I strongly believe that security urgently needs to be beefed up at top PGA Tour events. I implore the golfing authorities to make all haste in introducing retina scanning, fingerprinting, voice recognition, heck shoe size checks if necessary. For the players you fools, not the spectators! Only then can we be sure we have the genuine article playing in the tournament and not some crazed impersonator. That wasn’t the real Geoff Ogilvy out there at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Sunday was it? ‘I lost the plot,’ was the Australian’s explanation afterwards. His swing apparently had gradually been going to pieces through ...

There’s a current of opinion that Geoff Ogilvy’s luck cannot last for ever. To quote Fred Albers’ colourful analogy on XM radio: “You can only make so many passes at the craps table before you come up snake eyes.” Coupled with the fact that Henrik Stenson is playing some superlative golf in the Arizona desert, it gives us all hope that at least Sunday’s final will be a contest to remember. But I cannot see Ogilvy coming this far to have an off day at the final hurdle. He has been the man of the week by a country mile and, ...

That was so inconsiderate of Tiger Woods. There I was licking my lips at the prospect of a semi-final showdown with the rampant Justin Rose when he goes and fluffs that putt to win on the 19th. So instead I have to relish the possibility of an all-English final between Rose and Paul Casey. Wow, I bet the American TV moguls would be overjoyed by that. Mind you, they can’t be too happy anyway: not only is Woods out, but there’s only one American left, with every possibility he’ll get kicked out in the quarter-finals by the other matchplay “phenom", Stephen ...

A chance Friday to see just how sweet revenge can be. Shaun Micheel goes up against Paul Casey, who basically thrashed him off the park in last year’s HSBC matchplay final, while Tiger Woods gets the opportunity to give Nick O’Hern a good kicking for having the temerity to dump him in the second round of this tournament two years ago. I’m really warming to this desert showdown. The key, of course is scoring birdies, although the variations can be dramatic. Retief Goosen bagged five Thursday yet still went down to Niclas Fasth. Stewart Cink could manage only two, wiped out ...

I’ve started so I’ll finish! After yesterday’s total devastation of my picks, you’d think I’d just retire hurt. But I am a glutton for punishment. And no half measures this time. So, for no particular reason other than what else would I do with a lunch break, here are my picks for the next round. Jones bracket: Woods, O’Hern, Baddeley, Choi. I really wanted to say Tim Clark would beat Tiger after seeing off Robert Allenby, but cowardice has triumphed. I’m a bit iffy about the Baddeley-Donald encounter too since both made rather heavy weather of things Thursday. Hogan bracket: Mickelson, Howell, ...

I could do with some R&R in Mexico after yesterday’s matchplay wipeout. I felt like a first world war general watching his troops march to their doom. It’s not hard to see why I usually steer clear of the format. But it’s an odd week all round, because there’s not a lot to tempt down Mayakoba way either. In more ways than half a dozen this is a trappy minor event that can quickly reduce you to penury. For a start most of the weekend money will be headed Arizona way, especially if Tiger Woods is still in the hunt, so don’t ...

All this talk of Tiger Woods’s streak is one big yawn. I couldn’t give a million dimpled golf balls whether this is part of a streak or not. So I certainly won’t be hanging of the edge of my chair, fingers between teeth, as the Tucson matchplay unfolds. But the main reason for that is that I will have precious little money on it. I’m sure we’ll see lots of wonderful golf, but you might as well play a Las Vegas slot machine as pick a winner. It is, as one newspaper headline puts it, a crapshoot, made more difficult this ...

We are just going to have to learn to love this self-destructive tendency in Phil Mickelson and get on with it, because he’s stuck with it. Among all the acres of opinion on Lefty’s collapse at the Riviera Sunday there is one word I haven’t spotted: hubris. That’s my choice. Pure and simple, Mickelson starts to believe so much he’s the man to put Tiger Woods in his place, he just gets ahead of himself. He was coasting down the back nine, happy to be on top of things in a way he hadn’t been Saturday, confident that all the vigorous challenges ...

I might not know who’s going to win this Sunday, but I do know there’s enough great talent still in the frame to make layers drown in their saliva. I say I don’t know, but I have a pretty unoriginal good idea. Even if Phil Mickelson’s aura of infallibility was finally punctured down the back nine Saturday with some wayward iron shots, his lead is still a shot better than 24 hours ago. It’s going to take a brave, do-or-die round Sunday and a flat game from Lefty to break that down. As one of the commentators following him round Saturday ...

On the numbers front it’s not looking too hot for Padraig Harrington. He’s been in the lead at the halfway stage of a PGA event just twice and lost out both times. Third time lucky? Unfortunately he’s up against Phil Mickelson, who is 13 from 23 for converted half-time leads. An even better round by Lefty Friday easily scattered those queueing to lay him at the start of play. “His price is far too short,” they cried. It’s a good bit shorter now guys. I wonder how the punter laying the kitchen sink on Mickelson at 3.9 Friday feels now he’s ...

Ignorance certainly was bliss for Padraig Harrington Thursday as he fired at the Riviera’s baking greens to lead the pack by three shots. I suspect he’ll be a lot older and wiser Friday after going round in the afternoon. The greens will have baked plenty more and have that walked-on feel aplenty, making them the hardest and bumpiest yet. The afternoon crew Thursday were already feeling the effect and played a shot over the morning average (72.41 to 71.47) although inexplicably there were still six rounds to complete. Come again? You can’t blame the weather. I felt like a parent waiting for ...

When is short short? I ask because everyone says the Riviera course is “short and tight". Is 7,279 yards short? It’s the fourth longest of the 11 played so far and 400 yards longer than anything encountered at Monterey last week. So medium? Ish? Everyone also says accuracy is the key and bombers should stay at home. My little table of last year’s top finishers begs to differ. The top three players were, on average, fifth for distance and 39th for accuracy. Winner Rory Sabbatini hit the fairways less than 50% of the time. Okay, it’s an awkward course: doglegs, strategically placed ...

Pebble Beach, hole five: Phil Mickelson has lost his ball. Cue double bogey. Aha, you think, here we go again. Only I didn’t. In fact I missed the entire episode (don’t ask, something to do with food poisoning!), which is probably all to the good, since I would have been sorely tempted to start laying Lefty in the aftermath. And that, as we now know, would have been an awful mistake. Quite where that all-round transformation in the space of just a week came from is anyone’s guess. In his mind as much as anything I imagine. It has distinct echoes ...

There is a simple set of figures to illustate the cruel vagaries of the AT&T. Of those that missed the cut 23 by my count played Pebble Beach at it’s easiest on the Friday. Those blown to pieces on Thursday fared far worse, with 35 culled. But the ones I really feel sorry for played on soaking Saturday, when 46 became mere statistics. Pebble Beach can rarely have been such a monster, playing on average more than a stroke worse on Saturday than Thursday, while the other courses more or less behaved themselves (Third round averages (06 in brackets) - Poppy ...

Who needs Tiger Woods when you’ve got a battle as engrossing as Friday’s between Jim Furyk and Phil Mickelson? For my money Lefty took the honours for the way he frustrated Jim’s bid to show the pack a clean pair of heels. It’s reassuring to know American weather forecasters are as hapless as our lot, although it makes trying to second guess play mighty difficult. A big factor in Friday’s proceedings was how the wind retreated, meaning the courses played pretty much as they did last year (second round averages, with 06 in brackets: Poppy Hills 72.5 (72.5); Spyglass Hill 72.4 ...

So is he back? Has Phil Mickelson finally come out of hibernation? He “ripped the ball beautifully, putted confidently” in the words of one scribe and capped it with an eagle. It’s the best he’s played Poppy Hills at least since the turn of the century and he’s so fired up he’s even thinking of entering next week’s Nissan Open, a competition he is not generally fond of. But talk about slow: if snails played golf they’d be faster. Players were queueing upwards of 40 minutes to get on the final holes and rounds were taking more than six hours. That’s ...

Life would be so much different if I was Luke Donald. For a start I wouldn’t be cursing global warming for heaping several inches of snow on my car this morning. On the other hand I’d be going slightly round the bend as a result of everyone shouting Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuke at me all the time. And thirdly, instead of freezing in England I’d be warming up in California on the latest round of my bid to prove I’m the greatest golfer in the world. I use the term ‘warming up’ very loosely, as you have to in these days of messed up ...

The way he explains it, you can understand why Jeff Quinney took the fateful decision to use driver off the 17th tee. He needed a birdie and reckoned that was the only way to get it. Cue big splash and a sudden dramatic end to his victory march on the FBR’s easiest hole. Jeff should have tuned into the radio - the collective intake of breath from XM’s commentators might have made him switch clubs. So Wobble Sunday lives up to its reputation and our man Aaron Baddeley squeaks past for victory. That was the best Sunday of the season so ...

How religious is Jeff Quinney? I only ask because today he will need all the heavenly assistance he can muster against Aaron Baddeley, who never lets us forget in these situations how God sits at his left shoulder. While you can’t discount the likes of Brett Quigley and Bart Bryant, I see the Australian sitting two shots behind the leader as the big danger Sunday. What is certainly heavenly about Quinney is his putting: a putts per GIR average so far of 1.5 is really something. And a two-hole cushion going into Sunday is good going for this course as long as ...

The fates have been unkind to Charles Howell III. Alone among the leaders his charge towards the top was cut off in its prime Friday because of the frost-induced delay. So he’s got to get up at sparrowfart Saturday to finish the last two holes while his rivals slumber on, then click his heels waiting to start his third round later in the day. Pity, as he was setting himself up nicely to bite at Jeff Quinney over the weekend and grab the victory he’s been so close to this season. It’s still doable, just a whole lot more difficult. But ...

None of that was in the script. Cloudy, wet, cold, dark? Excuse me, is this Arizona or Ireland? There’s not a few golfers praying the weather clears up Friday and lets them play their normal game. When the last light had faded Thursday, leaving poor Tripp Isenhour stranded on the 18th hole, the numbers were nothing like what had been expected. Forget distance play - the average position of Thursday’s top 7 for distance was 87th (against just under 23rd for the top 5 last year). Accuracy? Slightly better but still 55th against 34th last year. The people who really prospered ...

If Phil Mickelson is going to end up as anything more than an afterthought this season, he really needs to get cracking. According to the PGA Tour website 2007 is the worst start of his pro career. The FBR Open, which he has won twice, provides a perfect opportunity to put this right. The course suits him and he loves its big, noisy crowds. I just wonder if he’s stopped fiddling with his new drivers enough to concentrate on winning. I suspect his mind is more fixated on his upcoming Masters defence than anything in between. But if he does get ...