Calcavecchia Wins the PODS

It’s always nice to see old guys like Mark Calcavecchia win on the PGA Tour. Calcavecchia, 46, won Sunday even though he bogeyed the last two holes. The bogey on the 18th gave young gun Heath Slocum a chance to two-putt to force a playoff. Slocum missed his four-footer and Calc had the title. Interesting side note is that Slocum was a high school teammate of Boo Weekley, who missed a short putt on the 72nd hole at the Honda Classic last week to win the tournament outright. Weekley lost in a four-man playoff to Mark Wilson.

Calcavecchia has had and up and down career. He is known as a streaky player who can get hot and shoot very low scores. He won the 1989 British Open when he beat Wayne Grady and Greg Norman in the first multi-playoff hole sudden death format. But Calcavecchia also is known for his famous choke job in the 1997 “War by the Shore” Ryder Cup at Kiawah Island. He was four holes up on Colin Montgomerie with four holes to play and needed only to tie any of them to win the match. After losing the 15th and 16th holes, Calcavecchia shanked a 3-iron on the par 3 17th hole and then lost the 18th hole to halve the match. Luckily for him, Bernhard Langer missed a short putt on the final hole to give the Americans the victory.

So congrats to Calcavecchia for hanging on for the victory. He also looks to stand an excellent chance of getting back to the Masters. But Mark, the gray-streaked goatee looks horrible.


Hitting range balls while wondering whatever happened to Ted Tryba.