Villegas to have a following at Doral
March 10, 2010
DORAL, Fla. (AP)—Last week, Camilo Villegas went to Colombia. This week,Colombia is coming to him.
Villegas will be easy to find at Doral during the CA Championship, whichstarts Thursday. Just look for the people wearing “Colombia” across the chestsof their yellow, blue and red T-shirts, carrying their country’s flag, andshouting at him in Spanish after just about every shot.
He was born 1,100 miles away in Medellin, but this week, Villegas may aswell be a Miami native son. Whenever he plays Doral, his countrymen come out towatch.
“It’s awesome to see the Colombian flags and the guys with the shirts andall that good stuff, but you’ve got to be careful,” Villegas said. “I mean,you’ve got to be careful because it can distract you a little bit. So you knowthey’re there. You know they’re supporting you. But it’s one shot at a time.You’ve got to be focused, look forward, and just focus on playing good golf.”
In other words, do what he did last week at the Honda Classic.
Villegas started last week in Colombia, helping kick off the celebration ofthe first Nationwide Tour event ever played there, and the overloaded schedulehe had to keep meant he didn’t even get to PGA National in time for a practiceround. No matter—he won with ease, by five shots over Anthony Kim, shooting 68or better in every round.
He made it through last week on adrenaline, and on Tuesday, the fatiguefinally kicked in.
“Last week I felt fine,” Villegas said. “I kind of had a good feelinglast week. Everything seemed to be going the right way and I was excited, and Ididn’t really feel tired. Then Monday, I did a couple hard workouts, and then(Tuesday) I was just beat. I was like, ‘Man, I need to relax.”’
He played only nine holes Tuesday, then nine more Wednesday.
“Try and recover and be fresh,” Villegas said.
WATNEY WAITS: Nick Watney did everything right a year ago at Doral.
Played his way into the final group of the tournament with Phil Mickelson.Chipped in from behind the ninth green on Sunday, then eagled the next hole topull into a tie for the lead and make Mickelson—who spent the previous nightfighting off dehydration—sweat a bit more. Had a 30-footer on the 18th greento force a playoff.
It stopped one revolution short of dropping.
Watney settled for second, taking a check for $820,000 for his effort. Hequickly pointed out that he beat 78 of the world’s best players that week, andwould like to think he can do one better when this year’s CA Championship opensThursday at Doral.
“When you win, you know, some lucky things always happen,” Watney saidWednesday. “I would have liked to be sitting here and said that was the turningpoint for getting the victory, but as it stands, it was fun just to be able tocompete and play at a high level like that when it mattered like that and I hopeI get a chance to do that again soon.”
Watney’s off to a solid start in 2010, with two top-10s in six events (bycomparison, he had only one top-10 in 27 starts in 2008), including a trip tothe round of 16 at Match Play.
He tied for fifth last year at the HSBC Champions in Shanghai, another WorldGolf Championships event where he played with Mickelson.
Like at Doral, Mickelson won there, too.
“I think I owe him one,” Watney said.
BIRDIE WATCH: Chances are, someone’s going to go low to win the CAChampionship.
That tends to happen at Doral.
Phil Mickelson shot 19-under 269 to prevail last year, and in the 2000s, thewinning score was 271 or better every year but one. Tiger Woods shot 278 to winin 2007, a year marked by plenty of rain and wind.
And rain could be on the way this time.
Forecasters say there’s a chance of thunderstorms starting aroundmidafternoon Thursday, when every player is scheduled to be on the course. Morerain is forecast for Friday.
HARRINGTON’S RANKING: Padraig Harrington knew he was slipping in the worldrankings. That’s why he stopped looking at the world rankings.
And when he was told how far he slipped Wednesday—he’s now No. 13—Harrington feigned outrage.
“Thirteen? Now I know why I don’t look,” he said.
Harrington is used to relatively slow starts, and this year isn’t much of anexception. His best result in 2010 is a tie for 16th at Pebble Beach, and hetied for 40th last week at the Honda.
Plenty of time left, the Irishman said, to turn it around.
“As I said, you don’t look as you are going backwards, but you generallyhave a feel that a couple of wins will get you back up to certainly insidetop-five, and then you know, another couple of weeks on top of that, and you’rechallenging second place,” Harrington said. “I think it’s about 10 wins I needbefore I’ll be challenging first place.”
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