Jack's back at it
As I noted last week, Jack Nicklaus has been anything but shy lately about discussing how the PGA Tour handles (and should handle) its business. At yesterday's press conference for his Memorial Tournament, Jack was asked about requiring players to compete in a certain amount of tournaments. Nicklaus was pretty clear about his feelings on the subject (transcript courtesy of ASAP sports):

...What is happening on the Tour today is you have got your four major championships. You have got your world championships. You have got your other significant events. By the time you get done with it, and it's not a U.S. Tour anymore. This is World Tour, whether you think it is or not. The players from around the world, if they're going to come here -- let's say they're required to play 12 events here. That is a lot of events for them to play. They have got to go home and support their own Tour. So that is a lot of golf for these guys. So you start designating them to play more, it really becomes a difficult situation.

While it's hard to argue with Jack's response, I can't help but feel a little disappointed in it. As is often pointed out (even by Jack earlier in his response), golfers are independent contractors. They don't have contracts with teams or owners, and they are responsible for themselves. At the same time, the PGA Tour (like nearly every other business) is struggling right now, and it seems like common sense that the more that players contribute to (read: play in) less prestigious tournaments, the more likely those events are to stay up and running through the tough economy. As entitled as Nicklaus is to his opinion, it's also important to remember that he's got a bit of a skewed perspective on this issue: the top players actually show up to his tournament.

TMI?
Needless to say, the PGA Tour is in an era of unsurpassed physical fitness. The Tiger revolution has spurred even the most laid back Tour pros to try Yoga, resistance training and any assortment of high energy diets. As Karl MacGinty of Ireland's The Independent reports, 3-time Major winner Padraig Harrington is taking things just a bit further to get out of his current slump, including using a device known as a refractometer.

Every day, Harrington will use a hand-held refractometer to determine if he is properly hydrated. He simply places a drop of urine on the prism and forwards the results to his health and fitness specialist Dr Liam Hennessy for analysis.

On the 15 to 20 weeks per year that Dr Hennessy travels with the Irishman to tournaments, the medic himself will conduct daily blood, urine and stress testing on Harrington to ensure he is in peak physical condition, especially going into that crunch time at tournaments -- Sunday afternoon.

Until recently, the fitness director at the IRFU, Dr Hennessy, played a key role in the success of Irish rugby entering the professional era, helping to develop the speed and mobility of our players at a time when others opted for brute strength.

Yet his work on Harrington's physiology is just one facet of the Dubliner's 24/7 devotion to the pursuit of further success at the Majors. If it is within reason (and, of course, the rules) he is willing to give anything a try.

I highly recommend reading the rest of that article, as MacGinty also goes into some of the other (and more conventional) methods that Harrington is using to get himself back to top form. But let's not kid ourselves, the real news here is that Harrington has his urine checked every day for optimal hydration levels. Listen, I know these guys are professional athletes and that they want their bodies performing at the highest possible levels, but...really? If John Daly can win two majors with more Diet Coke than water in his bloodstream, I think we can assume that there's a lot more to winning golf tournaments than peak fitness. What surprises me most about this story is that I always think of Harrington as an old-school player. In fact, we chose Harrington to test some 50-year-old equipment for our 50th Anniversary Issue for that exact reason. Is this sort of reliance on fitness technology playing it smart or just plain desperation? Only the leaderboards will tell us that.

Giving it all away
Apparently Golfsmith's Phil Mickelson Master's giveaway was a smashing success, because they're doing it again. From the Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch:

Just months after Phil Mickelson's Masters win resulted in Golfsmith giving away a $1 million in golf clubs, the nation's largest specialty golf retailer, hopes to have a repeat performance with another million dollar golf club giveaway.

Golfsmith is teaming up with TaylorMade and a trio of golfers, two-time U.S. Open Champion Retief Goosen, Sergio Garcia and Sean O'Hair with a new national promotion tied to the U.S. Open Golf Championship.

"Pick a Pro and Win" gives customers an opportunity to win new TaylorMade drivers, free of charge, if Garcia, Goosen or O'Hair, is victorious at Pebble Beach. Now through June 16 golfers who purchase one of three new TaylorMade drivers -- the R9 Super Tri, Burner SuperFast or the R9 460 driver -- at any Golfsmith store across the country will have the purchase price of their TaylorMade driver fully refunded by Golfsmith if the player they choose -- Garcia, Goosen or O'Hair -- wins the U.S. Open. Like the Phil Mickelson promotion, Golfsmith has purchased an insurance policy to cover the promotion.

Talk about a no-lose situation. The free press alone was well worth whatever insurance premiums Golfsmith has paid on these promotions in the past. Those premiums must be pretty steep though, as Golfsmith keeps making this giveaway more and more likely. The first time they ran the promotion in 2009, customers had to pin their hopes on perennial major disappointment Garcia. After the goodwill provided by Lefty's Masters victory, Golfsmith had the sense to make the goal more attainable, adding Goosen and O'Hair into the mix. Expect a slight spike in TaylorMade sales over the next few weeks, and a bunch of white-knuckled spectators at your clubhouse bar come the Open. Still, as my colleague Mike Walker told me, "If they really wanted to get people excited, they'd just give away the million dollars."

Yeah, me again. After listening to a PGA Tour caddie's complaints about unsatisfactory working conditions, I still didn't make it inside the press center before another blog-op hit me (that's another new word I just invented--it means an item worthy of blogging).

A public relations person was standing guard outside the press center to alert us media hacks about Pink on the Links, a program to raise money for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (or BCRF as we insiders know it). Champ, which makes non-metal spikes, created a commemorative pink-and-white spike and found a number of tour players to wear them this week during the tournament. So watch the Players telecast closely and see if you can spot any pink spikes on the bottoms of shoes.

Here's a partial lineup of who's going to look pretty in pink this week: Geoff Ogilvy, Steve Stricker, Boo Weekley, Angel Cabrera, Jose Maria Olazabal, Anthony Kim, Mark Calcavecchia, Luke Donald (above), Charles Howell, Fred Couples, Mike Weir, Jim Furyk and (probably) Phil Mickelson.

In addition, Champ is raising money for BCRF with a charity auction on eBay, featuring autographed items by assorted players, including a Tiger Woods-signed flag from the British Open and shoes signed by Padraig Harrington and Lorena Ochoa. The auction will run from May 10 until May 20. You can check it out at stores.ebay.com/pinkonthelinks, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to BCRF.

(Photo: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)

I've been out doing research the last few days. You might call it playing golf, but I call it research. (That looks so much better on an expense report, trust me.)

I've wanted to follow up on what I thought was the most exciting innovation at this year's PGA Merchandise Show -- interchangeable shafts. TaylorMade sent me their Tour Van in a Box to try out. It came with the new r7 CGB Max driver head (9 degrees), three different shafts and a valuables pouch that includes assorted movable weights and a tool that is used to change the weights and shafts.

We've seen some pretty garish driver heads in the last two years, but the CGB Max isn't one of them. It does have a stretched triangular look, which doesn't seem nearly as outlandish now as it did a year ago, and the head is painted in a sparkling burgundy color -- really good looking.

I haven't been a big fan of the wave of big-headed, big-MOI drivers that came out in '07. At least, I haven't found anything I liked better than what I had been using. And club evaluation, of course, is all about how it affects me and my game. Now I have to change my mind. It's a loaner that I have to send back, otherwise the CGB Max would likely be finding a permanent home in my bag. I was surprised how well I hit it (all those bad memories from last year's big-headed driver show still lingered).

I was also surprised by the shafts. The three choices are a 65-gram Mitsubishi Diamana, a 55-gram Matrix Ozik and a 75-gram Fujikura Rombax. The different shafts are supposed to produce different ball flights for different playing conditions or courses.

I was really looking forward to trying them out on the range at my home course near Pittsburgh, Treesdale. The funny thing was, I didn't see much difference in my shots. I hit all three shafts well and with more or less similar flight trajectories. FYI, I'm close to a scratch golfer but I do it with what could best be called a caddie-yard swing. My point is, I was expecting to see dramatic differences between the three and I didn't.

I'm not even sure which shaft I hit the best. They were all pretty good. The shaft on my previous driver was a 55-gram model, and the one I'm using right now has a 65-gram shaft. I could use any of these three shafts and be happy. Now, I'm sure if I'd been hooked up to a launch monitor, the numbers would be different and it would be easier to figure out which shaft is optimal for my game.

But I didn't have a chance to do that, and it's time to put it all in the box and send it back to TaylorMade. I still love the concept, and just so you know, I'll be going back to Treesdale, bumming a demo model off my pro and doing further, ahem, research for you.

The best looking golf bag at Augusta National this week--subjective alert; subjective alert--has to be the special edition, just-for-the-Masters TaylorMade bag, rubber-and-pleather, black, white and Carolina Blue, going so well against the Fertilizer Green of Augusta National.

In the Augusta bag room, the bags are segregated by brand. In the TaylorMade 'hood are the bags of Justin Rose, Retief Goosen, Scott Verplank, David Toms, Mike Weir (his bag, right), Peter Lonard, Vaughn Taylor and Richard Sterne. Each player was given two bags, one for the week of the tournament -- that goes back to Taylormade to be used for charitable purposes -- and a nice keepsake.

What makes the bag so especially good-looking is a little tag sewn on the front made to make it look like a vintage Masters admissions tag, or a circa-1970 greens fee ticket, with the little brass ring and string. At the top of it are three outlines of the greens on 11, 12 and 13 and underneath are praying hands. In the upper-right corner are the initials "A.P." and "1958," a nod to Arnold Palmer, who won his first Masters in 1958. Below are the initials "H.W.W." A prize -- free access to the golf.com website -- to any reader who can identify what those initials stand for.

Jack Taylor, caddying for his son, Vaughn, in the Wednesday Par-3 Tournament, said, "I know this, I know this, I know this -- they told me this." No credit. Scott Verplank knew right away. Hint: five syllables.

Scottie Martin, Lonard's looper, said one especially cool feature about the bag -- we think he was being literal -- was a water cooler pocket lined with that crinkly aluminum material like you see in an attic or a lunch box. Lonard, on his fairway woods, was also using the old-style pompom headcovers provided for Masters week.

His driver headcover was the red-and-yellow space-age looking thing that goes so well with the bag he'll go back to using next week at Hilton Head.

(Photo: John W. McDonough/SI)

Callaway's I-Mix technology, the company's new interchangeable shaft system, is making an appearance at Augusta National this week.

Phil Mickelson, known for tinkering with his equipment and winning the 2006 Masters with two drivers in his bag, is experimenting again. In addition to carrying two drivers in Tuesday's practice round, he has also been using the I-Mix system.

"I did have two drivers in the bag today," Mickelson said in his press conference Tuesday. "The nice thing about that is I have been able to interchange shafts and put a longer shaft in if I want to get more distance. I'm hoping I only need one driver because I want to put an extra wedge in. But if I feel like distance is going to be a bigger factor, I'll stick a second driver in. I don't know. It will be day-to-day. I have two or three different game plans."

Ernie Els has also been working with the I-Mix system, using an FT-I head with a few different shafts.

"We've been working on an FT-I square head driver, and I'm actually using the square head but the old shaft," he said Tuesday during his press conference. "If you don't like a certain shot, you can pull it out on the range and put another shaft into the head." He said he was "still working on getting the perfect fit."

Els also said he would be using a softer Callaway ball this week. "I can spin it around the greens a lot better, and the ball comes out a bit lower, but it spins better, so I think I'll probably use that."

(Photo: Andrew Redington/Getty Images)