Joey's Golf Bag

Tiger has now won four PGA Tour events in a row (six in a row worldwide, counting his silly season win at his Target World Challenge). Let’s keep a count to see how far he gets towards Byron Nelson’s eleven in a row.

1. Accenture Match Play Championship
2. Dubai Desert Classic
3. Buick Invitational
4. Target World Challenge
5. Tour Championship
6. BMW Championship

Tiger had this to say about his game during an interview after winning the Accenture Match Play:

“I’ve got a plateful to work on,” Woods said. “You can always get better. You can always keep improving. Golf is fluid. It’s always evolving and always changing. You work hard on the short game, then you lose your long game. Work on your long game, then you don’t putt well. You don’t putt well, you work on your putting, all of a sudden you lose your long game.

You know, I’ve had this same complaint. 😉

Tiger Woods won 8&7 over Stewart Cink. Henrik Stenson beat Justin Leonard 3&2. Both were my picks. For the tournament, I was 24 of 32 for round 1, 6 of 16 for round 2, 2 of 8 for round 3, 3 of 4 for round 4, and 2 for 2 on the final day (I didn’t pick the semis), for a grand total of 37 out of 62. Not too shabby.

I’ve practiced a couple of times since my last practice post, none of which were particularly good. Because of a very busy work schedule, I rarely have time after work these days to practice, so I try to fit in two practices on the weekend.

Yesterday, I practiced at the Golden Bear Golf Center, on a chilly, but sunny, day that gradually warmed up into a really fine afternoon. I started out on the range, hitting 7-irons to warm up. Alan Niederlitz stopped by to say hello, and I hit a couple of shots for him. I spent most of that practice session working on tempo and dynamic impact, but didn’t really start hitting the ball well until the end of the bucket. I then practiced on the putting green, and it wasn’t one of my better putting practices, tending to hit the ball well past the hole. This is an improvement over my usual fault of leaving it short, so I wasn’t disturbed by this new fault. I finished up by running the sand drill in the bunker and then hitting a few sand shots with the lob wedge. I left only one ball in the bunker; out of about 12 shots, 10 were good ones.

This afternoon, I practiced at the Hank Haney Golf Ranch in Lewisville on a flawless winter afternoon, sunny, warm, not much wind. When I arrived, there were only a few people on the range; by the time I finished up on the range, it was packed from one end to the other, and there was a class at one end and some sort of special event on the other. I warmed up with the 7-iron, then moved on to alternating approach wedge, 9-iron, 7-iron and 5-iron. I had problems striking the ball on the toe and hitting hooks. I tried moving the ball back in my stance, which helped with the toe strikes, but didn’t get rid of the hooks. Finally, I figured out that my hooking problem was caused by being too passive on my lower body. Once I started driving toward the ball with my right knee and making sure to fully shift my weight to the left on the downswing, the hooks straightened out and I began to hit straight shots. Encouraged, I got out the 7-wood and 4-hybrid and began to hit some pretty decent shots with them. Next, the ultimate test: I got out the driver, which had been vexing me for weeks. My first shot was a bit low but right down the middle. As I got more comfortable, I started booming them into the net. The ball flight was mostly a push or a push fade, but very controlled and good trajectory. I was pretty pleased.

I skipped putting, as the green is still dormant and barely puttable, and crowded with people. Not my best practice today, but at least the long clubs are resembling golf shots now.

Paula Creamer rides late charge to victory.

Paula Creamer finished in a pink blur of clutch birdies to rip the Fields Open in Hawai’i out of Jeong Jang’s hands yesterday.

Creamer birdied four of the last five, including the final three, to win her fifth LPGA event. The $190,000 first prize gives her more than $4.2 million in career earnings and moves her into the Top 30 — at age 21. Her total of 16-under-par 200 was a tournament record by two shots.

Michelle, on the other hand, finished 20 shots back. Sigh.

My pick: Tiger Woods over Stewart Cink. Duh!

For the consolation match, Henrik Stenson over Justin Leonard.

I did better for the quarterfinals, 3 of 4. 🙂

Since I was out practicing golf during the playing of the quarterfinals, I wasn’t able to predict the winners of the semifinals.

Golf to return to Cuba.

Now that Fidel Castro has retired, perhaps he can find the time to work on his golf game.

In 1962, Mr. Castro lost a round of golf to Ernesto “Che” Guevara, who had been a caddy in his Argentine hometown before he became a guerrilla icon. Mr. Castro’s defeat may have had disastrous consequences for the sport. He had one Havana golf course turned into a military school, another into an art school. A journalist who wrote about the defeat of Cuba’s Maximum Leader, who was a notoriously bad loser, was fired the next day.

The golf course will be a fine place to celebrate Castro’s passing, don’t you think?

After a stellar day 1, my day 2 and day 3 picks were awful. Here’s my best shot in the quarters of the Accenture Match Play.

AAAAIIIIEEEEYYYYY!!!!! 🙁

Here are my picks for the third round of the Accenture Match Play.