At this moment, there are ten players tied for first at the PGA Championship at eight under. All of the usual suspects are there.

It’s been a tense third round.

I called in to a local sports talk radio station today on a football question, and got in on their golf promotion. I picked a number between 1 and 34, and was assigned a trio of golfers. If any one of them wins, I get a gift certificate to a local pro shop.

I picked 32 and among my selections was Davis Love.

Needless to say, I’m now rooting for Love.

I really enjoyed watching the trio of Tiger, Phil and Geoff play today on the video streaming at pga pipeline. It was really refreshing to follow a group through their round, rather than see highlights as the tv commentators bounce from hole to hole. Those are the three players that I—and everyone else—wanted to watch, and the video streaming offered that opportunity.

The PGA site also offers other video streams—standard coverage an hour before television kicks in; a stream of interviews with playes as they come off the course; and analysis and instruction from PGA instructors. I didn’t watch any of the others today ... I was too interested in following the Big Two and Ogilvy.

I’m hoping that Phil wins this one and establishes what the Tour has lacked up to this point ... a real rivalry ala Arnold-Jack; Jack-Lee or Jack-Watson (geeze. Jack had a lot of real rivals, didn’t he). The point is, though, that Tiger needs a rival.

I hope that the Tiger-Phil-Geoff trio is featured again tomorrow.  But if it’s not, I’ll spend some time going through the other video links. In the meantime, they’ve also got highlights and interviews to stream.

I think that the PGA has really got something going here. The webcasts apparently are just the beginning of it’s online video efforts.

While you’re waiting for coverage of the PGA to begin, here are a couple of articles:

Ron Sirak of Golfweek says that this will be a particularly interesting PGA.

Canada’s Slam Sports takes a look at the contenders.

The PGA has a page with video showing flyovers of each of the holes at Medinah. If you think you already know the course because they’ve played there before, think again. Medinah has had a major overhaul since Sergio did his hop and skip. It’s significantly longer at 7,561 yards.

Here are the 2006 PGA Championship TV and Internet Coverage Times

Thursday, August 17
PGA.COm 12:30 - 2:00 coverage provided by TNT
TNT 2 - 8 pm

Friday, August 18
PGA.COM 12:30 - 2:30 coverage provided by TNT
TNT 2 - 8 pm

Saturday, August 19
PGA.COM 10 am - 11 am coverage provided by TNT
TNT 11 am - 2 pm
CBS 2 pm - End of Play

Sunday
PGA.COM 10 am - 11 am coverage provided by TNT
TNT 11 am - 2 pm
CBS 2 pm - End of Play

Real time scoring an statistics are available throughout the tournament at pga.com

The PGA also is providing other coverage online: following certain groups throughout their round; interviews with players as they finish their rounds and; analysis and tips from PGA instructors.

Unfortunately, after more than half an hour looking through the PGA website, I can’t figure out when, exactly, these streams will be offered.  It seems odd to me that, given all the press releases and publicity they’ve garnered, nowhere do they give specific times. That’s bad PR on their part.

The PGA Championship has the best group of the year: Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Geoff Ogilvy. But in spite of the hype, I don’t think we’re going to see any real fireworks. Two of the three in that group are not going to push the third (I’ll give you three guesses as to whom I’m talking about here, and the first two guesses don’t count).

Just a little less interesting is the group of Ernie Els, Sergio Garcia and Fred Couples.

The Vijay Singh, John Daly, Jeff Sluman pairing also is interesting. Based on Vijay and JD’s interactions on the Daly Planet TV show, I think that the two like playing with each other.

You can see all of the groupings for rounds 1 and 2 of the 2006 PGA Championship in this pdf file.