GOUGE: The biggest winner in golf over at the Chrysler Championship was not K.J. Choi, who did finish first by a comfortable margin for his first win in nearly two years. Nor was it Ernie Els, whose deft pitch to save par at the last hole ensured that he finish in the top 30 and get to play in the annual cash-fest known as the Tour Championship. Even Paul Goydos, whose miraculous week ended with a tie for second and enough money to propel him into the tour's top 125 exempt status. No, the real winner Sunday was Nike Golf. K.J. Choi became the first player to win a tournament with the not-yet-for-sale Nike SQ Sumo2 driver. That's big news because the driver is relatively close to the size of a CD player. The nearly five-inch square driver has had Nike types boasting about its super larger moment of inertia of 5250 grams centimeters squared, which is some 500-600 points higher than the Nike SasQuatch of last year, and probably a good 25 percent higher MOI number than most current popular drivers. How big is Nike's potential success with a driver that clearly looks and apparently sounds different than anything ever used on a golf course that was not powered by a Briggs and Stratton engine? Hard to say, but you could guess that it might be significant based on the fact that the driver is already the subject of knockoffs and counterfeits, like this. And we'll get into this some other time, but if you're making knockoffs or counterfeits you should be put in prison. The cell next to yours should be reserved for those pathetic losers who actually purchase and use illegitimate golf clubs.
BOMB: Actually, the biggest winner may not be Nike, but geometry-based clubs as a group. When you climb out on that non-traditional limb of golf-club design, the amount of time the consumer is willing to give a club can be a few swings and nothing more. But tour success validates technology and increases that trial time frame. So with Choi winning with the Nike square club, Ernie Els using Titleist's new geometry-driven driver and Vijay Singh playing well this week at the Tour Championship with Cleveland's second iteration of the Hi-Bore, these unusual shapes may get more of a look than they otherwise might have. And if Tiger puts the square club in play during the Silly Season or Philly Mick goes with the Callaway FT-I and wins the Bob Hope in January, all bets are off because then golfers will be singing this song.
