Is Woods's return bad for the PGA Tour?

From The Wall Street Journal:  

Tiger Woods is golf's moneymaker. The PGA Tour, CBS, Augusta National, everyone associated with the Masters is breathing a huge sigh of relief that Woods is returning for the year's first major. But Woods's return may be the worst possible thing for the PGA Tour in the long run. Certainly, hundreds of golfers can thank Tiger for driving up purses and making sure that even the relatively mediocre are living quite comfortably. But Woods's dominance is a clear sign of the superstar effect which causes opponents to concede, rather than rise to the occasion when competing against him. Golf's finest era had Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer duking it out on the course (not literally, of course). Tiger is so dominant that he has eliminated the critical aspect of sports: competition.

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Wie still striving with 'gruesome' workload

From NY Times:  

Michelle Wie's career is still driven toward golf, but it has diversified of late. In the past year, Wie has stepped outside the lines of her paint-by-numbers life, pushing her limits and pursuing other interests. She prepared for her second full season on the L.P.G.A. Tour by cramming 20 units into her winter quarter at Stanford. Wie cheerfully described the workload as "pretty gruesome, actually" but necessary if she is to take off the spring quarter to play golf and graduate as planned in 2012, with a communications degree.

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Aging Couples to be in contention at Masters

From USA Today  

Fred Couples is looking to make another run . No matter what he says, Couples isn't done on the PGA Tour. He's a past champion at the Shell Houston Open and was T14 at the Northern Trust Open at Riviera and T37 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale earlier this year. Next week, the 1992 Masters champion will play at Augusta National, one of his favorite golf courses in the world. If on form, and if his back is not acting up, Couples could certainly contend in the first major of the season.

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Privacy hurting Tiger's course design plans

From The New York Times Magazine

Image issues are affecting a course designed by Tiger Woods. Woods, of course, did not cause the recession that has slowed the project. But the scandal that forced him off golf courses and into hiding did not help promote the high-end community, where his course is the main draw. The intense scrutiny of Woods, and his desire for privacy, may also make it difficult for him to play a major role in promoting the course once it is finished, particularly if he struggles to regain his top-ranked form as a player.

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Hogan showed the best can achieve greatness after absence

From The New York Times Magazine:

If Tiger Woods wins the Masters in his return to professional golf, he will have matched a feat seen just once before. To return from such a long layoff and win a major championship would prove that Woods actually can turn his game on and off at will. Both Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer said they could not imagine being away from the tour for so long and winning a major. But one golf great has done so before. Ben Hogan won the 1951 Masters after nine months away from competitive golf. Hogan's feat is all the more impressive for the serious injuries he overcame to continue winning golf tournament's after a near-fatal car accident in 1949. Hogan is famous for winning the 1950 U.S. Open in the year after the crash, but even that touranment came after a shorter layoff than the nine months he was away from professional golf preceding the 1951 Masters.

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PGA Tour trying to protect its Tiger Bubble

From The New York Times Magazine:

Tiger Woods is the most important player to the game of golf in terms of the bottom line. As far as professional golf is concerned, Woods cannot come back fast enough. The PGA Tour is at a critical juncture. Next year it will begin negotiating new TV contracts with CBS and NBC. In the meantime, the tour is trying to secure sponsors for 10 events in 2011 while economic conditions are not exactly favorable. Two of the hardest-hit industries, financial services and car manufacturing, are responsible for underwriting a third of the PGA Tour's sponsored events.

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What would happen if Tiger won The Masters?

From ESPN.com: 

Tiger Woods is saying all the right things these days, but what if he won The Masters? Would that leave everyone speechless? How are we supposed to react then? It's possible, you know. From all accounts coming out of Orlando, Woods's game is as sharp as a sushi knife. It's "vintage" right now, according to John Cook, who's been playing with him lately. "I don't see anybody beating him." "He's killing it, absolutely killing it," Tour player Arjun Atwal told reporters in Orlando. "If he gets that putter going at all, he'll probably win."

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Tiger's foundation still flourishing

From ESPN.com: 

There are still a fw people and companies standing in support of Tiger Woods. The sponsors of his foundation haven't jumped ship, even as some such as AT&T and Accenture have severed ties with Woods himself. And if the foundation folks hired by Tiger thought his transgressions embarrassing, they're not letting on. As if reading from the same talking points, they profess to be so consumed by their work -- most specifically the daily operation of the Tiger Woods Learning Center here in Southern California -- that they pay no mind to the salacious accounts of his female conquests, or even the question of when he'll resurface on the PGA Tour. They say the busloads of students still show up daily, and the lone concern voiced by parents is whether the educational programs and scholarships might go away.

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Should Tiger do more for Orlando?

From Orlando Sentinel: 

Add the City of Orlando to the list of people, individuals and ideas who have been wronged by Tiger Woods. By choosing to return at the Masters instead of Arnold Palmer's tournament at Bay Hill, Tiger has chosen to deprive Orlando of the economic benefit of his appearance in what could be described as his hometown tournament. His absence at Bay Hill this year appears to resonate all the more in Orlando where locals are perturbed that Tiger does not give as much back to the community as they think he should. After all, Tiger hosts his golf tournament in Washington D.C. (actually Philadelphia this year) and his charity concert, TigerJam, in Las Vegas (I don't think that one will be coming back any time soon), but there is little Tiger has done publicly for the city of Orlando and the surrounding area.

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Masters to look hypocritical in Woods's case

From NY Daily News:   

Augusta National and The Masters are about to try the look of hypocrisy on for size. There is no way Masters chairman Billy Payne is going to acknowledge any material on a Web site where the host is baring her breasts while staring provocatively into the camera. As a past Masters champion and honorary Augusta member, Woods can play each April until his golf game grows cobwebs. Unlike with the PGA Tour, there is no precedent for the Masters to rescind an invite of any participant because of behavior off the course and the tournament does not have a "conduct unbecoming" clause.

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