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The Grind: Riviera's riveting finish, Obama & Tiger tee it up & match play picks

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:18:00 GMT

Welcome to another edition of The Grind, where we'd like to take this time to issue a public service announcement: If you were listed in our PGA Tour "Sleepers To Watch in 2013" feature, watch your back. Literally. First, Blake Adams went down with a hip injury and now Spencer Levin's bum wrist will keep him out the rest of the regular season. Move over, "Madden Cover jinx." With a World Golf Championship event next up, most of the guys on the list have this week off. But that just means they should be extra careful when doing chores around the house. . .

WE'RE BUYING

John Merrick. Nice job by the former UCLA Bruin. Merrick won his first PGA Tour title right down the road from where he went to school and he timed it perfectly with us celebrating a provocative pic while he was an undergrad. Considering Merrick still has his first paycheck as a professional golfer (A $3,200 one for finishing T-3 at a Hooters Tour event) framed in his bedroom, we're pretty sure he'll save some memorabilia from this win. He'll have plenty of money to save as well, since his latest check has just a few more zeros in it.

Merrick came through in the clutch before celebrating with Mr. Clutch, Jerry West.

Barack Obama. Like his politics or not, if you are reading this, you probably like golf. And if that's the case, you have to like the fact that the president likes the game so much. After a day of working with Butch and Claude Harmon at The Floridian, Obama teed it up with Tiger Woods for the first time on Sunday. Not a bad weekend.

Daniela Holmqvist. I don't care if spider experts weighed in and said the situation for the LET rookie bitten by a Black Widow wasn't as dangerous as originally believed, the point is that she believed she was in danger, acted by cutting out the venom with a tee, and then played on and shot a respectable 74. Kinda makes that time you played through a blister on your hand seem a little less impressive, right?

WE'RE SELLING

Brandt Snedeker. Sore ribs? What, from laughing all the way to the bank? In any matter, the hottest player in the world won't be in the field this week (he would have been a No. 1 seed). It's bad news for his fans, but great news for everyone else in the field who now has a chance to win.

Riviera's 10th hole. Look, I'm not disputing it's a great hole, but I think that back-right pin position is a little ridiculous. No matter what players did off the tee, it was nearly impossible to play their approaches toward the hole and actually have the ball stay on the putting surface. There's a phrase for this, but I guess you only hear it about holes that aren't so famous: "Tricked up."

Fredrik Jacobson's pressure putting. Hey, the Swede had a great tournament and came close to his second PGA Tour win. His four-footer to get into a playoff, however, came about as close as the average tour player came to voting for the First Golfer this past fall. The 38-year-old's middle name is "Ulf." Perhaps we should make that the term for missing a short putt that badly, as in, what a poorly-timed ulf or he really ulfed that up.

ON TAP

The PGA Tour heads to Arizona for the WGC Match Play. Last year, Hunter Mahan knocked off Rory McIlroy to keep him from taking over the top spot in the world rankings. The young lad from Northern Ireland would never recover. Wait, never mind. . .

Random tournament fact: This is the only official tour event in which match play is the format. OK, so you probably knew that already.

WEEKLY FANTASY PICKS

With no opposite-field event going on this week, and with Yahoo!'s inability to figure out a way to award points for match play, most fantasy golf leagues are dormant this week. That doesn't mean you shouldn't fill out a match-play bracket and wager a few bucks with co-workers, though. Here's our stab at a final four:

Keegan Bradley, Jason Dufner, Graeme McDowell, and Luke Donald, with G-Mac topping Dufsanity in the championship match. Of course, our gut is to go with Woods, but in this event above all, going with your gut probably isn't the wisest move. Plus, he might have to face noted Tiger tamer Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano in the second round. . .

RANDOM PROP BETS OF THE WEEK

-- Phil Mickelson's kids will imitate him falling on the rocks if his family goes to the beach during their vacation: 2-to-1 odds

Related: Golf's Most Provocative Photos

-- TV viewers will hear the phrase "the vagaries of match play" ad nauseum: LOCK

-- The phrase "tearing up my bracket" will be said/written even more: Also a LOCK

CELEBRITY/ATHLETE WE'D LIKE TO PLAY GOLF WITH

Chris Paul. As a Wake Forest alum, Sunday was quite a roller coaster ride. First, I had to suffer through 2004 classmate Bill Haas' letdown at Riviera, but CP3's NBA All-Star Game MVP performance made me extremely proud to be a Demon Deacon once again. It seems the only thing the Clippers' point guard likes doing as much as picking apart opposing defenses is playing/watching golf. I could also see him distributing food and drinks at the turn like he dishes out passes on the court. Chris, I know you're busy leading a historically-pathetic franchise to its best season ever, but I'll gladly save you a summer tee time.

STAT OF THE WEEK

Fred Couples played in his 31st Northern Trust Open and found his way on the leader board for much of the first two days. Just think, he's played in the same tournament 31 times. Crazy. I don't think I've even eaten at the same Chili's that many times. OK, so that's a lie. . .

VIRAL VIDEO OF THE WEEK

In this week's edition of "How out of touch with the youngsters can a 30-year-old be?" I admit that I still don't understand the "Harlem Shake" phenomenon. That being said, here's the Villanova men's golf team doing it -- whatever "it" is:

THIS AND THAT

Bernhard Langer won his 15th event on the Champions Tour. He better learn how to putt without anchoring because the 55-year-old looks like he has another decade of dominating the old guys in him. . . . There was a kangaroo delay during the Women's Australian Open. It's too bad the LPGA doesn't always have this excuse for why its rounds take so long. . . . I attended a wedding reception over the weekend at which the bride and groom were introduced by coming up through the floor encased in a glass box (above). It's good to see the phrase "coming over the top" can still apply to more than the golf swing.

RANDOM QUESTIONS TO PONDER

Did Obama and Tiger drink Arnold Palmers at the turn?

After a good start to the season, why did Dustin Johnson change putters? Is Paulina Gretzky just an Odyssey spy working undercover?

Did we really just go an entire column without referring to a picture of an attractive female?

-- Alex Myers is a contributing editor for GolfDigest.com. Feel free to email him and please follow him on Twitter since he has self-esteem issues.

John Merrick, a Bruin who bared it all

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 15:35:00 GMT

By Alex Myers

John Merrick's first PGA Tour win came on familiar terrain at Riviera, down the road from where he played his college golf at UCLA. But as he posed for pictures at the trophy presentation, we couldn't help but recall a much different photo shoot he was a part of nearly a decade ago.

Merrick was a member of the UCLA men's golf team photographed in the nude by Joe McNally as part of a feature on "The New Athlete Golfer" in the June 2004 issue of Golf Digest.

Merrick is pictured fourth from the left.

According to Golf World's Campus Insider Ryan Herrington, UCLA's golf coach at the time, O.D. Vincent, was reprimanded by school officials, but did not get fired. A similar photo was taken by the Bethany College golf team in 2011, earning those players a suspension and causing McNally to reflect on his 2004 photo shoot with Merrick and Co.

Related: Golf's most provocative photos

The image is just part of our look at some of golf's most provocative photos through the years. Our jumping off point was last week's Golf World cover, which featured David Feherty with his pants around his ankles. Merrick's win just made the timing that much better.

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Golf World Preview: Scott seeks major momentum

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:10:00 GMT

By Jaime Diaz

From the February 14 issue of Golf World Preview:

Adam Scott was last seen in competition winning November's Australian Masters, but the other Masters will be on his mind as he leaves his surfboard behind and opens his 2013 season at the Northern Trust Open.

Photo by Getty Images

Scott finished T-2 at Augusta in 2011, overtaken by Charl Schwartzel's closing run of four straight birdies. The finish marked Scott as a vastly improved player in the majors, an impression that was strengthened even in his devastating slip at last year's British Open when the 32-year-old Australian lost by one at Royal Lytham & St. Annes after bogeying the last four holes.

Related: Our Northern Trust Open picks

That wound received some salve from the November victory in his homeland, which earned Scott a gold jacket.

"Maybe i can set the theme of winning jackets and turn it green next year before I come back to defend," he said.

With the long putter still in the bag and Steve Williams still on it, Scott also retains the most eye-pleasing swing in the game and looks ready for a big year. The world's seventh-ranked player has a good record at Riviera, too, with an unofficial victory at 36 holes in 2005 and a solo second in 2006. He finished T-17 last year.

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Riviera's long history of celebrity sightings

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 21:32:00 GMT

By Brendan Mohler

Located only a few miles from Beverly Hills, Riviera Country Club has always been a popular hangout for Hollywood A-listers. Among those who have held memberships at the host of this week's Northern Trust Open are Walt Disney, Humphrey Bogart, Gregory Peck and more recently, Adam Sandler and Larry David. With names like that patrolling the grounds, you can expect the presence of many distinguished (and not always well-behaved) celebrity guests.

Around the time Riviera became known as "Hogan's Alley" (Ben Hogan won the LA Open in 1947, '48 and '50 and the U.S. Open at Riviera in '48), Humphrey Bogart spent so much time watching golf from underneath a sycamore tree on the 12th hole that the club eventually named the tree after him. "Bogey's Tree" sits left of the green and provided a comfortable spot for Bogart to relax with a thermos of Jim Beam and watch the pros play through. This is not surprising considering Bogart once said, "The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind."

Bogart is only one of many famous entertainers of his day who frequented Riviera, joining the likes of Clark Gable, Bing Crosby, even Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, who shot the 1953 film The Caddy on the club's grounds that included a cameo appearance by Ben Hogan himself.

In the Los Angeles area, Hollywood shenanigans at country clubs have been curbed in recent years according to David D. Pavoni, co-author of Golf In Hollywood, because of "the era of political correctness." However, that hasn't stopped the antics of Jack Nicholson, who once took a 2-iron to the windshield of a car that had cut him off in traffic. Kevin Cook, a Golf Digest contributing writer, called it, "the most famous instance of road rage meeting golf tantrum."

In another instance of golf tantrum, Nicholson hooked his tee shot on the 12th hole at Riviera and was unable to advance the ball successfully with a 5 iron on his second shot, prompting him to grab a bunch of vines in anger hanging from a nearby tree.

"They pulled back! Lifted me straight up in the air so I was flying around for a few seconds before I came down," said Nicholson in a 2007 interview with Golf Digest. "Now I can't play that 12th at Riviera without somebody saying, 'The Tarzan Hole!'"

Larry David, creator of Seinfeld and the star of the HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm, has had his moments at Riviera as well. David is a member there and has filmed several Curb scenes at the club, although not this memorable one:

I'd expect David and Nicholson to steer clear of Riviera this week, as most members (especially high-profile ones) tend to do when the PGA Tour invades their course. There should still be plenty of star power, though, with the Northern Trust Open featuring perhaps the year's strongest field to date.

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(Photo by Getty Images)

Golf World Monday: Singh plays under cloud

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:08:00 GMT

By Dave Shedloski

From the February 11 issue of Golf World Monday:

Vijay Singh told Golf World at the Sony Open in Hawaii that he was so excited for the season that he planned to play the PGA Tour's entire West Coast schedule. "My attitude is like I'm 30 again," he gushed.

Photo by Getty Images

That was before he obtusely admitted in a national magazine that he used a deer-antler spray containing a substance prohibited under the tour's anti-doping policy. Singh's admission, which he later confirmed in a statement, is tantamount to a positive drug test. Singh met with tour commissioner Tim Finchem last week at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, presumably to give his explanation.

Singh looked out of sorts on the Monterey Peninsula, but he was allowed to play, and he is entered in this week's Northern Trust Open. The obvious question is: Why is Singh permitted to keep competing? The answer is that a decision-making process, and possible appeal, are underway.

What seems like a clear-cut case from the outside probably is much less so from where Finchem sits, because the tour is given huge discretion in the severity of sanctions, from maximums of a one-year suspension and $500,000 fine to a minimum of rehab with no suspension or fine.

The tour is required to make public any suspension under its anti-doping policy (with the discretionary exception of "drugs of abuse"), but until or unless that happens, the process is confidential.

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Video: Bill Haas steals the show in Hollywood

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:07:00 GMT

The PGA Tour has been set up for potential monotony with tournaments every week and golf having been stretched basically into a year-round sport. The fantastic finishes 2012 has brought so far, though, have left fans wanting even more.

The streak of a golfer coming back from at least six shots back on a Sunday may have ended at an incredible three weeks (though the winner wasn't the 54-hole leader yet again), but Riviera's conclusion topped everything we've already seen in this exciting season.

Bill Haas stole the show this time in a dramatic plot fitting of the Northern Trust Open's Hollywood setting. The reigning Fed Ex Cup champion made a 45-foot birdie putt on the second playoff hole to stun Phil Mickelson and Keegan Bradley and claim his fourth PGA Tour victory.

What made the tournament's ending so special was the fact that Mickelson and Bradley were even around for the playoff. Both made unlikely birdies on Riviera's demanding 18th hole just to have a chance in extra holes. Check out the highlights, which also include a spectacular round by Sergio Garcia in his 2012 PGA Tour debut:

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We discuss Mickelson's magical round, a special Sergio-related gift to a friend, Jeremy Lin, and of course, this week's PGA Tour stop.

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