Cup Check
THE NEW Tiger is also the anti-Tiger. Since mid-May it has felt as if Kenny Perry is going to win every time he tees it up. In that time he has had six starts, two wins—including last week's Buick Open—a second in a playoff and a tie for sixth. But unlike Woods, Perry is not zeroed in on the majors. He skipped the U.S. Open and will likewise pass on the British. Why? Perry feels that neither Torrey Pines nor the British Open suit his game, and his focus this year is all about making the Ryder Cup, which will be played at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky., Perry's home state. So instead of the prestige events, he has scheduled the ones in which he's played well in the past. As a result he's fourth on the Ryder Cup points list and a lock to make the U.S. team.
• WHEN DUDLEY HART'S caddie of 12 years, Craig Cimarolli, retired over the winter, Hart turned in part to Dave Young. Young's qualifications? He's a 43-year-old retired collection agency owner who also happens to be Hart's next-door neighbor in Clarence, N.Y. Young also plays to a five handicap, and he and Hart have paired at the Country Club of Buffalo. It's hard to argue with the results: So far this year Hart has six top 15s in 15 starts, including a tie for ninth last week at Warwick Hills, and has earned $1.13 million. Best of all, his independently wealthy neighbor is working very cheap.
• IT SEEMS like the bad karma and equally lousy p.r. that came along with the hissy fit that Bubba Watson aimed at Steve Elkington during the Zurich Classic haven't humbled the Tour's longest hitter. On Sunday, Watson stood muttering under his breath while he had his caddie, Fred Sanders, chase CBS commentator Ian Baker-Finch away from the part of the range where Watson was hitting. If Watson (who has no victories on Tour) keeps it up, he's going to get a rep as a whiner instead of a winner.
• TRAFFIC ALERT! The 2013 U.S. Women's Open will be played at Sebonack Golf Club in Southampton, N.Y., marking the first time the event will be held on New York's Long Island. The course, designed by Jack Nicklaus and Tom Doak, features several holes with views of Great Peconic Bay, while the quaint towns of the East End offer beautiful beaches, twisting single-lane roads and divas the likes of which the LGPA has never seen.
• AT ITS meeting in Hartford, the PGA Tour Policy Board approved the Texas Open's move to April, filling the spot held this year by the Byron Nelson, which will shift to the May slot opened by the demise of the AT&T Classic in Atlanta. The Nelson will now run back-to-back with the Colonial, and all four Texas events will take place within a seven-week stretch.... Two weeks after holding the first-round lead at the U.S. Open, Justin Hicks won his first Nationwide tournament at the tour's richest event ever, the $800,099 Ford Wayne Gretzky Classic in Clarksburg, Ont. Can you say Jason Gore?
For Alan Shipnuck's Hot List, go to GOLF.com.
"You want to swap greens fees for concert tickets?"
—MY SHOT, PAGE G12
KEY STAT 3
Women's majors won by teenagers out of the last seven played.
HE SAID | SHE SAID
Someone stands to gain from Tiger's absence—but who?
"It's a totally different ball game, because you know if he was healthy he would be somewhere in the [next two majors]. So it's going to open up two big, huge opportunities, and the FedEx Cup stuff is wide-open now."
—ROCCO MEDIATE
"I think it's a good opportunity for us [in the LPGA] to get more fans, so they can really see what we are all about. There are still people out there who don't believe we have the game or the shots or the excitement."
—LORENA OCHOA
PHOTO
PHILIPPE MILLEREAU/DPPI/ICON SMI (CLARKE)
LOFTED CLUB Darren Clarke gets some air under a misbehaving stick during the second round of the French Open in Paris. Clarke missed the cut; Pablo Larrazabal of Spain won by four strokes.
PHOTO
ROBERT BECK (MEDIATE)
PHOTO
MIKE EHRMANN (OCHOA)