Backspin: Laird, Lawrie putting Scotland back on golf map

text size

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Two wins, one very big step for Scotland.

Martin Laird and Paul Lawrie winning on Sunday -- Laird at Bay Hill and Lawrie in the European Tour's Andalucian Open -- provided a rare Scottish double. Victories that is, not scotch.

But their triumphs raised an interesting question: What exactly happened to Scotland in the global scheme of the game in recent years? Considering the game was invented there, it would be like the U.S. losing in basketball at the Olympics. Oh, wait.

In recent years, though, the decline has been somewhat inexplicable because it wasn't all that long ago that there were some incredibly good players from the otherwise small country.

Colin Montgomerie. Sandy Lyle. Sam Torrance. Then there was Alastair Forsyth and Andrew Coltart, though neither developed into the players they were expected to be.

"Why it's happened, I don't have an exact answer," Lawrie said. "We always do well in all of the big amateur tournaments. We won the Eisenhower Trophy, which is the world team championship, a couple of years ago.

"But for some reason guys trying to make the transition from amateur golf to professional golf has just not been working."

Laird is of course the exception to that, having arrived at Colorado State, site unseen, in 2000, as a wide-eyed 17-year old. He changed his swing, stayed in the U.S., got his first win on the PGA TOUR in 2009, had two second-place finishes in 2010 (including a playoff loss to Matt Kuchar at The Barclays) and has been a really good, though often overlooked, player for the past couple of years.

He won't be overlooked now.

Laird, now fourth in the FedExCup standings, moved to 21st in the latest Official World Golf Ranking -- ahead of such notables as Justin Rose, Rickie Fowler, Geoff Ogilvy and Padraig Harrington, to name a few.

"I was lucky enough when I was over here when I graduated Colorado State I had a group of sponsors that gave me some money to play and I didn't have to worry about paying my bills and entry fees," Laird said. "People back in Scotland don't always have that luxury."

Scotland is trying to change that with some government funding to bridge the gap between amateur golf and professional golf.

"There's no doubt we have the talent in the country," Laird continued. "Just that transition, we need to get better."

Laird's win -- and to some extent Lawrie's -- hopefully will help, too.

Stock up

Justin Rose: In his last two starts, Rose has finished in the top 10 thanks, at least in part, to a little drill that hes incorporated into his game in which he putts with his eyes closed. In each of those starts, Rose has ranked in the top 25 in the field in putting and Sunday at Bay Hill he averaged 1.57 putts per green in regulation in shooting a very good 68. Sergio Garcia: I'll have more on Garcia's slight resurgence in the Back Nine, and I know it's just a small sample, but Garcia has played well in his two starts on TOUR this season with a tie for 15th in Tampa and an eighth-place finish in Orlando last week. More importantly, the smile is back and as a result so is his game. It's still a work in process, as he called it, but he's on the way back. Mark Wilson: Nine events into Wilson's season would anyone have guessed he'd have two wins and a tie for ninth? That's what the FedExCup points leader has though after his latest start at Bay Hill. Two things behind Wilson's success this year: He continues to find fairways and greens, ranking in the top 10 in both, and his wedge play and scrambling have been superb.

Stock down

Kenny Perry: It's probably time for Perry to play on the Champions Tour. He shot 79 and withdrew at Bay Hill, and he hasn't broken 71 since the final round of the Bob Hope Classic at the end of January. Perry used to be a straight driver of the golf ball, but he's 100th on TOUR in fairways hit. He's also 180th in putting and a collective 15 over on his season. Paul Goydos: Talk about a rough stretch for a guy who shot a 59 just last year. Goydos was 26 strokes worse than that Sunday at Bay Hill, where he finished 20 over par. He's had just two under-par rounds in his last four starts and in nine starts this year Goydos has just one finish inside the top 40, prompting him to Tweet "Gone from bad to embarrassingly bad!!" Priceless. Bill Haas: March hasn't been kind to Haas, who has missed the cut in each of his last two starts and prior to that was bounced from the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship in the first round. That's a big drop off from the beginning of his season when he opened with three straight top-10s, including a runner-up finish at the Bob Hope Classic.

THE BACK NINE: 9 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

1. Am I the only one who's shocked that a European had never won at Bay Hill prior to Laird's victory on Sunday?

2. It's not exactly as if Laird's victory came out of nowhere. In half his starts on TOUR this year, he's finished in the top 10. He also tied for third in Phoenix, tied for 10th at TPC Blue Monster at Doral and tied for fifth in Tampa.

3. Is Tiger Woods back? No. Is he where he wants to be with his swing changes? No. Is he getting closer and playing better? Absolutely. "It was a very good week and a week I needed to see," said Woods, who finished 1 under at Bay Hill, where he put together nearly two good rounds and, for the most part, struck it well with his irons and made more putts than he's been making. "This year, I felt like I've played my way into shape. I've kept progressing and early in the year was disappointing because the conditions showed some signs of weakness that I had to work on. Now, it's feeling very, very good." I'm not saying he's going to win the Masters, but remember he finished fourth there a year ago with a whirlwind of things going on in his personal life and in the very early stages of a swing change. I think he can contend there if all the stars aligned that week but the point is that Woods is making progress. Is he ever going to be the player he was from 1999-2009 when he won 35 percent of the time? Probably not, but if he can even be 75-80 percent of that he'll be better than everyone else.

4. For the last two years, Sergio Garcia was miserable. He went through heartbreak off the golf course and consequently played lousy on it. Then he decided to take some time away from the game after last year's PGA Championship before joining the European Ryder Cup team as a vice captain. During that time, Garcia rediscovered his passion for the game and slowly he's worked his way back into form, finishing in a tie for 15th in Tampa and eighth last week in Orlando. "It definitely helped," Garcia said of the break. "I think at the end of the day, what helped the most was the mindset of my people around me, my family, everybody that helped me. The good thing is that I want to be out there. I'm enjoying myself." Garcia isn't getting ahead of himself, saying, "There's still some things that we need to keep improving on." But it's been a while since he's played this well and even longer since he's flashed that boyish smile. It's nice to see him smiling again, I told his manager, Carlos Rodriguez, who said, "It's been a while." Welcome back, Sergio.

5. How do you like your spikes? Well, Ian Poulter apparently isn't much of a fan of metal ones, which some players on TOUR still use. After Friday's round at Bay Hill, where Poulter had an afternoon tee time and shot 71, he took to Twitter, saying, "The greens got crusty out there this afternoon baked in the heat & wind & plenty of spike marks. Why do people still use spikes?" Now, there are plenty of things you hear on a week-to-week basis -- the sand at Bay Hill was the softest of any stop on the Florida swing, for example, and that resulted in a lot of plugged balls in the bunker -- but it is a fairly legitimate question, especially given how good today's soft spikes are. Some players, like Ryan Moore and Fred Couples, don't even have those on the bottom of their shoes. Much like leather grips and persimmon clubs, though, at some point metal spikes will die out.

6. Just how difficult was Bay Hill playing on Sunday? That tee shot by Laird on the par-3 17th came in extremely high, took one hard bounce and trundled off the back and down the bank. It was like the U.S. Open broke out. The course played nearly 1 ½ strokes over par for the day.

7. You think John Rollins is a happy guy today? He's an alum of Virginia Commonwealth. He was at the game against Kansas, tweeting afterward, "David has taken down Goliath!!!"

8. Time magazine unveiled its ranking of the 140 best Twitter feeds, and Rory McIlroy was the lone golfer to make it at No. 124. Ironically, McIlroy had given up on Twitter before changing his mind, mostly because he knew Ian Poulter would be mad if he had more followers, McIlroy joked. Poulter still has more followers, but he didn't make the list.

9. Don't read anything into how Phil Mickelson has played in his last two starts in terms of how he'll perform at Augusta National. "As far as the way I'm striking it, heading into Augusta last year, I wasn't striking it well and I had a great session with Butch early in the week and it kind of turned things around," Mickelson said. "Whereas I feel very confident with the way I'm striking the ball. I just have to shoot a number." Mickelson's two starts going into last year's Masters, which he won: T30 and T35. His results this year: T55 and T24. His results at Augusta National since 2006, when it underwent its last major renovation: W, 5th, T5, T24, W. I think Mickelson gets his fourth Green Jacket this year.

Forward Spin

This weeks Shell Houston Open offers one last opportunity for those not already qualified for the Masters to make it into the field. Its simple: Win and youre in. Among the players trying to do just that are Augusta natives Charles Howell III and Vaughn Taylor. The last time either of them played in the Masters was in 2008. Redstone also serves as a pretty good tune up in that its set up a lot like Augusta National, which is a big reason why guys like Phil Mickelson, Lee Westwood, Hunter Mahan and Padraig Harrington, among others, are in the field. Last year, Taylor nearly played his way into the Masters here, losing in a playoff to Anthony Kim.

Next Kodak Challenge hole

THIS WEEK: Shell Houston Open HOLE: The par-4, 488-yard 18th at Redstone Golf Club ABOUT THE HOLE: A challenging and dramatic finishing hole with a lake bordering the entire left side of the hole, the tee shot challenges the golfer to carry as much water as possible, while also avoiding the large sculptured bunker along the left of the fairway landing area. The approach leaves little margin for error, with water on the left and a sand bunker on the right. With the tournament on the line, attacking the left-back hole location is a gutsy proposition. Kodak Challenge standings