Saturday, May 03, 2008

Kim's the leader, but it's not over yet

We’re 18 holes away from handing a blue jacket to someone at the Wachovia Championship - right now it looks like Anthony Kim, but don’t forget that Sergio Garcia brought a six-stroke lead into the final day four years ago and didn’t win - and there’s a shortage of juice.

That’s largely because the names at the top of the leader board are about as familiar as your second cousin.

You’ve heard of them, seen them around a few places but you really don’t know a whole lot about them.

This weekend was supposed to be about Phil Mickelson and Jim Furyk and Vijay Singh and Adam Scott and all those guys who do commercials, endorse clubs and live just outside Tiger Woods’ orbit.

It may still be.

Stewart Cink and Pat Perez proved Saturday that there are low numbers to be posted at Quail Hollow and somebody is likely to throw something gaudy on the board early Sunday afternoon to get the attention of the players in front of him.

Golf gets tougher the later you play on Sunday.

For Kim, this a huge moment. He had a chance to win the Verizon Heritage two weeks ago but couldn’t keep his mind in the same place his body was. As he put it, he was on the first hole and thinking about the second hole.

You don’t have to be a sports psychologist to know that’s not the way you go about things.

But that’s what experience does for you and Kim got some valuable experience when he watched Boo Weekley beat him at Harbour Town.

Heath Slocum is part of the Milton, Fla., gang - with Weekley and Bubba Watson - but he doesn’t get the attention. He also, as far as I can tell, doesn’t chew tobacco on the course like Boo sometimes does.

Jason Bohn has just one win in his career but he’s been playing nicely for a while.

If somebody is going to run down Kim, it might be Cink who has been one of the tour’s best players this year but hasn’t won. He could have been down the road after Friday - he was 5 over after 12 holes in the first round - but he gave himself a lecture during the first round and he has a chance to win today.

Tournaments don’t end on Saturday.

That’s what Sundays are for.

Ron Green Jr.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

chime in if you saw that spectactular green dress following Jeff Quinney around

definately the shot of the day