Verizon Heritage

Business-like Brian

Date Written: April 20, 2009

Brian Gay is 5' 10". Tim Wilkinson, his playing partner in the last round this week, tops out at 5' 7''...on a good day. Luke Donald and Briny Baird, who eventually finished T-2, are 5' 10" and 5' 11. None of them weighs more than 170 lbs. or have forearms that would remind you of Popeye, John Henry or J.B. Holmes.

So let's raise our glasses and toast normal-sized guys. They played the big bombers to a standstill on the short (less than 7,000 yards) Harbour Town course. What a unique concept...having to hit it straight...not getting to bomb it over every dogleg.

I loved watching this tournament, because I'm an older short-knocker who hits it mostly straight. Tight fairways, smallish greens, shortsided pin placements, and a gazillion trees. Trees...did I say trees? There are one or two giant carnivorous things that overhang every fairway at every dogleg and eat golfballs that are slightly off line. My kind of course...maybe.

It was amazing to watch Brian Gay go about his business this week. Man was he thorough....like a neuro-surgeon navigating our nerveways. He just quietly excelled at every aspect of the game, demolishing the field by an astounding ten strokes with his combination of straight driving, lights-out putting. and an over 90% scramble factor. His victory was the first double-digit triumph on the PGA TOUR since Phil Mickelson won the 2006 BellSouth Classic by 13 shots.

The most remarkable stats: Gay is 178th on tour in driving length and 4th in driving accuracy. It is surely an overstatement that his skills matched up perfectly with the venue. For further "stat" evidence of Gay's superiorty, click on the link below for an analysis from the PGATour website:

http://www.pga.com/2009/instruction/features/04/19/weaver_verizon_heritage/index.html

Mizuno and Sligo (who's clothes are obviously designed by someone in love with sherbet colors), certainly got their money's worth with Gay's "face time" this week. If I were his agent, I'd opt for a more traditional clothing deal.

"The Big Easy Open" is on tap for this coming week. Six of youse like Andres Romero and four think "Woodhead" Austin will prevail. Otherwise, there's a bunch of No-Shows (NS).