SteveElling

I sense a trend brewing, and it's not pretty. Some of us can relate.

Georgia native Franklin Langham, playing on a sponsor exemption in the PGA Tour event in Atlanta this week, teed off on the 10th hole in the first round Thursday and left a few souvenirs behind for the fans and neighbors. He swatted four straight tee shots out-of-bounds on the left, made a 13 on his opening hole and was 22-over for the day when play was suspended because of darkness.

If he makes a bogey, he shoots a 95, one of the worst scores on the PGA Tour in years.

So, just to make it worse, he has to come back at dawn to complete the round. And it isn't like he can withdraw with one of those curious, "wink-wink" back injuries, because he was generously given an exemption by AT&T, the sponsor. He played for the college team at nearby Georgia and was raised in Augusta.

Langham, who plays on the Nationwide Tour afler spending several years on the PGA Tour, has professed to having a case of the yips with the driver, a la former British Open champion Ian Baker-Finch, whose erractic tee balls drove him from the game.

It's not getting any better, it seems. In April, Langham shot 90 in a Nationwide event after hitting three balls O.B. on a single hole. Thursday, he played the par-5 holes in 11 over, with a birdie.

Suzanne Pettersen has a different take or her Scandinavian sister's somewhat abrupt retirement news this week.

Pettersen, who hails from Norway, said she wasn't exactly shocked to hear that world No. 2 Annika Sorenstam had decided to retire at year's end, since she had ben openly talking about quitting the LPGA tour grind for months.

Yet Pettersen, who won five times last year, raises another good point: What was there left to accomplish? With 72 wins, 10 majors, a record-low 59 and eight player-of-the-year awards among her feats, the Swede has slain every dragon that's come at her. Sorenstam wants to try other pursuits and start a family.

"It's always kind of a shock when the word comes out officially," Pettersen said Thursday at the media day for the McDonalds LPGA Championship, the season's second women's major. "I mean, I know she's been thinking of it. It wasn't a big surprise. She kind of halfway said it at the Solheim that that might be her last one.

"I mean, as long as she's happy with her decision. She's done everything for women's golf. She can sit back and really be proud of all she's achieved. There's nothing more for her to prove. She has been the best. She has been one of the best ever. She will set records that everyone will try to chase for the next decade."

A decade at minimum.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- A series of smoky brushfires that broke out over the weekend along Interstate 95 in Central Florida has prompted the evacuation of LPGA headquarters in Daytona Beach.

Connie Wilson, the LPGA's head of communications, said that because of road closures, employees were ordered to remain home. A development across the street from the LPGA property was evacuated Sunday night and the off-ramp that leads to the tour offices remained closed Monday morning, blocked off by a squadron of Florida Highway Patrol cars.

When I blew through there this morning, the troopers all seemed to be staring intently at their on-board computers, massaging their fantasy baseball roster or something. Or maybe they were sleeping.

The LPGA employees certainly are not.

"We're all working from remote locations today," Wilson said.

The fire, burning to the west of I-95, remained partly under control as of mid-day Monday and it's uncertain if tour employees will be allowed back to work Tuesday. The offices themselves, which also house the developmental Duramed Futures Tour, don't appear to be in any immediate danger of fire damage since winds seem to be pushing the fire in the opposite direction.

A section of I-95 in Melbourne, Fla., remained closed Sunday night, prompting many who live in South Florida and attended the Players Championship in the Jacksonville area to make lengthy detours through Orlando or find lodging for the night.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- Diversity, thy name is Dye.

Pete Dye, the celebrated architect of TPC Sawgrass was announced as a World Golf Hall of Fame inductee earlier this week and freely admitted that he has no idea why his most-infamous layout, host site of the Players Championship, annually creates such a wild leaderboard full of players with seemingly so little in common.

Beyond their prescribed total of 14 clubs in their respective bags, it's a complete melange of a cornucopia of a smorgasbord of a jigsaw puzzle of a bric-a-brac mix.

There are a variety of reasons we don't need to reiterate to explain the amalgamation, since we covered that ground in a story earlier this week, but heading into the final round on Sunday, has the board ever featured a more scattershot selection of PGA Tour players of various sizes, ages and physical capabilities?

Doubtful. It's almost absurdly diverse. Consider that of the 13 players tied for seventh or better:

* There's a 50-year-old, Bernhard Langer, who is seeking to become the eldest winner in event history. He's been playing for the past few months on the Champions Tour.

* There are four 40-somethings, including the two players in the final group, Paul Goydos and Kenny Perry. Fellow graybeards Greg Kraft, who began the year with limited exempt status, and Tom Lehman are also in the mix. Lehman turns 50 next spring.

* In continuing the 2008 youth theme in which five of the past six winners have been under age 30, a slew of 20-somethings, Sergio Garcia, Jeff Quinney and J.B. Holmes, are also among the leaders. Holmes is 24 years younger than Langer.

But more crazed, still, is the array of firepower the group represents. It's like howitzers against guys shooting spitwads. 

* Holmes, Garcia, Perry and Mickelson rank among the top 26 players on tour for length off the tee. 

* Goydos, the wise-cracking leader, doesn't have a muscle in his entire body and officially ranks third-to-last on the tour in driving distance, ahead of plinkers Fred Funk and Corey Pavin at a meager 265.2 yards a poke. Quinney ranks No. 182, ahead of only 14 players. Kraft hits it a not-so-mighty average of 258 yards but doesn't have enough rounds to rank in the computer. If he did, Kraft would rank second-to-last, in fact. Several LPGA players could blow it past all three of them.

And yet the aforementioned Funk is a past Players winner. So is Mickelson. Verybody playing well seemingly has a shot at the title on this comparatively shortish, tricky track.

Care to take a crack at projections a winner Sunday, because I have no eartly idea. Not a whiff of a sniff of a clue.