Up Down: Universe aligning for magical Masters; double down Daly

March 9, 2010

Steve Elling sorts through a surprisingly busy week in golf, with top players staging welcome career rallies, Tiger Woods showing up on the playing radar and John Daly making people grimace for, oh, about the 100th time.

Up

Home on the range After being a Howard Hughes-caliber recluse for three months, Tiger Woods spent much of last week on the practice range at his home club outside Orlando. Friday, in fact, he was spotted on the range, wearing the vestiges of a new mustache and talking on his cell phone between shots. That means a couple of things. First, that he’s preparing for a return, perhaps as early as this month. Second, that he has his cell phone back. Want to bet that his carrier isn’t AT&T? Whatever we might think of what Woods has done, and he has plenty of issues to sort through privately and publicly, the last part of the puzzle is when he will next play, and it appears it will be sooner rather than later. Woods was on the Isleworth course all weekend, playing. By the way, officials with the Tavistock Cup, which begins in two weeks at his home club, have received hundreds of media credential requests. The timing of that two-day event still makes the most sense as far as the comeback launch point, because of its small and insular nature. Paranoia is raging already, and it’s wearing thin among club residents. Woods is using a private security staff that is phoning in the license plate numbers to club authorities of vehicles that circle past his house or the driving range when he is practicing. Small wonder that some Isleworth residents, fully aware that he put the club on the global map when he moved there in 1996, are counting down the days until he moves to South Florida.

Remember these guys? It was a throwback weekend in golf at the Honda Classic, and not because some of Camilo Villegas’ colorful clothes look like they were hauled out of a 1970s time capsule. Villegas hadn’t won since 2008. Anthony Kim posted his best finish since his first start of 2009, some 13 months ago. Coming of a disastrous 2009 that included two knee surgeries, 47-year-old warhorse Vijay Singh had his best finish since he won outside Boston in 2008. K.J. Choi, playing overseas, came up for air for the first time in months, finishing second. Justin Rose posted his best finish since a runner-up effort in Dubai, 13 months ago. Forget th the international intrigue and flavoring is a secondary issue. Simply put, each has b are included in the competitive melange. Think it might be a crazy and competitive Masters this year?

It takes a Villegas Villegas must play his best when he’s burned out and distracted. Last week, after he flew home to South Florida from his top 10 finish in Phoenix, he jetted off to Colombia, where he was the face of the country’s first Nationwide Tour event. He spent all of Tuesday playing in the pro-am, attending parties, signing autographs, shaking hands and trying to get the nation’s inaugural PGA Tour-sanctioned event off to a good start. Weeks back, Villegas briefly and it’s a good thing he resisted the temptation. Villegas put forth the most dominant performance of 2010 at the Honda Classic, running away with the title by five shots Sunday for his third victory in the States. Wonder what represented the bigger news in the Bogota sports pages on Monday morning? So was he. “I hope they split the page in half and do it that way,” he said Sunday night. “I mean, it’s awesome.” Given his past successes at Doral, he has to be the favorite at the CA Championship this week, too. Maybe he ought to show up Thursday and play. He skipped the pro-am and practice rounds at the Honda and it worked out fine.

When the King calls, folks listen After all he has done for the game, when the King picks up the phone, it’s hard to say no. And rightly so. That’s been fairly evident this season given the access granted to largely unheralded first-year pro Sam Saunders, who already has received sponsor exemptions at four PGA Tour events and will play again at his grandfather’s Arnold Palmer Invitational in two weeks. Saunders, a former Florida state high school champion who left after a so-so career at Clemson with a year left in his eligibility, made the cut for the second time this season, this time at the Honda, where the 22-year-old flirted with a top 10 finish before closing with a 73 to finish T17. “He’s got some talent, for sure,” said Ron Levin, who caddied for Saunders on the West Coast. Palmer has been coaching Saunders at Bay Hill for months and has always doted on the kid, who is exceedingly respectful. Arnie didn’t have any sons, of course, so he’s doing what he can to give Samuel Palmer Saunders a leg up in a decidedly difficult profession. In fact, as one wise guy joked, given the way the phones of PGA Tour tournament directors have been ringing all spring on behalf of the kid, maybe it’s a good thing Arnold doesn’t have more grandsons.

Noh kidding: Teens rule For decades, conventional wisdom dictated that it was easier for teenage girl to make noise in LPGA circles because women mature earlier and the depth of talent in the female game isn’t remotely comparable to the men. Well, that axiom might still apply, but how to explain the ridiculously fast ascent of teenagers in the male side of the DNA ledger? Seung-yul Noh became the youngest pro in European Tour history to win, edging Choi by a shot at the Malaysian Open. This comes a year after the E-Tour had its youngest-ever winner, New Zealand amateur Danny Lee, who, like Noh, was all of 18. Toss in victories by teens like Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy and Japan’s Ryo Ishikawa. To demonstrate how fast things have changed, recall that when Woods was 16 and making his PGA Tour debut at the L.A. Open, he was so nervous, he said he could feel his heartbeat in his eyeballs when he bent down to tee the ball on the first hole. Said Malaysian runner-up Choi, who played a practice round with Noh last week: “Noh played brilliantly and I have no complaints. He is one of the most powerful young talents coming up. The way that he controls and hits the ball is like no other and I think he has a very bright future.”

Down

What would Ely Callaway do? A decade ago, as a controversy raged about Callaway Golf’s introduction of the non-conforming ERC II driver, company founder Ely Callaway was so annoyed at the media carping that he yanked millions in advertising, causing at least one magazine some huge distress. Last week, in on John Daly claimed that Ely Callaway had forced Daly to take anti-depressants as a condition of an endorsement deal signed 13 years ago. For perspective, Daly was at his toxic worst when Callaway, a marketing whiz, took a flier on him and signed him to a deal. Daly was required to stop drinking, though he admittedly didn’t and eventually checked into a rehab center, then left after one day. Callaway generously paid off Daly’s gambling debts, said to number in the millions. This is how Daly repays the biggest act of largesse in his career, by conjuring up claims about one of the game’s notable figures? It will be interesting to see how Callaway refutes Daly’s drug allegation. I bet that if Ely himself were still alive, he’d threaten to pull the company’s advertising off the Golf Channel, which began airing a new Daly reality show last week and is thus complicit in the guy’s serial idiocy. You have heard of appointment television, right? Anything featuring Daly, forever the finger-pointing excuse machine who can’t accept responsibility for anything, is disappointment television.

The Daly double This marks a first. Since the Up & Down list debuted in early 2009, no player has ever before managed to make the list twice in the same week, but Daly outdid his con-man self last week. Upset after his 456-page PGA Tour disciplinary dossier was made public because of a frivolous lawsuit that Daly himself initiated, Daly posted the phone number on his Twitter account of the sportswriter who penned a story about his eye-popping past. Daly’s actions prompted more than 100 calls to the author, including one guy who threatened to rape the writer’s wife. Let’s be clear: The phone number Daly twice posted on his Twitter account the office line posted at the bottom of the writer’s stories as a matter of company policy. It was his cell number. The next day, Daly was asked three times on the air by ESPN why he asked his fans to harass the writer, and all he could do was crow about his new reality show. Wake up, folks, you are being duped by the master. Daly’s new TV series is another attempt to show he has cleaned up his act so that he can generate more endorsement money. That’s why he was so miffed at the timing of the news story he wanted a fast settlement, but the paper fought back, tooth and nail. Daly was ordered to pay the paper’s legal fees. Recall that at Torrey Pines, he said he was quitting the game because he could not afford to play the tour anymore. You want to bankroll this guy, then go ahead, watch the show.

Let’s make it a threesome In order for Daly to continue acting like a national disgrace, it takes co-conspirators. Enter the Golf Channel and the PGA Tour, who are clearly complicit in this stale act, too. Is a tiny blip in Monday ratings worth the credibility hit the network is taking for having this guy on the air, spinning his latest tale of redemption? How many times have we heard that pitch? Daly has cleaned up his act more often than Darryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden combined. As for the tour, its disciplinary policy has been proved to be little more than an inside joke. Now we know it’s embarrassing and would not modify the behavior of an underpaid schoolteacher, much less a millionaire several times over. Daly has approximately 500 pages included on his rap sheet and yet he has been fined an average of $5,555 annually over his career. That’s not nearly enough to precipitate change in a guy who spends that much each year on guitar strings. Then there’s the issue of keeping the sanctions a secret. Said a member of the Player Advisory Committee about the tour’s meek disciplinary system: “We have gone around and around with [commissioner] Tim [Finchem] on this,” he said. “It’s all about image.” That’s right, even some players believe that certain fines and violations should be announced, just like in real sports leagues. How does disciplining a player, yet not announcing the sanction, effectively dissuade further bad acts? “It doesn’t,” the PAC member said. Exactly my point. As a sad postscript, the tour didn’t suspend Daly from competing this week in Puerto Rico.

The Kiwi that roared I guess this is why Steve Williams doesn’t do many interviews. Last year, he called Phil Mickelson an ugly term in the offseason and he frequently displays all of the tact of a boot-camp drill sergeant, which admittedly has its applications and advantages inside the ropes. But last week, Woods’ caddie of the past 11 years went on a New Zealand news program and swore up and down that he knew nothing of Woods’ extra-marital dalliances, even though the pair appear close to inseparable on the road, working out together and often sharing a car. Should we believe Williams? Nobody has poked more fun at Williams over the years than me, but it’s quite possible that Woods’ disturbing double life had escaped his notice. Williams’ wife is a close friend and confidante of Elin Woods. In fact, when you see one of them on the course, the other is often alongside, too. Hiding knowledge of what Woods was doing behind his wife’s back would have put the caddie in an extremely delicate situation. Just because Woods was comfortable keeping secrets from his wife doesn’t mean Williams would willingly do the same. It took some moxie to speak up and possibly incur the wrath of his notoriously vindictive boss, no?

Where it all began? It was almost impossible to keep track of the many Woods-related stories when the sex scandal was at its apex, and some of us missed a telling sidebar that possibly provides real insight as to how his self-absorbed, entitlement mindset all began. It’s illuminating, given what has played out for the past three months. Back in college, Woods demonstrated his levels of basic compassion when he abruptly broke up with his high-school flame, who was told in a terse, hand-written letter that Woods and his parents, “never want to hear from you again.” The girl had been dating Woods for two years, had attended a Stanford match and told people she was Woods’ girlfriend, which apparently set him off. In keeping with his tightwad image, he also reportedly asked for a necklace he had given her as a gift be returned. Months later, he wrote another note to the girl and apologized, but the tenor and tone seemingly had been set: Play by his rules, or don’t play at all.