60s.........The golf course continues to have rough and recently planted trees, both of which are antithetical to the writings of original designers Bobby Jones and Dr. Alister MacKenzie.  How does this affect the event?  To my way of thinking, adversely.  Both the club and the man hired to carry out their changes, Tom Fazio, will argue that today's Masters participants hit it long, high and straight, thus rendering silly the idea of maintaining/recreating holes which rewarded smart use of the angles, shots worked one direction or the other, or even run-up approaches – and on the surface, this rationale seems at least partially logical.  What's being missed, however, is the fact even a drive hit long, high and straight can be aimed to a specific side of a fairway, and if rough has been planted where some of that short grass used to be, then a very real element of playing strategy has been removed from the equation.  An excellent example is the par-4 11th, where players used to aim either down the right edge of the fairway (to minimize the invasiveness of the front-left greenside pond on their second) or down the far left side, hoping to make the water more of a frontal, carry sort of hazard.  Today, with rough occupying both areas, everyone must aim dead center, then play identical approaches.  Fans of the U.S. Open may like such a setup, but Jones and MacKenzie are well on record as being dead set against it.

                        ENTRANTS          WEBSITE          GOLF COURSE          AERIAL

LPGA Tour:  Corona Championship

Site: Morelia, Mexico  -  Tres Marias Residential Golf Club
Yards: 6,539     Par: 73
Defending: Silvia Cavalleri 272  (beat Julieta Granada & Lorena Ochoa by 2)
Field:   Rolex Top 20: Lorena Ochoa (1)   Other Notables: Sophie Gustafson, Lorie Kane & Brittany Lincicome

Notes: The LPGA returns to Mexico for the second time in 2008, and once again Lorena Ochoa (who has little choice) will be the sole elite player in the field………While this thus might appear an easy week for Ochoa to continue her winning ways, her lone loss of 2008 came on the first Mexican visit, at the MasterCard Classic, when a closing 68 lifted her into a tie for 8th………Tres Marias is a 27-hole, ravine-laden Jack Nicklaus design built in scenic country roughly halfway between Mexico City and Guadalajara.

                        ENTRANTS          WEBSITE          GOLF COURSE          AERIAL

Elsewhere...

The JLPGA moves to Hyogo Prefecture this week for the fourth playing of the Studio Alice Women’s Open, while the Korean LPGA begins its 2008 season at the Sports Seoul - Kim Young Joo Open.  The Canadian Tour (which does occasionally play in Canada) also opens their new year with the Spring International in Modesto, California, while for the third consecutive week, the Tour de Las Americas and European Challenge Tour are co-sponsors of a South American event, this time the Il Club Colombia Masters.  Finally, on the other side of the world, the Omega China Tour plays their third event, the Kunming Championship.

The following list of Masters favorites can potentially be of value to bettors because its odds reflect my sense of each player’s realistic chances of winning – numbers frequently quite different from the odds available from bookmakers, whose odds are based primarily on the handle.  Thus if you believe that I know what I’m talking about (and there are no guarantees there), you can compare this list with a bookmaker’s to get a sense of which players may represent the best bets on the bookmaker’s board.

For anyone so inclined, I’ll mention the following two fairly relevant points.  First, I place very little value on a player’s most recent performance (i.e. a strong finish in Houston) as a single week’s good golf seldom means much in a Major championship context.  Several weeks worth of good form, on the other hand, well, that’s generally a pretty good indicator.  And second, I’ve come to believe in recent years that the traditional book on Augusta National – that it’s a long-ball hitter’s paradise favoring the player who can turn it right to left – is no longer terribly valid.  So far as the length aspect goes, modern equipment has made virtually every participant (save Stephen Ames’ beloved old-timers) long enough to compete, as recent winners Zach Johnson and Mike Weir can testify.  The right-to-left thing, however, is a bit less concrete, because there’s no denying that holes like the 2nd, 5th, 8th (if going for the green in two), 10th, 13th and, to some extent, the 17th all favor the draw, while only the 18th (and, to a far lesser degree, the drive at the 1st) really requires a fade.  Yet my sense is that this really isn’t a huge factor anymore, perhaps because with modern equipment, few players work the ball meaningfully in any direction today, thus minimizing anyone’s advantage.  Of course, with the event’s all-time king, six-time winner Jack Nicklaus, being a lifelong fader, perhaps the whole left-to-right thing has been overrated since the beginning.

What definitely is not overrated is the value of experience playing at Augusta.  Bank on that.

Anyway….

Tiger Woods (USA) (3-1):  No point in talking about his strengths here; anyone interested enough to be reading this can recite them chapter and verse.  I would only point out that the even-money odds being offered by many bookies is, statistically speaking, a terrible bet.  After all, no matter how great Tiger is, he still only wins slightly better that once in every four starts…and he’s only won once here in the last five years.  But all of that said, my old friend The Commodore guarantees a Tiger victory.

Phil Mickelson (USA) (8-1):  The bookmakers are pretty accurate on this one.  Mickelson has had an up-and-down season to date but Augusta rewards experience and discipline as much as any tournament layout on earth. – and with two wins (2004 and ’06) and 10 career top 10s, Mickelson’s experience here is massive.  His discipline, of course, is generally an open question…

Geoff Ogilvy (Australia) (13-1):  There is much to like here.  First, despite only two previous Masters appearances (and a disastrous 81 in last year’s third round), Ogilvy genuinely believes that he can win here.  Second, with his game now back on track after limited off-season practice due to the birth of his second child, he’s playing very well, as his WGC victory at Doral indicates.  Third, he’s perhaps the only player out there who presently possesses the mental unflappability to give Tiger a run for his money when the heat is on.  And fourth, the golf course seems well-suited to his game (he did, after all, lead the field in birdies last year).  My personal non-Tiger choice.

Ernie Els (South Africa) (15-1):  It’s getting on towards now-or-never time for Els, who put together an exceptional record here early this decade (finishing no worse than 6th from 2000-04) before failing to better a T27 since 2005.  On physical talent alone he can never be discounted; indeed, the idea of his eventually finishing his career without a green jacket seems almost as inconceivable as, say…Greg Norman never winning here.  But Els has been too up-and-down this year to be reliable (even withdrawing from two recent events) and at this stage, his ability to hold up under the crushing Sunday pressure cannot be taken as a given.  He desperately covets this title, though…and we’re getting close to now or never.

Retief Goosen (South Africa) (16-1):  After an eight-month semi-slump, Goosen played much better in March, looking very much his old self with a T2 at the WGC-CA Championship.  An uninspired T57 in New Orleans might give pause to doubt, but like his countryman Els, Goosen’s physical talent is imposing – and with four top-three finishes here since 2002, he clearly knows his way around.  Is he all the way back?  Perhaps not, but with his Augusta experience, if Goosen gets off to a good start, he can win.

Vijay Singh (Fiji) (18-1):  At age 45, Singh is not quite as consistently great as he once was, but despite the occasional odd round, he’s finished among the top five in four of his last five PGA Tour starts.  He also enjoys a fine recent record at Augusta (winning in 2000 and finishing no worse than 8th from 2002-06) so he certainly knows the score.  Only the fact that his game seems just a shade less tight than it used to (particularly on the greens) prevents him from rating higher.

Adam Scott (Australia) (20-1):  The first question here is Scott’s health; he withdrew after the second round in Houston and while he figures to be okay be Thursday, as Henry Longhurst once wrote, “You never know till you get there.”  Otherwise, yes, Scott may well be the best under-30 in the world, and his 2008 form has been fairly strong, but…  Scott’s overall Major record isn’t much (four top 10s in 27 starts), and he has little past success at Augusta.  He’s bound for a Major breakthrough one of these days…I think.

K.J. Choi (Korea) (22-1):  Choi has been playing strong, steady golf in 2008.  Far more importantly, he appears to possess just the proper mix of toughness, focus and discipline to succeed here.  His Augusta record includes one top 10 in five visits (a memorable 3rd in 2004) but his game has improved enough in the last 18 months that most of that history is probably irrelevant.

Steve Stricker (USA) (24-1):  Despite being ranked 4th in the world, Stricker’s record at Augusta is uninspiring (one top 10 and four missed cuts in seven appearances) and to me, his game doesn’t feel particularly Masters friendly.  The thing is, he’s playing such consistently good golf these days that he cannot be ignored – and besides, as the legendary Willie Park Jr. memorably opined: “A man who can putt is a match for anyone.”

Padraig Harrington (Ireland) (25-1):  The reigning British Open champion has been playing steadily good (if unspectacular) golf of late, and at age 36 is just entering what figures to be his competitive prime.  With only a pair of top 10s in eight career starts, however, his Masters record, while hardly poor, indicates no particular knack for playing Augusta.  Then again, with the club steadily codifying the course to play like a U.S. Open site, perhaps this once key aspect isn’t so important anymore…

Jim Furyk (USA) (27-1):  Furyk has not had a terrible season to date (two top 10s in nine starts) but lets not forget that the world’s 7th-ranked player began 2008 at number two.  Like Steve Stricker, Augusta has never felt like Furyk’s type of layout to me – and with three top 10s in 11 Masters starts, he just might echo that sentiment.

Henrik Stenson (Sweden) (27-1):  A bit overlooked in America because he seldom plays here but the world’s 13th-ranked player seems a good fit at Augusta – though he’s only missed a cut and tied for 17th in two appearances.  Is winless in 2008 but generally playing well.

Sergio Garcia (Spain) (30-1):  Two top 10s, three MCs in nine appearances.  So what?  After last year’s fatalistic soul-bearing at Carnoustie, does Garcia have what it takes mentally to win a Major?  Can his putting hold up over four days on some of the most dangerous greens around?  The ball-striking’s certainly still there…but a win seems a longshot, all things considered.

Justin Rose (England) (30-1):  Another highly ranked player (9th in the world) with little on his overall CV to suggest he can win here…except, perhaps, for a 5th place tie a year ago.  I keep expecting Rose to show us another gear…but so far the talented 27-year-old has not yet even won in America.  Amazing, but true.

Luke Donald (England) (31-1):  Further evidence that length is no longer a key: the modestly powerful Donald has two top 10s at Augusta in just three career appearances.  As with Rose, I believe there’s enough talent here to make a Green Jacket possible.  Unlike with Rose, Donald has two tournament victories in the States, which might give him some sort of psychological leg up.

Rory Sabbatini (South Africa) (31-1):  After a slow start (MCs in his first three appearances), last year’s tie for 2nd  suggests that the fiery Sabbatini can potentially win here.  He hasn’t played especially well since early February, but with his self-confidence, it might not matter.

Angel Cabrera (Argentina) (33-1):  The reigning U.S. Open champion is another who hasn’t been at his best recently (two MCs and a WD in his last three American starts) but his superb driving game figures to sit favorably at Augusta.  Has three top 10s in eight Masters starts, so there is some positive background to draw on.

Tim Clark (South Africa) (37-1):  Yet another who hasn’t been peaking of late, nor does he carry the ideal power for Augusta.  But Clark’s overall skill and short game make up for a lot, as his 2nd-place finish in 2006 suggests.

Andres Romero (Argentina) (40-1):  A dark horse perhaps, but this 26-year-old Argentinean can play.  His recent victory in New Orleans will serve as a confidence boost, and while he has only limited Major experience, he has logged top 10s in both of his two British Open appearances.

Paul Casey (England) (50-1):  Another longshot as his form has been up and down for a while now.  But Casey can pound it, and he’s logged two top-10 finishes in three Masters starts.

Lorena Ochoa.

For this week anyway, the rest, as Rev. Jim Ignatowski once observed, "is all just tinsel."

PGA Tour:  Shell Houston Open – Humble, TX

With six missed cuts in nine previous 2008 starts, 28-year-old Johnson Wagner arrived in Houston ranked 193rd on the money list and with scarcely a dream of playing at next week’s Masters.  But following an opening 63 over the 7,457-yard Redstone Golf Club’s Tournament course (which tied him for the lead with a flu-ridden Adam Scott), Wagner reeled off steady rounds of 69-69-71 to claim both the Shell Houston Open and that coveted final spot at Augusta.  Wagner’s 16-under-par 272 total placed him two strokes ahead of Geoff Ogilvy and Chad Campbell, and three better than Billy Mayfair and 48-year-old Fred Couples, the tournament’s 2003 champion and the gallery’s sentimental choice.  Starting the final round one shot ahead of Campbell, Wagner went  out in two-under-par 34, enough to make the turn with a four-shot lead.  He then hung on gamely as several pursuers mounted charges, ultimately holing a 10-footer for par at the 17th, then a six-footer (again for par) at the last to win by two.  A two-time Nationwide Tour winner prior to gaining full PGA Tour playing privileges in 2007, Wagner moves himself from 193rd to 19th on the money list, and from 314th to 124th in the world ranking with the victory.  And now he’s going to Augusta.

                    FINAL RESULTS          MONEY LIST          PGA TOUR STATS

                                 INTERVIEWS:     WAGNER     CAMPBELL

European PGA Tour:  Estoril Open de Portugal – Estoril, Portugal

If holding up under adversity is a mark of a champion, then France’s Gregory Bourdy took a giant step on Sunday, when he defeated David Howell and Alastair Forsyth in sudden death the win the Estoril Open de Portugal.  After beginning the day four shots ahead, the 25-year-old Bourdy buckled early, carding bogeys at the second, third and sixth to lose his lead altogether.  Bourdy rallied with birdies at 10th, 11th and 13th, however, before one final birdie at the par-5 15th tied him with Howell, who’s closing 64 had him in the clubhouse on 284.  Forsyth made clutch birdies at the 17th and 18th to also post 284, then looked on as Bourdy left a 25-footer to win some six feet short.  But the gutsy Frenchman holed this must putt, then managed three straight pars to win in sudden death when Forsyth, then Howell bogeyed the second and third playoff holes respectively.  The victory is Bourdy’s second on the European Tour and lifts him to 21st in the Order of Merit, and from 166th to 97th in the world ranking.  The playoff loss deprived Forsyth of logging his second E Tour victory in three weeks, while for Howell it hopefully represented the end of an injury-driven slump dating to early 2007.

                    FINAL RESULTS          ORDER OF MERIT          E TOUR STATS

Asian PGA Tour:  Philippine Open – Mandaluyong City, Philippines

It is always a thrill to win one’s own national championship, and that was the feeling enjoyed by 29-year-old Angelo Que on Sunday when he closed with a 73 (for a five-under-par 283 total) to claim the Philippine Open at suburban Manila’s famed Wack Wack Golf & Country Club.  Entering play ranked 637th in the world, Que, a one-time Asian Tour winner (the 2004 Vietnam Masters), got up and down from just off the 72nd green to edge Malaysia’s rising regional star Danny Chia (who closed with a fine 66) by one.  Que managed his own 66 in the third round, placing him in the Sunday driver’s seat, and after a steady front nine, a birdie at the 14th moved him two in front.  A bogey at the 412-yard 17th cut the lead to one, however, but with Chia already in the clubhouse, Que got up and down at the last for victory.  The win moves him to 20th in the Asian Order of Merit, and up to 329th in the Official World Ranking.

                    FINAL RESULTS          ORDER OF MERIT          ASIAN STATS

Sunshine Tour:  Vodacom Origins of Golf Free State – Bloemfontein, South Africa

A man with a diverse résumé (not every professional golfer is a former South African Motor Cross champion), Dion Fourie claimed his second Sunshine Tour title on Friday, winning the first leg of the six-event Vodacom series at the Bloemfontein Golf Club with a 15-under-par 201 total.  His victory was not without a bit of adventure either; starting the final round one back of 36-hole leader John Bele, Fourie logged an eagle and four birdies during a red-hot outgoing 29, then stumbled home with a shaky 40 for one of the stranger 69s on recent record.  This-up-and-down round was enough to get the job done, however, bettering Jean Hugo and Chris Swanepoel by two.  Fourie, who had previously made only one cut in four 2008 Sunshine starts, moves to 60th in the Order of Merit with the victory, and to 1076th in the world ranking.

                    FINAL RESULTS          ORDER OF MERIT          SUNSHINE STATS

LPGA Tour:  Kraft Nabisco Championship – Rancho Mirage, CA

Her two previous 2008 victories (in Singapore and Phoenix) had come in runaways, but starting Sunday’s final round of the Kraft Nabisco Championship, Lorena Ochoa was in a dogfight, leading Korea’s Hee-Won Han by one and the trio of Cristie Kerr, Sweden's Maria Hjorth and Seon Hwa Lee by two.  But like any great champion, Ochoa answered the bell with authority, immediately extending her lead with birdies at the first and second, then pulling inevitably away with three more birdies – this time in succession – at the eighth, ninth and 10th.  At that point the story was pretty well written, and while Annika Sorenstam and Suzann Pettersen both shot impressive 68s to tie for 2nd , Ochoa was left only to avoid the water at the 14th and 18th as she strolled to the clubhouse with a textbook 67, for a 277 total and a five-shot triumph.  The victory is Ochoa’s third in four 2008 starts and, after a “drought” that was beginning to draw attention away from her numerous regular victories, her second straight Major championship title following last August’s Women’s British Open at St. Andrews.  The inevitable questions now will regard dominance (well-established), comparisons with Tiger Woods (now legitimate) and “greatest of all time” (still a long way off).  Suffice to say that at this very moment, we are watching a superior talent clicking on all cylinders; a star who has matured from regularly being able to win to actually doing so with alarming regularity.  The fun now will be to see how long it lasts.

                    FINAL RESULTS          MONEY LIST          LPGA STATS

                    INTERVIEWS:     OCHOA     SORENSTAM     PETTERSEN

Champions Tour: Cap Cana Championship – Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

On one of the more spectacularly situated golf courses the Champions (or most any other) Tour will visit, Mark Wiebe claimed his second senior title with a wire-to-wire victory at the inaugural Cap Cana Championship, played over the Dominican Republic’s seaside Punta Espada Golf Club.  Wiebe opened with five-under-par 67 in extremely windy conditions, then added a 68 on Saturday, followed by a closing 67 (which included a double-bogey at the 15th once matters were largely settled) to cruise home four shots ahead of Vicente Fernandez, and five up on Jay Haas and Craig Stadler.   Only the 62-year-old Fernandez mounted a major Sunday charge, birdieing holes four through eight, plus the 10th and 12th en route to a fine 65, but the six-shot deficit with which he began the day was simply too large to overcome.  Wiebe, who won his first Champions start at last September’s SAS Championship jumps from 34th to 6th on the money list with his victory.

                    FINAL RESULTS          MONEY LIST          CHAMPIONS STATS

Elsewhere...

The English team of Trish Johnson and Veronica Hudson claimed a five-stroke victory in the inaugural VCI European Ladies Cup, a mixed-format event played in Alicante, Spain.  Their 270 total was five better than teams from Belgium and Germany.........Hiroko Yamaguchi won her second career JLPGA title at the inaugural Yamaha Ladies Open in Fukuroi, closing with a five-over-par 77 (on a difficult scoring day) for a 217 total and a two-shot margin of victory.........Australia’s Aron Price, runner-up in this event one year ago, returned to make the Livermore Valley Wine Country Championship his first Nationwide tour victory, first tying J.J. Killeen at 283, then winning on the second hole of sudden death.........In Buenos Aires, Finland’s Antti Ahokas posted a 270 to better homestanding Martin Monguzzi by three and capture the Argentine Open, an event co-sponsored by both the Tour de Las Americas and the European Challenge Tour.........On the Futures tour, Leah Wigger won the American Systems Invitational in Dayotona Beach, FL with a four-under-par total of 212.

                   Kraft Nabisco Championship - Rancho Mirage, CA

                          CURRENT LEADERBOARD             SUNDAY TEE TIMES

           SATURDAY INTERVIEWS:    OCHOA     SORENSTAM     PETTERSEN     HAN

- The Closer?:  Were it not for Gregory Bourdy, this would be a heck of a golf tournament.  Bourdy, winner of the 2007 Mallorca Classic, is attempting to become the second Frenchman in as many weeks to win on the European Tour at the Estoril Portuguese Open – and with rounds of 63-65-68, he could be well on his way.  He owns a four-shot lead over Alastair Forsyth (winner  two weeks ago of the Madeira Island Open) and a five-shot cushion over South Africa’s Charl Schwartzel and England’s Miles Tunnicliff.  David Howell, world #72 Soren Kjeldsen and 18-year-old Rory McIlroy head up a group of five players sitting on 202, six shots back.  Can Bourdy close the deal?  At Mallorca, the 25-year-old began Sunday tied for the lead and coolly closed with a 67 to win by one, but starting the final round four shots ahead is another psychological story altogether.  Now the fun begins…

- Protecting Sponsors From…Themselves?:  And the beat goes on...  Well on his way to competitive oblivion (both Friday, and in general), John Daly decided that this week’s cause was a back injury and withdrew after 25 holes of the Shell Houston Open.  The problem here, once again, is that Daly was playing on a sponsor exemption – and once again, he has served as the PGA Tour’s unofficial ambassador for sponsor relations by heading home early, leaving tournament organizers high and dry.  For those keeping score at home, that’s Daly’s second withdrawal  in nine 2008 starts (after an unofficial Tour record six WDs in ’07), plus he was, to quote the Associated Press, “kicked out of the Arnold Palmer Invitational after missing his pro-am tee time.”  Once again, we are left to wonder why sponsors continue to delude themselves that Daly is a worthwhile addition to their event - and those decisions are entirely theirs for the PGA Tour is limited in its ability to dictate which individual pros a sponsor may or may not invite.  What the Tour can do, however, is demand, at the commissioner’s discretion, substantial medical proof of a withdrawing player’s injuries – and perhaps, in the cases of those whose injuries are suspect (read Daly), help them to “recover” by deeming them unfit to play for a set period of time.  Of course, in Daly’s case, the issue is far less physical than psychological.  And people thought that Tom Weiskopf had problems...

- To Play Or Not To Play, Part II:  I wonder if Adam Scott’s having second thoughts about having entered the Shell Houston Open instead of resting/practicing for the Masters.  Scott entered the week a bit under the weather, but battling a fever and swollen glands, managed an amazing Thursday 63 to grab a share of the lead at the Houston event.  His maladies caught up with him during Friday’s sloppy 76, however, and Scott subsequently withdrew, hoping that a weekend of rest might better prepare him for Augusta.  This, we can be certain, was a good decision.  The decision to go to Houston in the first place, however, well, that might be another story.