Mercedes-Benz

Form Fails

Date Written: January 7, 2008

"Form" is a slang word most commonly used in the horse racing world. Roughly translated, it means which horse is "most likely" to win against all the other horses in the field on any particular day, given past performance history. There's even a publication aptly called, "The Racing Form" which is published each day which provides all that information on every horse in every race at just about every track throughout the country.

One would think that past performance would make sense when picking a particular golfer to win on a particular golf course...like in the Mercedes tournament just concluded. Based on the form premise of, "horses for courses," The Veej or Furyk (who has a house on the premises) should be a lock to win at Kapalua because they not only have played the course a gazillion times, but they have great "track records" there. They were clearly the form players in the field.

Well...so much for racing form and golf form. Daniel Chopra, part Indian, part Swede, part transvestite; who's only played the course on a video game, WINS! Basically, he does it by putting his ass off on huge, very difficult, sloping, grainy greens. He's only the third player in 20 years (and the second at Kapalua after Sergio Garcia in 2002) to win the Mercedes-Benz Championship in his debut. The bad news for eight of us form players who picked the "Veej" and the two who picked "Back-off" (Furyk) is that we have now blown them as picks for the rest of the year. Well...like Mikey P. says, "That's golf!"

Obviously, no one in our pool had Chopra. But "Boise's Best," Pat Moloney had the good insight/blind-ass luck to pick Steve Stricker, who finishes second by an eyelash to the fruitcake, Chopra, for a nice piece of change.

Onward to the second Hawaiian tour stop this week...The Sony in Honolulu. One more week of oogling perfect tropical weather, swaying palm trees, god-awful Hawaiian shirts and listening to ukelele music. Remember "Mighty Mouse" (Tadd Fujikawa) from last year? He was the sixteen year old local kid who finished inside the top 20. He turned pro after his remarkable showing and hasn't made a dime since. It'll be fun to see if he can repeat his form on one of his home tracks...now that he's matured to the ripe old age of seventeen. Eight of youse like Choi to win, four for Howell, III in the pool.