PGA Golf Talk

Phil Mickelson has had a year that no one would want to have. His wife and mother were both diagnosed with breast cancer in the same month. Obviously, he took a break from golf at that time. After awhile, he has found himself in a position to continue playing on the tour, starting this week in Singapore. He’s worked on his short game once again so he’s going to get better. Mickelson is the world’s number two player, but he might be on his way to number one if he’s gotten as much better as he says. It’s going to be a great year next year for this player, because he is one of the best players in the world and Tiger is struggling. We haven’t seen them go head-to-head for awhile yet, so hopefully he’ll be able to play more next year and give a good challenge to this year’s best players.

The PGA Grand Slam has been played now! And who won? Lucas Glover was the winner and shot 5 under 66 during the course of the last part of it to close it out. He won the US Open earlier this year and he was tied with the British Open champion Stewart Cink until the turn there at the Royal Golf Course. Glover is slowly showing himself to be a big time player who can prove himself against a variety of different people. It’s possible that he might be a successor to Tiger? Everyone’s always looking for the “next big player”, but it’s more fun to just be a little bit surprised.

With Matt Harmon aiming for a top place in the PGA Tour, it will be very interesting to see what he’s able to get done. He is one of the youngest golfers to have the chance to get into the Tour, but he’s definitely one of the best. He will have to reach hard to beat out those with slightly more talent or a lot of experience in these kinds of tough situations. But he’ll be fine. This will, however, be his third attempt to qualify, and the results of who actually qualifies will be announced later in the week. He recently came in 11th at the Hooters Tour and won some money, which could put him right on the cusp of winning a spot in the tournament.

Robert Allenby, the talented Australian golfer, has apologized to American Anthony Kim over comments he made following a close loss to the American this week in the President’s Cup. Allenby told reporters that maybe golfers would benefit by taking the “Kim theory” in their golf playing, which involves staying out late and coming home very tipsy and very late. Then you come out and shoot a 6-under. Kim took umbrage at the comment, because he says he didn’t stay out late like that and he also won 3 out of 4 competitions last week. So his nice week was ruined by a competitor coming out and saying uncharitable things. This attack on his character was also protested by the American team and Allenby came out to apologize for the comments, syaing that they were out of context and that Kim is a player of the highest caliber.

This is a year where the PGA world gets a little dose of reality. The reality is that Tiger Woods is ridiculously good and doesn’t panic down the stretch. This is a real pitfall for golfers and we’ve seen it happen frequently that a person will be way ahead and playing just right and then fall off at the end. But then you see a player like Tiger and he can be way behind but consistently comes back to dominance without any difficulty at all. This weekend, he putted the US players into another President’s Cup win, which puts them up in the standings and keeps their streak of wins in the tournament up. Nicely done, Tiger. You really have the right kind of followthrough!

Michael Jordan just got in trouble at Harding Park in San Francisco. He was photographed with a cigar in his mouth on the golf course and the picture was published in the newspaper. As a result, people figured he was smoking it too. But NBA Hall of Fame or not, the city officials released a statement reminding him that there is a smoking ban in public places, and the park is a public place. This is to say that he technically broke the law. But he wont be punished. It gives the ban some good publicity. Either way, he wont be allowed to continue playing in the upcoming tournaments there if he planned to keep smoking on the course. He is known as an avid golfer, though he’s not pro by any stretch. But he’s competitive about it, that’s for sure!

Matt Kuchar got back into the PGA Tour action at the Turning Stone Resort Championship. But it took them 6 holes in the playoff round for him to beat Vaughn Taylor for the win. So many people have a chance to win each of these battles and this is the one that it’s going to have. We’re hoping that it will be good to see Kuchar moving up in the rankings and competing against the best. It does get a little boring watching the Tiger Show every week, even though he’s a nice and interesting guy. We’d much rather get the chance to see a few extra players giving him a real challenge during the next few years.

When you think of athletes, you generally think of their chosen profession. But at second glance, many of them play golf, like major executives do. It’s very interesting, and now there’s a story about one of them. Jerry Rice was one of the top receivers in the NFL and it’s going to be interesting to see what he does in the next few years. He has announced that he will be at the Stonebrae Classic, during the Nationwide Classic. This isn’t the top PGA level, but it is close to the level of the top players. It’s like Triple-A for the PGA. It’s not clear how good he is at golfing, but it seems like it’s pretty likely that he will win some tournaments. Good job Jerry Rice!