SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- They do their homework, those in the stadium around the 16th hole of the Stadium Course at TPC Scottsdale. When Scott Piercy arrived there during the second round of the Waste Management Phoenix Open on Saturday, some in the crowd were chanting, "Jenna Jameson."

"She went to the same high school," Piercy said. "I think she's older than me."

The high school was Bonanza in Las Vegas. Jameson is an adult film star.

"She's not an old girl friend," Piercy added quickly.

Piercy is an aficionado of the 16th, the rowdiest place in golf.

"I really love it," he said. "It's the one time a year you get to feel like a rock star. As long as they understand golf and the etiquette a little bit, I'm all for it."

Piercy, 31, will play in Sunday's final group of the Waste Management Phoenix Open for the second straight year. He tied for sixth in 2009, his first full year on the PGA Tour.

-- John Strege

This Association Press story pertains to the first episode of the new Golf Channel reality show, "Being John Daly," that debuts Tuesday night, but the story included this quote pertaining to the putting woes that have plagued his comeback bid:

"I don't have anywhere to put my elbows when I putt now," Daly said. "That's the problem. I used to be able to rest my right elbow right perfectly on my right fat part of my stomach when I putted, and now I can't do that."

-- John Strege

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Ian Poulter, perhaps boosted by a desire to keep pace with his roommate, did not play tired on Friday, shooting an eight-under par 63 to vault into contention at the Waste Management Phoenix Open.

Poulter considered withdrawing in the wake of his victory at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, and following a lethargic opening round of one-over par 72 wondered whether he had erred in not following his instinct and returning home to Florida.

"May have been a mistake to play this week, the tank was empty, trying to hang in there and see if we can make some birdies, never give up," Poulter wrote on Twitter Thursday night.

He followed his own advice, making eight birdies and no bogeys to move within two strokes of the lead, held jointly by Camilo Villegas and Pat Perez. Poulter is staying with Perez at his Scottsdale home this week.

-- John Strege

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- When Matt Every was growing up in Florida, his favorite player was another Floridian, Mark Calcavecchia, with whom he was paired in the third round of the Mayakoba Golf Classic last week.

"It was really cool for me," Every said. "But it was the perfect storm. I doubled the last hole and I was ticked off. It was just kind of an immature thing for me to do, but he had my (score) card, just threw it toward me and I didn't even look at it. I just signed it and turned it in.

"I was like 40 yards out of the scoring area, and they called me back in. He had written a three down on number six and I made a four, so I got DQ'd."

It qualifies as a rookie mistake for Every, a PGA Tour rookie. It took him no time to put the error behind him, however; he birdied six straight holes at one point in the first round of the Waste Management Phoenix Open on Thursday en route to an eight-under par 63 that puts him one stroke off the lead held by his former University of Florida teammate Camilo Villegas.

As for Cacavecchia, "he's still my favorite player, and he was a blast to play with," Every said. "It was 100 percent my fault, and he felt horrible. It's in no way his fault. But if somebody would have come up to me (15 years ago) and said, 'you know, you're going to get to play with this guy in 15 years and you're going to get DQ'd,' I would have been like, 'yeah, right.'"

-- John Strege

CBS golf analyst David Feherty, a Northern Irishman by birth, became a citizen of the United States on Tuesday, one of 31 to recite the Oath of Allegiance to the United States at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Irving, Texas.

Feherty told the Dallas Morning News that a visit to Baghdad, Iraq, to visit U.S. troops two years ago convinced him that he wanted to become a citizen.

"I wanted to be able to call them my soldiers, my pilots, my sailors," Feherty, a Dallas resident, told the newspaper. "I have the benefit of living in this country and it is maintained by them...Thomas Jefferson said we need soldiers and teachers, and it is as true now as it was then."

Here is the Oath, incidentally, required of all immigrants who wish to become U.S. citizens:

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God."

-- John Strege

Showers (as well as a high temperature of 64 degrees) are forecast for Saturday in Scottsdale, Ariz. What might that do to the crowd at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and its rambunctiousness, particularly at the par-3 16th hole?

Weather has been part of the story at the Bob Hope Classic, the Northern Trust Open, the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship and now, possibly, the Phoenix Open. The AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am was spared, though the course was saturated from rain a week earlier, resulting in preferred lies being employed over the first three rounds.

The Florida swing can't come soon enough.

-- John Strege

Ticket prices out of sync with today's economy and inclement weather are a formidable combination to overcome for a niche sport, particularly one without Tiger Woods for the foreseeable future.

The Northern Trust Open in Los Angeles recently was pummeled by the combination, attracting an estimated 30,000 spectators for the week.

Now, the Tucson Conquistadores, the organization responsible for staging the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, are lamenting a falloff in local interest, resulting in a failure to meet their goal of raising $1 million for charity, according to Ryan Finley's story in the Arizona Daily Star.

"I think it's a combination of the three," Judy McDermott, executive director of the Conquistadores," told Finley, citing the miserable weekend weather, a difficult economy and no Woods.

A ticket at the gate for the Northern Trust Open cost $50. A single-day ticket for the Match Play cost $65, in an area with a population base a fraction of that of the greater Los Angeles area. The Conquistadores will discuss lowering prices next year, the Daily Star said.

A potentially greater issue is that the Ritz-Carlton Dove Mountain has a contract to host the event only one more year. Tucson has hosted a PGA Tour event since 1945. Included in its roll call of winners are Tommy Bolt, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller, Tom Watson and Phil Mickelson.

When in 2006 Tucson was asked to give up what was then known as the Chrysler Classic of Tucson in exchange for hosting the Match Play Championship, the town was
euphoric. I wondered then whether it would regret surrendering its second-tier PGA Tour event that had staying power for a world class event that wasn't likely to put down similar roots, ultimately leaving it with no tournament.

I still wonder.

-- John Strege

Associated Press columnist Jim Litke has written about how the course for the women's Olympic super-G competition was set up to impede American Lindsey Vonn's bid for another gold medal and equates it to what was perceived as an effort by Augusta National to prevent Tiger Woods from winning the Masters every year.

"Just as the green jackets who run Augusta National tried to 'Tiger-proof' the Masters golf course to stymie Tiger Woods, the ski jackets in charge at the Olympics did their level best to 'Lindsey-proof' the super-G course at Whistler," Litke wrote.

An Austrian set up the super-G course and an Austrian, Andrea Fischbacher, won the gold. Vonn earned a silver medal.

-- John Strege

Paul Casey should defeat Camilo Villegas, 5 and 4, in the semifinals of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Saturday afternoon, should form prevail. Casey defeated Stewart Cink, 5 and 4, Saturday morning in a quarter-final match. En route to the semis, he defeated Brian Gay, 5 and 4, Mike Weir, 5 and 4, and Stephen Ames, 5 and 4.

Villegas, incidentally, defeated Retief Goosen, 4 and 3, while Ian Poulter beat Thongchai Jaidee, 1-up, and Sergio Garcia bettered Oliver Wilson, 4 and 3, in other quarter-final matches.

-- John Strege

Once more, Tiger Woods dominated a news cycle to the near exclusion of all other news. So, in case you missed it:

-- David Duval continues to reinforce his image as an enigma, by missing the cut at the Mayakoba Golf Classic at Riviera Maya-Cancun, a week after tying for second in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Duval's 36-hole score of 150 was better than only five players in the field, two of them Mexican professionals marking their PGA Tour debuts.

-- John Daly made a cut for the first time in four starts and is tied for 17th at the Mayakoba. Presumably he won't re-retire after this tournament.

-- The LPGA is in the midst of its first event of 2010, though it isn't getting much attention domestically because it's being played in Thailand, at a time most of America is asleep. Suzann Petterson has a five-stroke lead. Paula Creamer had to withdraw with a thumb injury. And a bus in which Christina Kim was riding was involved in an accident that left her shaken, but otherwise uninjured.

-- John Strege