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May as well extend droogy's break a little longer, since he missed out on making a thread this past week....

This week is the Deutsche Bank Championship, beginning Friday and culminating on Monday. It will be played (mother nature permitting) on the TPC of Boston, an Arnold Palmer design stretching 7415 yards at par 71. The Boston area supposedly had a good bit of rain today, and will probably continue to do so as the remnants of Katrina move through later this week. Given the likely wet conditions, I'd expect longer hitters to fare well, and the receptive greens should probably mean slightly lower scoring this year (the event's first two winners, Adam Scott and Vijay Singh, shot 264 and 268, respectively, although I think conditions were a little damp both those times as well). Oddly enough, however, neither of the past champs will be playing this week....Scott is taking time off to work on his game and I just looked on pgatour.com to see that Vijay withdrew with back spasms incurred while playing table tennis with his son. Too bad for Vijay, as the Fall Finish (this week is the first event of that section of the year) is typically when he shines, and I would have expected him to fare very well this week. Anyway, a pretty decent field has gathered, and I would expect a good event nonetheless.

So, a few questions about this week's event:

1. Will the event make it 72 holes? Given the high probability of heavy rains from Katrina, and today's practice already washed out, I don't think this is a given.

2. Who will be the winner?

3. What will be the winning score be?

4. Which player in the field from outside the top 50 could sneak up and surprise people with a good showing?

Just four simple ones, since this is not a major or anything...should be an exciting week if the weather cooperates!

My picks:

1. Yes...but they'll have to play catchup after a delayed start to round one.
2. I was going to go with Vijay, but since he's no longer in the field, I go to option #2....Tiger Woods (not a bad second option, eh? )
3. 269 (-15)
4. He played well in this event last year, so why not go with him again?? David Duval.

I wonder if its logistically possible to change the tournament start to Thursday, if they are expecting heavy rains. Starting on Friday for the holiday weekend is a nice idea, and great for TV viewers, but a potential Tuesday finish could cause problems for next week's event, whatever that is.

I doubt it. Plus, as we've seen, the TV execs are never keen on moving the proceedings up a bit, even if there's a good possibility that rain will prevent things from finishing on time.

Weather.com's forecast for Norton, MA (where the TPC of Boston is located) for the next few days:

Tonight: Scattered strong storms (the remnants of Katrina passing to our West)
Thursday: Partly cloudy, 86
Friday: Sunny, 86
Saturday: Sunny, 81
Sunday: Sunny, 76
Monday: Sunny, 76
Tuesday: Sunny, 80

The only weather concerns would be how quickly this relatively new course will drain and the effect of the last two days' weather on the receptivity of the greens. So my anwers would be:

1. Yes. 72 holes
2. Tiger, of course.
3. -21
4. Brad Faxon. Big win last week, local guy (Rhode Island), familiar with this course, will have the crowds behind him.

Brad Faxon has loads of great courses right in R.I. he plays when he's home. So I don't think he's very familiar with TPC of Boston any more than anyone else.

I would say that, given that he's probably only 30 minutes or so from there when at home, he's probably played thet TPC of Boston a few times more than the average PGA Tour player in this event. However, will it give him any advantage? That remains to be seen. Tiger Woods played Riviera many many times prior to the beginning of his PGA Tour career yet the LA/Nissan Open has been one of the few events to elude him in his career.

Oddly, while I thought a decent field was assembled, that is not the case. Only Tiger from the world top 10 is in the field, and the next highest ranked is Davis Love III at 15th. Only 3 top 25 and 7 top 50 players are in attendance, which is the same number of top 25ers and one more top 50er than last week, which was generally accepted as one of the weakest fields of the year. How soon can you move that Tour Championship up again commissioner Finchem?

Well, looks like Tiger Woods is making a charge down the leaderboard today in round two. Already one over for the day and after hitting it in the water on the 6th, probably going to drop at least one more. Olin Browne is now in the lead at -10...Olin Browne, Jason Gore on the board...what is this the US Open?

I've been watching on and off all day and surprise, surprise..........I haven't seen one shot by Tiger! How rare is that not to see Tiger on a final day?

LOL yeah. Wasn't he done before the coverage even came on? And even being done, he didn't have any "highlights" that would even be worthy of being shown by ABC. I only watched the coverage for a couple of holes on Saturday just to see why his score was so bad. Looked like his swing was going upright way too fast, and not only that, but he was going well past parallel (much more than normal).

Looks like Olin Browne wins the tournament. Congrats to Olin. Well done. After his US Open final round collapse, it held him back from making the money he needs to stay on Tour. Well, looks like he's got a 2-year exemption and he's going over the $1 million mark for the season with $990,000 for his victory this week. Once again, I say congrats to Olin for hanging in there after the debacle in the final round of the US Open. Well done and well earned. :nodsmiley

Gee, I'm a magician! I mention Tiger.........and POOF! TTUfirebird2008 appears!

way to go Rocky. anything else in that hat of yours?

kudo's to Olin. wasn't sure he could hang on, but the birdie on the 17th was superb. i'm sure he will sleep well tonight.

stagday