José Maria

Olazábal

JMO has actually won at Akron before, circa 1994. He also has several top 10s here and should be a solid pick this week. It doesn’t hurt that his salary works well if you have Tiger on your team.

He split 17 (of 28) fairways but found only 17 greens over two rounds. So, while he circled an eagle and three birdies, he also swallowed eight bogey and two doubles. This leaves him with 11 starts on his Major Medical Extension to earn $527,916 and retain status.

Olazabal jumped up 32 spots with his flawless round that included an eagle at the Par 5 5th hole. Olazabal has played 6 times on the Tour since the beginning of August. He’s had two T12’s and a T9.

The news pales in comparison to his recent arrest in Georgia for driving 97 mph in a 65-mph zone. That was on Monday afternoon. In two rounds at Harbour Town, he hit just 14 greens and buried three birdies, not enough to offset five bogeys and three doubles. This leaves him with 10 starts on his Major Medical Extension to earn $527,916 and retain status.

Ollie survived his second cut in as many starts on the PGA TOUR this year, but finished third-from-last at PGA National due to a 74-78 weekend. He banked $10,944, leaving him with 12 starts on his Major Medical Extension to earn $527,916 and retain status.

In his first appearance at the tournament, the Spaniard ranked second-to-last in fairways hit (24 of 56) and last in greens in regulation (36 of 72), but he checked in at seventh in putting (1.667). The $7,733.00 paycheck is his first on the PGA TOUR since last year’s Reno-Tahoe Open. He now has 13 starts remaining on his Major Medical Extension to earn $538,860 and retain status. He’s scheduled to make his debut at the Honda Classic on Thursday.

This is for housecleaning purposes only. Ollie hasn’t played the PGA TOUR full-time since 2007, and don’t expect that to change this year even though he made 22 starts worldwide in 2011. He’ll likely make his annual trip to Augusta National for the Masters where he’s exempt, but his schedule will grow busy as the days count down to the Ryder Cup where he’s Europe’s captain. Olazabal will turn 46 years of age in February.

The threesome is scheduled to go off the 10th tee at 7:50 a.m. ET on Thursday. Their second-round tee time on Friday is 1:00 p.m. on the first tee. Olazabal will be making his 21st start in the season’s final major. He hasn’t cracked the top 35 since a T4 in 2000. Since we last checked in on the Spaniard, Rotoworld has learned that he no longer has a Major Medical Extension on the PGA TOUR due to his regular schedule abroad, primarily on his home circuit of the European Tour.

The Spaniard first conquered Augusta National in 1994, and did so again in 1999. He’s seen his game slip in the last five years, failing to record a weekend finish since his T44 in 2007. With a reputation for his touch on and around the undulating greens, he is now known to mentor his younger countrymen in practice rounds as was the case with Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano and Alvaro Quiros in 2012.

The notion that ANGC is a second shot golf course was never better demonstrated than in the log book of Olazabal during his glory days. Between 1989 and 2003 he made 15 starts, finished T15 or better 12 times and claimed those two wins in 1994 and 1999. He even threw in a blast-from-the-past T3 in 2006. Since then, however, time has taken its toll on a body that was never the strongest. He’s on a run of 3-for-8 at the course, with a best of T34 three years ago. He joined the Champions Tour this season and has opened with finishes of T41-T40-T66, but his chances of making the weekend are not good given that his Greens in Regulation rankings are all worse than his FPs. He’ll needed more than that this week.