Tiger Woods didn't get hot at Doral until late, but his coaches made for some spicy reading. (Getty Images)
Nick Watney, whose nice-but-blasé persona often keeps him under the radar, threw himself into the mix as America’s current best golfer with a steely performance at Doral. The guy knows his rap beat, too.
Meantime, comments by Tiger Woods’ current coach made for some fun reading after his former coaches weighed in. A little classic old (Nick Price), a little new (LPGA Founders Cup). Going beyond the leaderboards…
• Watney jumped into the world top 20 with his victory at the WGC-Cadillac Championship, which also happened to be his seventh consecutive top-10 finish dating back to last year’s Tour Championship. Runner-up Dustin Johnson moved up to No.11. Matt Kuchar, fifth at Doral, inched up a spot to No.9 and has five top-10s this year. Get used to seeing them. American golf is in good hands even without Tiger and Phil.
• Speaking of which, wondering if anyone else noticed Johnny Miller tint his opening remarks on Saturday’s NBC broadcast by calling Woods and Mickelson “those two great players of the past.” Not sure whether that was intentional or off-the-cuff, but it ought to be interesting to see how either responds. Preferably with performance.
• Woods opened with rounds of 70-74, not the best accompaniment to Sean Foley’s interesting Q&A that included the line that previous coach Hank Haney “built most of his career around Tiger.” It didn’t take long for word to get back to Haney, who spends a lot of free time taking questions from Twitter followers. Haney let a few speak for him, retweeting such lines as “Sean Foley=clueless” and “Maybe Foley should stop talking until Tiger wins 6 more majors under him!”
• Butch Harmon also spoke up, saying Woods’ snipe-hook drive Friday at No.2 and 3-wood popup at No.14 were “a shock to all of us.” He also suggested it’s “not a good idea to completely do a redo” of someone’s swing.
• Things were far quieter on the Mickelson front, where a pair of numbers from Sunday spoke loud enough. Four greens in regulation, 14 bunker shots. That’s no typo – 14 shots that wound up in the sand. Well, his short game got a workout.
• Price signed up for the Honda Classic as a way to stay sharp between Champions Tour events, then didn’t hide his enthusiasm when he made the cut on a windblown PGA National track. The Hall of Famer then flies to California, ties the Champions scoring record with an 11-under-par 60 and holds on to win. Call that a good investment.
• The LPGA begins its U.S. schedule this week with the inaugural Founders Cup, the “play-for-free” event in which the entire $1 million purse is going to charity. Though commissioner Mike Whan did well to address player concerns and bring some marquee names into the fold, the field list still shows seven of the top 12 in the rankings sitting out. That includes three of the “big six” that carried last season – No.3 Na Yeon Choi, No.4 Suzann Pettersen and No.6 Ai Miyazato.
