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Informative Articles

A Bad Golfer & Comon Mistake You Will Find Every Time
Fascinatingly enough most bad golfers are consistent enough with their consistent mistakes and poor play. Actually most of them ignore or are unaware of what has to be the single most important aspect of the golf swing. This is the setup or...

A Golfer's Diet
GOLO GOLF GRUB Fuel for the golfer. “A good diet can not make an average athlete great, but a poor diet can make a great athlete average.” -David Costill, Ball State University, Indiana Golf is a lifetime sport that both men and women of all...

The Elements of Achieving an Effective Driver Swing
An effective golf swing with driver combines many different elements to give the ball strength and distance. Each of these three elements carries its own weight in your golf game and if one element is missing then your golf game may suffer...

Use A Golf Training Club To Quickly Improve Golf Swing Speed
Using a golf training club is one of the most effective ways to increase golf swing speed and power. You can’t get anymore golf –specific than using a golf training club. There are many golf training clubs on the market and new ones coming...

Why is the Core Important to Golf?
Introduction The core is the "center of the body" and is a key component for many activities the body performs. A quick review of the core region will indicate: 1) there are a vast number of muscles incorporated in this section of the body and 2)...

 
Mercedes Championships: PGA 2006 Begins

Right, Max. Hawaii, Max.

It`s not just that California`s had a run of really wet weather lately (possibly forecasting the rain-delayed 2005 West Coast swing that revivified the age-old debate about indoor golf), it`s that the famous line from Annie Hall---"California, Max", as in, "if we lived in California, we could play outdoors every day, in the sun"---doesn`t apply this week because the PGA Tour kicks off the 2006 season with the Mercedes Championships at the Plantation Course in Kapalua, Hawaii, where the usual weather event comes in the form of trade winds, not steady drenching rains.

Every year I talk about what a great tournament this is: TV cutaways to and fro, commercial breaks of beautiful vistas, sun and sea from the course`s tall hills; a solid field of last year`s Tour winners; 400-plus yard drives on the last hole; and the possibility of long money on quality golfers in a small field. Because Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Retief Goosen and Padraig Harrington are not playing (or Ernie Els, by the way, who didn`t win in his injury-shortened 2005) and because there were so many low-ranked winners on Tour last year, this week`s Mercedes is a smaller (28-player), more bargain-filled field than normal. Mickelson and Goosen didn`t do the Silly Season tour like Woods and Harrington, and the latter`s decision to not play in Kapalua is curious as he`s never played in the tournament. Hawaii`s a long flight from anywhere, fine,


but it`s a guaranteed paycheck. And I have to figure the islands are sunnier than Ireland this time of year. Hawaii, Padraig.

There`s always the flipside to the strength-of-field approach. Maybe the favorites---Vijay Singh, Jim Furyk, David Toms and Sergio Garcia---do look more likely to win than 50-1 shots like Jason Bohn, Jason Gore and Ted Purdy. But given that there`s no cut, the pressure is off slightly, and so is the intimidation factor, which is significantly less a factor anyway because Tiger isn`t playing. Even if the world #1 was playing, though, I`d still look at other golfers. Bart Bryant, an unknown, won twice last year: the Memorial and season-ending Tour Championship where he held off guess who? Purdy won the Byron Nelson last May, fending off Singh.

As for the course, there are the peaks and valleys of Kapalua, and those trade winds (which are almost always at the players` backs on the last hole, yielding those 400-500-yard drives). The greens can be slick, which might be a factor for the favorite, Singh. Two months doesn`t account for much of an offseason; who can say if Vijay`s come to a happy place with his putter?

Jeremy Church covers Nascar for Brian Gabrielle Sports

About the author:

Jeremy Church is a documented member of the Professional Handicappers League. Read all of his articles at www.procappers .com/Jeremy_Church.htm