The PGA Championship at Whistling Straits

August 10, 2010

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The PGA Championship starts this Thursday at Whistling Straits at Kohler, Wisconsin. This is the second time this great course has hosted a PGA Championship, the last one seeing the Big Fijian, Vijay Singh victorious in a playoff over Chris Dimarco and Justin Leonard.

Whistling Straits is an interesting course, it is a little bit of links style golf in the always links golf thought of state of Wisconsin. Premium is placed on putting your ball in play off the tee, so the winner this week will likely be among the leaders in the field in driving accuracy.

Tiger Woods has no chance to win this week. None, zip, zero, nada. The soon to be former world number one player is … in the words of Joe Willie Namath … struggaaaaliiiing …. Tiger cannot keep it on the golf course, frankly looked completely disinterested last week and now goes into a course that requires you to hit shots to certain spots on each hole. This sounds like appetite to miss the cut if you ask me.

Phil Mickelson, aka Flopsy McChokenstein, showed again last week why we love to get our fill of Phil. Just when it looks like he is poised to make a move, win a big tourney and take over the #1 spot, he goes out and fires a smooth 78 hitting it all over the park and looks completely lost. As only Phil can do in a presser, he indicates he really is close and expects big things this week. Links style courses have not be Phil’s forte, so we shall see what transpires.

Here are Goodman’s Picks for the week in no particular order

  • Justin Leonard, has had success here before, played well last week, good driver of the ball. I like this combination
  • Jeff Overton , about as consistent as they come over the last few weeks, has been a top 10 machine, so why not again
  • Ernie Els, Mr. “What about me” Ernie has fallen out of contention for a few years but has played great this year and leads in Fed Ex Cup points
  • Retief Goosen, only a triple bogey to start his third round sidetracked him last week, he finished 3 back, and if the putter gets going on tricky greens…..we have seen it before
  • Rory McIlroy, the kid is about due to throw out another great performance, why not this week.

As always I hope the wind blows thirty five, the rough is six feet tall and the ground hard as a runway. I love watching the best have a tough time of it.

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