My Picks for the Afternoon at Sybase

I'm not going to do much for the Volvo. I had expected Ian Poulter to defend, especially after he cruised through the pool stage. With him out, I'm leaning toward Paul Lawrie. I'll leave it at that.

But for the LPGA it's a different matter. I didn't do too bad with my morning picks, having gotten 3 of the 8 right. (That's a major success for me.) I picked Tseng (who I noted was struggling, but I wasn't sure how strong Kung's opponents had been) and Choi (no real length difference over Pressel) primarily because of their world rankings. When you're #1 and #2, that spells consistency. Icher nearly pulled out a win against Granada -- who, since she's won 3 in a row, I can no longer consider flukey -- and the Munoz/Ewart match did turn out to be a pretty good one. The only real shocker for me was Stanford's loss to Hurst

So now we reach the quarters. Here are my picks:

• Pressel over Nordqvist: Morgan finally seems to have her game going. This would be a bit of an upset, but I'm going with the US in this one.
• Ryu over Hurst: I know Hurst is the longest, but I really like the way Ryu's playing. I think this is a case of a steady player over a streaky one.
• Granada over Kung: This is a tough one. Candie Kung is an underestimated player on the LPGA who could very easily pull this out, but I think Granada has proven she's on her game this week. In this match I take the streaky player over the steady one.
• Lewis over Munoz: I'm really stuck on this one, as I believe it's just a matter of which one gets a hot hand. I'm going with Lewis purely on her length advantage.

And I'll say now that if Ryu makes it to the semis, I think she wins the whole thing. I am really impressed with her play -- and her mental game -- since she won the US Women's Open last year.