Sean O Hair

SEAN O'HAIR insists that one of the best things about golf is, well, sometimes you really never do know. The West Chester resident hadn't finished in the top 15 on the PGA Tour this season. He'd missed the cut in four of his last five starts heading into last week, and was coming off a British Open in which he closed with a double-bogey to go home early by a shot. Yet he won the Canadian Open on Sunday, with a bogey on the first playoff hole. At 29, it was the fourth victory of his 7-year career, and first in 26 months.

This time around, Sean O'Hair hopes to play better in the Masters. No matter what, though, he is determined to savor the experience, smell the azaleas. "I didn't do that last time," said O'Hair, 25, from West Chester. "I put such tremendous pressure on myself that first year, I didn't enjoy it. " Last time for O'Hair was 2006, and it didn't go well. Riding high from his rookie-of-the-year performance and first Tour win in 2005, O'Hair rolled into Augusta the following spring with very high expectations for himself.

Tiger Woods World rank: 1. Best Open finish: 1st (2000, 2002). Why he could win: Duh. He's Tiger Woods, the best player in the world, and he's chasing Jack Nicklaus' record. Why not: He ranks 165th in driving accuracy, a stat that will not go unpunished at the U.S. Open. Phil Mickelson World rank: 2. Best Open finish: 2d (1999, 2002, 2004, 2006). Why he could win: Redemption from last year. That and the fact that under Butch Harmon, he's hitting tee shots straighter, a must at the Open.

Without the world's No. 1 player around, Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson brought some star power to the final World Golf Championship of the year. Singh twice escaped from the trees on his closing holes and renewed his affair with a belly putter on his way to a 4-under 66 at the Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, Ohio, putting his name atop the leaderboard for the first time in more than 4 months. He was one shot ahead of Mickelson, who made another great escape at the end of the second round, this time holing a 20-foot par putt to finish off a 66 that put him in the final group with Singh.

After his 1-under 70 yesterday, Sean O'Hair was happy with how he played - but not with his score. "I'm still making a few too many mistakes," said O'Hair, 24, from West Chester, who was 7 shots behind leader Tiger Woods after the first round of the American Express Championship. O'Hair's mistakes were three costly bogeys on the front nine at the Grove - his back nine - that offset his strong, three-birdie 33 on his front nine. He started his round the way any golfer would love: a 319-yard blast followed by an approach shot from 172 yards to six feet - birdie.

West Chester resident Sean O'Hair will not be playing in next week's U.S. Open on the Blue Course at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md. He failed to earn a spot in yesterday's Sectional Qualifier in Columbus, Ohio, where on Friday he'd just missed the cut at the PGA Tour's Memorial Tournament, his second consecutive MC. This will be the first major he has missed since the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. O'Hair, who has failed to make it to the weekend in seven of his 13 starts this season, has fallen to 89th in the 2-year cumulative world rankings.

Through 17 holes yesterday, Sean O'Hair was having a very good day at the office at the AT&T National. At 4 under par on his final round, O'Hair had played his way back to par for the tournament, and a fat check was within his grasp. Then came a disastrous double bogey. "I got hosed," said O'Hair, 24, from West Chester, who believes he got two bad breaks on the finishing hole at Congressional Country Club. O'Hair's horrible 18th began with a 323-yard tee shot that he pushed to the right.

Sean O'Hair wants to be known for his game, not how he was pushed into the professional ranks while still in high school by an overbearing father. O'Hair shot a season-best 5-under 65 yesterday in the EDS Byron Nelson Championship, in Irving, Texas, to take a one-stroke lead over defending champion Brett Wetterich and Anders Hansen after the tournament's first round without its namesake. "You don't want to be known for other stuff," said O'Hair, 24, who lives in West Chester.

There will be no U.S. Open this year for Sean O'Hair. O'Hair withdrew from the Open early yesterday afternoon, citing a painful chest bruise he sustained in an early-morning, one-car accident near home last Thursday. "It happened no more than a 9-iron shot from my house," said O'Hair, 25, who lives in West Chester. O'Hair was driving his Mustang. He said he was pulling out of his housing development about 7 a.m., headed to to the gym to work out. The roads were slick from overnight rains.

His new passport in hand, Sean O'Hair finally made it to the British Open yesterday and got his first and only pre-tournament look at the Old Course. But not before crashing into bed for a two-hour nap after his overnight flight and wondering, frankly, if the last 72 hours had really happened to him. "I told my wife, 'Honey, pinch me, because I think this is a dream,' " O'Hair joked yesterday. On Sunday, the PGA Tour rookie who lives in Boothwyn, Delaware County, won his first tournament, the John Deere Classic in Silvis, Ill., earning himself a spot in his first major championship, the British Open.

AUGUSTA, Ga. - Sean O'Hair knows a good thing when it finds him. So when 1992 Masters champion Fred Couples asked him a couple of weeks ago whether he'd like to play a practice round this week with him and Tiger Woods . . . "I was all over it," the West Chester resident said. "I knew it would be a good time. " You think? The threesome teed off first on Tuesday morning, at 7:50. The galleries were what you'd expect, at least for the front nine. Then Woods decided to call it a round.

AUGUSTA, Ga. - Sean O'Hair knows a good thing when it finds him. So when 1992 Masters champion Fred Couples asked him a couple of weeks ago if he'd like to play a practice round this week with him and Tiger Woods . . . "I was all over it," said the West Chester resident. "I knew it would be a good time. " You think? The threesome teed off first on Tuesday, at 7:50. The galleries were what you'd expect, at least for the front nine. Then Tiger decided to call it a round.

LEFTHANDER Gio Gonzalez agreed to a 5-year, $42 million contract with the Washington Nationals yesterday, 3 weeks after he was acquired in a trade with Oakland. The deal includes options for 2 more years. It was the largest guaranteed contract for a pitcher eligible for arbitration for the first time. Gonzalez, 26, went 16-12 last season - a career high for wins - with a 3.12 ERA in 32 starts and was selected to his first All-Star Game. He was acquired in a six-player deal with Oakland on Dec. 23. He made $420,000 last season.

Things just were not going well last spring and early summer on the PGA Tour for Sean O'Hair. He felt his golf game was improving but it didn't show in the results. He had missed 9 of 12 cuts, including the AT&T National at Aronimink Golf Club - his home course - and at the British Open, where he doubled-bogeyed the 36th hole at Royal St. George to finish 1 off the needed number. He felt patience and "staying in the moment" would lead to some success, and it happened rather unexpectedly the week after the British in late July when he captured the Canadian Open in a playoff, his first tour victory in 26 months.

SEAN O'HAIR insists that one of the best things about golf is, well, sometimes you really never do know. The West Chester resident hadn't finished in the top 15 on the PGA Tour this season. He'd missed the cut in four of his last five starts heading into last week, and was coming off a British Open in which he closed with a double-bogey to go home early by a shot. Yet he won the Canadian Open on Sunday, with a bogey on the first playoff hole. At 29, it was the fourth victory of his 7-year career, and first in 26 months.

DAILY NEWS STAFF AND WIRE Sean O'Hair won the RBC Canadian Open after tapping in for bogey on the first playoff hole yesterday, and then watching fellow American Kris Blanks lip out his bogey putt from just over 5 feet. It was the fourth PGA Tour win for O'Hair, of West Chester, but his first time in the top 15 during a season that had seen him miss 10 of 17 cuts. O'Hair, 29, started the day three shots behind leader Bo Van Pelt before shooting 68 to get into the playoff with Blanks (70)

After going through a year filled with changes, disappointment, and a lack of confidence, Sean O'Hair once again found the magic in his golf game. The West Chester resident played steady golf in Sunday's final round of the RBC Canadian Open on the tough Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club course in Vancouver, British Columbia, and defeated Kris Blanks on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff to win his first PGA Tour event in 27 months. O'Hair, who shot a 2-under-par 68 Sunday, made a bogey on the playoff hole, but Blanks missed a 6-foot putt to extend sudden death.

In his first six years on the PGA Tour, Sean O'Hair made the game of golf look easy, with three victories and the consistency that had many considering him among the best players on the circuit under the age of 30. The current year, however, has seen him go through his first slump. He has spent much of 2011 not shooting the scores to which he has been accustomed; only one of his first 26 rounds was in the 60s. His world ranking, No. 43 at the start of 2011, has dropped to 102. Now as the West Chester resident returns home to prepare for the AT&T National beginning Thursday at Aronimink Golf Club, he feels his game is coming back.

Sean O'Hair wrapped up the description of his good- but-not-good-enough performance in the U.S. Open sectional qualifying competition by saying, "Clearly, it's disappointing. " He added ruefully, "Then again, this year's been nothing but disappointing. " O'Hair, of West Chester, is going through his most frustrating year since joining the PGA Tour in 2005. He has missed eight cuts in 14 tour events this year, and his world ranking has fallen to 89. With only two top-20 finishes, he is 128th on the FedEx Cup points list and needs to make a move soon to firm up a spot for the playoffs starting in August.

West Chester resident Sean O'Hair will not be playing in next week's U.S. Open on the Blue Course at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md. He failed to earn a spot in yesterday's Sectional Qualifier in Columbus, Ohio, where on Friday he'd just missed the cut at the PGA Tour's Memorial Tournament, his second consecutive MC. This will be the first major he has missed since the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. O'Hair, who has failed to make it to the weekend in seven of his 13 starts this season, has fallen to 89th in the 2-year cumulative world rankings.