Steve Stricker is quietly going about his business of playing golf and he may just be the best player at his craft.

Tiger Woods isn’t playing, so he currently doesn’t count, and Phil Mickelson isn’t playing to his level of expertise.

Lee Westwood is failing to make putts to win tournaments, as he did Sunday in Dubai, and Padraig Harrington opened his 2010 season by missing the cut at Riviera.

There are plenty of other names to consider, certainly, but none would equal Stricker’s start to the year, which is actually a carryover from the last.

In his three starts to open 2010, he’s logged a T10, a third and a first which came Sunday at the Northern Trust Open at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles. It’s February  and he’s already bagged nearly $1.7 million and he’s No. 1 in FedEx points.

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Steve Stricker put the field on notice with a morning-round of 65 on Friday, but Dustin Johnson electrified the crowd with an ace at the Northern Trust Open.

The pair are tied at 10-under par after play was called at 5:02 local time due to darkness and wet conditions with 41 players still on the course. The second round will conclude Saturday 7:30 a.m. PST with Johnson on the par-five 17th.

Weather isn’t expected to improve, though, as rain is forecast at 40 percent Saturday morning, increasing to a 70 percent chance by the afternoon.

“It was pretty miserable out there today. It never really let up,” Stricker said. “Conditions probably even got a little worse as the day went on.”

Playing on a soggy afternoon at Riviera Country Club, Johnson opened with birdies at the first and fourth holes before reaching the par-three 6th. The first-round leader hit eight-iron on the 152-yard hole and watched his shot hit beyond the pin and spin back into the cup.

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Square grooves or not, Riviera yielded plenty of red scores in the first round of the Northern Trust Open on Thursday.

The equipment ban made headlines during the week as Phil Mickelson was criticized by Scott McCarron for using 20-year-old Ping wedges at least week’s PGA Tour stop in San Diego. Pings dating prior to 1990 are currently legal via loophole, though all other clubs with square grooves have been outlawed for the 2010 season and beyond.

So to quiet the murmurs, Mickelson left the questionable clubs at home.

The two-time defending champion could have used some extra bite Thursday as he opened with a one-over par 72, but it had more to do with his putter. Mickelson missed par putts at 15, 16 and 18 to spoil a round that stood at three-under through 11 holes.

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A weathered sage once said that everything can be distilled into two categories: good for ball or bad for ball.

There are few gray areas, except for those things that can be categorized in both. But that’s life, isn’t it?

So it stands to reason the measuring stick can be applied to golf.

Seeing the shelf empty which last held the limited brew English Porter is bad for golf. Watching the clerk emerge from the backroom with the remaining six-pack is good for golf.

Pulling up in front of your house to see your three-year-old daughter playing with your vintage Jimi Hendrix vinyl, bad. Seeing her smile and making you forget why you were mad, good.

That’s how it works, everything is good for golf, or bad for golf. Here goes:

Bad for golf: Groovegate – The PGA Tour let themselves get played by this and now they’ve got players calling out their professional brethren as cheaters. For the moment, Tiger Woods is not part of the discussion.

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Ben Crane tried to give the Farmers Insurance Open away Sunday, but no one was quite willing to step up and take it on a clear and cool afternoon in San Diego.

A group of potential suitors extended five deep and seven players finished within two strokes of the lead but Crane minimized his mistakes just enough on the back nine of the South course at Torrey Pines to end on top.

It was the third PGA Tour title for Crane and worth not only a $954,000 first-place check, but a berth in the Masters in April.

Brandt Snedaker, Mark Leishman, Ernie Els and Rickie Fowler all could have at least forced a playoff, but none came closer than Michael Sim. The Australian lipped out a short birdie putt on 17 that would have tied him for the lead when playing-partner Crane missed a short putt for par on the same hole.

Yet it was a puzzling turn of course management decisions by Sim on 18 that tossed away his chances for victory.

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ORLANDO — A category that didn’t attract great attention, but had its share of new introductions is putters.

Most players will changes putters more often than any club in their bag and it’s critical to find one that works. It really doesn’t matter if it’s the goofiest looking stick on the planet. If you confidently roll in your share of putts with it, then it really doesn’t matter how much your playing partners laugh at you.

At the PGA Merchandise Show here, the classic look seems to be returning in putters as fewer, larger non-traditional shapes were on the floor.

Titleist rolled out four new models of its Scotty Cameron California line. Cameron putters, like the Titleist Vokey wedge, is popular with touring pros and all four Cameron California putters are heel-shafted and precision milled stainless steel heads. The Monterey and Coronado are both blade style putters, while the Sonoma and Del Mar have mallet-style heads.

The Monterey, Coronado and Sonoma putters are all right-hand only with Del Mar available in both right- and left-hand models.

Folding into its a7 line, Adams Golf has included a line of new putters. The a7 Select line includes four classically design putter heads, but with updated technology — three blades (60, 61 and 64 Series) and a mallet head (62 Series).

The putter faces are precision milled stainless steel, but also include composite inserts for better weight distribution.

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D.A. Points parlayed a seven-under par 65 on Friday to grab a share of the lead at the midway point of the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego.

The 33-year-old started his second round on the 10th hole of the South course at Torrey Pines and rolled in a seven-footer for a birdie on his final green of the day. Points made up 15 spots Friday and is seeking his first PGA Tour victory to go with his four wins on the Nationwide circuit.

Tied atop the leaderboard with Points is Ryudi Imada, who shot a 68 on the South course to improve from Thursday’s second-place standing. Imada opened his round with a birdie three on the par-four first hole and played a bogey-free round.

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ORLANDO — Game improvement has been the mantra in the irons market for several years and 2010 is no exception.

Not for the traditionalist to worry; a standard, forged muscle-back blade is still available. But for the majority of players — those in the mid handicap range and above — cavity back designs are de rigueur.

Titleist introduced the AP1 and AP2 irons here at the PGA Merchandise Show. Both feature dual cavity, multi-material clubheads for stability and control and utilize the manufacturer’s “tuned feel system” that is designed to improve the sound of shots. The AP1 has a slightly thicker top line than the AP2, but both irons are directed at the mid-handicapper.

True to its core, though, Titleist also  included its forged CB and MB irons in its 2010 product line.

Trying to bridge the gap between game improvement clubs and the classic look and feel of more traditional designs is Tour Edge with the Exotics XCG-3 irons. A slightly larger version of last year’s XCG, the 3 uses a dual-dampening system that fills the cavity with composite material. This is softer in the shorter irons for more control and harder in the longer irons for greater rebound effect, according to the manufacturer.

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ORLANDO — Titleist is the category leader in golf balls and touts that it’s also the No. 1 ball on tour, but there are others.

The golf ball is the one product that players everywhere will buy, acquire, find and in all ways procure many times during the course of a season. It is also the least expensive way to introduce something to your bag that can affect performance.

Need some distance, play one of the two-piece balls that can add a few extra yards to your drives. If more control is desired, find a multi-piece ball preferably with a softer cover that will produce more spin.

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ORLANDO — Ping has positioned itself as an innovator and is continuing to make its case with its latest introductions.

That would be the G15  series of clubs that is designed for game improvement, and the I15 line, which takes aim at better players.

In the 51 years since Karsten Solheim first made putters in his Redwood City garage, the company has put stock in its ability to not only bring innovation to the products it offers to golfers, but also to the machines it uses to make them.

Not satisfied with buying a machine that can simply do the job, they make their own. It’s a refelction of the engineering that Solheim brought to his company and ultimately named after his first putter, the 1A that actually made a pinging sound when it struck a golf ball.

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