What it's like to be Tiger

Imagine if everywhere you went, people were calling your name and shoving something in front of your face, demanding you sign it. Welcome to Tiger Woods' world.

In the Orlando Sentinel, columnist David Whitley offers a peek into that world at the Arnold Palmer Invitational:

He glides past a woman holding a poster. She says it's the fourth straight year he ignored her."He was so rude," she said. "He just walked right by."

For the rest of the column, click here.

Leonard languishing

If you think Sean O'Hair is struggling, he's on top of the world compared to the slump in which Justin Leonard finds himself mired

So far this year, the 1997 British Open champ and one-time Ryder Cup star has missed six straight cuts and plummeted to 210th in the World Golf Rankings. He hasn't qualified to play in any of this year's majors. Very unfamiliar territory for the Dallas native, who recently dumped swing coach Butch Harmon in favor of his old coach, Randy Smith.

For more details, here's a good story on Leonard's predicament in the Dallas Morning News.

New Golf Galaxy store

Not to promote one chain of golf stores over any other, but Golf Galaxy is opening a new store in Langhorne tomorrow, its fourth in the Philadelphia area.

Until they sent me a press kit the other day, I was unaware that Golf Galaxy, the retail giant, had expanded beyond the original local outlet in Berywn, off Rt. 202, in the western suburbs. Turns out they have quietly added storefronts in Mt. Laurel, N.J. , in the east, and Christiana, DE., in the south.

At tomorrow's grand opening, Golf Galaxy is offering free swing analysis and giveaways.

Beatin' that first bucket

When the thermometer outside the window of my home office hit 75 degrees at noon today, I couldn't resist the temptation any longer.

I slammed my laptop closed, stuffed my pasty white legs into a pair of shorts and tossed my clubs into the trunk. I didn't have time to play 18, but I sure had time to bang a jumbo bucket. In no time at all I was at the Golf Zone in Horsham, making all kinds of horrible creaking sounds and grunting noises as I tried to get limber after a long winter's sloth. Other than taking a few swats at an indoor range, I hadn't touched a club since my last round of the season in late November in Florida.

I wasn't the only one with the same idea. The Golf Zone was doing a brisk lunchtime business. By my intitial count, there were 15 guys hitting balls. More guys were arriving by the minute. I bowed in reverence to the fella who had his twin sons, who were maybe a year old, parked in a double-seater baby stroller next to his mat, watching their Dad beat balls.

Naturally, I hit the ball great. I'd excited about that, except that I always hit that first bucket or two of the season great. Sometimes, the greatness even extends into my first actual round of the season. But along about that second or third round, the doubt starts to creep back into my mind and into my swing. This ain't my first rodeo. By then, it's only a matter of time before I'm sailing tee shots two fairways over.

Not to get all doomsday about it, but my guess is it'll happen next week in Miami, when I try to sneak in a round while I'm covering the WGC-CA Championship. Wish me luck.

2008 U.S. Open tix on sale

This just in from the USGA...

USGA MEMBERS OFFERED FIRST CHANCE FOR 2008 U.S. OPEN TICKETS

Far Hills, N.J. (3/14/07) – USGA Members have the chance to buy week-long ticket packages for the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines Golf Course in San Diego, Calif., before they go on sale to the general public, the United States Golf Association (USGA) has announced. The 2008 Championship will be played from June 9-15.

Ticket applications are available online at www.usga.org/tickets. Weekly grounds packages are $400 each. An upscale Trophy Club package for the week is $595.

The deadline for Members to submit a ticket application is 5 p.m. (EDT) on Tuesday, April 15. After that time, a random drawing will be conducted from among submitted Member applications. All Members will be notified of their status before the general public sale begins in June. Members who have been unsuccessful in their bid to purchase tickets in advance may re-submit an application for the general public sale random drawing in August.


The U.S. Open has sold out for the past 21 years and it undoubtedly will sell out again for 2008, since this will be the first time the Open will be played at Torrey Pines.

The U.S. Open is one of 13 national championships conducted annually by the USGA, 10 of which are strictly for amateurs

Pine Valley slips to No. 2

In addition to the state-by-state rankings of courses you can play, the latest issue of Golfweek offers its ranking of the top modern and classic courses.

Among the classics (before 1960), for the second consecutive year, perennial No. 1 Pine Valley plays bridesmaid to top-ranked Cypress Point in California. From history, I know the folks at Pine Valley tend to shrug these things off. Ho-hum, we're still Pine Valley.

In other developments, Merion (East), which has had tons of publicity in the past couple of years because of the 2005 U.S. Amateur and the 2013 U.S. Open, has crept up the rankings from 7th to 4th place this year, behind only Cypress, the Valley and Shinnecock Hills on Long Island.

Oakmont, outside Pittsburgh, host of this year's Open, holds steady at No. 6.

The biggest shocker in this year's rankings is Augusta National, host of the Masters, in virtual free-fall, dropping from No. 3 last year down to 10th. Wonder what that's about?

Golfweek's Top Courses

Golfweek's latest ranking of Best Courses is out and it's clear to me I've got some work to do and some golf courses to play.

Of the magazine's Top 10 courses open to the public in Pennsylvania, I have not played half of them -- and I'm a course rater for Golfweek, for crying out loud.

Chief among the courses whose pro shop doorways I have yet to darken are No. 1, Olde Stonewall, out in in Ellwood City, and No. 2., Nemacolin Woodlands (Mystic Rock Course) in Farmington, way out west.

I also haven't played No. 4, Great Bear, a Jack Nicklaus design up in the Poconos in East Stroudsburg; No. 7, Wren Dale, out west in Hummelstown; and No. 10., The Links at Gettysburg.

Of the courses on the list I have played, I'm not exactly down with where Golfweek ranks them. I do like where No. 3, the Golf Course at Glen Mills, ranks. I'm also a big fan of Hershey Country Club (Old Course), in 5th.

Personally, I'm a big fan of No. 6 on the list, the Club at Morgan Hill, in Easton, a Kelly Blake Moran layout that has escaped the notice of many golfers in Philadelphia. From the people I've talked to who've played it, Morgan Hill, hilly and quirky, is one of those courses that golfers tend to really like or dismiss.

I'm definitely not a huge fan of No. 8-ranked Lederach, in Harleysville, another Moran course, that I found a little over the top. But Lederach has now been recognized by two magazines, so I'm going to return to in the spring for another look.

I also believe No. 9 Raven's Claw, in Limerick, Ed Shearon's best work to date, is a good course that is only going to get better as it matures.

That brings us to Golfweek's ranking of New Jersey courses you can play. For my money, it's a better bunch of coures than Pennsylvania's.

For starters, Atlantic City Country Club, ranked No. 1, is a true treat, even if the prime-time, in-season rate ($206) is enough to gag most golfers.

As for the rest:

No. 2, Ballyowen. Haven't played it.

3. Pine Barrens. I'm fine with it being on the list, but not this high.

4. Twisted Dune. Love it, or loved it the last time I played three years ago. Unique course.

5. Sand Barrens. More visually intimidating than it really is.

6. Neshanic Valley. Haven't played it.

7. Pine Hill. One of my fave modern courses around Philadelphia. Should be higher on the list.

8. Blue Heron Pines (East). It's closed to make way for a residential development, so it shouldn't even be on the list. But the fact that is is closed is a crime against golf.

9. Royce Books (East). Terrific course that gets little attention in Philadelphia.

10. Vineyards at Renault Winery. Getting better with age.

Tiger to play in the Arnie

A week ago, the Arnold Palmer Invitational, which Tiger Woods won four years in a row when it was the Bay Hill Invitational, wasn't listed his website's schedule as being among his upcoming events.

This year would have been the first time ever he skipped the Orlando tournament, and talk had already started that Tiger was "dissing" The King.

The Arnie is back.

Minutes ago, Tiger's latest monthly newsletter landed in my emailbox, returning the tourney to his schedule.

D.C.'s new tourney: AT&T National

AT&T National, that's the word out of a press conference today to unveil many of the details of the new Fourth of July week tournament hosted by the Tiger Woods Foundation.

This year, the likely venue will be Congressional Country Club, site of the 1997 U.S. Open, but the longterm home is unclear.

One big question for this year is whether Tiger will play. Wife Elin is due to have to baby in July.

For the full announcement from the PGA Tour, click here.

Sandbagging

If you saw the story in the Inquirer on the Golf Association of Philadelphia going after sandbaggers, you might want to know more.

Here's a link to the press release from GAP, with all the details.

And here's a link to an execellent website run by Dean Knuth, the Pope of Slope, best known for his years running the handicap system for the USGA.

Oakmont's bridge to the Open

If not for a $500,000 pedestrian bridge that Oakmont Country Club built over the Pennsylvania Turnpike in 2003, the Pittsburgh-area club never would have landed this year's U.S. Open.

(If you missed the '94 Open, the course is dissected by the turnpike.)

Gerry Dulac tells the tale of the bridge in the Pittsbugh Post-Gazette.

Why Match Play Doesn't Work

Here's interestng story from the NY Times, penned by a former member of the Metropolitan Golf Association, offering his theory on why match play tournaments often turn out to be snoozers, missing the best players in the finals. Makes a lot of sense to me.


Here's the "nut graf," as we say in newspapers:

First, in single elimination, the winner has to be dominant or lucky. A golfer of Woods’s superiority should make it to the finals just about every year. But a simple statistical analysis can show that even a player with an 80 percent chance of winning each match has only about a 40 percent chance of making it through five rounds to the finals. Against most golfers, Woods is that dominant. So why does he get knocked out early so often? Unlucky?


There is a deeper reason, one rooted in the nature and scoring of the two games. In golf, although the pros take 70 or so strokes a full round, they have at most 18 chances to win or lose a hole, or a point, in match play. The story is much different in tennis. In a three-set match with an average of 10 games a set and 6 points a game, there are 180 chances to win or lose a point. That is 10 times more opportunities to determine the winner.

Ogilvy: Good interview, good guy

In this week's Golf World magazine, Jaime Diaz weighs in with a back page column that declares Geoff Ogilvy, the reigning U.S. Open champion who lost Sunday in the finals of the Accenture Match Play, to be the best interview in golf

To that, I say: You got dat right, man.

Personally, I didn't know Ovilgy from Adam's house cat until this time last year, when I covered the Match Play, which he won, in its final year at La Costa. What I remember most from that week -- other than him beating Davis Love III in the finals -- were Ogilvy's interviews as he progressed through the field.

He was engaging, refreshingly honest and forth-coming and clearly intelligent -- in other words, a welcome departure from some of the sullen, uncooperative stars who suffer through interviews like they were a case of irritable bowel syndrome.

Ogilvy made a fan of me then and there. Not only did he have game, which became even more evident at Winged Foot, but he was shades of Jack Nicklaus in the interview room -- the standard bearer in golf for good interviews.

Ogilvy, an Aussie who lives in Scottsdale these days, truly convinced me he was a good guy the night he won the Open. As it happened, he was among the players staying in the same hotel as most of the media. After his victory that life-changing Sunday night, he didn't go out on the town in New York City to celebrate. Instead, he went back to the hotel, changed into jeans and a tee shirt, then came down to the lobby bar in the hotel -- trophy in hand -- with his wife to hang out.

No fanfare. No big-timing. No keeping fans at bay. Ogilvy sat there, obviously happy but quiet and subdued, chatting with anybody and everybody, posing for a few snapshots with friends and fans.

Name that Tiger cub

In the true spirit of poking its nose in places where the media is not welcome, the folks at MSNBC.com are conducting a reader poll on what to name the gentically and circumstantially gifted offspring of Tiger and Elin Woods.

The suggestions have been whittled down to a dozen finalists, six girl names and six boys names. They are:

If it's a boy:

Calvin
Earl
Eldrick Jr.
Major
Nicolas
Tiger Jr.

If it's a girl:

Annika
Birdie
Earla/Earlene
Elin
Katherine
Magnolia

For the whole story and to vote, click here.

In early polling Earl and Katherine -- to be shortened to Kat -- are the leaders in the clubhouse.

Prez Cup to San Francisco

This just in from the PGA Tour. In 2009, the Presidents Cup is headed to Harding Park in San Francisco.

PGA TOUR ANNOUNCES THE PRESIDENTS CUP AND OTHER FUTURE EVENTS FOR HARDING PARK

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fl -- The PGA TOUR today announced that it has reached a tentative agreement with the City of San Francisco on the scheduling of future TOUR events at the City’s Harding Park Golf Course.

The agreement is subject to the approval, expected within 45 days, of the City’s Recreation and Park Commission and Board of Supervisors. Under the terms of the agreement, Harding Park will serve as the host venue for The Presidents Cup in 2009; the Charles Schwab Cup Championship, the Champion’s Tour season-ending event, in 2010 and 2011; an event from the four-tournament PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup series in either 2013 or 2014; and one additional event in the period 2014-2019 to be selected from among The Presidents Cup, a Playoff for the FedExCup event or a World Golf Championships event.

“We are absolutely delighted to reach this agreement with the City, ensuring that Harding Park will continue to periodically serve as the site for some of the TOUR’s premier events,” said PGA TOUR Commissioner Tim Finchem. “As our experience with the World Golf Championships - American Express Championship proved in October, 2005, the golf course is a wonderful venue for the world’s best players, and San Francisco is a terrific host city. Our players and sponsors had a tremendous experience at Harding Park, and we are eagerly looking forward to our return.”

The first guy to beat Tiger -- ever

Here's a link to terrific story by Jason Sobel from ESPN.com, who found the first kid who ever beat Tiger in match play back in junior golf. It still sticks in Tiger's craw...

MARANA, Ariz. -- Tiger Woods remembers the match like it was yesterday. "I was 13," he said earlier this week. "James Mohon." He doesn't smile at the recollection, doesn't hide his displeasure for the memory.

For more, click here.

D.C. tournament replaces International

As I predicted a few weeks ago, the PGA Tour has indeed filled the July 4th week hole in the schedule left by The International with a new bigger and better tournament in Washington D.C.

Here's the lede graf of the announcement...

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- The PGA TOUR, in conjunction with the Tiger Woods Foundation, announced today that the TOUR will return to Washington, D.C. as a result of the two organizations reaching a long-term agreement to create a new PGA TOUR event in the nation's capital, beginning in July, 2007.

For the whole annoucement, click here.

I nailed this sucker a few weeks ago. Read on from Feb. 11...

On Golf:

Hopes for Tour stop in Philly are in vain

Joe Logan

Inquirer Columnist

If you saw that item in the paper a few days ago about the PGA Tour's considering Philadelphia for a tournament, here's a piece of advice: Don't get your hopes up.

True enough, in Associated Press reports last week about the sudden demise of the International, the 21-year-old Tour stop outside Denver, Philadelphia was mentioned as a major market without a tournament that might fill the gap. Washington, Minneapolis, and Portland, Ore., were also mentioned.

The e-mails poured in, not surprisingly. Could Philadelphia really be a candidate for a tournament to fill the very attractive July Fourth week gap on the Tour's schedule?
Sorry, but don't shoot the messenger.

If I was a betting man, I'd put up a few bucks, or a dozen Pro V1s, that in a month or so commissioner Tim Finchem will announce that the week in question will be filled by a newly created tournament in Washington.

If you're saying, hey, they've already got the Booz Allen Classic, perhaps you didn't notice it's gone from the schedule this year. When the Tour inexplicably bumped the tournament from its prime June date on the calendar to the "Fall Series" - the seven tournaments after the Tour Championship that nobody cares about - the chairman of Booz Allen yanked the sponsorship and killed the tournament.

So, why do I think D.C. is a shoo-in?

When I called late last week, Bob Combs, a top Tour spokesman, told me that they're already far enough along in the process of replacing the International that they expect to announce a new tournament - city undisclosed, thank you - within 30 to 45 days. Suffice it to say I did not come away with the impression that Philadelphia would be that city.

Next, I made a few phone calls around town to people who I figured would likely have at least heard something - whispers, rumors - if the Tour was sniffing around Philadelphia, let alone being 30 days from making an announcement about a tournament here.

Zippo. Nobody's heard nuthin'.

Finally, I called one of those high-powered, behind-the-scenes guys I know in golf, who shall remain nameless so that he continues to take my calls.

From what he hears, no, Philadelphia is not in the picture.

"They're focused on Washington," he said. "And from what I hear, there will be a Tiger element to this event."

A bit of a conspiracy theorist, he made to sound like the whole changing of the tournaments could very well have been quietly orchestrated by the Tour. You know, squeeze out a couple of older, lesser tournaments to make way for a new, bigger, better one, that is owned and run by the Tour.

Philadelphia? A mere diversion, along with the other cities.

Sounds plausible to me. After all, for a former White House aide like Finchem who knows how the influence game is played, how better to win friends in high government places than by bringing a new tournament with Tiger Woods - he never played Booz Allen - to the nation's capital on that most American of holidays, Fourth of July week?

U-grooves, V-grooves, U-snooze

In a much-anticipated attempt to dial back golf equipment, the U.S. Golf Association, along the with R & A, on Tuesday proposed new rules pertaining to the U-grooves on irons and wedges.

For about 99 percent of us golfers, no big deal. It's at the most elite levels of the game, where U-grooves and V-grooves, on the face of irons makes a difference in the spin control of the ball.

Still, if your head is swimming trying to understand what it all means, read this story from Golf Digest last fall.

Ahhhh, choooo. OUCH!

So, what happened to Jay Sigel at last week's ACE Group Classic?

Jay shoots 4-under 68 in the first round on Friday, then WDs before his round on Saturday. Rib injury. Bad sneeze.

That's the official word from Champions Tour media official Phil Stambaugh, after talking to Jay's wife, Betty. "Betty told me he sneezed and pulled something in his ribs," said Stambaugh. Word is, Betty rolled her eyes as she gave the medical report, as if to wonder what else can go wrong for the oft-injured Sigel.

Americans sinking fast...

If we weren't already in full-blown panic about the state of golf in America, we ought to be after the Accenture Match Championship.

Not only did a Swede, for crying out loud, win, but the other finalist along with Henrik Stenson was an Australian, Geoff Ogilvy. In the consolation match, a South African, Trevor Immelman, thumped the only American among the final four, Chad Campbell.

That brings us to a quick review of the latest World Golf Rankings, just out today. Americans still rank 1st, 2nd and 3rd, thank you very much Tiger, Furyk and Phil. But after that, just try to find a US of A-born player until you hit 15th, Charles Howell III.

It does not bode well for the US in the Ryder Cup or this year's Presidents Cup.

1. Tiger

2. Furyk

3. Phil

4. Adam Scott, Aus

5. Henrik Stenson, Sweden

6. Ernie Els, South Africa

7.Geoff Ogivly, Aus

8. Retief Goosen, South Africa

9.Vijay Singh, Fijay

10. Luke Donald, England

11. Padraig Harrington, Ireland

12. Trevor Immelman, South Africa

13. Sergio Garcia. Spain

14. Paul Casey, England

15. Howell , USA