Former Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band drummer Vini "Mad Dog" Lopez, who quit the band because he "didn't blindly follow Bruce," will be backing up a different boss next week in San Francisco, Ian O'Conner of ESPN.com reports. Lopez was on the bag yesterday for Mark McCormick, a 49-year-old New Jersey club pro, who posted a 36-hole score of 4 under par to pick up one of the four spots up for grabs in the U.S. Open field at the Olympic Club. Unfortunately for Lopez, that means a week off from his current lounge act, License to Chill.

"Vini's the real celebrity out here," McCormick said. Lopez said he would cancel his band appearances to travel to San Francisco with his man. The drummer they called Mad Dog has been a longtime caddie and caddie master in Jersey, and he wants a piece of the big time.

"When you're on stage at Giants Stadium with Bruce," Lopez said, "the lights are on us and it's total darkness in the crowd. You don't see the people, you hear them. At Olympic, you'll see everyone. The people are right there."

The caddie wants to see Tiger and Phil more than the drummer wants to see the Boss. "Bruce calls and says, 'Hey Vini, I haven't seen you in a while, so why don't you come down and hang out?'" Lopez said. "Bruce calls me when he needs me."

After looping for McCormick the last 22 years, looks like Lopez will at last stop hiding on golf's backstreets.

Sabbatini, Levin among notables who failed to qualify for U.S. Open

So you know Davis Love III and Casey Martin are headed back to Olympic for next week's U.S. Open. But it's the morning after, and it's time to count casualties from Sectional Qualifying, which wrapped up at nine courses yesterday. (The last two -- in Oregon and Tennessee -- are slated to finish up in the next couple days.)

At the top of the heap is Spencer Levin, who followed up a disappointing Sunday in Ohio with a disappointing Monday in Ohio. Both Levin, currently ranked 61st in the world, and Memorial runner-up Rory Sabbatini posted two-round scores of 5-over, five shots out of the playoff at even par.

Sabbatini and Levin weren't the only notables on the wrong side of the cut line in a stacked Columbus qualifier. Big names who won't be at Olympic include Camillo Villegas, who delivered the dreaded, always mysterious NC ("no card"), Ricky Barnes, who withdrew after carding a first round at 1-over, Ohio-native Ben Curtis, who finished two shots off the qualifying score, and Ryan Moore, who finished three strokes out.

To see who else survived the scrum, head over to the USGA for results from every qualifier.  

Tahoe casino sets odds on celebrity golf event, makes Romo favorite

Coming to a bookie near you: Tony Romo (5/2) is the favorite to win the American Century Celebrity Golf Champion next month in Tahoe, according to The Sacramento Bee. For those who bet on stuff like that. Or those who care. Longer shots: Charles Barkley, Kevin Nealon, Dennis Haysbert are coming in early at 500-1. So you're saying there's a chance...

And finally...

"America's Finest News Source" (i.e., The Onion), is doing our job for us with this Tiger headline: "Tiger Woods Back Again After Being Back From Being Back. Or, you know, making fun of us. We earnest folks at Golf.com stuggle with snark.

Tweet of the Day

SANDWICH, England -- Ricky Barnes had just been swimming in the Pacific Ocean, in Aptos, Calif., when he received the call on Monday night that he was first alternate for the Open Championship at Royal St. George's.

Barnes had already decided to make the 7,000-mile journey from California to England if he was first alternate. It's a long way to travel for an outside shot for a spot, but it was a no-brainer for Barnes.

He jumped on a plane and arrived at the golf course mid-day on Wednesday, in time to play a practice round.

On Thursday, with half the field already on the golf course, it seemed like Barnes would miss out. Then he heard about Nicolas Colsaerts, who injured his elbow in a motor scooter crash in Sandwich on Monday and withdrew at noon on Thursday.

"It's unfortunate that Nicholas fell off a moped, but I was fortunate to fill the void," Barnes said.

Barnes had about two hours to prepare and warm-up before his tee time.

He took advantage of the opportunity early on, which should come as no surprise considering his habit of showing up on major championship leaderboards in the past two years. He fired a two-under 68 in the first round, and at one point on Friday he was four under for the championship.

The came a triple bogey at the par-5 14th, where he hit his second shot out of bounds, and four back-nine bogeys. He shot 33-41 for a four-over 74, dropping him to two over for the tournament.

"I played here in '03 and felt like I was playing good, and I was playing good," said Barnes. "One bad shot today and here I am."

(Photo: Robert Beck/SI)

After back-to-back wins at Hilton Head and scoring 2 1/2 points for the victorious 2008 U.S. Ryder Cup team, Boo Weekley has only four top 10s in the past two seasons. Fortunately, everyone's favorite orangutan fighter is coming out swinging in 2011. The Pensacola News Journal caught up with Boo as he prepares to start his season this week at the Sony Open, and he said he's ready to be his old self again, even if it means ruffling a few blazers in Ponte Vedra.

"I'm ready to get back to the old Boo and play golf, show a little more attitude on the golf course," said Weekley, who makes his 2011 debut at the Sony Open in Hawaii on Thursday. "Once you get out there (on the PGA Tour) they lure you into their perspective of how things should be done on tour — You can't act up, you can't do this, you can't do that. I'm ready to get back to being who I really am on the golf course. If I want to throw a golf club, I'll throw the (darn) thing. If I want to beat my bag ... I know they don't want to see that, but hey, that's me."

It's also good to hear Boo worked on his game during the holidays, something he said he's never done, and he also played practice rounds on the Bob Hope courses in California before heading over to Hawaii. Hopefully the work pays off. Boo is one of the most entertaining players on and off the course. Here's a small sample below from the 2008 Ryder Cup.

Them's the Rules
ESPN's Bob Harig talked with PGA Tour rules official Geoff Russell and the USGA's Mike Davis about Camilo Villegas's DQ at Kapalua. Harig poses the question a lot of people are asking: Why not just assess the penalty to his score and let him play?

"We have had formal requests to review that," Davis said of both the USGA and the R&A, which governs the game outside of the United States and Mexico. "We've gotten it from the PGA Tour, LPGA Tour, European Tour … and we have looked at it. One thing that has been proposed is assessing the penalty, and then adding an additional 2-stroke penalty -- so it would be a total of 4 strokes [if the penalty came to light after the card was signed]. At least the player would still be in the field.

"We looked at it long and hard. At the end of the day, it just didn't gain traction. There are just so many ramifications. We don't really like how the golf world is viewing these type of things, but at the end of the day, it is the players' responsibility to know the rules."

There is nothing stopping the PGA Tour from instituting a local rule that is not covered in the USGA rule book.

But good luck with that.

"We could do that, but I don't know if we want to do that," Russell said. "It just doesn't work like that."

Storyteller
There are 26 rookies this week at the Sony Open, and with the pro-am washed out on Wednesday, Golfweek's Jim McCabe used the opportunity to ask Jim Furyk about his first event as a rookie.

Prepared to warm up in a traditional manner, meaning he took out his wedge, Furyk surveyed a hard right-to-left wind he was going to hit into and took aim at a flag to his left.

“I hit it really fat . . . I blew all this dirt and sand up in the air and it just coated the guy next to me,” he said.

Furyk looked and was sick to discover it was Lanny Wadkins, sort of an iconic figure on the PGA Tour back then, renowned for being the ultimate no-nonsense guy.

Tweet of the Day

@RealRickyBarnes: Pulled out of the Sony. I will b[e] back soon either Bob Hope or Farmers in San Diego. Back was bothering me a bit but another weeks Rest need[ed]

Everybody’s talking about the youth movement on the PGA Tour, but still-youthful Ricky Barnes expects to see a Tiger Woods movement in 2011. Barnes’ reasoning: Woods is mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore. The Toronto Sun has the details:

Former U.S. Amateur champion Ricky Barnes, who had six top 10s himself in 2010, points to other names such as Jeff Overton, 27, Hunter Mahan, 28, and Rickie Fowler, 22, for distinguishing themselves in 2010.

"Not only are they competing and way up there, but we also were able to get a few of those names in the Ryder Cup (Fowler, Mahan, Johnson) and get the rest of the world familiar with a lot of the young Americans," said Barnes, 29, who feels it won't be long before Woods is back in peak form.

"I think everything's maybe going to start mellowing out in his life on and off the golf course and the guy's way too good, way too talented and way too determined to go a year and not win, so I'm sure, if anything, this is probably the most pissed off as he's been after a full season," said Barnes.

Ernie Els stars in Hot Putter Time Machine
Ernie Els held off fellow countryman Retief Goosen to win the South Africa Open on Sunday, and in a hard-hitting self-interview on ErnieEls.com, the Big Easy said his improved putting was the key to his victory. One reason he’s rolling it better, Els said, is that Callaway has built a replica of Els’s putter from his glory days.

"It felt really good to follow that first round with another 65. That's the best 36 holes I've played since the start of the year and it was nice to see the putts going in again. Callaway has made me a copy of a putter that I used as an amateur and pretty much for the first 10 years of my pro career, so that feels very comfortable."

Journalist accuses ‘multiple-major winner’ of cheating, but won’t name names
The Scotsman’s John Huggan’s article on cheating in golf includes some shocking tales of unsavory pros getting away scot-free with intentional cheating:

You may not want to hear this, but golf at every level is rife with cheating. Well, OK, rife may be too strong a word. But it's out there, at every level of the game up to and including the professional level, where the temptation to transgress is obviously increased by the often huge financial rewards available.

You'll never read the names of those involved though. Officialdom doesn't want you to know who they are (and the legal implications of publicly exposing the culprits don't help either). Some, in fact, are really quite famous. One multiple major champion, by way of example, is a notorious cheat and the subject of any number of head-shaking locker room tales. Ryder Cup players are not immune either. At least one is tainted forever by his serial cheating. And there are others, many of whom have won events through the most dubious of methods.

Let the speculation begin.

Rory McIlroy, Twitter Superstar
Rory McIlroy might not be the PGA Tour’s rookie of the year, but he has to be on the short list for Twitter’s athlete of the year for his frequent interaction with fans and his hilarious trash talking with Lee Westwood. On Friday, McIlroy spent about an hour answering fans’ questions on Twitter. Here are some highlights:

Run a marathon RT @david_livick @McIlroyRory what's your non-golf related lifetime ambition?

At university somewhere! RT @sportmad18 @McIlroyRory If you werne't a golfer what would you be doing?

Miami or NYC RT @omahasker @McIlroyRory What's your favorite city in the US?

Not much, maybe once a week RT @lloydspacey @McIlroyRory When you are 'off-season', how much golf do you play?

Explosive power, u should learn about it! :-). RT @WestwoodLee @McIlroyRory how do you hit it so far for such a midget?

Stray Shots: Some things we noticed while wondering if that was Roger Maltbie playing Santa at the mall...

Ian Poulter is bent out of shape that Graeme McDowell didn't win something called the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year. (Via The Telegraph UK)

The No. 1 money winner on the Asian Tour is only 19 years old. (Via CNN International)

Lee Westwood’s karaoke repertoire? “'Daydream Believer', 'Copacabana,' depending on how many beers I’ve had. I used to be good at 'Day in the Life,' but I can’t get the high notes anymore.” (Via The Daily Mail UK)

Pick 'em
With the Ryder Cup team selection only a few weeks away we're getting down to crunch time. The Euros look stronger than ever, but U.S. captain Corey Pavin is on the hot seat to make sure every one of his picks counts. As the points leaders start to sort themselves out, Bleacher Report's Kathy Bissell gives us the rundown on who's in, who's out and who's on the fence.

Right now the top eight, in order, are Phil Mickelson, Steve Stricker, Jim Furyk, Anthony Kim, Lucas Glover, Dustin Johnson, Matt Kuchar and Tiger Woods. A formidable group. If there’s any slippage by Woods or Kuchar, the next four on the list are Hunter Mahan, Jeff Overton, Ricky Barnes and Ben Crane.

Who would you pick of the next eight or so players?...

Hunter Mahan has won on the PGA Tour and has Ryder Cup experience. He went 2-0-3 in 2009 for 3 ½ points, the most of any US player. You can bet he gets picked if he doesn’t rise in the points...

Faced with a team of five lock veterans with the probable lock of Woods, Pavin definitely has three mystery picks if Woods doesn’t make it on points and four if he does. There’s no way he leaves Woods off the team unless Woods asks to be left off. As Paul Azinger said, you always want the best player in the world on your team.

For certain, Stewart Cink gets a nod, and so does Hunter Mahan. Pavin then has two remaining choices, assuming Woods makes it on points...

Does he dare go with untested Ben Crane or Jeff Overton? With his legacy riding on it, Pavin will have to know something that the rest of us don’t. In the end, it may come down to personal relationships. Who does Pavin like and believe in his heart can go the distance.

Who would I pick today: Stewart Cink, Hunter Mahan, Rickie Fowler, and I might go farther down the list to Ryan Moore who won everything in the world at match play as an amateur.

Bissell has some great insight and reasons out a lot of possible scenarios. As for her suggested captain's picks, I agree that Cink and Mahan are no-brainers, both in terms talent and team-building. Fowler's a bit of a wild card, but I think he's a great fit not just because he's one of the 10 best American players, but because he will be for the foreseeable future--and as we've seen with Sergio Garcia, starting kids in the Ryder Cup as young as possible can create longtime stalwarts for your team (no comment on what that means for actual career success).

As for the last spot, I think Moore's a decent choice (as would be Ricky Barnes for the same reasons), but I'd rather see Boo Weekley out there. This team's just too professional, too stodgy. As the 2004 Red Sox found out, it never hurts to have a character guy in the clubhouse, and there's no question that Boo Weekley is that kind of guy.

Is there a player of the year?
Speaking of tough choices, at the end of the season somebody is going to have his hands around the Jack Nicklaus Award. With Tiger not at his best, and a slew of top players hurt and/or under-preforming, it seems like the Tour is in an era of unparalleled parity, which begs the question: who's the player of the year? Don't worry, Fanhouse's Mick Elliott doesn't know either.

The PGA Tour season is steaming hard toward the home stretch and there's something noticeably missing. Namely, a player of the year.

With the majors down to only next month's PGA Championship, the 2010 season is looking very much like an interesting story with no ending.

Phil Mickelson won the Masters and has done little else.

Relatively unknown Graeme McDowell won the U.S. Open and Louis Oosthuizen was an even bigger surprise in the British, but what else have they done?

Ernie Els, Jim Furyk, Justin Rose and Steve Stricker are the season's only multiple winners, all with two titles -- but none of them majors.

Tiger Woods may be Player of the Year, but he hasn't done diddly on a golf course.

So what happens if they give an award and nobody deserves it?

Eventually, someone will break away from the pack, whether it's at Whistling Straits or in the playoffs, but the lack of even a clear favorite at this point in the year makes me wonder if this is the most (for lack of a better term) "boring" PGA Tour season in recent memory. I have nothing against the Graeme McDowells and Louis Oosthuizens of the world getting their share of wins (even major wins), but I'd like them to do it in more dramatic fashion than they've had to this year. Heck, Justin Rose may even be my pick at the moment (who would have said that at the beginning of the year), although it's hard to get excited about a guy who didn't even qualify for the U.S. Open. Regardless, I think Elliott sums it up perfectly:

Please, somebody do something.

Future's Tour blows it, won't blow it again
Under-reported story out of the Duramed Futures Tour this weekend, where rookie Sarah Brown became the first true victim of the new USGA groove change. She was pulled off the course mid-round and DQ'd after a rules official mistakenly thought her wedge did not conform. At the very least, the Tour is taking the matter seriously as Golfweek's James Achenbach reports.

Had Brown been allowed to finish her round, officials would have had more than two hours while she played to make a definitive ruling.

Brown has made four cuts in eight events this season and earned $2,921 to rank 106th.

“From a procedural perspective, we have to make sure our rules officials do not make a hasty decision,’’ Calderon said. “We need to stay in contact with LPGA rules officials or the USGA. This is something I would have liked to have happened, but it didn’t. We regret the mistake. The rules official in this case did not pursue other options available to him. It is too bad he didn’t step back and determine whether he had all the information to make that decision.

“Most of the time, rulings are black and white. These lists of conforming and nonconforming clubs are more complex. This is truly new territory.”

Dick Rugge, the USGA’s senior technical director, said then in explaining the action: “You always have to get all the facts.”

In Brown’s case, a groove testing apparatus was on site but was never used.

“I asked him (Linyard) what he would do if he was wrong,” said Keith Brown, who was caddying for his daughter. “What if he disqualified Sarah and later found out he was wrong? How would he rectify that? He refused to answer. He said: ‘The club is illegal. Sarah is disqualified.’ That was it. It was like giving someone the death penalty on hearsay.”

Linyard and Wergin are fulltime rules officials for the Duramed Futures Tour, which has been the developmental tour for the LPGA since 1999. Wergin carries the title of head rules official. 

“Our rules officials are dedicated to their jobs,” Calderon said. “Because the equipment rules are so complex, we had the USGA come to the tour and spend several days with our rules officials. We also have an LPGA rules official who oversees the Duramed Futures Tour rules officials.”

Obviously, mistakes happen, and the biggest mistake here was the rules official pulling Brown off the course rather than simply letting her finish out her round (you can always DQ someone...you can't un-DQ them). On the whole I'm impressed with how seriously the Futures Tour is taking the situation--after all, this is a rookie who's made less than $3,000 playing pro golf, so it would have been really easy to sweep this under the rug and just say "whoops, it won't happen again," but Calderon and Co. seem to realize that the official screwed up big time.

However, I'm less than impressed with the Tour's excuse that the rules are too "complex." Not only do the officials have lists telling them which clubs are conforming (Brown's wedge was on the list--the official somehow misread his), and equipment to test whether or not they are conforming (the official declined to use the one on hand), but something tells me if you took two minutes to call over the local Ping rep, he or she would have been happy to lend a hand. I don't expect to see this sort of mistake creep onto the PGA or LPGA Tours (where everyone is cautious to a fault), but it definitely doesn't instill a whole lot of confidence in the judgment of these rules officials. The real question? Will Brown be getting a check to make up for her lost weekend?

DUBLIN, Ohio -- Tiger Woods shot a perfectly respectable 3-under 69 in the third round of the Memorial on Saturday, but he may have felt like he was standing still.

That's because playing partner Ricky Barnes put up a 10-under 62, just one off the course record.

"I got off to a great start," said Barnes, who birdied two of his first three holes, holed a wedge for eagle from 108 yards on the par-5 11th hole, and did not make a bogey. "I think I made about a 35-footer on the first hole. Probably would have run eight, nine feet by, and hit dead center and went in."

Barnes's 62 was among the best rounds ever shot on Tour by a player grouped with Woods.

• Jim Furyk fired a 62 while paired with Woods at Doral in 1998. (Woods shot 69.)

• Paul Goydos had a 62 while playing with Woods in the first round of the '99 Byron Nelson, when Woods shot 61.

"I hadn't played with [Woods] since Olympia Fields," Barnes said, alluding to the 2003 U.S. Open. "We were talking about that."

Back then Barnes was the reigning U.S. Amateur champion, and he carded respectable scores of 71-71 against Tiger's 70-66. (Jim Furyk won the tournament. Barnes tied for 59th, Woods tied for 20th.)

Barnes was paired with Woods for the first two rounds of the '03 Masters, too, and outscored Woods 69-76 in the first round. Woods beat Barnes 73-74 in round two, and the world number one Woods ended up finishing in a tie for 20th place, a shot ahead of Barnes, the amateur from the University of Arizona.

It's been a sometimes rocky professional career for Barnes, 29, whose wristband is inscribed with the words, "Never give up." The runner-up at the 2009 U.S. Open with David Duval and Phil Mickelson, he has fought a hook for much of his career. The shot doomed his chances of winning the Open at Bethpage Black last summer, and he admitted he got away with a few bad drives Saturday at Muirfield Village.

"I had them on the right holes," he said.

Dustin Johnson, the third member of the Barnes-Woods group, shot 73 despite driving the green on the 363-yard, par-4 14th hole. 

Barnes beat his career low round, a 64 in Vegas in 2003, and went from 3-under and 10 shots off the lead to 13-under and only three behind leader Rickie Fowler. 

"Hard work," Barnes said, explaining his resurgence just under two weeks away from the 2010 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. "You know, patience is definitely a key. I had doubts. I think everyone gets humbled by this game."

Among other adaptations he's made as a pro, Barnes uses "the claw" putting grip, with which he coaxed in a testy four-footer for his 62nd stroke of the day.

Woods, 34, smiled as he gave Barnes a warm handshake after the round, but did not stop to talk to media or sign autographs on his way to the locker room.

"I'm done," he told a Tour official.