Funk already getting some grief
LA QUINTA, Calif. – Poor Fred Funk. He gets invited to the Skins Game for the first time, and all he hears from Tiger Woods is that he’ll face eternal grief if Annika Sorenstam outdrives him even once.
Woods was at it again Friday, busting Funk’s chops some 24 hours before the foursome – which includes Mr. Skins himself, Fred Couples – stepped up to the first tee.
Sorenstam was talking about how hard it is for her to win skins on the par 5s against “these long hitters” when Woods saw an opening.
“Two of us are long hitters,” Woods chimed in.
“Oh yeah, sorry,” Sorenstam said.
“It’s already starting,” the easygoing Funk said.
The 49-year-old Funk, known for his short but straight tee shots, has taken the ribbing good-naturedly ever since Woods started it at the Presidents Cup dinner in September.
“I just mentioned to Tiger that I’d just found out that I was in the Skins,” Funk said. “And he says, ‘You know, Annika’s the fourth.’ And I said, ‘Really, I’m the fourth.’ And he said, ‘Well, if she outdrives you, you’ll never hear the end of it.’
“I said, ‘She’s going to outdrive me.’ And Jim Furyk’s down there chirping up, ‘I’m definitely watching this year.’ “
Woods reinjured his left ankle on the eighth hole of the pro-am, played the ninth and then left to ice it. He’s still expected to play in the Skins Game, a spokesman said. Wood twisted the ankle recently while playing in Japan.
The first nine holes will be played today and the final nine Sunday at the par-72, 7,055-yard Trilogy Golf Club in the middle of the desert.
“We’re going to have a lot of fun with it,” Funk said. “It’s going to be tough, though. I’m not sure whether I can outdrive her. It’s not whether she can outdrive me. I know if I hit my little miss out to the right – I have terms for it but I don’t want to use it right now – it goes out there and doesn’t go very far, and she hits her normal shot, I’m done. I’m out.”
While Funk’s pride might take a beating, his bank account won’t necessarily. The Skins Game, sponsored by Merrill Lynch, is all about timely putting and the occasional sensational shot, which Sorenstam – coming off another 10-win season on the LPGA Tour – and Couples know all about.
Last year, Couples won his record fifth Skins Game with a total of $640,000, pushing his career totals to $3,515,000 and 77 skins in 11 appearances in the made-for-TV tournament.
He won all his money on Sunday, sinking a birdie putt worth $300,000 on the day’s first hole, then beating Woods in a playoff, claiming the final three skins and $340,000 after Woods’ tee shot on the fourth extra hole went into the water.
The day before, Sorenstam kept $250,000 in play when she sank a short birdie putt to halve the ninth hole and keep Adam Scott from sweeping the first-day skins. Of course, that set up Couples’ rich putt the next morning.
“There’s always going to be some huge, huge holes,” Couples said. “And as Annika said, she doesn’t have a lot of opportunities to win par 5s, but on the ninth hole if you remember last year, she made a hell of a putt, then I won the next hole the next day.”
To which Woods deadpanned: “Yeah, that’s great.”