Shag Bag

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – After signing for an 8-under-par 64 and becoming the leader in the clubhouse Friday morning at the Children’s Miracle Network Classic, Justin Leonard was asked about the first-round leader, Rickie Fowler.

Leonard, a 12-time PGA Tour winner, played with Fowler in the third round at the Frys.com Open, where Fowler went on to lose in a playoff in just his second PGA Tour start as a pro. Leonard and Fowler both shot 69s in that third round together.

“He’s got a very solid game, hits the ball a good way, has a great short game, makes a lot of putts,” Leonard said. “That’s a great combination, and he's got a lot of confidence right now in the way he's playing, as well he should. It's fun to see a young player like that come right out of college and do so well. He certainly has the kind of the pedigree to be playing the way he's playing.”

Leonard is among the small hand full of players who earned their Tour cards right out of college without going to Q-School. Fowler's trying to join Leonard in that select group. Leonard did so on the strength of a third-place finish at the Anheuser-Busch Classic in his third PGA Tour start that season.

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – Erik Compton spent last week in bed nursing a cold that had his heart specialist paying close attention.

“The doctors treated me as if I had the swine flu,” Compton said.

Compton, 30, who had his second heart transplant 18 months ago, was cautioned by his doctor to consider passing on playing this week in the Children’s Miracle Network Classic at Disney World. The threat of swine flu is especially dangerous to heart transplant patients. Compton underwent a series of tests before leaving his Miami home to make sure he didn’t have swine flu. Tests revealed just a bad cold.

“I’m feeling fine,” Compton said Friday after shooting his second even-par 72 at Disney World.

Compton would have felt even better if he had made a 20-foot birdie chance at his last hole in the second round. He needed to hole it to move inside the cutline. His putt slide right of the hole, leaving him to wait out the afternoon rounds to see if the cutline would move back a shot to allow him to play the weekend.

Whether he makes the cut or not, Compton has a big week ahead. He’s scheduled to play the second stage of Q-School at Southern Hills in Brooksville, Fla., Wednesday through Saturday. Compton tore through the first stage, winning at PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie, Fla., by seven shots with a 22-under total. Compton has played his way onto the Nationwide Tour before but is looking to win a PGA Tour card for the first time. Just six months after his second heart transplant, Compton missed getting to final stage by a shot at Southern Hills last year.

“I think it’s a good golf course for me,” Compton said. “There will be a lot of great players there, I just have to play well.”

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – David Duval entered the Children's Miracle Network Classic 125th on the PGA Tour's money list. Thanks to an opening-round 76 he will likely fall backward on the money list which means he must go to the final stage of Q-School to play for his 2010 Tour Card.

I spoke with Duval Wednesday about the possibility of going to Q-School next month. He said he mailed in his entry form but doubts he will go.

"If final stage was at Palm Springs, I would likely go but I'm just not excited about traveling to South Florida," Duval said.

Duval lives in Denver. The final stage of Q-School will take place at Bear Lakes Country Club in West Palm Beach, Fla.

If Duval skips the final stage he will have conditional status on the PGA Tour next year meaning he will be limited on how many events he can play. It was just 10 years ago that Duval spent 15 weeks as the No. 1 player on the planet.

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – The Snedeker brothers rebounded from a rough start to make a respectable showing in their pairing together Thursday at the Children’s Miracle Network Classic.

Brandt Snedeker, 29, winner of the 2007 Wyndham Championship, shot a 2-under-par 70. Haymes, 33, an attorney from Fairhope, Ala., shot 74.

Haymes, playing on a sponsor’s exemption claimed as winner of Golf Channel’s Big Break X: Michigan, teed it up in his first PGA Tour event. He was 4-over after his first five holes.

"I tried to tell Haymes you can’t prepare for nerves,” Brandt said. “From the fifth hole on, he beat me and played really good golf. He just made a couple dumb mistakes early that I’ll give him a hard time about. I tried to help early and realized I wasn’t helping, so I just shut up and let him do his own thing.”

Haymes called his pairing with his brother in a PGA Tour event “a dream come true.”

About 40 or so family and friends, many in “Sned Head” t-shirts, followed the brothers.

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – Davis Love III withdrew from the Children’s Miracle Network Classic after posting a 1-over-par 73 Thursday in the first round.

Love, the defending champion, said he awakened before his round with a stiff neck. He informed PGA Tour officials he was withdrawing after visiting PGA Tour trainers. Love started Thursday with a pair of birdies but was penalized two shots at his fifth hole after playing the wrong ball from the rough.

"I woke up with a really stiff neck and didn't think I was even going to play," Love said. "I only hit balls for about 10 minutes before I played, then I started good . . . I just got stiffer and stiffer as I went along."

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – New York Yankees outfielder Johnny Damon said he lost a bunch of golf balls playing for the first time in a PGA Tour pro-am Thursday in the first round of the Children’s Miracle Network Classic.

“I probably lost a dozen balls, easy,” Damon said. “Fortunately, we brought enough balls that I didn’t run out.”

Eight days after helping the Yankees win the World Series, Damon enjoyed shouts of congratulations as he made his way around Disney World’s Palms Course in his pairing with Heath Slocum.

“When you win, fans come out of the woodwork,” Damon said.

Damon said he’s a 14-handicap, but he felt like a 25-handicap entering the event after not playing golf during the baseball season.

“I play golf righty, but I swing left-handed in baseball,” Damon said. “I knew I would need some time to adjust. I tried to turn in a 25-handicap, but they wouldn’t go for it.”

Damon said he played poorly Thursday, but with his handicap he and Slocum teamed to post a net 4-under 68 on the Palms Course. Slocum shot 69. After his round, Damon signed autographs, including two for Slocum.

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – Will MacKenzie once referred to his swing as the “Willie Mac-ington,” a self-styled combination of his own action mixed with a little bit of Steve Elkington’s classic motion.

On Thursday at the Children’s Miracle Network Classic MacKenzie sizzled to an opening 67 under cold, gray skies thanks to a hot putter, not that famed “Willie Mac-ington.”

“I kept my head still,” said MacKenzie, who took 28 putts on Day 1 including eight one-putts. “My plan is to go the rest of my life keeping my head still.”

Although the two-time Tour winner is one of the circuit’s better ballstrikers, he admitted on Thursday the difference between a Tour player and a guy struggling to keep his card is putting.

“I think I’m 183rd in putting. I just looked at that and couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I didn’t even know there were that many guys on Tour.”