I have written a number of instructional articles over the years, and created quite a few “how-to” videos as well. I always enjoy sharing tips with my readers and students and I am grateful when a number of them respond that I have helped with their game.

But I am here to issue a word of caution: It is very difficult to learn the game of golf from a written word or even watching instructional videos. When doing so, you have to be very careful about how you internalize the information. When instructors write these tips, we are doing so very generically, to mass audiences who we have never seen swing the club. So it is incumbent upon the readers to know which tips apply to them and, conversely, which ones do not and can actually hurt their game. This is a fine line we walk and caution is the order of the day.

If you look in the World Golf Hall of Fame, you will see every kind of swing imaginable; flat, upright, long, short, quick, slow, etc. I can think of nothing that every single great player does or has done over the years. If a flying elbow is bad, Jack Nicklaus would not be the great champion he is. If a flat swing is bad, no one would have ever heard of Lee Trevino. If the club is to be swung slowly, Tom Watson would be still playing in Kansas City. This list could go on forever.

Every time I read or watch a suggestion for a position in which a player ”should be,” I can find some great golfer who is not in that position. We see many of the greats roll their arms through impact, supinating the left hand; yet Paul Azinger finished ”knuckles up.” Freddie takes it outside, Ray Floyd took it way inside. Even if we look at the modern players, those coming up in the Launch Monitor era with coaches, videos, Motion systems, etc., we still see a wide variety of methods employed; from Fowler’s flatness to DJ’s straight up style, there is no end to the differences! What do they have in common? They all square the club face at the right time.

If anyone saw Jim Furyk’s video and didn’t know it was Furyk, they would find fault and make any number of suggestions to correct it. Unless they looked very closely at the club at impact, a fan might think: “Why is he doing that?” But the trained eye thinks: “How did he do that?”

If we look at little closer at Furyk’s move, it’s a stroke of pure genius. I have had a lot of people say, “I hate that swing!” I’m always quick to point out that I would love to have that impact position consistently. The point is simple: It’s a series of moves — a sequence of motions that works. The strange movements in Furyk’s swing don’t matter. One move complements the other. It is a compatible variation!

When I see unique swings like Fuyrk’s I’m not looking at what he does wrong, only how did he match the disparate parts? I love that singularity and want to find out all I can about how he did it. When my students arrive on the lesson tee, they have an incompatible variation, and that’s why they are there. I have to make the parts match. But I need to see it live and in-person to do that completely. I am simply amazed when criticism is offered before the ball flight is known. My very first question to a student: “What is the ball doing?” That’s all that matters. When I am sent a video to analyze, I have to know something about shot patterns, or all I’m suggesting are classic positions. What good are those?

Learning from an article is fine if it is of the “If-this-then-that” nature. If you do this, then try doing that. That’s the way I teach, and I believe it’s the only way to develop a personal style that allows you the freedom to do what comes naturally. IF the swing is wide going back, it has to narrow coming down. If it goes outside going back, it has to loop back under coming down. And the reverse works as well. I personally think Sergio has one of the purest moves in the game. How he got there, only he and his father (his teacher) really know. And the look of it matters not one bit — all that matters is that the ball reacts as he wants it to. But again, if one were sent a video of his swing, comments like laid off, too much lag, hands too low and others might be the typical responses.

“Golf is what the ball does,” the great John Jacobs reminded us, and as an instructor, I let that be my first guide. Writing articles, as I do for this site, are very general suggestions. I remind students and readers that if you want to find your personal problem and get correction for it, see your instructor. He or she will work with what you have, and try to improve on it; at least I do. Look for the “if you do this” approach when sifting through the massive volume of material on the blogosphere about learning golf. And see your teacher to bounce your new findings off — It may keep you from going down a wrong path.

Click here for more discussion in the “Instruction and Academy” forum.

If a company can manufacture automotive springs, it can probably make a pretty decent golf shaft.

That’s exactly the case for Nippon Shafts, whose parent company NHK Springs is a large automotive springs manufacturing company.

Mark Pekarek, North American distributor for Nippon, gives NHK credit for the construction methods and materials that give Nippon shafts their smooth feel and make them efficient at transferring energy.

Nippon’s latest iron shaft, the N.S. Pro Modus 3 Tour 130, is stiff in the butt and mid sections, but it has a softer tip section.

“What that creates is a little bit of a higher, easy launch but then a lower, Tour-type spin to get the ball to go through the air in a more penetrating fashion,” Pekarek said.

This is the opposite construction of the company’s N.S. Pro Modus 3 Tour 120 shaft that debuted in 2012, which is about 10 grams lighter than the Tour 130. Usually, lighter weight shafts are designed to hit the ball higher than their heavier weight counterparts, but the Tour 120 has a stiff tip with softer mid and butt sections — a construction that actually results in a lower flight.

Like all of the company’s shafts, the Tour 130 is created from a specially picked base metal. It then undergoes an NHK-learned heat treatment process that the company says helps with distance control.

The Tour 130 is currently used by Sergio Garcia. It comes in three flexes: the R (121 grams), S (124 grams) and X (129 grams) and sells for about $37 each.

The Tour 120 comes in four flexes: R (111 grams), S (114), X (120) and TX (126) and sells for the same price.

Check out the video interview about the Tour 130 with GolfWRX’s Zak Kozuchowski and Pekarek to learn more about the shaft.

Throughout Tiger Woods’ career, his late father Earl got his attention on the golf course by calling him “Sam.”

“He rarely ever called me Tiger,” Woods said. “I would ask him, ‘Why don’t you ever call me Tiger?’ He’d say, “Well, you look more like a Sam.”

With a victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by MasterCard this weekend, Woods won’t just look like a Sam; he would will join “Slammin’ Sammy” Snead in the record books as the only other golfer to win a tournament eight times.

Snead set the record at the Greater Greensboro Open, which he won in 1938, 1946, 1949, 1950, 1955, 1956, 1960 and 1965. Tiger’s seven career wins at Bay Hill (2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2008, 2009 and 2012) are highlighted by a compelling 3.86 stroke average margin of victory, and he’s a collective 108-under par in 15 professional starts at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Since firing an energized Bay Hill final-round 70 in difficult conditions last year, Tiger’s won four more times, including two wins in his last four events this season. And Woods’ incomparable 17th World Golf Championship title at the WGC-Cadillac Championship at Doral two weeks ago showcased a predatory Tiger — not the injured Tiger, not the frustrated Tiger commonly on display during his 923 day winless drought.

Tiger is ranked first in scoring average, second in birdies average, and sixth in strokes-gained-putting through fourTour events in 2013. His ball striking has been pure, distance control dialed in, and maybe most importantly Tiger’s short game magic has returned. However, Woods better be firing on all cylinders if he plans on walking off No. 18 green Sunday evening to shake Arnold Palmer’s hand and receive his eighth plaid jacket.

Bay Hill is one of the premier tests on Tour. And its three closing holes give players nightmares. “Arnie’s Place” sets up more than 7,400 yards with thick Bermuda grass that punishes errant tee shots. Par-5 scoring and greens-in-regulation will be crucial for whoever wins — especially with the putting surfaces being so tough to hold.

Headliners in the field include nine of the top-15 players in the Official World Golf Rankings, seven of the top-10 in the current FedExCup Standings (as well as 24 of the top-30), and nine previous Arnold Palmer Invitational champions. Three reigning major champions are also teeing it up at Bay Hill, including Masters winner Bubba Watson, Open Championship winner Ernie Els and U.S. Open winner Webb Simpson.

And world No. 4 Justin Rose (who hasn’t finished outside the top-15 on the PGA or European Tour for seven months and running), No. 10 Phil Mickelson (with a win at the Phoenix Open earlier this season and two top-5 finishes in two of his last four events), and a hot Sergio Garcia are all looking for strong performances heading into Augusta.

Current FedExCup leader Brandt Snedeker returns to action for the first time since winning the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in February. He’s been sidelined five weeks with a rib muscle strain.

“I’m excited to be back out,” Snedeker said. “My golf game feels kinda where it was [Pebble Beach]. So I’m excited to see what this week holds.”

Snedeker has seven top-10 finishes in his last 11 events dating back to last year, including two wins and three runner-ups. However Snedeker finished 63rd here last year, and missed the cut in 2011.

Graeme McDowell was gracious in defeat at Bay Hill last year saying,

“It was great to have a front-row seat watching maybe the greatest of all time doing what he does best – winning golf tournaments.”

But don’t believe for a moment McDowell wasn’t bitterly disappointed fading to a second place finish. The fiery Irishman has earned his reputation as a big time player who shines brightest when the spotlight burns hottest — he didn’t’ finish worse than 12th place in any major last year.

And with three top-10 finishes in four events this season, McDowell is playing very well again this year. He’s fifth in scoring average, second in driving accuracy and second in scrambling. McDowell would relish another Sunday showdown with Woods at Bay Hill.

Still, Bay Hill remains Tiger’s domain. And a 77th Tour title for Woods this weekend would ascend him past current No. 1 Rory McIlroy to the crowning point in the world rankings — the first time Woods would sit on this throne since October 2010.

I know Sergio Garcia.

Well, OK maybe not really. I don’t literally know Sergio Garcia, as I am Canadian and work in an office and he is Spanish and plays on the PGA Tour, but humor me for a second. I know what it feels like to be Sergio, at least Sergio minus the millions of dollars, which is probably not as significant a difference as we assume.

I know what it feels like to not achieve what you thought you’d achieve, to feel like you missed out on things, to go through tough moments in your life and have it affect how you act. I know what it feels like to do or say something stupid in the heat of the moment and instantly regret it. Yes, I may not have millions of dollars to comfort me but I also don’t have millions of people criticizing me or taking pleasure in my failures either. I understand, or at least try to understand, Sergio.

I watch him and can’t help but feel how close he has come to being something completely different, to being the champion we all thought he’d be when he skipped up the fairway at Medinah, to being the overall athlete we crave as fans, who wins and then tells us how they really feel about it, or about everything really. Only it hasn’t happened yet, and with each passing year I wonder if it will ever happen. I also wonder what it would change if it did, if a major title would transform him from the guy into the humble, honest superstar I believe he is. I guess the difference with me is I’m not willing to wait; I cheer for him now. And so should you.

To understand Sergio now, you have to go back to the beginning. In simple physics terms, no one can fall this far without starting so high, and that is true in his case. Sergio had a ton of promise. As a junior, he set a record as the youngest player ever to make the cut in a European Tour event (since broken), he turned pro after being the low amateur at the 1999 Masters, and then won his first pro tournament in only his sixth start at the 1999 Irish Open. Of course that was only wetting our appetite for his epic duel with Tiger Woods at the 1999 PGA Championship at Medinah, a tournament that has become a staple of Golf Channel classics, and which featured one of the greatest shots ever hit in major championship golf. Sports Illustrated wrote an article about Woods’ win that August, in which it said Tiger and Sergio had the star quality of Newman and Redford, and that the weekend launched a rivalry that would take golf into a new era.

Garcia couldn’t be praised enough, whether it was for his “mischievous glare” he gave Tiger on No. 13, or for his delightful scissor kick down the No. 16 fairway. He was the swashbuckling Spaniard on what he would afterwards call “the best day of my life.” He was only 19 years old and already a superstar, and already having picked up his first second-place finish in a major, a stat that would come to define him

It seems like a long time ago that Sergio was known for his exuberance. Sergio gave a great interview after Medinah, about his glare, about his desire to play Tiger in that year’s Ryder cup. He did humerus ads for Michelob beer where he spoofed James Bond, or caroused with women next to pools. He wasn’t a traditional superstar, he was honest and refreshing. This was not a guy who answered questions with “It is what it is.” This was a guy who really let you know how he felt. We appreciated that when things were going well. We like our pros to be honest when things are going well.

Things stopped being perfect in 2002, probably the first time Sergio faced real backlash. By then he had won eight global tournaments and had certainly not been too much of a disappointment, but he arrived at Bethpage Black with no majors and a bit of a nasty habit of re-gripping the club. In perhaps a bit of irony, we praised New Yorkers for being tough but crushed Sergio for responding with a middle finger salute to the gallery when fans heckled him. Should we have congratulated Sergio for flipping the bird to a group of wiseguy New Yorkers who were counting Sergio’s regrips? No, I suppose not.

Garcia playing at Bethpage Black in the 2012 at The Barclays.

But why was he targeted? Sergio spent most of Sunday in contention and ended up finishing fourth. This was the same guy who three years earlier had thrilled us trying to chase down Tiger at Medinah, and here he was again trying to chase down the same man in the Big Apple. Had fans turned on him for re-gripping his club? For responding with a rude gesture to fans calling him “waggle boy” and who were also apparently taking potshots at his then-girlfriend Martina Hingis?

Garcia probably didn’t help his case by also suggesting that the Saturday conditions favored Woods and the tournament likely would have postponed play if their tee times had been reversed. Yet, it certainly wasn’t the first time Tiger had been accused of getting breaks, but it wasn’t usually from players. It’s OK for fans to say it, but not for Garcia. In any regard, Garcia apologized and even left a personalized note in Woods’ locker regarding his comments. Is this really that unforgivable? To respond to rude gestures with rude gestures of your own? To complain that co-workers have benefited from more favorable circumstances? Nevertheless, Bethpage 2002 is still not regarded as Sergio’s finest hour.

His reputation somewhat tarnished, Sergio went on to win five more tournaments in the next five years. He now had 16 global victories while still in only his mid 20s, but majors still eluded him. Between 2002 and 2007, Garcia would reach the pinnacle of what I’ll call the dreaded “Phil Mickelson Status” of being the unanimous best player without a major. In that span, he had 11 top 10s in majors including multiple top 10s in every individual major event. His name popped up on leaderboards like a whack-a-mole. But with Mickelson winning the Masters in 2004 (Garcia finished T4 that year), the press had a new target to torment. His spitting incident in March 2007 gave the media an opportunity to pile up on Sergio anew about his attitude and his failure to play up to our expectations.

It’s tough to defend a man spitting in the cup, which Sergio did at Doral in 2007, but the act and its aftermath was vintage Garcia. He fessed up to it immediately, and then awkwardly (and somewhat comically) described to Jimmy Roberts how the spit went in the middle of the cup, fell through and posed no immediate threat to ensuing golfers. He then chided a reporter the following day for questioning him on it again, asking him if he was “disappointed he didn’t do it again today.” But blood was in the water again, and several publications used the incident to talk about how disappointing his career had been, how childish he could act, and how he just wasn’t a winner on par with Tiger Woods, like we expected him to be in 1999. It’s hard to imagine this not bothering someone, not weighing on him every time he stepped out on the course, especially someone we knew to be fairly emotional. Phil Mickelson would later admit winning a major was important to him all along, certainly it must have been for Sergio as well.

Garcia at the PGA Championship in 2008, where he finished second to Padraig Harrington.

The 2007 Open Championship and 2008 PGA Championship were probably the straws that broke the camel’s back so to speak. Even after coming so close before, these were major tournaments that Sergio really should have won. He led both in the final round, and in 2007 in particular, looked dominant the first three rounds while building up a big lead. Even despite giving it up on the final day, he still had a makeable putt for the win, and to this day every time I watch that putt it still looks like it’s going in.

At the 2008 PGA Championship, he battled hard again with Padraig Harrington on Sunday at Oakland Hills before a shot into the water at No. 16 helped seal yet another second-place finish. Coming so close and still failing after so many years of pressure, to be one or two shots away from finally having people stop wondering about his mental fortitude, about whether he was capable of winning a major, seemed to send Sergio into a tailspin. Well, arguably that and his much publicized breakup with Greg Norman’s daughter, Morgan. Garcia would fall all the way down the rankings to No. 78, after being as high as second only a year earlier. He would miss the Ryder Cup for the first time in his career in 2010, a year in which he struggled with his emotions (arguably reaching that apex when he broke down into tears during the Madrid Masters) and simply in the end deciding to take time off golf.

As you would expect by now, Sergio dealt with this as he often did, with brutal honesty. He would give interviews where he became one of the only pro athletes I can remember openly talking about how hurt feelings over a relationship contributed to his poor play. He laid it all out there over and over to any reporter who wanted to ask. He routinely talked about not being happy on the course and how that affected his play. He talked about his breakup with Morgan Norman. Say what you want about that man, but again he never answers anything with “It is what it is.”

Fast forward to 2012, and Sergio has been back for two years. He has won two more events bringing his professional wins total to 24, including 18 on the PGA and European Tours. There is no one younger than him on either pro tour that has more wins then his eight (Tour) and 10 (Euro). It feels like it’s been a long ride to get here, but Sergio is only 33, and despite his past, he said he had no regrets.

Garcia did a gem of an interview with David Feherty in 2012 for the Golf Channel, saying essentially that, but also admitting that maybe he’d be better off if there was a bit of a break between the on-course action and having to give interviews. He seems pretty aware that he said dumb things in the heat of the moment, and hinted to realizing later how foolish he could look to saying some things. He also said that he tried to remember that he was just a golfer, just a guy with a gift of talent but who was no better nor different than the average fan.

Garcia at the 2012 Ryder Cup with Rory McIlroy.

“I think if we all thought like this the world would be a better place,” he said to David Feherty.

I took from his comments to mean that it’s really important for him to just be a good guy.

So I try to think of Sergio as a regular guy, like myself. Maybe we all should. Maybe an honest and open guy is always going to struggle in the spotlight but is that such a bad thing? Why do some people enjoy rooting against someone who time and time again is accountable, who lays it out there and is vulnerable? How can we condemn someone for saying things in the heat of the moment when we all do that? Who among us has never thrown a club, spoke ill of a coworker, responded to bullying with an obscene gesture or comment? Let them cast the first stone, but I will not do it.

When I look at Garcia, I see a guy who is fallible, out on Tour struggling to become what we expect him to be. I see fans criticizing the guy because he doesn’t fit their view of what they think they’d be like in his place. Maybe instead of spoofing James Bond in a commercial, he should’ve impersonated Superman, capable of performing acts we can’t fathom on the golf course, but unable to shake being the mortal Clark Kent off it. I for one like that about Garcia, and hope others will start appreciating it too, because there aren’t many who let us see that side to them.

And that brings us back to where we are. Sergio Garcia at 33 with the Masters around the corner. He sits locked at those 18 major Tour wins and 17 top 10s in majors, facing the downswing of his career which may culminate in him being labelled a whining disappointment.

There is still hope for Garcia. Just a little under a decade ago, Mickelson entered April 2004 in virtually the same position.

“Phil the Thrill” came into that Masters with 22 Tour wins and 16 top 10s in majors at the age 33. He had a lot of the same demons and a similar volume of detractors. That must seem like a long time ago for Phil.

What then, will we say about Garcia in 2023? Will he win his majors? If so what will fans make of it? Will winning make his human side more tolerable or more heavily scrutinized? I can hardly imagine Garcia himself will change, knowing what we do. And that is what makes the coming years fascinating for me. He won’t change, but will him winning change fans?

As we’ve learned already with Garcia, anything is possible. And I will be rooting for him all the way, because I believe sometimes the good guys should finish first.

Driver: TaylorMade R1
Loft: 9 Degrees
Shaft: Mitsubishi Rayon Diamana White Board 103X 

3 Wood: TaylorMade RBZ Stage 2
Loft: 14.5 Degrees
Shaft: Mitsubishi Rayon Diamana White Board 103X

Hybrid: TaylorMade RBZ Stage 2 Tour Rescue
Loft: 19.5 Degrees
Shaft: Mitsubishi Rayon Diamana White Board 103X 

Irons: TaylorMade RocketBladez Tour (3-PW)
Lie: 1 Degree Flat
Length: -1/2 Inch
Shafts: Nippon N.S. Pro Tour 130X

Wedges: TaylorMade ATV (50 and 58 Degrees)
Shafts: Nippon N.S. Pro Tour 130X

Putter: TaylorMade Ghost Tour MC-72 (Plumbers Neck)
Grip: SuperStroke 55 (European Ryder Cup Edition) 

Ball: TaylorMade Lethal

Click here to see what members are saying in the “Pro Player WITB” forum

Click here to see what members are saying in the “Pro Player WITB” forum

Golf, cruel?  Really?

Standing on the 17^th tee Sunday afternoon at TPC Sawgrass with his second Players Championship trophy tantalizingly within reach, Sergio Garcia was in command of his own destiny.

Birdies on the Nos. 11, 13 and 16 launched Garcia into a share of the lead at 13-under with Tiger Woods. And earlier Sunday morning, Garcia actually hit the flagstick on No. 17 en route to a birdie as players finished third round play suspended the evening before because of darkness.

“That hole [No. 17] has been good to me for the most part,” Garcia said in his press conference afterwards.

Garcia won The Players Championship in 2008 on this hole. On this particular Sunday however, No. 17 would have its revenge on Garcia.

Mouthing the word “go” almost immediately after hitting his shot, Garcia’s ball splashed into the water and never reached the iconic island green.

“I just under-hit it a little bit,” Garcia said.  “I felt with a little bit of adrenaline, I didn’t want to shoot over the green with a wedge.  I needed to hit it a little bit harder and was maybe a little bit too confident.”

Garcia still had a slim chance of forcing a playoff with Woods if he could escape the 17^th hole with a bogey, and card a birdie on No. 18 (which he did on Friday).

But reminiscent of the movie “Tin Cup,” Garcia curiously elected to re-hit again from the tee rather than hit from the drop area, unceremoniously sinking his second shot into the water as well — bouncing it off the front bunker ridge on way to a quadruple-bogey seven.  Garcia’s excruciating collapse was completed when he also drove his tee shot into the water on No. 18 for a double-bogey, tumbling to a T-8 finish.

Fairly or unfairly Garcia’s collapse will again renew discussions about the mercurial Spaniard being a whiner and a choker.

On Saturday, Garcia called it “unfortunate” that Woods disrupted Garcia’s second shot from the par-5 second hole when Tiger took out a fairway wood from his bag causing the crowd around him to cheer loudly in the middle of Garcia’s swing.

Garcia implied it was intentional, while Woods countered he wasn’t surprised to learn of Garcia “complaining about something.” The bickering continued through to Sunday when Garcia said Woods “is not the nicest guy on tour.”

But this is a far cry from the days of Garcia bellyaching “the golf gods are against me,” or somberly moaning “I get no breaks.”  This was simply Garcia expressing his opinion about a fellow competitor who he genuinely dislikes. And there’s nothing wrong with not liking someone you’re competing against.

Unlike most other sports, the Tour carries an image of its players all generally getting along and liking each other.  But as someone in the media pointed out, there’s a difference between “respecting someone” and “liking them.”

And calling Garcia a choker because of what happened on No. 17 is equally going too far.

In total, 44 balls were hit in the water on the 17^th hole over the weekend. In 2007, a record 93 balls got wet. Pete Dye’s island green is 130 some yards with a fairly large green, a shot on any other course that Tour professionals will hit consistently to a few yards round the clock.

But No. 17 at TPC Sawgrass is specifically designed to wreck havoc on even the best of players, particularly on the weekend when the pressure is jacked up. It happened to Jeff Maggert on Sunday who was also in position to win. It happened to Paul Goydos here in 2008.

Garcia didn’t blow a four-stroke or five-stroke lead. Garcia didn’t systematically collapse over the course of a tournament. He unraveled on a hole designed to create bad shots and cause chaos. Garcia played the best closer in the game, and No. 1 player in the world (who’s happened to close 52 of the last 56 when he has the 54-hole lead ) to a dead draw for 70 holes.

And making matters worse for Garcia, the crowd cheered wildly when Garcia’s first shot at No. 17 found the water, and even wilder when he did it again on his second shot.  That would rattle just about anyone but the most resolute players on Tour, let alone someone like Garcia who feeds on emotion, albeit both to his benefit and detriment.

Garcia is and will remain one of the most polarizing players on Tour, and for good reason. But give credit where credit is due. Garcia played well, very well in fact. Just not well enough to win. And if you play the game long enough, the game will burn you, sometimes in the cruelest ways imaginable. Just ask Adam Scott, or Jim Furyk, and yes, even Tiger Woods.

Great athletes have an inner source of strength, a deep reservoir of emotional control and self belief that mere mortals cannot seem to find. It is a rarer-than-rare quality that very few ever know, but beautiful to watch when you see it in action.

I remember Larry Bird when he coached the Pacers saying,

“I try to teach these guys confidence, but they don’t seem to get it.”

We get glimpses of it in athletes every so often. Certainly Bird had it, as did Jordan, Ali, Gretzky and a few others. But in the game of golf, no one has it more than Tiger Woods. And what happened to Woods at the Players Championship should be a lesson for all of us on how to play well in the heat of battle.

On No. 14 of the Players, Woods hit an ugly “quacker” — a quick hook that dove head first into the pond left of the fairway. Those who have played TPC Sawgrass’ Stadium Course know that the only place that you can’t hit it on No. 14 is there!

Woods then hit an incredible recovery shot, but flubbed a fairly simple up and down for a double-bogey six. On No. 15, after hitting the fairway, he dumped a short iron into the left greenside grass bunker — one of the few times he had short-sided himself all week.

Situations like the one Tiger put himself in on No. 15 is where mere mortals collapse, lose control and start worrying about blowing the tournament. But we’re not talking about a mere mortal here, we’re talking about Tiger Woods. He made an all-world up and down to save a great par, and went on to play the remaining three holes in 1-under and win the tournament. So what’s the point?

The lesson we should learn here is this: After No. 14, Tiger was not thinking,

“Oh no, I’m blowing it, what do I do now?”

Here’s how Tiger described his thought process:

“Look I’m tied for the lead with four holes to play; it’s not like I blew the tournament. If I can play under par from here in, I get into a playoff at worst.”

Think about that. Here he goes into that wellspring of calm, clear thinking and self belief that I described above. When most golfers would start looking ”out there” (their swing, chipping motion, putting stoke), Tiger went INSIDE to find a way, any way, to right the ship.

“Blowing it” is just not part of a great player’s mental construct. “Losing it” is simply not an option for these people. There were two lessons to be learned at The Players: Get inside Sergio’s mind to learn what NOT to do, and get inside Tiger’s mind to learn what to do!

What is the source of this innate gift? There are better minds than mine that could answer this, and I’m sure there are volumes written on it. But in the end, the quality may be so ineffibale and complex that I’m not sure any one can actually define it. But we know it we we see it.

The lesson for all future tournament players is this: So much as one ounce of doubt in yourself is too much. And one iota of worry about the outcome is too much; much too much. The outcome may not always be favorable, but the champion refuses to beat him or herself. There is no other way for the great ones.

Bobby Jones suffered many years from syringomyelia, a degenerative, ultimately fatal disease of the spine and neuromuscular system. He lived several years past when he should have, and when he was finally when he called to his tee time in the sky, the great golf writer Herb Wind said:

“Now we know his secret; it was the strength of his mind.”

They say that pressure can make diamonds, but it can also burst pipes.

It seemed for a moment that Sergio Garcia was finally going to shine by besting Tiger Woods head to head for a meaningful title. In the end, Woods added another jewel to his already crowded crown and Garcia needed a good plumber.

On No. 17 at Sawgrass on Sunday, Garcia’s round dissolved like a couple of Alka-Seltzer, only this case the “plop, plop, fizz, fizz” started a headache instead of relieving one. Garcia’s mind-bending quadruple-bogey, double-bogey finish at The Players Championship last weekend will certainly be remembered as long as he plays golf. The question now is whether it will define his career.

While his talent has never been questioned, Sergio has been circling true greatness like a guy trying to get in a nightclub when he knows his name isn’t on the invite list. When he burst on the scene at the 1999 PGA Championship, he seemed to have the perfect combination of ability and a joyful spirit of competition to be a foil for Woods, who was already casting a Darth Vader-like shadow over the game.

And Garcia has had a noteworthy career, with wins all over the world, a distinguished match play record and more money than he can count. But it still seems that Garcia’s talent is a check that never really got cashed. He has only eight PGA Tour wins, and aside from the The Players Championship in 2008 there isn’t a significant win on his record that doesn’t have “Cup” in the name.

But this loss is different than the others, because Sergio is no longer a child prodigy. Sergio is 33, the time when most golfers should be in the prime of their careers, but he seems older. The joy we saw from a younger Sergio seems to have been replaced by a surliness and a tendency to blame the gods for his missteps and shortcomings.

Garcia is all about “almost” and “what if,” and the list continues to grow: The 2007 British Open where he lipped out too many putts. The 2008 PGA Championship at Oakland Hills where he rinsed a ball on the 70th hole to take himself out of contention. And now this.

Each time Garcia has been knocked down, he bounced back, but each time just a little lower. There is psychic scar tissue that will restrict his ability to perform in similar situations in the future. The petty fight that Garcia picked with Woods over a crowd disturbance seemed more like Garcia trying to wave a little smelling salts under his own nose rather than a legitimate complaint. But it also was Garcia reaffirming his perpetual victimhood, something that the greats of the game have never had any time for.

Going forward, Garcia will not only have to fight his inner demons. There will be some very external, very vocal fans ready to chide and berate the one thing that American fans hate most, a whiner.

Colin Montgomerie was just elected to the Hall of Fame, but Monty went O-for-America, never managing to win on the PGA Tour once in the face of the constant teasing from the normally restrained PGA Tour galleries. Garcia has now put himself in the role of being the King of All Mopes. It proved to be too much for Monty; it will likely prove to be too much for Garcia to win a major championship on American soil.

Tiger Woods once said that he loves performing under pressure, despite the fact that it “feels like a lion tearing at my heart.” That Woods seeks the lion and defeats it time after time is a testament to where he belongs in the golf pantheon.

Garcia has also seen the lion, and in those instances when he had a team with him he has known success. But when he has to face the beast alone he seems to seek a way out more than a way to win.

It doesn’t make him a bad guy; in fact it makes him like the rest of us. But you know what, we need Sergio Garcia. He is a measuring stick, a point of perspective that tells us the difference between good and great.

Before Sergio Garcia’s racially insensitive remarks at the European Tour awards dinner Tuesday night, the golfer had already made a series of imprudent decisions.

He made comments about Tiger Woods pulling a club during his backswing, causing a commotion, which led to an errant shot at The Players Championship. The notoriously malcontent golfer then suggested that Woods had done it on purpose and indicated that he didn’t particularly care for the world’s No. 1-ranked player.

Never one to let sleeping dogs lie or bite his own wagging tongue, Garcia, in a press conference earlier this week, suggested that Woods is a liar, generally impugned his character, and reiterated that the golfer is unlikely to be receiving a Christmas card from the Garcia family.

What began as a difference of opinion or perspective between two of the game’s best has turned into a mess worse than Garcia’s play at the 17th hole at Sawgrass nearly two weeks ago.

If there was an award at Tuesday night’s gala for the “Most Racist Remark since Fuzzy Zoeller at the 1997 Masters” or “Lifetime Achievement in Putting One’s Foot in One’s Mouth,” the Spaniard would likely have been a finalist.

Before we deal with Sergio’s Stupid Comments, Part XXIV, it’s worth noting that I enjoy when the world’s top professional golfers, who are generally reserved when they’re on the record, speak their minds. But his actions over the last two weeks display a real lack of both insight and foresight, which, unfortunately, speaks volumes about his inability to capitalize on the tremendous potential he first showed nearly 15 years ago.

On to the remarks at the center of the present controversy. In response to a question about whether he’ll be interacting with Tiger Woods at the U.S. Open next month, Sergio said,

“We’ll have him ’round every night. We will serve fried chicken.”

In introducing the quote, I nearly said, “On to the meat of our discussion,” but that seemed insensitive in light of the comment at hand. I don’t consider myself a great intellect or an exemplary human being; however, I refrained from the previous statement given my judgement that it could potentially offend or be considered in poor taste, which is exactly what Sergio didn’t do.

Think before you speak, about your audience, the context of your comments and the implications of what you’re saying. It’s not a radical proposition, nor is it a difficult habit to practice; however, it’s a bit of advice that’s essential in any remotely civil society.

Garcia knew the words shouldn’t have left his lips just as they were reaching the ears of the eager press corps, but just like when he spit in the cup at Doral in 2007, he just couldn’t help himself. Certainly, he’s apologized and said the right words since. Unfortunately, apologies rarely redeem a public figure in the court of public opinion.

As a result, he is in hot water — even with his current equipment/clothing sponsor, TaylorMade-adidas golf, who released this statement about Garcia:

Sergio Garcia’s recent comment was offensive and in no way aligns with TaylorMade-adidas Golf’s values and corporate culture. We have spoken with Sergio directly and he clearly has regret for his statement and we believe he is sincere. We discussed with Sergio that his comments are clearly out of bounds and we are continuing to review the matter.

I can write off Sergio’s feud with Tiger over the last few weeks as Sergio being Sergio. But his comment in Europe crossed the line. It’s extremely unfortunate for Sergio as well, who prior to Saturday at The Players appeared to be moving forward — with his putting, with his maturity and toward a major championship.

But he’s taken a huge step backward, and has likely done irreparable damage to his image. And if he thought the hecklers were tough to deal with at the 2002 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black in New York City, he’s got something coming for him at Merion next month.

Click here to see what members are saying in the forums.

With the beginning of summer comes the start to a fresh season of golf for those in the Northern states.

Warm weather equals golf and baseball and cold weather equals football and basketball (or hockey if that’s what you’re into).

Well, the weather is getting warm, so it’s time to scrape the dirt out of the golf spikes and grooves in the sand wedge.  We’ve watched The Masters and The Players, but now it’s our turn to get into the swing of the season.

Jack Nicklaus always said that he would refresh his fundamentals at the beginning of each season, checking his grip, posture and alignment before embarking on his goals for the year.  If it’s good enough for Jack, it’s probably good enough for us mere mortals.

This year, instead of just checking the fundamentals, I’m also suggesting to think about refreshing your overall outlook on the game of golf for the year.  Golf is a mental game, and the more positivity emanating from you and the players in your foursome, the more fun you’ll have and the better you’ll play (in theory).

The obvious problem here is that golf, regardless of how much you love it, will at some point make you want to break the new driver you got for Christmas and cancel all remaining tee times for the season. Since golf is frustrating no matter how positive your outlook, maybe the goal should be to surround yourself with the best possible playing partners, rather than fixing your own mental game.

To make this process easier, I’ve compiled a list of playing partners to avoid this season, which will give you the best possible opportunity to stay positive and play to your potential.

The Sergio Garcia, a.k.a “The Complainer”

This, of course, is the person that whines their way through a round of golf.  I never quite understood this particular golfer, but it’s obvious they would rather not be playing golf that day than enjoying the course and the challenges they face.

Key phrases to identify you are playing with the complainer:

• “ I can’t hit a good shot if there’s no sand in one bunker and too much in another.” 
• “Every green so far has had a different speed, how can I get the speed right?”
• “The group ahead is too slow, I can’t play at this pace.”
• “Where’s the beverage cart girl?” (understandable complaint)

The Ben Crane, a.k.a. “The Turtle”

This is the player that simply takes too long.  A couple putts over the course of a round require extra attention, and picking the right club on an approach shot could be critical to his/her score, but let’s hustle this thing up huh?

“But Tiger reads each and every putt from all 360 degrees around the hole” says the turtle. 

Tiger is a billionaire athlete that has to validate sponsorships, silence critics and please millions of fans and followers worldwide that expect him to eclipse Jack Nicklaus’ coveted record of 18 major championships in order to cement himself as the best golfer of all time. The 5-footer for bogey on the 13th hole en route to a back nine 46 and a $5 Nassau needs only be looked at from 180 degrees or less.  Or at least read the putt while your partner is playing.

Tell tale signs you’re playing with the turtle: 

• 12+ practice swings
• 7+ waggles
• Excessive time reading the break of every green
• Overall relief when they finally hit

The Tiger Woods, a.k.a “The Hot Head”

You are not Tiger Woods (See Tiger Woods description above). Dropping and slamming clubs, making hand motions after missed putts, and cursing audibly should not be a part of the average golfers’ repertoire.  We are not good enough to expect perfection with every swing or putt, so our reactions should not reflect the expectation of perfect. Misses happen, but making playing partners feel uncomfortable following a fit of rage is unacceptable.  After all, what are they even so mad about? Rounds of golf are too short for all that negativity.

Phrases you’ll hear when playing with a hot head:

• “%@$*”
• “$@#!”
• Derogatory things about people’s mothers/families
• Other four letter words

The Butch Harmon, a.k.a. “The Know-it-all”

It’s always nice to have another pair of eyes looking at your swing to make sure everything looks OK. It’s even helpful to hear a couple guiding tips to improve upon your game. But it’s the guy that believes he’s a world-class golf instructor that gets under a golfers’ skin.

Not every swing needs to be corrected and analyzed. By the end of the round you’ll have 18 different swing thoughts, endless frustration and an ugly scorecard.

Phrases you’ll hear when playing with the know-it-all:

• “Keep your eye on the ball”
• “Keep your left arm straight”
• “You gotta turn your shoulders more on the backswing”
• “Limit hip rotation”
• “It’s all about weight shift”

The greatest thing about golf is meeting new people with different personalities and golfing experiences. Get to know them and listen to their stories. Don’t be so wrapped up in a couple strokes or bad shots that you lose sight of the more important things. Celebrate the game of golf this year and keep a positive attitude, but beware of the people that will negatively affect your mood or play on the course.

It is quite common to see athletes live off a certain reputation that is far from reality. While I am as big of a fan of Derek Jeter as anybody, his reputation provided him with Golden Glove awards that he was not worthy of. Michael Jordan’s defense became a liability in the latter years of his career, and it seems like anytime Bill Belichick uses a new scheme, he is credited as the inventor of that scheme.

On the PGA Tour, misconceptions about the abilities of certain golfers may be more prevalent. It surprises me that there are often so many misconceptions in a sport like golf — a game that has far fewer moving parts than a team sport. But I think a lot of these misconceptions have to do with people struggling to accurately quantify different parts of the game. There is also such a large discrepancy between a PGA Tour player and an amateur golfer that amateurs tend to overestimate the abilities of touring pros when they see them play in person – they think pros are incredible at every facet of the game simply because they are better than anybody they have seen before.

One of the myths I labeled in 2012 Pro Golf Synopsis as the “Mayfair Effect.” It occurs when a player has such an unorthodox swing or putting stroke that it is assumed that the player must be a good ball striker or putter because they are on Tour with that unorthodox motion. I called it the “Mayfair Effect” because of Billy Mayfair’s strange putting stroke. Because of its uniqueness, many golf fans and reporters labeled him as a great putter. The reality is that Mayfair was a very good ball striker who was held back by his struggles with the flat stick.

Perhaps the biggest myth on Tour today is the prowess of Sergio Garcia’s ball striking and his ineptness with the putter. No other player today quite gets the accolades of being the best ball striker of our generation like Garcia does.

Tiger gets praise for his ball striking, and the statistics show that Tiger is indeed an elite iron player. He just tends to struggle with his driver, and we acknowledge this. However, from what we hear about Garcia’s ball striking abilities, we would think he was the second coming of Ben Hogan. But the stats show this to be far from the truth.

Sergio has been a very average driver of the ball for the past three years on Tour. As far as his Zone play goes, the Safe Zone (shots from 125 to 175 yards) is his best part of his game, but his performance from that distance is just above average. And the Zone that matters the most on Tour is the Danger Zone (shots from 175 to 225 yards), which outside of 2011 he has been downright mediocre.

This does the raise the question of “How is Sergio still successful on Tour?” Well, he is a much better putter and short-game player than he is given credit for.

At one point in his career, Garcia was an elite ball striker on Tour and one of the Tour’s best putters. While those days appear to be behind him, he has become a much better putter and short-game player than most people realize, which has been a key for him in 2013.

The first tee balls will be in the air at the 113th edition of the U.S. Open when Cliff Kresge, Roger Tambellini and Ryan Yip tee off at 6:50 a.m. EST Thursday. A rain-soaked Merion Golf Club plays host to the game’s best, and traditional U.S. Open contenders may be bypassed by bomb-and-gougers and players who love to take the low line and strike their putts with pace, due to the soft and soggy conditions.

Of course, the grounds crew and legion of volunteers (many of them superintendents themselves) will invest endless hours and devote all available resources to getting the course ready to play in a collective Herculean effot.

However, with thunderstorms forecasted for Thursday and a 90 percent chance of rain, they appear to be fighting a losing battle with Mother Nature in general, and the remnants of Tropical Storm Andrea, in particular.

Here’s a look at who could win at muddy Merion.

Tiger Woods: 9-2 odds

In what is surely a surprise to no golf fan, Tiger Woods is the prohibitive favorite to win at Merion. He’ll be able to keep his driver in the bag this week and lean on his new friend (no, not Sergio Garcia) the Nike VR_S Covert 3 wood. He’s hitting nearly 68 percent of greens in regulation this year and is fifth in strokes gained-putting. With his atrocious putting performance at the Memorial Tournament firmly in the rearview mirror, Woods is more ready to return to major glory than he has been at any point during his five year drought.

Sergio Garcia: 33-1 odds

Bear with me on this one. Yes, there’s the saga that would make Colonel Sanders blush, and yes, Sergio Garcia melted down at The Players, has said he’ll never win a major, etc. However, with minimal winds and soft conditions, Garcia’s ball-striking prowess could leave him in position to pour in a lot of putts at Merion. Also, if you hadn’t been paying attention, Sergio, with his new grip and his, well, new grip, has moved from 144th in strokes gained-putting in 2011 to second this year.

Matt Kuchar: 20-1 odds

The hottest golfer in the game right now has had two fantastic performances in a row. The newly bearded Matt Kuchar finished second at the Crowne Plaza Invitational and then won the Memorial Tournament in just the sort of “fairways and greens” manner that wins U.S. Opens. His confidence in his arm-lock putting style has paid dividends as well, and should again at Hugh Wilson’s Pennsylvania masterpiece.

Adam Scott: 22-1 odds

It’s obviously improbable that the Masters champion will win the U.S. Open. However, Adam Scott, who did well at the U.S. Open at the Olympic Club last year (placing 15th), has finished inside the top 20 in both of his starts since winning the Masters. Scotty is a good high-ball hitter who could go flag hunting at Merion. If his putter performs, there’s no reason this couldn’t be the brace for the Australian.

Graeme McDowell: 20-1 odds

The most accurate driver on Tour this season and one of the best putters (13th in strokes gained-putting), Graeme McDowell has won twice in his last four starts. He’s also a U.S. Open stalwart, making the cut in all seven of his appearances. The Ulsterman won in 2010 and placed second last year. The only concern with McDowell on paper is his length, however at this year’s shorter U.S. Open venue, with its rain-soaked and receptive greens, G-Mac could easily hoist his second U.S. Open Trophy.

Justin Rose: 22-1 odds

It’s almost fashionable in golf circles to remember the lanky amateur at the 1998 Open Championship, and ask, “Where has the time gone?” Justin Rose, now 15 years removed from that seminal moment, is now 32. He’s a card-carrying member of the best golfers without a major club. Rose just finished tied for eighth at the Memorial, so he enters Merion in good form. The Englishman is 156th in strokes gained-putting, but if he starts to roll a few in this week, the tournament could be his.

Brandt Snedeker: 28-1 odds

Beware the sick golfer, as they say. Brandt Snedeker has struggled since withdrawing from the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship with a rib injury earlier this year. At the Memorial Tournament, he fired a second-round 80 and missed the cut, and he missed the cut at last week’s FedEx St. Jude Classic, as well. However, if Snedeker, one of the most accurate drivers on Tour, keeps the ball in the fairway and doesn’t have to wage war on Merion’s rough, he can certainly make the putts to win.

Lee Westwood: 28-1 odds

Another injured golfer, Lee Westwood, who hurt a finger at the Players Championship, could overpower Merion. Once comically bad around the green, Westwood now ranks third and eighth in scrambling and sand save percentage, respectively. Westy also finished inside the top 10 at the past two U.S. Opens. In 2011, at a soft venue with accessible pins at Congressional, he finished second. Last year, at the difficult Olympic Club, he finished tied for tenth. Clearly then, he’s comfortable with both extremes of the U.S. Open venue spectrum.

Phil Mickelson: 16-1 odds

It’s doubtful that anyone is happier about the receptive greens which await the players at Merion than Phil Mickelson. The perennially aggressive pinseeking left-hander won’t need a driver in his hand at the U.S. Open this year. Thus, he should find more fairways than the 53 percent he has averaged for the year. If he does, and he continues to putt well (eighth in strokes gained-putting), Lefty could carry the momentum of last week’s tie for second at the FedEx St. Jude to victory. On another note, after Mickelson’s Monday practice round was rained out he decided to return to San Diego to attend his daughter’s 8th-grade graduation. He’ll be back for his 7:11 a.m. tee time on Thursday, and we’ll quickly see if it has caused him to be more focused or out of sorts.

Steve Stricker: 40-1 odds 

It’s tough to get a read on the state of Steve Stricker’s game, as he hasn’t played in a while. Stricker, who is beginning the long walk into the sunset, is playing a limited schedule this year… and he’s playing it pretty well. One can assume he’ll come into the U.S. Open practiced, prepared, and relaxed. If he does this, and putts like he’s capable of putting, he could be a major champion come Sunday.

*odds according to Bovada.com

Dear Tiger,

I am leaving this note in your locker so that it can be our secret, at least until I mention it in my press conference.

How did things get so out of hand? It seems like just yesterday that we were going head to head in that PGA Championship at Medinah in 1999. You were fist-pumping and I was scissor-kicking, and the whole world loved us both. We were young and talented. We thought the golf world would celebrate us as we split the next thirty majors between us 50-50. OK, maybe 60-40.

At least that’s what I thought.

But as time passed, we both learned that what seems easy can suddenly become difficult. You learned that many people expect a great golfer to be a good guy; I learned that many people only respect a good guy if he’s a great golfer. We both know that neither case is necessarily true.

I cannot lie; over the years, it hurt to see you win major after major while I spent most weeks on the “best player never to win a major” list. It stung that when I had my opportunities, they would slip through my fingers like greased ball markers. I admit that after each of them the thought, “Tiger would have closed it out” flashed through mind.

At The Players Championship this year, it seemed like things were going to change. But then you pulled that club.

Look, I don’t know if you meant to do it. You probably didn’t. But the fact is, as much of a pain as it is the play in the same era as you, it is even more of a pain to play in the same group as you. You know that, and I think you actually enjoy it.

When you pulled that club and the crowd reacted, it was a total synopsis of the last 15 years. Everyone is more interested in watching what club you pick than watching the rest of us actually play. I was angry at the shot, at the crowd and at you. And starting with my statement after that round, I started to vent.

Fifteen years of frustration doesn’t go away quickly. When I was asked about the incident at the European Tour dinner in London, I was still mad. I wanted to hurt you. But just like that shot at The Players Championship, I pushed it much too far. Instead of tweaking you, I managed to show a limited ability in English, comedy, modern social studies and event planning.

Tiger, we don’t have to be friends, at least not while we are both competing for the same things. But we can compete respectfully, without the kind of base behavior that we see in other sports. We are professional golfers, and I think that means something. I think that we are different than other sportsmen. You are far from perfect and so am I. But in golf, as in life, when you make a mistake you own it and try to do better the next time.

Admitting when they are wrong is something that good men do. That’s why I’m leaving you this note, Tiger. Because no matter how great of a golfer I am or will be, it is more important that I am a good man. That’s what ultimately matters for me, my family and for the game. Deep down, I believe that you feel the same way.

Good luck, and hopefully we’ll see each other on Sunday afternoon, preferably in the final pairing.

- Sergio

Click here to read what members are saying the “Tour Talk” forum.

Every time a major championship rolls around, debate rages over which player is the best in the world without one. So far, 2013 has been especially kind to those players, removing the likes of Adam Scott (Masters) and Justin Rose (U.S. Open) from that list. Those two gents’ respective successes should serve as inspiration to the following players, who should be on everyone’s radar this week at Oak Hill as contenders for the Wanamaker Trophy and maiden major titles.

Matt Kuchar: #6 OWGR*

The highest ranked player in the world without a major, Kuchar does have the next-best thing: a Players Championship title, which he captured last May.

All of his most recent four wins have come in big-time events: The Barclays (2010), The Players (2012), the WGC–Accenture Match Play (2013) and The Memorial Tournament (2013). One of golf’s most complete players, “Kooch” has shown an ability to compete on a number of different courses, racking up top-10 finishes with abandon across the PGA Tour calendar in recent years. It would stand to reason, then, that he should get the job done on the biggest stage soon enough. Oak Hill may be the place.

Brandt Snedeker: #7 OWGR

One spot behind Kuchar, Sneds has settled into a similar role in the last couple years. He is one of the best putters in the world, and his ball-striking seems to improve every year.

His 2013 has been an especially torrid campaign: two wins, three other top-three finishes, and top-20 finishes in all three majors. He’s knocked at the door a lot, but major champions don’t knock — they break the door down. When will Snedeker let himself into the house of major champions?

Lee Westwood: #12 OWGR

Speaking of knocking on the door, Westwood seems to have worn a hole in the “Welcome” mat by now. At age 40, Westwood’s prospects continue to become more “Will he ever?” than “When will he?”

He squandered a perfect opportunity when his usually exquisite ball-striking failed him a few Sundays ago at Muirfield, marking his 16^th top-ten finish in a major championship career that spans parts of three decades. As good a player as he has been for so long, Westwood is starting to enter Colin Montgomerie territory as a player with a good career who has just never broken through when it’s mattered most.

Luke Donald: #9 OWGR

The same things said of Westwood may also turn out to be true of Donald in five years, when he is 40. He has half as many top-tens in majors as does Westwood, with an excellent opportunity going by the wayside this year at Merion in the U.S. Open, where Donald and other players yielded to Justin Rose over the weekend.

Donald is an opposite case to Westwood, with an excellent short game often forsaken by shoddy driving and iron play. Still, Donald was No. 1 in the world for a period in 2011 and 2012, which shows great potential. Could he turn that potential into hardware at Oak Hill this week?

Sergio Garcia: #18 OWGR

Ah, Sergio. In 1999, when you finished runner-up to Tiger Woods at Medinah, who would’ve thought you’d be on this list 14 years later?

It has been a long, strange trip with little true consolation outside of a 2008 Players Championship and five winning Ryder Cup campaigns for Europe. But those 17 major championship top-10 are becoming more of an albatross than a symbol of good play, aren’t they? Believe it or not, Sergio is only 33 years old, and Oak Hill should set up well for him this week. What do you say about erasing those demons, Sergio?

All five of these players are likely to appear on their respective sides for the 2014 Ryder Cup in Scotland. But will they own any more than the zero collective major titles they currently claim as a group? The answer begins to reveal itself this weekend.

*Official World Golf Rankings

With the best golfers in the world piled up behind him, Sergio Garcia maintained his perch in the top spot at TPC Boston Sunday Sergio thanks to a 6-under-par 65 in the third round of the Deutsche Bank Championship. The tournament is the Spaniard’s to lose, heading into its traditional Labor Day finish.

On a day where players could afford to be aggressive, the Spaniard looked unfazed en route to a three-round score of 19-under, two strokes clear of Henrik Stenson, who fired a third-round 66.

Play was suspended early Sunday morning as an intense band of heavy rain and lightning passed through the Boston area, softening an already largely defenseless golf course and wiping out the rounds of the players who had already begun their Sunday play. When play resumed, just after noon E.T., players went out off both tees in threesomes, and there was a “get while the gettin’s good” mentality amongst the Tour’s best in Norton.

Players who “got” on Sunday

Canadian Graham DeLaet carded a spectacular third-round 62. His only bogey of the day came at the benign first hole. He notched 10 birdies to offset the blunder, and vaulted into a tie for third at 16-under, three strokes behind Garcia. Veterans Jim Furyk and Steve Stricker both carded third-round 63s, the latter with an impressive eagle at the final hole to move to 16-under.

Kevin Stadler and Kevin Chappell shared both a first name and a score Sunday, getting around TPC Boston in 64 strokes each. Their 7-under marks vaulted each of them inside the top-10 entering the final round. It was another 64 Sunday that will capture much more attention, however. Rory McIlroy, with girlfriend Caroline Wozniacki watching for much of the round, made nine birdies against a double bogey at the 14th hole for a 64 of his own. For the Ulsterman, the score was his lowest of the year and marks the continuation of his return to form at a tournament where he won last year.

A few standouts seemed incapable of “getting” anything other than a helping of frustration Sunday. Most notably, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson struggled on a day where the scoring average was nearly three full strokes under par. Woods carded his worst score in his last 10 tries at TPC Boston, derailed by a string of three straight bogeys to begin his second nine, en route to one-over par 72.

“I didn’t play very well today,” Woods said. “I didn’t hit it well and didn’t make anything.”

Likewise, Phil Mickelson stalled heading into port with bogeys at Nos. 15 and 16, eventually finishing with a third-round 71.

Here’s a look at how the leaderboard stacks up after the third round:

By Christopher Versele

GolfWRX Contributor

The Front Nine

1 – New FedEx Cup ranking for Henrik Stenson, who closed out his first win of the 2013 season.

262 – Strokes taken by Stenson, good for 22-under and tied for the tournament’s record score.

3 – Runner-up finishes for Stenson this year. He also had a 3rd-place finish at the PGA Championship before gaining the elusive first win.

1,576 – Days between PGA Tour victories for Stenson.

4 – Birdies on the last six holes of the front nine, vaulting Stenson to the top of the leaderboard at the turn.

$1,440,000 – Earned by Stenson. He donated $25,000 to Boston Strong charity.

84.7 – Percent GIR for Stenson, which led all players in the tournament.

17 – Times Stenson has been at or under par in his last 20 rounds.

230 – Stenson’s Official World Golf Ranking at the beginning of 2012. He is now ranked sixth.

The Back Nine

62 – Score carded by 20-year-old Jordan Spieth on Monday, which sprung him from 29^th to fourth place. Spieth finished with three birdies and an eagle on the back nine to shoot a final-round 62.

25 – Foot birdie putt drained by Zach Johnson on No. 18 to secure his spot on the Presidents Cup team.

0.47 – Point margin by Ernie Els to claim the 70^th and final FedEx Cup playoff spot (over Ryan Palmer).

6 – Holes played by Zach Johnson and Stuart Appleby before restarting their Sunday rounds due to weather. Johnson was 2-over on the day before wiping the scorecard clean.

18 – Double Bogeys and above on No. 14, a tricky 495-yard par 4 at TPC Boston. There were an additional 84 bogeys and only 27 birdies.

20 – Spots climbed in the FedEx Cup rankings to No. 8 by Steve Stricker, who fired a 67 Monday to claim second place.

73 – Final-round score for the overnight leader Sergio Garcia, who finished five shots out of the lead.

32 – Putts taken by Tiger Woods on Monday, who finished tied for 65^th place.

40 – Players who will be eliminated from the FedEx Cup playoffs after next weekend’s BMW Championship.

After three days of sharp play, Sergio Garcia’s Sunday woes continued with a final-round 73 at the Deutsche Bank Championship, while Henrik Stenson fired a 66 en route to his third career PGA Tour victory.

Stenson’s tournament total of 22-under (262) ties the tournament record shared by Charley Hoffman (2010) and Vijay Singh (2008). The Swede has been on fire as of late, carding top-3 finishes in four of his last five tournaments.

Stenson now claims the lead position in the FedEx Cup points list, knocking Tiger Woods out of the No. 1 spot for the first time since Woods’ victory at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in March. Woods finished T65 this week after weekend rounds of 72 and 73.

Adam Scott (T-53) dropped to third, Matt Kuchar (T-4) remained in fourth and Graham DeLaet improved from seventh to fifth in the points listing as the PGA Tour’s Playoffs moves to the BMW Championship at Conway Farms just outside of Chicago.

Garcia and Stenson both bogied the par-5 second hole, but Stenson proved to be stronger mentally, carding three straight birdies on Nos. 4 through 6. He added one more birdie on the par-3 eighth and made the turn in 3-under 33. Conversely, Garcia continued downward with three bogies to one birdie on his final seven holes of the front nine. Garcia’s final round average was 72.33 coming into this week, ranking 165th on Tour.

Roberto Castro held the lead after birdies on three of his first four holes, but faded after the mid-round weather delay.

Steve Stricker was the next closest threat for Stenson, posting a 4-under, 67 for a tournament total of 20-under. He birdied the final two holes to add pressure, but a clutch hole out from a bunker on No. 17 gave Stenson a two-shot cushion with one hole to play.

DeLaet, also playing in the final group with Stenson and Garcia, birdied the final hole for a final round 69 and a solo third place finish.

Meanwhile, Jordan Spieth closed his round on a tear, going birdie-birdie-birdie-eagle on Nos. 15 through 18 just before the horn blew. Spieth’s Monday 62 rocketed his name up the leaderboard for a T-4 finish. He stands 9th in the FedEx Cup race, an astounding feat considering he began the season with no tour status.

Spieth and Russell Henley are the lone Tour rookies who continue their march in the playoffs. At the same time, this was Spieth’s final chance to leave an impression on President’s Cup Captain Fred Couples, who will finalize his team this week. In other President’s Cup standings, Zach Johnson birdied the final hole Monday to claim the 10th spot on the automatic qualifiers list, now making Webb Simpson the first man out.

Kevin Stadler made a large leap this week in FedEx Cup standings after a T4 finish. Friday and Sunday rounds of 64 helped Stadler move from 75th to 32nd place. Brian Davis was another big mover. He started the week at No. 80 and will move into next week at No. 49. Ian Poulter also played his way into next week, moving from 77th to 52nd with a T9 finish.

Marc Leishman (T16), Ernie Els (T20), Brendan Steele (T20), Nicholas Thompson (T22) also recorded strong finishes this week to move inside the top 70 that will advance to the BMW Championship. Els finished right on the line at No. 70.

TaylorMade’s CEO, Mark King, said it changed the dynamics of the iron business. The company’s Executive Vice President of Product Development, Sean Toulon, said it’s the biggest advancement in golf equipment since woods became “metal woods.”

Say what you want about TaylorMade’s speed pocket, a slot in the sole of its irons that the company claims makes “all other irons inferior.” But there’s one thing you can’t say — that TaylorMade executives aren’t betting the farm on it.

TaylorMade’s newest iron, SpeedBlade, was announced Monday night at the BMW Championship in an event that felt more like an iPhone launch than a golf equipment event. In attendance were the usual golf equipment writers, but also veteran PGA Tour scribes, who would have likely taken the night off had it been any other golf equipment company’s event. But with PGA Tour superstars Sergio Garcia, Jason Day, Dustin Johnson and Justin Rose in attendance, the SpeedBlade event slipped past the realm of golf equipment and into that of golf culture.

Maybe that’s why King, Toulon and iron guru Brian Bazzel spent little time on head-to-head comparisons between the RocketBladez and SpeedBlade irons. Instead, TaylorMade executives chose to discuss what Toulon called the “mind-blowing,” “myth-busting” performance of the speed pocket itself.

In a round table, Garcia, Rose, Johnson and Day discussed how TaylorMade’s previous iron model, RocketBladez, had changed their attitude toward technology in irons. Garcia, who was the first golfer to win with TaylorMade’s RocketBladez Tour irons, talked about how their larger sweet spot nullified slight mishits, helping him hit shots closer to the pin more consistently.

Rose discussed the process he went through of individually testing each RocketBladez Tour long iron in the spring of 2013. He started with the 3 iron, which impressed him enough to put that club in the bag. Then he went on to the 4 iron, the 5 iron and finally the 6 iron.

“I didn’t want to change,” Rose said. “Because I was hitting it really good [with my old clubs].”

Click here to see dozens of photos of the SpeedBlade irons in the forums, and what members are saying about them.

But Rose said the speed pocket in his RocketBladez Tour irons allows him to hit higher, more consistent long-iron shots, like the towering 4 iron he hit into the 72nd hole of the U.S. Open at Merion that sealed his first major championship victory.

It’s Johnson’s and Day’s experiences with the clubs that are more typical of most Tour players, however. Johnson put RocketBladez Tour irons in play in the first tournament of the 2013 PGA Tour season, the Hyundai Tournament of Champions. He went on to win by four shots, but then benched the clubs for the rest of the season.

Day used a strong-lofted RocketBladez Tour 2 iron in both the U.S. Open and British Open, ripping 1 iron-like shots in excess of 300 yards at Merion and Muirfield. He said that the slotted long iron allowed him to do what similarly lofted hybrids simply couldn’t, keep the ball under the wind. But his runner-up finish at the U.S. Open and T32 finish at the British weren’t enough to convince him to keep the club in the bag. Like Johnson, he was intrigued, but not ready for an iron makeover.

All four Tour stars spent the evening in Lake Forest, Ill., demonstrating just how game-changing the SpeedBlade irons can be. Garcia hit a SpeedBlade 7 iron over 200 yards. Rose hit a SpeedBlade 4 iron nearly 256 yards, while Johnson crushed one 271 yards and Day hit a SpeedBlade 3 iron 280 yards. And it was no tomfoolery. According to Bazzel, the SpeedBlade irons were built to the same specifications as their current irons.

The fact remains, however, that there’s almost no chance that any of the four superstars will put a SpeedBlade iron in their bag until TaylorMade releases a smaller, shorter-flying version.

Above: Dustin Johnson celebrates his 271-yard shot with a 4 iron, which bested the drive of former Chicago Bears Defensive End Richard Dent.

Yes, the SpeedBlade irons are more compact than their predecessors, RocketBladez. They also fly higher, are more forgiving, better looking, better feeling and more consistent on mishits. But golfers like Garcia, Rose, Johnson and Day simply don’t trust an iron that flies two-to-three clubs farther than the forged blades they grew up playing.

It’s not that the SpeedBlade irons are worse than the irons they’re playing. According to Bazzel, the SpeedBlade irons are the most technically advanced model TaylorMade has ever produced. They’re just different.

But different is good. Different is what changed golfers from woods made of wood to ones made from metal, and from wound golf balls to solid-core models. It’s also what gets average golfers out of bed early on weekends, hoping that today’s round might be different.

With the SpeedBlade irons, TaylorMade’s executives proved to the golf world that they’re committed to distance irons for the foreseeable future. They’re convinced they can change golfers’ minds, and in turn change their games.

Not everyone will agree with them, of course, but no drastic change has even been without skeptics. Often, the kind of exceptional criticism hurled at a product like RocketBladez and SpeedBlade irons can mean something else. That a company is onto something.

Click here to see dozens of photos of the SpeedBlade irons in the forums, and what members are saying about them.

TaylorMade’s will debut its new “Speed Police” ad campaign today during the Round 1 of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, which features string-puppet versions of Jason Day, Sergio Garcia, Justin Rose and Dustin Johnson as officers on a stakeout for golfers losing distance from outdated golf equipment.

“Anyone without JetSpeed metal woods Rosey?” the Johnson puppet says in the ad.”I’m so hungry for a perp, I can taste it.”

TaylorMade describes Officer Johnson as “a hard-hitting tough guy from the U.S. of A., he swings first and asks questions later.”

Officer Day is “a passionate Aussie who’s in touch with nature. Even when he’s busting you, he’s hard not to like.”

Officer Rose is “a quick-witted, level-headed Brit who goes by the book and is a champion of charm.”

Officer Garcia is “a soft-spoken, seasoned tour veteran who hails from Spain. His passion for club justice is as deadly as his golf game.”

In the commercial, puppet Johnson tackles an unsuspecting golfer teeing off with a Callaway’s new X2 Hot driver, a not-so-subtle jab at the fellow Carlsbad, Calif. golf equipment company that has also used distance as one of the biggest selling points in its recent ad campaigns.

Check out the video below of the Speed Police teaser with a cameo from Johnson’s fiance, Paulina Gretzky. It’s followed by the first commercial of the many Speed Police spots that are sure to come.

Teaser

Commercial

Sergio Garcia fixes the cup at TaylorMade’s Hack Golf event at Reynolds Plantation in Georgia. 

In January, TaylorMade-adidas Golf CEO Mark King announced a new initiative between the PGA of America and TaylorMade called Hack Golf that’s aimed at making the game more fun as it evolves in the 21st Century. Clearly a play on words, it bills itself as “an open-innovation initiative aimed at crowdsourcing the future of the game.”

Translation: It doesn’t matter if you’re a golfer or not. Throw out an idea and we’ll see if it sticks.

Hack Golf insists it is not trying to fundamentally CHANGE golf as it is today. It’s about coming up with an easier, faster, more fun alternative to attract new people to the game. For the avid golfer, a lot of these initiatives are shocking. Golfers are taught at a young age to play 18 holes, know the (complex) rules and count every stroke until the ball reaches a bottom of a 4.25-inch cup. Truthfully, that’s not necessarily how the game is typically played. Out of bounds balls are not properly re-teed. Clubs are grounded in hazards. Mulligans, breakfast balls and gimmes are more the norm than not.

Is this the new gimme?

These “rules” are not written, but are accepted. Hack Golf is counting on core golfers keeping an open mind. Hack Golf’s first concept is the introduction of a 15-inch cup tournament. Held for the first time at Pauma Valley Country Club in Southern California, typical golf rules still prevailed with the exception that the cup was 3.5 times its normal size. The tournament was a huge success according to King. Rounds took 3 hours and 45 minutes to complete on average and some golfers showed a 10-stroke improvement with plenty of “hero” shots: One woman chipped in seven times, another man shot a gross 58.

To introduce the big cup concept to the media, Hack Golf hosted its own 9-hole, 15-inch cup event at Reynolds Plantation in Greensboro, Ga., with TaylorMade staff players Justin Rose and Sergio Garcia the day after the conclusion of the Masters. You may think anything from 50 yards and in would be jarred by Garcia, who has 24 worldwide professional wins and by Rose, the reigning U.S. Open champ. Results, however, were a little surprising. Rose shot 3-under, while Garcia bested him by posting 6-under. There were plenty of chip-ins and long putts made, but no hole-in-one or slam dunk from the fairway. The takeaway? With a big cup, golf is more fun but it is still hard.

Golfers might expect to make every putt on greens with 15-inch cups, but not even U.S. Open winner Justin Rose made a lengthy putt in the event. 

Over the next few weeks, 20 more courses will join in on the 15-inch cup concept, with another 80 are expected to receive the custom 15-inch cup kit from PAR AIDE by the end of May. Format participation will include weekend tournaments and fundraisers, but some courses will have both a regulation hole and 15-inch hole on each green at all times as long as green square footage will allow. In the next month, the Hack Golf campaign plans to announce one or two more experiments to execute in the future.

Only time will tell what, if any, of these experiments will work, but King and Hack Golf have dedicated five years to funding this concept, so no doubt there are more developments to come.