WANAMAKER WANNABES
Golf writer Barker Davis looks at the favorites at this week’s 91st PGA Championship, which begins Thursday on Hazeltine’s 7,674-yard, par-72 layout. Official odds provided by Ladbrokes of London:
Tiger Woods (7-4) - He has never played the two weeks leading into a major before, but it’s impossible to challenge that change in routine given that he won both of those Hazeltine warmups. If Tiger finishes with 114 putts or fewer, he’ll end the major skid and put the crowning touch on his stellar comeback season.
Padraig Harrington (25-1) - Paddy’s duel with Tiger at Firestone last week was proof the Irishman is finally seeing results from his season-long swing overhaul. He is perhaps the only man in golf at the moment with the skills, experience and constitution to swap shots with Woods.
Phil Mickelson (33-1) - It would make a heartwarming story, but it’s not likely to happen for Lefty this week. Mickelson could face some competitive rust after playing just once in the last six weeks, and he was a nonfactor in 2002 at Hazeltine, where his tie for 34th was his worst in a PGA Championship this decade.
Lee Westwood (33-1) - The 36-year-old Brit hasn’t won this season, but he has strung together four top-10 finishes, most notably his tie for third at the British Open, where he briefly held the lead during Sunday’s final nine. Hazeltine is a good fit for one of the game’s straightest long-drivers, but Westwood has a reputation for collapsing instead of closing.
Hunter Mahan (40-1) - He’s coming. That’s a promise. And a slightly lower-profile PGA Championship would be a perfect way for him to join the major club. The 27-year-old grinder still has some growing to do in the experience category; after all, he has won only one PGA Tour event (2007 Travelers). But only Tiger is more consistent than Mahan, who has missed only one cut this season (British Open) while amassing 10 top-20 finishes, including four top-sixes in his last five starts.
Steve Stricker (40-1) - Given the aging status of both Colin Montgomerie and Kenny Perry and Sergio Garcia’s tragic putting, Stricker might well be the best player without a major victory on his resume. Unfortunately, the Wisconsin native almost might be too nice to pull off a major conquest. Often bailed out by his short stick, the dead lefts tend to creep up on him under stress.
Sergio Garcia (40-1) - Please, the Spaniard could hit 72 greens and shoot even par the way he putts. Call Dave Pelz. Call a shrink. Call a hypnotist. Just don’t bother calling an engraver, because Sergio isn’t winning a major unless he finds a putting stroke.
Retief Goosen (40-1) - Wouldn’t that just be a perfectly fitting ending to a season of major despair? Much to the chagrin of many reporters, the quiet Goose always tends to make a leader board appearance at majors. He putts like a deity, feels nothing (including stress) and is always a threat to emerge from four days of semiconscious golf holding a trophy.
- Barker Davis
Leader board
Olympic zeal - up
Why? It’s seven years away, totally unnecessary and a lousy format
Hazeltine - down
Hot, humid and boring is no way to go through life
Length - up
It’s really hard to wrap your head around three 600-yard-plus par-5s
Tiger - up
His odds have dropped to as low as 3-2, according to some bookmakers
Scorecard
613.25 - Average yardage of Hazeltine’s four par-5s, only one of which is remotely reachable (572-yard seventh) from the tips. This week’s track is the longest in major history, but a huge chunk of the effective yardage is eaten up by those par-5s, which stretch a total of nearly 1.4 miles.
99 - Players among the top 100 represented in this week’s 156-man field. The only elite player missing from the gathering outside Minneapolis is Sweden’s Robert Karlsson (No. 17), who has been sidelined since May with an eye injury.
QUOTABLE
“If I’m not retired by then, yeah.”
- Tiger Woods when asked whether he would compete in the Olympics, which gives the IOC all the reason it needs to vote golf in for the 2016 Summer Games
“I never met an Irishman that didn’t drink until I met Paddy.”
- Jim Furyk on how this week’s defending champion, Padraig Harrington, is perceived on a personal level by U.S. players
POSTCARD FROM HAZELTINE
CHASKA, Minn. - When asked whether he had ever considered employing a “shrink” to help him with the mental side of the game, Lee Westwood responded with the kind of PC-mocking answer no American would have the temerity to utter:
“No, look at them [shrinks]. They all look a bit odd, like they need to see somebody. I find it a bit hard to take somebody like that serious.”
With apologies to those offended, Hazeltine might be the weakest major venue - taking into account architecture, course history, aesthetics and the ability to produce drama - the Rover has seen since he began covering the sport in 1994. Unless the tees on the par-5s are shifted up, all four are unreachable in two, stripping the layout of its one redeeming quality from the 2002 PGA Championship (ability to produce dramatic scoring shifts). Though it lacks the infrastructure and length to host another major, Interlachen is 20 minutes away and twice the golf course.
- Barker Davis
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