Mike Weir uses Tiger Woods triumph to win Frys Open

Sometimes all it takes is beating the world’s most dominant golfer heads up to end a streak of 86 events without a title.

Sure it’s the “silly season", but Mike Weir is surely giddy over his performance over the last month - first beating Tiger Woods in a pretty-close-to-meaningless match at the Presidents Cup - now winning the Frys Open.

When Weir won The Masters in 2003, he was touted as a possible Top 10 mainstay. Well, he’s barely been on the radar since his win at the 2004 Nissan Open.

On a side note, it was nice to see Phil Mickelson phone it in for two days before getting cut in his home town.

It’s hard to believe Woods really brought his Major Sunday game face against Wier at the Presidents Cup and the victory seemed to be totally overblown. Weir is fooling himself if he thinks he faced Tiger at his best. But motivation is motivation, and momentum is a fickle mistress. Though that match seems to be serving as the breaking point, a better barometer for how your game is doing is stacking it up in a full field of the world’s best - not an 18-hole match where your team is getting creamed anyways and you’ve got the adrenaline of the home crowd on your side.

Maybe it was the Tiger victory or maybe he’s just been tweaking his putting stroke a little here and there and it’s finally comfortable. Maybe a Canadian Dollar that’s as strong as the American now means his paychecks aren’t taking him as far as they used to at Tim Horton’s. The world rankings look better with Weir up there, so hopefully he can challenge for a few more W’s next season.

Justin Leonard came back to life and won the Texas Open a few weeks back - now Weir at the Frys. Maybe that’s the off-season’s purpose: giving a glimmer of hope to struggling former major winners who can tear up diluted fields in order to get back into the winners circle. But winning when the world’s best are competing is a far taller order.