Oakland Playas! Your PGA Championship Leaderboard

Picking the winner of a Tigerless golf tournament is as close to needle in a haystack as you'll find in all of sports. Even providing commentary on all of the players is a chore to write and read. 158 golfers teed it up this week in Oakland Hills for the PGA Championship and one hundred of them have a legitimate chance to win the thing. So deciding a winner on Thursday is just foolish. Not one to pity fools, Wet Hot skips the boring Thursday and Friday rounds and gets straight to the good stuff. It's kinda like the little piece of dough in the middle of a cinnamon roll. So bust out your wetnaps as we pull out the sticky goodness that is your Friday night Leaderboard.

(-1) J.B. Holmes 

There's a good chance you've never heard of the 36 hole leader, but he's having a pretty good 2008. Holmes has three top ten finishes, one win (TPC Scottsdale) and a 25th place finish at the Masters. But with the ups there's been downs, as J.B. missed the cut at both Open Championships. By the way, if you're wondering why Mr. Holmes goes by the moniker, J.B., it's because his first name is John. You connect the dots.

(E) Ben Curtis 

There's a good chance you have heard of Curtis. The winner of the 2003 British Open, the experience of winning a major gives him an advantage over all but two other leaders. The fans will be rooting him on as well, because Curtis is sponsored by the NFL and wears the logo of whatever NFL team the venue is closest to. But I have a hard time picking a guy wearing Detroit Lions gear. (Admit it, you thought Oakland Hills was in California, me too. But it's really in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.)

(E) Justin Rose 

Trying to become the first European born winner of the PGA since Tommy Armour in 1930, Rose has a mountain of history to overcome. He's also trying to overcome a difficult 2008 season which includes only one PGA top ten, a missed cut at the U.S. Open, 70th place at the other, and a fall from the top, to 36th at the Masters. He's never won on the PGA tour, but came the closest he's ever been this year with that one top ten, a second place finish at the Memorial. But "second place by any name wouldn't smell as sweet" 

(E) Charlie Wi 

I suppose if this South Korean had a blog, he would get a lot of traffic from people who can't spell Michelle's name right. But unlike his almost namesake, Charlie has made the cut on the PGA tour 15 times this year. Unfortunately none of those were in majors. The Kenny Perry of Asia, Wi is playing in his first major of the year. But unlike Kenny Perry, Wi didn't poke himself in the eye and withdraw from the tournament. Okay, so he says it was a corneal infection, but I think he jabbed a ball marker in there to avoid playing in his only major. Kenny. You're third in the Ryder Cup standings, now breathe.

(+1) Henrik Stenson 

Wait, this can't be right, they must have switched Swedes. Nope, looks like Thursday night leader Robert Karlsonn shot a 77 and is a good deal off the pace in 26th place. Which is why we do our predictions on Friday. That's not to say that Stenson won't follow suit and shoot a 77 on Saturday though. But with a third place at the Open, 17th at the Masters, and 7 of 9 PGA cuts made this year, I bet Henrik will be sticking around.

(+1) David Toms 

This might be the only guy at the top of the leaderboard the casual golf fan has heard of. And that's probably just because of those ESPN commercials he did back in the day. Oh and he won the PGA in 2001 with the lowest score in major championship history, but that's nothing really. As amazing as that week in 2001 was, the last few years have not been kind to Toms. His best finish in 2008 is a 17th place finish in Charlotte. In the Ryder Cup Standings he's 46th, behind superstuds like Dudley Hart and Chez Reavie. (I've never heard of him, but with a name like Chez, that guy must have had no choice but to play professional golf or be a restaurant sign.)

(+2) 7 players 

The Smoking Duck (Angel Cabrera), Badds! (Aaron Baddeley), The Pornstar (Ken Duke), The Waggle (Sergio Garcia), The Kid (Sean O' Hair), The Other Singh (Jeev Mikah Singh), and Brandt Snedeker. Sorry Brandt, as a consolation for not having a sweet nickname, I pick you as the guy most likely to win out of the group. After all you did finish 3rd at the Masters and 9th at the U.S. Open. I guess I should call you the Top Ten Tennessean. (He's from Nashville)

So who out of these guys do I think will win the PGA? Nobody on this list particularly impresses so I'm gonna be a little creative with my answer. The guy who wins the PGA will also win a wild card berth on the U.S. Ryder Cup team. O'Hair, Snedeker, and Holmes are 13, 15, and 16, respectively, on the Ryder Cup standings. With a win at Oakland Hills, I think there's no doubt Zinger will pull the trigger with one of his four captains picks.

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Agony in Victory, Joy in Defeat

Tiger Woods, Trevor Immelman, and Padraig Harrington. Quick, what do all three of this year's major winners have in common besides fat wallets? Time's up. Did you say all three were injured going into the tournament? If so you would be correct.

Harrington had a limp wrist, Immelman was previously chasing the golf ball in the form of a giant tumor on his neck, and Wood's metal infrastructure was cracked a bit. So logic dictates that the winner of the PGA Championship this year at Oakland Hills is going to be one gimpy golfer.

In a piece for Golfweek.com, Jeff Rude ponders who will be the next injured player to win this year. He mentions Aaron Oberholser's constant medical issues, David Tom's bad back, Vijay's Ribs, and even Tiger Woods hobbling down the fairway in crutches. But by not looking outside the box, Rude is missing the obvious choice: John Daly. SIDE NOTE: I'm starting a franchise called Vijay's Ribs, the profits sound delicious.

John Daly has been battling a multitude of ailments for some time right now. For one, his hyper-hooto-glycema (A severe need to ingest at least 30 Hooters Wings every day) has been acting up for the past month. Not to mention his Myto-coorsial-infarction (Excruciating desire to pound Coors Light).

But worst of all is his acute Bawiddaba Syndrome. (The overwhelming urge to hang out with Kid Rock). In the history of the PGA, nobody has ever won a tournament suffering from Bawiddaba. But in this strangest of years in golf, Daly could be the first ever to do it. With wings in one hand, tallboy of Coors in the other, and with Kid Rock caddying by his side, Daly could be well on his way to his second PGA championship. As long as he gets over his Grudenitis that is.

Jeff Rude's damaged goods.
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Wieminiscent

As was fully expected, teen chokesation Michelle Wie had a late collapse Friday at the Reno-Tahoe Open to miss the cut by about ten strokes. On Thursday, she shot a one over 73, within ones stroke of the projected cut of even par. She looked like the Wie of old, when she was in her prime at the tender age of 12.

But then the Wie that we've all come to know and love showed up. Promising through the front nine, a quintuple bogey  9 on the eighth hole sent her spiraling to a score of 80. SIDE NOTE: If shooting an 8 on a hole is called a snowman, what's a 9? A paraplegic snowman?

Her showing in the Reno Tahoe Open is classic Michelle Wie. Not because she failed to make the cut again, but because you could see the physical tools on display, while the mental ones get left in the clubhouse. As I said earlier this week, Wie's decision to hop around tours and play with competitors she isn't on par with is seriously hurting her mental game. Even in a weak field by PGA standards, she was seriously out of her league. Parker McLachlin, who sounds like he should be both partners at a law-firm, shot a course record tying 62 to take a 14 under clubhouse lead into the weekend.

This brings up a point of contention that until I now, never really occurred to me. What if she does make the cut at the Reno-Tahoe Open? Obviously not this years of course, but what about the '09 version? Or the Lincoln Financial FDR Open, or the Bob Jones Jimmy Dean Sausage Links Invitational or any other less-than tournament? Would it be an asterisk worthy accomplishment? Does barely beating Jason Dufner(a real player, I swear) truly put her in line with Babe Z. SIDE NOTE 2: Why hasn't Jimmy Dean Sausage Links actually sponsored a tournament, it seems like this would be a natural fit.

Right now, we're all too distracted watching the circus that is the Michelle Wie choke machine to seriously ask this question. But as long as the circus keeps on getting better, people are still going to buy tickets, so expect the sponsor exemptions to keep coming in, where the merit of this debate will continue to grow.

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Wiediculous!

Has anyone in the history of sports ever tried so hard to fail like Michelle Wie? Once again teeing it up with the men this week at the Reno-Tahoe Open, Wie has forgone the chance to qualify for the final major of the LPGA tournament, the Women's British Open. It's kinda like Kenny Perry's leave of absence at the Open Championship, only if the Open and the US Bank Championships switched fields. Instead of Paddy Harrington and The Shark you get Richard Johnson and Ken Duke.  

While Wie's playing partners for Thursday's round, Scott Sterling and Jimmy Walker, might not be Palmer and Player, playing on the PGA is still more difficult than the LPGA. On a side-note; I am greatly pleased to see that the star of "Good Times" has found work after acting. You could say that I think it's "Dy-no-mite." 

But back to Wie. Three years ago, the LPGA and it's fans alike, had great hope that Michelle Wie would do for their tour what Tiger did for the PGA. Energize the hardcore fan base, bring in new ones, and become a role model for young preppy women. But Michelle had other plans. She didn't just want to be Lady Tiger, she wanted to be Tiger himself.

Like Don Quixote, she went off fighting the valiant fight that had no cause, and had nothing to back it up. She has showed flashes of brilliance that fade away as quickly as they came. Last week at the State Farm Classic, she was in second place going into Sunday, but an unsigned scorecard quickly DQ'd her. Maybe these are the sort of things she would have known if she was to stick to one tour. 

Between random LPGA events, PGA events, and NCAA competitions at Stanford, her Blackberry is going to explode. These are three completely separate tours and levels from one another, each with different formats, and requiring varying styles of play. For a game that is often said to be "90% mental" that's one gigantic burden on the ol' cerebellum. 

So please, Michelle I beg of you, take a deep breath and relax. You have gotten so far ahead of yourself. Stick to the NCAAs for now, and fade into the background for a few years while honing your game. Then you can make your triumphant pro debut on the L-PGA tour where you will no doubt win more majors than Annika Sorenstam ever wished. Then you can tee it up with the boys of the P. Do all that and I would bet even money you become the first woman to make the cut since the legendary Babe Z.  But hey, if not, you can always fall back on the truckloads of money you're sure to make with the Nintendo smash-hit: Michelle Wii Golf. 

More Wie at The Los Angeles Times

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