Whittlin' Down The Field

Jim McCabe has always been a fine newspaper man, but something about writing columns online for GolfBrief.com brings out his most creative side. Today he whittles down the field to who really has a shot. Hard to disagree with his take, though eliminating all of the Aussies may prove to be a mistake.

And if you are looking for last minute advice, the Golfweek staff offers their picks here and Sal Johnson breaks down the field here, and Larry Dorman offers his "others not to be ignored" at the end of his New York Times piece, but maybe he should have cut it off at this excellent note: 

Geoff Ogilvy, whose victory three weeks ago at the W.G.C.-CA Championship at Doral stopped Woods’s worldwide winning streak, employed a similar strategy of ignoring Woods until the final few holes of the tournament. “I wasn’t really interested in beating Tiger today,” Ogilvy said last month after his first-round 63 at Doral. “I would like to beat him after four rounds. No, I don’t really give it any thought to him. I just want to give thought to how good can I play and can I win this golf tournament.”

That makes two golfers who have recently shown they can beat Woods. Others who have won events in which Woods finished second are Phil Mickelson (four times), Vijay Singh (three), Ernie Els and Jim Furyk (two each), and Ángel Cabrera, Michael Campbell, Stewart Cink, Retief Goosen, Trevor Immelman and Mark O’Meara (all one).