ESPN Golf

Everyone hop on the bandwagon. We'll drive.

As golf's most iconic personality continued to rehabilitate a left knee injury this weekend, its most dominant talent was busy clinching her fourth straight victory and fifth this season.

Yup, you read that right. While neither Tiger Woods nor Lorena Ochoa will lose the title of No. 1-ranked golfer anytime soon -- not this year, not this decade, maybe not next decade, either -- the torch has officially been passed, as Ochoa is currently the best player on her respective tour. (Now, let's not mince words here. Ochoa isn't a better golfer than Woods, simply better relative to her competition. For those who believe she should tee it up with the men, she recently responded, "I've had a few offers to play, especially in Mexico, in the PGA Tour event that goes to Mayakoba. But right now I have no intentions to do that.")

Comparisons between the top two players come free and easy, and the debate is ripe for public consumption. The numbers can't be ignored, however, and every significant one is pointing in Ochoa's favor. Let's break 'em down:

• Victories: Ochoa: Five wins in six starts this season; Woods: Three wins in five starts. Advantage: Ochoa. Want to go back further than just this year? Ochoa has 19 wins since the beginning of 2006; Woods has 18. Advantage: Still Ochoa.

• Scoring average: Ochoa: 67.87; Woods: 68.44. Advantage: Ochoa. And her average score is nearly two full strokes better than the next best LPGA player (Annika Sorenstam at 69.77), while Woods' differential over No. 2 on the PGA Tour (Stewart Cink at 70.03) is "only" 1.59 strokes per round. Again, advantage: Ochoa.

• Rounds under par: Ochoa: 22 of 23; Woods: 12 of 16 (in stroke-play events only). Advantage: Ochoa. Her only blip? An opening-round 76 at the MasterCard Classic that is quickly proving to be a statistical anomaly; that score is five strokes higher than her next-worst total this season.

• Money earned: Ochoa: $1,635,550; Woods: $4,425,000. Advantage: Woods … but in zeroes alone. That's because Ochoa's total is 266 percent of that of the next biggest earner (Sorenstam at $614,281), while Woods' total is "only" 178 percent of that of the second-highest ranked player on his tour (Phil Mickelson at $2,488,830). Readjusted advantage: Ochoa.

Asked after Sunday's win at the Ginn Open whether Woods should now be compared to her rather than the other way around, Ochoa simply said, "To be able to put my name next to him is always an honor, and I'm happy with that."

Next to him? That's sooo last week. Sure, Woods can regain the title of Most Dominant Golfer upon his return from injury. But right now, in the incomparable comparison between players of elite levels on different tours, it's Ochoa who is right on top.

If you've ever perused the golf section at your local bookstore, you surely know the old axiom about golf being a more mental pursuit than physical. And though we can't quibble with the insinuation, it certainly looks as if Ochoa has broken everything down to its most elementary level. See the ball. Hit it far. And straight. Knock it into the hole in fewer strokes than anyone else.

It almost sounds too easy, but that's how Ochoa is making it look right now. She leads the LPGA in driving distance (277.5 yards), greens in regulation (81.00 percent) and is tied for eighth in putts per GIR (1.74, just .04 behind leader Jimin Jeong) -- all of which, of course, leads to a birdie average (5.39 per round) that also towers over the competition.

She's no Lorena Ochoa -- then again, no one is -- but rookie Yani Tseng is making her mark on the LPGA this season. Tseng's runner-up result on Sunday was her second this season and she's now finished inside the top 25 in each of her six starts.

"I think it's a very good experience," said Tseng, 19, from Taiwan. "I still have a long way to go, and I just keep learning and learning. So I feel good. I'm upset, yeah, but it was very good."

She's currently third on the money list, but the real crime is that Tseng is somehow second on the LPGA Rookie of the Year points list, behind Na-Yeon Choi, who has three top-10 finishes in seven starts with none better than a share of fifth place.

Karen Stupples finished T-8 at the Ginn Open, her fifth result of 16th or better in five starts this season. It represents a marked improvement over her 2007 performance, during which she had only two such finishes in seven appearances, but owned a pretty good excuse after returning from giving birth to her first child.

"I actually think that having had seven months off from competition did me a world of good because it gave me a chance to recuperate and recharge mentally," Stupples said during the Kraft Nabisco Championship earlier this month. "And then, of course, you have the baby and you go through that, and just being active and anxious to play, I think was exciting for me, and, you know, my practice time has to be a little bit more limited now, since I have had the baby, so I have made it much more of a quality practice. So when I go to practice, I really make the most of the time I have, and I think I am just more appreciative of everything that comes along, and more patient, as well. When you have a baby, you have to learn a bit of patience, and that's always been a tough thing for me, so I think it's been really good for me."

Stupples has posted under-par scores in 13 of 18 rounds this season, including all four at the Ginn.

Call us selfish, but the best thing about Boo Weekley's staying in contention for all four rounds at a PGA Tour event and eventually winning is the repeated trips to the interview room. Here are some of Boo's gems from his successful title defense at the Verizon Heritage …

On winning with what he called his "C- or D-game": "I kind of proved to myself, that, hey, you ain't always got to have your A-game to win, but it helps. It makes you feel a helluva lot better, I can tell you that."

On what he'll do with the trophy: "We're in the middle of building our house. It might sit in the barn for a couple of days or couple of months or however long it takes to finish the house."

On repeatedly pushing the ball, both with his driver and iron shots: "I had the rights all day. I had them all week with the driver and a little bit with the iron. I was standing on the tee box or on the practice round this morning and I had the pulls. This golf is a crazy game. That's why I only want to do it for so long and get out of it."

On what he'd rather do when his golf career is over: "Where have you been? I don't want to do nothing but hunt and fish."

On whether he likes turkey hunting: "I don't know about the professional turkey hunt. More the deer and the fishing. That turkey, I don't like chasing the chickens around. You can go get them out of the deep freezer."

On how he'd play with the lead on Sunday: "I don't know, I ain't never had it before."

On interacting with the gallery during his round: "These people paid their money to come out and watch us play, why not talk to them a little bit? The way I feel about it, they're paying my bills. They're helping out anyway. So why not talk to them? That's all they want. They want you to acknowledge them."

On why he enjoys signing autographs for fans: "That's a fun thing, you know? To be able to write your name down, somebody asking you for your autograph. You would have asked me that about 10, 12 years ago, I'd be like, 'Yeah, what you want my autograph for? Am I going to jail?'"

On his natural talent for playing golf: "I'm pretty talented with hitting the ball. I've got good hand/eye coordination. The Lord blessed me in that department. I have to work pretty hard on my putting, chipping around the green. My touch for some reason ain't that good."

On what he'd be doing if he wasn't a professional golfer: "I'd be holding a shovel, probably, because I wasn't very good in school, neither."

The down-home demeanor aside, Weekley has developed into one of the better talents on the PGA Tour -- a meteoric rise from his initial stint in the big leagues. After reaching the tour through Q-school in 2002, Weekley made the cut in only five of 24 appearances, earning $95,206 to finish 200th on the money list. He toiled on the Nationwide circuit for four more years, finally sealing a return trip via a seventh-place finish on that tour's money list in 2006. He's now one of just five players with victories during each of the past two seasons, along with Woods, Mickelson, Daniel Chopra and K.J. Choi -- pretty impressive company for a guy less than two years removed from the minors.

One more Weekley note: With his victory, Boo improved to fifth on the U.S. Ryder Cup points list, trailing only Woods, Cink, Mickelson and Jim Furyk. How would he feel about making the team? We had to check the archives, but here's what Weekley had to say during last year's PGA Championship: "If they invite me to come play, I'll come play. But, no, I really don't know a whole lot about it. I've seen some clips of it. I think Justin Leonard made a putt or something. That's about the only thing I remember of the Ryder Cup stuff."

The Weekly 18 recently received the following e-mail from reader Mark L. King, appropriate timing since Harbour Town is considered a "ball-striker's venue":

During this year's Masters, I heard Gary Player say of Trevor Immelman that he's a "ball striker" on the order of Ben Hogan. But that was just the latest compliment by one golfer of another for being a "real ball striker" or an "excellent striker of the ball." What's with the term "striker of the ball" or "ball striker"? Could you provide a definition? … I mean, any professional golfer has to be a competent "striker of the ball" just to compete. And they all hit the ball.

Good question -- and one that we hear pretty often. Our response: The term "ball striker" refers to those who have proved to be great iron players and often lead the tour's accuracy and greens-in-regulation statistics. Yes, technically the term can be applied to any player who "strikes the ball," and honestly there aren't too many terrible ball strikers at the game's highest levels. If you really want to see which players this term can best be applied to and you missed this week's Verizon Heritage, check out next month's tourney at Colonial, another short, narrow course in which players who hit the ball with precision and distance control will fare the best.

If there was ever any doubting which tournaments really matter to Woods, use his recent decision for in-season arthroscopic knee surgery as confirmation of where every other event stands in comparison with the majors. Rather than fixing up the knee during his largely successful run prior to the Masters, he chose to continue playing in hopes that it wouldn't affect his play very much at Augusta. (And to his credit, Woods hasn't blamed the second-place finish on any physical ailment; instead, it's his putting that has been the subject of self-loathing.) Now he'll try to rehab and return in time for the U.S. Open, missing the Wachovia Championship, Players and, likely, Memorial Tournament in the process.

Well, here's guessing Woods isn't too bummed about missing out on the festivities at TPC-Sawgrass. Since winning the Players in 2001, he's finished T-14, T-11, T-16, T-53, T-22 and T-37 -- his longest streak at any tourney without a top-10.

It paled in comparison to winning the green jacket and earning a lifetime pass into Augusta National's Champion Locker Room, but one byproduct of Immelman's Masters victory was that he now leads the European Tour's Order of Merit (a much cooler name for the money list), surpassing Henrik Stenson in the process. The top 11 spots on that list are now occupied by players from 10 different countries, with Immelman and fellow South African Retief Goosen the only ones doubling up.

Since you were going to ask anyway, we'll save you the trouble. Here's the current top 11: 1. Immelman (South Africa); 2. Stenson (Sweden); 3. Lee Westwood (England); 4. Vijay Singh (Fiji); 5. Graeme McDowell (Northern Ireland); 6. Damian McGrane (Ireland); 7. Goosen (South Africa); 8. Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spain); 9. Adam Scott (Australia); 10. Martin Kaymer (Germany); 11. Jeev Milkha Singh (India).

A few other leftover Masters notes: Immelman was using Nike's Sumo Squared Tour driver until recently, but switched to the Sumo 5000 prior to the Masters. The result: He finished first in accuracy and fourth in distance at Augusta.

Meanwhile, Brandt Snedeker's 69.6 percent driving accuracy during his third-place Masters finish, up from 62.3 percent for the season, may be attributed to a pre-tournament move to TaylorMade's new Burner driver. He was previously playing the company's r7 425.

Speaking of Nike, swoosh-laden players Choi, Cink, Leonard and Chad Campbell each finished 48th or worse in greens in regulation last season. This year all four are ranked in the top 15, and are using Nike's new One Ball. "It's a longer ball off the tee for me," said Cink, who has also moved up 22 places on the driving distance standings. "I get great ball flight. I'm just way longer than the guys I used to not be longer than. My game has changed because I'm hitting the ball a lot longer."

From our "Fantasy Insider" segment on Sunday morning's edition of ESPNEWS, dissecting the fantasy implications of changes to this week's venue:

This is not the Byron Nelson Championship we've come to know. Previously played on two courses, this week's event will be contested solely on the TPC Four Seasons at Las Colinas, which received a complete face-lift from D.A. Weibring over the past year.

Which players will most benefit from such a change? Start with Dallas-area residents J.J. Henry and Harrison Frazar, each of whom worked as a player consultant under Weibring. Here's guessing they not only have inside knowledge of sight lines off the tees and how to read the greens, but they've probably played the course a few times, too.

Other than that, keep a close eye on those who have fared well at the John Deere Classic. Why the Illinois-based event? Because it's another Weibring design. Among recent champs there are John Senden, Mark Hensby and Sean O'Hair, who won the Deere in '05, just two months removed from a solo second at the Nelson.

One final tip: Stick with the hot hand -- and there's no one hotter than Immelman. Making his first appearance since claiming the green jacket, expect Immelman to compete like he's playing with house money -- and that should translate into plenty of birdies.

Anytime the Weekly 18 inbox receives an e-mail with the subject line, "You've gotta check out this scorecard!" well, we become a little giddier than we have a right to be, really. So just imagine how much the ol' ticker was thumping when we got three such messages on Friday afternoon.

The first e-mail pointed us in the direction of Tommy "Two Gloves" Gainey's unfortunate "10 at 10," which sounds more like a local newscast promo than a golf score. But Gainey did indeed card a sextuple-bogey -- forever known in these circles as a "sexy" -- on the par-4 10th hole.

From "The Sun News" in Myrtle Beach, S.C.: "[Gainey] hit three consecutive shots into the water, the first off the tee and the next two after taking drops on the side of the water. 'I don't know what to say,' said Gainey, who shot a 76 and missed the cut with a 3-over 145. 'You don't want to make a big number and I made it.'"

The second e-mail included a somewhat more positive note, with the simple comment of "Interesting start to the back nine, huh?" It prompted me to a link to Bobby Wadkins' scorecard at the Champions Tour's Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am. During his seemingly benign round of 3-under 68, Wadkins began the second nine with double-bogey, bogey, double-eagle, birdie, birdie, birdie before finally tallying his first par. And yes, that stretch of 6-under for four holes has got to be a record or something.

The third e-mail only glumly stated, "If you need something for the Weekly 18, check this out." It then led me to Franklin Langham's two-round score of 90-83 at the Nationwide Tour's Athens Regional Classic Foundation, in the very same town where Langham played his college golf at the University of Georgia. His 36-hole total included 15 pars, eight bogeys, six double-bogeys, two triple-bogeys, a septuple-bogey (septy!) and -- believe it or not -- four birdies.

Stop us if you've heard this one before. On the final hole of the Outback on Sunday, Scott Hoch needed to sink a 2-foot putt to force a playoff with defending champ Tom Watson … and missed. Memories of the 1989 Masters may have come rushing back, but at least Hoch was brutally honest about the gaffe, as always.

"Just hit a terrible putt," he said. "Right hand took over on it. Had not been putting all that good, but I haven't missed anything like that. Just pitiful putt. That's all it was."

This week's sign that there's more money in golf than ever before (heretofore known as the Duh! Award): With the $990,000 he won at the Heritage, Weekley moved from 228th to 184th on the PGA Tour's all-time money list, surpassing the likes of Hall of Famer Larry Nelson.

"Yes, I have another big trophy. I don't know. I'm going to ask my mommy, 'Where should we put it?'"
-- Lorena Ochoa, on what what she'll do with the winning hardware from the Ginn Open.

Jason Sobel is ESPN.com's golf editor. He can be reached at Jason.Sobel@espn3.com.