The last time the U.S. Open visited the Olympic Club in San Francisco it was 1998 and Casey Martin rode in his golf cart all the way to a T23 finish. Now, in between coaching at the University of Oregon, he is on the cusp of making his grand return fourteen years later, reports Ron Kroichick of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Martin, who suffers from a birth defect known as Klippel Trenaunay Weber syndrome in his right leg, created buzz as he filed a lawsuit against the PGA Tour in 1997 that would allow him to use a cart in competition. 

As the appeals process began its three-year odyssey - the tour argued that walking is a fundamental part of the game and that no player should be permitted to use a cart - media attention engulfed Martin. It crested at the Olympic Club, from his Monday practice round with Woods to his first two rounds alongside 1994 Masters champion Jose Maria Olazabal.

In 2001, Martin successfully won his Supreme Court decision against the PGA Tour and is now only 36 holes away from bringing his golf cart back to Olympic.

It remains a wild longshot, but he could create one of the coolest stories of this 112th U.S. Open. Martin hadn't even entered Open qualifying in five years, because his coaching duties leave him little time to practice or play, but he couldn't resist the nostalgic lure of Olympic.

He went out and shot 2-under-par 70 in local qualifying May 7 in Vancouver, Wash., good enough to advance to the next stage. Martin will take his crack at sectional qualifying - a grueling, 36-hole test - June 4 in Creswell, Ore.

"It's going to have to be an act of God," he said before advancing through locals. "I'm doing this to see if you can catch lightning in a bottle."

Just imagine the circus Martin will generate if he really does qualify for next month's Open. His story would come full circle - from one U.S. Open at the Olympic Club to the next, from aspiring tour pro and legal crusader to content college coach and improbable Open qualifier.

While the pressure is now fully on Martin, he did get a bit of a reprieve from the USGA while filling out his entry form for the U.S. Open and the elaborate application requesting a cart for competition.

Given his history - more than a bit well-documented - Martin asked some folks at the USGA if he really needed to complete all the paperwork. They told him to skip it.

OSU misses the cut

For the first time in school history, Oklahoma State University's men's golf team has failed to advance to the NCAA Championship, reports Golf Channel.

The Cowboys failed to qualify for the finals at Riviera C.C. when they finished eighth out of 13 teams in the Ann Arbor (Mich.) regional tournament on Saturday. The five-man team finished at 11 over par in the 54-hole event. The team was 14 shots shy of the fifth-place cutoff to advance to the finals, to be played May 29-June 3.

Oklahoma State had advanced to the NCAA championship in each year of the program's existence, dating back to 1947.

During the last 60 seasons, OSU's golf program has notched 10 national championships, 8 individual national championships and 49 conference championships while claiming alumni such as Hunter Mahan, Rickie Fowler, Charles Howell III, Bob Tway and Trip Kuehne.

Two-time defending champs Augusta State also missed out on the opportunity to claim a third consecutive title, finishing four shots out of qualifying through the Athens, Ga. regional.

Deron Williams hits Chelsea Piers

Because the New Jersey Nets are absolutely terrible, Deron Williams has a lot of time on his hands these days before he is inevitably traded to either the Mavericks or the Heat. So, like any golf aficionado in New York City with some time to kill, Williams made his way to Chelsea Piers. 

Color me impressed. Hank Haney, on the other hand? 

Not bad, hit it like u mean it, too slowRT @DeronWilliams: Working on my swing last night at Chelsea Pier's twitvid.com/XUF9M

— Hank Haney (@HankDHaney) May 21, 2012

Looks like D.A. Points is reaching for a dinner date, though.

Nice action. Be in Soho on Thurs. RT @DeronWilliams: Working on my swing last night at Chelsea Pier's. twitvid.com/XUF9M

— D.A. Points (@DAPoints) May 21, 2012

On-course rivals

Though the exact details are uncertain, a reader sent in this photo to Deadspin of two newlyweds posing in their Miami Dolphins garb with New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan while he enjoyed a round of golf.

It's unclear whether or not the couple were married while wearing their Miami Dolphin jerseys or just had them on hand because that's the sort of thing Miami fans do. Either way, good on Ryan to take the time to pose with his fierce rivals. What was not documented, however, was Sal Alosi tripping the bride as she made her way down the aisle. 

Tweet of the Day

Bubba Watson is set to make his return at the Memorial Tournament, but that's only if he doesn't get a better offer in the meantime.

I want to work with Nick Cannon on the "America's Got Talent" show. I could wear my overalls & sweep off the bad talents!! #AGT

— bubba watson (@bubbawatson) May 21, 2012

Tiger Woods will return to competition next week at Jack Nicklaus' Memorial Tournament in Ohio, according to the Golf Channel. Tiger has evidently recovered somewhat from the neck injury that forced him to withdraw from the Players Championship on May 9th and will be defending the title that brought him a $1,080,000 paycheck in '09.

Air Tiger 
Woods's well-publicized injuries will soon be treated to a breath of fresh air. USA Today reports that Tiger has begun making some major additions to his 12-acre property on Jupiter Island, including a practice golf course, a number of pools and an oxygen therapy room. According to the story, Tiger says he has received oxygen treatment in a hyperbaric chamber before. The practice course, which will be designed by Medalist Golf Inc., will supposedly take up to a year to complete. 

The bottom line: I want a practice course, a bunch of pools and a hyperbaric chamber too. 

Mickelson gets emotional over Colonial
You might remember that Phil pulled out of the '09 Colonial in Fort Worth due to his wife Amy's breast cancer diagnosis. To support Phil, who won the tournament in '08, Colonial officials encouraged both players and fans to wear pink during the third round. Mickelson commented in the Dallas News that the "Pink Out" was "the nicest thing that was ever done for Amy and me," and that his wife was "moved to tears" when she watched the tournament. Mickelson says he will undoubtedly take part in this year's "Pink Out II" to support all women who battle breast cancer, including his own mother. 

"It'll be an emotional return for me. Having won in 2008 and not being able to defend the title, I'm looking forward to coming back and being a part of this year's Pink Out to support not only my wife but all 200,000 women who are diagnosed every year."

The bottom line: Phil's current public persona is diametrically opposed to Tiger's. 

After all the talk last week about how Muirfield Village was playing U.S. Open-tough, the Memorial’s winner—Kenny Perry—bowed out of the actual U.S. Open. Or at least trying to qualify for it.

“I don’t do 36 holes ever,” Perry said of the format for the Open’s sectional qualifying, which concludes today. “It just wears me out. I’m not physically capable of being—it ruins too many weeks. It ruins my next week and it ruins trying to prepare that week for the tournament. It takes too much out of me.”

C’mon, Kenny. So you’re 47. (Hale Irwin was 45 when he won the U.S. Open in 1990.) So 36 holes is a lot for one day. (Fat guys in Myrtle Beach play 36 on a diet of hot wings and three hours sleep.) So Open qualifiers are about as much fun as an ingrown toenail. (Hey, try mining coal for a living. Or removing ingrown toenails.) So your track record at Torrey Pines is undistinguished. (Play like you did last week and that wouldn’t matter.)

Perry is the Tour’s Frank Ricard: a streaker. When he gets hot, he crackles. He makes birdies like they're pars. “That's just the way I play for some reason,” Perry said last week. “And dad's always told me, ‘Ride that train when it's hot, keep chasing it. Don't go home.’ ”

Even if a 36-hole qualifier gets in your way. Instead Perry will play Memphis this week and Hartford in two weeks, taking the U.S. Open week off in between. An odd stop for a hot train.

Photo: Kenny Perry with Jack Nicklaus on Sunday. (Todd Bigelow/SI)

The news this week that 11 players opted out of the Memorial struck some as a diss to the tournament's founder, Jack Nicklaus. The so-called Legend's Slam — Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill, the Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan's Colonial, and the Memorial — have long been considered four of the premier events on the PGA Tour calendar.

On a tour that has richly benefited from corporate America's investment in golf, these events were a reminder of an era when pro tournaments were mainly branded by their hosts — men who were not just golfers but entertainers and singers. You didn't go to  Palm Springs every winter simply to make a check; you went to see Bob Hope give a show. You might have hated the fuss the entertainers made at the Bing Crosby, but you wouldn't dare miss a chance to play Pebble Beach.

You showed respect for your elders, for the old-timers and their old-fashioned ways that helped build a very successful pro golf circuit that had real popular appeal. Arnold Palmer made it cool for the 1950s hipster and the war vet alike to express their manhood on the golf course. The game was fun for everybody, even the caddies. But no matter how popular it got, the old money tradition remained, and that engendered good manners.

But now the primary draw for most tournaments is big money, and the old ways are not so important to the players.

Earlier this week, Jack Nicklaus said before the start of the Memorial that in his playing days he would send a handwritten thank-you note to the sponsors after a tournament. This was his way of showing gratitude to the people who were paying the bills. The Bear learned of Tiger's decision not to play, due to his knee injury, through Tiger's agent, Mark Steinberg.

So are manners out of fashion in today's game? I'm not sure. It may just be that the majors have become so big that players will skip almost anything to prepare for them. I hope Bay Hill and the Memorial thrive long after their founders' deaths, but I doubt they will. Since Ben Hogan's death in 1997, the Colonial is seen by many as just a notch or two above the Texas Open. The Byron Nelson is played on a golf course that everybody hates, but the guys continued to come every year out of respect for the old man. Now that he is dead, the tournament is struggling to attract good fields.

Good manners should have led Steve Stricker, Ben Crane, Adam Scott and Anthony Kim, among others, to make their way to Dublin, Ohio, this week for Jack's major. They should understand that the Memorial is not about them. It's about Jack.

(Photo: Jay LaPrete/AP)

The PGA Tour has a few unofficial rules: 1.) You always return to an event you won the previous year; 2) An event with the word “Buick” in its name is likely to have Tiger Woods in the field; and 3) Big stars play tournaments hosted by other big stars.

That’s why it was so surprising to read today that four of the top 10 players in the world wouldn’t be playing this week’s Memorial Tournament, an event that should called the Jack Nicklaus Tournament since it’s played on a course he designed in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, and benefits local charities.

Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Invitational in February always attracts a murderer’s row of top players and the World Top 10 likely will all pay tribute to their master at the Tiger Woods’ At&T National at Congressional in late June. The Byron Nelson Championship never had trouble nabbing big names while Lord Byron was still alive. So how could Woods, Vijay Singh, Ernie Els and Adam Scott all take a pass on the Memorial?

Woods of course has a good reason since he’s still recovering from knee surgery. He even held off withdrawing from the tournament until last week (likely out of respect for Nickalus). Vijay Singh hurt his ribs playing in the BMW Championship in England last week.

After that, the excuses get murkier. Adam Scott isn’t playing due to fatigue, according to his publicist. (Scott withdrew from the Shell Houston Open earlier this year with a throat infection.) And Els just called this weekend a “gap in his schedule,” which sounds like a Tour player euphemism for “kick back and enjoy these millions I’ve been making. Caviar, anyone?”

Someone got to Els though, because now he’s packing his bags for Columbus.

Els surprised tournament officials Monday with a posting on his Web site that he would not play again until next week in the Stanford St. Jude Classic in Memphis, Tenn.

But he changed that posting Tuesday.

"Originally, this week was going to be a gap in my schedule, but I've changed my mind and decided to play in the Memorial," Els said.

Must have been an offer he couldn’t refuse.