PGA Golf Talk

At the FBR Open today, Nick Watney is ahead of all his competitors. There are some great players in there. But it’s not a very dramatic golf tournament at the moment, and we will have trouble saying much about it. This blogger is even discussing how well the spectators are getting along with each other. The richer ones are getting along with the General Admission folks and it’s a nice atmosphere. If the spectators know anything like the weather here, they will be happy simply to be outside in the nice weather. And they get to watch a great sport as well. We enjoy any good golf tournament, but can’t they make this a little bit more spicy?

Pat Perez won his first PGA Title at the Bob Hope Classic this week, having gotten himself back in order. He used to be a very temperamental guy, easily frustrated and upset at mistakes. He realized that all the best players were very balanced and even keeled. And he’s right. So he’s decided that mistakes are going to be just a speed bump rather than a really upsetting thing for him. This change in attitude clearly helped him out this time and he won at -33, by 3 strokes over Merrick. Congrats to him and we’re happy to see him finally reach his potential.

So the PGA is also worried about the economy. In fact, so much so that the CBS Sportsline page has a full article about the impact of the economic crisis on the sport. In fact, it’s possibly more interesting to look at the economic question than it is to think about the PGA tournament, where not too much has changed. The concern is mostly that there are a lot of different sponsors that are very worried about the current crisis. They want to make sure that they don’t even appear to be spending money for no good purpose at this point. And there are some companies that just don’t have the advertising money that they did a year ago. They can’t hold 100% of their previous sponsors, but hopefully they can hold quite a few more.

Zach Johnson has done an impressive job of rising in Golf’s ranks the last few years. It is exciting to see such a young man get better and better at his game. He’s relatively new to the game and people are curious as to why he’s gotten so much better. The Cedar Rapids native told CNNSI that he’s just worked hard, practiced practiced, and pushed himself all the way. Another person who’s from his town has also gotten far in his sport, especially yesterday: Mr. Kurt Warner, who just made the Super Bowl. What is it about that town that makes sportspeople that much better? Someone go to Cedar Rapids and let me know!

Here’s a quick little tip for the day for trying to hit those uphile chip shots.

Vijay Singh has been forced to withdraw from about 5 weeks of the PGA tour this season, because he needs to have knee surgery in shortly. He injured his knee several weeks ago at the Chevron World Challenge, though he didn’t specify how. He just said that it was wear and tear that got worse. He doesn’t want to put off getting it fixed either, because sometimes that causes even more problems in the end. His surgery will follow the Mercedes Benz Championship, which is currently going on and then he will miss possibly 5 weeks, more or less, until his knee surgery heals up and he can train back up for it. We wish him the best and a speedy recovery.

With the Spring season somewhat creeping up on us, it’s time to start shaking the rust off of your golf game. With a few tips found on pga.com, you can easily practice increasing your swing speed, ultimately meaning farther drives from the tee. This is an especially helpful tip, seeing as how one can practice it year round at an indoor driving range.

Natalie Gulbis has started to do the twittering thing. She writes about regular little things that she does. For example, she talks about movies she’s seen and little things she does during her regular life. Went to sleep. You know, even from my friends, I might not be that interested. It is nice to know that the big stars do the same kinds of things that we do everyday. We might’ve seen Marley and Me or whatever. It’s always fun to read a little bit about these kinds of things because it humanizes them a little bit. It’s not that they do anything spectacular usually. I’d love to see the twitter of major UN diplomats or something. But this is a good second best.

After failing to make the cut on Oct. 17 in Las Vegas, John Daly vented his anger in a most unfortunate manner. Ten days after this disappointing effort, Daly was picked up outside of a Hooters restaurant by Winston-Salem police for public intoxication. Due to the publication of a photo depicting Daly as clearly intoxicated, the PGA committee has suspended him for six months. While the PGA has not confirmed this (the PGA does not speak about fining/suspending players), Daly went public and explained the situation.