Murky Waters For The Men, Clear Skies For The Women
Ochoa has Sorenstam and Creamer successfully coming at her. Who's charging Tiger? We're hoping The Players will provide an answer
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Ten LPGA tournaments have been contested in 2008 and Lorena Ochoa, Annika Sorenstam and Paula Creamer have won nine of them, with Ochoa grabbing five and Sorenstam and Creamer picking off two each. The injured Tiger Woods has played five of the 18 weeks the PGA Tour has had events this year, winning three times. So as we head into this week's Players Championship and the Michelob Ultra Open--two events on the short list of "fifth majors" on their respective tours--the question becomes: When is a win merely a win and when is it a quality triumph?
Ochoa skipped the two Hawaii events and the Stanford International. Sorenstam stayed home both times the tour was in Mexico and during last week's SemGroup Championship. Creamer was a no-show both times in Mexico. What has emerged as the Big Three on the LPGA have all been in the field at the HSBC Women's Champions, Safeway International, Phoenix, Kraft Nabisco Championship and Ginn Open. All were won by Ochoa. The only players to win when she was in the field were Louise Friberg at the MasterCard Classic and Creamer last week.
Woods, meanwhile, has won three of the five tournaments he has played in his injury-interrupted season, with the only guys to defeat him being Geoff Ogilvy at the WGC-CA Championship and Trevor Immelman in the Masters. So is this week's Players tarnished by the absence of Woods? Absolutely not. At least not if you look at it the right way.
While in Sorenstam and Creamer, the LPGA has produced challengers for its clear No. 1 player, setting up a rivalry likely to be joined later in the year by Suzann Pettersen and Cristie Kerr, the PGA Tour has yet to produce even one player who can remotely be said to be masquerading as someone who could keep the Player of the Year race from being all but already over.
Beyond Woods, there are no multiple winners this year on the PGA Tour. This week's Players is the fourth of at least six in a row Woods will miss while rehabilitating his surgically repaired left knee. The earliest he will be back is May 29 at the Memorial, although it would not be surprising if he did not return until June 12 at the U.S. Open. Here's what needs to be done starting this week at TPC Sawgrass: Someone needs to make a statement that they are ready to take on a healthy Tiger Woods.
Who are the leading candidates to mount such a challenge? Well, start with the defending champion at the Players, Phil Mickelson. Lefty, Ogilvy and Anthony Kim--last week's winner at the Wachovia Championship--are the only winners this year on tour, other than Woods, who also have a runner-up finish. And Kid Kim, the brash 22-year-old whose game is catching up to his attitude, is the only tour player with a trifecta this year, finishing first, second and third.
Mickelson and Ogilvy have won major championships and they have won with Woods in the field. Kim has neither of those distinctions, yet somehow he has the feel of being the member of that trio who just might be up to the task of taking on Tiger. If nothing else, because he is young and in just his second full season on tour, he has accumulated less emotional scar tissue courtesy of Woods than those guys who have been on the receiving end of his greatness for the last dozen years.
Kid Kim is coming on. After missing three cuts in four starts beginning at the Northern Trust Open, Kim has finished second, T-19 and first--all events in which Woods did not play. But the point is this: Kim is using the time Tiger is on the sidelines to build some momentum and acquire added confidence. That's exactly what some other guys need to be doing.
Here's one way to view this week's Players: Look at it as a crucial test in which someone can make the case they are ready to stake a claim to the title of second-best player in men's golf. Ernie Els, Adam Scott, K.J Choi and Boo Weekley also have victories this year. This is a big week for them; in fact, it is a big week for the PGA Tour.
