Tidbits: Reavie makes last-minute preparations

By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.com Chief of Correspondents

Chez Reavie had to change his travel plans on Sunday after he won the RBC Canadian Open.

The PGA TOUR rookie had planned to play the Legends Reno-Tahoe Open this week but his first PGA TOUR victory gained him entry into his first World Golf Championships event at the Bridgestone Invitational. Reavie's playing well, too, after opening with a 68 in his debut at Firestone Country Club.

Franklin/Getty Images

Reavie strung together a solid 68 in his World Golf Championships debut.

RELATED

All the scores
CA Course Reporters
Transcripts
Round 1 notebook
Mickelson trying to find magic
Top 10 moments
Inside the Field
Who to Watch
Inside the Course

Reavie has been surprised at the reception in Akron. Almost as surprised as he was to get that text from Wayne Gretzky, who is a member, as is Reavie, at Whisper Rock Golf Club in Scottsdale. The text was signed "99" which was the Hall of Fame hockey player's number.

"It just shows you how many people watch golf," said the Arizona State product. "Everyone is congratulating me in the crowd, saying good playing last week, proud of you, and they've shown a lot of support."

Reavie is now in contention for PGA TOUR Rookie of the Year honors, but he refuses to get ahead of himself. After all, the week before his victory at Glen Abbey, Reavie was outside the all-exempt top 125 on the money list.

"I'm just taking it one step at a time," Reavie said. "It's mainly just setting new goals and just focusing on my goals and what I need to accomplish. And then all that rookie of the year and all that other stuff will take care of itself if I just fulfill the goals I set out for myself.

"My first goal was to keep my card and my second goal was to finish top 100. I had a whole list of them. Then somewhere down in the middle it was winning my first golf tournament. But it was all gaining the experience I needed to have the tools to win out here."

CHOPRA ALSO MAKES FIRESTONE DEBUT: Daniel Chopra is completing his first tour of the World Golf Championships this week.

The Swede with the spiked white hair picked up his first two PGA TOUR wins in a three-month span that began last October at the Ginn sur Mer Classic at Tesoro and ended with the Mercedes-Benz Championship to open the 2008 season. Among the spoils of those victories were invitations to elite events like this week's Bridgestone Invitational.

Chopra appears to be making the most of the opportunity, too, after a 67 on Thursday left him three strokes off the lead. His previous World Golf Championships appearances consisted of a first-round loss at the Accenture Match Play Championship and a tie for 39th at the CA Championship.

"I actually didn't really know what to expect," Chopra acknowledged. "Pretty tough golf course, really. So I tried to play as conservative as I possibly could. If I could get the ball in the fairway, try to put it somewhere in the middle of the green and try and two-putt from there. That's pretty much what I did all day. I actually played quite well."

Birdies on the first two holes, from 16 and 6 feet, respectively, set the tone for the day. Although Chopra dropped a shot when he couldn't get up and down from the bunker at the eight hole, he finished strong with birdies at Nos. 14 and 16.

All in all, Chopra was pleased after taking a three-week break to work out some inconsistencies in his swing. He'd had trouble putting a complete tournament together -- until a tie for 17th at the Buick Open his last time out, Chopra hadn't finished higher than 32nd in 17 starts after his win at Kapalua.

"So (I was) not overly confident starting the week just because you're playing the first round with some reasonably major changes, not huge, but enough to make you feel uncomfortable," Chopra said. "But it worked out pretty well today, and hopefully every round I play I feel more and more comfortable, so hopefully by the weekend I should be pretty good."

Chopra declined to go into specifics about the things he's been working on other than to say it was in the set-up where he had begun to fear errant shots toward one side of the golf course. "So being able to trust is the hard thing sometimes," he said.

"I was a little bit inconsistent all year long, really, with my game," Chopra said. "Even so, every tournament I had two good rounds and two bad rounds or three good rounds and a bad round. Even within a good round I'd have some shots that really shouldn't be hit considering how well I'd been playing that day.

"So I'm trying to smooth it all out a little bit and get a feel and a general idea for how the day is going to be before I even start. It was a little bit of a mystery all day long today."

HARRINGTON STRONG IN FIRST START SINCE BIRKDALE: A year ago, he would have been excited to hear the announcement at the first tee: "Please welcome Padraig Harrington, the reigning Open champion." On Thursday, though, the Irishman, who successfully defended his title at Royal Birkdale, didn't even hear the words.

"I noticed it sometime afterwards, maybe when I was walking on to the 18th green they announced it again," he said. "I didn't need that this year. I know I'm the Open champion."

Franklin/Getty Images

Harrington

Harrington shot a 1-under 69 in the first round. He admitted his mind was racing but he certainly couldn't be too discouraged with his start.

"I just struggled," he said. "I wasn't with it at times. I had a chip shot on 14 -- it was 45 yards, I misjudged it by 20 yards and hit it well. That says you're just not sharp when you do things like that, not quite with it.

"The whole idea is if I get better each day. I didn't do any harm today, which is great for me, and if I can get better each day, that would be great. And hopefully Sunday I'll be good and sharp; and if not, I'll be ready for next week."

BUMPING THE DUBS: Harrington admits he isn't one to read the newspaper. So he wasn't sure what kind of coverage his second straight victory in the Open Championship received back home in Dublin.

"You see some pictures, but I avoid most of it," he said. "I would think it was very much the same. I would think it was a big story. Somebody even said I even managed to get the Dubs off the front page of the paper."

One of the American writers was puzzled by the reference to the popular Gaelic football team. "That was lost in translation," he said.

"What state are you from?" Harrington asked. Florida, he was told.

"It would be like taking the Miami Dolphins off the front page of the paper if they had a big weekend," said Harrington, whose American cousin is Joey Harrington, a reserve quarterback with the Atlanta Falcons. "The Dubs had a big weekend that weekend. I bumped them off the page. That was a big deal."