Vijay Singh is off to a hot start at the 3M Championship

“Maybe a change of scenery will do him good.”

No, that’s not in reference to the recently expired MLB trading deadline; in this case it refers to Vijay Singh, who obviously wasn’t traded this past week, but he did trade one tour for another and to put it mildly, a change of scenery did him good.

Proper English aside, that cliché holds a lot of truth, whether by accident or not, sometimes, a simple change in scenery can do wonders for a professional athlete. Most professional golfers have only one viable option to cash a check each week, but for a select few over the age of 50, their options are limitless … relatively.

Vijay Singh is one of a handful of professional golfers with the option most weeks to pick either the PGA Tour or the Champions Tour and this week he decided that Blaine, a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota, looked a lot more appealing, and to use his own words, “easier” than Reno, Nevada. So far, his decision looks wise as after one round at the 3M Championship, Singh is only one off the lead after an opening 8-under 64.

It’s been a disappointing year on the PGA Tour for Vijay Singh; since the calendar flipped in January, Singh has only one top-25 and he’s spent almost as much time outside the cut-line as inside, which is why a switch to the Champions Tour this week made perfect sense.

Singh is only a few years removed from a $ 2 million season on the PGA Tour however yet he remains one of the most physically imposing golfers out there, so the advantages of playing the older set of tees seems obvious. When asked if the advantage in distance off the tee versus his fellow competitors on the Champions Tour gave him a boost of confidence, Vijay responded, “not really, if you don’t hit it straight, it doesn’t matter.”

Luckily for Singh, he did it straight for the most part on Friday hitting nearly 75 percent of the fairways, which led to an absurd 94.4 percent greens hit in regulation.

If he keeps this up, he’s liable to add another victory to an already impressive resume and perhaps get back on track on the PGA Tour, but there’s just one problem.

There’s another guy just one-off the lead and he’s pretty good too. In fact, he won a major by 13-strokes last week and he’s won this event two of the past five years. The grass may be greener on the Champions Tour for Vijay Singh, but there’s nothing easy about besting Bernhard Langer.

Devil Ball Golf – Golf – Yahoo Sports