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TOUR Insider: AT&T Classic
 
May. 14, 2007
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By Dave Shedloski, PGATOUR.com Senior Correspondent

The newly named AT&T Classic enjoys a new date on the revamped PGA TOUR schedule, which should lead to a new kind of challenge for a field that numbers an unusual sum of 157 players.

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Stewart Cink will be playing a "home game" at the AT&T Classic, as he lives at the TPC Sugarloaf. (Greenwood/WireImage)

The 40th anniversary of the Atlanta stop features a move from early April and the week prior to the Masters to mid-May after THE PLAYERS Championship. That should translate into a golf course a bit faster, a bit more forgiving and a bit more favorable to scoring. The TPC Sugarloaf in Duluth, Ga., is a hilly, tree-lined 7,343 yards, but Stewart Cink, who calls the Greg Norman-designed layout home, says the venue's reputation as a "bomber's paradise" is in jeopardy.

"I think the change the tournament's going to go through will be similar to the change (THE PLAYERS) is going through," Cink said. "A lot warmer, a lot drier, the golf course will play a bit shorter. It might be narrower in the fairways, but not real difficult rye rough, maybe three inches. It will be a factor, but you can do some scoring from there. It won't be truly penal. I think it's just a lot better golf course than it was."

Cink predicts that Phil Mickelson's ridiculous 260 total from last year -- 28 under par and 13 better than Zach Johnson and Jose Maria Olazabal -- is an unlikely target score, but he would not be surprised if something around 20 under isn't the winning number, given the right conditions. "It's going to be a low-scoring event unless the greens get really hard. That's the only defense there," he said.

Speaking of new dates, while players might find the course more attractive, outside the ropes there might be a different competition creating attention. Casting agents for the ABC reality series, "The Bachelor," will be roaming the course on the weekend seeking potential "bachelorettes" to appear on the program.

Remember, it's all about scoring on the PGA TOUR.

Worth knowing:

  • If you think Cink, playing a home game, has a great chance this week in Atlanta, consider that Jim Furyk and Vijay Singh, two of the best players in the world who play regularly at TPC Sawgrass, have yet to win THE PLAYERS. Then again, another Sawgrass regular, Fred Funk, did OK there, taking the '05 title. Cink, who was runner-up to David Duval in 1999 and has six top-10 finishes, says he plays the TPC Sugarloaf about a dozen times a year.

  • On the other hand, there's this thought on Cink: of his four PGA TOUR victories, three have come the week after a major tournament. Hmmm.

  • In a bid to qualify for another U.S. Presidents Cup team, Funk, 50, is not planning to compete again on the Champions Tour until the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship in his native Maryland in October. Among the tournaments he is skipping on the senior circuit are three majors: Senior PGA Championship, U.S. Senior Open and Senior British Open.

  • Paul Azinger is going to the British Open. The U.S. Ryder Cup captain just completed a deal to work that week for ABC Sports during its television coverage of the year's third major. Azinger, 5-for-10 this year in cuts made, worked for ABC the previous two seasons beside Nick Faldo, who now is lead golf analyst at CBS. Azinger, who nearly won the 1987 Open Championship (finishing second to Faldo), said he has no plans to try to qualify for the tournament at Carnoustie, Scotland.

  • Chris DiMarco, who used a new Ping Anser putter at THE PLAYERS in finishing tied for 12th, is planning to have off-season arthroscopic surgery on his left shoulder. Bone spurs and tendonitis have troubled him all year, though a couple of recent cortisone shots have alleviated the pain.

  • This stands to be one of the most wide-open events of the season, given the absence of many of the most recent champions. Only four past champions in the last 20 years are in the field, one of them being 1988 winner Larry Nelson. The others: John Daly, Paul Stankowski and reigning Masters champion Zach Johnson, who won the '04 edition.

  • Nelson isn't the only Champions Tour player in the field. Raymond Floyd, 64, has entered, and he will be joined by his son, Robert, who was given a sponsor's exemption. The elder Floyd is supporting the tournament in deference to AT&T, with whom he has an endorsement deal.

    • TI's power ranking for the AT&T Classic:

    1. Zach Johnson, 2. Stewart Cink, 3. Tim Clark, 4. J.J. Henry, 5. Chris DiMarco.