FanHouse GeoffOgilvy

You'll invariably come off as a sore loser if you pan the course set-up shortly after a 43rd-place finish, but I know what Geoff Ogilvy is saying.

The 8th-ranked player in the world, and winner of the season-opening Mercedes Championship as well as the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Ogilvy was frank in his assessment of Hazeltine's set-up.

"The last two years the rough has been bad and I don't think that's necessary," "The difficulty of your shot, in my opinion, should be (dictated by) the position it's in, not the lie it's in," he told FOXSports Australia's Andrew Both. ... I don't like how you can hit it in the same spot and one guy's got no chance and the other's perfect. ... Every player in the world comes off and says it's not the way of forwarding golf yet they keep doing it."

Whenever Tiger Woods struggles, Hank Haney's job security becomes a popular topic. It's been that way ... well, since they started working together in 2004, yet here we are, five years later, and they're still a team. And Woods' major championship winning percentage with Haney (.300) is slightly higher than it was with Butch Harmon (.286). This seems important.

Woods won for the fourth time this year at last week's Buick Open, and he's in position to do it again at Firestone. Still, the rumors remain. The latest -- that Dale Lynch, currently coaching Geoff Ogilvy and Aaron Baddeley, was in line for the gig -- has been debunked by the Brisbane Times' Peter Stone.

DUBLIN, Ohio (AP) -- PGA Tour rookie Matt Bettencourt and Mark Wilson have survived a roller-coaster afternoon at the Memorial to share the 54-hole lead, with Tiger Woods and a pack of major champions behind them.

Bettencourt made eight birdies to offset his mistakes in a round of 4-under 68. Wilson bogeyed his first three holes, but recovered for a 69 to join the rookie at 9-under 207.

The Players Championship is often referred to as the fifth major, but Jack's tournament, the Memorial, makes a strong case for the title, even if it's a media creation.

Heading to the weekend, only 24 players are under par, and the 4-over cut line was four strokes tougher than The Players last month. Jonathan Byrd is one of just two players to fire back-to-back rounds in the 60s, and he's currently 7-under, tied for first place. (Mike Weir, T3, is the other.)

Each Wednesday during the golf season, FanHouse will list the top five names in golf and why they're important. Did Barack play 18 with Tiger? Did a certain player do something controversial off the course? Or was just playing golf enough to get the pot stirring? Join us for a new weekly ranking feature we call Making the Cut.

5. The Mickelsons -- A week after learning that Amy Mickelson was diagnosed with breast cancer, the golf world has jumped directly behind Phil Mickelson and his family during this tough time. John Daly wore pink pants in honor of Amy. A flurry of support from fellow tour players including Twitter posts has shown that no matter what you think of Phil, everyone understands and respects the man as one of the better family men on tour. He will be missed on the golf course, but he is where he should be right now, and for that he is quickly earning tons of respect from places that it may have been lost over the last few years.

Some jokes are just for fun, and some come with a little cutting truth.

Someone told Phil Mickelson the other day that it was hard not to notice that at the Masters, he was hitting farther off the tee, off every tee, than Tiger Woods.

Did Mickelson notice?

"I kept having to wait for him to hit, sure,'' Mickelson said, laughing.

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Tiger Woods is basically the only elephant on the PGA Tour. Cross him, and Woods will never forget it. Sure, he might shake your hand and smile with you, but the guy remembers when you put him down.

Geoff Ogilvy was asked about Tiger's play so far this year, and was honest. Hopefully, his truthfulness won't anger Mr. Woods.

"I think, whether he has admitted it or not, he's probably not quite as right as he wants to be," Ogilvy said at a news conference in Six Mile, South Carolina, where he attended the opening of the International Institute of Golf at the Cliffs.

The 2009 Masters are underway, and unlike last year, when Arnold Palmer hit the ceremonial first shot into a cloud of fog, it has been an incredible day, weather-wise, from the start.

Palmer's first shot this year found the middle of the fairway and the first group built on that momentum. In the second group of the day was Par-3 Tournament winner Tim Clark, who, in typical form, bogeyed his first two par-3s before getting it together and reeling off four birdies on his closing 12 holes before posting a 4-under 68, leading the tournament in the clubhouse.

Right behind Clark are Ross Fisher, Kevin Sutherland, and Prayad Marksaeng who all posted 3-under 69s and will enjoy the rest of the mid-70 degree day fine-tuning their game while other golfers try to put the finishing touches on some rather salty (read: "good") rounds.

Sebastian Junger wrote a non-fiction book about a 1991 Halloween Nor'easter that was, as you probably know, known as "The Perfect Storm". Play just started at Augusta National in the 2009 Masters (the gentleman above starts his day at 1:52 PM ET), but the story lines are quickly adding up to what could quickly become a Perfect Storm at Augusta. In fact, could the story lines at this year's Masters make it the most memorable Masters ever? Let's dive in.

The 2009 Masters is just a few hours away, and that alone is enough to make golf fans giddy. With the action at Augusta just about underway, our golf experts at FanHouse decided to chime in on who they thought might win this thing.

And if you thought people would only pick Tiger Woods, you're wrong. Well, sort of ...

Here's what our experts had to say.

Ryan Wilson: My default answer when it comes to the Masters is always Tiger Woods. It's unimaginative but it's also the right one.