nike gear
tested tough ( 7)
appleby’s thunder
Down Under ( 14)
Korean Cautionary
tale ( 18)
Mer r itt
Badge
Troy Merritt
For the most part, the game’s big guns
stood silent last week. So it was left for a
skinny American from Boise State to
provide both the drama and the fireworks.
The drama occurred at Disney World in
Orlando where Troy Merritt’s final-round
67 landed him the 125th, and last, spot on
the PGA Tour’s exempt list for 2011.
Moments later, officials hustled
Merritt back out to the 17th tee where
his short birdie putt was good enough
to beat out Aaron Baddeley and Rickie
Fowler and bank the winner-take-all,
first-place check of $1 million in something called the Kodak Challenge.
Not bad for a day’s work. That kind of
scratch will buy a lot of pixels.
Down Under, in his penultimate
tournament appearance of the calendar
year, Tiger Woods climbed all the way
up to solo fourth at the JBWere Masters,
thanks to a sizzling, final-round 35-30 –
65, but still finished behind a guy named
Gaunt and a guy named Bland. Which,
come to think of it, tells you all you really
need to know about the golf Woods has
played in 2010.
Meanwhile, Phil Mickelson has never
been accused of looking gaunt but his
game looked uncharacteristically bland
in Singapore, where his golf refused to
sing and the weather mostly poured.
With yet another chance to grab the top
spot in the world rankings, Lefty finished
way back in the pack, thanks mainly to a
messy 75 on Saturday.
