Archive for March, 2010
March 27, 2010
Phil Mickelson had just hit his best shot all year, and was still basking in the glory as the cheers cascaded down while he walked to his final tee box on Friday.
Then he abruptly veered over to the gallery rope and handed his ball to a little girl, who looked up from under a pink Mickey Mouse hat.
“There you go,” he said.
When Phil Mickelson was done spraying and slicing with his driver, the putter saved the day. (Getty Images) She was left completely speechless, which, considering her choice of headwear, was doubly appropriate.
Finishing off a theme-park-worthy round that left everybody struggling for words, Lefty put himself in contention heading into the weekend for the first time all year with a rollicking 5-under 67 that left him a shot off the early lead at the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
As is often the case with Mickelson, you had to see it to believe it. Even by Mickelsonian standards, it was a museum piece.
The effort matched his seasonal best relative to par, but it eclipsed all other 2010 rounds in terms of entertainment. Like most classic Mickelson outings, it was equal parts frightening, enervating and inspiring.
It made your hair stand up like a porcupine watching a horror movie. The end result, thanks to his best putting round of the year, is that the second-best player on the planet is relevant on the weekend again.
Mickelson, who isn’t above a little self-deprecation, laughed out loud when a British bloke asked him if rounds like this are stressful, or if he’s basically used to it by now at age 39.
“I find that an interesting question, because there’s some legitimacy to it,” Mickelson grinned. “I have a tendency to have up-and-down rounds like that. But it’s fun.
“I mean, I enjoy trying to create shots and hit shots and take on some of these pins and make birdies, and unfortunately I tend to make a few mistakes at times as well.”
He was an ad-libbing fool Friday, attracting the largest crowd of the day and moving toward the top of the leaderboard at Palmer’s Place for the first time since 2002, when he finished T3. The shot of the year, one of those unexpected strokes that can turn into a career catalyst, came at the eighth, his 17th hole of the day.
Mickelson had already bathed two tee balls on his wild back nine when he faced a 135-yard wedge shot from the fairway. He pulled a wedge and launched one dead at the pin, with the shot narrowly missing a bird in midair before it landed and plopped into the cup after two bounces.
Orlando might be Tiger Town, but the place went berserk. Mickelson, who won at Bay Hill half a career ago in 1997, fist-bumped about two dozen fans on the way to the next tee and deposited the ball into the little girl’s hands.
True, the occasionally sloppy shots made the round look a little too familiar for Mickelson, who had a spectacular autumn in 2009 yet hasn’t been able to muster a lick of momentum this year. But there was one huge difference: With the Masters beckoning in two weeks, he made every meaningful putt he faced.
“It was my best putting round of the year and I feel so much better with the flat stick,” he said. “I feel so much better on the greens, I have much better direction and I spent a bunch of time with [coach] Dave Stockton.
“I can just make those 15-, 20-footers. So it was a little bit different feel to the round today.”
But in some ways, certainly as it relates to the white-knuckle portion of the menu, it was epic Mickelson. The fun started on his eighth hole, when he laid the sod over a hybrid approach shot on a short par-5 and made birdie anyway.
He had 246 yards to the flag and the ball traveled … 180. It didn’t even reach the pond that fronts the hole. He put both hands over his head and covered his face.
“That was my version of going for it,” he deadpanned. His back nine was even more creative. He aggressively pulled a driver on the short third hole and carved a wild slice into the water, 50 yards offline. After a penalty drop, he made a 12-footer to salvage a bogey from a greenside bunker.
On the sixth, he hit another booming slice into the water and had to reload from the tee box. This time, he throttled back to a 3-wood and eventually had to make a 17-footer to save a bogey.
In both instances, he seemed to be on the verge of a meltdown, but the putter bailed him out. Bogeys never felt so good.
“You could say that every shot is equal, but when you make a double-bogey it’s a devastating feeling,” he said.
He didn’t sniff a double on Monday, when he played a Fred Couples layout in the Palm Springs area and shot his lowest round ever, a stellar 58 that included 12 birdies and an eagle. But nothing can prep him for Augusta National like tasting blood on the back nine Sunday, especially against a deep field.
“I think for me it’s important to get into contention and get that feel and that nervousness of being in one of the last few groups, having a chance to win the golf tournament, looking at the leaderboard, being able to focus on your own game, all of those things combined,” he said. “I haven’t had that this year. I haven’t played the way I expect to.”
Mickelson won a pair of big events in the fall, twice beating Tiger Woods in the process, but his best finish in five starts this year is a forgettable T8 at Pebble Beach. He is playing next week in Houston, his first sustained stretch of the season, partly because of the well-documented family issues with his wife and mom back home.
“Heading into this week I feel very confident with where my game was headed, but I still need to shoot the numbers,” he said. “Now that I feel that’s coming, I still need to get into contention and be able to perform and it’s important for me to do that heading into Augusta.”
More than anything, he was relieved to see balls start falling into the cup, because nobody wins at Augusta if they have scar tissue on the greens.
Mickelson had 11 one-putt greens, plus the hole-out on the eighth for eagle. He mentioned three weeks ago after another lackluster he has gone from missed cuts to victories in successive weeks too many times to mention. Maybe the eagle can help nudge him back to the fore.
“It certainly could, but this was the turning point for me, this round on the greens, because the putter, I rolled it,” he said, his enthusiasm obvious. “I wasn’t stressing over it. I just feel different with the blade.”
Given the multiple stab wounds endured by the game this year with a sour economy, flagging TV ratings and the endless Woods scandal, having Mickelson b and talking about.
March 27, 2010
Nick Price is finally gaining confidence in his game after several disappointing years.
Price showed why on Friday, shooting a 6-under 66 for a share of the lead with Chip Beck after the first round of the Champions Tour’s $1.6 million Cap Cana Championship.
Price and Beck took advantage of light winds and brilliant sunshine at the 7,176-yard Punta Espada Golf Club to head the 78-player field.
Fred Couples, already a two-time winner on the Champions Tour this season, former Masters champion Larry Mize, Olin Browne and David Peoples each shot a 67 and were one shot back on the par-72, Jack Nicklaus-designed course.
Major championship winners Corey Pavin (U.S. Open) and Bob Tway (PGA Championship) were among six players who shot 68. Nine others were at 69.
In all, 38 players were able to better par, while 11 matched it.
But it was Price and Beck who ran off seven birdies each to grab the lead.
“The conditions were good and the wind laid down toward the end of the round,” said Price, a three-time major winner whose only Champions victory came last April at the Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am.
“My game has been pretty good this year. It seems like one part of my game was missing before, but in the last two weeks it has come together. That’s a good feeling for me.”
Price shot 32 on the back nine, with birdies from inside 15 feet on Nos. 11, 12 and 14, and he two-putted the par-5 15th for another birdie.
Beck, a longtime PGA Tour player, is trying to return to form. He regained conditional playing status at Q-school last November and is making his first start.
Always upbeat, Beck said his comeback will happen.
“I’m feeling confident and I’ve been playing well,” said Beck, winless over the last four seasons.
Most of the attention centered on Couples, the hottest player on any tour, and he didn’t disappoint - initially. He birdied the first two holes and then hit a wall, mostly due to poor drives which forced him to play from the rough several times.
“I played the par 5s 4-under, and those are the holes I needed to play well,” said Couples. “I didn’t drive the ball poorly but I missed [tee shots] in the rough and then hit second shots 30 feet from the hole because I couldn’t make the shot stop.”
It was on the 540-yard, par-5 No. 12 where Couples made his move. His drive left him 240 yards from the hole, and a crisply struck 5-iron nestled to within eight feet of the cup. He sank the eagle putt, jumping from 2-under to 4-under.
A follow-up birdie three holes later put Couples within striking distance of his third consecutive Champions win with two rounds left.
“The leader board is very good,” said Couples. “It was important for me to be close. I’m in good shape.”
March 26, 2010
An 80-year-old man looked at his television screen and might as well have been staring in the mirror.
Believing he needed a birdie to earn a spot in the PGA Tour event the following week, rookie professional Sam Saunders pulled the driver from his bag in the fairway of the final hole of the Honda Classic and took a mighty wallop, trying to reach the par-5 hole in two.
Sam Saunders is playing at Bay Hill having made two cuts in four pro events. (Getty Images) What, you expected him to lay up?
His grandfather, watching on national TV, didn’t. Saunders made a mess of the hole and didn’t quite muster his first top-10 tour finish, but the look on the mug of one of the game’s iconic visages was priceless nonetheless.
“I have to admit that, whatever anybody else thinks, I had a big grin on my face when he pulled the driver out,” Arnold Palmer said, laughing. “I was very proud of him doing that.”
Had Saunders, 22, hitched up his pants like his granddad did when he carried the sport on his back in the 1960s, fans might have lapsed into a full-blown reverie.
On the calendar, the generation gap between Saunders and his Hall of Fame grandfather is nearly six decades wide. Facts are, after the promising prospect turned pro last year, they are closer than ever.
Playing this week in the Arnold Palmer Invitational among guys who call David Leadbetter, Butch Harmon and the game’s top instructors their swing coa the most popular man in the history of the game.
“Nobody knows more about the game of golf than Arnold Palmer,” said Roy Saunders, Sam’s dad and A.P.’s son-in-law.
In his first year as a pro, Saunders over the winter asked Palmer to become his full-time coach, a first for the latter. The King, who has two daughters, had been awaiting that question … for years. He had mentored Sam since the latter seriously took up the game a decade earlier as hilarious as that might sound to us civilians.
“That was something that I had hoped would happen,” Palmer said this week. “I wasn’t sure it would. But we started working together, and he has really just come along.”
After leaving Clemson last year, Saunders moved back to Orlando, where Palmer makes his winter home, and asked Palmer if he could help raise his game to a new level. Turns out that their relationship was elevated, too.
Now they relate personally, professionally and as adults. Saunders, who takes a mighty rip at the ball, already inherited the DNA. Now he’s tapping into the rest.
“If we can get a positive on the psychological aspects of it, get him where he’s positive and he has a system that he can use, I think it’s going to work, and that’s what we are working for right now,” Palmer explained. “It’s already proven to do pretty well. He’s only played in four events and he’s made two cuts. Hell, that’s pretty good for a young guy coming up.”
No question, being a scion of the Palmer seed has been beneficial for Saunders, who has no tour status and can accept a maximum of seven sponsor exemptions. Saunders has had more offers than he has exemptions remaining. He also can take seven exemptions on the Nationwide Tour.
He’s playing this week in his own front yard. His parents, Roy and Amy Saunders, run the Bay Hill Club & Lodge, which Arnold bought decades ago. It has hosted a tour event since 1979, so Sam was forever immersed in the game like a baby at a baptismal bath.
When Palmer agreed to be more than a paternal figure or part-time mentor, he had only a few stipulations. One was a deal-breaker.
“I remember my father saying, ‘When you go out on the tour, you just listen to everyone that you talk to out there, and they will help you,’” Palmer said, setting up the joke perfectly. “‘They will help you get back here to Latrobe and drive tractors.’”
In other words, Saunders eschewed all outside instruction and signed on full bore with P hell, there are about a million golfers out there who would pay a fortune for the same privilege.
True, the coaching game has changed a little bit since Deacon Palmer once told his soon-to-be famous son, “Hit it as hard as you can.”
“He’s been really good,” Palmer said of his grandson receptiveness. “He has stuck with the things that we’ve talke minor adjustments along the way when he has a little problem, he’ll just say, ‘Can I see you on the tee for a little bit?’ and I go out with him.
“And it’s worked. And if he keeps doing that, it will work.”
In their first session, they spent three hours on the Bay Hill range.
“It’s fun to watch him give Sam the lessons,” Roy Saunders said. “He does it quietly and there’s not a lot to it. it’s very subtle. He does not like a lot of folks standing around watching him do it. It’s a very private situation.”
Saunders has done some growing in h Saunders was a little shy around his grandfather in his younger years. Palmer, who enjoys giving and receiving a good barb, can now trade the needle with Sam, too. The kid’s all grown up.
“He likes that,” Sam said. “He likes when you show some toughness. When he used to be hard on me, I would kind of back down and be afraid to say anything. “I would never say anything back to him in a mean way or in a disrespectful way, but he likes me to step up and kind of show that I’ve got some guts and not be afraid to shoot something right back at him. He want me to be tough and he always tries to toughen me up.”
Four years ago, Saunders played in the Bay Hill event when he was still an amateur. While watching Saunders play off the air, veteran NBC broadcaster Bob Murphy watched the kid aggressively roll a birdie putt about 5 feet past the hole, then hammer the comebacker home with nary a worry.
Murphy laughed, “I must have seen his grandfather do that a thousand times.”
That was probably a low estimate. Interestingly, as much as anything, Palmer is preaching course management to Saunders these days.
“Part of the process is working on his game management,” Roy Saunders said. “You can always have the physical talent, but you have to learn how to hit the right shot at the right time, becoming a little more refined. Sam is a quick study.”
He could have been as dense as a rock and he would have long ago realized how lucky he is. His grandfather is a largely untapped trove of counsel and experience, wrapped in a warm, familial embrace.
“There is no question,” Amy Saunders said, “they have a very neat rapport.”
March 26, 2010
Defending champion Soren Kjeldsen and 1999 British Open winner Paul Lawrie shared the lead Thursday at the Andalucia Open after each shot a 5-under 65 in the opening round.
Kjeldsen made seven birdies around the Parador Golf Course on the Costa Del Sol in a return to form following a dip toward the end of 2009 after the Dane became embroiled in a lengthy legal battle with his former manager.
“My former manager owed me several hundred thousand euros and when I asked him for it, I discovered all the money had been spent,” Kjeldsen said. “It was a lot of money and it was a big distraction from my golf, so it’s nice to shoot low again.”
Ranked 35th in the world at the start of the year, Kjeldsen has secured a place to play in the Masters next month. But he has since slipped to 51st and failed to join many fellow Europeans warming up for the first major of 2010 at Bay Hill this week.
“I would have like to have played Bay Hill but at the same time I also wanted to defend the Andalucian Open title, which I won last year,” Kjeldsen said. “So dropping out to 51st made my mind up for me and I am glad I came here to Spain. In the end, if you are playing well in the buildup to a major it doesn’t matter whether you do it in Spain or America.”
Lawrie recently returned to coach Adam Hunter, with whom the Scot worked during his Open victory at Carnoustie and who has recently been diagnosed with leukaemia.
“That should help cheer him up a bit,” Lawrie said of his opening round.
A group of eight players are a stroke behind.
March 25, 2010
Golf odds – Pick Nick Watney +2800
Online betting players thought that Tiger Woods would be back at Bay Hill this weekend to go for his third straight win in the Arnold Palmer Invitational, but the world’s No.1 is staying away for another couple of weeks. Even without Woods, this tournament usually brings out a strong field, and it’s usually an exciting event, and this week’s winner will be a player many expect to the next step in his progress this season.
Golf betting odds: Pick Nick Watney +2800
What: Golf betting
When: Bay Hill Club and Lodge, Orlando, FL
Where: Thursday, March 25 – Sunday, March 28
Defending Champion: Tiger Woods (two straight years)
As the highest-ranked players in the field this week, Phil Mickelson and Steve Stricker are the favorites at +1000 and +1400, respectively. Mickelson won here in 1997, and he’s been great on par-5s this year, which is important as the par-5s have been retooled this year to yield more birdies. Stricker finished T-8 at the Transitions Championship last week, but he’s never really fared well at Bay Hill, and his last appearance here came in 2005, when he missed the cut.
Ernie Els and Jim Furyk are listed at +2000 and +2200 after winning the last two PGA Tour events, but Els won this event in 1998. Outside of a 67th-place result at the Honda Classic, Els hasn’t finished lower than 12th in a stroke-play event this year, and his putter is finally becoming consistent again. Furyk’s win in the Transitions Championship was his first since 2007, but he missed the cut here last year.
Camilo Villegas is another one to watch in your sportsbook at +2500, and he’ll be fresh after taking a week off. Villegas finished 16th at Doral after winning the Honda Classic, and like Furyk, Bay Hill hasn’t been his best course, but he has momentum on his side and he loves playing in Florida.
If you’re looking for a darkhorse to go after, Justin Rose may be the play at +4000, and he followed up a third-place result in the Honda Classic with a 13th-place finish in the Transitions Championship. Rose finished T-8 at Bay Hill in 2006, and it’ll be coming back this year as a par-72 after three years as a par-70.
Golf Picks: We’re going with Nick Watney this week with odds of +2800, and he hasn’t won since last year at Torrey Pines in the Buick Invitational. Watney has made the cut in seven of eight events this year, and he has consistent numbers: 29th in greens-in-regulation, 33rd in putting, 11th in birdies, 22nd in total driving. Watney is coming off a fourth-place result at the Transitions Championship, and he was T-4 at Bay Hill last year, which followed a T-21 in 2008. Many have been waiting for Watney to move to the next level, and the 28-year-old is coming into his own right now.
For more golf tips and analysis before you make your sports betting picks, check out Top sportsbook in the Free sport pick at BetOnline
March 25, 2010
If a Mount Rushmore in golf existed, this particular pair would surely represent two of the four heads carved into the famously august cliffs.
So when Arnold Palmer, the man who truly put golf on the American sports map, talks abou you can chisel the words in granite.
Palmer, on hand as host this week of the invitational tournament named in his honor at the Bay Hill Club & Lodge, said Wednesday he was disappointed that Woods skipped his tournament, not to mention stunned that the world No. 1 will head to the Masters without any live rounds under his belt.
Palmer, 80, had made nary a public statement about the episodic Woods debacle of the past four months, yet on the eve of the Arnold Palmer Invitational, he opened the door a crack and supplied some personal context to the scandal that rocked the sport to its grassroots.
No question, the two occupy opposite ends of the approbation scale at the moment, and had their polar roles been reversed, Palmer said he would have a difficult time coping with the fan enmity that has engulfed Woods. The most popular golfer of all time and a man who still commands considerable attention in the endorsement game because of his multi-generational appeal, Palmer said the feeling of being perceived as the bad guy between the ropes is hard for him to imagine.
Others over the years, including former rival Jack Nicklaus, have had to endure occasional taunts and barbs from fans who were pulling for the King. Given the levels of anger and betrayal in some fan quarters as a result of Woods’ actions, it’s a veritable certainty that at some point soon, the world No. 1 is going to get an earful.
Woods, to some, will be wearing a black hat for the first time in his career.
Arnold Palmer gets a typically warm welcome during Wednesday’s pro-am at Bay Hill. (AP) “It would probably bother me,” Palmer said. “I am a sensitive person by nature, so it would affect me to a degree. I suppose that if it happened very often, I would get used to it and be able to handle it.
“But it is not something I would look forward to.” Nobody is expecting Woods to be besieged by catcalls at the Masters, which begins April 8. But when he walks to the first tee, it would be a surprise if he’s enveloped warmly. In fact, you might be able to hear the crickets chirping. Eventually, he’s going to make an appearance at a more public event. Nobody knows what to expect.
In one of his brief TV interviews Sunday, Woods said, half in jest, that he hoped fan which dovetails nicely into another Palmer concern. Fact is, given that Woods hasn’t hit a meaningful tournament shot since winning the Australian Masters on Nov. 15, it’s hard to guess how many red numbers he will put on the Augusta National scoreboard.
While Palmer said he would never write off Woods’ chanc is the best tack to take at a diabolical course like Augusta. One player, Ben Hogan, won the Masters when entering the event as his season opener.
“I can’t fathom taking five months off and going to Augusta, unless you have to, unless circumstances make it that you have no choice,” Palmer said.
Woods had other menu options, of course. He called Palmer on Monday night last week to explain that he wasn’t going to defend his title at Bay Hill, where he has won six pro titles, including the past two in a row. Palmer, who wears hearing aids, said he had trouble understanding what Woods was saying and asked him to phone back again Tuesday morning.
Woods reiterated the news the next day and explained that he wasn’t ready to play. Whether he’ll have sufficiently knocked off the rust with practice rounds will be one of the many related storylines in two weeks.
“You can’t get very sharp [by] not playing,” Palmer said. “Even just practicing won’t do it. I think to be sharp, you have to compete. You have to be in the mood to compete.
“Now, you can say a couple of weeks, that would be one thing. But five months, you know ….”
Palmer dominated in an era when off weeks were less prevalent among star players, and said he “played, generally, right up to the edge,” at the majors.
It worked. Like Woods, Palmer has four Masters titles. Only Nicklaus, with six, has more green jackets. “We would usually start in January and play up until September, and if we had any special events I would play them,” he said. “Then from usually the end of September to the middle of October, until the first of the year, I didn’t play very much. Occasionally I would go to Pinehurst or come down here [to Orlando].
“Tha and I tried to play even then. That would be a couple of months, maybe.
“My thoughts always have been, particularly in my really active days, to play right up to it, unless I was tired. Sometimes you get a little beat up and feel like you need a week off or something. For the best part I played right up to the event.”
Sage that he is, Palmer mostly steered clear of offering any criticism or commentary on the headline-grabbing actions of Woods and said the latter did not solicit any advice from his longtime Orlando neighbor on how to weather the ensuing storm.
Like a legion of others, including many fans and media critics, Palmer noted that the best way for Woods to put the scandal behind him is to stop hiding from it.
With a storyline that’s four months old and still percolating, Woods has answered questions for a grand total of 11 minutes, and even then he declined to comment on a couple of the hot-button details.
“I think it’s up to him to do and say whatever he feels he needs to do to redeem the situation, put it in the proper place,” Palmer said. “My opinion, as I said, I was going to keep to myself.
“But I suppose the best thing he could do would be open up and just let you guys shoot at him. And that’s just my thought.”
A day earlier, as he stood outside near the putting green at Bay Hill, Palmer was asked about how much the media game has changed since his era. Woods has endured scrutiny unlike any other player, past or present.
“It was easy,” Palmer said of his day in the sun, “and I enjoyed it, and the item of being private didn’t really ever enter into it. They gave me the time I needed to be private.”
Despite their comparable places in the sport’s pantheon, the public personas of Woods and Palmer could hardly be more different. Palmer has always been friendly with the fans and openly courted interaction with the press corps, his conduit to the people. By and large, Woods has often been bland, suspicious and paranoid.
Palmer felt that as a public person, scrutiny comes with the territory.
“Hey, when you come out here and walk on that putting green as a competitor,” he said, pointing at the cadre of PGA Tour players nearby, “you have given these people a little bit of you. That’s part of the game. That’s the way it is.
“If you don’t think that, then you end up in trouble.”
March 25, 2010
Tiger Woods will hold his first news conference in nearly five months on Monday of the Masters.
Augusta National released a tentative interview schedule Wednesday that shows Woods speaking to reporters on April 5. It will be his first time speaking to a room full of reporters since he won the Australian Masters on Nov. 15 in Melbourne.
Twelve days later, Woods crashed his SUV into a tree outside his home, setting off revelations of his extramarital affairs. In his only public appearances since then, he spoke to a small group of mostly supporters on Feb. 19 and gave five-minute interviews to two TV networks.
Woods typically has a press conference on Tuesday of the Masters.
March 24, 2010
Though they are surely running low on buckshot as it relates to this surreal storyline, CBSSports.com senior writer Steve Elling and Augusta Chronicle columnist and golf writer Scott Michaux watched the competing five-minute snippets with the exiled world No. 1 on Sunday and came away with some biting observations in this week’s Shotgun Start.
Two questions into his Golf Channel interview on Sunday night, and completely without prompting, Tiger Woods began espousing his new immersion in Buddhism. This is a guy who could make a Green Beret blush with his profane tirades. Thoughts?
ELLING: As any parole board can attest, it’s hard to measure what’s really in a man’s heart, and like the rest of his staggering obstacles, it’s going to take time before anybody can determine whether his “return” to Buddhism was borne from spiritual necessity or professional convenience. It seems every time a public figure steps on his own appendage, religion is foisted into the equation, quite possibly as a contrived means of making good with a large segment of the population that believes the Bible or Koran offer the fastest, best path to salvation. It’s certainly offers a more direct path to public forgiveness, at least to those putting much stock in his awakening. Woods was photographed by a magazine more than a decade ago with a Buddhist string bracelet around a wrist. Ever since, the subject notwithstanding his angry epithets directed heavenward on the golf course. The bracelet is back. By the way, there are five basic precepts of Buddhism, including these three: “I will be conscious and loving in my relationships and shall not give way to lust; I will honor honesty and truth and shall not deceive; I will take care of mind and body and will not be gluttonous or abuse intoxicants.” Looks like he whiffed on all three, many times over. But now we can keep score at home going forward, can’t we? Like he said, he has to prove it over time.
MICHAUX: It’s hard not to be cynical about religion popping up so often when all other positive P.R. is gone to hell. Death row inmates cite it. Michael Vick cites it. Disgraced politicians cite it. It is a cliched prop in these apology sagas and comes across as a desperate ploy when they never much seemed to care about such things before their falls. I tend to consider someone’s religious beliefs more of a private matter, which is funny in this case because Tiger is asking for everything else in his life to be kept private but this is what he chooses to share publicly. It seemed as much a part of the uniform as his Nike swooshes. It means more when an athlete holds up his religion he trips over himself. Guys like Zach Johnson and Bernhard Langer (among others) sometimes get criticized for using their golf platform to mention their religious beliefs. Shouldn’t Tiger be subject to the same when he foists his, only when it’s convenient to his image rehabilitating? Even if you’re agnostic or atheist or Wiccan or whatever, at least you can appreciate the people who practice their religion in good times as well as bad as a sincere part of their being. Certainly more so than wearing it on their wrist only when hitting rock bottom. If Buddhism proves good for Tiger’s soul, good for him. He needs something to steer him back down the path of human decency.
In an admission that actually constituted news on some fronts, Woods said his future playing schedule remains up in the air. How was that received?
ELLING: Oft the new Tiger Slam of 2010. Last weekend, the PGA Tour wasted zero time in jumping on the Woods propaganda wagon by splicing him into a TV commercial shown on NBC Sports, pimping the upcoming Players Championship in May. Nevermind that Woods told the Golf Channel that he has no idea where, or how often, he will play going forward. Either the tour knows otherwise and I am wagering on the former. Put it this way: Woods was hammered after his reading-room apology last month because he said he was going back to rehab and needed more time to mend his family fissures, and a week later, he was practicing for days on end. The same allegations of hypocrisy would hold true today, when he says he still has much toxic cleanup left to do in his personal life. If he admits that he plans to play at he’s saying that his personal issues are of secondary importance to his professional career. Mind you, he might play them all anyway, but there’s no way on earth he’s going to say it publicly now. He’ll probably just string us along, same as ever. Why does it matter? You know all those never-ending TV spots the tour airs to underscore its charitable endeavors? When tournaments only have a day or two to promote Woods’ inclusion in the field, it hurts ticket sales and the corporate skybox bottom line, which directly affects the charity payouts in various tour communities. So, yeah, it matters tremendously where he plays and when he announces it. He has played his cat-and-mouse commitment game, suspicious of those who would use his image and presence to make money that he doesn’t directly share, for far too long.
MICHAUX: I hope that doesn’t mean we’ll have to play this will-he-play speculation game all season. It’s fair to grant him some leash in the short term, since we don’t know all the particulars of the backstage turmoil of his life. There may be one or two regulars he skips (though we assume the majors won’t be among them). But if his long-term planning falls into the same habits of the past, we’ll know whether he really has changed. One of the most selfish aspects of his professional life has been his practice of withholding commitments until the deadline. We can all probably predict his future schedule with a 99-percent degree of confidence, but Woods has always liked to play games and keep tournaments from using him in promotions. He needs to change that, for the good of his image and the tour. It’s time Tiger started giving back and spreading himself around to events and markets he has ignored until now. And it wouldn’t kill him to divulge his schedule for the near future when asked. Other players routinely do it, laying out the general path they intend to play as they lead in to majors. Why can’t Woods do the same? Imagine what it would mean for ticket sales if he gave a month’s notice to playing a new tournament. And doesn’t he need to start winning back some fans and making new ones? We’ll see.
Last weekend, ESPN, Golf Channel and CBS all were contacted by the Woods camp and asked if they were interested in interviewing the world No. 1 for a non-negotiable, five-minute interval. Only the latter said no thanks. Who made the right call?
ELLING: Take a look at the URL address above and you can see which network pays the bills around here, but I was strangely comforted by the fact that CBS took a pass, at least partly because of the strictures and embargoes he placed on the interview length and broadcast time slot. ESPN and Golf Channel were hardly acting irresponsibly either, given that Woods had not answered a single, solitary question in nearly four months. Whether they should have agreed to the ground rules is a matter that can be argued, since the nets both let Woods dictate some crucial terms. It would have been tough for CBS to crowbar a short segment into the NCAA basketball coverage or its slot, too. Five minutes, to many, seems like a slap in the face. Interestingly, nobody has mentioned that NBC mysteriously was not invited to the party. Might it be because the network’s venerable has aired repeated stories and interviews with those involved in the steamy scandal? Or because aired an hour-long, prime-time special in December titled one of the most unflattering shows ever aired on free TV about a major sports figure? The entire NBC golf crew was 90 miles away in Tampa, broadcasting the Transitions Championship. They could have had somebody in Orlando in a heartbeat. But the Peacock got left at the altar. Then again, maybe they would have passed on being part of the Woods media manipulation, too.
MICHAUX: Every interview we ever conduct i whether it’s stated beforehand or not. Every one. We’ve all begged lesser golfers for five minutes of their time. What would we not have given for five minutes one-on-one with Tiger Woods even before this scandal? While it sounds like a ridiculous constraint on the surface, five minutes are more valuable than they might seem. It can’t possibly cover every base in the case, but I think we all came away impressed with what Golf Channel and ESPN were able to get in their short windows. It would have been nice to have another party heard from since every interviewer brings something unique to the table. Cumulatively, the info gained was about as substantial as you can expect from such a guarded figure. Woods didn’t place any restraints on the content of the questions, just the time. There is no journalistic integrity compromised by accepting those terms. As for CBS trying to wedge it into their five-star Sunday lineup of the NCAA tournament followed by , it’s hard to believe a news organization of that caliber couldn’t make it happen. has handled breaking news before, and given the one-day lead time, they surely could have packaged 12 minutes of background on this saga to lead into the five-minute Q&A as a segment on their broadcast. It is the best news show in TV history. They’ve dealt with deadline pressure before. No offense, but I say bad call.
March 24, 2010
Vijay Singh has withdrawn from the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill because of a back injury. This is the second straight week the three-time major champion has had to pull out.
He was replaced in the 120-man field on Tuesday by Carl Pettersson, who tied for eighth last week at Innisbrook.
Singh has not won since the end of the 2008 season. He was coming off two strong finishes in Florida until the back problem. It was not clear if he planned to play next week in the Houston Open, where he also is a past champion.
March 21, 2010
Two straight birdies allowed Jim Furyk to pull away from the pack. Eighteen holes is what stands in the way of ending his longest stretch without a victory since he was a rookie.
Furyk played bogey-free Saturday with a round almost as flawless as Florida weather, finishing off a 4-under 67 to build a three-shot lead at the Transitions Championship as he tries to win for the first time since the 2007 Canadian Open.
“I’m in a great position in the tournament,” Furyk said. “I’ve got a three-shot lead. You kind of dictate what the other guys have to do.”
Furyk was at 11-under 202, with a strong group of contenders behind him.
Defending champion Retief Goosen birdied the last hole of a roller-coaster round that gave him a 1-under 70, part of four-way tie for second. The others at K.J. Choi and Bubba Watson, who has never won on tour. He scrambled for a 70.
Padraig Harrington, a three-time major champion who hasn’t won since the 2008 PGA Championship, went 14 holes without a birdie to fall out of the lead, then dropped another shot on the 18th hole for a 72 that left him four shots behind.
Furyk is 0 for 58 on the PGA Tour since his last victory. This is his first 54-hole lead since the Colonial nearly three years ago, when he lost in a playoff to Rory Sabbatini.
There have been times when he let tournaments get away down the stretch, and times when he was beaten, such as the Memorial last year when he was three shots who won by a shot.
Sunday might be his best chance.
The few times when Furyk made a mistake, such as missing the green on the par-3 fourth, he made up for it with his putting. Later in the warm afternoon, when he was giving himself so many birdie chances, he had to settle for par.
The turning point came early on the back nine.
Four players had at least a share of the lead at some point, and eight players were within range until Furyk hit a 3-wood just left of the green on the par-5 11th and chipped to 4 feet for birdie. On the next hole, he hit 7-iron to some 35 feet behind the flag, and poured in a long, slippery put that broke sharply to the cup.
Suddenly, he was three shots clear and his prospects were looking up.
Not so for Pettersson, who closed out the front nine with consecutive bogeys, or Steve Stricker, who was tied for the lead until hitting his tee shot in the water on the par-3 13th and scrambling for bogey. Stricker dropped another shot on a par 3 coming in for a 71, and wound up five shots behind.
Choi is a two-time winner in Tampa and feels as comfortable on the Copperhead course as any.
“I look at the tops of the trees to see the wind,” Choi said. “You have to know, and it can get frustrating. You can lose it out here. This course will do that. That’s why you see so many players who have won here before, because they know that.”
Goosen also is a two-time winner, and while he didn’t like up the course, playing bogey-free on the back nine didn’t hurt.
The wild card is Watson, the big hitter who was a little too crooked but scrambled well to stay in the game. Watson hit one tee shot that didn’t get beyond the forward tees on the par-3 eighth because it hit a tree. On the par-5 14th, his 3-wood into the wind wound up so far right of the green that players on the 15th tee had to back off the shot.
Sunday features an early start because of storms in the forecast for the afternoon.
Geoff Ogilvy is probably too far back to contend - he was seven shots behind - but the fact he is still playing is a story in itself. Thinking he was sure to miss the cut, Ogilvy boarded a plane for Arizona when he realized he might have a chance, but because the flight was about to depart, the former U.S. Open champion had to fly to Phoenix, then turn around and take a jet back to Tampa.
Playing on about one hour of sleep, he shot a 65 and was tied for 18th.
“It was worth coming back,” he said.
