The.Frozen.Predictions- The Memorial

    If you noticed I missed last week, I applaud you for paying attention. And for the record I had Kuch and Zach last week. Plus who doesn't love Boo in plaid. That said coming off our american holiday hangovers who doesn't want to sober up with Jack and his merry men. Names like Tiger, Rory, Luke and Lee highlight the games elite meet in Dublin, Ohio. it may not sound sexy but this event hosted outside of Jack Nicklaus' hometown is always good for some excitement. ie. Tiger last year at  the 16th.

   The signature Muirfield Village Golf Club, has also hosted several national championships and international team competitions, including the 1992 U.S. Amateur, 1987 Ryder Cup, the 1998 Solheim Cup and the 1986 U.S. Junior Amateur. It and The Greenbrier in West Virginia are the only two places to have hosted both the Ryder and Solheim Cup.  And this fall the course will also host the President's Cup, Americans along with the International outside Australia and South Africa will look to stand out, as both captains Freddy Couples and Nick Price will be on hand this week.

The Course:
Muirfield Village Golf Club
Par: 72   Length: 7,386
Architect: Jack Nicklaus 

Purse: 6,200,000 (1st- 1.11 mil.)

    Past Winners:
2012  Tiger Woods (-9)
2011  Steve Stricker (-16)
2010  Justin Rose (-18)
2009  Tiger Woods (-12)
2008  Kenny Perry (-8)





  Alright unless your living under a rock you have to have Tiger on your team. It`s an easy pick I can guartee only the haters will stay away. Since this week is almost a forgone conclusion Ill just post my picks for the week and leave at that. Plus this tweet kind says it all:

@PGATOUR: Stat worth dusting off: Half of Tiger's 78 #PGATOUR wins have come at 6 events (Bay Hill, Doral, Torrey Pines, Bridgestone, Memorial, BMW).

He`s won the Memorial five times and by Sunday evening it should be six, but just encase Nike has the showdown they bought earlier this year, keep Rory on your bench.


Yahoo Picks:

A List: Tiger Woods   B List: Matt Kuchar   B List: Luke Donald  C List: Billy Horschel

Bench: Rory McIlroy, Nick Watney, Jim Furyk, Lee Westwood



And something special for my fans.. Pauline Gretzky can melt ice caps and god I love summer.

_The.Frozen.Golfer

The Good, Bad & Ugly.... Rule 14-1b

    As has been the trend for the last few weeks in the world of golf... you might need a legal degree to  understand what's going on. And today we finally received the official word that anchoring a putter to your body is now illegal. Let's be honest we all knew this day was coming and six months ago when the rule was first introduced, if you thought the R&A and USGA were about to say psych today. well you might have been the only one.

   I'm neutral on the new rule I can see the value to uphold the tradition of the game and all. But you really have to ask why now? When the longer putter can be traced back almost 100 years, I can completely understand that argument. As such golf's ruling bodies have witnessed the anchor slam, only now it's finally to change the advantage these guys have. And the other side says you don't have to stop using your broom stick or belly putter, just the way you use it.  Adam Scott said it best when asked after his Masters win, he stated he'll only move the putter an inch off his body and not much will change.As you can see from Golf Digest latest slide-show, there's still a number of ways to putt if you have the yip's.

   The questions I choose to ask are why does golf have to take so long to change? If we can tiger-proof  major venues for the young bomber within years of 1997. Then change the groves on wedges quickly for the pros, that's another rule which amateurs don't have to follow until 2016 as well. (True be told the wedge issue dates back to the 80's early 90's just look up the history of the Ping Eye 2) Why does it take almost 40 years to come to a rule change for a putting style that's almost a century old?

   So do the ruling bodies realize that it's the seemingly unfair and uptight approach to the game, which will only continue the exclusive country club image, that drives so many away from the game. For a sport that has taken a step forward with the Olympics in 2016. Why does today feel like two steps back at attracting and keeping players alike?

I don't have the answers... I'm just,

The.Frozen.Golfer

The.Frozen.Predictions- HP Byron Nelson Championship

   With the water-cooler talk still about Tiger vs. Sergio, you have remember the tour has a stop in the Big D, for the HP Byron Nelson Championship. One of the greats you don't know and with the lack of big names in the field it seems the tour pros have forgotten about him as well. let's be honest after last week where still talking about The Player's and rightfully so.


 
Bryon Facts:  what you need to know is he held the cut streak prior to Tiger at 113 and that was when a cut was defined as a top 20 finishes... Take a second and let that sink in, even tiger at his current rate of 17- 19 events a year, would have to finish in the top 20 for 6 plus years to equal. Also he retired at 34 with 52 wins (6th all time) and 5 majors. And how can you forget he once won 11 events in a row and has a single season record with 18 wins, you would think 'Lord Bryon' could pull a better field.




The Course:
TPC La Colinas
Par: 70   Length: 7,166
Architect: Jay Morish & Bryon Nelson
Purse: 6,500,000 (1st- 1.17 mil.)



Past Winners:
2012  Jason Dufner (-11)
2011  Keegan Bradley (-3)
2010  Jason Day (-10)
2009  Rory Sabbatini (-19)*
2008  Adam Scott (-7)
* Tournament Record



A-List:

Boo Weekley- Old Boo has been trending in the right direction this year since his putter seems to be working, when you look at the choices he has a better than average chance.

Jeff Maggert- lost in the Sergio meltdown is Maggert who dunked a ball in the drink on the 17th as well. He could be really to contend again this week.

Jason Dufner- Made some noise last week by holing out on the 18th for eagle in the 2nd round. This will be his 2nd event as a defending champion look for a better effort than his T42 in NO at Zurich. Also he gives me a chance to post this photo #duffnering

Notables: Charles Howell III, Padraig Harrington


B-List:

Marc Leishman- After top tens in the Masters, Heritage and Players, I shouldn't have to explain why he's on the list.

Louis Oosthuizen-  One of the few major winners in the field and his wife is expecting the in the next month, he needs the cash to paid for diapers.

Ryo Iskiawa- Has been playing some good golf recently and if he could do the same on Sundays you wouldn't be goggling his name to see why you should play him.

Chad Campbell- Because you need a Texan in the mix 

Notables: Charlie Hoffman, Matt Kuchar, Jimmy Walker


C-List:

Harris English- I've been a big fan of his career since he showed up on tour last year with the young Georgia golfers like Russell Henley. Plus Steve Stricker's caddie follows the money and so should you.

Jason Day- His only tour win was at the Nelson, still Aussie like Adam Scott have also won here. He's kinda a lock as a C pick.

Notables: Jordan Spieth, D.A Points


 It's obvious who the win and loser was last week, but who wins best tour wife you decide:
 Golf digest Slideshow

-The.Frozen.Golfer

The Feud That Was...The Players

  This year may go down as the year of the tiger on the PGA tour, and rightfully so. With all that Is he back? Can he ever be the old Tiger?  He answered all the haters and fanatic fans with his play and post round comments "I'm still getting better". That's a scary prospect for everyone he plays against not for the Tour though that's needs the biggest story leaving this week to about the GOLF, not the lawsuits. If you managed to miss that Vijay Singh is suing the tour over the treatment he received with his use of once banned substance IGF-1. One thing is for sure I'll never look at milk the same way. Vijay waited for Wednesday before the The Players the tour flagship event to file his suit. That's dominated headlines heading into Thursday. But with names like Tiger, Rory and Sergio atop the leaderboard we had something more interesting to discuss.

    And that's who's truly Tiger's rival and before the weekend was over we would who isn't. If you live under a rock and somehow missed the drama caused by comments from both Sergio vs Tiger. Saturdays round saw the two of them grouped together and if like me you  had picked Sergio to content if not with the event. This was a bad sign. Just so you know I called the disaster Friday night. (Follow me @Azariahpaul)

    And with weather delays on Saturday it allowed both Tiger and Sergio to speak to the media about how they really felt about each other and the incident on the 2nd hole. Where if you ask me Sergio lost this tournament, and as you can see from the countless articles, these two don't like each other. That's might be a stretch cause Sergio hates Tiger. And Tiger just enjoys destroying his competition and Sergio was merely in his cross-hairs. So we fast forward to the meltdown the often emotional Sergio stood on the island green 17th tee, just one shot back of Tiger who in the penultimate group was walking to the tee in 18th. This maybe the most important swing in his career he had a chance to become the player we had thought he should have been in 1999. He was finally going to be the true rival to Tiger we saw when he was 2nd in the world. Well guess what if you didn't know we got to see the real life Roy McAvoy. ( #TinCup was trending worldwide on twitter) 

   Sergio in a fashion only he and movie characters could dunked not one but two balls in the water.(Family Guy inspired replay) On his way to making a quad, seven on the par three. His chances gone he managed to make a double on the 18th. My easy win in my fantasy pool gone so when he went on to call himself a victim in the press following. I felt he was guilty of making me the victim of his self destruction.

Scene of the fantasy crime

   And then here's Tiger he doesn't crack down the stretch we'll see this before its nothing new. But  there's some interesting numbers that came out of the win. Tiger has now won his 100th, 200th, 300th event on tour. It's the fastest he's ever got to four wins in a year. This was his 78th PGA tour win. He's still #1 in the world and the FedEx Cup and now has made 5,849,600 dollars in seven events. I don't care if he's better than Tiger in 2000-2001, the 2013 version is better the rest of the world the numbers don't lie. Also reminds me of my first post...

 -The.Frozen.Golfer


 

The.Frozen.Predictions- The Player's Champoinship

   One verse I can guarantee you`ll be tried of hearing come Sunday is 'the 5th major' if you're like me you still believe that honour belongs to the Canadian Open. Either way this week is the flagship event for the PGA tour with arguably the best field in golf. What's not up for debate is the purse at 9.5 million, its the biggest winners check in golf.

The Course:
TPC at Sawgrass 
Par: 72   Length: 7,215
Architect: Pete Dye
Purse: 9,500,000 (1st- 1.71 mil.)

 
   This week has some major headlines since its the first event we've seen some of the big names since The Masters. But more importantly we had the Hall of Fame inductees Monday evening. Highlighted by Freddie 'boom boom' Couples and Colin 'can't win the big one' Montgomery. It's easy to call this a weak HoF class, so we won't. You have the tour trying to brush the Vijay controversy under the rug. Now there's a Lawsuit, should he even be playing? There's Adam Scott a past Champion making his first start since the masters win. But you can't forget Tiger walking red carpets in NYC for vogue.

 Past Winners:
2012  Matt Kuchar (-13)
2011  K.J. Choi (-13)
2010  Tim Clark (-16)
2009  Henrik Stenson (-12)
2008  Sergio Garcia (-5)

    This week again you have to look at not just who's playing well but who's played well here at TPC Sawgrass and the easy answer is no one. Outside of the US open this Pete Dye gem might be the toughest test in golf. We've all seen and heard the 17th hole talk. Whats more important is that you work the ball both ways off the tee and and then usual do the opposite into the greens. One key to picking your players is since the masters the PGA has stopped at two other Pete Dye courses harbour town and TPC Louisiana, look to the guys who played well there to do the same here. And you might want to forget about the OWGR top five too:

1. Tiger Woods- Leave him on the bench yes he's won here but that was 2001 he won everything then(remember the tiger-slam) since then he has one top ten in his next nine events. If this wasn't the players he wouldn't be here. Safe the start for an event he has a better record at. 

2. Rory McIlroy- He's easily had the rockiest season to date changing clubs, losing the #1 ranking, only to find his form again. But his 3 missed cuts in this 3 trips to Sawgrass all prime examples to have him ride the pine this weekend, history shows he won't be playing anyway. 

3. Adam Scott- maybe the only on paper contender out of worlds top five. He's a past champion winning back in 2004. You can't complain about his form but he's never been the guy winning multiple times on tour. Things change though. 

4. Justin Rose- he's another player you would expect to play better at this course. He's had the type of ball striking required to go low here. But his career best of T-22, has us wanting more. Bench. 

5. Luke Donald- He's the mostly like to contend on Sunday from the top five. His track record here isn't bad highlighted but the runner up in 2005. But his efforts at Dye courses like Harbour Town where he's never out the top 3 and this his short game. All make his a must have in an event driving the ball in play is more important then total distance. 

A-list:

Graeme McDowell- he was in the hunt late last year and won harbour town a month ago.  I think he enjoys Pete dyes work. 

Tim Clark- a few years ago showed shorter hitters can win here. And has to do it again soon before the anchored putter is gone.

Notables: Sergio Garcia, Tiger Woods, Jason Dufner

B-list: 

  

Luke Donald- he's proved he can contend here and his season will be no different. Read above.

Nick Watney- He may have fell apart on the weekend in Charlotte but with his ball striking and greens up to tour standard, this weekend will be different.

Bo Van Pelt- He's been right there for the last few weeks why not if you look at the history anyone can win here.


Steve Stricker- His semi- retired season has been working out and with temperatures warming up in Wisconsin hopefully he able to practice more back home.

Notables: Zach Johnson, David Lynn, Matt Kuchar

C-list:

Billy Horschel- Its hard not to play his kid, he finished in the top 10 at Harbour Town and won at TPC Louisana, both Pete Dye layouts.

Henrik Stenson- A past winner here and trending in the right direction.

Notables: Adam Scott, Kevin Streelman, Jason Day


Fun Facts: Here's a link to PGA's stats on the 17th hole this week, I think we'll see some pissed pros this weekend.






-The.Frozen.Golfer