KEY POINTS:
In an idle moment today, check out the leaderboard at the Tour Players Championship in Florida.
Around the time this newspaper was being shoehorned through your letterbox, Craig Perks was teeing off for his second round in what is known as the fifth major of the golfing year.
He was in a threesome including Australian Rod Pampling and American Rory Sabbatini. Sabbatini was joint first round leader with fellow American Phil Mickelson at 5-under 67, so there will have been an audience.
Perks was eight shots back in a tie for 58th. Among those who also shot 75 yesterday were Tiger Woods and Michael Campbell. Around mid-morning, Perks will be packing away his clubs. If he's made the cut, he'll quietly be singing a happy song. If he hasn't, well nothing much will have changed.
The TPC has special significance for the lanky bloke from Palmerston North.
Five years ago he stunned the golf world by winning the title with a remarkable finish, twice holing from off the green.
Since then, it's all gone wrong.
He figured if he was going to push himself up the international ladder he needed to rework parts of his game. Had he left it intact, the chances are he could have plugged along doing well some weeks, missing cuts the others.
Instead his game went south and hasn't returned.
By his own admission, he's had many days of hit and hope, praying the ball would go roughly where he wanted. That's not what it's supposed to be about. Winning the title earned Perks a five-year exemption on the US PGA Tour. It expires this year. He must finish the season inside the top 125 to remain a full tour member.
Each year since his week of glory things have got worse. Now, a 25-year-old Texan, Chris Stroud, is at No 125 on the tour's Order of Merit, having accumulated US$222,650 this year.
Perks, 40, has had three starts on the tour and been throwing his clubs in the car boot at the halfway stage each time. No cuts, no dollars and a large black hole beckons.
"It's been like the walls have been coming down on me," he said before teeing off.
You kind of know what he means, but if you haven't actually experienced it you don't really.
There's a feeling Perks' time is running out, certainly in terms of the world's toughest tour. You'd hope not. He appeals as a decent bloke but life's not fair in many respects.
And what of Dean Barker?
The Team New Zealand skipper might also have felt the crush of crumbling masonry around him four years ago as the America's Cup was not so much prised from their grasp by Alinghi as ripped away with a decent kicking thrown in as a parting gesture.
Barker is no Russell Coutts, which is no bad thing.
Each is his own man and now Barker, on the back of a massively morale-boosting win over Oracle this week, can approach the Louis Vuitton Cup semifinals with real confidence.
The thing is that win early on Thursday was not over the Chinese, or French, or Germans.
Due credit to the other semifinalists, Luna Rossa and Desafio Espanol, but this win was against the crew they are likely to have to get past in a couple of weeks if they want to get another crack at Alinghi for the cup.
It was a comprehensive duffing of a tough, competitive rival. Not an edgy, seat of the pants 10s win; it was a royal 1m 34s pasting.
And while measured words have been coming from the Team New Zealand camp, behind closed doors there should be a positive realisation that they've given firm evidence they are right in the game.
Beating the lightweights is one thing; but the win - and its manner - over a heavy hitter, which ensured the right to choose the Spaniards as their semifinal opponent, must hearten even the most cautious heart.
Funny how those early days of no wind, general grumpiness, waiting, wishing and hoping are no longer a factor. The game is on.
The next week will twist the tension up a notch, even though Team New Zealand should be too good for Desafio Espanol. And then, without getting ahead of ourselves, things get really serious.
Boss Grant Dalton is sounding bullish. He wondered aloud yesterday where the yachting media were getting the idea that Oracle had a significant edge on Team New Zealand.
He was speaking from a position of some strength, after events a little earlier on the water off Valencia. Would he have said the same had they lost, or had they won by yachting's equivalent of a short head? Possibly, but the point is listen hard and you can detect a rise in self-belief.
