The Power Fade Golf Blog

Congrats to LG for the great shot on POTW 6, but I’ve seen you hit em closer than that. Wolf Creek????

However, I had already tee’d up a POTW myself, so let me title it POTW 6.5.

This week’s POTW goes to a great golfer. To the man took down Tiger Woods in a playoff, congratulations. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the birdie putt on 18 go in to force the playoff. I couldn’t believe it when the playoff ended abruptly after a birdie on the first hole. Congratulations to you; you did great, and you took down the giant.

NO! I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT GRAEME MCDOWELL!

Congratulations to Billy Mayfair for taking Medalist honors in PGA Tour Q-School last week. Until Graeme McDowell’s performance at Sherwood, Mayfair was the only person who had ever beaten Tiger Woods in a playoff.

Mayfair has played some great golf lately, taking a 54-hole lead at Quail Hollow as a Monday qualifier. And, last week, he earned a new Tour card after shooting -18 for Q-School.

Even though Mayfair won a US Amateur Championship in 1987, to me, he will always be remembered for his stellar performance in holding off Tiger Woods to win the 1998 Nissan Open. Eerily similar to McDowell’s win over woods at the Chevron World Challenge, Mayfair sunk a birdie putt on 18 and on the first playoff hole to beat Woods.

But, more than McDowell, Mayfair beat Woods in the prime of his career–when he seemed to have a stranglehold on the rest of the golf world. While any PGA win is impressive, McDowell’s win just doesn’t carry as much weight–and, in some way, it makes what Mayfair did seem less on an accomplishment. Mayfair’s win was like the NY Jets winning the Super Bowl with Joe Namath–it was a foregone conclusion that it just wasn’t going to happen. Woods was the best of the best and doing what he did best–chasing down a championship. But, somehow, Mayfair overcame all the pressure and just played his game. And, in the end, he won.

So here’s to you Billy Mayfair. I’m looking forward to seeing your name at the top of the leaderboard in 2011–and, I can’t wait to see another duel with Tiger.

This week’s play of the week goes to…..ME!!!

Shot of the day: 12/12/10

Par 3 Fourth at Shoreline Golf Links.  165 yards.  3 inches from an ace.

Not bad for not having hit a ball in a month, eh?

This week’s play of the week has to go to Matt Kuchar. I’ll always give a shout-out to a Yellow-Jacket, but this week, Kuchar has certainly earned it.

The Top 10 on the final money list:
1. Matt Kuchar, $4,910,477
2. Jim Furyk, $4,809,622
3. Ernie Els, $4,558,861
4. Dustin Johnson, $4,473,122
5. Steve Stricker, $4,190,235
6. Phil Mickelson, $3,821,733

Kuchar was easily the top player of the 2010 season. He finished at the top of the money list for 2010. He racked up 23 cuts, 11 top 10 finishes, and 20 top 25s. Without the crazy resetting of the points before the Tour Championship, Kuchar would’ve cruised to the FedEx Cup championship, as long as he simply finished the Tour Championship (which he did).

2010 will easily be remembered for a lot of failures: Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson (twice), the US Ryder Cup Team, Tiger’s Marriage…. But, in a year of failures, Kuchar was a shining star among the masses, playing solid golf every week.

Here’s to you, Kuch! And along with Stu (Cink) and Double-D (Duval), we’re looking for a great showing of Yellow Jackets in 2011.

Sting ‘Em!

Alright boys and girls, gather ’round.  This week’s play of the week goes to Byron Morgan Putters.  No more words needed.  Look at this beauty:

Go ahead.  Click on the image to get the full effect.

This week’s POTW focuses on a guy you’ve probably never heard of: Robert Garrigus. From his name, you would suspect he’s an Irish blacksmith rather than a golfer. And, with the strength of the great Garrigus blacksmiths, Robert currently ranks #1 on the PGA Tour in driving distance–that’s right, it’s not Bubba, not DJ, not JB or Boo; it’s Garrigus.

(taken from Garrigus’s ESPN profile, http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/players/profile?playerId=1254)

Garrigus (along with 4 others) shot 7-under-par 64 at the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. So why is Garrigus the spotlight of this weeks POTW? Well, earlier this year, Garrigus suffered what is perhaps the most epic collapse in PGA Tour history. Greg Norman’s Masters collapse in 1996 covered the entire 18 holes of the final round, and it was due largely to Nick Faldo’s incredible 67 on the final 18. (see http://www.usatoday.com/sports/golf/mastshrk.htm) Van de Velde’s loss at the British Open was a 2-shot lead on the 18th hole. While it did occur in a major, with Van de Velde standing on the 18th tee at Carnoustie, it was foreseeable that he could make a 6 on that golf hole.

But Garrigus tops these all, in my humble opinion. Garrigus carried a 3-shot lead into the final hole of the St. Jude Classic. I watched in epic horror as Garrigus quickly and painfully dissected his lead. See the clips below.

See also http://sports.yahoo.com/golf/blog/devil_ball_golf/post/Robert-Garrigus-suffers-the-cruelest-of-18th-hol?urn=golf-247990

One shot blocked far left into the water off the tee. Drop. A terrible attempt at a hero shot, luckily hits a tree and doesn’t go in the water. Chip out from there. Onto the green. 2 putts. Unbelievable. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Here was a guy who had never won on Tour; he had played beautifully all week; at the last moment, it was spoiled.

But he had a playoff. He could still win. Then, as a sign of his inevitable doom, Garrigus ripped a 300+ yard 3-wood, the ball landing directly behind a tree. He had no shot to the green. He chipped out, played up to the green, and then, from 25 feet, barely missed the putt, rolling over the edge.

Now, don’t get me wrong; there are a lot of reasons not to like Garrigus: his unbelievably Irish grill to match his name (although he is American, oddly enough), his bobby-stick of a putter (28″ long–about the size of a big Mag-Lite), or, just plain envy of his unbelievable ability to kill the golf ball. But you couldn’t help but hurt for the guy, seeing this go down; his one chance to win, to be guaranteed a spot at the Masters (from ranking/money list); it was all gone. Sure, he made a good paycheck–but he lost over $500,000 by making a 7 on the last hole.

Since the PF’s encouragement last week led Rocco to victory (see POTW 2 and 2.5), Robert, we’re pulling for ya! Even though it’s not a regular Tour event, I hope you can avenge some of the demons that rose on the 72nd hole of the St. Jude.

Keep bombing ’em!

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Comments from LG: See “Conversation: POTW 3 – Garrigus vs. Van de Velde” above

While this is supposed to be a weekly post,  extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary responses.

4 Eagles (one hole-in-one and three fairway hole outs)  resulted in a win for Rocco Mediate today at the Frys.com Open at CoredeValle.  If you didn’t get a chance to watch any of the action, you missed out on some of the most thrilling golf that was played this year.  Watch those highlights!

From us at the Power Fade,  Congratulations, Rocco!  We can’t think of someone that deserves this win more.

For those nuts like LG and me who are still following the game well into the off-season, this week’s POTW doesn’t come as a surprise. Although it could just as easily be a post from the 2008 US Open season, once again, I cannot help but state the obvious: Rocco Mediate amazes me.

One of the true “good guys” in the game, Rocco seems to have an amazing sense of humor and touch of class to everything he does. Like Matt Kuchar or the John Daly of old, it’s hard to root against a guy who seems so much the underdog on such a grand scale.

To look at Rocco, you get the sense that he’s a tax attorney trying to tell you about his grandchildren. He doesn’t look like a professional athlete, and certainly not like a man who dominated the field and almost got by Tiger Woods at golf’s ultimate challenge two years ago. Although we here at the PF have always been fans of the greatness of Tiger Woods (even in spite of his golf game), the first time I honestly rooted against Tiger Woods came at the 08 US Open. Although it seemed that Tiger was destined to win, Rocco had him against the ropes so many times and just came up a little short.

After such a close call and such a heartbreaking loss–perhaps the best chance to win a major that Rocco will ever get–what did he have to say? “Tiger is unreal. I would have loved to have won, but it was a great day. They wanted a show and they got one.”

But it didn’t stop at that. He could’ve gone the way of Van de Velde, never to be heard from again. But Rocco decided it was just as well for him to point out that he wasn’t Tiger Woods, and that Tiger Woods was something special. In a series of advertisements, it was clear–Rocco just wasn’t Tiger.

After coming so close, Rocco could sit back and easily say “I didn’t win, but that was the best day of my life,” living to smile about it and remember it fondly. This level of class so often eludes the world today.

So, after seeing the leaderboard at the Fry’s.com Open today, a tingle of happiness filled my heart to know that Rocco still has game. At -13, Rocco leads the field of some of the world’s best by 3 shots with two rounds to play. Although golf leads are never truly safe, I can honestly say I hope to see him pull away even more.

But best of all is the way Rocco made it to such a commanding lead. On Thursday, Rocco made eagle with a hole-in-one on the par 3 third hole. On Friday, he followed it up with an eagle with a 160-yard 7-iron on the par 4, 426-yard 6th hole. But his enormous class showed afterward: “That was my record by miles, 34 holes without a bogey. I was so disappointed, but how could I be that angry? I wanted to go at least 36 holes.” And even better, Rocco gave credit to Lee Trevino for a putting lesson Trevino game him in May. “It was priceless [the lesson]. I didn’t want to leave.”

So here’s to you Rocco. Two eagles in two days is amazing. Your outstanding class is something far beyond that. Although you may never have won the US Open, you are a true champion.

One of our goals in writing this blog is to keep the content relevant to world of golf as it exists today.  In this spirit, we proudly unveil our first regular (or at least whenever we feel like posting it) feature:  The Play of the Week

This week’s monster move comes straight from Wales during the 2010 playing of the Ryder Cup.

Now, given that I’m a die-hard Tiger fan, JK might immediately think that Tiger’s crazy awesome hole-out on 12 tops my list of memorable moments.  Admittedly, on any given Sunday, that would just do it for me.  (133 yards to the bottom of the cup!)

This week, however, top honors go to none other than a Georgia Tech Alum who displayed one of the greatest pieces of gamesmanship that I have witnessed in this great game.  Stewart Cink, with the aid of his trusty peanut butter and jelly sandwich, took a full 2 minutes and 20 seconds to knock back an easy 30 footer (HA!) and ice out Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell.  Even his playing partner (and fellow yellow jacket), Matt Kuchar, seemed confused by the delay.

Here’s to you, Stu!  Way to mess with those Euros.  We’ll get them next time, Boys.