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GOLF: PGA TOUR: The TOUR Insider: PODS Championship

/noticias.info/ He's still got it, you know.

Mark Calcavecchia, who readily admits he's becoming too old, too heavy and, despite wisdom of years, too often gets overcome by fits of impatience, still possesses one distinguishable asset as a golfer; it's called talent.

"I'm pretty lucky," said Calcavecchia, 47, who turned professional in 1981. "I've been streaky, but I have a good vision for the game. A lot of times I can see what I want to do before I do it ... and I can still hit the shots."

Calcavecchia sure hit enough good ones last year at the PODS Championship in Palm Harbor, Fla., to win his 13th PGA TOUR title. After an opening 75 on the cantankerous Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort & Golf Club, the Florida resident switched putters, found a groove, and beat Heath Slocum and John Senden by one stroke, mostly on the strength of a third-round 9-under-par 62, which tied the course record Jeff Sluman set in 2004.

The former Open Championship winner has always has been a good ballstriker, but he admits that he won last year's PODS Championship with his flatstick. He needed 36 putts in the first round and then needed only 23, 23 and 27 in the final three.

"Entirely (with putting), yeah, although I was hitting the ball well," he said. "The first day I hit the first 16 greens in a row and was even and then finished triple bogey, bogey, 36 putts or something, and that's when I had the bags packed. But I was hitting it well. I knew I was hitting it good. I hit it good the week before at [The Honda Classic] and shot 78-71 or something, 9 over, and had about 35 or 36 putts every day. All of a sudden I switched putters, kept hitting it good. I hit a lot of fairways and a lot of greens, but then I just made everything I looked at."

Last week at The Honda Classic, Calcavecchia proved again that he can still compete with the best. He vied with world No. 3 Ernie Els for the title before an unlucky and untimely double bogey dropped him to a tie for fourth place.

Ironically, Calcavecchia was struggling again with his putting entering last week's event ranked 197th in total putting and 170th in putts per round. Those numbers have improved (to 191st and 148th, respectively) after averaging 1.750 putts per green at PGA National.

After coming up short at the Champion Course, Calcavecchia philosophically noted, it "was not my time."

He's been around long enough to know that golf seldom affords any player many times at the top.

"It's a good achievement; you know, winning a tournament on the PGA TOUR is a very hard thing to do for most mortals, and being an older guy ... not exactly in the greatest shape ... it's good to win and nice to know we can still do it."

FEDEXCUP POINTERS:

• If you're looking for Ernie Els to keep the momentum going and win for the second week in a row, it might be good to keep in mind that he has won in back-to-back weeks only twice before on the PGA TOUR, the last in 2003 when he opened with victories at the Mercedes-Benz Championship and Sony Open in Hawaii. However, he has followed up with a top-10 finish the next week seven times and has missed the cut after winning only once.

• Nineteen players are making their debuts at the Copperhead Course. First-time entrants of note include England's Paul Casey and PGA TOUR veteran David Duval, a Florida native who has won twice in his home state.

• Last week's venue for the Honda Classic, the Champion Course at PGA National, played to a cumulative stroke average of 71.825, only slightly better than last year's 71.958 average, which ranked eighth most difficult on the PGA TOUR last year. The Copperhead Course at Innisbrook Resort won be much friendlier, probably; it ranked 15th last year in difficulty.

• More on the Copperhead's bite: Only three players to post four rounds in the 60s in its seven years hosting a TOUR event. Vijay Singh did it in 2004 and K.J. Choi, twice a winner of the PODS Championship, accomplished the feat in '02. Jesper Parnevik is the third, finishing second to Singh. Interestingly, Parnevik is the only one of the three returning this week.

• Note that all three of the above are international players. Just two of the seven winners in tournament history are Americans: Calcavecchia and John Huston, who won the inaugural event in 2000. Of the 10 players who finished second (including ties), seven are Americans.

• Good ballstrikers historically play well on the par-71 Copperhead Course, which measures 7,340 yards. It's an atypical Florida layout featuring some dramatic elevation changes, tree-lined fairways and undulating greens, meaning a player has to drive it straight and then not only hit the putting surfaces, but place the ball in advantageous areas to make a run at birdies. Just consider Calcavecchia, who was 34th in driving distance last year but ranked 12th in driving accuracy, ninth in greens in regulation and first in putting average.

• Look out for Floridian Joe Durant this week. He's played solidly of late with four of his last five starts producing finishes of 20th or better, and he is the only man in the PODS field to have three top-10 finishes -- and they're all fifth or better. He ranks second behind Charley Hoffman in ballstriking.

• Eight players have never missed the PODS Championship, and all return this week, including Huston. The others: Billy Andrade, Robert Gamez, Brian Gay, Tim Herron, Lee Janzen, Billy Mayfair and Shaun Micheel.

• Fred Couples makes his first start since being named 2009 U.S. Presidents Cup captain. Only once before has he competed in the PODS Championship, tying for 14th in the inaugural edition.

• East Lake Golf Club in Atlanta, the home of THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca Cola, has been closed for renovations, and it will not be reopened until tournament week Sept. 22. Primary among the upgrades is a change to the greens surfaces to a strain of Bermudagrass that can withstand the hot Georgia summers better than the current bentgrass greens that were nearly lost prior to last year's FedExCup playoff finale. notas_de_prensa_archivo