Shag Bag

DORAL, Fla. – If the southerly winds keep ripping like they did Thursday at the TPC Blue Monster, the 18th hole has a chance to reassert itself as the toughest hole on the PGA Tour.

Normally 467 yards, the tees were up 24 yards, and the hole still played to a 4.64 stroke average, higher than three of the par 5s at the WGC-CA Championship.

Torrey Pines’ 12th hole, a 504-yard par 4, holds the distinction as the toughest hole on Tour so far this season, having played to a 4.405 stroke average. The ranking is based on which holes play to the highest average above par.

The Blue Monster’s finishing hole ranked the second toughest on the PGA Tour last year, trailing only Hazeltine National’s 12th hole, a 518-yard par 4. Hazeltine was host to the PGA Championship. The Blue Monster's 18th last ranked as the Tour's toughest finishing hole in 2007.

Vijay Singh, Franceso Molinari, Ernie Els and Robert Allenby would have led or shared the lead at day's end if not for dropped shots at the 18th.

“I made birdie and it felt like an eagle,” Padraig Harrington said after he striped a 5-iron from 173 yards to 10 feet and holed the putt. It was one of just five birdies there on the day. “In fairness, today wasn’t even the toughest wind. It was blowing in and off the right. You want to play that hole tough? Play it when it’s in and off the left. The pin was its toughest position today up front.”

The winds were gusting more than 25 mph from the southeast most of Thursday.

DORAL, Fla. – On Thursday at Doral Phil Mickelson trotted out an old and odd experiment – one bag, two drivers. By the end of a wind-whipped day, neither seemed to have worked that well.

Still, for a guy cold from three weeks of non-Tour activity, Mickelson’s opening-round 71 was no reason for concern, particularly for a guy who was a little more than 12 hours off a plane from Houston and understandably preoccupied with his wife’s health.

Mickelson arrived in south Florida late Wednesday from Houston, where his wife, Amy, was undergoing continued – and scheduled, he said – treatment for breast cancer. “She’s doing OK,” he said.

So is Mickelson, despite hitting just three of 14 fairways on a day that made south Florida feel more like Southport, England. It was a solid effort despite a litany of distractions.

But then golf seems preoccupied these days with the “return,” and health concerns and outdated grooves. All of which makes Mickelson’s 26-putt effort a reason to be optimistic.

“I’m ready to play,” said Mickelson, who removed a 57-degree wedge to add an older driver (Callaway FT-5) that flies lower with an eye toward Pebble Beach and the U.S. Open. “I know that although I didn’t have the greatest start, I hit the ball very well on the West Coast.”

Moments later Mickelson was signing autographs but not before offering a cure for the game’s collective ADD, telling reporters he plans to play the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

It is the same event that Tiger Woods is rumored to be considering for his comeback to Tour life, and all things considered, it’s a reason to start paying attention.

Eric Chun qualified for the British Open Thursday at International Final Qualifying in Asia.

Chun, a sophomore at Northwestern University who turned 20 on Monday, shot 67-71 to grab the fourth and final spot at Saujana Golf and Country Club in Kuala Lumpur. Seung-yul Noh, an 18-year-old Korean who won last week’s Malaysian Open, Malaysia’s Danny Chia and Japan’s Hiroyuki Fujita will join Chun at St. Andrews for this year’s British Open.

Chun earned his spot in the Open qualifier by finishing second to Chang-Won Han at the inaugural Asian Amateur last November. Han shot 73-68 at the British Open qualifier in Malaysia to finish three shots behind Chun but will play in the Masters next month on an exemption extended as the champion of the inaugural Asian Amateur.

DORAL, Fla. – How hard is the wind on Day 1 at Doral? At the par-3 fourth hole (his 13th of the day) Retief Goosen misclubbed so poorly his tee shot narrowly reached the bank in front of the green before bounding back into the water.

Just after Goosen, Phil Mickelson's tee shot dropped some 30 yards short of the green. In layman's terms that's a three-club miscue.

Tuesday night on Golf Central, John Hawkins squawked about the make-up of the Nationwide tour and its real mission. All because Sunday down in Colombia, 48-year-old Steve Pate became the oldest winner in that tour’s history.

Some, like Hawkins, think guy’s like Pate don’t belong on a developmental tour. I say, wrong. Pate has six PGA Tour wins and is fast-approaching the fast-improving Champions Tour.

One, do you want him sitting idle and showing up there with nothing to show? That wouldn’t be good for Pate or the tour. And two, what’s not to like about young kids using a former Ryder Cupper like Pate as a measuring stick?

Call me crazy, but a 22-year-old kid playing the first two rounds with Pate could probably learn some shots and hear a few stories that might help when he gets to the big tour. Being with Pate on the Nationwide Tour is like an internship, a mentorship and some helpful development. But you better beat him, which right now isn’t very easy.

DORAL, Fla. – With inclement weather in the forecast for Friday (the storm doesn’t have a name but it is close) PGA Tour officials moved up second-round tee times at the WGC-CA Championship more than three hours.

Round 2 is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. with the final groups going off at 9:55 a.m.

DORAL, Fla. – Although the broad-shouldered German wasn’t showing any signs of injury early in his first round at Doral, Martin Kaymer is headed for the DL shortly after next month’s Masters.

Kaymer broke four bones in his left foot in a go-cart accident last September and had to have an assortment of screws and plates surgically inserted. The injury forced Kaymer to miss eight weeks and likely cost him last year’s European Tour Order of Merit title.

The Thursday after he plays the year’s first major at Augusta National Kaymer plans to go home to Germany and have the hardware removed, a procedure that will take 10 to 12 days to mend.

“I wanted to play Quail Hollow (April 29-May 2) but I’ll have to take that week off now,” said Kaymer, who was hopeful he could return in time to play the Players Championship May 6-9.

Despite Kaymer’s solid play this year, he won the Abu Dhabi Championship in January and finished fourth two weeks later in Dubai, he said the injury has been causing him pain.

“Depending on the lie, if I’m under or over the ball, it really hurts,” he said.

Tiger Woods has hired former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer to help with damage control and a strategy for returning to golf, according to the New York Post. Sources told the Post that the former presidential advisor to George W. Bush has been meeting frequently with Woods where the two have been plotting a return strategy for the Arnold Palmer Invitational March 25 at Bay Hill.

Last week, Jack Nicklaus said that he believed Woods would play at least one warm-up event before heading to Augusta for the Masters in April. Woods’ longtime friend and neighbor Mark O’Meara told Golf Channel earlier this week that he wouldn’t be surprised to see Woods make his return at the Tavistock Cup, March 22-23, at Isleworth and that those exhibition matches would be a good way to ease back into the public spotlight.

“They were in his living room this week going over a strategy for how to handle Bay Hill in two weeks,” a source told the Post regarding Fleischer and Woods.

Fleischer, 49, was press secretary from January 2001 to July 2003 and left for a career as a consultant. He formed Ari Fleischer Sports Communications in 2008 and most recently advised embattled St. Louis Cardinals hitting instructor Mark McGwire on his public admission to using steroids.