The Art of Building Momentum in Golf…..K.J. Choi Style

In my predictions for the Verizon Heritage this week, I pretty much gave K.J. Choi no chance to win this week. Although I came out of the Masters with a new found respect for him, I just wasn’t sure that he would be able to avoid a letdown this week, in a much different setting. Well, K.J. clearly read my picks (at least I hope he did), and is out to take the tournament by storm. He has a two-shot lead heading into the second round tomorrow, after shooting a 7-under 64 in the first round today at Harbour Town.

Despite not looking so hot so far in my picks (my winner Camilo Villegas is at 1-under, while my sleeper pick Scott Verplank is currently tied for 104th), I couldn’t be happier to see who is at the top. Choi impressed me so much last week at the Masters, especially since he was paired with Tiger Woods all four days. Oh, and he managed to shoot the same score as Tiger for the tournament, and even had a share of the lead at one point on Sunday. I really want 2010 to be the year of K.J. Choi. And that’s the truth.

What I like about Choi is his focus. There’s only a handful of players that could have played with Tiger last week and been successful, given the circumstances surrounding the entire event. Choi clearly put himself into that category after the way he played, and it looks like it’s only gave him even more confidence for this week. Had he came out today and shot an average score and been somewhere in the middle of the pack, we all probably would have dismissed his performance as “just one of those tournaments.” Well, now we have completely respect his game right now, and understand that he might turn this into something special over the next few tournaments.

Choi is a veteran, and has been around since 1994, so he’s been here before. And even though it’s only a lead after round one, he’s the kind of player that has the experience to hang on to these types of leads. Sure, it only matters where you finish on Sunday, but he’s set himself up nicely, and given the way that he played at Augusta, I can’t see his game dropping off dramatically or anything like that the next few days. He’s the favorite now. Not only because of his current two-shot lead, but because of the confidence that he’s playing with, and will likely continue to play with the rest of the week in Hilton Head.

Well now that I’ve made myself feel bad for not picking Choi this week (and after officially joining his fan club), we can now move on to the rest of day one at the Verizon Heritage.

Here’s a few notes:

– Mike Weir is the closest to Choi, as he sits at 5-under after shooting a 66. Weir has had his ups and downs on the course as of late, but it’s good to see him off to a good start here. Being a former Masters’ winner, you certainly can’t look past him the rest of the week.

– There are approximately 237,364 guys at 4-under par for the tournament right now. Well, only 13, but it sure feels close to 237,000. Here the notable ones: Woody Austin, Davis Love III, Jerry Kelly, Sergio Garcia, Shaun Micheel, Tim Clark, and Jim Furyk.

– John Daly is playing this week, and shot a 72 on the day, which is good way to open up the tournament for him.

– Boo Weekley, who has won this tournament twice for his only two PGA Tour victories (2007, 2008), is currently at 3-under. You have to consider him to be a threat to make a run tomorrow or Saturday to get into contention given his past success here.

– Some surprisingly bad rounds for a few top players today. Paul Casey may have played these last few weeks, but it just doesn’t seem like he’s recovered from all of his injuries yet. He shot a 75 today, and is T118 at the moment. And Vaughn Taylor, who almost won in Houston a few weeks ago, shot a 77.

A good way to kick off post-Masters golf, with us having a Masters’ star currently on top of the leaderboard. We’ll see if K.J. can keep it going tomorrow.