TY HAS TEED OFF IN THE 1ST ROUND of the Genuity Championship @ Doral, and promptly 3-putted the first hole for an opening bogey. His playing partners today are Hidemichi Tanaka of Japan and Frank Dobbs. He finished the day with a bogey on the final hole and a 1-over par 73 to sit in 110th place. He's currenly 3 shots outside of the cut line and will probably have to shoot 68 or better tomorrow to survive to the weekend.

Doug Ferguson of the AP has also written an article about Tryon's history at Doral. Seems he's been playing tournaments at the Blue Monster since he was 7.

THE SUN-SENTINEL HAS A VERY LONG article about Tryon and how he developed in the player he is today. Tryon is the gemstone of a training and development program that is almost beyond description. He has had a trainer for five years, Orlando's David Herman, who also works with Se Ri Pak of the LPGA Tour and wrote a golf fitness book with Ernie Els, a PGA Tour star. Herman has helped to meld the elements -- and they are plentiful. "Nobody else is doing what Ty is doing," Herman said.

TY TRYON IS OFFICIALLY IN the field for the Genuity Championship at Doral this week - media attention is sure to be huge because Tiger Woods is also in the field. He's supposed to play a practice round Tuesday morning with Nick Price and Vijay Singh which ought to give him a good feel for how the course should be played. Hopefully, he can be more relaxed in this event than in Phoenix. "With all the fans and the media, I kind of forgot what I was trying to do," Tryon said. "Whenever I play in a tournament, my intentions are to try and win. But I never did that in Phoenix. It was all so new to me. Strokes are just so valuable on tour, you can't throw them away."

PERHAPS IT WOULD HAVE BEEN a better idea for Tryon to start his 2002 season @ Tuscon instead of in the Phoenix Open. The chance to compete against a field that is missing the top 64 players in the world might have been a bit less intimidating for Tryon than his experience at Phoenix turned out to be. It also would have limited the media attention focused on him because of the Match Play tournament that goes on at the same time. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20.

AN ARTICLE BY JOHN GARRITY with Sports Illustrated has apparently uncovered the fact that Tryon was never offered $1 million to play in Dubai as was widely reported in the media (and repeated here).

"Tell me about the million dollars they offered you to play in Dubai," Hoch said, making a sarcastic reference to media reports that Tryon, who is still in high school, had refused a Middle Eastern sheik-down. Ty looked embarrassed. There was no million-dollar offer, he said. No half-million dollar offer. "A hundred thousand?" Hoch asked. Ty's shrug said maybe. "Where does the media get this stuff?" he asked.

THE ORLANDO SENTINEL has a poll up asking the question: Is 17-year-old PGA golfer Ty Tryon overrated?. (See right sidebar) The current results can be found here - and as I write this an overwheming majority, 61%, are saying that Tryon is indeed overrated. The complete lack of patience that answer displays is just amazing to me.

DECIDING THAT COLLEGE GOLF wasn't going to be the best way to prepare for his professional career, reigning US Amateur champion Bubba Dickerson has left the University of Florida golf team. He's not turning professional just yet - because by doing so would forfeit his exemptions into the Masters and US Open later this year.

What used to be a rare event - golfers leaving school early - is becoming more and more common because of the huge money they can play for on the PGA Tour.

TY TRYON IS FINALLY GETTING his website redesigned. I say finally not because the previous version of the site had been around very long - but because it was just a horrendous thing to look at. I don't mean to offend the designer or anything, but it wasn't exactly a clean, modern looking site.

Maybe with the re-design, they'll put up a link back to this site. [Hint. Hint]