Tour Report: Johnson wants to stay inside ropes (PGATOUR.com)

By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM Chief of Correspondents

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Jimmie Johnson is bidding for an unprecedented sixth consecutive Sprint Cup championship. His goals at Quail Hollow on Wednesday are much more modest, though.

“I just hope to keep it between the galleries tomorrow and just keep it out there,” Johnson said. “It doesn’t have to be in the short stuff but just somewhere between would be nice.”

Johnson is playing in the Wells Fargo Championship pro-am for the fifth time on Wednesday. Another NASCAR driver, Denny Hamlin, was on the winning team in Monday’s festivites so Johnson needs a good day to regain bragging rights — at least on the golf course.

The race track, where Johnson has won 54 times, is another story. His first challenge, though? “I turn left for a living, and for some reason my golf ball goes right all the time,” Johnson said with a chuckle.

Johnson said he carries a 21 handicap right now — “I had to swallow before I said it,” he said with a grin. But the birth of his first child, a daughter named Genevieve, last July has curtailed Johnson’s usual Monday rounds of golf with his buddies.

“For me, things have changed so much since becoming a father, and I hate to admit it, but tomorrow will be my second round of golf this year,” Johnson said. “I think I sent out a Tweet a week or so ago about wearing headgear and shin guards, and I wasn’t lying.  There’s a chance I could spray it a little bit. 

“I played the one round, and it went well, better than I expected. I’ll have fun with it tomorrow. I don’t play as much as I would like to, and with our busy race schedule as you know, and then being a father, to sneak out for four or five hours of golf, it’s just tough to find that time anymore.”

Johnson won the pro-am several years ago when he played with Anthony Kim — “It’s the only golfing trophy I have and probably the only one I’ll ever have,” he said. Even so, Johnson, who now lives in Charlotte, not far from Quail Hollow, knows he’ll be nervous on the first tee.

“I’ve found that the first three or four holes are really the most difficult,” he said. “And then you kind of start breathing again and relax and get into the swing of things. But that first tee box is as fearful as anyone has ever mentioned; all the people standing around, your friends remind you of bad shots people have made there.

“My first year with Darren Clarke and Casey Mears, luckily Casey’s was so much worse than mine, mine was 80 yards, his went like 20 yards that people really forgot about my shot. It is nerve-wracking on that first tee box.”

Fear, though, isn’t always such a bad thing. At least, when Johnson settles in behind the wheel of the Lowe’s Chevrolet.

“Within racing I find that I’m really motivated by fear inside the car, and if you lose a respect for how fast we’re going at the tracks and what we’re doing, not only can you put yourself in harm’s way but I think you start over driving the vehicle and not doing things that will lead to race wins and championships,” he said.

“So fear is something I think most professional athletes have to deal with and learn to live with.  I know there are a lot of sports psychologists that try to push it out of your mind, but when I’ve done that I’ve ignored important steps along the way, and I’ve let fear and even failure be a big part of my mindset as I race to help me stay out of trouble and do the right things.”

After five Sprint Cup championships, Johnson is certainly doing something right.

O’Hair, Foley part ways

By Brian Wacker, PGATOUR.COM Site Producer

Sean O’Hair has parted ways with swing coach Sean Foley, the two sides confirmed Tuesday.

O’Hair, whom Foley coached for the last three years, also withdrew from the Wells Fargo Championship on Monday, citing personal reasons.

Under Foley, O’Hair won the 2009 Wells Fargo Championship and made the Presidents Cup team. This season, however, has been a struggle.

In 10 starts, O’Hair has missed six cuts, including his last five in a row. He has just one finish in the top 25 this year.

The decision was O’Hair’s, according to Foley, who got the phone call from O’Hair on Monday night.

“We will always be close,” Foley said via text message. “He is a great guy just going through a bad stretch of golf and felt he needed another direction.”

Earlier this year, O’Hair fired his caddie Brennan Little, who took over his bag after O’Hair let go of Paul Tesori at the end of last year.

Other players in Foley’s stable include of course Tiger Woods, whom he began working with last August, as well as Hunter Mahan, Justin Rose and Stephen Ames.

Kaymer, coach tweak swing

By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM Chief of Correspondents

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Martin Kaymer ended up staying in Germany a little longer than he’d planned to help his brother celebrate his birthday.

Before the festivities, though, Kaymer spent four days with his coach, Guenter Kessler. And when the 26-year-old German returned home to Scottsdale, Ariz., last week he hit the range hard and worked on the tweaks they made to his swing.

Kaymer

“We’ve been changing a few things now in the last months now,” Kaymer said. “Nothing major, just the backswing, to get a little bit closer on plane, shorten it a little bit. So that will take a little bit. 

“It was important to see my coach in order to get that going, to have somebody who kind of like has a look at it all the time that I don’t make any other mistakes.”

Before the two went to work, Kaymer hadn’t been 100 percent happy with his swing. Not after missing the cut at the Masters, even though the reigning PGA champ followed up with a ninth-place finish in Malaysia.

After the two-week break, though, Kaymer comes to Quail Hollow — a course he likes for the shot values as well as its aesthetics — ready to play. He tied for 11th at the Wells Fargo Championship two years ago in his only other appearance and he has his eye on next week’s PLAYERS Championship, too.

“I really liked the golf course,” Kaymer says of Quail Hollow. “It was a good preparation I thought for the Sawgrass week. I think it’s a way underrated golf course. It’s one of the best we play on the PGA TOUR, so there was no reason why I shouldn’t come back.”

While he was idle, Kaymer lost his spot atop the Official World Golf Ranking to Lee Westwood. He could regain it this week but at the same time, he understands and appreciates the volatility of the competition for world No. 1.

“At the moment anything can happen,” he said. “Every week you have four or five guys up there. Anything can happen week to week, can change, and I think that is a great thing what we have in golf at the moment. 

“Next week it can be an American player up there, then the other week it can be a European player up there again. So for me it was    of course it is enjoyable to have that challenge every week, and if I become the No. 1 soon again, I wouldn’t mind it. It’s a nice spot to be in. 

“But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really change a lot.”

Better stick to golf, not soccer

CHARLOTTE, N.C. —  Luckily, there were no injuries. Well, unless you count the strained hamstring suffered by Rory McIlory’s manager, Stuart Cage.

McIlroy, Martin Kaymer, Sergio Garcia, Nathan Green and Brendan de Jonge, though, came out of Monday evening’s soccer match at E.E. Waddell High School unscathed. Just not unbeaten.

McIlroy

“(We) played a local team from here who were a lot better than us,” McIlory explained with a grin.

The final score was 7-4. McIlroy and his cohorts trailed 4-1 at halftime but came back to even the score midway through the second half.

“Then they turned it on at the end and beat us,” McIlroy said. “But it was great fun. Luckily no injuries, so we’re ready to go for this week.”

Kaymer was quick to point out that “I made the first goal, so I kept the team going.” Of course, McIlroy joked that he didn’t remember seeing Kaymer until halftime so there seems to be some discrepancy.

For the record, McIlroy, Garcia and Michael Doren, Camilo Villegas’ caddy, joined Kaymer in scoring goals in the losing effort. And when asked whether there were any red cards issued, though, McIlroy quickly jumped in.

“No sort of reckless challenges going in, so it was okay,” he said, smiling. – Helen Ross

Hamlin takes fast lane at Quail

Denny Hamlin (left) and Joe Ogilvie enjoyed their round together at Quail Hollow.

By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM Chief of Correspondents

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Last Wednesday, Denny Hamlin shot a career-low 81 at Kinloch Country Club outside Richmond.

Then Hamlin got down to business at Richmond Motor Speedway. He drove his FedEx Camry to victory in the NASCAR Nationwide Series event on Friday and finished second in the Sprint Cup Series race on Saturday night.

The 16-time Sprint Cup winner stepped outside his comfort zone again on Monday, playing in the pro-am at the Wells Fargo Championship. The result? One of Hamlin’s three best rounds, an 88, that included a 41 on the back nine, despite a double bogey at No. 10, his first hole of the day.

And the team – captained by PGA TOUR veteran Joe Ogilvie — went on to win the pro-am. Hamlin contributed on six holes.

“I had a bad three-hole stretch on (his second nine) that kind of destroyed everything but I still played within my handicap,” said a satisfied Hamlin, who recovered from triple bogeys at Nos. 6 and 7 to par his last two holes for a net birdie and net eagle.

His professional partner came away impressed.

“He hasn’t played very much at all, i think he only took up the game 30 months ago,” Ogilvie said. “He’s a 21 handicap. … He loves it, so I think he’s on his way to a 10 handicap maybe by the end of this year or the beginning of next year. So his learning curve is great. He’s a great guy and certainly a great representative of NASCAR.”

Ogilvie says Hamlin’s enthusiasm for the game, coupled with the mindset of an athlete, will accelerate that learning curve, too.

“At the end of the day, if you love golf, it makes the game a hell of a lot easier,” Ogilvie said. “He loves it. He wants to get better. You take an athlete that’s at the top of his game, they just have a different view of things.

“He wants to get better. he doesn’t want to just go hack around at the golf course, he wants to get better. I think that’s the way he probably drives as well.”

Hamlin knows he has the edge in a stock car — “I can tell you none of these golfers are going to come out and run a faster lap than me on a race track,” he said. But the skill with which a pro like Ogilvie maneuvers a golf ball is equally impressive.

“It’s amazing to me to see how they can pinpoint where they want it,” Hamlin said. “He’s thinking about where the wind direction is on his drive. I’m just looking to get it in the vicinity of about a 20-yard range. it”s amazing how good those guys are and how they focus.”

While Hamlin makes his living driving cars at speeds in excess of 200 mph, he can appreciate the slower pace of a sport like golf.

“I like to say it’s a relaxing game until I get angry and start throwing my clubs,” the 30-year-old said. “The funniest thing I saw all day was I had an incident where I chipped past the green and there was this little girl. I took my iron and I chunked it into the ground and she said, ‘Oh, Daddy. He’s given up.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, you’re right, I am giving up.’

“So that was the funniest thing I saw all day.”

Hamlin now makes his home in Charlotte where he is an avid Bobcats fan but Monday was the first time he had ever played the Quail Hollow Club. The lefthander never played in front of so many people, either.

“It’s bad enough when you’re making wagers with your friends, the pressure, but to have people standing around waiting for you to hit you tee shots, it’s tough,” Hamlin said with a smile.

“… To be the first time here and as fast as the greens are, I’ll take what we had today. Playing in stuff like this is a lot of fun.”

Hamlin finished off his round by borrowing a right-handed driver and hitting it upside down — a shot he learned from Bubba Watson when they played together in Phoenix last fall.

“Every time I hit that drive it’s usually straight and obviously, it went further than everyone else’s (today) too,” Hamlin said. “So there’s just something about that shot — maybe you just concentrate on it more — but when people see me put the club upside down and hit it, it’s a little different.”

Interestingly, Ogilvie, one of the PGA TOUR’s most accomplished financiers, is part of a private equity fund that owns the Richard Petty Driving Experiences. So he’s well-acquainted with what NASCAR drivers like Hamlin can do.

“I know a little bit about it, enough to be dangerous,” Ogilvie said. “When you put a guy like me in the car and a guy like him in a car, you don’t realize — it’s not even the same sport. What I do driving and what he does driving, it’s amazing. …

“They drive it an an optimal level. It’s probably like what Bill Gates can do with a computer and what I can do with a computer. we both use them but one’s going to get a whole lot more out of it than the other. And I think that’s kind of the way he is with a car.”