FanHouse PaulaCreamer

Each Wednesday during the golf season, FanHouse will be bringing you the top five names in golf and why they are important this week. Did Barack Obama play 18 holes with Tiger Woods? Did a certain player do something off the course that made him or her a hot topic? 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. Danny Lee -- He is only 18, but Lee has made some waves in his amateur career and just this week decided to turn pro, after using his Masters invitation from his U.S. Amateur win. If you don't think he's ready for the PGA Tour, you're very wrong. Earlier this year, Lee won the Johnnie Walker Classic, a European Tour event that has such esteemed former champions as Adam Scott, Greg Norman, Ernie Els and Mr. Woods. Lee was the youngest winner ever on the European Tour, and will be in the field at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans for his first tournament as a pro.

Every Monday during the PGA Tour season, Monday Pin Placement will run as a wrap-up of the weekend's action. Basically, we'll focus on what you may have missed while you were out grinding on the putting green.

Yang Holds on in Florida -- Before Sunday, Y.E. Yang was a name most golf fans probably had never heard of. A star on the Japan Tour, Yang is known by American golf fans as the guy who beat Tiger Woods in the 2006 HSBC Championship in China.

It might be time to remember him for more than that.

Every Monday during the PGA Tour season, Monday Pin Placement will run as a wrap-up of the weekend's action. Basically, we'll focus on what you may have missed while you were out grinding on the putting green.

Ogilvy Takes Accenture Handily -- Well, that looked easy.

Geoff Ogilvy dominated the 36-hole final on Sunday against Paul Casey, winning the match 4-and-3, and taking his second Accenture Match Play title in four years. Also in the last four years, Ogilvy has made it to the finals three times, which might just make him the new king of match play over a gentleman named Tiger Woods.

With the retirement of Annika Sorenstam, this was inevitable, as long as, say, Serena Williams didn't want to start writing for GQ or start her own puppy clothing line.

Williams, who absolutely erupted through the Australian Open, winning the finals match 6-0, 6-3 against Dinara Safina, became the all-time career money leader in all of women's sports.

Earlier this week, Annika Sorenstam and Paula Creamer, two of the LPGA's best players, questioned Michelle Wie's decision to tee it up at the Reno-Tahoe Open, a PGA Tour event starting ... now. At this point, we've all heard the complaints: hey, how about winning on the women's tour first? Why is your dad ruining your life? How can you stand to take a spot in the field from someone truly deserving? So on and so forth.

Well, Wie can't answer all her critics -- she'd have to completely give up golf and drop out of school to do that -- but she did respond to the most recent round of disparagements.

"There are going to be criticisms entering this tournament, but at the same time I'm just doing what I feel like I want to do and it's going to be a lot of fun," Wie said.

Well, that does sound like something a teenager might say. Whatever, David Leadbetter, swing coach to the stars, is still concerned.

The public perception is that everybody hates Michelle Wie. Or, at the very least, her insistence on accepting PGA Tour sponsor's exemptions even though her play has yet to warrant them, which, apparently, is, off-putting for her male and female competitors.

The thing is, if Wie wasn't wildly popular (in a circus freak show sorta way, sure ... but still), tournaments would quit asking her to play. Waggle Room does a splendid job of explaining why, exactly, Wie gets PGA Tour invites and the rest of us don't.

* In the Monday First Tee clinic yesterday in Reno, the three tour professionals participating were ... two old guys, plus Wie (Jay Delsing and Steve Pate, to be exact). The tournament is putting Wie out front.

* On the PGATour.com tournament site on Monday, the main photo and headline were of Wie. Today, the main photo and headline have switched to Nick Flanagan, but three of the four sub-heads are about Wie.

* And according to a report in Sports Business Journal (subscription only), PGATour.com will devote more attention to Wie during tournament play (the first two rounds, at least) than the Web site has devoted to any individual player not named Tiger Woods:

(For the record, I'd much rather watch Wie hit high draws and low fades than either Jay Delsing or Steve Pate.)

I think Annika Sorenstam and Paula Creamer make legit points, but until they win custody rights away from B.J. Wie, I suspect we'll see more of this. At least until the public tires of Michelle, she's tossed on the Jennifer Capriati Memorial Scrap Heap, and we all get on with our lives.

Except, Wie, who will be left to wonder where it all went wrong (hello, daddy issues!).

In any situation, the person that gets the most attention isn't always the most talented. Ask Michelle Wie, she's becoming all too familiar with this process.

After deciding to play in the Reno-Tahoe Open, a PGA Tour event this week, Wie landed a lot of criticism from lesser-known PGA players that are saying what most of the men on tour are probably thinking.

Now, when news came out that Wie was supposed to try and qualify for the Women's British Open but bailed for another chance to miss a cut with the men, her playing competitors are coming forward in flocks.

"Well, we all have different agendas in life," Annika Sorenstam said. "I had a wonderful experience and, when I look back on my career, I will always think about that. I think it was really a turning point in my career and as a person.

"I really don't know why Michelle continues to do this. We have a major this week and, if you can't qualify for a major, I don't see any reason why you should play with the men."

Obviously, the stronger mind prevails. Sorenstam sees that competing against the men was important at one time, but she gave it a shot and came up just a touch short. Wie has yet to realize that if at first you don't succeed, trying seven times and still not succeeding is pretty stupid.

Lost in all the bluster of Kenny Perry notching his third victory of the season and Tony Romo falling into things was Paula Creamer's performance on the LPGA this weekend.

Creamer shot an 11-under 60 in the first round to take an enormous lead, and after a second round 65, held things together as best she could with weekend rounds of 70-73 to take the Jamie Farr Owen Cornings Classic by two shots.

It was her third victory of the year, tying Annika Sorenstam in wins and moving just three trophies behind Lorena Ochoa for tops on tour.

"After you shoot 60, I swear it's the hardest thing to come back out and play," Creamer said after accepting the $195,000 winner's check. "I managed to get it done. I hit a lot of good shots today. I can't be disappointed. If somebody was to go out and play a lot better than, then so be it."

The 21-year-old said it was tough not getting caught up in such a ridiculously low number because no matter how great it was, she still a ton of golf left.

"You shoot 60 and it's everybody saying, congratulations, congratulations. You still got three days left. It's just the first day of a 4 day tournament."

So, the young, successful, cute golfer won this week on the LPGA tour using a pink ball. If the iPhone or Hybrid cars don't show you we're in a new generation, that previous sentence should suffice.

Also, any excuse to use this picture was worth writing up about the LPGA. Classic.

It has to be depressing to fire a six-under 65 in the first round of the LPGA Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic and be five shots back of the leader.

Paula Creamer, starting on the tenth hole at Highland Meadows Country Club, went out in four-under, which is extremely salty by itself, made the turn, and just went "Megan Fox in July at Scottsdale while eating an Atomic Fireball" hot.

A seven-under 27 on her second nine matched the LPGA record for raw score on nine holes and had her within a shot of that untouchable number in golf, 59.

Not to be outdone by Mark O'Meara's ability to predict things in golf, Creamer said this in a pre-tournament interview.

"This is a great golf course. It sets up really well for my game. You have to hit really good irons out here. You have to hit it in the right part of the greens, and you have to be a good putter. People make a lot of birdies out here. You are just trying to eliminate the bogeys."

Well, 11 birdies and no bogeys is a little what you were looking for, right Paula?

Only Annika Sorenstam, shooting a 59 in the second round of the 2001 Standard Register PING, has bested Creamer's 60.

I was at a museum bar this past week, playing some pool with a buddy when golf came up in the conversation between us and our playing competitors.

One of the guys, slightly inebriated, lambasted me with this theory – Tiger Woods is killing the PGA Tour.

No, there were no bigotry in his voice, he didn't care if Woods was black, white or the color of Paula Creamer's golf ball, he just believed that the onslaught of Tiger fans has brought down the competitiveness and interest of a regular PGA Tour event.

At first I thought this guy was a complete moron. I hit my pool shots, had a sip of beer and mused over the idea that the best thing to ever hit golf could somehow be bringing it down? Hogwash, I thought.

It didn't hit me until Saturday afternoon, on the golf course for my lemming-like weekend tee time, when I realized this guy might be on to something.

Maybe Tiger is killing the tour. No, he isn't killing golf, he's turned a sport reserved for higher class businesspeople into a global phenomenon. He's changed the pot-bellied golfer into a gym rat. He's merged two types of golfers, the one that bombs it off the tee and the one that chips and putts well around the greens, into one golfing freak. He's brought mock turtlenecks, Nike Golf, the first pump and red on Sundays to our regular conversation.

Tiger has changed golf, which is obviously clear.

With that said, has he killed the PGA?