No bad blood between Garcia and Kim

They buried the hatchet, and thankfully not in each other's heads.

Sergio Garcia and Anthony Kim had some history when they arrived at the first tee in the PGA Championship’s Gossip Girl pairing of the Garcia, Kim and pretty boy Camilo Villegas.

Back in February at Riviera, Garcia was playing in the group ahead of Kim during a practice round for the Northern Trust Open. When Garcia was lining up a practice putt on 18, a ball came flying out of the sky. It was Kim’s approach to 18. The Orange County Register had all the details.

Garcia was lining up a putt on the 18th hole, Riviera's famed uphill par-4 finishing hole, when another golf ball dropped out of the sky a few feet from him.

Startled, Garcia spun around and spotted Kim in the 18th fairway, looking guilty.

"Sergio was really ticked off," recalled Kiki Garcia (no relation), head professional at General Old Golf Course in Riverside, who was in the greenside gallery when the incident occurred. "I (jokingly) told him I had his back. But Sergio said, 'I don't need your help. I'll break every club I have over his head.'"

Kim later apologized, according to the Register, and if there was any bad blood lingering, it’s been cleared up.

“Anthony is a great guy,” Sergio said Thursday. “Obviously I'm good friends with Camilo. It was very enjoyable. I think this is the first round I played tournament round with Anthony, and it's very impressive.”

Kim responded in kind, suggesting that the whole pairing was one big circle of friendship.

“Sergio and I are friends and Camilo and I are friends and obviously Camilo and Sergio are friends,” Kim said. “It was a good time. It was pretty relaxed and we just tried to play some good golf.”

Still, I’d watch these two closely if they face off in the Ryder Cup.

An older, wiser Sergio? He was on Thursday

If you’re looking for a reason why this may finally be the week Sergio Garcia breaks through and nabs his first major, you had one today.

Garcia was grouped in the first round with two other young and daring shotmakers — Anthony Kim and Camilo Villegas — and it was not hard to imagine the round devolving into golf’s version of H-O-R-S-E (“Alright, AK, 3-iron, 248 yards to the top shelf, nothing but spin!”).

But Garcia wouldn’t have it. The Spaniard made just two birdies, but more notably just one bogey (on 18, the toughest hole on the course) on his way to a classy, one-under 69. No bold moments of can-you-top-this, no firing at well-guarded flags, no immaturity.

Take the long, taxing par-3 ninth. Garcia estimated the room for error around that pin was about three feet. So, he said, "I decided to hit a good, solid shot to the middle of the green and try to make three a different way." A smarter way.

Garcia was asked after his round how he resisted pin-hunting (in front of galleries that no doubt wanted exactly that). “It is hard because we like to put aggressive swings into everything we do, but sometimes you’ve got to realize what’s right and what's wrong,” he said. “I guess you just learn it as you get older.”

That's funny, golfers tend to win majors as they get older, too.

(Photo: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)

Steve Elkington is leading on style points at Oakland Hills

One of the nice touches at a PGA Championship is how the players are grouped on Thursday and Friday. The 1:50 p.m. tee time on Thursday off the 10th tee brought together a trio of former winners: Mark Brooks, Bob Tway and, most stylishly, Steve Elkington.

Elk, owner and operator of one of the most beautiful swings to ever grace a golf course, has always been one to do his own thing, and he's doing more of it now than he ever has before.

On Thursday, the winner of the '95 PGA Championship was wearing green, white and red patent-leather Foot Joys with real spikes; high-rise brown trousers with a windowpane check and yard-long pleats that looked like something the Texas golfing legend Jimmy Demaret would have felt at home in; and a white shirt with pink dots and a hard collar. It was the shirt that drove me to Elkington's website, elksworld.com, where you can find many of the clothes he wears and, he explained to me shortly before teeing off, designs.

You will not find his golf bag on his website: an elk-skin bag, with matching elk-skin headcovers, filled with classic Titleist forged blades. Elkington is not looking for people to pay him money to wear certain clothes or play certain clubs or carry a certain bag. He's doing his own thing. You have to admire him for it. I do.

And the winner is...

I've been an Angel Cabrera groupie since I watched him play at the 2000 World Cup in his native Argentina, and the feature I did on him last year ranks as one of my favorite stories of my career, such as it is. When I'm at a Tour event and can't think of whom to follow I always gravitate toward the hard-living, titanium-denting gaucho.

Cabrera is off to a nice start early in his afternoon round but the advantage of having followed him on the front nine is that I have figured out who is going to win this thing three days early. That would be Cabrera's playing partner Paddy Harrington, who is hitting the ball beautifully and playing with a confidence that is as palpable as Beijing pollution. (As I type this his par putt just spun out on the 9th hole, but no matter.) After Harrington's victory at Birkdale there was a lot of talk about how he cemented his standing as the third-best player in the world. When, not if, he wins here, I'll be ready to declare Harrington No. 2.

Walker: Live Blogging the Round 1 of the PGA

Stuck at the office with no TV? Fear not, Michael Walker Jr., senior editor for GOLF Magazine, will be here to fill you in on all the goings-on at Oakland Hills. Stay with him from 4-7 p.m. EST as he live blogs the broadcast. John Garrity, senior writer for Sports Illustrated blogged the early rounds. Join the conversation by posting comments at the link below.   

Greens at Oakland Hills could use a drink

The fast, heaving greens at Oakland Hills are famous. But are they on the verge of becoming infamous?

After a tidy 69 today, Billy Mayfair issued a stern warning: “The greens are getting very hard and very crusty and it's hard to stop the ball close to the hole. I just hope they don't lose the greens, because if the wind stays up and the sun stays out and we don't get any rain, we're close."

Pushing the limits of a golf course is one thing. That's what majors are all about. Crossing the limit? Well, just ask the folks on hand at the 2004 U.S. Open how that worked out.

In Ryder Cup years, the PGA is a PR Challenge

Conventional wisdom says that with the PGA Championship representing the culmination of the Ryder Cup points race, Ryder Cup years are good for the PGA. It’s “Glory’s Last Shot” and “Those Who Want to Lock Up a Spot on the Ryder Cup Team’s Last Shot” all rolled into one. What a week! 

Problem is, the Ryder Cup has become so big, so heavily covered, that it is starting to have the reverse effect: the Ryder Cup is stealing the PGA’s mojo. I mean, which event is happening this week anyway?

“Azinger has shaken up U.S. Cup effort”
“Faldo to Sergio: You might not make team”
“Austin’s obsessed with making Ryder Cup”
“Mediate hopes to rock the Ryder Cup”

Those are just four of the headlines on our own web site, GOLF.com, at the moment, and the Ryder Cup buzz is no less prevalent on a slue of other golf sites.

Poor PGA Championship, all dressed up with no place to go.

Tiger may not be Tiger until 2010

If you’re expecting Tiger Woods to be his old world-beating self next season, prepare yourself for this possibility: he may not truly be back to form until 2010.

“I’ll be hitting golf balls next year, and that’s what we’re looking at right now,” Woods said yesterday on ESPN Radio.

Hitting golf balls? That sounds a long way from lapping fields and winning majors.

“That certainly could be delayed with the rehab if the leg doesn’t respond, if it continues to swell," Woods continued. "We don’t know.”

Ernie Els, who had surgery to repair torn knee ligaments in 2005, chimed in with more grim news yesterday at the PGA. 

“It’s going to take him a while to get over that injury,” Els said. “The first couple of weeks when he comes back it will swell up and … he’ll feel for it another six months. That’s what I went through.

“So he’s not going to be over the injury for another year after he’s come back.”

And who knows, maybe longer. Look at Els — he still doesn’t look his old self.

Great Scott? Not yet, anyway.

While we were sleeping, Anthony Kim replaced Adam Scott as the PGA Tour's It Guy. Kim, not Scott, is now viewed as the twentysomething most likely to nab multiple majors. Kim, not Scott, is the player lauded for his bulletproof swing.

When Scott won the Byron Nelson Championship this year, holing a long putt to beat Ryan Moore in a playoff, his caddie, Tony Navarro, said it was the perfect way to propel Scott into the U.S. Open.

We know who won there.

Larry Dorman of the New York Times says Scott has been dealing with several off-the-course issues, from injuries to breaking up with his longtime girlfriend. Maybe the PGA Championship can get him straightened out.

From Dorman:

"Back in the first quarter of the year, Scott’s prospects were as bright as the shine on the 630i BMW he had just picked up — along with a check for just under $500,000 — for shooting a final-round 61 to win the Qatar Masters in January. Healthy, happy, hitting it great and putting well, Scott seemed to be in the pole position on the fast track toward that other Masters in Augusta, Ga.

Then came April, which the poet T. S. Eliot famously called 'the cruelest month.' For Scott, it quickly and unexpectedly devolved into a waste land. Right after shooting a 63 in the first round of the Shell Houston Open the week before the Masters, he began to feel feverish and his throat began to ache. Thinking it was a slight flu, he played the next day and shot 76. Clearly, something was very wrong. He immediately withdrew from the tournament and sought medical help.

'They shot me with steroids to open the throat back up,' he said. 'It was nasty. And that kind of knocked me out for the Masters.'

He went to Augusta and limped to a tie for 25th. It was around this time (Scott is not specific on the date) when he and his companion Marie Kojzar decided to end their relationship. There had been sporadic online rumors of the couple breaking up two years ago, but none accompanied the actual split in April."

Kenny Perry scratches cornea but plays anyway and may not play

*UPDATE: Kenny Perry made his tee time and is on the course.*

Kenny Perry, a three-time winner this season, may have trouble trying to win No. 4. The 47-year-old Tour veteran scratched his cornea late Tuesday while removing a contact lens and isn't certain he will make his 2:05 p.m Thursday tee time, according to golfchannel.com.

“I can’t play in glasses because of depth perception problems,” Perry told the Golf Channel. “And if I play without glasses or contact lenses, I just don’t see very well.”

If Perry pulls out of the championship, he will make the U.S. Ryder Cup team without having played in a single major this season.