Notebook: Who's the best player yet to win a WGC event?

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Stan Badz/PGA TOUR

Jim Furyk is one of the five best players without a World Golf Championships win.

DORAL, Fla. -- A year ago, the first name that came to mind was Phil Mickelson.

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He didn't have a World Golf Championships on his resume until he won the CA Championship 364 days ago at Doral. And then he added another one of the game's coveted global titles at the HSBC Champions in November.

So Mickelson has joined an elite group of World Golf Championships winners. Tiger Woods has won 16 individual titles -- which would be a stellar career for many players -- while Geoff Ogilvy has won three. Darren Clarke joins Mickelson with two.

Another 11 players -- Jeff Maggert, Mike Weir, Steve Stricker, Kevin Sutherland, Craig Parry, Stewart Cink, Ernie Els, David Toms, Henrik Stenson, Vijay Singh and Ian Poulter -- each have one World Golf Championships title.

Poulter, who won the Accenture Match Play Championship three weeks ago is the only player who can win the World Golf Championships "slam" this year. Woods may have been dominant in the global series, but he's never won all three (and now four, with last year's addition of the HSBC Champions) in a single year.

As Mickelson defends his title at TPC Blue Monster this week, it occurred to us to wonder -- who are the five best players in the field who have yet to win a World Golf Championships event? Here are our candidates:

• Padraig Harrington: The three-time major champion has played in 31 World Golf Championships and has six top-10s, including a tie for second at last year's Bridgestone Invitational.

• Jim Furyk: The 2003 U.S. Open winner has 29 World Golf Championships starts and 13 top-10s -- a consistency that echoes his career. Doral has been particularly kind with a third last year and tie for second in 2008.

• Sergio Garcia: Not to put another monkey on the 30-year-old Spaniard's back, but he has played in 29 World Golf Championships and had 11 top-10s. He's tied for third in two CA Championships -- at Harding Park in 2005 and Doral two years later. He lost to Camilo Villegas in the consolation finals at the Accenture Match Play Championship last month, too.

• Lee Westwood: The world No. 4 is, like Garcia, looking for his first major and his first World Golf Championships title. He's played in 28 and has six top-10s, including solo second in the 2000 American Express Championship at Valderrama and a tie for second at the '08 Bridgestone Invitational.

• Retief Goosen: The two-time U.S. Open champ has 30 World Golf Championships appearances and 10 top-10s. He's finished second in the CA Championship twice, two years ago at Doral and in 2002 at Mount Juliet in Kilkenny, Ireland.

In 72 holes, we'll find out whether any of those have broken through -- or an entirely new face joins the crowd.

WHAT'S FOR DINNER? Hunter Mahan didn't do anything outrageous when he won the Waste Management Phoenix Open 10 days ago.

Mahan

He simply went out to a "nice dinner "with his good friend John Rollins and his wife, Heather, as well as some PING representatives, at Maestro's Ocean Club in Scottsdale.

Dinner consisted of lobster, shrimp and crab -- "I'm a big seafood guy," Mahan said -- as well as a juicy steak and most importantly, macaroni and cheese. "That's a 'must,' I think, after a win," he added with a grin.

Rollins chose the wine. And just what grape brings out the best in mac and cheese?

"I usually go red. I'm not a big white guy,' Mahan said. "I think the spiciness (of a red wine) brings out some of the flavors in the cheese. I mean, if you have good cheese in there, you can get some gorgonzola or something like that, some hearty cheese that has a lot of flavor, it's just in your mouth, it's just a vacation. Don't be shy. Don't be shy. "

Mahan is trying to win his second straight start this week at the World Golf Championships-CA Championship. Miami would certainly offer a plethora of culinary opportunities for another victory celebration.

BRITISH INVASION: Paul Casey remembers a time, and not too long ago, either, when he would sit in front of a group of journalists and be faced with the inevitable question: why aren't English golfers keeping pace with the rest of the world?

Casey

But with Lee Westwood now ranked No. 4, Casey fifth and Ian Poulter weighing in at No. 6, those questions are no more. He credits the resurgence to the influence of players like Nick Faldo, Seve Ballesteros, Ian Woosnam, Bernhard Langer and Sandy Lyle.

"Overnight success always takes ten years, 20 years," Casey said with a smile.

Casey, who tied for fourth last week at The Honda Classic, remembers distinctly the first -- and only -- time he ever played with Ballesteros. It was in a European Tour event in Tenerife in the early 2000s.

"He hit it about 30 or 40 yards left of the first green with his second shot, and the ball was actually sitting on a stone wall and he got up and down from a stone wall," Casey remembered, grinning broadly. "That's all I wanted to see. ... It was fantastic.

"I remember each one of those European sort of great golfers for different reasons. For Seve, it was the passion, it was the sort of spirit he played it in. And the recovery shots, more often than not, the memories are the shots he hit out of trouble, difficult situations.

"...It was that 'anything's possible' attitude, and usually he pulled the shots off. I got to see it live and I feel very, very lucky that I got to see it in person."

WESTWOOD HURTING: Lee Westwood was pleased with his tie for ninth at The Honda Classic for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that strained ligament in his right knee that he'd been nursing.

Westwood

The Englishman had not played since bowing out in the second round of the Accenture Match Play Championship. He injured his knee pulling on a pair of boots but rounds of 69-71-70-68 on the Champion Course at PGA National indicated he's back on the right track.

"It's a seven- to 10-day recovery thing for that," Westwood said. "So I couldn't really do any twisting on it so just put the clubs away, just did a bit of chipping and putting. The weather has been cold at home and don't fancy going out to work on my game anyway at this time of the year.

"So that's really the reason that I felt the rust, and the knee injury I suppose but that's all sorted out. It felt stronger as the week went on. I didn't have any pain playing golf, but I just didn't quite have the confidence in it to load it and unload it when I wanted to. So wasn't quite hitting the ball how I would like."

PADRAIG'S RANKING: Padraig Harrington, once ranked as high as No. 3 in the world, appeared surprised Wednesday when someone mentioned that he had just fallen out of the top 10.

"You never look on the way down, you only look on the way up," Harrington said with a smile.

Not to worry, though. Harrington traditionally comes on strong as the summer heats up -- witness those two British Open titles and the PGA Championship -- so he expects to start his ascent from No. 13 soon.

"It's just the nature of the beast that it swings in roundabouts," Harrington said. "As long as I'm still in touch. I'm sure a win this week would jump me a long way back up. ... You generally have a feel that a couple of wins will get you back up to certainly inside top five, and then you know, another couple of weeks on top of that, and you're challenging second place.

"I think it's about ten wins I need before I'll be challenging first place, but you know, that's how you look at it rather than necessarily what position you're at."

One of the British reporters reminded Harrington that he improved his ranking for the European Ryder Cup team last week.

"There you go. Don't look at that, either," Harrington said. "... I'm sure my wife has it all figured out now. And she has the good sense not to tell me I've dropped to 13th in the world.

EUROPEAN HISTORY 101: One of the reporters who attended Padraig Harrington's pre-tournament press conference could have used a geography -- and history -- lesson. He wanted to know whether a Harrington win at Doral would be a victory for the Irish or the British people.

Now, Harrington, who is from Dublin in the Republic of Ireland, which is definitely not a part of the Great Britian, is one of the nicest players on the planet. While he didn't get angry at the man who asked the question, he got his point across

"Obviously by asking that question, you haven't shown very much insight into anything, so I'll let you go do the homework on it," Harrington said. "That would be like if a Canadian won here, would it be a triumph for the Americans or the Canadians. ...

"I'm not from Britain. I'm Irish. ... I think you want to talk that to maybe one of the guys from Northern Ireland. I'm from the other side of the Republic: Green, white and orange."

With that, he pointed to the Irish flags on the podium.