The answer to that question is “Big Easy.” YES!

Ernie Els is a member of the Golf World Hall of Fame. He has won 18 events on the PGA Tour, 26 times on the European Tour and has a total of 75 titles worldwide.

Els won the U.S. Open twice, first in 1994 and again in 1997. He won the British Open in 2002 and has six Top 10s in the PGA Championship.

Since 1994, Ernie has had six Top 10s at the Masters including runner-up finishes in 2000 and 2004. He has only missed the cut there four times in 18 starts.

Ernie knows major championships.

He has made the cut in all five events in which he has played in 2012. Even at age 42 he is still very competitive and is ranked No. 62 in the Official World Golf Rankings. Most recently he was T-5 and just missed winning the Transitions Championship.

He has been playing every week trying to earn enough world ranking points to get inside the top 50 and earn his eligibility into the Masters.

Everyone could see the utter defeat and frustration on his face in his post-round interview at the Transitions.

No one really knows what goes on behind closed doors at Augusta National. Granting “The Big Easy” an invitation to play in this year’s Masters would be a very popular decision with golf fans everywhere.

Els has come so close in past years to donning a Green Jacket. With his recent success and solid play, 2012 could be his year.

Are you listening, Billy?

For more golf tips and video visit: www.toleodohiogolflessons.com. Follow on Twitter: @tolohgolfr.

Tags: Billy Payne, Ernie Els, Fred Altvater, Golf, Masters Tournament, PGA, The Back Nine

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 20th, 2012 at 8:00 am and is filed under Golf, Sports, The Back Nine.
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After his record setting year in 2011, Luke Donald has had a slow start to 2012. Donald was the first player to ever win the money titles on both the PGA and European tours in the same year.

He had two wins and an amazing 14 Top 10s in 19 starts on the PGA Tour plus he added two more wins and six more Top 10s on the 2011 European Tour.

Luke was forced to play late into 2011 to secure the European Money Title. He also witnessed the birth of his second child and the death of his father two weeks later. It is understandable that he has been somewhat sluggish this year.

The win at the Transitions Championship came on the heels of a T-6 at last week’s WGC-Cadillac and was just his fourth event of the year.

Luke played his steady low-risk game all week at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead course. He posted rounds of 67-68-70-66 and defeated Robert Garrigus, Jim Furyk and Sang-Moon Bae with a birdie on the first hole of the playoff.

Donald was the No. 1 ranked player in the world for 40 weeks but fell out of the top spot when Rory McIlroy won at the Honda Classic two weeks ago.

Luke has not yet won a major championship and has not received total respect for reaching and holding the No. 1 ranking. Maybe this will help convince some media types that he is a deserving world class golfer with an unmatched short game to go along with his extreme mental toughness.

Tiger Woods returning to competition this week from injury, Rory McIlroy looking to reclaim the No. 1 spot, and Luke Donald wanting to earn the golfing world’s respect sets the stage nicely for the upcoming Masters in three weeks.

For more golf tips and video visit: www.toledoohiogolflessons.com. Follow on Twitter: @tolohgolfr.

Tags: Fred Altvater, Golf, Luke Donald, PGA, The Back Nine

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 18th, 2012 at 9:04 pm and is filed under Golf, Sports, The Back Nine.
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Luke Donald held the No. 1 spot on the Official World Golf Rankings for 40 weeks. Rory McIlroy, 22, took the No. 1 ranking away from Donald after his win last week on the PGA Tour at the Honda Classic.

Luke won four times worldwide in 2011, amazingly won the money list titles on both the European and PGA Tours, but was never accepted as the true No. 1 golfer in the world.

McIlroy turned professional and joined the European Tour in 2007 at age 17. He only has three European Tour wins, including his win at the 2011 U.S. Open by eight shots, but has amassed eight runner-ups, and 25 Top 10s. He has been runner-up on the European Tour’s Race to Dubai twice, in 2009 and again in 2011.

Rory accepted membership on the PGA Tour for 2012 and will play a minimum of 15 events in the U.S. His win at the Honda is his third official PGA Tour win.

His fellow countryman, Ryder Cup teammate and good friend Graeme McDowell has stated that Rory has the most talent of any golfer on any tour in the world right.

Rory seems to be in contention every week and has finished top five in 11 of the last 12 events in which he has played.

McIlroy is one of the longer players in golf today and is surprisingly accurate with the driver. He also is one of the best iron players on tour. Combine those with his superb putting game, and he churns out low scores week after week.

A perceived weakness in his game was short game play around the greens. He demonstrated a vastly improved chipping acumen at the WGC-Accenture, where his play from just off the greens carried him throughout the early matches into the finals against eventual winner Hunter Mahan.

After his win in Palm Beach, he jetted up to New York, played a little tennis in Madison Square Garden with Maria Sharapova and, oh, yeah, spent some time with his significant other, tennis professional Caroline Wozniacki.

Can anyone fault him for shooting a first round 73 at this week’s PGA stop the WGC-Cadillac at Doral? The poor boy had to be exhausted.

With subsequent rounds of 69-65-67 he posted 14 under par, two shots behind eventual winner Justin Rose. Ho-hum, just another third-place finish and pocket another $500,000.

With Tiger Woods seeming to be steadily improving and becoming a factor again on tour, there has been great anticipation among golf fans of the competition between an aging Woods versus the youthful McIlroy for major titles and future world rankings.

Tiger was in the mix on Sunday but was forced to withdraw with a recurring Achilles tendon problem. After hitting his drive on the 12th tee, he was last seen riding a cart, getting into his car and leaving Doral.

A healthy Tiger Woods is the only golfer right now that can give McIlroy competition. Rory has to be the prohibitive favorite in every tournament that he enters.

Just like a younger Tiger Woods, even when Rory fails to perform at his best he is still in contention and finishes high up on the leader board.

The “Rory Era” has arrived. He is the true No. 1 and will be for the foreseeable future.

Tags: Fred Altvater, Graeme McDowell, Luke Donald, PGA, Rory McIlroy, The Back Nine, Tiger Woods

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 13th, 2012 at 10:05 am and is filed under Golf, Sports, The Back Nine.
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Tiger Woods has one goal on his mind: winning five more major championships. The WGC-Cadillac has a $8.5 million purse, the top 50 players in the world and South Beach, but it is not a major. For that reason alone he decided to withdraw from the event on Sunday.

After posting rounds of 72-67-68, Woods felt tightening of his left Achilles while warming up for his final round. He limped through 11 holes but was forced to withdraw after hitting his tee shot on the 12th hole on Sunday.

This was the third consecutive event for Woods who very rarely plays consecutive weeks. Tiger has said several times over the past months that he needed more reps to fine-tune his ailing golf game. The WGC-Accenture Match Play, The Honda Classic, and the WGC-Cadillac provided the perfect opportunity to get quality starts heading into the Masters.

Tiger was knocked out of the match play in the second round by Nick Watney 1-up. He again started slow in the Honda, posting a 71 in the first round but followed that up with a 68 on Friday, a 69 on Saturday, and a stellar 62 on Sunday to finish just two shots behind winner Rory McIlroy.

The 62 in the final round at the Honda Classic, head-to-head confrontation with heir apparent McIlroy, Tiger charging up the leader board and making putts, these are the things that had golf fans everywhere salivating and dreaming of Masters glory.

Woods is a workout fiend. Look at photos of Tiger when he joined the tour in 1996 and check out his ripped body now. He even has used Navy SEAL training methods to improve his quickness, endurance and strength.

Has this extreme training regimen, years of violent golf swings and walking thousands of golf courses over-taxed his 36-year-old legs?

Hopefully not, and this is just a minor roadblock in his march to over take Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major titles.

Tags: Fred Altvater, PGA, The Back Nine, Tiger Woods, WGC-Cadillac

This entry was posted on Monday, March 12th, 2012 at 9:05 pm and is filed under Golf, Sports, The Back Nine.
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CBS got lucky this year with its coverage of the PGA Tour’s West Coast swing.

First came the struggles of Kyle Stanley at the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. Stanley entered the final round with a five shot lead, struggled the whole way around on Sunday, made a triple-bogey eight on the 72nd hole and lost to Brandt Snedeker in a playoff.

The very next week Stanley reversed the scenario at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Spencer Levin had a six shot lead heading into the final round, shot 75, and then Stanley shot a stellar 65 on Sunday to collect his first PGA Tour victory. Stanley wins the all-time redemption award for golfers, as well as the undying respect of golf fans everywhere.

The AT&T National Pro-Am from famed Pebble Beach was the next stop. The featured partnership of Tony Romo and Tiger Woods didn’t fail to impress, and Romo even qualified for the final round on Sunday. Best of all, there was a Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson grouping for the final round.

Phil and Tiger were close to the lead and were in the next-to-last group. It was like déjà vu all over again, as Yogi would say.

We all saw what happened: Phil was striping fairways with his driver, knocking down pins with his irons and made about three miles of putts to beat Tiger by 11 shots and win the tournament. The television viewing audience in 2012 was 76 percent larger than for the 2011 AT&T final round.

The tour then moved its traveling road show to La-La Land and beautiful Riviera Country Club. Riviera is the home of a statue to three-time L.A. Open winner Ben Hogan.

A resurgent Mickelson was not quite as sharp as the previous week but still good enough to tie for the 54 lead with youngster Keegan Bradley.

Bradley and Mickelson both could only manage even par 71s in the final round and both had to birdie the tough, tough 18th hole to get into a playoff with clubhouse leader Bill Haas. The drama on the 72nd hole was priceless.

All three players were able to scratch out pars on the 18th the first hole of the playoff and then move to the short, treacherous 10th hole. Only 315 yards on the scorecard but a hole fraught with danger and double-bogeys lurking to frustrate golfers.

All three of the players were left with difficult chip shots onto the green. Haas, who had pulled his tee shot left of the green, was forced to play safe and leave his second shot some 45 feet from the hole but on the green. Even though Mickelson and Bradley were within 40 yards of the green, neither was able keep their second shots on the putting surface. Haas calmly drained his long putt and put the pressure squarely on the other two competitors. Mickelson and Keegan both missed their birdie tries, giving the trophy to Haas.

Even though Mickelson didn’t win, his runner-up finish moved him back into the top 10 in the Official World Golf Rankings.

Four thrilling weeks of PGA Tour golf gave us the best West Coast swing in many years. This is just a preview of what the 2012 golf season holds.

Rejuvenated veterans Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson along with European stars Rory McIlroy, Luke Donald, Lee Westwood and Martin Kaymer give us a cast of capable golfers who can contend every week. Throw in youngsters, Bubba Watson, Dustin Johnson, Bill Haas, Webb Simpson and Keegan Bradley and you have a very tasty combination of youth, talent and experience.

Even though Phil is taking the week off for spring break with his family this week, the WGC-Accenture will pit the top players together for a no-holds-barred match-play event. In three weeks, the WGC-Cadillac will again bring all of the top players to Doral for a tune-up for the Masters looming the first week of April.

Can Tiger continue to progress and capture a fourth WGC Match Play trophy?

Can Luke Donald go deep into the week and validate his No. 1 ranking?

Can Rory McIlroy be a factor and collect his first WGC title?

Can Lee Westwood make it past the first round?

Tune in starting Wednesday and see who goes home early and who will go home with a new Wedgwood trophy.

Find more golf tips, video and articles at www.toledoohiogolflessons.com. Follow on Twitter: @tolohgolfr

Tags: Bill Haas, Brandt Snedeker, Fred Altvater, Kyle Stanley, PGA, Phil Mickelson, Riviera, The Back Nine

This entry was posted on Monday, February 20th, 2012 at 5:19 pm and is filed under Golf, Sports, The Back Nine.
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The Official World Golf Ranking still has Tiger Woods ranked as the #1 golfer in the world although he has played like he doesn’t belong in the top 200 for almost a year.  Tiger has been #1 for the past 279 weeks and a total of 621 weeks in his career.  Personal problems and swing changes contributed to his poor play in 2010.

#2 ranked, Lee Westwood, will overtake Woods and claim the #1 spot at the end of October.  Both will not play again until November in the HSBC Championship in Shanghai, China, a WGC event.  Woods poor tournament record in 2010 has allowed the rest of the field to close the gap on the gigantic lead that he held just one year ago.

Although Westwood has not won on the European Tour in 2010 he is ranked #3 on the tour’s Order of Merit.  He had a stellar 2010 campaign with a win at Memphis on the PGA Tour, a second place finish at the Masters, 16^th at the U. S. Open, and a second place at the Open Championship.  He was forced to withdraw from the PGA Championship due to a leg injury that sidelined him for most of August and all of September.

Phil Mickelson is currently #3 on the OWGR.  Except for his win at the Masters, he had a very mundane year and is also battling some health issues that have had negative affect on his game.

The true #1 player in the world right now is lurking in fourth place.  German Martin Kaymer with four wins on the European Tour, three in a row and a win at the PGA Championship is leading the 2010 European Tour’s Order of Merit.  The 26 year old Kaymer has eight wins and is in just his fourth year on the European Tour.  He has steadily progressed through the ranks in Europe and his win at Whistling Straits vaulted him into the world spotlight.  He has emerged as the leader of the 20 somethings, a group that includes the likes of Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Bubba Watson and Rickie Fowler.

Tiger Woods will probably regain the top ranking again next year but I am beginning to believe that at the age of 35 he has reached the “Back 9” of career and his best years are behind him.  Perhaps we are witnessing a changing of the guard on the world golf stage.

Golf like any athletic endeavor favors the strength and agility of the young.  Now that Tiger has shown his invincibility there is a host of young guys chomping at the bit to take his place.

Tags: Back 9, Back Nine, PGA, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 12th, 2010 at 6:10 pm and is filed under Sports, The Back 9, The Back Nine.
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Tiger Woods polished off his final round 77 at the WGC Bridgestone leaving him at +18 for the week firmly in 78th place in the elite field of 81 top ranked golfers.  He spoke briefly with reporters, jumped into his Lexus courtesy car, boarded his private jet and left the Firestone Country Club in Akron, Ohio some two hours before tournament leader, Sean O’Hair teed off.  Tiger was a nonfactor at a golf course that he has owned over his golfing career.  He did set some dubious career records for the week.  His 54 hole total of 221 (+11), 72 hole total of 298 (+18), and his 78th place finish were all the worst in his 13 years on tour.

With just 4 major victories left to catch Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 major championships, this was to be Tiger’s big year.  Augusta National, Pebble Beach, and St. Andrews hosted the first three majors of 2010 and all three have been sites of previous fetes of golfing greatness and wins for him.  The result thus far in 2010 no majors, no wins, no love, and no game.

Tiger has been #1 on the Official World Golf Rankings for the past 269 weeks and 611 weeks of his career.  The once unsurmountable difference between himself and world #2 Phil Mickelson is now merely millimeters.  Even world #3 Lee Westwood could have overtaken Tiger this week.  Westwood has problems of his own though.  A recurring leg injury forced him to withdraw from WGC Bridgestone, has sidelined him from competitiion for 6 – 8 weeks, and may even affect his ability to participate in the Ryder Cup.  Tiger only has two top ten finishes in 2010 and this was only his 8th tournament of the year.  But since Phil made a mess of his final round at Firestone shooting an ugly 78 and eventually dropping all the way to T46.  The #1 ranking is Tiger’s for at least one more week.

Tiger ranks 111th in the FedEx Cup standings.  With just the PGA at Whistling Straits and the Wyndham Championships at Greensboro remaining on the regular season schedule, he should qualify for the FedEx Cup playoffs.  He could still salvage his season with a win at the PGA and maybe throw in a win at one of the four FedEx Cup playoff venues.

The Ryder Cup is another kettle of fish, however.  Captain Corey Pavin could be put in for a bit of bother.  Tiger currently is ninth on the U. S. Ryder Cup standings, but will drop lower this week.  Only the top eight automatically qualify for the team.  Pavin has 4 Captain’s picks to round out the 12 member team.  With the state of Tiger’s game does Pavin pick him to join the team or does he choose someone else that is currently playing much better.  Ricky Barnes, Ricky Fowler, Bubba Watson, Bo Van Pelt, and Sean O’Hair all would be much better choices that Tiger.  Tiger emphatically proclaimed at the Wednesday press conference at the WGC Bridgestone that he would play his way onto the team.  He didn’t have much success at that this week.

Whistling Straits will be a very interesting venue next week.  It is not only the final major of the year, but it is the last tournament to earn Ryder Cup points and Captain Pavin will announce his Captain’s picks on Monday after the PGA Championship. Will Tiger indeed play his way onto the team?  Will he decline an invitation from Captain Pavin as a Captain’s Pick?  Official World Golf Rankings will again be an important topic of conversation with the chasm between Tiger and Phil growing ever smaller.  Can Tiger get his head screwed on straight and master Whistling Straits?  Stay tuned golf fans there is a lot to play for in the next couple of weeks, the “Back 9″ of the PGA Tour.

Tags: Back 9, PGA, Tiger Woods

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 10th, 2010 at 1:17 pm and is filed under Sports, The Back 9.
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