Columnist Adam Candee: Some got off course in 2004

Adam Candee

Wednesday, Nov. 24, 2004 | 9:04 a.m.

Adam Candee covers golf for the Sun. Reach him at (702) 259-4085 or by e-mail at candee@lasvegassun.com.

It may be tough to tell as peak season rates go into place at courses around town, but most of the golf world is done, but for the silliness of multimillion-dollar TV events, until next year.

For pros with local ties playing on the PGA and LPGA tours, 2004 brought an Australian thunderstorm, a sexy pin-up calendar, a quiet Saturday afternoon and a scratch of a 12-year itch.

Here's one man's recap of some of the most memorable happenings of the past season in the pros and what they might mean in 2005 ...

For those who may have spent the past few months buried in a sand trap, Riley, playing in his first Ryder Cup just days after the birth of his first daughter, teamed with Tiger Woods for an exciting victory in Saturday morning play. Their victory gave hope of a spark for the American squad, which bombed in Friday's opening matches.

The rest of the story -- yeah, the controversial part -- gets sketchy. Riley told U.S. captain Hal Sutton that he felt tired and would give way to a more rested player for the afternoon matches. Stunned, Sutton questioned the normally exuberant Riley, but eventually relented. And we know how it went from there.

Riley insists now that if Sutton had told him there would be a Tiger redux in the afternoon, he could have found the energy to play. But Riley's choice, coupled with Sutton's public airing of grievances, brought on a firestorm of criticism. Riley hinted at an October news conference that he was not happy with how Sutton handled the situation.

Who was right is, at this point, irrelevant. Riley still managed a strong year with almost $1.3 million in earnings, but he will likely have to answer to his Ryder Cup past until the 2006 matches arrive. It's a tough -- but earned -- rap for a good guy.

Gulbis is quickly developing the highest profile of any golfer who lives in the valley, less than two years after moving here to work with swing coach Butch Harmon. While her 42nd-place showing on this year's LPGA money list is solid, Gulbis likely jogs the memory either for her bikini-heavy calendar or revealing photo spread in FHM, a men's magazine. Just 21 years old, she is a dominant face in the tour's marketing and has her own clothing designs.

Gulbis abhors the often-incessant comparisons to Anna Kournikova, and she is likely somewhere between Kournikova and attractive tennis star Maria Sharapova in the model/athlete ranks -- successful in sports, but not yet an accomplished star. A breakout 2005 on tour to match this year's breakout in the media would do wonders for erasing Anna from future interviews.

A one-time UNLV standout, Scott built on a promising 2003 season that included a win and a President's Cup appearance by blowing away the competition this year en route to a seventh-place money list finish of more than $3.7 million. A 24-year-old Australian phenom who is drawing comparisons to Tiger Woods since Harmon shaped Scott's swing just like that of the big cat, he won twice in 2004, including his nail-biter at The Players Championship that brought $1.44 million and a five-year exemption.

The ceiling really does not exist for Scott. While climbing any higher on the money list into the private reserve of Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen and Woods is quite the task, Scott owns the talent to do just that. If it's not in 2005, it probably won't be too long after.

A sputtering start to the season that included four missed cuts in five starts made Saiki, 38, think about possibly giving up life on tour to take up teaching the game in the setting of a normal life. With just six top-10s in five years, she yearned for more.

She plugged away with instructor Greg LaBelle at Harmon's school, though, and went wire-to-wire in Rochester before making noise early in the U.S. Women's Open. She's definitely on tour now after finishing 22nd on the money list with $479,780 -- her best year to date.

In her third full year on tour, Louden earned the 90th and final exempt spot on the money list with $102,457. That gave her full playing privileges in 2005, a survival with a margin of error that came in $4,100 ahead of Rigo Hagashio. Hey, after finishing a degree at Stanford, Louden did not need any more school -- especially Q-school, which she was fortunate to avoid in a year with no finishes higher than 20th.