Over-rated!

Farrell Evans and Rick Lipsey have given you their list of the game's most overrated players. Now it's your turn. Write your own list in the space below, and tell us what you think of their choices.

The Art of golf

I'm a golf writer, not an art critic, so I'll leave it to you to decide what you think of LeRoy Neiman's painting (at right, click to enlarge) to commemorate the 37th Ryder Cup, which will be held in September at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Ky. This came to me via a press release, which suggested the painting as the perfect Father's Day gift. It's Neiman's view of the Ryder Cup as seen at the 13th hole, which features a green guarded by a moat.

Just so you know, the poster version will cost $50. A commemorative hand-signed print is $250, and a special  limited-edition (450) print will go for $4,200. Postcards and notecards are also available. For details, see cobaltartworks.com.

I like some of Neiman's past golf efforts -- this one of Jack Nicklaus is captivating. This Ryder Cup work doesn't blow my skirt up, as my boss likes to say. What do you think of it? Vote for great, so-so or el stinko, as you see fit.

(Painting courtesy of leroyneiman.com)

Ochoa on the move

Didn't Lorena Ochoa get the memo? This was supposed to be Annika Sorenstam's week after she announced she will leave competitive golf at the end of year. Instead, Ochoa is stealing the spotlight at the Sybase Classic in Clifton, N.J., racing out to a two-shot lead over the field through 36 holes. (The tournament has been shortened to 54 holes after rain washed out Friday's play.) Sorenstam is five shots back of Ochoa going into Sunday's final round. One week after Sorenstam took a seven-shot victory at Kingsmill, Ochoa is returning serve. If she wins Sunday, it will be her third consecutive Sybase title. These two players could have spent the next decade trading tee shots and curling putts. Enjoy it while it lasts. 

Tiger named the fittest of them all

Tiger Woods must have the most impressive resume of any college dropout since Bill Gates. And the accolades and honors don’t stop even when he’s not playing.

This week, as Woods rehabbed his knee in Florida, Men’s Fitness magazine named him the “Fittest Guy in America.” The award might not be on the level of a Masters title, but Woods did face some tough competition from the likes of Will Smith, Browns quarterback Brady Quinn, Phillies second baseman Chase Utley and someone called “Mark Steines.”

When you look at old photos, Woods’s transformation from a lanky college kid to his current superhero-in-disguise physique is even more impressive. Last year he gave an excellent interview to Men’s Fitness, where he described his fitness routine, which consists of stretching, weight training and distance running. (His trainer, however, would not reveal how much Woods can lift.)

Woods enhances his weight training with extensive core training (“I like doing situps, thoroughly enjoy them,” he says. “I think they’re fun. You have that lactic acid buildup and you can still go through it. I just enjoy the feeling of it.”) and running, including three-mile “speed” runs and “endurance” runs of up to seven miles. (“I just enjoy running; it’s fun to me,” says Woods. “Some people hate it. But I get a nice sense of calm in running. I just find it peaceful.”)

Those gym rats at Men’s Fitness clearly respect the world’s best player, but we’re not sure how much they respect golf. Here’s the first reason Men’s Fitness gives for selecting Woods: “Because he made us care about a sport we didn’t think was, well, a sport.”

Ouch!

(Photo: Robert Beck/SI)

No golf if Baghdad’s burning?

Annika’s on her way out, Sergio’s on his way back, but the week’s biggest golf story might be that President George W. Bush isn’t playing anymore.

Bush, a 15-handicap, told Politico magazine that he stopped playing in 2003 because he thought it looked inappropriate for him to be on the course while the country was at war.

"I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal," he said in an interview for Yahoo! News and Politico magazine.

"I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander-in-chief playing golf," he said. "I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them."

A nice gesture by Bush, I thought. For people who don’t play, golf still conjures images of the idle rich—the people I play with are neither, or at least not rich—and Bush was being sensitive to appearances, which in his business can be everything. Other people I talked to thought it was a little ridiculous. If the president likes to play golf he shouldn’t feel guilty about it.

Still others think the idea that giving up golf constitutes a sacrifice is an insult to soldiers and their families. Speaking in The Telegraph (a UK paper), anti-war veteran Brandon Friedman said, “For President Bush to imply that he somehow stands in solidarity with families of American soldiers by giving up golf is disgraceful.”

What do you think of President Bush not playing golf anymore? Join the conversation below.

Annika's surprise shoes in 2002

I wasn't at Annika Sorenstam's retirement-announcement press conference, so you'll have to tell me: What shoes was she wearing?

Yes, I'll explain. Over the years, I've covered a number of Sorenstam's 72 tournament victories, including her first (the 1995 U.S. Women's Open at the Broadmoor) and one of her most recent (her playoff victory over Paula Creamer at the Stanford International Pro-Am). Of all those tournaments, the one that stands out in my mind is the 2002 Kraft Nabisco Championship.

Why? Because Sorenstam -- who was once the shyest and most understated of superstars -- showed up for the final round in a pair of high-gloss, blood-red golf shoes that looked liked they'd been swiped from Doug Sanders' closet. Others may disagree, but I think her victory that day, in shoes that screamed "Look at me!", amounted to a sneak preview. It was Annika's way of saying, "I'm confident now, I believe I can do great things. I might even challenge the men."

Sorenstam never wore the red shoes again, to the best of my knowledge, but I'm sure they'll turn up somewhere. Maybe in the World Golf Hall of Fame?

Anyway, here, straight from The Vault, is my version of THE RED SHOES.

(Photo: Scott Halleran/Getty Images)

LPGA loses big with Annika announcement

Annika Sorenstam wants to retire, and she’s certainly earned it. The reluctant superstar who intentionally missed putts as a junior so she wouldn’t have to give a victory speech blossomed into one of sport’s most gracious champions, amassing 72 LPGA Tour wins and 10 majors. Her dominance of the game was so overwhelming that she and Tiger Woods had a good-natured rivalry over number of majors won. She was his only contemporary competition.

Sorenstam may have been at her best in a tournament where she didn’t even make the cut. In the 2003 Colonial, Sorenstam becaome the first woman to play against men in a PGA Tour event since Babe Zaharias in 1945. She handled the circus-like atmosphere with her usual charm and humility and posted a first round 1-under 70. She didn’t play the weekend, but she proved that she deserved the chance.

Now, she wants to focus on family and business. And my selfish reaction as a golf fan is: Why now? After two consecutive wins on the LPGA Tour, Sorenstam is poised to give the LPGA something the men’s tour hasn’t had in years: a real rivalry. While Sorenstam worked through injuries, Lorena Ochoa took her No. 1 ranking and her place as the face of women’s golf. Now, Sorenstam is back to championship form and this season promises to be a duel for wins, majors and that top spot on the money list. The men’s tour hasn’t had a rivalry like this since Nicklaus-Watson and maybe since Nicklaus-Palmer.

So enjoy it while you can, but when she’s gone, it’s gone.

Where were the crowds?

At a real major, the fans are frothing. You see it even at the PGA Championship in the dog days of summer. Something is missing at the Players in that regard. It had more fan buzz when it was held in March, during March Madness, than it has the past two years.

The event, officially, was a sellout, according to PGA Tour officials. But on Saturday, the stands around the green on the 18th hole were far more empty than full when the leaders came through. On Sunday, there were many more people, but no real buzz. The hot wind may have had something to do with it. Or could it have been spring football?

Maybe the ticket prices were too reasonable, if you can believe such a thing. (I can't, but it's a theory.) A weeklong ticket cost $199 and was transferable. Not cheap, but the Players draws a pretty flush crowd. At that price, if you miss a day, the thinking might go, it's no big deal, right?

At the Masters, though, that does not happen.

What would you name the last three holes at Sawgrass?

The dramatic three finishing holes here at the Stadium Course have been a place in search of a nickname. Quail Hollow's last three holes are known as the Green Mile, Augusta National has Amen Corner and PGA National has the Bear Trap.

The last three holes here, including the island green 17th, have been without a label. NBC and Jimmy Roberts tried to christen it Sunday based on a comment by former tour commissioner Deane Beman, who said you have to "run the gauntlet" to win this tournament. So Roberts suggests calling the last three holes The Gauntlet.

Funny that NBC's piece ran one day after a piece in the Gainesville Sun by Pat Dooley, who's sitting next to me in the pressroom. He wrote a column about trying to come up with a name for the stretch of holes, too. Some of his nominees (one or two from me) included Claw and Order (the layout of the holes is like a hairpin or claw) and the Swamp. To honor designer Pete Dye, he came up with Do or Dye Corner, Dye Hard III (that was me) and Three-Pete.

Here's more from Dooley: Saw-crash, the TPSea, Splash Corner, Wet 'N Wild, Players Hater and Bogey Bayou.

The best nominee, Dooley decided, was the Bermuda Triangle -- since the Bermuda grass greens are so firm and fast. He likes it, I like it. Sure, the name is already taken, but it's still catchy.

"If nobody has come up with a nickname in 25 years," he wrote, "maybe it's just not there."

The Gauntlet? Thumbs down. Bermuda Triangle? Thumbs up. Besides, there's something wrong if we're going to let television dictate history to us.

Got a better name? Let's hear it.

(Photo: Sam Greenwood/Getty Images)

The winner? The wind.

Briny Baird made a clutch putt to save par on the 72nd hole of the Players here Sunday, making him the temporary leader in the clubhouse. He finished one under, in fourth place.

Baird scored with writers when he talked briefly with them outside the scoring area after his round. He summarized the tournament as neatly in two sentences as any Pulitzer winner could've.

"I don't care who wins the tournament," Baird said, "the wind won. It kicked everybody's butts."

No argument here.