Golf Experts Blog

At its zenith, in its purest, sweetest and most perfect form, the golf swing can leave you absolutely giddy - the rhythm, the subtle shift of the hips, the cocked wrists as the club hesitates at the top for that flicker of a millisecond and then the graceful downward explosion and the amazing crisp crack that echoes across the manicured land as the club meets the ball.

At its worst, though, there is nothing uglier - the lousy grip, off-balance, too slow/too fast, this-is-the-work-of-Satan lunge, the kind where you know before the club strikes the ball (if you get lucky and the club even strikes the $%&* ball) that it's going way left or way right or way up or, and this is my personal favorite, it's going to be the one that stays at shoelace-level for 30 feet before buzzing into the root system of the heavy grass like a mole on amphetamines.

David Duval has known both swings.

The man behind the wrap-around sunglasses won the British Open in 2001. Now, the PGA Tour should assign someone to follow him and scream "Fore!!!" during his backswing, just to give the spectators time to duck behind a tree. The greatest golfer in the world in 1999 now has an awkward swing. Most guys who swing like this are driving railroad spikes.

The fall has been documented, of course. It was his back. Or his neck. Or a bad wrist or shoulder. He claimed to have more injuries than Michelle Wie. His fall was even blamed, at one point, on a case of vertigo, that strange dizzying malady that often brings a queasy stomach and indicates either a serious inner ear malfunction or that you've just sat through an entire episode of "The View."

This is how far Duval fell in this crazy, whacky game: The year after his British Open win he lurched to 80th on the money list. The next year he was 211th. In 2005 he somehow got into 20 PGA tournaments, missing the cut in 19 of them and earning a grand total of $7,630. For the whole year! (Footnote: By comparison, last week Tiger Woods paid a contractor that exact amount because his drawbridge was making a funny noise and awakening 11-month-old baby Sam, who was so upset she kept spitting the silver spoon out of her mouth.)

Sorry.

Anyway, in 2006 Duval uncovered a few stray parts of his once-flawless swing and made the cut in 11 of 24 tournaments. But his skydive-without-a-parachute leap into obscurity got even worse the next year. So far in 2008 he has missed the cut in all eight tournaments he has managed to get into. He's playing this week in the AT&T Classic and kicked off the festivities on Thursday by bogeying the third, fourth and fifth holes.

A day earlier, Duval said this to an Associated Press reporter: "When I'm swinging well, nobody hits the golf ball any better than I do."

So, on the bright side, at least his long-term memory is still intact.

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Few events have been dealt a more serious blow from a date change than the AT&T Classic. When it was staged during the week between The Players Championship and the Masters, the Atlanta tournament boasted a very strong field. It also produced some wonderful drama. Phil Michelson won it three times. Tiger Woods won it once. Jose Maria Olazabal was runner-up twice.

But none of them will be playing this week, which is a shame. The TPC at Sugarloaf is considered by many to be one of Greg Norman's best designs. The greens are always firm and fast with a great variety of par-fours. The downhill, dogleg right par-five 18th is one of the more exciting finishing holes of the season, a place where guys have made eagle to win (Ben Crane) and hit it in the water to lose (Olazabal).

The five to watch this week include:
           
Zach Johnson: Two of his three wins have come on this layout. The other was a few miles east at a place called Augusta.

Retief Goosen: Another former winner who always plays well in Atlanta. He had a good spring, and would like to make up for the 77-75 weekend at Sawgrass. 

Stewart Cink: His house is on the golf course, and he plays here a lot. Throw in the year he's having and it would be foolish not to watch him. 

D.J. Trahan: Struggled with the putter since winning the Hope, but loves the course and has shown signs of a rebound.

Steve Flesch: Michelson and Mike Weir say the place sets up great for left-handers, and Flesch has played well in recent weeks.

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She was a nationally ranked junior tennis player in Sweden and could, they say, have stamped her name on courts around the world. A Swedish ski coach was so overwhelmed by her athletic gifts that he begged her parents to move the family from Stockholm to the country's northern mountains. But Annika Sorenstam picked golf.

She was smart.

We were lucky.

She'd hinted for a year or more that retirement loomed. She had done so much, piled up so many wins. So many awards. Won so much money. She tried to tell us that there was more to life and that this ride wouldn't last forever. But she's just 37. We dared to hope that as she recovered from last year's major back injuries and whipped her dazzling game back into shape, she would reconsider. She did not.

On Tuesday, Sorenstam said this would be her last year on the LPGA Tour. By fall she'll be gone.

"I have given it my all, and it's been fun," she said.

For those who love golf and all its tradition and who marvel at its intricately woven history – and for all who cherish the rare moments when the greatest pass our way – the career of Sorenstam is well worth celebrating.

She came to us first in 1991, arriving from Sweden at the University of Arizona and promptly winning seven events and becoming the first freshman ever to capture the NCAA national championship. In 1993 she was the Ladies European Tour rookie of the year and in 1994 was the LPGA rookie of the year. And then the young woman with the little-girl smile and the powerful swing - she held her own in the PGA's 2003 Colonial, enduring the ranting of players such as Vijay Singh -- began what might be the greatest career in the history of women's golf.

She won the U.S. Women's Open in 1995 and was the leading LPGA money winner that year. She was just warming up. From that year through 2006 she finished atop the money list eight times and was never worse than fourth on that list. In those 11 years, she won 69 tournaments and 10 majors. She won 11 times in 2002 and 10 times in 2005.

Said her former caddy, Colin Cann: "It's very important for her to get into her own little world."

Soon it will end. She will walk away at or near the very top of her game, joining a small group that includes running back Jim Brown and boxer Rocky Marciano. Few dare to go out that way.
For those of us who got to watch, this is a week to rejoice amid the sadness. Because you don't get much more fortunate than to watch the career of Annika Sorenstam play itself out.

And while, as Cann said, it was very important for Annika to get into her own world, there was something even more important: She got into ours.

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Should the Players Championship be considered a fifth major? Yahoo! Sports golf editor Michael Arkush and contributor Steve Eubanks disagree.

Arkush: This question comes up every year, and every year, the answer must be the same: NO. Why mess with tradition? The game is doing quite well with just four majors, the anticipation and excitement for each building at the perfect time. Adding a fifth is completely unnecessary. Besides, what would we do about past winners? Would they suddenly become major winners? Of course, not. Call me a traditionalist, but I've never been especially fond of the wild-card in baseball, either.

Eubanks: Majors aren't selected by a secret committee. This isn't the college of cardinals picking a Pope. Majors grow out of the popularity and drama of the events. In the early 20th century, the professional majors were the French, British, U.S., and Canadian Opens. In the ‘30s, ‘40s, and early ‘50s, the Western Open was a "major" event. The PGA Championship wasn't enough of a major for Ben Hogan to play it in 1953, and the British Open was a major in name only until Arnold Palmer resurrected it in 1960. The Players has the strongest field in golf, and the drama is always spectacular. By that measure, it's already a major. We might as well call it such.
 
Arkush: When would it end? What about the Wachovia Championship or the Memorial? They have tremendous fields, too. Should they be majors, as well? Soon, we could have seven or eight majors, and Tiger could break Jack's record by November. How else can we truly compare players from one generation to another unless we maintain the same major challenges? For the Players to be considered the unofficial "fifth major" is sufficient praise. It's a great tournament. It's just not a major championship.

Eubanks: Well, it should be a major championship. Have you looked at the winners over the years? It's a pretty formidable group. Jack won, and so has Tiger and Phil and Davis and now Sergio. Ask the players, as well. They'll tell you it feels like a major, and what better barometer is there?

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Lorena who?

Like an aging gunslinger back for one last go-round to remind everybody who's the real power in LPGA town, Annika Sorenstam trashed the field at the LPGA Michelob Ultra Open at Kingsmill in Williamsburg, Virginia this weekend.

How impressive was this win? Annika took it going away, winning by seven strokes, firing seven birdies, and setting a 72-hole tournament record of 19-under 265. She matched the Kingsmill record set by Scott Hoch in 1996 when the PGA swung through, and took the LPGA record from Karrie Webb.

Not bad for someone who was supposed to be riding off into the sunset by now after losing the No. 1 ranking in the world to Ochoa more than a year ago.

To be fair, injuries played a huge part in Sorenstam's winless 2007. But even the most optimistic Sorenstam fans couldn't have predicted she'd rally back the way she has, winning three tournaments this year. Even more impressive, she won for the 27th time in the past 30 tournaments she's led going into the final round. And she's amassed more than $1 million in earnings since the season began, coincidentally exactly the amount Yahoo! is paying us. (I'm joking, cousins-I-haven't-seen-in-a-decade.)

So pretty much everyone's got to be thrilled with Annika right now -- everyone but Ochoa, who's looking in her rear-view mirror, and Michelle Wie, who probably won't be calling Annika her BFF anytime soon.

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I have seen the PGA Tour without Tiger Woods. It looks a lot like the America's Cup race, that international series of sailboat regattas that has been boring the living daylights out of people since 1851.

Personal footnote: After a series of blogs about John Daly - who's such a nice guy that he actually did give someone the shirt off his back and, apparently, his shoes and socks, too - my editors have made me promise not to ever mention Daly again. Or at least not for a long, long time.

Anyway, the Players Championship is being played at its usual home in Florida (motto: "Come for the Sunshine. Stay Because You Can't Remember Where You're From"). But it's being played without Tiger Woods. This makes the TPC the golfing equivalent of a member-guest in Peoria. Except everyone is a guest.

Seriously, without Woods the field looks like a list of names on a $19-a-night motel ledger. Heath Slocum? Sure, buddy. Checkout time is 5 a.m. Fred Funk? Well, snap out of it. And use an ashtray. Charles Howell III, huh? Right. I loved you on "Gilligan's Island." Don't steal the towels.

No Tiger means no interest. It's like the Green Bay Packers without Brett Favre. The Lakers without Kobe. A creepy, bizarre story without Roger Clemens. It's not the TPC's fault. Frankly, if Tiger would have even tried to swing a club on his still-recovering knee TPC officials would have carried him to his ball on their shoulders. Tired Mr. Woods? Just sit over there and rest, right on the guy who is down on all fours. That's why we call him our chairman.

The TPC is still being played on the same magnificent course, too. But when I took out my Spanish-English dictionary and looked it up, well, the name of the course combines the words ponte ("point") and vedra ("me toward the next tournament Tiger's playing in.")
All because Woods had to have his knee - which has bothered him for a long time -- surgically repaired now. In prime golf season. The guy should probably look into getting a better HMO.

Look, I don't want to imply that not winning the Masters last month has left Tiger feeling a bit unenthusiastic. But rumor has it he'll also skip the British Open this year. Having the clubs re-gripped that week. And the U.S. Open? Sorry. Wife's all over him about the leaves in the gutters.

And if you're like me and are wondering why they even bothered to have the TPC if Tiger wasn't going to play, well, the answer is obvious: It gives us a chance to see Lucas Glover shoot back-to-back rounds of 80 and 79, thus making his astronomical two-day score the second-worst thing in Florida. Just behind Jose Canseco. And without the TV cameras trained on Woods, viewers have gotten to see other amazing golfing feats such as Ernie Els hitting more golf balls into a lake. On Thursday he put two balls into the lake on one hole. If Darwin was right, the next generation of the Els family will have webbed feet. Word around the clubhouse is that he has formally asked the PGA Rules Committee for permission to replace his 3-iron with a snorkel.

Which is why I made that America's Cup joke at the beginning. The PGA Tour without Woods is that boring. The only difference, really, is that the sailboats in the America's Cup races are a lot bigger than golfers.

You know, except for Daly.

Oops.

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I have seen the PGA Tour without Tiger Woods. It looks a lot like the America's Cup race, that international series of sailboat regattas that has been boring the living daylights out of people since 1851.

Personal footnote: After a series of blogs about John Daly - who's such a nice guy that he actually did give someone the shirt off his back and, apparently, his shoes and socks, too - my editors have made me promise not to ever mention Daly again. Or at least not for a long, long time.

Anyway, the Players Championship is being played at its usual home in Florida (motto: "Come for the Sunshine. Stay Because You Can't Remember Where You're From"). But it's being played without Tiger Woods. This makes the TPC the golfing equivalent of a member-guest in Peoria. Except everyone is a guest.

Seriously, without Woods the field looks like a list of names on a $19-a-night motel ledger. Heath Slocum? Sure, buddy. Checkout time is 5 a.m. Fred Funk? Well, snap out of it. And use an ashtray. Charles Howell III, huh? Right. I loved you on "Gilligan's Island." Don't steal the towels.

No Tiger means no interest. It's like the Green Bay Packers without Brett Favre. The Lakers without Kobe. A creepy, bizarre story without Roger Clemens. It's not the TPC's fault. Frankly, if Tiger would have even tried to swing a club on his still-recovering knee TPC officials would have carried him to his ball on their shoulders. Tired Mr. Woods? Just sit over there and rest, right on the guy who is down on all fours. That's why we call him our chairman.

The TPC is still being played on the same magnificent course, too. But when I took out my Spanish-English dictionary and looked it up, well, the name of the course combines the words ponte ("point") and vedra ("me toward the next tournament Tiger's playing in.")

All because Woods had to have his knee - which has bothered him for a long time -- surgically repaired now. In prime golf season. The guy should probably look into getting a better HMO.

Look, I don't want to imply that not winning the Masters last month has left Tiger feeling a bit unenthusiastic. But rumor has it he'll also skip the British Open this year. Having the clubs re-gripped that week. And the U.S. Open? Sorry. Wife's all over him about the leaves in the gutters.

And if you're like me and are wondering why they even bothered to have the TPC if Tiger wasn't going to play, well, the answer is obvious: It gives us a chance to see Lucas Glover shoot back-to-back rounds of 80 and 79, thus making his astronomical two-day score the second-worst thing in Florida. Just behind Jose Canseco. And without the TV cameras trained on Woods, viewers have gotten to see other amazing golfing feats such as Ernie Els hitting more golf balls into a lake. On Thursday he put two balls into the lake on one hole. If Darwin was right, the next generation of the Els family will have webbed feet. Word around the clubhouse is that he has formally asked the PGA Rules Committee for permission to replace his 3-iron with a snorkel.

Which is why I made that America's Cup joke at the beginning. The PGA Tour without Woods is that boring. The only difference, really, is that the sailboats in the America's Cup races are a lot bigger than golfers.

You know, except for Daly.

Oops.

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What's happening around the golf blogosphere these days, today featuring President David Palmer.

• Following up on our 17th at Sawgrass story earlier this week comes the tale of the world's worst avid golfer. He scored a 66 ... on the 17th hole. And his kid's now a blogger. Read the whole story at his site. [Mondesi's House]

• A look at Motley Crue lead singer Vince Neil's charity golf tournament. Porn stars and hair-metal rockers, banding together for the cause of justice!(Some NSFW language and innuendo within.) [Deadspin]

• A contrarian view of the U.S. plan to build a golf course in Baghdad. [WhirledView]

• Johnny Miller sees a lot of the young Johnny Miller in Anthony Kim. No, I don't think that means they're related. [Farther Off The Wall]

Seen a great golf link, story, picture, or post? Send it along to us for use in a future Links post by clicking here.

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I'm in this golf betting pool with my brothers and dad where we pick a slate of players to back each year. And each year, one name bedevils me: Sergio Garcia. Sergio's the perpetual tease, playing under the "Next Big Thing" tag for nearly a decade now. Every time I pick him, he flames out; every time I don't, he flirts with greatness.

But, lo and behold, he's in great position at the Players Championship after shooting a six-under 66 in the opening round. We all know that Thursday results are about as valuable as Thursday's newspaper come Sunday, but if Garcia's playing from ahead rather than trying to come from behind, he's got a much better shot at taking this thing home.

And he's got to be praying this doesn't come down to a putting contest. He was inches away from winning the British Open last year, needing only a simple up-and-down to win. A bogey put him into a playoff that he lost to Padraig Harrington.

With that major in his back pocket, the murmurs would have ceased. But until he finally brings home that elusive major, whenever it is, he'll have to put up with the questions, the criticisms, the whispers that he can't close the deal.

So could he do it this year? Could this be the tournament where he finally breaks through? He's nearing age 30, and with Tiger always looming and a charging horde of talented twentysomethings coming up from behind, he's in for a fight every weekend.

But this year, Tiger's not around, and the kids are looking up at Sergio on the leaderboard. The road doesn't get any easier than it is right now.

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