CH3 slips into weekend

Charles Howell didn't acknowledge the nudge.

As the Augusta native went fuming through a gauntlet of media Friday, he didn't answer the call to stop and talk. He was steaming over a closing double bogey on the 18th hole at Oakland Hills that for all he knew might have cost him a chance to play on the weekend.

Hours after Howell finished his second round of the PGA Championship with a 76 that left him 8-over par, the cut line dropped to let him in on the number. That was a big thing, considering that Howell was in danger of becoming one of only two golfers to miss the cut in all four majors this season. Jerry Kelly holds that distinction by himself.

Howell instead will play Saturday with U.S. Ryder Cup captain Paul Azinger. It's an opportunity a lot of Americans would like to have, but Howell knows it won't mean anything unless he not only plays well this weekend but gets red hot over the ensuing three weeks before Azinger makes his four captain's picks.

Howell isn't in the field for next week's regular-season ending Wyndham Championship at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro -- the same course where Howell finished second as an amateur at the 2000 Buy.com Greensboro Open (breaking Sergio Garcia's record for highest finish by an amateur on the developmental tour just a year earlier when the Spanish teenager placed third on the same course).

So any hope Howell has of making the Ryder Cup team will be impressing Azinger Saturday, finishing well and likely winning one of the first two playoff events in New Jersey or Boston.

Maybe then Howell we feel more like stopping and talking.