FanHouse Lee Trevino

In an effort to keep our golf visitors well informed on what is going on around the Internet, Range Balls is our weekly link dump. Every Tuesday during golf season, we will toss out some of the most interesting things we came across. If you have a tip, e-mail us at fanhousegolf@gmail.com. Enjoy the links.

-- Jay Busbee explores the question a lot have asked when they heard Ray Romano would be the next victim of "The Haney Project," -- will people actually care enough to see if Romano can improve his golf game? Sure, viewers would tune in to see Charles Barkley eat a sandwich, but does the "Everybody Loves Raymond" star have the same pull? [Devil Ball Golf]

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- Tiger Woods made three straight birdies, and you could feel that buzz that has a way of working its way around a golf course, connecting the fans, even from holes far away.

This was it. Finally! Tiger was making his run. It has been months. And then?

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Lee Trevino is 69 years old, has 87 professional wins, including six majors. He knows something about the golf swing. And now Trevino, nicknamed the "Merry Mex" for his sunny disposition, would like to talk to Tiger Woods about how to fix whatever it is he's been doing off the tee this season.

Earlier this week, NBC golf analyst Johnny Miller suggested Woods leave his driver at home (Tiger politely declined), and it has gotten so bad that folks are making fat jokes about Tiger while simultaneously discussing Phil Mickelson. Ironical.

It's nice to know that veterans of a certain trade dogging younger people for not doing it their way isn't just limited to journalists barking at bloggers.

Lee Trevino, one of the better sports quotes of all-time (and one of my favorite golfers), decided to go all Jon Stewart on Crossfire when discussing the economic troubles the PGA Tour is facing, admitting to the LA Daily News that the only true way to make a difference in golf is to force touring pros to play every tournament.

Golf season starts tomorrow, which means it is time to actually start thinking of the best game with dimples. While the giants take a nap, others will play at the Mercedes Championship, and golf will be around the rest of the year. FanHouse spent a couple of minutes thinking what is to come in 2009. Here is what transpired.

Which golfer will be the first to break through in the Majors?
A lot of the time this is overlooked, but look back a few years ago to Tiger's first full year on tour. The guy won his first-ever start in a major as a professional. With Tiger, the monkey never even had a chance to find a nice place to rest on his back. How long did it take for Tiger to win number two? Eleven major championships. Yeah, it isn't nearly as easy as he makes it seem now.

What I'm trying to say with all of this is that winning a major championship is really, really, really tough and as Sergio Garcia (and Phil Mickelson a few years back) can tell you, if you don't get one early, then the questions about "When will it happen?" start to stir around.

Garcia has gone 38 majors as a professional without a victory. That might seem like a tremendously long time until you think of some of the talented guys that took a while to win their first big one. Vijay Singh didn't get his until his 27th major. Fred Couples went 34 until he took the 1992 Masters. Tom Kite played in 67 majors before taking his 1992 U.S. Open crown.

Garcia is in panic mode but he's still young (in golf terms) and has enough talent to open the floodgates in the major championship sense.

Along with him, Anthony Kim is due to take one of these as a youngster, as well as Hunter Mahan, Adam Scott, Aaron Baddeley and Camilo Villegas.

Interesting stat to close all this up and make it apparent how hard it is to win a major: Out of the top 10 in the Official World Rankings, five have won majors, five have not.

With attention spans dwindling, we forego full game-by-game previews to give you the essentials you need to know about every contest this glorious NFL weekend. Click here to go back in time.

The 1s

Cleveland at Cincinnati: So here are a few fun facts heading into the showdown of Team Zeros. Carson Palmer has more fumbles in three games (2) than touchdown passes (1). If you added up both Derek Anderson and Palmer's quarterback ratings, the number would still fall behind Philip Rivers, Kurt Warner and Jay Cutler, and would be just three points ahead of J.T. O'Sullivan and Tony Romo. Anderson's five interceptions are tied for the most in the league. Needless to say, this might not be the game you DVR in hopes of showing your son the proper way to play quarterback.

Pick: Cincinnati

Houston at Jacksonville: Is it fair to say that Houston is slowly taking the place of Arizona as "the team everyone picks as their preseason sleeper to the point that they're over-hyped and fall flat on their face?" The Texans limp in with the third worst quarterback in the league statistically and the third worst defense, going up against a Jacksonville team that just claimed their first victory in one of those "win or send all the ticket holders a free iPhone" games against the Colts. If there was ever a time for Maurice Jones-Drew and Fred Jones to make some magic happen, it is at home against Houston who is giving up 170.5 yards a game on the ground. You know what they call what I just did? Blogger research. It's tough to come by so enjoy the smell.

Pick: Jacksonville

Harry Varden, Bobby Jones, Sam Snead, Gene Sarazen, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus all have something in common at the U.S. Open -- they've all lost a U.S. Open playoff.

18 holes of grueling, stroke-match play on a golf course that's been beaten to pieces by the USGA, the field and the weather all week long and you're having to grind your way around it for one more day.

Tiger Woods wants to be in the same breath as those players in just about every category but this one, and he's playing a competitor in Rocco Mediate that is just about his worst possible foe, a guy with zero to lose.

Tiger's disappointments have never come from Phil Mickelson, Sergio Garcia or Vijay Singh in major championship stages, they've been Rich Beem, Zach Johnson and Michael Campbell, men that are just having that week.

Today's U.S. Open playoff is probably the most popular one since Lee Trevino threw a rubber snake at Nicklaus on the first tee at Merion Country Club in 1971, a U.S. Open that belonged to Trevino 18-holes later.

No, it isn't Buster Douglas versus Mike Tyson and it definitely isn't salmon eats bear, but Tiger has been pushed to the brink by a guy named Rocco, who keep smiling and joking and hitting fairways. Mediate probably won't win, because he's facing You Know Who, but it sure will be fun to see the two battle.

Just to stir the fire, only one has ever lost a playoff on the PGA Tour, and it isn't the man with a Peace sign belt buckle.

Reports from Augusta are that the course is wet, soft and playing long after three inches of weekend rain. The current long range forecast from Weather.com suggest that there may be isolated to scattered thunderstorms on Friday and Saturday. It's not unusual for it to have spring storms in Augusta as 6 of the past 10 tournaments have had rain delays.

The most up to date weather reports will be from the course where the PGA has a meteorologist on staff at each tournament. They've been doing this ever since one spectator was killed and five were hurt at the US Open Championship at Hazeltine in 1991.

The most notable incident involving a tour pro and lightning occurred in 1975 at the Western Open. Golf legend Lee Trevino and a pro named Jerry Heard were hit by lightning while sitting near a pond waiting for a play suspension to end. Trevino had two back surgeries after the incident, and later explained what it felt like being struck:

"After I got hit in 1975, it took me five weeks before I could put on a pair of pants. When I got hit, it was like being hit by two ballpeen hammers on the ears. It was a nice warm feeling. Evidently I was gone, then I woke up in the hospital and I was in pain."

Because of incidents such as these, tournament security is very serious about lightning safety and sounding the siren early due to the logistics involved with evacuating a course full of 40,000 or so people. Good for safety, but be prepared to for some rain-delayed golf this weekend.