WGC-Bridgestone Int’l
I may be the only person skeptical of the Celtics trading a young team for an old team whose incumbent point guard hasn’t seen an open 15-footer he’s wanted to take. Is it possible I’m also being a stick in the mud about Tadd Fujikawa, the 16-year-old who stole the show at the Sony Open as an amateur and is making his pro debut at this week’s Reno-Tahoe Open?
How psyched are they for this coming out and the attention that will be paid on the tournament and Fujikawa given that the Reno tournament is opposite the WGC – Bridgestone Invitational where the top 50 players in the world,including Tiger Woods, are playing for twice the purse?
There’s another teen from Hawaii who would benefit from not playing professionally. In terms of her game, that is. Michelle Wie is doing OK financially. And Fujikawa is going to be OK in that department, too.
Maybe I’m wrong (read: most likely I’m wrong) and Fujikawa is the opposite of Wie, who is at least a foot taller than Fujikawa and plays with a Tiger-like seriousness while Fujikawa just rolled with it at the Sony. Watching Fujikawa and listening to him you think of a teenager. Wie is probably more gifted but she seems to be trying too hard to present herself as a "normal" teenager, a regular kid who can hit a golf ball 300 yards.
The expectations are impossibly high for Wie. Fujikawa isn’t similarly burdened. His goal is to make the cut this week. He’s getting 150-1 odds in the outright. Most 16-year-olds are 150-1 to make the bed.
Take Retief Goosen (33-1), 1/6 unit: Goosen has a slew of top-10s in the WGC events and won one back in 2001. We don’t see him much, just in the big tournaments. Kind of shocking to see a guy with his track record and continued good play (T2 at the Masters) at 33-1.
Take Adam Scott (40-1), 1/6 unit: How is the No. 5 player in the world getting 40-1? Scott should have at least twice as many Tour wins as he does (he has five, including the Shell Houston Open this year), but still. Not only has he never missed the cut in a WGC event, he’s always played well. Last year he shot a 63 Thursday and finished T10 at the WGC – Bridgestone Invitational.
Take Henrik Stenson (66-1), 1/6 unit: Stenson missed the cut at the U.S. Open and British Open. But let’s not forget that he won the first WGC event of 2007 back in February, although that was match play.
by: Staci Richards – theSpread.com – Email Us
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