1) Tim Clark wins. This may come as a surprise to many, and certainly very few people picked him on Saturday night to win this thing. Known as a short straight hitter and a great putter (that works, right?), when Tim Clark shows up, he is awesome. He’s come very close to winning the US Open on a few occasions, and plays just scary good when he brings the “A” game.
2) Tough one to swallow for Lee Westwood. He’s led the Masters and the Players after 54 holes this year, and came away with neither. He’s not a choker, as his grit has been on full display in numerous Ryder Cups. He just can’t seem to get it done. He will.
3) Here is the new Top 20 in the World Golf Rankings.
Rank Player Country Avg. Pts. Evts Lost Gained
1 Tiger Woods USA 11.17 446.84 40 -166.85 27
2 Phil Mickelson USA 9.66 415.45 43 -112.71 164.95
3 Steve Stricker USA 7.75 325.55 42 -80.48 105.85
4 Lee Westwood Eng 7.44 386.87 52 -89.58 133.36
5 Jim Furyk USA 7.06 331.97 47 -78.7 134.24
6 Ian Poulter Eng 6.18 296.58 48 -64.44 125.07
7 Ernie Els Zaf 5.92 325.57 55 -65.27 172
8 Paul Casey Eng 5.87 258.41 44 -74.99 97.76
9 Rory McIlroy Nir 5.53 309.42 56 -68.67 100.94
10 Martin Kaymer Deu 5.11 260.66 51 -69.43 97.08
11 Anthony Kim USA 5.1 259.9 51 -71.57 149.19
12 Padraig Harrington Irl 4.57 246.57 54 -97.2 49.47
13 Camilo Villegas Col 4.49 233.25 52 -67.72 118.05
14 Geoff Ogilvy Aus 4.25 208.12 49 -78.55 64.16
15 Retief Goosen Zaf 4.14 240.19 58 -67.87 79.7
16 Robert Allenby Aus 4.09 237.09 58 -65.41 72.1
17 Hunter Mahan USA 4.01 200.4 50 -48.76 86.34
18 Henrik Stenson Swe 4 191.96 48 -80.5 22.02
19 Luke Donald Eng 3.99 167.6 42 -41.1 78.74
20 Y.E. Yang Kor 3.88 221.39 57 -40.55 85.25
Yes, that’s right, Martin Kaymer is the 10th best golfer in the world. While the World Golf Rankings are not an easy system to understand, what you need to get out of this is………#4.
4) Phil Mickelson has dramatically closed the once-thought-to-be unreachable gap between Tiger Woods and the #2 player in the World. If Phil had won the Players and Tiger had finished outside the top 20 (as he did), Phil would have become #1 in the World. If it came down to divorcing Elin or giving up the #1 ranking to Phil, I bet Tiger would be saying bye-bye to Elin.
5) The Tiger Woods saga thickens. After horribly missing a cut, Tiger withdraws from a major tournament and then slams a shoe to the ground while talking to reporters in the locker room. These are things Tiger Woods does not do. It’s still hard to feel to bad for the guy.