The PGA The Players Championship ended Sunday and Sergio Garcia was the man who came out on top winning a grand total of $ 1,710,000.00. That’s some nice pocket change for winning the richest tournament in golf.

Garcia ended the longest victory drought of his career by making a clutch par putt to force a playoff and hitting the island-green 17th on the first extra hole to defeat Paul Goydos in The Players Championship.

Haunted by putting problems that kept him without a victory the past three years and 53 PGA TOUR events, Garcia came up with a 45-foot birdie on the 14th to get back in the game and a 7-foot par putt on the 18th hole for a 1-under 71.

“It’s been a lot of work,” Garcia said, clutching the crystal trophy. “It feels like the last three years I’ve been playing well. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to come around and win. This week, I played so nicely. It felt like everything was so hard. I’m just thrilled the week is over and I managed to finish on top.”

The wind this weekend was absolutely relentless and Garcia had never needed a win so badly. This 28 year old Spaniard has had the most PGA tour wins of people under 30.

In his victory speech he was also quoted and saying thanks to Tiger Woods for not playing due to his knee surgery. Without Tiger there he could have never won!

Ian Poulter (photo) hits a hole-in-one

Even after the fog cleared, the best that Tiger Woods could do on the first day at the 2008 Masters was break even.

“I didn’t get anything going my way. I thought I played a lot better than my score indicates,” Woods said. “At 13 I hit a sweet approach shot that I thought was perfect, then I ended up with the worst place you could have put it. At 15, it was an easy little chip uphill - just had to make sure it carried enough. But the way the course plays now, you don’t really shoot low scores round here. You just kind of plod along. It plays more like a US Open than a Masters.”

England’s Justin Rose, meanwhile, shot a 4-under-par 68 to grab a share of the opening-round lead. Ian Poulter also had a good day, hitting a hole-in-one at Augusta National’s par-3 16th hole.

Tiger Woods is the 1/1 odds on favorite to win the 2008 Masters. Justin Rose is at 33/1 odds to win; and Ian Poulter is at 125/1 odds to win.

What makes Tiger Woods the 11/4 favorite at this week’s U.S. Open? The same two things that make any champion: breeding and training.

Now that the Triple Crown has come and gone, let’s take a page from our horseplayer book and look Tiger Woods in the teeth. Woods is the son of Earl Woods, a U.S. Army Special Forces lieutenant colonel of mixed ancestry, and Kultida Punsawad, also of mixed ancestry. They met while Earl Woods was serving in Thailand during the Vietnam War. Those are some impressive bloodlines.

But talent isn’t everything. You also need character, and Earl Woods had a serious passion for golf. He was committed to turning his son into the best golfer that ever lived, starting at the tender age of two. That may sound like a tragedy waiting to happen; however, Earl wasn’t your typical nightmare “Sports Dad” trying to live vicariously through his offspring. “My dad was my best friend and greatest role model,” Tiger said last year after Earl succumbed to cancer at the age of 74. “He was an amazing dad, coach, mentor, soldier, husband and friend. I wouldn’t be where I am today without him.”

The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Like his father, Tiger’s charisma is off the charts – just ask his wife, Swedish bombshell Elin Nordegren (now Elin Woods), or the many golfers on the PGA Tour who have gone on record saying how much they enjoy playing alongside Woods. That character took Tiger from appearing on The Mike Douglas Show at age 2, where he putted against Bob Hope, to winning three straight U.S. Amateur titles by age 20. And that’s just his amateur career. Woods has won the Masters four times, the British Open and PGA Championship three times apiece, and the U.S. Open twice.

Mr. and Mrs. Woods are expecting the couple’s first child this summer. Tiger may have to miss the British Open, but it will be well worth it to see if Tiger proves to be the same kind of father Earl was.

Odds to win the 2007 US Open

The U.S. Open returns to Oakmont Country Club for the eighth time this week and the PGA’s top pros better have their best putting performances ready, and their sand wedges popping out of their bags.

Located in the Pittsburgh suburb of Oakmont, Pennsylvania, Oakmont is considered to be one of the top courses in America. It is also considered to be one of the toughest. Oakmont is known for its very large and extremely fast greens. Golf legend Sam Snead summed it up when he said he once tried to mark his ball at Oakmont, but the coin slid off the green.

Mercifully, the greens won’t be quite as fast this year as they have been in the past, as the USGA has told Oakmont that the green speeds must measure between 13 and 13.5 feet on the stimpmeter. In the past Oakmont has usually measured 15 feet on the stimpmeter, while the average golf course tends to have speeds between seven and 12 feet.

Aside from the slick greens, Oakmont is also known for its multiple sand traps. According to the official Oakmont website the course has 180 deep bunkers, which includes the infamous Church Pews bunker. The huge Church Pews bunker is 100 yards long and 40 yards wide, and has 12 grass-covered ridges running through it. The giant bunker comes into play on both the third and fourth holes.

For regular members the Oakmont course has a par of 71. But for the U.S. Open the No. 9 hole will be played as a long par 4 instead of a par 5, which drops the par down to 70. The last time the U.S. Open was played there in 1994, Ernie Els won his first major championship after defeating Loren Roberts and Colin Montgomerie in a Monday playoff. The other U.S. Open tournaments played at Oakmont were won by Larry Nelson in 1983, Johnny Miller in 1973, Jack Nicklaus in 1962 and Tommy Armour in 1927.

The most famous of those wins was by Miller in 1973. In the final round Miller shot an amazing 63, which has since been labeled “the greatest round of the 20th century.”

Get all your PGA golf betting odds here!

Hate the high scores at the U.S. Open? Blame Johnny Miller.

In 1973, Miller fired a final round 63 at Oakmont to finish at 5-under and win the Open by a single stroke over John Schlee. One year later, USGA officials got their revenge. They turned the 1974 Open into “Massacre at Winged Foot.” Hale Irwin hacked and slashed his way through deep rough to a 7-over, good enough to finish in first place.

It’s been a dog’s breakfast for golfers ever since. And when the US Open returns to Oakmont this week, rest assured the course will be much less forgiving than it was to Miller. Exhibit A: the No. 8, which will play as a par-three of as many as 288 yards depending on pin placement. No wonder top golfers are anticipating a championship score of several strokes over par.

How will Oakmont’s layout affect bettors? Two ways jump off the page. First and foremost, putting acumen will be at a premium. The greens at Oakmont are insufferably fast. Even with officials stepping in to slow the greens down a bit this week, they will still read between 13–13.5 ft on the stimpmeter. That’s still much slicker than most courses. Golfers will be praying for rain this week to make the greens softer; keep an eye on the weather forecast to see if their prayers are working.

The other train of thought is that Oakmont will level the playing field, as if the course will swallow up anyone from Tiger Woods (14-5) to Stephen Ames (100-1) with the same gusto. There may actually be some merit to that. Here’s a list of the most recent Open winners to finish at even or worse: Geoff Ogilvy, Michael Campbell, Lee Janzen and Corey Pavin. Not a lot of chalk there.

(*Read “Oakmont Figures to be a Brutal Test for US Open Hopefuls” for more!)

Following that logic, perhaps this would be a good time to forgo betting on Woods and grabbing someone with even better putting skills, like Phil Mickelson at 8-1. Or you could venture farther down the odds list for a value pick like Zach Johnson at 40-1. He’s not bad with a putter either, and he’s coming off a breakthrough win at the Masters. Either way, expect to see a lot of bent mashies this week at Oakmont.

Best to get your US Open odds while they’re hot!

Has the Tiger Woods Express already come off the rails?

After lining the pockets of golf bettors over the past 10 months with nine wins in 12 PGA Tour events, Woods finished tied for 37th at last week’s Players Championship at Sawgrass. That’s his worst finish since missing the cut at last year’s U.S. Open. Tiger’s hot streak started with that failure; will he respond in a similar fashion in 2007, or are the good times over?

The futures market is pointing at the latter. Having already missed out on his fifth green jacket, Woods is listed at 5-4 odds to win zero major tournaments this year. “One” is priced at 3-2, followed by “Two” at 4-1 and “Three” at 20-1. Who would have thunk it?

I can understand some amount of trepidation among Woods supporters. He hasn’t won the U.S. Open since 2002, and the British Open is returning to Carnoustie Golf Links, a brutally unforgiving course in eastern Scotland that ate up Woods and a host of top golfers back in 1999. That leaves the PGA Championship in August, the last major on the calendar.

I believe Woods will have his mojo working once he gets to Tulsa, the site of this year’s event. Southern Hills Country Club did give Woods some trouble the last time he was there – the 2001 U.S. Open, where he finished in 12th place to end his streak of four consecutive majors. The course only has two par-5 holes, which puts a damper on Tiger’s outstanding long game.

However, Woods is a different golfer than he was in 2001. He’s proved he can keep the driver in the bag and still win, as he did at the 2006 British Open. That kind of intelligent course management should keep Woods squarely in the hunt to defend his PGA Championship title.

Before the first ball was driven off the tee at Sawgrass in The Players Championship last weekend, everyone was talking about Tiger Woods gunning for another win. After the last putt was dropped, everyone was talking about Phil Mickelson – and of course, that diabolical 17th hole.

Mickelson capped off the tournament with a three-under par 69 in the final round to finish at 11-under, two shots ahead of his nearest competitor. When the final round began it looked like it was going to be a tight battle between “Lefty” and the leader Sean O’Hair. That forecast held true for most of the day, until they strode to the tee-box at 17.

The infamous 137-yard par three with the island green proved to be O’Hair’s undoing, as he found the drink off the tee and then again from the drop area, winding up with a devastating quadruple bogey on the penultimate hole of the tournament. A bogey on 18 followed and O’Hair plummeted from second to 11th place on the final two holes, a catastrophe that cost him $747,000 in prize money.

While Mickelson celebrated his second victory of the season, Woods was left trying to explain what had happened. While Tiger recovered somewhat to card a five-under 67 on Sunday, he began the final round at five-over par and finished in a seven-way tie for 37th place, along with fellow former major winners Ernie Els, Mike Weir and Geoff Ogilvy.

Another big name to make some waves at Sawgrass was Sergio Garcia. The Spaniard shot a six-under par 66 in the final round to finish in second place, two strokes back of Mickelson. Garcia is still looking for his first major victory and if he can put together two or three rounds like he played on Sunday at Sawgrass, it could finally be his time later on this season with the PGA, The U.S. Open and the British Open still to come on the summer schedule.

For an inveterate gambler, Phil Mickelson sure has a lousy poker face.

The jovial Phil Mickelson was always quick to issue a self-deprecating comment or two, masking what many of his colleagues on the PGA Tour consider to be a god complex. And “Lefty” always had plenty of material to work with, coughing up tournament victories like bad hors d’oeuvres. But he finally put an end to his status as “greatest golfer yet to win a major” by winning the Masters in 2004, and he made it a double-dip in 2006.

That mask, by the way, is no longer part of Lefty’s arsenal. Mickelson was so floored by his collapse at the 2006 U.S. Open at Winged Foot that he swore he’d improve his shotmaking. His driving accuracy in 2007 has improved from to 58.61 to 60.11 percent, enough to boost his “total driving” ranking on the Tour from 66th to 14th. That’s a huge step in the right direction for someone who is already a wizard with his wedges and his putter.

Mickelson has developed what appears to be a healthy (at least, for golfers) aversion to risk. In addition to sounder strategy on the links, gambling has also been off the table for Lefty since the difficulties his wife Amy had giving birth to their third child, Evan, in 2003. And as for that inflated ego, Mickelson appears to be genuine when he admits that there is no comparison between himself and his rival, Tiger Woods.

That doesn’t mean Mickelson doesn’t think he can compete against Woods. Far from it – he’s even adopted a Tiger-like approach to personal fitness, watching his diet and working on core exercises to improve his conditioning. Mickelson is also using a strategy that many are misinterpreting as a mistake, skipping tune-up events to focus his mental and physical energy on the major tournaments. Add up all those concessions to intelligent golfing, and Mickelson is a solid value at 7-1 (second to Woods at 3-2) to win his third Green Jacket.