The controversy over Kenny Perry skipping the British Open to play in the U.S. Bank Championship (the artist formerly known as the Greater Milwaukee Open) escapes me.

Skipping a major championship, as Perry is doing, is not an insult to the event's governing body or the host country or anything else. It is a simple admission of defeat. By taking a pass on the British Open, Perry is admitting that he can't win the British Open.

That may seem like a strange position for a player who has won twice this year and 11 times in his career but the man is 47 and despite looking like a world-beater when he gets on a hot streak (like he's on now), his record says he's not major-championship caliber. If Perry was going to win a major, he would have done it before the age of 47. What's wrong with admitting, three years before you're eligible to play senior golf, that your high-draw ball flight is ill-suited to windy British Open links-style golf?

Kenny Perry can't win the British Open. By playing in Milwaukee that week instead, he's just admitting the slightly painful, but obvious truth. Give him credit, not criticism, for his honesty.

(Photo: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)