COOKIE GILCHRIST AT LARGE

As I write this, it's just past 5 a.m. on Monday and the second hour of the Morning Drive has started. I watch it every weekday morning. That's a television aperitif between watching whatever tournaments are on Thursday through Sunday. Last week I felt like a Bedouin watching golf in two different deserts. Because the LPGA, Champions and Nationwide are just getting started, I'm likely going to watch even more golf in the coming weeks. I'm really only interested in Jim Rutledge with the old guys, but the Nationwide group is interesting especially if Adam Hadwin gets in the hunt.

The Golf Channel should pay me. I watch Golf Central and have endured most of the Big Break editions. The only winner I can recall, however, is Derek Gillespie and runner-up Kent Eger, who lost to another Canadian David Markle (I think, that's his name).

The thing about watching golf is you don't have to pay attention; it's just comforting having it on while you go about doing your regular tasks. For instance, four paragraphs have magically appeared while Eric Kuselias and Gary Williams have been blabbing for 30 minutes or so.

I'm back. It's 9 a.m. now and I have talked to the president of the Gander Golf Club for a story I'm doing for Golf Canada and I've emailed Dan Pino at golf Canada twice. It's gorgeous here and it has even crossed my mind that I could go and hit balls.

I've also made hotel reservations in Seattle on Friday because I'm going to the Golf Show down there for the first time and am quite excited about that.

I have also picked my Yahoo golf team for the Pebble Beach clambake (even though Bing Crosby is only a distant memory that's what I still call it). It's Tiger's first PGA Tour start and I'm expecting big things.

For a while, I thought Yahoo had left him off the list of players. He wasn't among the A group and I had to go all the way to the bottom of the B players before finding his name. I have picked Keegan Bradley and Spencer Levin (I think he'll play very good just like Kyle Stanley, whom I won with on Sunday) as my A players. Tiger and D.A. Points are going to be my active B players with Ben Crane and Harris English as my C players. I have until early Thursday morning to change them up, so I haven't decided on my other B players.

I know what you are thinking . . . told you, I'm a golf junkie.

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Kent Gilchrist, originally from Souris, Man., was a former Vancouver Province Sports Editor and Columnist who covered Olympic Games, Stanley Cup finals, the Kentucky Derby, The Masters, U.S. and Canadian Opens, PGA Championships and many Grey Cups. For more than a decade Gilchrist was the Province beat reporter with the BC Lions. In 2005 he was inducted into the CFL's Football Reporters of Canada Hall of Fame. Now semi-retired, Cookie is a freelance journalist for a variety of major publications and a globe trotting commentator for BC Golf News.

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Tweet Cookie: @cookiefore or Email him at: hkgilchrist@yahoo.com