AP News
(2009-08-12 20:32:38)
Sergio Garcia will be looking to keep the international players in the spotlight as he returns to the PGA Championship, where he finished runner-up last year and in 1999.
The Spaniard has finished in the top 10 in two of the past three years and will get back into the swing of things at the 7.5 million-dollar event, which also welcomes back superstar Tiger Woods.
Woods skipped last year's PGA Championship while recovering from left knee surgery. That he is back means trouble for the rest of the field.
"I don't think Tiger has got a rival at the moment, and he's not letting it down," Garcia said Wednesday.
"To be able to win an average of five, six or seven events a year is very, very impressive. It's not like he plays 35 or 40 tournaments a year, either."
The winner will receive about 1.2 million and organizers have made sure that whoever collects the first-place prize money this year will have earned it.
Hazeltine National Golf Club course is the longest course in major championship history. At 7,674 yards, iIt is 31 yards longer than the Torrey Pines course Woods won on at last year's US Open.
Scotsman Colin Montgomerie praised the job organizers did setting up Hazeltine but said a longer course doesn't always make it better to play.
"It is a shame that sometimes these fantastic, traditional course are having to lengthen themselves," Montgomerie said. "As players we would almost prefer to have smaller, firmer greens and that would encourage having to hit the fairway anyway."
Montgomerie said he is interested to see how the course will be set for Thursday's opening round.
"If they put the pins tight to the bunkers and tight to the side of the greens it does penalize the shorter players," he said. "But that is part of the game. Length has always been a wonderful asset to have.
"But I think it is one of the fairest tests. It is set up for a marvelous championship."
Last year Padraig Harrington became the fourth player to win the PGA and British Open in the same year, finishing with a four-under 66 at Oakland Hills to beat Garcia and Ben Curtis by two strokes.
The Irishman snapped Europe's 78-year tournament drought and joined Woods, Nick Price and Walter Hagen as the only players to win the final two majors of the year.
Prior to Harrington's victory last year, former major winners had taken the last four PGAs. In the 18 prior years, 14 players made the PGA Championship their first major victory -- more than any other major in that stretch.
Woods, Phil Mickelson, Geoff Ogilvy and Vijay Singh head the list of former major winners this year while Garcia, Lee Westwood, and Montgomerie are just a few of those seeking their first major titles.
"Everybody is in the field here," said Mickelson, who arrived Tuesday and practised Wednesday. "This is their opportunity to finish the year with a high note and to be able to be the last major champion."
Mickelson is competing in his 17th PGA Championship after finishing tied for seventh last year at Oakland Hills.
"There's no advantage on the par-5s for the longer player," he said. "That gets nullified with the fact you can't reach it. But there is an advantage on the par-4s being able to get the ball down in certain areas and carry certain bunkers off the tee."
Montgomerie said his morning practice round on Wednesday gave him a taste of how difficult it will be to get a birdie on the par-4, 518-yard 12th.
"There's a particular hole (12th) that we feel is on the long side," he said. "I was playing into the wind and I couldn't reach it with two woods.
"But I am sure someone will have a hot week and we will see what the scoring is like."
World No. 5 Steve Stricker said what he lacks in length off the tee he will need to make up for in accuracy.
"With a course of this length I am going to have to do a lot of little things well to be able to compete," said Stricker, competing in his 12th PGA.
"I am going to have to hit the fairway and when I don't I'm going to rely on my short game to keep plodding along."
Copyright 2009 AFP Global Edition
