BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. --It didn't take long to identify the front-runner contender to complete the weirdest Grand Slam season in decades.
Meet India's Jeev Singh, who is limping around the 90th PGA Championship with a brace on his right ankle because of a severe tendon issue that has caused him to curtail his practice sessions.
The Masters was won by Trevor Immelman, four months removed from surgery to remove a tumor from his diaphragm. Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open on one leg and Padraig Harrington claimed the British Open despite suffering from a wrist injury that put his week very much in doubt.
Singh shot a 2-under 68 Thursday and is tied for the lead with Sweden's Robert Karlsson, who isn't ailing as far as we know. Might be the first time the healthy guy is the underdog, based on 2008's prevailing karma.
"It's got a lot of pain," SIngh said of his foot. "I've been wearing a brace for the last four weeks. I did injure it just before the French Open, that was about seven, eight weeks ago. I've been getting a lot of physio done and it gets better, but you hit one of those shots out of the rough and I'm back to square one.
"I haven't played any practice rounds for the last seven weeks in the tournaments I've played and it's worked for me pretty good, touch wood. I won twice, once in Europe, the Austrian Open and two weeks ago in Japan. Basically I got a MRI done three weeks ago, the doctor said I need four weeks off and the caution I put up to him was, 'Well does two weeks help?'
"And he said no. And he said there's a lot of fluid and that means a lot of inflammation in there. I decided if I'm going to play the PGA Championship and I'm going to push myself through to this week and next week and after that I'm surely taking two weeks off, maybe I'm going to extend it to four.
"So it depends how the ankle holds up. It feels fine, but the more drivers I hit, I feel it just kind of comes back. And you do need to hit a lot of drivers on this golf course."
He's barely been able to practice. Harrington played a total of 18 holes before the British, too. This is getting eerie.
"I just played nine holes on Tuesday and nine yesterday," he said. "But would obviously like to practice more, but I can't. I like to hit, obviously, a lot more drivers on the driving range. But I think my pain always comes back when I hit a lot of drivers. I don't know, one of those tendons, the way I move my foot, the right foot, it gets me going. And I can't put any weight on the right foot."
You can bet he'll feel healthy enough to lift the Wanamaker Trophy when the time comes, right?