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Was there any doubt?  Tiger wins the inaugural PGA Tour playoffs.  Not only does he win, he lets everyone know who reigns in the golf world.  His utter domination was reflected in the fact that Sunday was just an afterthought.  You could see the dejection in Mark Calcavechia as he tried hard to make a run but could not pressure Tiger.  The rest of the field was playing for second as they could not handle the pin placements while Tiger looked like light it up through Saturday though.  Zach Johnson put on a show almost netting a 59 Saturday, Sergio showed he can be a contender.  Steve Stricker’s rebirth culminated to a second place and showed he has the game to challenge just about everyone.  I look forward to seeing how they will tweak the system as Tiger didn’t need to show up in Atlanta to win the cup and I believe the Fedex Cup was a success.

Life is busy, golf is hard.  The combination usually spells bad results for the general population when it comes to golf.  I have been playing for years now and had periods where I would play two rounds and go to the range 3 or 4 days a week and I still couldn’t play well.  Then I broke down and got training, not just how to hit a good ball but why and how it all comes together.  It has changed everything, now I go out once a week and shoot scores I only dreamed about before. One other thing that helped was the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle when it comes to the short game.  I was trying to hit the pitch, sand, approach, and super flopper with the perfect trajectory every time I was close to the green.  Didn’t work, why?  I don’t get to hit 500 balls a day out of the sand, rough, fairway to get all four clubs working great.  So now I pitch with the pitch and send it up high with the sand… simple and effective.  Tomorrow I will test my new game verses a nemisis course of mine, Tara Golf and Country Club where course management is key.  I haven’t played there in a while because I hated playing the course, lots of water, tight fairways, hazards galore, yada..yada.  I will give a full course update after the round.

If there is one thing that we know about Tiger is that he lets his competitors know who is boss when the time is right.  65-64 are you kidding me?  There are a lot of guys who can score a low round like Tim Clark or Paddy Harrington but the consistency of Mr. Woods is amazing to me.  When he has a hot putter no one I repeat no one in history can beat him.  His power game matches anyone out there, his iron game is as good as anyone in history, throw in a short game even better than the magician Phil Mickelson, wow.  Do we even have to watch the weekend golf to know the winner?  We will anyhow because we will be watching the greatest golfer of all time take the first ever playoff with the strongest competition anyone has ever dealt with.  Amazing.

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.

Just a few short years ago Nike was not even a blip on the golf club scene.  Someone over there had a bright idea, sign on with Mr. Golf, Tiger Woods.  Since then they have exploded (along with El Tigre’s paychecks) into the elite club status.  The biggest hit so far has been the SUMO driver with a couple of different variations.  Just check the leaderboards and you can see them popping up as a club of choice with the pros.  K.J. Choi is having his career year, Tiger is going to win player of the year again, life is good at Nike golf. 

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.