The real upside of being Santa Claus -- aside from the elves and idolization -- is the offseason. He works one hard, 24-hour shift, and then gets 364 days of vacation. So you have to wonder where he spends all that down time.

Well, according to a Getty photo brought to our attention by Yahoo!'s Devil Ball Golf Blog, he may have spent some time on Kiawah Island over the weekend watching PGA Champ Rory McIlroy. You be the judge:

Hopefully St. Nick didn't bring his reindeer to the Ocean Course. With all those gators, he'd probably be out a ride home.

Van Sickle: McIlroy wins PGA Championship in record-setting rout

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PLAY HAS BEEN SUSPENDED AT THE PGA CHAMPIONSHIP.

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Tiger Woods shot one-under 71 Friday in brutal conditions at the PGA Championship to take a share of the lead in the season's final major.

Woods's round was extraordinary on a day when extreme winds buffeted players on the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, S.C. Gusts on the seaside track wreaked havoc with players' shots and sent scores soaring; the average 18-hole total on Friday was just above 78. Vijay Singh, with 69, was the only player to break 70, and 35 players failed to break 80.

Woods, four under for the tournament, was poised to head into the weekend with the outright lead until a three-putt bogey on the par-4 18th. He's tied with Singh and Carl Pettersson.

Woods has 14 major championships, second only to Jack Nicklaus's 18, but he hasn't won a major title since the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in San Diego. He has won three times this season, the most of any player on the PGA Tour.

Morfit: Tiger Woods among PGA leaders after brutal, gusty day at Kiawah

Photos: Sports Illustrated's best photos from Kiawah | Tiger Woods, a life in pictures

Photo: Fred Vuich/SI

On Wednesday, Graeme McDowell met with the USGA's Mike Davis to voice his opposition to belly putters, according to Hank Gola of the New York Daily News. GMac, who lost the last two majors to players using anchored putters, had this to say of the conversation:

"I think reading between the lines from what the R&A and the USGA are saying, I would say the change is coming," said Graeme McDowell Wednesday. "How imminent that change is obviously a different question..."

...They feel like their research has shown that putting under pressure down the stretch on the back nine on Sunday, when you can anchor the putter to a part of your body . . . that just takes one extraneous movement out of the putting stroke," he said. "It's just kind of a physical fact that if you can just take one element of movement and motion out of the stroke that holing putts will become easier.

"But having said that, if it was so easy, everyone would be using one," he said."

Meanwhile, Webb Simpson, a belly-putter practitioner who clipped McDowell at the U.S. Open in June, picked up on that last point, and drew a very different conclusion:

"Do I think they should be banned? No, and here's why," he said. "You take a wooden driver compared to a 460 cc's titanium, and to me that's a lot bigger difference than a 35 inch putter to a 45 inch putter. Also last year, the strokes game putting, nobody in the top 20 used a belly putter or a long putter. If anybody says it's an advantage, I think you've got to look at the stats and the facts."

Simpson, though, is preparing for the end of anchored days. He says he's already ordered two short Scotty Camerons. "I'm...kind of telling myself to expect it," he added.

Tiger Woods tied for lead at PGA Championship

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As our own Gary Van Sickle has reported, logistics are a bit of a problem at the PGA Championship, it being on an island and all. So how do you survive Glory's Last Traffic Jam on the access road to Kiawah Island? Same way you did as a kid: Use your Imagination!

If you're like Scott Michaux, golf writer for the Augusta Chronicle, that means imagining you're part of something more exciting. Like the mob.

Michaux filmed the bus trip from the media hotel to the media tent, and set the footage to the Sopranos theme song. Spoiler alert: his South Carolina drive includes more trees and golf courses, and fewer smokestacks, toll booths and pink pigs than the original. Here's the "The Road to Kiawah" in full:

This week's PGA Championship is the last chance for Americans to pick up Ryder Cup points. And majors count double. With 51 days until the first ball is struck at Medinah, team captains Davis Love III and Jose Maria Olazabal fielded questions at Kiawah Island. But they weren't asked about their chances this week on the Ocean Course. The two men talked captain's picks and course setups and shared a few memories on Wednesday afternoon:

MODERATOR: José Maria, start with you, please. Some thoughts about how your team at this point is shaping up.
Olazabal: Well, at the moment, I'm really happy. Every one of those ten players that are in today have Ryder Cup experience, all of them; in that regard, I'm really pleased. Obviously there are certain players that might not be at their best at the moment, but as you said, there is 51 days to go, and I'm pretty sure that they will be okay by then.

MODERATOR: Thank you. Davis, comments on your team. The top eight, again, will be in by the end of this Sunday.
Love III: Right. Obviously a big week for us, the PGA Championship and the end of the points on Sunday. I know there's several guys that are working really hard to try to make the team. So hopefully they will relax and just play the PGA this week and work their way in. But our team is shaping up very well. A lot of guys are playing well, as José Maria said, all our top really 12 to 15 guys seem to be playing very, very well.

We are very excited about it. It was a great win for Keegan [Bradley] last week and a great putt on the last hole, and obviously Jim [Furyk] is playing very well week-in and week-out now. A lot of guys-- there's not a whole lot of movement, but we have a whole lot of guys playing very, very well top to bottom.

MODERATOR: Thank you, both. And again, officially Tiger Woods is the only player on the United States Team who has officially clinched a spot for the U.S.

What about Mr. Woods?
Q. Haven't asked much about Tiger, and obviously he is your one guy right now that's in. Wondering, first of all, if you've talked to him about maybe any pressure he's feeling, not been part of a winning team since 1999, and have you picked his brain a little bit about the secret to Medinah, because he seems to have figured it out from an individual standpoint?
Love III: I've talked to him about several things but not about specifically how to play Medinah. I played with him at least two rounds one year when he won there, and I saw how he did it. He hit it really long and straight and made a lot of putts, and that seemed to work real well for him.

But like José Maria said, this is a big week and a lot of those things are starting to come together. Obviously when the team is set, then I can say, who wants to go play, and who doesn't know the course. Tiger doesn't need to go, but maybe he can tell us something to do when we do go.

I think these guys in this day and age, you see-- I heard maybe Geoff Ogilvy came here or somebody came, Adam Scott came and played early or Tiger came and played early. Guys know how to prepare now and I think don't have to tell them a whole lot about how to get ready for a golf course. I'm relying on Tiger and Stricker and Furyk, like I said earlier, to help me make those decisions and help me make assistant captain's decisions and things like that, and the golf course is going to be a big one. Luckily we know Medinah pretty well. Guys on both sides, they know the golf course pretty well. We are pretty used to it. Maybe there's some Keegan Bradleys and Rory McIlroys that are younger that don't know it. But a lot of our guys have seen it or seen something very similar to it.

Good omen for Jim Furyk?
In addition to mentioning him above, Love refered postively to Furyk and other Ryder Cup veterans -- notably Steve Stricker and Phil Mickelson -- multiple times in the press conference. Both Furyk (11th in points) and Stricker (10th) will need a Captain's selection if they don't make up ground this week.

Love, though, didn't say too much about who he's considering with his picks:

Well, I've said several times, we'll be plugging holes, matching pairings, things like that. Obviously if Steve Stricker was on the outside, we have a guy that likes to play with him, that's a lock...So you look at things like that. You want some hot putters. You might want another long-ball hitter. But I think this week is important, because it ends the points. But it's just as important as any of the guys who play at Greensboro or who plays well at Barclays. That's what we're looking for.

A Seve story, for old time's sake:
Olazabal: Regarding moments or something to remember from The Ryder Cup that we played here in'91 with Seve [Ballesteros], I would go to one of the first matches that we played, the way we started. We were hitting the ball all over the place. We ended up winning the match, and, you know, certain moments. For instance, I remember the second hole, the par5. He snap-hooked the tee shot way left into the water and I have to drop it on the ladies tee, that's how bad he hit the tee shot. (Laughter.)

I hit it onto the fairway. Obviously the U.S. Team was, like always, right in the middle of the fairway. They hit the second shot short of the green in two; Seve hit a 4-iron and blocked it right into the trees, left me against the tree, and I have to chip it out. And obviously we are lying five and the U.S. Team is like two, and I look at Seve, and I said, what the hell are we doing here, let's pick the ball up and go to the third hole. And in those days, the green had water front and water on the back. Seve said, "Just hold on a second. If we chip-and-putt, we make 7." Yes, correct, Seve. That's true.

"Well, if they miss the chip and hit it in the water and drop it and chip it on to the green and make two putts, what do they do? Seven. So we still have a chance. Let's go." (Laughter.)

So you know, that's one of the stories.

The big takeaways from Wednesday's press conferences at the PGA Championship? The course is long, paspalum is true, and it's as hard as ever to win a major. Here are some highlights from the day's pressers:

ERNIE ELS
Fresh off his with at The Open, Els talked about his new-found calm, his relationship with Adam Scott, and what sort of player has the advantage at a rain-soaked Kiawah.

Q. How would you describe the way you felt, your emotions, whatever, since playing the back nine at Olympic Club, and if it was calm, where did that come from?
Els: I think just being more secure of what you're doing and basically my routine was really good. You know, and I feel whenever you have a good routine, the pre-shot routine into your golf shots, and you're clear in your mind of what you want to do, there's not too many things flying around in your head. I was just more secure of what I wanted to do. And I think that obviously started at the U.S. Open, I felt that, and obviously it was a lot better at The Open.

Q. Do you feel you have had and will have the level of credit for winning The Open this year, or do you think what happened with Adam could become a dominant story in some ways, and that would be unfortunate?
Els: I think you're going to remember what Adam did. There's no two ways about it. And then hopefully people remember the putts that I made, because I still shot 32 on the back nine to give Adam something to think about. You know, I think for the short term, probably they are going to think about Adam's mistakes that he made, and I think long term, eventually my name is going to stay on the Jug (chuckling).

Q. Along those lines, I know you spoke with Adam Sunday at Lytham; have you spoken at all with him since then?
Els: Yes, we have. We've spoken. We stayed in the same hotel last week and saw him a couple of times. I'm actually playing nine holes with him this afternoon. So as I say, I've known Adam since he's come out here ten years ago, and we have got a pretty good, close relationship. He's a good friend of the family and of mine. You know, if he needs any help to win a major, I'll definitely give it to him; if he needs any encouragement, I'll give it to him. He's a great friend.

Q. Does anybody who cannot hit the ball 300 not have a chance in this thing because of the softness in the fairways?
Els: Yeah, I mean, everybody's got a chance in the field, but I think it definitely helps the super long bombers, Bubba, Dustin, Tiger, the real long guys that can fly it 320. Those guys can reach all four par 5s now, where I can hit it 300, but I can't fly it 320. So I'm probably going to lay up on all of the par 5s. Doesn't take me out of the tournament, but you know, it definitely gives those real super long bombers a great advantage around this golf course now. There's no run out there. It's just plugging where it is.

ADAM SCOTT
Scott, who came up on the losing end of Els's Open, spoke about the course, lessons learned, and how good it feels to get another shot at a major.

Q. From what you've seen so far, perspective on The Ocean Course?
Scott: I've had three pretty good looks at it, twice last week and then I played Monday morning this week. I feel like I'm getting a fairly good understanding of the golf course. It's obviously very long and very severe if you're off line. It's going to test every aspect of your game. But certainly, I believe there's no secret recipe to it. If you can hit some fairways and greens, you're going to give yourself a chance to score well. Start with a focus on ball-striking and work on it from there

Q. Can you talk a little bit about your strategy playing when the wind is very high? At Lytham, you did very well in the wind, I noticed you didn't hit it particularly lower than usual it seemed to me. How do you approach playing in the wind?
Scott: Well, it's different at Lytham than, say, playing here. Obviously the ball runs a lot on a links course and there's often an entryway into a green on the ground there.So if you can control your ball flight low, you can keep the ball out of the wind and have it not as affected, and I was swinging well and had everything under control. I drove the ball great. I teed it very low and just hit very low, hot runners off the tee and they were going straight all week. I was at a huge advantage, because I was hitting a lot of drivers out there and playing somewhat aggressively I guess.

But probably a different story here if the wind gets up, because you're still going to have to hit the ball in the air. There are a lot of forced carries off tees and there are some forced carries into greens, so there's no option of running the ball along the ground up on to the greens. You just have to really have to stand up there and hit a great shot. And it's kind of an educated guess on how much the wind will affect your shot. If you hit the shot well, you'll have a good idea how much it affects it, but if you mis-strike it, it's up to Mother Nature to determine where your ball is going to finish.

Q. You put on a clinic through three rounds at Lytham last month; if you find yourself in the same position here on Sunday, are you worried about some of those feelings creeping back, some of those emotions that maybe you were feeling on the back nine there at Lytham?
Scott: I don't think I'd be worried about it. It may or may not happen. You know, if I was in that position again, I'd feel like I'm playing pretty good. So at that point, I'd be quite confident.

But, the couple of things that I took out of it, hopefully put into practice at that point and not let that happen again. It's certainly not something you'd like to make a habit of, and I never have; I've generally been a good closer of golf tournaments in my career. You know, I'd like-- if I was in that position, I'd like to turn it around this time and close the golf tournament out.

RORY MCILROY
McIlroy rated his season, gushed over the conditions, and even took a stab at the spelling bee.

Q.Comment on what you've seen so far from practicing and preparing on the course for this championship. McIlroy: Yeah, it's a long golf course, a big golf course. It's a golf course you not only have to hit it well, but you really have to think about what you're doing out there. You know, you really have to pick your spots where you want to hit it, and obviously with the weather the way it's been this week, that's going to play a pretty big factor, too.

But you know, I like what I see. I think the course is in phenomenal shape. I love the greens. I love the paspalum. I think the ball rolls really, really well. So I'm looking forward to the week.

Q. There's been a lot of talk about the paspalum greens. I wonder if you could tell us at what stage in your life you first heard that word, if you can spell it for us, and your general thoughts.
McIlroy: P-a-s-p-a-l-u-m, and the Bear's Club actually have paspalum. We practice on paspalum all the time; me, Luke, Keegan, Dustin. It's something we are quite used to and something I was talking to Luke about yesterday, something that the guys that are members of the Bear's Club might have an advantage because we are used to how it reacts and we practice on that stuff on our off-weeks, so it's actually quite nice.

It's very spiny. When you see guys chipping off of greens and hitting wedge shots, it bites a lot. Even as I said earlier, when the greens are firm, just this certain type of grass, it just really grabs the ball. So you can be aggressive with your chip shots and definitely aggressive with your wedge shots, too.

Q. How would you rate your year to date, and what are you pleased with and what are you disappointed with?
McIlroy: It's been good. You know, there was a few goals I set myself early at the start of the year, which I achieved; getting to No. 1 in the world, and playing well, winning a tournament early.

And then the second half of the season has been-- it's still been pretty good. It's been a little bit more of a struggle. But you know, I feel like I'm playing pretty well, so, I mean, if I had to give my season a grade to this point, I'd probably give it a B. There's still a lot of golf left to play, but very happy with some of the golf that I've played this year. You know, I've still got a lot of good golf to look forward to.

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