FanHouse JustinLeonard

I love NBC golf analyst Johnny Miller but I'm also not a member of the PGA Tour. The former two-time major winner has a straight-talkin' approach in the booth, and it sometimes rubs the objects of his pointed comments -- the guys on the course -- the wrong way.

During the 1999 Ryder Cup, Miller suggested that Justin Leonard was playing so poorly he should go home and watch Sunday's matches on television. Never mind that Leonard would drain a 45-foot Cup-clinching putt. During that same weekend, Jim Furyk took exception at Miller's suggestion that he was an underdog in his singles match against Sergio Garcia.

The Valero Open isn't a high-profile PGA Tour event. Not unless you're Justin Leonard, who seems to win it every year. (He's actually one it three times, twice as the Texas Open.)

But it's on the schedule this week, and even if many of the world's best players aren't in the field, it's a chance for guys trying to keep their tour card to make some money, or for players who have faded in recent years -- and in a few more will be relegated to the Champions Tour -- to reinvent themselves, even if temporarily.

For golf fans, this week is March Madness, a really good shoe sale, the NFL playoffs, your birthday, Christmas morning and the day "Star Wars" comes out on DVD, all wrapped into one. It's Masters week, and with it comes tradition, beauty and the first major championship of the year. As a preview of this year's Masters, FanHouse will be giving you three groups of golfers to watch at Augusta; we covered the Heavy Hitters Monday and the Regular Joes Tuesday. Here are the Sleepers.

Nike never ceases to amaze with their advertising. When it isn't LaDainian Tomlinson bench pressing random kitchen appliances, it is Tiger Woods "simply" bouncing a golf ball on a wedge or LeBron James tossing up some dust.

They are the best at what they do, and the gave us another gem with this golf ad starring Anthony Kim, Stewart Cink, Trevor Immelman, Justin Leonard and Carl Pettersson showing us what the PGA Tour must have been like without Woods around. The point of the ad is to show what golf was like without Tiger around, at least for his fellow competitors. They nailed it once more.

It's the tradition that will not die. You win a major sporting event, any sporting event, and you either get a call from the President or a visit to the White House.

On Monday, the United States Ryder Cup team, months off fresh off their win over those pesky Europeans, took a trip to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to visit our good pal George W. Bush as what could be the last sports team to make an appearance with His Stumbleness.

Only seven of the 12 members of the team showed, with no real report on why the others didn't make. Phil Mickelson, Anthony Kim, Kenny Perry, Steve Stricker, and fellow Texan Justin Leonard decided not to show their face around Bush, which always makes you wonder what the motives behind the shunning were.

Bush did say that he watched "every minute" of the Ryder Cup, which bodes well for the leader of a country that is in such stable condition right now. I hope he was at the ranch when he watched the golf. That is really the only way to enjoy a nice game of white ball on the tele.

Team captain Paul Azinger said afterwards that meeting with Bush was the "icing on the cake," which means Azinger was about 4,000 times more happy to have Bush around than anyone at the Republican National Convention would have been.

Hey, don't get mad at me, blame McCain. Or the economy. Yeah, blame the economy for my Bush jokes.

Golf is resting from a long, grueling season and rest it shall; it was a doozie of a 2008. We had some of the same old names winning consistently, some of the same old names losing consistently and a list of new golfers sure to find their way in golf conversation for years to come. Without further ado, here are your winners and losers of the 2008 PGA Tour Season.

Winners

Padraig Harrington -- With all respect to Tiger Woods and what he accomplished early this season, Harrington is our player of the year and for good reason. Padraig won two major championship in a row, making it three of the last six, and trying his best to accomplish what Sergio Garcia once said his goal was, to top both the PGA Tour money list and the Order of Merit in Europe. Harrington's second shot on the 17th hole at Royal Birkdale was one of the better executed shots of the year considering the pressure, setting up a Claret clinching eagle and repeating at the Open.

We're two-thirds through the 37th Ryder Cup and the Americans are holding onto a 9-7 lead heading into the Sunday singles matches. The Europeans trailed 5 1/2 - 2 1/2 after Day 1, and 7-5 after the Saturday morning foursomes, and despite cutting into the lead, nobody had the U.S. a) being competitive, and b) two full points up on a European team that won the last two events without much effort.

But this is different -- so far, at least -- and maybe it's because the Americans have rallied around not having Tiger, or perhaps a revitalized Justin Leonard, outta-nowhere performances from Steve Stricker or Hunter Mahan, or clutch ball-striking from Boo Weekley have all been the catalyst. Whatever, captain Paul Azinger has to be ecstatic about the team's predicament, and, if nothing else, the U.S. will be spared a Saturday night Ben Crenshaw "I have a good feeling about this" pep talk.

Now, though, the Americans have to play with the lead, which puts the pressure squarely on their shoulders, a position they are not familiar with in the Ryder Cup.

For the first time in these Ryder Cup matches, the American team looked like the inferior group, but still managed to maintain the lead over the Europeans.

In the morning foursomes, where the Americans won 3 to 1 yesterday, the Europeans gained some ground, winning 2.5 points to the U.S. 1.5. The biggest blow came to the solid group of Anthony Kim and Phil Mickelson, who choked their way to their first lost point of the week. The victors over the Lefty and Belt Buckle were none other than Ryan's cousin Oliver Wilson and Henrik Stensen, who were four down to the Americans after six holes but scratched their way back hole by hole until 17, where Wilson cashed a 20-footer for birdie to take the full point (awkward fist pump accompanying picture).

Justin Leonard and Hunter Mahan also didn't dominate, splitting the point with that guy with a ponytail and Graeme McDowell on the pivotal 18th hole. After Leonard made another clutch putt on the 17th to go one up, Mahan hit a bit of a pull off the tee on 18 and put their team in a tough position.

The afternoon matches are already underway, and on the first hole J.B. Holmes hit a 373 yard drive. Also, Boo Weekley has already made a birdie and annoyed Lee Westwood, so make sure you tune in.

Somewhere in the United Kingdom, Colin Montgomerie and Darren Clarke are having a good chuckle. It's early -- we're only one day into the 37th Ryder Cup -- but the European squad is in an unfamiliar position: down after seven matches. Specifically, they trail the United States, underdogs on paper and in real life, 5-2.

And part of the reason for the early-on beatdown is because captain Nick Faldo, known just as much for his quirky disposition and sometimes vindictive personality as for his six major victories, thought it would be great fun to go with Ian Poulter and Paul Casey over grizzled Cup veterans Monty and Clarke. So far, so bad on that front.

The U.S. got off to a 3-1 lead after the morning foursomes, but Faldo inexplicably decided to break up the Lee Westwood-Sergio Garcia and Padraig Harrington-Robert Karlsson pairings for the afternoon four-ball, even though they were the only groups to earn points (halves, as it turned out).

Instead, Harrington was paired with Graeme McDowell, and Sergio with Miguel Angel Jimenez (Johnny Miller's a big fan, by the way). The result: 0-2. For more perspective, when Poulter and Justin Rose are the only group on the European side to win a match in seven tries, things are pretty dire.

We're all honest people here, so we'd be lying if we thought the Americans were the favorites. They are not. The good news is the Europeans, who have won the last three Cups, have been the underdogs for most of them and snagged the trophy right under our noses (or by winning 18.5 to 9.5, like the last two years).

On that positive note, here is your American Ryder Cup team as we know it, their past record and who we think they will be best paired with this week.

Phil Mickelson (9-12-4) and Ben Curtis (rookie) -- Here is a sad fact about Lefty -- there isn't a single player on this team that Phil has won with. Actually, there is only one player on the American squad this year that he's ever played with, Jim Furyk, and they lost their only match in 1999. Curtis doesn't hit the ball a long way, but he's pretty straight and can make putts. Also, he's 13th on tour in sand saves and 42nd in scrambling, which bodes well when teamed with the sometimes erratic Mickelson. Also, for a guy that will be as nervous as Curtis, playing with the most talented American will sure ease some of the jitters, even if Lefty has won just one point in the last two matches (1-7-1). I heard he's not switching clubs this week, which is probably a good decision.