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The Week: Cream Keeps Rising

A season full of big-time winners bodes well for the year's first major

By Alan Shipnuck

Leonard outdueled Love to earn his eighth Tour win. Andy Lyons/Getty Images

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Extremely low scoring is a bore. The 60 by Meg Mallon in Tucson and the 62 by Jerry Kelly at the Honda were devalued by a rash of almost equally low rounds. Pro golf is more exciting when a single mistake can be decisive.

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Idling in third place heading into the final round of last week's Honda Classic, Chris Riley sounded like a fan as he discussed the two players in front of him on the leader board. "Davis Love and Justin Leonard, they're Hall of Famers in my book," Riley said, "so I think they'll be the guys to beat."

Despite Riley's enthusiasm, Love and Leonard are not ready for enshrinement -- yet -- but the young man hit on a larger truth: This year the stars are in control, not the wannabes. In 2002 Riley, 29, was one of a record 18 first-time winners on the PGA Tour, a freakish run that revealed either the Tour's depth or a malaise among its stars. The rise of the randoms was particularly acute in the early going; by this time last year five players (Matt Gogel, Jerry Kelly, Matt Kuchar, Ian Leggatt and Kevin Sutherland) had already won for the first time. Nice players, but not a crowd that incites talk of a revolution.

This year, even at a middling tournament like the Honda Classic, the cream continues to rise. Love was the only player in the top 10 of the World Ranking to tee it up at the Country Club at Mirasol in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., and Leonard, 30, was one of the few other recognizable names, but they lived up to Riley's expectations -- and everybody else's -- with a spirited final-round duel that Leonard won.

Leonard's eighth Tour victory means that in 11 tournaments this year nary a first-time winner has broken through. The top two golfers in the game, Tiger Woods and Ernie Els, each already have a pair of wins, as does Mike Weir, another frontline performer who has rediscovered his form after an off year. Majordomos Vijay Singh (fourth in the World Ranking) and Love (seventh) have also hoisted trophies.

Leonard's victory was a testament to home field advantage. His wife, Amanda, grew up in the Palm Beach area, and last week Leonard stayed with her at his mother-in-law's home. Mirasol, hosting its first Honda, was also a perfect venue for his brand of ball control, as its short par-4s demanded precise positioning off the tee and deft work with the short irons. Leonard made 29 birdies and finished 24 under, with the biggest birdie of the week coming on the 572-yard 15th hole on Sunday, giving him his first lead of the day.

Leonard will have to let out the shaft at this week's Bay Hill Invitational on Arnold Palmer's brawny (7,239 yards) home course. Bay Hill unofficially begins the run-up to the Masters, and how a control player like Leonard will fare on toughened Augusta National is one of the overlooked subplots heading into the year's first major. With a newly lengthened 5th hole, Augusta is now 7,290 yards and still has the scariest greens in golf. Last year, the first Masters played since a major renovation at Augusta, the course was softened by wet conditions. If it plays hard and fast, only the best players will be able to navigate the exacting conditions, which means the tenacious Leonard can't be counted out and Love must be considered a favorite.

Yes, the 38-year-old Love was wobbly on the back nine on Sunday, but his swing has never looked better. Last week he showed the kind of talent possessed only by a short list of players. Playing the 544-yard 9th in the third round, he hit a high, cut one-iron from 252 yards to six feet, leading to an eagle that propelled him to the 54-hole lead (by one over Leonard). On the same hole on Sunday, Love blasted a 358-yard drive and then covered the flag with a towering five-iron for a kick-in eagle.

He didn't win, but Love made a resounding statement, only the latest in a season that grows more intriguing by the week.

O.B.

Where was Annika Sorenstam during the LPGA lid-lifter in Tucson? In Fort Worth, Texas, preparing for the PGA Tour's May 22-25 Colonial. On Sunday, Sorenstam and her husband, David Esch, joined 1997 Colonial champion David Frost and tournament chairman Dee Finley for a friendly 18 at Colonial Country Club. The group picked up on some holes, but Frost estimated that Sorenstam shot a 75 from the back tees and said, "I don't think she could break par out here." Sorenstam birdied the par-5 11th and the par-4 12th holes, and her seven-wood got a workout at the Horrible Horseshoe as she hit drivers and seven-woods on the par-4s (the 476-yard 3rd and the 470-yard 5th) and used the seven-wood again to reach the front fringe of the 246-yard par-3 4th. She made par on all three holes. "I haven't seen that many seven-woods in a long time, but she hits it really well," Frost said. Playing a game called Wolf, Sorenstam lost $2. Frost was the big winner, collecting $6.

How low did they go? The field's scoring average of 69.07 at the Honda Classic was the lowest on a par-72 course since 1970, and the 2,082 birdies were the most at a four-round event since the Tour began keeping track of such things, in 1983.

Yes, top-ranked Tiger Woods and No. 2 Ernie Els will play in the same stroke-play event for the first time in 2003 this week at Bay Hill, but Arnold Palmer's tournament is no longer a must-play. More than 20 players have withdrawn from the tournament amid complaints about the course setup. (Last year the green on the par-3 2nd hole was so firm that only four players could stop their balls on it in the final round.) The no-shows include Mark Calcavecchia, Jim Furyk, Retief Goosen, Padraig Harrington, Justin Leonard, Davis Love III, Phil Mickelson (wife Amy is about to have a baby), Mike Weir and even Orlando residents John Cook and Chris DiMarco. "They've lost me, and they're going to lose a lot more," Calcavecchia says.

Notah Begay III's younger brother Greg, a U.S. Marine stationed in Kuwait, comes from a long line of soldiers. Begay's grandfather was a code talker for the Marines in World War II (as seen in the Nicholas Cage movie Windtalkers), and Begay's father also did a hitch in the Marines.

Issue date: March 24, 2003

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