With Tiger Woods's game in disarray, his swing coach, Sean Foley, has had a lot of arrows slung his way. But Tiger's swing plane has been the last thing on Foley's mind lately, writes ESPN's Bob Harig.

Kieran Foley was born Aug. 26 in Orlando and Foley and his wife, Kate, lived the past four months knowing that the outlook for their son's long-term health was bleak.

"There was a 50-50 chance my son would die at birth," Foley said Tuesday by phone, on his way home from working with another of his clients, Tiger Woods. "For lack of a better term, it's a medical miracle. The doctor told us he has trumped the best-case scenario for this disorder by 100 times."

Kieran was born with congenital diaphragmatic hernia, a condition in which an abnormal opening in the diaphragm can lead to parts of the stomach or other abdominal organs moving into the chest cavity. In Kieran's case, his heart was located on the right side of his chest.

Harig also notes that Justin Rose, another Foley pupil, made a nice gesture after winning the BMW Championship last week. Rose dedicated his last two shots to Foley's son in a post-round interview.

Bus Blues
The 2010 U.S. Ryder Cup team lacked proper rain gear, and now it looks like the U.S. Solheim Cup team could use a new team bus, according to Golf Channel's Jay Coffin.

The team bus broke down Monday on the way from the Dublin airport to Killeen Castle. To make matters worse, "Born in the USA" was blaring' on the radio when the incident occurred.

Then, once at the course, Juli Inkster's golf cart broke down at the farthest point from the clubhouse.

"She broke down out there where there are only wolves around," Christina Kim said.

Age of Parity?
PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem gave a "state of the tour" address Tuesday at the Tour Championship, and NBC's Ryan Ballengee writes the commish is happy that parity is the new buzz word in golf.

As 2011 ends, no player on the PGA Tour has more than two wins and only one of those guys has a major this year. For the second consecutive year, it appears the Tour Championship will not only lock up the FedEx Cup winner but seems likely to identify the player of the year.

Commissioner Tim Finchem is very pleased with the rampant parity that has gripped his tour.

“We’ve gone very quickly from a point in time when we were very much a sport that had a dominant player (Woods) to all the way to the other end of the spectrum,” Finchem said Tuesday at East Lake.

“We’re at a point of total parity. Anybody out here can win any given time. So far the fans seem to really like it, and it’ll be interesting to see what develops in that regard going forward.”

But is parity a good thing for the tour? Paul Azinger doesn't think so ...

Tweet of the Day

NEWTON SQUARE, Pa. - PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said Wednesday that he didn't expect any changes this year to the Tour 's rule requiring members to play a minimum of 15 events.

"I wouldn't say it's the first thing on our agenda," Finchem said from suburban Philadelphia, site of this week's AT& T National. "We actually are reasonably comfortable with the rules and regs that we've enjoyed for the last 15 years or so."

Under the current system, PGA Tour member are required to play at least 15 tournaments per year, while non-members are allowed a maximum of 12 events. But players such as U.S. Open champion Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood, who gave up their Tour memberships, are only allowed to play in 10 events, plus the Players Championship.

That has led to some odd situations, including Rory McIlroy's needing a sponsor exemption this year to play at Quail Hollow, where he fired a final-round 62 to win in 2010. Finchem was asked Wednesday  about "possibly exempting players on the top 10 in the world into whatever events that they wanted to play," but he said it wasn't that simple. Finchem said he doesn't just look at the effect it has on the PGA Tour; he also considers what impact a rule change would have on the global health of the game.

"If we're successful in changing rules so that a player, an international player, can play four or five more times here, three times here, that's great for those weeks here; it means that he's not going to play three or four times someplace else," Finchem said. "So we can't just make decisions based on what's in the best short-term interest for our Tour. I think we have to keep in mind why the strength of the other tours is important, certainly why growth of the game globally is important, particularly as we enter into the Olympic era for golf."

Photo: Barbara Johnston/AP

PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem this morning refuted allegations that the Tour had somehow pressured a gimpy Tiger Woods into entering the Players Championship. Speaking with CNBC’s Darren Rovell, Finchem said:

It's always important for Tiger to be part of the Tour, because he's Tiger Woods. But the idea that we would pressure him to play is ludicrous. We don't pressure any player to play the tournament. In this case, the suggestion is somehow he was hurt and we got him to play anyway. Tiger doesn't enter a tournament unless he thinks he can win. I was on the range with him Tuesday, I watched him hit balls. He practiced that day, he practiced Wednesday hard, and he tweaked it yesterday. So nonissue.

The beginning of the end for Tiger?

Opinions, analyses and conjecture about the ramifications of Woods’s WD—and his seemingly irreparable left knee—have lit up the web. The general sentiment: Tiger’s in deep, deep trouble:

Bob Prichard, a sports biomechanics expert and the president of the Somax Performance Institute in suburban San Francisco: “His swing is measurably worse in every way and is putting extra strain of his left knee. More than ever, he is pushing his hip toward the target, outside his left foot, and the stress is going into his left knee, actually pushing the femur down on to the tibial plate.”

Ernie Els: "We all play with little lingering injuries, we've all got our things. But a left knee and left Achilles, that's tough to deal with, especially if you want to play at a [high] level. … For the long haul, yeah, it's got to be a worry."

Mark O’Meara: "I saw [swing coach] Sean Foley out there, and I asked him, and he's like, 'You know, his leg is not good.' I mean, he can hit balls, but he's having a hard time walking. It's a hard game to play if he can't walk."

Golf Channel analyst Brandel Chamblee, who said on the air: "It's unlikely he'll be back for the U.S. Open. I really do think we're about to see the beginning of Tiger shuffling off of this Tour."

Then there was this bombshell:

“Anybody else wondering if Tiger's prolonged winless streak is due more to the fact that his old swing coach has been fired or the fact that his old blood doctor has been indicted?”

That query was posed by The Orlando Sentinel’s Mike Binachi in a provocative column that suggests Woods might not be healing as quickly as he once did because he no longer has the services of Anthony Galea. (Galea, you’ll recall, is the Canadian doctor who on several occasions in 2009 treated Woods’s balky knee with a blood-spinning technique and who has since been accused of illegally distributing human growth hormone.)

Even though Woods has denied ever taking PEDs, many professional golfers are skeptical. Sports Illustrated polled 71 PGA Tour players last year and nearly a quarter of them said they believed Woods was dirty.

Is it fair to accuse Woods of once being a juicer? No it's not. But in this day and age when nearly every major sport has been touched by a drug scandal, it's certainly fair to wonder. Why shouldn't we? Especially with the way Tiger's body -- once the most invincible and physically fit in all of golf -- is breaking down like an '84 Chevette.

You don't have to be a biochemist to know that one of the major benefits of HGH is that it helps the body quickly recover from the stress placed upon it by the repetitive nature of massive, torque-producing athletic maneuvers. That's why baseball pitchers take it and why golfers would benefit from it, too. Golf swings and baseball windups, when done repetitively, place an enormous amount of strain on all of those moving body parts.

Bianchi signs off with this zinger:

With his fading golf game, his prolonged losing streak, his deteriorating body and his uncomfortable ties to the Canadian drug doctor, it makes you wonder.

Did it really always come naturally to Tiger?

Sabbo still tight-lipped on O'Hair-gate

Speculation continues to swirl over Rory Sabbatini’s alleged clash with Sean O’Hair in New Orleans a couple weeks ago. But clearly it hasn’t distracted Sabbo, who continued his impressive form with a 67 Thursday at Sawgrass:

"You know what, people need to stop listening to the knitting circle because amazingly you get things lost in translation," Sabbatini said. "So, you know, I've got to focus on my job and not worry about all the hear-sayers. I let them concoct their stories."

Sabbatini said he has an ability to ignore what is around him while he's playing but it's clear he doesn't want to further suspension discussion.

"I don't know what to say," he said. "I just focus on my job and get my job done."

Tweet(s) of the Day

Graeme McDowell after shooting a 5-under 67 in Round 1 of the Players on Thursday:

When Tiger Woods travels to Dubai, it's about more than winning a golf tournament -- it's business time. In addition to receiving multi-million dollar appearance fees for competing in the desert, Woods also spearheaded a (stalled) Dubai golf project. Terms of that deal, struck in 2008, were never made public, but Arabian Business Magazine has a new report on the numbers, and they are staggering:

Tiger Woods received $55.4m from UAE developer Tatweer to promote a golf resort in Dubai, just 24 days before the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

Documents seen by Arabian Business reveal that Woods was originally paid $26,250,000 to promote the Tiger Woods Dubai resort, following a contract first signed on 20 June 2006.

However, on 22 August 2008, both Woods and Tatweer signed an “Amendment to Golf Course Design and License Agreement” which contained 15 new clauses.

On top of the $26,250,000 already paid to Woods' company ETW (Eldrick Tiger Woods), the new deal stated that ETW would be paid "the sum of $70m as a promotional fee".

The document broke down the extra payments as:

* $26,166,177 would be paid to ETW within ten days of the agreement being signed.

* $14,583,333 would be paid to ETW within ten days of Woods appearing at the official opening of Tiger Woods Dubai.

In addition, the new deal stated that Woods would no longer receive a villa on the resort, but “the Parties hereto agree to keep confidential the fact that ETW has agreed to waive its right to receive the Chosen Development Unit.”

In total, the potential value of the new deal was worth $98.8m to Woods – more than the $92.2m he had earned in prize money up to 2008.

Not sure what's more shocking: the cash Woods raked in from this project, or the fact that he wasn't able to get himself a free condo in the deal.

Phone-A-Finchem

Earlier this week, PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said his Tour would continue to accept phone calls from fans who spot rules violations during telecasts. Is it right to allow outside viewers the chance to affect the outcome of a professional sporting event? Our Sports Illustrated Golf Group has debated this very topic, and today the Bleacher Report's Paddy Miller voices his distaste for Finchem's decision while wondering if the commish might take things a step further by allowing on-air TV announcers to report violations.

Golf has always celebrated itself as a gentleman’s sport where players—if they were to commit an infraction—would openly call penalties on themselves, not relying on referees or umpires to do so. While touring professionals have the luxury of rules officials in every group, the burden still falls upon the playing group to enforce the regulations of the game.

Wouldn't Finchem be more inclined to defend the institution of Golf as opposed to turning tournament officiating over to the masses?

Which raises the next question, would golf officials call penalties on players that are sighted by the announcers or on-course reporters?

Would Ed Hochuli throw a flag three plays later after John Gruden suggests he might have missed a call?

Would Joe West change a strike to a ball if Tim McCarver finally gets around to the point two days later that the pitch was outside? ...

Finchem, who has ignored the majority in the past (see: caddies wearing shorts), is trailing a similar path this time around and now jeopardizes what has made the game a sacred ritual of competition since the days of Old Tom Morris.

What do you think about Finchem's decision to allow fans to phone in rules infractions? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Pebble Beach Pro-Am Greens Not 'Am' Friendly

How firm are Pebble's greens this week? Stuart Appleby and his caddie demonstrate. (via Twitter)

Tweet of the Day

@danjenkinsgd: Memo to myself: If Mark Wilson is going to be the next Ben Hogan, I guess I'd better get to know him.

Greg Norman, who along with design partner Lorena Ochoa plans to submit a bid to build the Olympic course for the 2016 Summer Games in Rio, says he expects the gig will involve a lot more than just moving dirt around. The winning architect(s), he says, better be prepared to circle the globe, preaching the merits of the game. Greg Hardwig of the Naples News reports:

“In my mind, it’s not just all about the design and the building of the golf course,” Norman said. “It’s actually — whoever wins or gets the nod to build this golf course — has to spend four or five years promoting the game of golf. I truly believe that. It’s not just going out there and getting a design job, because it is a big step.”

Norman said there will likely be three final design teams chosen, and they will then submit presentations. He’s planning on going down to Brazil in early 2011 to look at potential sites, and figures a final design team will be selected in the middle part of the year.

If Norman’s right about the number of finalists Olympic officials will select—and if he and Ochoa are one of them—that leaves just two other spots, one of which presumably will go to the powerhouse pairing of Jack Nicklaus and Annika Sorenstam. The third candidate? Does it even matter? It’s hard to imagine another designer—even a big name like Tom Doak or Tom Fazio—getting the nod over either Team Norman or Team Nicklaus. In fact, the Golden Bear has already said that he and Sorenstam are all but shoe-ins to land the job. (“I’ll be surprised if they don’t select us,” he said in June.) Norman, ever a fiery competitor, will have something to say about that, and if keeps saying all the right things, like he did at his Shark Shootout yesterday, he’s sure to garner serious consideration.

“To be honest with you, my competitive drive is more in the development and growth of the game of golf on a global basis now, not on the golf course …

“I’m going to [submit a bid], because I see the chances for the game of golf almost doubling in the number of participants in the game of golf over the next 20, 25 years is huge. If I just have one tiny piece of that, it’s going to be so rewarding for me.”

In more ways than one.

Finchem: New ‘Jim Furyk rule’ is intentionally ‘vague’

Among the sundry topics Tim Finchem addressed in his end-of-year powwow with the press Thursday: the so-called "Jim Furyk rule," which the Tour instituted earlier this year after Furyk was DQ’d from a FedEx Cup playoff event when his PDA failed to get him to the pro-am on time. Kowtowing to player and public sentiment that the rule was needlessly penal, the Tour repealed it not long after the Furyk fiasco. The new policy? Here’s how Finchem "explained" it:

“If you’re negligent with respect to a tee time in the pro-am—negligent, meaning, you made a mistake for whatever reason—it’s not a disqualification.

“If you blow it off, then you’re not going to be able to play in that tournament.”

The rule, Finchem admits, is “somewhat vague, but intentionally so, because we want the flexibility to deal with situations that may differ.”

Grey areas in the rules are generally a bad idea, especially in this case. If a player's alarm is on the fritz, he gets a pass, but what happens if he's tardy because, say, his personal assistant botched his Outlook calendar, or he passed out drunk in front of a Hooters? Surely those too are “mistakes,” all be it of a different ilk. Keep on eye on this policy. More controversy is sure to ensue.

Oosthuizen learns success can be exhausting

Call him Louis OosthuiZzzzen. There are several reasons we haven’t heard much from the British Open champ since he sautéed the field at St. Andrews in July: first, he hasn’t played particularly well (just one top-10 finish since the middle of August); second, he’s been hurt (he missed seven weeks after tearing ankle ligaments on a hunting trip); and third, he's tired. Worn out. Bushed. Ken Borland of Reuters has the story:

"The Open win has definitely sunk in, I've been feeling drained for the last five months," he says.

"The year is getting very long, I had a very difficult schedule with the [South African] Sunshine Tour at the end too. You want to do everything, but it's tough being mentally tired. It makes it difficult to play well, it gets to you in the end.”

O.K., lesson learned. Louis will take it easier in 2011, right? Nah, course not. First-time major-winners never get the message...

Oosthuizen is planning an ambitious split schedule next year between the U.S. PGA and European tours.

"It would be nice to win in America. I'll be playing both tours, splitting it 50/50, which will be tough. But I want to get my mind focused on being on top of my game at the majors," Oosthuizen explained.

First things first, Louis: go get some shut-eye.

You'd think it would be pretty easy to find a hotel room in Akron, Ohio. It's the rubber capital of the nation, not the tourist capital.

But since the Bridgestone Invitational was moved to the week before the PGA Championship, a scheduling switch to accommodate the FedEx Cup playoffs, the tournament overlaps with the Pro Football Hall of Fame induction ceremony in nearby Canton. (Yet another example of the intersection of golf and the NFL.) Hotel rooms are scarce and, when available, expensive. Hoteliers aren't happy with the situation; what used to be two weeks of brisk business has now merged into one.

Even though the PGA Tour was the latecomer to this date, Commissioner Tim Finchem said there isn't much he can do about it, the Akron Beacon Journal reported.

"This date works perfectly for getting every top player here," he said Wednesday after speaking at an Akron Roundtable Luncheon. "That's not so easy. This is the perfect week for the international players because they're coming in to play next week (in the PGA Championship). Our difficulties are more serious than the NFL's, but I can't speak for (NFL Commissioner) Roger Goodell.

"We wouldn't mind moving it, but we want to do what's in the best interest of the tournament. That has broader implications than what's happening here. It's a global event. It's a prize event for our television partners and one of the reasons is because of the field."

The Bridgestone used to work just fine when it was held the week after the PGA Championship, but positioning it there now before the four-week playoff run would create a whole new scheduling problem for players. As the Beacon Journal noted, however, the event does come with a nice perk. The first prize for this limited-field event is $1.53 million, larger than any of golf's four major championships.

Tiger Woods fuels Ryder Cup speculation
If you're wondering whether Tiger Woods will play in the Ryder Cup, or if he'd be a wild-card pick if he doesn't make the team on points, you'll have to keep wondering. Woods wouldn't offer any information or opinions Wednesday despite persistent questioning, and subsequent criticism, from Steve Elling of CBSSports.com:

Too many times to mention over the years, Tiger Woods has bemoaned the notion that many speculative stories have been authored about him with little basis in fact. Wonder why that is? Offered the opportunity to put an increasingly hot-button issue to rest on Wednesday, he waffled and only contributed to the speculation that he might not play in the upcoming Ryder Cup matches in Wales.

I asked him three direct questions about making the U.S. team as an invitee and not as an automatic selection. For your amusement and illumination, here's the verbatim exchange:

Q. There's been a lot of speculation on the Ryder Cup. We're two weeks out from locking up the top eight. If you were asked to go as a captain's pick, are you all in?

Woods: "I'm planning on playing my way into the team."

Q. If it doesn't happen….

Woods: "I'm planning on playing my way into the team."

Q. That's still kind of an equivocation.

Woods: "I'm planning on playing my way into the team."

Elling finished his column by blaming Woods for the speculation that surrounds him.

Woods drew laughs with his stubbornness, but with a simple answer, he could have cleared up the discussion and ended the questions. Let the conjecture continue. He rekindled the speculative bonfire himself.

Watson dines on award
The late comedian Red Buttons relied on his "Never got a dinner" routine when he used to appear on the old celebrity roasts. Well, Tom Watson got a dinner when he was honored as this year's Ambassador of Golf, awarded by the Northern Ohio Golf Charities. Watson has been very involved in fundraising for ALS, better known as Lou Gehrig's disease, ever since it claimed the life of his long-time caddie, Bruce Edwards. Watson has also made several trips to entertain U.S. troops in the Middle East.

You know you've made it when you finally get a dinner -- and a painting. The Firestone clubhouse features paintings of previous award-winners, and Watson was impressed with the company he's now keeping, according to the Beacon Journal.

"Everybody from Bob Hope to Bing Crosby to Jack Nicklaus to Barbara Nicklaus to Pete Dye, Deane Beman, there's just a variety," Watson said. "It's the people that comprise the whole fabric of the game and to be included in that is a great honor."

Watson capped off his special night with a special dessert.

Said Watson: "I saw the old waitress and I said, 'Do you still have that butterscotch pie?' And she said, 'It's not butterscotch, it's crunchy cream.' I said, 'It sure is butterscotch to me.' She came to me 15 minutes later and said, We're making you one."

After Tiger took his infamous drive into a fire hydrant, there were a ton of questions surrounding the world's number one player. Would he get his game, health, and marriage together quickly enough to contend in this year's majors? Would the distraction of an enormous sex scandal and the impending end of his marriage derail his career long term? Would Cadillac replace the grill on his Escalade for free? 

But for real golf fans one of the most immediate concerns regarding Tiger was the potential reality of a Ryder Cup without him. And let's face it, while Tiger might not go down as the greatest team player of all time, the event is a heck of a lot more interesting with him in the mix. Fortunately for everyone who's been looking forward to the showdown at Celtic Manor, it appears El Tigre will be there no matter what. 

According to a report from the BBC, U.S. captain Corey Pavin has said that due to improvements in his recent form, he wants Tiger on his side. 

"He's the number-one player in the world. There's something wrong with you if you don't want him on the team," said Pavin. "I want him to be playing well. He's finished in the top five in the last two major championships and he's put himself on the team right now - as it stands he's seventh on the list. I expect him to go up on that list and improve his position and he'll make the team no problem."

Though Tiger has been dominant throughout his career on the PGA Tour, his Ryder Cup record has been less than stellar. In five competitions he's amassed ten wins, thirteen losses and two halves. The 1999 team was the only one he was a part of that actually won. Tiger missed the '08 Ryder Cup at Valhalla due to knee surgery. 

The bottom line: Tiger is still the biggest draw in golf and having him in Wales will be a big boost for the event, even if he doesn't play well. 

Hank Haney and Tiger were dysfunctional from the start
Since his much publicized split from Tiger Woods, Hank Haney certainly hasn't been shy about talking to the media, and the trend continues. In a recent interview, as reported by ESPN, Haney was quoted as saying his relationship with Tiger, "didn't get dysfunctional; it was always dysfunctional." Haney goes on to provide insights into their working relationship like the fact that Tiger would give him little indication of when and where they would work together, and that Tiger would often disregard his input, particularly around the '10 Masters.  

"I got no acknowledgement at all, but that wasn't unusual. Then it got to the point where I didn't know what he was doing or thinking. Yet the whole time he was telling the media I was still his teacher and that I was going to continue to be his teacher and I was talking to him every night."

Haney goes on to say that he believes Tiger was surprised when he ended their six-year relationship but that he still considers the two to be friends. 

The bottom line: Haney's career got a big boost from his association with Tiger and he's still getting mileage out of it. 

Contraction on the PGA Tour? Finchem says not yet
In the last couple of years the PGA Tour has faced new challenges when it comes to signing agreements with title sponsors and is currently looking for six new partners to provide tournament backing. Economic downturn aside, commissioner Tim Finchem doesn't currently foresee a loss of tournaments on the schedule for next year, according to a report in USA Today. 

"We have to have sponsorship to put on events, so if it got to a point where sponsorship wasn't available, it's always a possibility. But candidly, we are on track with where we are in most years, good or bad economy, in terms of the amount of work we have to do either to renew sponsors or bring in new sponsors. I think the market is soft generally," he added. "But for our product, it continues to perform well, and we don't anticipate any need for contraction."

Finchem adds that a full season requires 47 tournaments in 44 weeks and to accomplish that the Tour needs players to compete in more events. He suggested that some tournaments with traditionally weak fields might be "designated," meaning that top players would be required to play in at least one of them. 

The bottom line: Everybody's feeling the pinch and Finchem is no exception. If forcing top players to show up more often would help the Tour, might as well give it a shot. 

The fact that Sergio Garcia served as a consultant to architect Greg Norman during the construction of the TPC San Antonio is the kind of tidbit that normally tees up a punchline, but let's not step on a guy's neck when he's down. Let's just be blunt about the reports on the new home of this week's Valero Texas Open: Norman has a reputation for building difficult golf courses (as in borderline-unplayable difficult) and he may have come close to doing it again.

So, as Rich Oliver writes in The San Antonio News-Express, don't expect any record scores this week. The course is 7,435 yards, narrow and firm with big bunkers and undulating greens.

“I think the golf course has come out great,” Garcia said after his first round on the course he helped design. “But probably just a little bit tougher than we maybe expected at the beginning... We didn't want to make it a chip-and-putt course."

Apparently, it's mission accomplished.

The spiffy new venue completes the tournament's resurrection, a long-term project which Oliver also detailed:

Nine years ago, PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem had all but pulled the plug on the Texas Open. The tournament, without a title sponsor, fund-raising muscle or community backing, was in its death rattle. On Wednesday afternoon, Finchem sat in a banquet room at the luxurious JW Marriott resort, the centerpiece of the new TPC San Antonio, and admitted the obvious. The Texas Open has never been more alive.

It's a remarkable ascension from 2001, when Finchem already had decided to jettison the tournament before then-Valero Energy Corp. CEO Bill Greehey stepped in and negotiated a deal to serve as title sponsor. Valero's current contract runs through 2012.

“We didn't have sponsorship, and it had not performed all that well, and Valero said, ‘We think we can take this to a whole other level,' and so we took a shot,” Finchem said. “In short order, the event made a major shift right there. So it's been good ever since.”

In that stretch, the Valero Texas Open has generated roughly $53 million in fundraising. The past year has seen a move from the lightly regarded Fall Series to the FedEx Cup regular-season schedule in May and the opening of AT&T Oaks.

“I think schedule is important, and I think the word of mouth on this change here has been very positive in terms of the facilities and the golf courses,” said Finchem, referring to AT&T Oaks and the adjacent AT&T Canyons, which will host the city's Champions Tour event, the AT&T Championship, beginning in 2011.

He added, “And so, you know, the players who aren't here will watch it on television. They'll see how it plays, and then the word of mouth, the quality of operations here, this unbelievable setting will help solidify the quality for the future.”

If you can't set the time, don't do the crime

There are tantrums and then there are tantrums.

Japanese golfer Yuko Mitsuka has been banned from 11 women's tournaments for quitting last week's World Ladies Championship in mid-round after being penalized for slow play.

She banned herself, raising the bar in the category of pre-emptive strikes. Mitsuka, 25, was fined 2 million yen--about $21,500--and offered to withdraw from 11 future tournaments as punishment. The Japan LPGA accepted her offer as a suitable punishment.

Her fine was the largest in her tour's history but her self-imposed ban may have helped her avoid a more serious penalty.

Like having to attend a USGA meeting and sit through a roundtable discussion on slow play.

Michelle Wie is No. 1 (in LPGA marketing value)

Now that Lorena Ochoa has joined Annika Sorenstam in retirement, the LPGA is looking for a new No. 1 player -- not so much in the rankings as in the eyes and minds of the golfing public. So can you take a wild guess whom this week's Bell Micro LPGA Classic at Magnolia Grove's Crossings Course decided to focus on from a marketing standpoint?

Michelle Wie and her one LPGA victory. Even though she's only 20 and is still attending Stanford, she is the LPGA's biggest name. The billboards in place around Mobile, Ala., to advertise the tournament sport a "Wow Wie" theme and likeness of the player, wrote Tommy Hicks in The Press-Register:

"The whole Wow Wie billboards took me back to elementary school," Wie said laughing. "It's funny. It's really a great billboard."

In all seriousness, though, Wie said she is aware of the pressure to become more visible on a tour without Sorenstam and Ochoa.

"I think we all have a responsibility for that, including me," Wie said. "I'm just trying to play as well as I can and provide the best golf out there. Hopefully, that provides a lot of entertainment and brings the tour to a whole new level. I think all the players are really striving toward that. We're all just working together to make a better product."

Few LPGA players are being watched as closely as Wie. It can be a lot for a 20-year-old to handle, but Wie said she doesn't dwell on the age factor.

"I think age is a very interesting thing," she said. "You don't really think about age out here. You just try to play the best you can right now. Whether you're 20 right now or whether you're a little bit older or younger doesn't really make a difference. You're all right here in the present and doing the best we can right now."

Y.E. Yang still smarting over Golf Digest "takeout" tweet
Ryan Ballengee at waggleroom.com has done us the favor of compiling the back-and-forth of the unlikely Twitter battle of veteran sportswriter Dan Jenkins and defending PGA Championship winner Y.E. Yang. After Jenkins missed the mark with a tweet from the Masters about takeout food ("Y.E. Yang is three shots off the lead. I think we got takeout from him last night"), Ballengee responds to Golf Digest's response to Yang's response. (Got all that?)

           Golf Digest issued an apology yesterday for Jenkins' remarks. 

Dan Jenkins' Masters tweet about Y.E. Yang generated several letters of protest. Jenkins’ reference was intended to play off the PGA champion Y.E. Yang's name and the P.F. Chang's restaurant chain. We removed it from our archive and apologize for any offense. Certainly none was intended.

That's fine and I appreciate [Golf Digest editor in chief] Jerry [Tarde] doing that since what Dan said was in poor taste -- and was really reaching on a PF Chang's joke. But Jenkins needs to apologize. Man up, realize what he said offended a good number of people -- maybe 2 billion people by YE Yang's count -- and apologize.

Not to pour fuel on the fire, but am I the only one who finds that explanation even more insulting than the original tweet? Lest we forget, Yang's not even Chinese! This little blowup might have legs as Wednesday morning Yang suggested (via Twitter of course) that Asian-American organizations get involved in protesting Jenkins' remarks.

I hope the Asian American Association or any other NGO would help the fight on such racism/racist comments by esteemed journalists

Westwood shows class in Masters loss
Lee Westwood made quite a few fans in the U.S. (and the U.S. media) with his performance at the Masters. And I'm not talking about the way he played. Christopher Clarey of The New York Times describes what we didn't see on television:

Lee Westwood had just come up short again in a major championship, just seen his own dreams get crushed after leading the tournament after three rounds. And yet — with the narrow pathway between the green and the scorer’s cabin blocked by Phil’s and Amy’s extended embrace and the camera crews and photographers recording it — Westwood waited politely if certainly not peacefully with his strong arms folded.

A less gracious loser would have quickly found a way to squeeze through and get past a celebration that could only remind him of what might have been, but Westwood, even in the midst of his latest disappointment, remained sensitive to the situation.

While Clarey's piece also touches on Westwood's close relationship with Darren Clarke and how likely it is that the Brit will finally pull out a major win, the author led with the right story--for now, Lee Westwood is just a jolly good loser...but don't expect that to last very long.

The Ryder Cup is only 170 days away
Every other year, the end of the Masters kicks off the start of Ryder Cup fever, and 2010 is no exception. Unfortunately for the European team, this year's Masters may have been a preview to an ugly showdown. Douglas Lowe of Scotland's The Herald talks about the tough decisions that captain Colin Montgomerie must face after poor play from nearly every European not named Westwood or Poulter:

Major championships are invariably the strongest indicators of form when the subjective element comes into the equation for what will be three captain’s picks for Montgomerie come the end of qualification at the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles in August, and elsewhere there was not much cheer. Only five others made the cut and there was little to write home about for Robert Karlsson (tied 43rd) and Sergio Garcia (tied 45th) although Soren Kjeldsen and Francesco Molinari (both tied 30th) will not be unhappy and leading amateur Matteo Manassero, still just 16, underlined his potential by finishing joint 36th.

It is below the cut line that the particularly gloomy picture emerges. None of the bright new hopes of Martin Kaymer, Rory McIlroy, Simon Dyson, Alvaro Quiros and Ross Fisher played all four rounds, and these are players Montgomerie has been enthusing about. Even more worrying was the performances of the players who have already been blooded in the biennial beanfeast that will be staged in October at Celtic Manor in Wales, with early exits for Padraig Harrington, Paul Casey, Luke Donald, Graeme McDowell and Oliver Wilson. 

Even worse for Montgomerie is that his counterpart won't have nearly the same problems. Strong finishes from Tiger Woods and Anthony Kim have brought both safely into the top-8 in the U.S. rankings, meaning that Corey Pavin will have some leeway with his captain's picks. And he couldn't be happier about it.

You keep using that word--I do not think it means what you think it means
In a well-intentioned blog post for NPR, Todd Holzman describes the "diversity" he saw at Augusta National over the weekend:

Golf -- the ultimate country club game -- is one of the last places you might think to look for diversity. And inside the world of golf, few places have been less diverse historically than the Masters in Augusta, Ga.

Yet as the tournament wrapped up Sunday, the faces on the leaderboard offered a surprising mini-Census. The winner was Apple Pie American Phil Mickelson, of course, followed by British star Lee Westwood.

Then came Anthony Kim, the rising 24-year-old Korean-American star; Tiger Woods, a veritable melting pot of ethnic backgrounds; and K.J. Choi, who taught himself how to play golf in South Korea with the help of a Jack Nicklaus instructional book.

Holzman then goes on to recount some of the ethnically diverse Masters winners and competitors, like Angel Cabrera and Lee Elder. But what does it all mean?

What does it all mean? Maybe not too much. Golf is hardly a microcosm of society. It's expensive and time-consuming and in most cases it's an acquired taste.

But it's good to see that even a fortress like Augusta National is not entirely impregnable for those who keep swinging.

Unfortunately, that's where Holzman misses the mark. At the end of the day, he's talking about diversity on the PGA Tour (an admirable subject which deserves many a blog post). If he really thinks there's diversity at Augusta National, he should spend five minutes in a room with Martha Burke.

Moving on from the Masters
My Masters hangover is going to last for weeks this year, but Larry Bohannan of The Desert Sun has already moved on and is looking at what's next for the PGA Tour. In a simple rundown of things to come in the next few months, Bohannan raises a storyline that may be sticking around for the next couple years:

1. Sponsorship. Verizon is the sponsor of this week’s Heritage tournament, but this is the last year Verizon will be involved in the tournament. CA is out at the tournament in Miami. And there is no concrete word on what is going to happen with the Bob Hope Classic as it stares at a second year without a sponsor. So, Mr. Finchem, what are we going to do with all those empty sponsorship slots on tour?

Even with great TV ratings at this year's Masters, it's hard to imagine that golf is out of the woods when it comes to sponsorship deals (especially with Tiger disappearing back into the ether). At the end of the day, it will be the way that Tim Finchem steers the Tour through this economic downturn (and not the way he handles Tiger's scandal) will determine how we judge the success of his tenure as commissioner.

It's not even April yet, but Michael Whitmer of the Boston Globe is already seeing cracks in Tim Finchem's armor. Whitmer details the foibles, faux-pas and flat out mistakes the Commish has made this year:

Finchem sent a memo to tournament directors updating them on the eligibility status of 10-time tour winner Steve Elkington, who isn't fully exempt this season and must rely on sponsor exemptions. This didn't sit well with some players, who viewed the commissioner's actions as biased. Former tour winners Tim Herron and David Duval, who also aren't fully exempt, were openly critical of Finchem...

Finchem didn't alert the players [to Tiger's press conference during the WGC Match Play Championship], who were ambushed by the media seeking reaction following first-round matches. Finchem took full responsibility, saying, "You can never communicate too much in this business, and when you don't, you usually pay a price."

Communication wasn't a problem at the start of the year when a handful of pros, including Phil Mickelson, chose to put a 20-year-old Ping wedge in the bag...When Mickelson and some other prominent names (Fred Couples, Hunter Mahan) chose to use the club, other players spoke up, saying the spirit of the new rule was being bent. Scott McCarron called Mickelson out, saying using the Ping wedge was a form of cheating.

Whitmer also brings up the positive stories on Tour this year, including wins by Tour stalwarts (Ernie Els and Jim Furyk), young guns (Dustin Johnson and Camilo Villegas) and the English invasion. All in all it hasn't been a debacle of a season so far, even sans Tiger, but it's hard to argue that the Tour is dealing with enough major issues that Finchem needs to take a little more time communicating with players in order to keep the small fiasco's like Tiger's presser and Phil's wedge at bay.

Will Tiger get heckled?
With all of the buildup to Tiger's appearance at this year's Masters, it's hard not to wonder what the patrons' reaction will be as Woods takes his first few steps down the fairway. Larry Dorman of The New York Times is already thinking about what the fans might have in store for the world's most famous golfer:

It may or may not happen during the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club in two weeks. If so, it would probably happen during the practice rounds Monday through Wednesday. During the tournament's four rounds, fans with season badges would be loath to jeopardize their reputation or annual entree to the Masters merely to holler something that would violate the code of sportsmanship laid down by Bobby Jones.

But eventually someone will scream something at Woods. No one doubts it, not even — or perhaps, especially — Woods, who said, "I'm a little nervous about that, to be honest with you" when asked by an ESPN reporter on Sunday about the possibility of a negative crowd reaction.

Dorman also talked to Stewart Cink and Colin Montgomerie about what it's like to play under intense fan scrutiny, presumably to get a taste of what Tiger might expect:

Stewart Cink, who is friendly with Woods and said he would not mind being paired with him at the Masters, recalled his own experience with raw nerve endings inside the ropes. It came the week after he blew a 2-foot putt at the United States Open in 2001 that would have landed him in the Monday playoff.

"I felt exposed," said Cink, whose exposure does not approximate Woods's. "I had just done something crazy at the U.S. Open, and going into Westchester, where the crowd is vocal, I was a little bit nervous about what some of the comments might be. And there were some comments.

"So I can definitely understand how he might be feeling about what may come out of some of the people. The Masters is a lot different animal than Westchester, but he is going to hear some things, whether there or later on down the road."

"I've heard when he said that he's nervous to come back, and that's the first time I've ever heard Tiger say those words," Montgomerie, this year's European Ryder Cup captain, said at Bay Hill, where he is playing the Arnold Palmer Invitational on a sponsor's exemption. "I think it will be fine. Coming to a so-called normal PGA Tour event, it might be different.

As much as I respect Cink and Monty, asking anyone these questions is completely absurd. Tiger's crowds were already huge and bordering on crazed at times, so there is absolutely no way to know what's going to happen (although Monty makes a great point about the Masters being different than a "normal PGA Tour event," which I agree will work in Tiger's favor).

I think the real question isn't so much how the crowd is going to react to Tiger, but how Tiger's going to react to the crowd. Will he show a little more love going down the fairway? Will he give them a couple smiles or extra fist pumps on the green? Will he curse up a storm after a bad shot or a click of the camera in his backswing? Only time will tell.

Tiger's Monday conference is well timed for screwing with the sports media
The Media's been abuzz about Tiger immediately taking Arnie's advice and scheduling a press conference for 2 p.m. on the Monday of Masters week. But Jeff Shain at the Orlando Sentinel points out what many of us noticed about the timing of Tiger's first presser in nearly six months:

The good news is that Woods will face the Masters media — booking a 2 p.m. mass interview for Monday of that week. The bad news, for hoops fans anyway, is that he'll grab all the headlines usually reserved for the NCAA Tournament finale. (Now maybe if Stanford had a team good enough to get to the Final Four…)

We see the logic here. Every media outlet will be hyper-focused on Woods until he speaks, so get the procedure done so everybody can return their energies to discussing the Masters itself.

But Masters Monday is usually treated as a light news day while March Madness crowns its champion. Woods is guaranteed to commandeer the biggest headlines now, with the exception of outlets that actually cover the NCAA finalists.

Something tells me that there's currently a very busy person working the switchboards at Augusta Regional Airport, as every reporter with a set of credentials tries to work his or her way onto an earlier flight.

Tiger the favorite? The pros think so.
Nobody was surprised when the talking heads and Vegas oddsmakers immediately predicted Woods would win at Augusta this year, Teddy Greenspan from the Chicago Tribune takes a look at how some of Tiger's peers (who have been practicing with him this week) view his chances:

Four-to-1 for a guy who hasn't been fitted for a green jacket since 2005, who has not played a competitive round in four months, who just might be reminded of his personal flaws as he takes back the blade on a hellacious 6-footer? (TIGER is a CHEETAH T-shirt sold separately.)

Seems absurd to me — and to a chunk of players on the PGA Tour. Of course, they think his odds actually should be lower.

"I'd give him 50-50," Billy Mayfair said from the practice range at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. "One, it's the intimidation factor. Two, you have to remember: Even though the crowds at Augusta will be very sedate and appreciative, they're still going to be loud. I think it will affect other players more than Tiger."

Said Paul Goydos: "Every time we underestimate the guy, he exceeds those expectations. And I expect him to exceed them this time too."

How about the fact that he whiffed on the majors last year, going 0-for-4?

"So I would say he's due," Goydos replied.

50/50 is about as ridiculous a statement as you can make, but I think I appreciate what Mayfair is trying to say. Tiger is striping the ball right now, even in the opinion of guys who do it for a living.