Notes and Quotes from the PGA:
Curtis vaults into Ryder Cup team – PGA Championship
BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. - Paul Azinger, the 1993 PGA champion, now age 48, closed with a 75 and posted a 19-over 299, and tied for a deep 63rd out of 73 finishers. Then he took off his golf cap and put on the one that marks him as captain of the U.S. Ryder Cup team, a job that will occupy even his sleeping moments for the next month or so, starting Monday morning, when he will begin answering a storm of questions.One question he won't have to answer concerns Ben Curtis, former British Open champ. Curtis was a distant 21st on the performance points list, but cracked the coveted team, vaulting to seventh with his co-runner-up finish with Sergio Garcia to Padraig Harrington Sunday.
“If you're going to finish second, I guess qualifying for the Ryder Cup team is a victory in itself,” Curtis said. “I think I can help the team.”
They will deal with who his four captain's picks will be, but he won't really answer until Sept. 2. At the moment, he has eight spots filled, all by virtue of the performance points system, which ended with the end of the PGA Sunday.
The final order for the eight spots: 1. Phil Mickelson, 2. Stewart Cink, 3. Kenny Perry, 4. Jim Furyk, 5. Anthony Kim, 6. Justin Leonard, 7. Curtis, and 8. Boo Weekley.
Azinger had strengthened his hand when he won the right to increase the captain's picks from the usual two to four, the better to get the hottest players. He can pick anyone.
Among the next highest point-getters: Stricker, Wood Austin, D.J. Trahan, Hunter Mahan and Sean O'Hair.
Rocco Mediate, the sweetheart story of the year when he battled Tiger Woods through a playoff and finished second in the U.S. Open, probably ruined his Ryder Cup chances when he closed the PGA with an 85 and a 304 total, 72nd in the 73-man field.
The Ryder Cup will be played Sept. 16-21 at Valhalla Golf Club, Louisville, Ky.
MARATHON MEN - You'd be able to tell the last six players of the third round by the whipped look they had at the end of the fourth round Sunday. Storms walloped the third round Saturday before they could even tee it up, leaving them to play two full rounds on Sunday. And so David Toms, Henrik Stenson, third-round leader Ben Curtis, Justin Rose, Charlie Wi and J.B. Holmes would have played 36 holes and nearly 8.5 miles of golf on Sunday.
At any rate, officials trying to beat the clock, reconfigured the final round to have the players go off the first and 10th tees in groups of threes, with the final two groups teeing off at 2:20 p.m.
RAH-RAH DAYS - “It's going to be like college again, playing 36 in one day,” said Holmes. “It happens, and everybody else is going to do it, too, so you just have to go out there and deal with it. It may be exhausting to play 36 holes, you're putting that much mental effort and everything into it. It's rough.”
Maybe exhaustion kicked in early. Holmes triple-bogeyed No. 1 in the final round. He dissolved from there into a 43 on the front, and though he was paired with Ben Curtis and Henrik Stenson, he was not to be seen on television. It was as though he had the plague. Holmes blew to an 81 and dropped to ???
THIRD ROUND THUMBNAIL - Ben Curtis, surprise winner of the 2003 British Open, shot a 68 in the third round for a 208 total, and slipped into a one-shot lead over Holmes (70) and Henrik Stenson (68), and led by three over Charlie Wi (71) and five over Justin Rose (74).
ACE IN THE HOLE - Sweden's Fredrik Jacobson aced the par-3 13th in the final round with a 4-iron from 193 yards. It was the 20th hole-in-one on the PGA Tour this year, and the 37th in the PGA Championship since 1970. Jacobson went on to shoot 73-289.
DISTINCTLY UNWANTED - It's believed to be either a distinction or a marvel that Justin Leonard is the only player to make the cut in all four majors this season and not break par in any round. Whichever it is, he still holds it, in spades, with the 10-over-par 80 he closed the PGA with Sunday. It included a crushing 7 at the par-3 13th. He shot the par-70 Oakland Hills in 74-71-72-80 - 297, 17 over par.
UNSEEN DAZZLER - England's Paul Casey came to life a bit too late, but he turned in one of the niftier performances over the final two rounds (72-69) - a mere three bogeys over the last 36 holes, and only a bogey at this final hole deprived him of a bogey-free round. “I don't know why it took a long time to turn it around,” Casey said. “I thought I was in the golf tournament, and then I was thinking about making the cut.”
(On the Ryder Cup:
(“Have you ever played Valhalla?”
(“I have not. No. Does a Play Station count?”)
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO? - Sweden's Robert Karlsson, first-round co-leader with a 68: “I lost the putting the second day [77] and obviously it's difficult to get it back.”
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO II? - India's Jeev Milkha Singh, the other co-leader: A 74 in the second round took him out of it, and he finished eight shots behind Harrington, an outstanding show considering this was only his second PGA. He missed the cut last year.
TIDS AND BITS -- Phil Mickelson [70-284], majorless again this year: “We have a long wait now for the next major, the Masters, but we still have a lot to play for in the next month and a half” … Camilo Villegas, 26, who closed with 67-68 and finished at 281, tied for fourth, his best in three PGAs: “Man, it hurt to miss those par putts that I missed, but I'm just proud of myself the way I hung tight.”
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