International players should shine at PODS
By now you've probably heard how foreign-born players are taking over the PGA Tour. You have heard that only three Americans are in the top 10 on the World Ranking and that more than half the field at the recent WGC-Acenture Match Play Championship was made up of international players. All of the news organizations, including Golf World, have spotlighted another young Australian or South African or European player who's about to make his presence known on the PGA Tour.
But can you tell me how many international players have won on the PGA Tour in 2007? Would you bet -- after reading all the stories about Henrik Stenson, Trevor Immelman, Justin Rose, Jose Coceres and the Australian du jour, that the answer is less than 50 percent? Through 10 tournaments in 2007 only three foreign-born players have emerged with victories -- Vijay Singh at the Mercedes, Aaron Baddeley at the FBR Open and Henrik Stenson at the Match Play.
The list of Americans who have won in 2007 is a mixed bag. It includes two future hall of famers, two first-time champs, one senior, one young gun and one player who hadn't won in more than a decade. This range of champions proves that American golf isn't as down-and-out as many of us in the media make it out to be.
By now you might have also heard that the last five winners of the PODS Championship were international players. Only the Mercedes-Benz Championship boasts a longer streak of foreign-born champs -- Singh was that tournament's sixth straight. (According to the PGA Tour, the longest stretch of foreign-born winners at one tournament in the last 50 years is seven at the British Open from 1954 to 1960, but American players didn't travel overseas as often as they do now and the British was mostly a European affair.) But a closer look at the last five tournaments at the Westin Innisbrook Resort shows that 13 of the 16 players who finished second or third in the last five years have been Americans. That's a list of 13 different players including Paul Goydos and Brett Wetterich, who tied for second last year.
What does it all mean? Probably not much because this tournament is making the biggest jump in the tour's FedEx Cup schedule. The former Chrysler Championship has a new title sponsor and has moved from late-October to March this year, meaning it's been just 17 weeks since K.J. Choi was crowned champion. He'll face a different course this time around. The wind might blow a little more now and there will be some added color. Watching on TV a season ago, the course looked brown, a result of the hot Florida summer baking the Bermuda grass. Now, after a winter of overseeding, the course is green again, with more rough than it had last time round.
The wind and the rough could place a premium on accuracy, and five of the top 10 players on the PGA Tour in 2007 in fairways hit are in the field. I like two of those five players. Stephen Ames, who is 10th at 72.31 percent, not only has recorded one of his two tour victories in Florida (last year's Players Championship), he also has played well at Tampa in the past and had a strong performance his last time out, finishing T-5 at the Match Play. I also like Joe Durant, who hits the short grass 75.12 percent of the time. He's fifth on tour in accuracy and has three top-five finishes in his career at Tampa. Ames is a foreigner and Durant is an American. I guess that means I'm being noncommittal about whether the streak of international winners is going to continue. With that in mind I'll pick one more foreign star and one more U.S.-born player in the fearsome foursome.
Camilo Villegas: A playoff loser a week ago at the Honda Classic, the Colombian, who played his college golf at the University of Florida, has three runner-up finishes and one third in his short PGA Tour career. Three of those four events took place in the Sunshine State. What better place for the former Gator to post his first tour victory?
Matt Kuchar: This week's hunch. Kuchar, a native of the Orlando area and a resident of Ponte Vedra Beach, has finished T-9 and T-20 in his two starts at the Tampa tournament. He's also played well this year, including a T-6 at Pebble Beach. He also hits 67.12 percent of his fairways, good for T-29 on tour this year.
Joe Durant: Durant was T-5 at Tampa in 2000, didn't play again until 2003 and has finished 44th, fourth, MC and T-4 in the four years since. I thought he would play well last week at the Honda, too, but he missed the cut there for the first time in his career with rounds of 79-70. I think he'll bounce back strong this week.
Stephen Ames: Aside from the number of fairways he hits, Ames' record in Florida events is pretty impressive. During last year's Florida swing Ames finished T-20 at Doral, T-7 at the Honda, and he won the Players Championship. In 2004 he was sixth at Bay Hill and T-13 at the Players. In 2002 he was T-10 at Bay Hill and T-17 at the Players (that was also the year he was T-9 at Tampa when it was played the fall).
John Antonini is a senior editor for Golf World magazine.
