Hot on the heels of the Wachovia, we come to the so-called “fifth major” – the Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass, FL. We have a great entry list this weekend – 35 squads have got 4 players already, although anyone is still free to make squad changes if there is an under-performer still missing cuts every week.

Phil Mickelson is the defending champ. Garcia, Cink and Olazabal were runners-up.

Here’s the field…
2008 Players Championship Field

You must have your ISG Tipping entry in before the first tee time to be eligible for scores for this tournament. Cutoff time for new entries and changes to existing squads is Thu 10 PM (Australian Eastern Standard Time).

Please post your entries here: Entries

Full rules, comments and questions here: Main Competition Thread

New entrants are always welcome, weekly winners receive Vision prize packs thanks to the Boz. You must choose 4 players – with at least one Australian, one American and one from another country. The 4 players current World Golf Ranking points (see latest table here) must not total > 10.00… sadly this excludes Tiger.

Existing Squad Changes

Here are the latest rankings by the way: Rankings.

once again I’m sticking

Last chance for new entries or squad changes.

Bugger too late, hope they do well :-)

Players Championship First Round Update

Only 34 players broke par at the Players, making Sergio Garcia the standout at -6, two clear of Kenny Perry and Paul Goydos (!). Elkington is best Aussie at -3, but most of the rest are struggling…

Badds -1 Appleby Ev Allenby Goggin +2 Scott M Jones +3 Senden +4 Lonard Ogilvy +5 Hensby N Green +6

The cut looks like being +2 or +3 so there is some work to do for these guys.

Here are some scores at the other end:
+5: Tim Clark, Shaun Micheel, Andres Romero, Paul Casey
+6: Vaughn Taylor, Justin Rose, John Rollins
+7: Charles Howell, K.J. Choi
+8: Lucas Glover
+9: Shigeki Maruyama
+11: J.P. Hayes

There are also 4 withdrawals, which will cause some grief.
Ryan Armour, Hunter Mahan, Jason Gore, Cameron Beckman

Players Championship First Round Leaders

heybrew has only competed in 3 events on the 2008 Tour, and made his first change this week, dropping D.J.Trahan for Kenny Perry. Inspired pick, as he now has 2 of the top 3 players in the tournament, as well as one of the better Aussies. (Trahan posted a -2.)

heybrew: Appleby Ev Perry -4 Garcia -6 Pettersson +2 = -10

live4golf left his squad unchanged, and they have had a solid start, although it’s really just Garcia setting the score. live4golf has had 5 events for 3 cuts and needs a big cheque to lift him up from 35th on the money list.

live4golf: O’Hern +1 Watson +4 Garcia -6 Weir -1 = -6

There are three tied for third place, chris81 (second place last week), dougie1 (2nd on the money list with three top 3 placings) and terrys (5 events, 4 cuts). dougie1 and terrys both drafted Anthony Kim after his runaway success in the Wachovia.

chris81 Ogilvy +5 Couples -2 Chopra Ev Slocum -3 = -5
dougie1 Appleby Ev Slocum -3 Kim -2 Parnevik Ev = -5
terrys Jones +3 Perry -4 Goosen +1 Kim -2 = -5

Players Championship First Round Leaderboard

First the bad news. Hunter Mahan’s withdrawal hit two squads hard. bossofthemoss1 and tdoddsy both only had 3 players, so they are now DQs for the tournament.

barryl tried to swap Appleby (Ev) for Allenby (+2), but we knocked him back so he dropped Casey (+5) for Imada (+1). That’s a 6 shot swing barryl..!

Andre_W dropped Oberholser and added Garcia, but he’s still struggling due to having to count Glover’s +8. jb_ is a train wreck – Ogilvy +5 Rollins +6 Glover +8 Immelman DNP = +19

Please check your scores everyone!

-10 heybrew
-6 live4golf
-5 chris81 dougie1 terrys
-4 Bunny kyle
-3 Styles
-2 Beno leighdog Milhouse rebjon
-1 davego MJT MrConsistency RSG Sonab Toto
Ev barryl glenn_18 sarg suspect
+1 AlexMc Bundy_Bear Sidman Topdog
$ $ Projected Cut Line $ $
+2 adlo1980 brettmaverick bucks05 GoonerAl hozel Muntz pom
+4 Andre_W Neumie
+5 brentp chris9485 Dowls Lintz
+6 Danz
+7 Hopsing
+11 have_clubs
+19 jb_
DQ bossofthemoss1 tdoddsy

Here’s to Garcia’s putter working for next 3 days….

lol – no hope of that! Is he still carrying two of the feckers?!!

I think I’m only at -2 Muntz.

Trahan: -2
Cink: -1
Chopra: ev
O’hern: +1

lol – no hope of that! Is he still carrying two of the feckers?!!

I think I’m only at -2 Muntz.

Trahan: -2
Cink: -1
Chopra: ev
O’hern: +1

you only count the top 3 performers Styles so – 3 is correct

tough course… finds out suspect swings, eh Scotty.
Doesn’t Billy Mayfair hate the 17trh?? 57 over par in the years he has played..another doble bogey.
Apples will come back to make the cut.

57 over? lololol

Mind you, you think thats bad, spare a thought for Angelo Spagnolo (what a name!).

To understand Spagnolo’s brush with a watery grave, we must rewind to 1986, when Golf Digest magazine sponsored a contest to reveal America’s Worst Avid Golfer. At the time, Spagnolo was 31 years old, playing at least a few times per week and carrying a handicap of 56. His most recent “competition” was a friendly match against a 71-year-old cross-handed golfer who had taken up the game only two months earlier and owned just three clubs. Although Spagnolo contends he won, the result is still the subject of much debate at his home course.

What he did win was a chance to compete against three others for the right to either be called America’s worst or be exonerated in a public forum. And make no mistake, Spagnolo didn’t want to be saddled with the title.

Many have struggled on the 17th hole of TPC Sawgrass, but none quite like Angelo Spagnolo.

“Angelo was clearly the ideal,” remembers Bob Carney, a Golf Digest creative director who headed up the competition. “Great guy, absolutely sincere, totally in love with the game, hopelessly bad—the Charlie Brown of golf.”

Playing from the championship tees at Pete Dye’s unforgiving TPC Sawgrass course, Spagnolo was ensconced in a bitter battle for worst of the worst with fellow competitor Jack Pulford, at 104 over par through 16 holes.

Then came No. 17.

Often called the most exciting hole in golf, the par-3 17th hole frequently is referred to as having an island green, but it’s really a peninsula, with a thin strip of land allowing players access to the putting surface from the left side and water surrounding it from all other directions. To Spagnolo, it was intimidation personified.

“That could have been the English Channel I was trying to hit across,” he says. “It was that daunting of a shot. It just looked like a near impossible idea to contemplate.”

On his initial tee shot, Spagnolo found the water hazard. He hit another and found the water again. And again. And again. And again.

“It was painful to watch,” Carney says. “Funny at first, and then not funny at all. You can’t get a hip-high wedge shot to stop on a green like the 17th from 100 yards. Ang hit the green seven times. Those shots had no chance of staying on the green.”

His swing simply didn’t produce the kind of shot that could soar through the air and land safely on the putting surface. As Peter Andrews wrote in the ensuing Golf Digest article: “He settles slowly, slowly down in his stance like a nesting chicken and just as the egg is about to drop, he lashes quickly at the ball, sending his woods arching straight into the air while his irons rarely get more than shoulder high.”

“My youngest son got really frustrated,” Spagnolo says. “At one point, after hitting a ball in the water, there was dead silence and all we hear is, ‘Aww, Dad!’ And everybody broke up laughing. It was a needed relief at that point.”

Unfortunately for Spagnolo, there was no true relief. Down to course-issued range balls, he continued making splashes even when it was suggested he find an alternate route.

“We sent word to Ang through his caddie that he ought to stop trying to hit the green and putt up the tee to the path and onto the green,” Carney says. “His caddie relayed the message and Ang responded by shaking his head firmly. His caddie came back to us and said, ‘Ang says no. He says that’s not the way the hole was designed to be played.’”

Finally, eventually, exhaustingly, Spagnolo relented, grabbing his putter and whacking the ball down the left side of the hole. Then-PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman, on hand to witness the festivities, dubbed the strip, “Angelo’s Alley.” It took a total of 63 strokes for Spagnolo to reach the green and three more putts to complete his single-hole score of 66, which led to a final tally of 257, “winning” the title of America’s Worst Avid Golfer.

Chances are, at some point during this week’s Players Championship, a tournament contender will fall victim to his own Angelo Spagnolo moment, though to a much lesser extent, of course. As with Sean O’Hair in last year’s final round, an unseemly swing at an untimely juncture will lead to a precipitous fall from the leaderboard.

Spagnolo, for one, will feel said player’s pain from his living room and offer his deepest sympathies.

“Anytime I see that, it just breaks my heart,” he says. “I don’t get any kind of pleasure from that. If anything, it should underscore the difficulty of that hole.”

hahaha. Angelo’s alley!

someone asked him how he took 66 on 17. He replied that he missed a four footer for 65 lol!

Kevin Na’s having a day out. Started off on the 10th, he is currently +6 after 8 holes including a double bogey on… the 17th.

Adam Scott is -2 thru 3, Senden is -2 thru 5, Apples is -1 thru 3.

Oh, and Shigeki has pulled out after his opening 81.

And Billy Mayfair just made double bogey… on the 17th.

Kenny Perry is shooting the lights out

And Charley Hoffman’s putter needs a snorkel!

Sergio somehow just managed to put his ball on the thin little path leading to the 17th, then almost chipped it across the green into the water. He just missed his bogey putt. He’s just dropped back to -5 and one out of the lead.

And how about Bernhard Langer? 67 to get to -5 for the tournament. And Stephen Ames posted a 68 to get to -2.

Anyone drop Tim Clark? He’s going home after 77 82. Cabrera shot 70 and 81 today. Lucas Glover is co-Naga with 80 79. KJ Choi didn’t fare much better today… 79 78. And Ogilvy is +9 for the tournament with two to play.

Langer shot 31 on the front nine and dropped a 59 feet, 9 inch putt on 17, the longest recorded on the hole in the history of ShotLink since 2001. Langer and Perry are leading the old guys charge, playing in the last group tomorrow.

Progress scores:
-11 heybrew -10 terrys -3 dougie1 rebjon -2 sarg -1 chris81

Players Championship Second Round Update

Best rounds of the day, Langer 67 to get to -5, and Ames 68 to get to -2. Garcia had a double bogey on 17 to drop out of the lead, but is still in the hunt for a much needed win.

Only 15 players in red numbers overall, and the cut went out to +3. These players missed the cut, but with bad weather forecast for the weekend it may end up being a blessing for ISG squads to have someone post a +4 (doubled to +8) while the rest of the field put up big numbers. But some players have already busted their squad scores, like Glover, Romero, Choi and Clark.

AU: Senden +4 N Green +6 Goggin +7 Matt Jones +8 Ogilvy +8
US: Snedeker O’Hair +4 Leonard Bubba +5 Rollins Flesch +6 Funk +7 Micheel +8 Howell Vaughn Taylor Wetterich +9 Zach Johnson +11 Glover +15
World: Singh +4 Cabrera +7 Casey +9 Romero +12 Choi +13 Tim Clark +15

There have been 6 withdrawals to date: Ryan Armour, Shigeki Maruyama, Hunter Mahan, Jason Gore, Cameron Beckman, Jeff Maggert

Players Championship Second Round Leaders

heybrew hasn’t skipped a beat, all four of his players making the cut comfortably – and despite Garcia’s hiccup he still has the leading player.

heybrew: Appleby Ev Perry -6 Garcia -5 Pettersson +1 = -11

terrys isn’t far behind, though he lost his Aussie at the cut mark.

terrys: Jones +8 Perry -6 Goosen Ev Kim -4 = -10

Two of the leading Money List leaders dougie1 (2nd) and rebjon (4th) are back up near the top.

dougie1: Appleby Ev Slocum +1 Kim -4 Parnevik +2 = -3
rebjon: Appleby Ev Weekley -3 Chopra Ev Villegas +3 = -3

Players Championship Second Round Leaderboard

jb’s train wreck just exploded in a huge fireball – he has to count Ogilvy +8 Rollins +6 and Glover +15 for a grand total of +58 when you double those scores.

Best round of the day was terrys, a 67 a great result on difficult course. sarg shot 70 to give himself a sniff of a top 3 placing. Sonab is above the cutline (touch wood) but brentp is still struggling with the ISG Tour format.

-11 heybrew
-10 terrys
-3 rebjon dougie1
-2 sarg
-1 chris81
Ev Sidman
+1 live4golf
+2 Bunny
+3 Bundy_Bear MrConsistency Beno
+4 MJT
+5 Styles
+6 Topdog suspect Sonab
+8 barryl
+9 bucks05 RSG
+10 hozel davego
+11 brettmaverick Muntz Toto kyle
$ $ Projected Cut Line $ $
+12 AlexMc leighdog
+14 adlo1980 Milhouse
+15 GoonerAl
+17 pom
+18 Neumie
+19 Danz
+20 Lintz
+22 Hopsing
+23 Andre_W
+24 have_clubs chris9485
+28 brentp
+29 glenn_18
+37 Dowls
+58 jb_
DQ bossofthemoss1 tdoddsy

Crikey, I’m inside the projected cut line with just Apples & Camilo barely making the cut?? Here’s to them both shooting the lights out over the weekend!!

Brett

ps – commiserations jb_, your team is made up of the guys I usually end up with in pro-ams! 8)

Best round of the day was terrys, a 67 a great result on difficult course. sarg shot 70 to give himself a sniff of a top 3 placing.

Reverse every natural instinct you have and do just the opposite of what you are inclined to do and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing. – BEN HOGAN, POWER GOLF