John Deere Classic

Very Perry

Date Written: July 14, 2008

The headline from the PGA Website calls it, "The Summer of Perry." For yesterday's John Deere win, I would have opted for the headline alliteration, "Perry Putts Perfectly." They (whoever, THEY are), say there's no such thing as a bad putter on tour. So I'm thinking that based on Perry's success this year, he's gotta be high up on the putter rankings. Wrong! Kenny's average of 29 putts per round puts him in 64th place. So now I ask myself, how else can we statistically explain this extraordinary run he's having so far this year, ($4.3 mil)? So campers...here they are, his overall stats: He's 2nd in scoring (duh), 9th in G.I.R., 13th in proximity to the hole, 27th in driving distance, 46th in scrambling and 104th in driving accuracy percentage. But we all know that winning and losing comes down to putting...especially on the last nine holes on Sundays. Yesterday, he made a bunch of crucial, par-saving putts and eeked out an overtime win. He's definitely on a roll...got his Kaintucky, 3-plane swing in gear. He's now won three times this year, (The Memorial and Buick, as well as yesterday's John Deere), finished 2nd at the AT&T Classic and T-3 at the Bob Hope. And for good measure, don't forget that he contended at The Players until a disastrous fourth round.

Plenty has been written about Kenny's decision to NOT play the U.S. Open and The British, so I'll not re-hash his thinking...much. Suffice to say, he's sticking to his guns with his schedule. From what I've gleaned, he likes to play on courses he likes, not play on courses that don't suit his game and he'd rather not play in cold weather. On the other hand, Jerry Kelly (who is as passionate about Wisconsin as Perry is about Kentucky), gets into The British Open as a second alternate and says, "I'm excited to play. I was not going to pass up this chance to play The British even though I consider the Milwaukee Open my fifth major." As the gamblers say, "Go Figure."

Smarter people than I are also questioning Perry's logic. Peter Dawson, British Open Chief said:

"I can't pretend I understand Kenny Perry's decision," stated Dawson. "He's having a great run and we are very sorry he's not here. I find it disappointing. You're not going to win majors if you don't enter and I think the history books show that majors are what you are remembered for."

In our funky, fantasy pool, Denny From Iowa, Bob Bruce and John "Vegas" Manocheo had Kenny to win and collected his prize money of three quarters of a million for their choice. By my count, there are now six pool players who have picked three winners this year. At this stage of the fantasy race, that is amazing. In Bob Bruce's case, he leaps into fourth place. Denny and John move up a couple of spots off the deck.

Double money on tap this week in The British. Alas and Alack dept: Poor Matt Kendrick figured Tiger as a "shoo-in" at Royal Birkdale. I heard Tiger's gonna go over to Matt's house and watch it with him from his couch...explaining to him how he would have played each shot and offer to buy him dinner at Despo's just in case he loses.

Ten of youse think this will be Big Ernie's week and six think Sergio's gonna play back to last year debacle.

Final note: 40 year old Rick Price won the richest Nationwide event ever to clinch a spot on the PGA Tour next year. Rick has been a fixture at Q-School... he's been there nineteen (19) times! Talk about perseverance.