Saturday Morning Report: WGC-CA at TPC Blue Monster at Doral
Featured Columnist Andy Reistetter is on site at the WGC-CA Championship at TPC Blue Monster at Doral.
The associated video is available on YouTube.com at the following link:
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Hello my golfing friends- this is Andy Reistetter live from the World Golf Championship at the TPC Blue Monster at Doral.
This is the Saturday Morning Report.
The ups and downs of a World Golf Championship week can easily be seen by looking at Robert Allenby's first two rounds.
Allenby started with six birdies and an eagle in his first 12 holes on Thursday. He finished with four straight bogeys. That's a routine 4-under par 68.
The strange, yet familiar to golfers, case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
Then on Friday Allenby duplicates the six birdies and an eagle.
Plus he knocks in a 5-wood on the 232-yard 13th hole for an ACE.
The Blue Monster frightened him though with three bogeys and a double bogey.
That nets to a 5-under par 67 with only six pars on his scorecard.
Allenby is alone in second place one stroke behind leader Ernie Els who is at 10-under after two rounds.
I followed Els on Thursday.
Paired with World No. 2 Steve Stricker and Sergio Garcia he played well with six birdies and two bogeys.
The BIG Easy seems to have reinvented himself yet another time after winning the Honda in 2008. Looking trim with good health he is swinging well.
The only question will be putting especially the short putts. Will his flat stick get the ball in the hole this week?
A couple of thoughts came to me during Thursday's round watching Els, Stricker and Garcia.
Stricker might be No. 2 in the world but he is No. 1 in class and conduct.
Having a difficult day he persevered to a 73 though came back with a 69 yesterday.
Like Commissioner Finchem says- if every player was like Steve Stricker there would be no problems on the PGA TOUR and he would be out of a job.
Though I did see Stricker get frustrated after a difficult long sand shot near the 10thgreen. Afterwards he hit the sand with his club in disgust and said something like "Jeepers Christmas".
There are a million planes coming down on final approach over Doral into Miami International Airport. I counted six or seven during the time it takes to play a typical par-4 hole.
On the very first hole Stricker stepped back from a putt when the shadow of a plane went over his ball.
Walking down the third fairway I thought about how Henrik Stenson played a new type of golf club here last year. The strip club. Fortunately he kept his clothes on at TPC Sawgrass when he won THE PLAYERS last year.
The scoreboard showed Molinari at 3-under par through seven holes and I wondered which brother it was?
Younger brother Francesco is beating older brother Edoardo by six strokes and at 4-under is a respectable T13.
Remember Michael Sim whose three Nationwide Tour victories earned him a battlefield promotion to the PGA TOUR last year? His timing was bad though as he had to wait five weeks for the FedExCup playoffs to end until he could play in the Fall Series.
So how did he get into this big WGC event?
By playing and being the top dog on the Australasian Tour last year in addition to his domineering play on the Nationwide Tour.
Garcia didn't have a great day either with four unanswered bogeys in the middle of his round. Though frustrated and dejected, he came to life with a brilliant shot out of the fairway bunker at 16 and made birdie.
Garcia hit a flyer into the 18th that carried well past the green into the tunnel beneath the grandstand. With no good place to take a drop he opted to chip it back through the tunnel. His amazing shot stopped four feet from the hole. He made the putt for a routine par on the toughest hole on the Blue Monster!
Yesterday I followed defending champion Phil Mickelson. He is T13 six strokes back with a 71-69 start. His strategy this week coming in late Wednesday was to play well and simply improve each day.
He is on that track so you might see him contending down the stretch come late Sunday afternoon.
Phil who turns 40 in June was paired with 20-year old Rory McIlroy and Retief Goosen.
The winds of Doral changed and on Friday the airplanes were taking off overhead instead of landing.
Everyone in the group birdied the first and third holes.
McIlroy bogeyed the next three holes in a row then parred the rest to shoot 73.
Hey he's young!
He and Mickelson chatted often and you could tell the young kid was soaking up the wisdom of the twice older 37-time winner on the PGA TOUR.
Last year Mickelson drove it through the green on the 418 yard par 4 second hole. So this year there is a new tee about 30 yards further back. We had Mickelson playing off the "Mickelson tee."
On the 10th tee it was literally the "calm before the storm." In the fairway the cold front hit dropping temperatures 15 degrees like someone turned on the air conditioner.
There were two weather delays- a short one and then a long one and the threesome came back out at 5:12 pm to finish the 18th hole after teeing off at 9:34 in the morning.
A good day at the office.
Els and Allenby in the final twosome teeing off at 1:55 p.m. this afternoon.
So there you have it- the Saturday Morning Report from the World Golf Championship at TPC Blue Monster at Doral.
Good golfing and have a great weekend!
Andy Reistetter is a freelance golf writer. He follows the PGA TOUR volunteering and working part time for CBS Sports, NBC Sports, and The Golf Channel.
He resides in Jacksonville Beach, Florida near the PGA TOUR headquarters and home of The PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach.
He enjoys pursuing his passion for the game of golf and everything associated with it. He can be reached through his website www.MrHickoryGolf.net or by e-mailing him to AndyReistetter@gmail.com
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