BMW CHAMPIONSHIP
LEADERBOARD
-16 MICKELSON 64 -4
-16 SINGH 69 -3
-15 WESTWOOD 68 -4
-15 McILROY 69 -5
-14 SCOTT 66 -2
-14 GARRIGUS 66 -5
-14 DJ JOHNSON 67 -3
-13 WOODS 71 -6
-12 McDOWELL 69 -1
-12 ZACH JOHNSON 68 -6
-12 VAN PELT 71 -1
-11 five golfers
What
a leaderboard ! Last week I spoke about the cream rising to the top and
it has happened again and then some. Eight of the named golfers are
ranked inside the top 22 in the World, three in the top 4, but it is
more than that, if you asked the casual sports fan to name six active
golfers, five would probably be on this list. It is a sponsor and
televison executive's dream and viewing figures will be through the roof
in the US.
Figures to the right of each golfer are their 3rd round score and their
totals for the closing six holes this week, it is very hard not to
see this being decided coming down the home straight and these holes, which include
two par 3's, two long par 4's and a reachable par 5, with hazards a
plenty, are going to make for some fun viewing ! I am excited already !
Crooked Stick GC , just north of Indianapolis has not hosted a major
tour event since the 1991 PGA Championship. No
consecutive holes are laid out in the same direction and golfers
must constantly adjust to wind from a different tack. Long
holes are followed by short holes, and shots calling for right-to-left
flight are followed by shots requiring a left-to-right
path.Those closing six holes are a microcosm of the course as a whole
and will be a tournament within a tournament.
I am not going to spend a lot of time discussing the merits or
otherwise of the contenders, most of the named players could win if
things go their way, a couple I do not believe are long enough off the
tee to win and Garrigus and Van Pelt look out of their depth in this
line up. Having put up DJ Johnson last week and VJ as a winner about to
happen, I am going to disappointed if either of those two win, but I am
going to savour it regardless. Tiger had a nightmare front nine
yesterday, he has played the closing holes well and if he can hang in
there early, he could go close, as could another email favourite in the
other
Johnson, Zach and here is why
( LINK),
he is the only contender not to drop a shot over the final six holes,
but both need things to go their way early, with six world class golfers (
sorry Robert G) ahead of them in the pecking order.
I have had my eye on Big Phil since we came so close to a
major, major payout on him in a major, at the Masters this year.... so
close ! Mickelson won the AT&T at Pebble Beach in February and we
normally see the best of him early season, with most of his tour wins
coming between February and May, infact, we used to see very little of
him after the PGA Championship, but the Fed Ex Cup Playoff series has
changed all that, he has posted two end of the season victories in
recent years, including one at the Tour Championship in 2009. He showed
his well being with a fourth spot at
the Deutsche Bank event last week, where he finished strongly, shooting
his low round of the week on Sunday , -5 no shots dropped after the 3rd
hole, with his all round game looking in solid shape. When he won at PB
he shot a Sunday bogey free eight under par and it is " in contention"
that he really comes alive, thriving on competition.
Golf at the business end of events is all about how players handle
themselves under intense pressure and I always like "in contention "
stats as a guide to this, "top 5 performance" is the number of
times a player's finishing position improves or remains unchanged in the
final round when starting in the top 5 . Phil has entered the final
round in the top five 17 times in this last five seasons and only twice
has his position worsened.
He is at his happiest in competition and surrounded by his family,
they have been with him on tour for the last two weeks and it is no
coincidence that now things are coming together, after the Deutsche he
said “my game feels like it’s back and I’m ready to start competing
here in the next couple of weeks.”
In his post practice round interview on Wednesday he spoke a little
about his form and the changes to his putting grip/stroke ....
Q. You were playing so well after Deutsche Bank. You've got to be looking forward to tomorrow.
PHIL MICKELSON:
I'm looking forward to this week. My game is finally starting to come
around. I'm starting to drive the ball well and hit good iron shots, and
my putting has been really good, too. I'm looking forward to this week
and the next couple.
Q. Is the putting stroke getting more and more comfortable, or the grip that is?
PHIL MICKELSON:
I guess it's more comfortable the more I've used it, but the results
have been the same, and that's the ball starting on line, my touch has
been good, and I've made a lot of putts.
Q. How committed are you to that putting stroke?
PHIL MICKELSON:
Yeah, I don't see me going back any time soon. I really like it. It's
helped me with short putts, and then one of the other side effects has
been the touch on longer putts has been great, and on fast greens it's
even better because of the softness of my bottom hand. It sits very
lightly on the putter, and my touch is better.
Yesterday, after his fantastic 64 .....
JOEL SCHUCHMANN: Phil Mickelson, thank you for joining us
after a third-round 64, currently tied for the lead with several players
still on the course, but maybe some opening comments, great day, 10
birdies.
PHIL MICKELSON: It was a fun day. I got it going
with the putter. I hit a lot of good shots. It was very similar,
actually, to yesterday's round where I played really well, had a lot of
good opportunities. But yesterday when the ball was getting to the lip
and turning away, today they seemed to fall in.
Q. I'm not sure
how aware you were of your gallery, but you had a mob out there, and
you gave them quite a ride, and they loved it. This is the first time
you guys have been here since '91. Could you sense that hunger, and did
the crowd -- did you get a kick out of the crowd?
PHIL MICKELSON:
I think it's great to come play golf here. It's a great golf course,
and the community is -- it's unreal how much support we've had this
week. The weather has been difficult. I've driven -- driving to the
course, you see people walking for a couple miles from the parking lot
to get here, and I just think the dedication and the loyalty of golf
fans, especially in this area, is pretty impressive, given that it's not
like another sport where you just buy a ticket, sit down and watch the
entire event. You're walking miles, you're catching just a small glimpse
of the action, and I think that it's been pretty impressive the numbers
of people that have come out to support us, and we're very
appreciative.
Q. The last time the TOUR event was here, I think
you were getting ready to defend your U.S. Amateur title. Do you
remember reading about Daly and what kind of an impression that had on
you?
PHIL MICKELSON: I remember that I qualified for
the tournament and wasn't allowed to play in it, and that really upset
me back then. I won the Tucson Open in '91, which qualified me to play
the PGA Championship, and I wasn't allowed to play because I wanted to
graduate college and stay an amateur. I would have loved to have
competed. I felt I deserved to after I had already qualified, and I look
back on that 20 years later, and I'm still upset.
Q. I wonder
if you could just speak to, you've been in all the TOUR Championships
since the FedExCup began. This is the one thing that's been a benefit is
all the top guys are playing these tournaments and now we have a great
leaderboard like this. I wonder if you could just speak to that and how
that's evolved.
PHIL MICKELSON: It's been great for the
TOUR where a number of players would shut it down after the PGA
Championship, but now it's a huge motivating factor for us to keep our
games sharp. It has the best players in the world competing against each
other four additional times. More than that it's kept the U.S. players
sharp and their games really in tune heading into the Ryder Cup in this
year's instance or the Presidents Cup, and I think it's really helped
the U.S. side in our performance the last five years in these team
events.
Q. Could you talk about how satisfying these last two weeks having after a rough stretch this summer?
PHIL MICKELSON:
Certainly my game went south for a while, and I was trying to piece it
back together. I started with some iron play and it progressed to
getting my driver back to where I was hitting the ball straight and
getting my speed back, and now the putter is back.
It's taken me a
little while to piece it back together, but I could tell last week that
my game was back and I was ready to play at the highest level again. I
knew heading into this week I was going to have a good week. I came out
very anxious on Thursday and forced it a little too much the front nine
and didn't play a good nine holes. But after that I've been able to
settle down and play some good golf. I'm looking forward to tomorrow's
shootout. It should be fun.
I made Phil 3.60 in my 100% book and he
is 4.70 + on the exchanges, I was a little bigger all the other
contenders apart from Tiger ( 9.0 with me) , as I explained, things do
need to go his way early, or at least not against him, but he could be
fearsome over the closing holes and I don't mind taking a chance on him
at big odds, or at least including him in the portfolio, even with some
kind of knee problem (again) . He admitted to these, which I prefer tbh, Tiger
normally skims over, or denies any "problems", so I find this
refreshing, it didn't overly hurt his game over the closing holes.
Q. I saw you wiggling your left leg a little bit. Are you okay?
TIGER WOODS:
No, those shots didn't feel very good, those awkward shots. My knee
doesn't like that position, so that's kind of the way it goes.
Q. How do you feel about today?
TIGER WOODS:
I grinded hard. I didn't have much, and on top of that I made two
really bad bogeys on 7 and 8 from the middle of the fairway, but at
least I fought back where I have a chance going into tomorrow. It's
probably going to take 63 or 64 tomorrow, but it can be done out here.
The golf course is soft, and they've got some pretty easy pins out there
tomorrow.
Q. You have to have one good day in you, don't you?
TIGER WOODS:
You would think. You would think. I'm just trying to scrap it around
out there. I'm just waiting for that one good ball-striking day, and
with the way I'm chipping and putting right now, it can be done, I just
need to do it.
1.75 units Phil Mickelson outright 4.50 + , 0.5 units Tiger woods outright 13.0 + .
Six years, five months and 4,000 posts, I would really like to mark this with a winner !
Good Luck.
Contact: gowi8@btinternet.com
