TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

Four or five years ago, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson occupied the No. 1 and No. 5 positions on the 100 Most Powerful Athlete List. My, how times have changed.

The latest Top 100 rankings by Bloomburg/Business Week has no golfer in the top 10. The top three are Drew Brees, Aaron Rogers and Tom Brady. Woods sits at No.12 and Mickelson at No.18.

Ok, so you are asking how did they come up with this list. More than 3,000 of the top athletes from every sport that you can imagine were evaluated using a 50 percent "off-field" rank and a 50 percent "on-field" rank from everything to how they fared against other players or athletes in their sport to off field endorsements, profile and etc.

Ok, so back to the golf side of things. Woods isn't even the top ranking golfer any longer. That laurel is now bestowed on Luke Donald, the No.1 ranked player in the world who came in at No.11, just a notch above Woods.

Lee Westwood at No.19 was the only other golfer in the top 20, while just outside of that was Rory McIlroy at 21. Then you have to go all the way down to No.71 to find Martin Kaymer, with Adam Scott at No. 84 and Steve Stricker at No. 100.

Noticing there were no female players on that list, where once Annika Sorenstam and Lorena Ochoa both were in the top 100.

Let's hope our top golfers rebound for 2012 and perhaps they can move up the list for 2013!

Not bad for opening tournament

The Bakersfield College men's golf team opened its 2012 season with a third-place finish in its own event -- The Double-Eagle Invitational this past Monday and Tuesday at Seven Oaks and Rio Bravo Country Club's.

Competing against the top teams from their own conference and other top teams, including defending state champion West Hills, the Renegades proved that the all-freshman squad just might be a group to reckon with.

The Renegades shot team scores of 384 at Seven Oaks and 398 at Rio Bravo for a combined 782 total and finished third among 10 teams.

The Renegades were behind tournament winner College of the Canyons which carded a nice 739 total, an average of 73.9 per player, and another Western State Conference foe Santa Barbara City at 769.

Jack Henneberry was the low BC player at 8-over 152 on a pair of 76s while his teammate at Centennial, Neil Bautista, was next at 154.

The tournament medalist was Canyons' Derek Larson at 146. In all, the Cougars had four of the top five overall two-day scores.

Got to Feel Sorry for Stanley

Ok, think about it. In all of the tournament golf that you have played in or watched, what was the biggest "choke" you had ever witnessed?

On the pro circuit, you have to start with Jean Claude Van De Velde's epic British Open collapse a few years ago when he took a couple of sips from the water. Needing only a double-bogey to win the tournament, he made a triple, and then lost in a playoff. But that was only one hole. Greg Norman knows a thing or two about losing a major when it seemed like he had it in hip pocket too.

Well, last weekend, Kyle Stanley, a 24-year-old second-year player, took the word "collapse" to a different level. He too had a three-stroke lead as he stood on the 18th and final hole in the Farmer's Insurance Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego.

But just get to that point, Stanley blew a 5-shot third-round lead that he had increased to seven shots with only 12 holes to play. Yep, you know what happened -- Stanley hit his third shot on the par-5 into the water, then hit his fifth shot above the hole in "3-putt" territory and that's what he did.

Stanley still had a chance to win the tournament, and, to his credit, he did rebound to birdie the 18th on the first playoff hole, but he couldn't make par on the next and the win went to Brandt Snedeker.

The gaffe not only cost Stanley a win, but over $400,000 in prize money! But the youngster was rebounding well in the first couple of rounds this week in Phoenix at the time of this writing.

Tiger Inching Closer?

Is Tiger Woods close to regaining his No.1 player status? After winning his own event at Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks in December and then finishing third in the Abu Dhabi Championship this past weekend, you could say he is real close.

But, Tiger actually led after 54 holes and it was only the seventh time he did not win an event (54 wins) when he led after three rounds.

Tiger's next tournament will be at Pebble Beach in the AT&T Pro-Am. It's one of his favorite courses and where he won the 2002 U.S Open in record fashion.

Woods doesn't necessarily have to win to say he is back, but I would think he would need a top 3 or maybe at least a top 5 to say he has his game back.

I'm hoping for it. You all know I'm a Tiger rooter and homer, so having Woods in contention makes any tournament that much better to watch!

30 Years at The Californian

This week marks the 30th year that I have been a writer for The Bakersfield Californian , and 26 of those years I have been the Golf Columnist.

I wrote about my 25th year of being the columnist last year and all of the great people I have had the pleasure of working for and with and all of the people/athletes that I have had the fortune of meeting, so I won't go into all of that again, but 30 years is a long time to do anything!

They say that if you have done something for that long of a period, you either enjoy it or you have just put up with it. In this case it's definitely the former and I hope to be doing this for as long as they want me too!

Chip Shots

* While it's not golf-related, I'm rooting for the New York Giants to win the Super Bowl. The Pittsburgh Steelers are my favorite team, so rooting for the New England Patriots is way out of reason in a Super Bowl. I did, however, root for the Patriots against the Baltimore Ravens last week because I dislike the Ravens more than the Patriots!

Tee to Green appears weekly at Bakersfield.com/sports. You can reach Gautney at rgautney@bak.rr.com.