Capelle On Golf

Paddy Slam Bid Hurt By Golf’s Worst Rule
Padraig Harrington was set to putt on the 15th green and you could see by the way his trousers were whipping that the wind was blowing very hard. He stepped away from his ball as it started rolling away from the cup. Now there is no way that momentarily soling his putter an inch or two behind the ball on that rock hard green caused the ball to move, but he incurred a one shot penalty just the same. When, in the name of the golf gods, are the powers that be going to take golf’s unfairest rule off the books? Will Padraig have to lose the third leg to bring the rulemakers to their senses?

Long Putters in Contention
No player has ever won a major wielding a long putter. But that could change as no less than four players are in contention who are employing these unsightly weapons. Chasing Chad Campbell (-9) and Kenny Perry (-9) are long putter wielding Angel Cabrera (-8), Tim Clark (-5), Sergio Garcia (-4), and Vijay Singh (-3). I would root for any of them to win if they were using the traditional implement, but no way can I root for putting challenged golfers who employ these tradition busting should-be-illegal tools. Can you in your wildest dreams see Tiger Woods using one?

Tiger on Moving Day
Tiger Woods has gone low all four times on moving day when he has won the Masters. Thanks to the seven shot deficit he’s facing and the 18 players in front of him, he’s going to have to go very low today to have any chance of winning. And even if he does shoot a low number, he will likely still be faced with winning his first major without at least a share of the 54 hole lead. He does have one big advantage over those who are several strokes ahead of him: he is teeing off about 90 minutes ahead of the leaders, so if goes on a front nine birdie barrage, the sight of his name close to theirs could be rather unnerving.

Tiger’s 4 Masters Victories
1997—70-66-65-69 = 270
2001—70-66-68-68 = 272
2002—70-69-66-71 = 276
2005—74-66-65-71 = 276

Daily Average
Day 1  71.00
Day 2  66.75
Day 3  66.00
Day 4  69.75