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Arnold Palmer led the field today as the honorary starter at the Masters 2008.  Earlier this year Tiger said that the Grand Slam was within reason while a handful of other pros said he is as beatable as ever.  Highlights so far on day one include Ian Poulter hitting a hole in one on 16 and a bunch of guys tied at the top of the leaderboard early at 2 under.  Stay tuned for updates.

Trahan locked up his second career victory shooting 7 under in the final round.  He trailed Justin Leonard by 4 strokes and ended up winning by 3.  Leonard finished second which follows a strong start for him this year after placed 8th at the Mercedes Championship.  Trahan plans to buy property following his big win and said it would be for hunting.

Lorena Ochoa overcame her inner demons to take the year end ADT championship and take home the 1 million dollar purse.  With the win she supplants Tiger with most tournaments won this year, and Annika Sorenstams record year earnings.   In my book she should be golfer of the year, she finally got her major, won 9 tournaments and 4 and 1/2 million dollars.  Natalie Gulbis showed she belongs as well placing 2nd while she herself won for the first time on tour this year.  Paula Creamer stayed hot and placed third after her win last week.

Ok, so here’s something you don’t see every day. My friend (his identity shall remain a secret, as I have promised him that) owns a TaylorMade R7 TP retail driver. While he likes the driver overall, he strongly disliked the tinny sound it made at impact. He decided to stuff cotton into the weight holes to try and deaden the sound. But after doing so, the cotton compacted, and he ended up with about 20 little pea-sized cotton chunks rolling around in his clubhead. It sounded like peanuts in a jar!

What he did next is the interesting part. He deduced that, since there was no way to retrieve the cotton pellets and cotton was flammable, it would be clever to pour a little gasoline into the weight holes and let the cotton soak it up. Then, he could light it and burn the cotton into noiseless ash. Here is where the trouble starts…

I think he poured a little too much gas into the holes because when he lit it, flames shot out about 6 inches from all four holes, scaring the living $hit out of him! He dropped the club immediately and it landed head first onto the driveway (at least he was smart enough to do this highly technical procedure outside), leaving big scrapes on the crown. When he thought that the fire was out, he picked up the driver by the head only to feel the sharp pain of hot metal searing his fingertips. In knee-jerk reaction, he dropped the club again, scratching up more of the clubhead!

After a momentary fit of rage, he collected himself and tried to think through the situation. He decided to play it smart and allow the club to cool off before he picked up the club. Staring at his nicked up baby, he wondered if he could buff out the scratches in the paint. Well, those concerns about scratches soon became irrelevant as the paint started peeling off the clubhead before his very eyes! It turns out that there was still a bit of fuel inside the clubhead that continued to burn as my friend waited for it to cool. The smoldering fuel heated the clubhead so much that it peeled off most of the paint!

But there is a bright side to all of this - the procedure to burn away the cotton worked, and there are now NO more rattles in the head!!! When he phoned me and told me this story, I just about peed myself laughing, which prompted him to hang up the phone on me. I will try to be more consoling in the future…

Golf Grouch Comment: That’s one way to smoke your driver! Who knows, maybe an engineer at TaylorMade will read this story and turn it into the next big thing in driver technology: RPD (Rocket Propelled Driver). Tom, tell your friend that he’d better apply for a patent pronto!

 From Grouchygolf.com

Paula Creamer, complete with pink outfit, hat and ball, crushed the field at the Tournament of Champions on Sunday, by eight strokes.  According to “The Golf Channel” it was the first tournament ever won using a pink ball.  Paula joined Lorena Ochoa and Suzann Petterson as the only multiple tournament winners this year.

Mike Weir finally wins again after 3 1/2 years!  One of the nicest guys on tour who seemed to lose his game for a long time has climbed back in to contention again.  Riding a victory over Tiger Woods at the Prez Cup his confidence again shown in a victory this week at Fry’s Electronics Open.  With a closing 2 under 68 he passed Mark Hensby on the 15th hole to win $900,000.00.  In the win he doubled his earnings for the year and hopefully can continue his success into 2008.

Sarasota Golf Course has been a fixture in Sarasota for nearly 30 years.  Not real hard but not easy either lately it has gone way down hill. Greens are being cut long, bunkers are unkept, grass no longer covers all the fairways.  Why the downturn?  Real estate in Florida.  The course happens to be less profitable than an “exciting” new condominium complex they are planning.  What is wrong with the world when condo’s are more cherished than the links.  They could easily sell the course to someone who could make it into a challenging, higher priced with country club style course.  It has length, a decent sized driving range and plenty of room for a nice club house.  Why not give it some love and bring it back to life.  Oh well, maybe they will have mini golf at the condo.

Here we go again, big name guy high on the Fedex cup leaderboard not showing up for one of the four tournaments.  He wants to spend some time with the family…doesn’t bode well for the Fedex does it.  You can only entice guys with money at the end of the rainbow not along the way.  Phil won $1.2 million on Monday, do you really think he is all that excited about 10 million spread over a bunch of years?  I think Finchem needs to start the tweaks right away or next year the turn out will be even worse.

Golf is big in Florida.  Sarasota is no stranger to full courses and fun in the sun.  One way to add to the weekly foursome get together is to join a league.  All of the local courses seam to have them in one way or another.  The nice thing about them is a discounted rate and you play different types of golf games.  Stroke is fine but add the handicap and it spices up a regular round.  How about a Stableford type system or even match play, yeah we see it all the time in the leagues.  Some play for money, others for glory but it adds one other thing you may not even think about, new golf friends.  You can never have enough golf friends for those times when you just have to play and no one in your normal foursome can play.  Ask the pro shop at your favorite courses about leagues they have playing on the course and go play!