With the Golf Channel doggedly showing every one of Tiger's shots as he spiralled to a 74,75 weekend the story for me was one of the 3 lefties..
First Mike Weir 75, T77 knocked $10,788 off the $240,000 or so he needs for full status this year and he now has 3 events to get it in. Knowing Mike and his positive nature and complete belief in himself he will be on the range somewhere today working on his game, he is not playing next week, and so I looked into his stats to see what he has to work on. As I said yesterday his 78,75 weekend included 5 bogey's in a row on Saturday, unheard of for Mike
His wedge play is still great, he is 1st in GIR from 125, and 100 yards, but the rest of his numbers, albeit after 2 events which included his MC last week are awful.
Driving : Distance 183rd and Accuracy 174th.. He is almost 20 yards behind the tour average. He has never been long but why can't Mike get the ball in the fairway anymore ??
Irons : Approaches from 175-200 yards 42' 2" 181st
Approaches from 150-175 yards 18' 11" 9th-
Approaches from 125-150 yards 20' 6" 90th-
Approaches from 50-125 yards 12' 1" 16th
Approaches from 200-225 yards 41' 8" 113th
Approaches from 225-250 yards 25' 7" 5th -
Approaches from 250-275 yards 77' 10" 115th
In general he is 177th in GIR.
Putting : Putts per round 28.75 ranks 44th
Putting from Inside 5' 96.61% 85th
Putting from 5-10' 61.90% 43rd
Putting from - 10-15' 20.00% 95th
Putting from - 15-20' .00%
Putting from - 20-25' .00%
Putting from - > 25' .00% 123rd
Putting from 5-15' 48.39% 62nd
Putting from 15-25' .00% 152nd '
So he isn't driving it well, his iron play is spotty, but his wedges are still great and he isn't putting all that well. It seems to me that driving the ball straight is the key to his return to the form we all expect from this lefty.. We all know how much easier even our games are when we are always in the fairway, but Mike hasn't driven the ball well in over 2 years and I mean before his injured elbow and he is never going to get better until he sorts that driver out.
Bubba Watson made a clutch 12-foot birdie at the 18th, for a 5-under 67 to win the Farmers Insurance Open his second win and he beat the other lefty in my story Phil Mickelson by a shot after Phil chose to lay up after driving into the rough on 18 to try and make eagle for the tie with his lob wedge. He had Bones walk up to attend the flag and made a nice attempt but no cigar..
Why did he lay up ?? Mickelson said the grass was into his ball, and that a hybrid would not have been enough to clear the water. To hit 3-wood would have gone well over the green, which he saw as a difficult shot. He figured his best chance at eagle was from the fairway, using the bank behind the hole to feed it toward the cup.
So Bubba with his wide open stance, prodigious length out of that skinny body of his, huge divots with his short irons, religious tweets, and always seeming a moment or two away from breaking down and balling beat Mickelson by a shot, Dustin Johnson 66 and Jhonattan Vegas 68, by 3..
By the way, our Venezuela rookie tied Watson for the lead on the 10th hole and looked like he could well win back to back weeks until his mid iron on the 18th flew into the water.
Still his 3rd place was worth $336,400 and he is your money leader as they head to Pheonix next week and what about Nick Watney who won here in 2009 when it was called the Buick Open closing with a 63 which included 8 birdies and a staggering 28 on the back nine !!! to T6.
Finally I started this week talking about PUMA and their great hats and colourful clothing, well if you missed it Rickie Fowler who ended up T20 almost made me reach for my shades with his electric orange PUMA outfit yesterday. He was orange from head to toe, as Faldo said his wardrobe cupboard must just be humming at night !!
1 2 2 Bubba Watson (SC) -16 F -5 71 65 69 67 272
2 1 6 Phil Mickelson (SC) -15 F -3 67 69 68 69 273
T3 4 12 Dustin Johnson (SC) -13 F -6 69 69 71 66 275
T3 3 1 Jhonattan Vegas (SC) -13 F -4 69 69 69 68 275
5 2 25 D.A. Points (SC) -12 F -5 73 68 68 67 276
T6 50 45 Nick Watney (SC) -10 F* -9 70 73 72 63 278
T6 1 14 Anthony Kim (SC) -10 F E 68 67 71 72 278
T6 3 24 Hunter Mahan (SC) -10 F 1 69 67 69 73 278
T9 15 58 Troy Matteson (SC) -9 F -5 74 68 70 67 279
T9 4 32 Marc Leishman (SC) -9 F -3 67 72 71 69 279
T9 2 58 Brandt Snedeker (SC) -9 F -2 70 69 70 70 279
T9 8 5 Bill Haas (SC) -9 F 3 67 66 71 75 279
Right now the only Canuck in the field for Pheonix is Stephen Ames, no Tiger, Mickelson will be the headliner as Hunter Mahan who was T6 this week defends his title..
Bryan Angus
No comments:
Post a Comment