FEATURE STORY

The PGA Word - Random
Notes from Around Tour

By Shane Sharp,
Contributing Writer

May 24, 1999

Random News and Other Admissible News Items from Around the PGA Tour

Double "D" Grabs Some Rest and Gears up for the Summer

When David Duval decided to skip the MasterCard Colonial this week, some questions were raised about the mental fortitude of golf's best player. Worry not, as Duval is just taking some time off to rally himself and mentally psyche himself up for the U.S. Open and the grueling summer swing through the PGA Tour.

Duval's mini slump started on a hot day in Houston a few Saturdays ago when he fired a 78 and a 76 to close the tournament. In very un-Duval like fashion, the man behind the Oakleys missed the cut in New Orleans the next week for the first time since August 1998.

"After the Masters . . . I don't know what happened, whether it was my head or my heart," Duval told reporters. "I just put so much into getting ready for TPC through August, and so many good things happened, except the one thing I really wanted to happen."

Yea, well chin up David, and golf fans. What do you expect when a guy wins more coin in four months than most players win in a lifetime. Duval is the Pete Samparas of the PGA Tour (of late) and when you win more times than not for a few months, and you basically set yourself up for life (assuming Duval can say Mutual Fund) motivation does not come as naturally as his smooth golf swing.

So Sick, I Don't Even Need to Know This

Have you ever pontificated that a PGA Pro could take you out to your home course and beat you left handed? The father of one Sergio Garcia, Europe's answer to Tiger Woods, is dealing with this rather embarrassing issue. The young Spaniard periodically plays nine holes left handed in order to ensure that one side of his body does not become acutely developed with the other side is laid to waste. This is exactly why I drink beer with both my left and right hands while I am out on the golf course.

Garcia's manager divulged that Garcia took his pops out and whipped him southpaw style by eight strokes by firing a nine hole score of 42. It's an easy game, right (left)? If Garcia ever wants to see me pulling for him down the stretch, the truth that he is secretly left handed, but started playing right handed as a kid because there is a law against being left handed in Spain better be leaked to Spanish media quick.

Trying to Get Behind the Mick

Watching Phil Mickelson fall out of contention yet again last Sunday in the MasterCard Colonial was like watching Steve Young get nailed with yet another skull rattling hit from some 250 pound linebacker that runs a 4.4, 40 - you hate to see it, but you know its going to happen. What is going on with Lefty that he can't even win the tournaments that he used to own - that is any tournament west of the Mississippi that is not a major?

Maybe he is spending too much time working on his short game - seriously. Mickelson's touch around the green is the envy of many tour pros. But despite the fact that he can hit the ball a country mile off the tee, there are times when Mickelson sprays the ball around fairways like an aerosol deodorant. But drive for show and putt for dough, say ye? Don't let Mickelson's silky smooth putting stroke fool ya. He cracks the top ten in putting on tour about as often as Hootie and the Blowfish these days.

What Ever Happened To?

Kelli Kuehne on the LPGA Tour? Just when the golf gods decide to put a young woman on the LPGA Tour that looks more like a cheerleader than a golfer, she all but disappears. Was it too good to be true? Kuehne was an All-American at the University of Texas, a two time U.S. Amateur champ in 1995 and 1996, and was a sure-fire success story waiting to happen on the big girl tour.

Endorsements were flooding in for Kuehne like boys after a prom date, and I actually contemplated searching out a Kelli Kuehne poster for my office. I guess it would still look nice next to my 1993 Florida State national championship spread, but is Kuehne wearing golf spikes in her latest poster? Since breaking into the LPGA Tour, Kuehne has barely amassed enough coin to by a new Saturn.

Well there is still some home that we'll get to see Kuehne and her cute little smile on T.V. soon. Playing in her old stomping grounds of Austin, Texas, Kuehne just qualified for the U.S. Women's Open to be held at the Old Waverly Club in West Point, Mississippi. Someone email me the television schedule.

Word on the street is that Nancy Lopez has decided to try her hand at golf course design. While it is reported that her signature hole would be a double dog leg like she played in the New Mexico State amateur, the truly unnique feature of Lopez's first layout will be the opportunity to tell Ray Knight what to do at the beginning of every hole.