John Rollins went the wrong way on Sunday at Torrey Pines, but he's made some positive changes recently.
Feb. 9, 2009
By PGATOUR.COM staff
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WHAT WILL TIGER DO?: My first thought was to write about Phil Mickelson's frustrations in the first two weeks of the season. At the FBR Open, he had trouble finding fairways. At the Buick Invitational, the putts just wouldn't fall. His legion of fans has to hope the three-time AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am champ will benefit from good vibes in Monterey next week.
But Sunday night's report that Sam Alexis Woods now has a brother shifts the spotlight to her daddy, Tiger, and speculation as to when he will return to the PGA TOUR. Will it be at one of the first two World Golf Championships -- the Accenture Match Play Championship or CA Championship -- or the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill?
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You could make a case for any of them. After all, he's the defending champion in two of the three. My guess -- and to be clear, it's just my guess and nobody else's -- is at Tucson, which is two weeks away. By all reports, physically he's nearly ready and Accenture is a long-time sponsor. He loves match play, too, and he'd have to beat only five players to win again -- not that that worries the No. 1 player in the world, of course. -- Helen Ross
FIT TO WIN: John Rollins didn't win the Buick Invitational on Sunday, but it wasn't for lack of commitment. A lot has been made about the fact that Rollins dropped 30 pounds about two years ago in an effort to shape up not only his body, but his game. So maybe it wasn't a coincidence that a week after Pat Perez won in Arizona, Rollins was contending in California.
Perez and Rollins both started working with Joey Diovisalvi, the former trainer for another fitness nut, Vijay Singh, at about the same time a couple of years ago. I talked to Diovisalvi over the weekend and he naturally wasn't surprised to see them both playing well because of what he called a "major, major, major commitment" to getting their bodies where they wanted them to be. With that comes lifestyle changes. For Perez, that meant a new sense of calm and ultimately his first PGA TOUR victory. For Rollins, it meant taking a lesson from what Singh and Tiger Woods do before they ever put a peg in the ground.
Rollins' 74 strokes on Sunday might've added up to a robust final-round number, but at least it wasn't because of a robust physique. Now if he could only find someone to fix those leaky tee shots. -- Brian Wacker
GLOVER OH-SO-CLOSE: Unlike a lot of his fellow competitors, Lucas Glover enjoyed an extended break after the 2008 season. He didn't tee it up once in the Fall Series after a tie for 13th at the BMW Championship -- the third leg of the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup.
In his time away, it's becoming increasingly clear that Glover did some serious work on his game.
In three starts in 2009, he tied for 19th at the 50th Bob Hope Classic hosted by Arnold Palmer, tied for 42nd at the FBR Open and Sunday tied for third at the Buick Invitational after a final-round, 4-under 68. In those three starts, a 69 in the final round of the FBR Open was his worst closing score. That has Glover tied for fifth in final-round scoring average among players with at least three starts -- far better than 2008 where he was 98th in this category.
This is easily Glover's best start to a season. His lone PGA TOUR win came at the 2005 FUNAI Classic at the Walt Disney World Resort. But with a start like this, it's not hard to imagine that Glover will be contending for win No. 2 in the near future. -- T.J. Auclair
WELCOME BACK: Finally, he's back from knee surgery ... and I can't wait to see how he performs.
Oh, wait, you think I'm talking about Tiger Woods? Sorry, I was actually referring to defending FedExCup champion Vijay Singh, who makes his return to the PGA TOUR this week at Pebble Beach after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on his right knee in early January.
Obviously, Singh's return is generating, ahem, slightly less buzz than Tiger's as-yet-unannounced comeback. But the four consecutive tournaments that Vijay has missed since the season-opening Mercedes-Benz Championship must feel like an eternity for him; in this decade, Singh has never sat out more than three consecutive events prior to the Fall Series.
Singh isn't a man who likes to rest and it'll be interesting to see him battle the potential rust -- and any lingering effects of his surgery -- at an event he won in 2004 and finished second in a year ago. I'm thinking it won't take him long to get back in the groove. -- Mike McAllister
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| Stock up |
| John Rollins: The final-round 74 was not as bad as it looked, not on a course that was playing tough all week. This was Rollins' best finish since a runner-up at last year's Legends Reno-Tahoe Open and, with a newfound commitment to fitness, it's only a matter of time before Rollins wins. |
Matt Jones: The Aussie came out of nowhere Sunday, shooting an 8-under 64 that included birdies on five of the final six holes on the back nine, which is where he started his day. To shoot that number on that course is one of the best final rounds you will see all year. Jones jumped from T36 to fifth. |
Lucas Glover: He surely wasn't happy about a couple of missed putts and a bogey down the stretch Sunday. Glover has a little of the old Pat Perez in him in that he tends to stew over bad shots to the detriment of future ones, but he drove it well and mostly putted well. His final-round scoring average is also improving. |
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| Stock down |
| Phil Mickelson: He will win at some point this season. Right now, though, there seems to be more wrong with his game than he's letting on. Missing eight putts from 6 feet and closer Friday and hitting just 46 percent of his fairways all week isn't going to work. Neither is making birdie or better on pars 5s just 27 percent of the time this season. |
Luke Donald: It's hard to be down on a guy who finished T7, but the tee shot Donald hit on the par-3 eighth is one he'd definitely like to have back. Somehow, he fanned it just 115 yards, right and into the rough 80 yards short of the flag before hitting on and three-putting. There went his outside shot to win Sunday. |
Rory Sabbatini: This four-time TOUR winner is hard to figure out. He played well at the end of 2008 and the start of 2009, then goes out and shoots 76-78 to miss the cut by eight shots. Where's the guy who in 2007 finished T2 at the Masters, T2 at the Bridgestone Invitational and T9 at THE TOUR Championship? |
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| A Quick 18 |
| Front Nine | Back Nine |
| If there is a defense for John Rollins' collapse Sunday, it's that Torrey Pines played extremely difficult. There was not a bogey-free round all day and the 72.366 scoring average brought the cumulative average for the week to 74.010 -- just the second time since 1983 that the overall average exceeded 74. | It was good to see Pete Bender back on the bag this week. Bender, who has caddied for some of the game's greats, including Jack Nicklaus, Ray Floyd and Lanny Wadkins, now loops for Aaron Baddeley. Bender is back on the course after battling cancer and, among other things, spending two months in the hospital and three months carrying a backpack full of IVs wherever he went. |
| Now that Tiger Woods' wife, Elin, has given birth to the couple's second child, speculation will run rampant as to when he'll return to the PGA TOUR. Last week, Woods said his knee felt great and that he's able to practice full-bore. The only thing missing was his stamina. Translation: Don't be surprised if he defends at Accenture. | Watch "Uneven Fairways" on GOLF CHANNEL this week -- it's worth it. I got a chance to see an advance copy of the documentary celebrating African-American contributions to golf and it's as much enlightening as it is inspiring. Plus, it's got Samuel L. Jackson. It airs Wednesday at 8 p.m. |
| How weird does it sound to say that with the $954,000 Nick Watney won at this week's Buick Invitational he surpassed Jack Nicklaus on the career money list? Watney ranks 157th, Nicklaus 158th. | It looks like the world's No. 1 has a future tee time with the USA's No. 44, as in President Barack Obama. Woods, a guest at one of Obama's inauguration celebrations, said on his Web site last week, "He (Obama) was very busy, so we didn't get to talk much. I did ask him if he wanted to play golf and he said: 'I'd love to'. So we'll make it happen." |
| Hard to believe that just eight players in the 20-year history of the Nationwide Tour have won the same event twice. Vance Veazey pulled off that trick Sunday by winning the Panama Digicel Championship in a playoff; he also won in Panama in 2005. | It's difficult to believe, but Davis Love III is still waiting for his invite to the Masters. Unless he can win or get into the top 50 in the world rankings (he's 57th in the latest rankings that came out Monday), Love will be on the outside looking in. |
| According to a survey of 25 TOUR pros by Golf Digest, one of the players mentioned by his peers as being the most overhyped player on the TOUR was Camilo Villegas. A recount might be necessary -- it seems pretty obvious Villegas is going to be around for a while. | Tadd Fujikawa has received sponsor exemptions into The Honda Classic and the Puerto Rico Open presented by Banco Popular. After the way the 18-year-old Hawaiian dazzled us at the Sony Open in Hawaii, a lot more tournament sponsors should be lining up. |
| In that same survey, when asked who the best athlete on TOUR is, 50 percent answered Tiger Woods. Next was Will MacKenzie with 12 percent of the vote. The next question should have been -- did the other 50 percent not understand the question? | Michelle Wie will make her season debut this week. Not at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, but at the LPGA's season-opening SBS Open at Turtle Bay in Hawaii. This is the first time Wie will play as a full-fledged member of the LPGA Tour, though she still wants to play against the men. |
| Think golf doesn't produce its share of injuries? Mark Hensby withdrew this week because of a bad shoulder. Ditto Arron Oberholser, who is still bothered by a wrist injury suffered last year. Jason Gore battled back spasms all week and John Rollins did the same with a sore shoulder. | It was announced last week that Mike Weir will be inducted into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame this summer. Talk about a no-brainer. Weir has won eight times on the PGA TOUR and that includes victories at the Masters, TOUR Championship and World Golf Championships-American Express Championship. Not to mention an Air Canada Championship. |
| Golf can be as good an escape as any and while I'm not in Paul Goydos' head, I'm guessing playing this past week (and each of the next two) is better than staying on a leave of absence following the death of his ex-wife a few weeks ago. Nicknamed "Sunshine," Goydos could certainly use some right now. | Peyton Manning is obviously one of the NFL's best quarterbacks ... and apparently a pretty good golfer, too. Manning, who plays out of Crooked Stick GC and carries a 6.6 index, will be making his AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am debut. I'm guessing Marvin Harrison won't be his caddie. |
| While Camilo Villegas was busy trying to chase down his third career title at the Buick Invitational, his younger brother Manuel made his Nationwide Tour debut. Unfortunately for the younger Villegas, things didn't go quite as well -- he missed the cut by two in Panama with rounds of 71-74. | After watching highlights on the GOLF CHANNEL of some of Tiger Woods' dominating major victories, his 2000 U.S. Open victory might have been every bit as impressive as his '08 U.S. Open victory, albeit for different reasons. |
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| The Forward Spin |
One guy -- Vijay Singh -- is back from injury and another -- Jim Furyk -- is making his season debut at this week's AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, which also marks the annual Bill Murray sighting. Murray is one of a number of celebrities who will join various athletes (past and present) and big wigs like Chuck Schwab for six-hour rounds and lots of antics.
Naturally, that begs the question of which celeb-laden event is better, this or the 50th Bob Hope Classic hosted by Arnold Palmer.
Both are very different -- the Bob Hope is more Alice Cooper, while Pebble Beach more Rat Pack -- but both are great for the fans. |
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Stock up/Stock down, Quick 18 and Forward Spin were written by PGATOUR.COM Site Producer Brian Wacker
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