Green Reading

Our suspicions are confirmed

Not that we needed statistical evidence to know Tiger Woods drives the PGA Tour and its television ratings, but we got them anyway. Both Golf Channel and www.pgatour.com report record-setting numbers from Wednesday's first round of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship. Golf Channel said its coverage is expected to generate record-setting ratings and Web traffic for the network. Preliminary projections of Wednesday's coverage, which marked the return of Woods to competition after more than eight months, show Golf Channel will garner the highest first-round rating on the network, and likely will surpass the network's highest rating ever (2.0, Friday of 2008 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship). Web traffic on www.GolfChannel.com also posted unprecedented gains, with Wednesday page views totaling 3.3 million and nearly 468,000 visits to the site.
The PGA Tour reports that www.pgatour.com had a record-breaking day for its online video coverage of the first round by streaming 2.5 million videos in one day. The site offered hole-by-hole video of Woods’ first round in the tournament with video posting shortly after the completion of each hole. The site also experienced a traffic surge with more than 1 million unique users, accounting for the second largest day ever behind the U.S. Open playoff between Woods and Rocco Mediate (1.5 million) on Monday, June 16, 2008. In addition, www.pgatour.com recorded nearly 24 million page views, up 119 percent from the opening round of the 2008 Accenture Match Play (10.7 million), which Woods won but he wasn't making a dramatic comeback to the game.

Johnson falls to Stricker 2 and 1

Myrtle Beach resident Dustin Johnson made an early exit from his first World Golf Championship event.
Johnson fell 2 and 1 to Steve Stricker Wednesday in the first round of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club at Dove Mountain in Marana, Ariz.
Stricker holed about a 40-foot birdie putt on the par-4 14th hole to take a one-hole lead with four holes to play. Both players made par on the par-4 15th and bogey on the par-3 16th before Johnson bogeyed the 17th and Stricker ended the match with a short par putt.
Johnson had birdied the par-5 13th hole to pull even in a back-and-forth match. Stricker birdied the par-5 second to go 1 up, Johnson birdied the par-4 fifth and par-3 sixth in succession to take a 1 up lead, and Johnson fell one back again when Stricker eagled the par-5 eighth while Johnson bogeyed it, and Johnson bogeyed the 10th.
The long-hitting Johnson's birdie on the par-5 13th was his first birdie on a par-5. He played the first three 1-over par.
Johnson qualified for the Match Play event, which featured the top 64 players in the Official World Golf Ranking, by moving up to No. 40 in the world based on wins at the $6.1 million AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am two weeks ago and $6 million Turning Stone Resort Championship last October.
Johnson has played six consecutive weeks and plans to return to his newly purchased house in Myrtle Beach for more than a week before flying to the CA Championship being played March 12-15 at the Doral Golf Resort & Spa in Miami.
``I'm definitely looking forward to that [break], getting home for awhile and doing some work around the house,'' Johnson said.

Johnson-Stricker tale of the tape

Dustin Johnson's win in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am on Feb. 15 got him into World Golf Championship events for the first time, and his first is this week's WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship. Johnson has a battler in the first match, as he'll take on Steve Stricker in the opening round. Johnson will have to earn his way into the second round when he tees off at 12:17 Eastern time in the 18th of 32 matches. The winner gets the victor in the Ernie Els-Soren Hansen match and has a tough road to even the semis, where Tiger might lurk, with Els, Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson _ three-fourth of the Big Four from a couple years ago _ in their Ben Hogan bracket.
The tale of the tape:
Age _ Johnson: 24. Stricker: 42 (birthday was Monday 2-23)
Height/weight _ Johnson: 6-4/190. Stricker: 6-0/190
Turned pro _ Johnson: 2007. Stricker: 1990
College _ Johnson: Coastal Carolina. Stricker: Illinois
PGA Tour events/wins _ Johnson: 37/2. Stricker: 341/4
Earnings _ Johnson: $3.3 million. Stricker: $18.2 million
Top 2009 finishes _ Johnson: win at AT&T Pebble Beach, T10 at Northern Trust Open. Stricker: Second at Northern Trust Open, T3 at Bob Hope Classic
Claim to fame _ Johnson: One of only two players under 25 with two PGA Tour wins, having won both in his past 10 events. Stricker: Two-time and reigning PGA Tour Comeback Player of the Year.
Known for _ Johnson: Length. Stricker: Grit.
Seeding _ Johnson: 12. Stricker: 5.
Official World Golf Ranking: Johnson: 40. Stricker: 13.
Impressive 2009 PGA Tour stats _ Johnson: Is in the top 10 in driving distance, sand saves, birdie average and birdie-to-bogey ratio, and is 13th birdie conversion percentage. Stricker: Is averaging more than three birdies for every bogey, is fifth in scoring average and has successfully converted a third of his birdie attempts.

Tiger announces return

Well, Tiger Woods has made his decision and I guess I was wrong. Or Tiger's wrong and I was right. Either way, Woods says he's returning to play in the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship next week. That means if he gets to the final he'll play five 18-hole matches and a 36-hole match over five days. Lets hope Woods and Dustin Johnson hook up in a match.

The perks of winning

Because of his success, Dustin Johnson will now be playing with the tour's better players in opening rounds. The PGA Tour pairs winners with winners, and generally gives those players the better tee times. Johnson is playing with Nick Watney and Mark Calcavecchia at 7:42 a.m. off the 10th tee Thursday and 12:22 p.m. off the first tee Friday.

The demands of winning

Following his win Monday, Dustin Johnson was the center of attention on the PGA Tour and among all those who know him. ``Right now I have over 100 text messages and I haven't even tried to respond yet,'' Johnson said at about 11 a.m. West Coast time, a few hours after he was awarded the AT&T title. ``I've been doing interviews.'' That's nothing compared to what's coming. Winning on the PGA Tour means attention and demands on your time, and Johnson will be in demand for at least a couple months. First of all, he'll probably be required to play in a pro-ams every week he plays. Johnson said he sees that as a positive and seems to genuinely enjoy meeting the new amateurs each week. ``It's actually good to be in the Wednesday pro-ams because you get to play the course the day before,'' he said. ``Not playing in them you go out and practice that day. . . . And [the amateurs] are the guys that support the golf tournament. They pay a lot of money to play. The guys playing on Wednesday, they're the reason we're even out there.''
Johnson has a 12:40 p.m. tee time in Wednesday's pro-am this week prior to the Northern Trust Open.
While once shy of media interviews, Johnson has embraced the interviews he's about to do every week. ``It's worse if they're not talking to you than if they are. And I get more practice at it, so that's good,'' he said.

Tiger not ready to prowl, yet

Don't count on Tiger Woods to make his return to golf in the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, as many are predicting. I don't think it's going to happen for a couple reasons, but one in particular. I don't think he wants to play that much golf in his return. In addition to the Match Play being a five-day tournament, if he makes it to the finals he would have to play two 18-hole matches Saturday and a 36-hole final. That's potentially 126 holes of golf or so in five days. Plus you figure he'll get some practicing in during the week as well. That's a lot of golf on a rebuilt knee. I also believe he'd prefer to come back in a stroke play event. With only a couple or a few events prior to the Masters, you figure he'd like to get in a stroke-play frame of mind rather than hit shots in match play situations. You play holes differently in the two formats.
So when will he make his return? I say he'll take one more week after the Match Play _ the week of the Honda Classic, which he never plays _ and return at the $8.5 million WGS-CA Championship at Doral in Miami from March 12-15. He's not going to miss another WGC event. The Arnold Palmer Invitational is two weeks after that, and he's played at both Doral and Bay Hill in each of the past four years. He's won five times at Bay Hill. That would give him a week off after each of his first two events leading to the Masters April 9-12. So if Tiger thinks like I do, and I'm sure he does, we'll see him again March 12.

Could have played in that

Wind gusts of 60 mph and heavy rain at Pebble Beach this past weekend led to the final round being cancelled and Myrtle Beach resident Dustin Johnson being awarded the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am title. That prompted a question to Johnson about the worst weather he's ever played in. He recalled a Coastal Carolina University intrasquad qualifier on the Strand: ``I didn't play too many qualifiers for our team, but being out playing in it, that was probably the most brutal in Myrtle Beach, playing in January when it was 40 degrees, raining with 20 miles an hour winds.''

Did Johnson play well enough to qualify? ``Yeah, I always did,'' he said.

Nantz adds to Johnson's GPA

Dustin Johnson took the extra points on his GPA at Coastal Carolina and ran with it. During an interview with Jim Nantz and Nick Faldo on CBS on Sunday afternoon, Nantz spoke about Johnson's honors as an All-American and also annointed him an Academic All-American. Johnson looked quizzically at the news, and joked Monday: ``I didn't want to correct him. I might have got it one year when I did pretty well, but I don't know. We'll take it though, right?''

 

CBS drops call at AT&T

CBS and the PGA Tour should be ashamed of themselves. After leaving Coastal Carolina's men's basketball upset of VMI, I tuned into CBS to catch the final hour or so of coverage of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. I heard Grand Strand resident Dustin Johnson had a three-shot lead late in the third round, so I figured I'd see how he closed out the round. He closed out the round well, expanding his lead to five shots, but I didn't see it. What I did see was an interview with Huey Lewis, who hasn't been relevant for 20 years, and Lewis, Brandy Chastain, Peyton Manning and a host of other non-golfers hit a bunch of bad golf shots. I did get to see one pro golfer hit shots. CBS showed every shot on Phil Mickelson's final holes, so I got to see him pull within 13 shots of the lead. Suspenseful television. He should be a real factor in the final round. I didn't see a single player within 10 shots of the lead hit a shot.
Have the executives at CBS lost their collective minds. I enjoy watching Bill Murray's antics and the rest of the celebrities hit the occassional shot or give the occassional on-course interview. It's what makes the AT&T such an entertaining event. But you can't completely ignore the actual competition of the golf tournament. Tournaments strictly for celebrities have their time and place. It's the silly season in November and December. Is CBS and the PGA Tour telling us we shouldn't care about the professional competition at the event. I know the event is at three courses and they like to feature Pebble Beach. But are cameras banned at Poppy Hills and Spyglass. At least put them on the final few holes of each course so we can see leaders playing their final holes. And though Johnson finished a full half hour before the broadcast ended, he was not interviewed on camera. The player with a five-stroke lead never appeared in a three-hour broadcast.  It's disgraceful.
Hopefully we'll get to see Johnson try to close out his second PGA Tour victory now that the celebs are pretty much done. Unless Mickelson is closing out a 77 that must be seen.