A Typical First Round

Ah yes. We've grown to expect this, haven't we?

Very few of "the usual suspects" got off to a good start, while more than a few unexpected names zipped to the top of THE PLAYERS leaderboard. Rory, Tiger, Phil, Rickie, Luke, Lee, and the others are all back at -1 or worse while players we haven't seen for a while sit at -7 or thereabouts.

I will point out that my three victims-- er, picks are all under par. Louis Oosthuizen (despite a waterball at 17) and Lee Westwood are both at -1 while Ben Curtis leaped all the way up to -4. The first round means little, of course, as the powers that be will not take kindly to this little scoring binge. Today's round will almost certainly feature much more difficult pin placements -- over a third of the field was under par Thursday, half the field at par or better -- in an effort to slow the rush toward double digits.

I thought the most surprising thing in the first round was the number of withdrawals. There were a total of five:

• D.A. Points for back spasms, a somewhat strange situation that (rightfully, I think) allowed Brian Harmon to get in playing as a "onesome" at midday
• Angel Cabrera for personal reasons, though some speculated that a 9 on the 17th may have fueled them
• Simon Dyson with a "shooting pain" in his hip and leg
• Hunter Haas with back pain
• Paul Casey with shoulder pain

I think Casey's is the most distressing. He's had chronic ailments for the last couple of years and this certainly isn't going to help him. He had finally gotten back into the Top50 in the OWGR and now this! I finally tracked down some info about the injury. Apparently this is a relapse of the dislocated shoulder he got snowboarding during Christmas. He says he's going to try and play at the Volvo World Match Play next week, but he doesn't sound too convincing about his schedule beyond that.\

At any rate, it means Casey won't be low Englishman this week. I guess Poults, Westwood, Donald, and Brian Davis -- who's at -4 so let's not forget him -- will have to duke it out for that honor.

But I'm highly interested in Ben Curtis now. I wonder if he can keep up the pace and snag another big tournament despite playing under the legendary Ruthless Golf curse?