"I think an every-three-year rotation. I think every three years you have to play every event. If I was in Milwaukee, if I was in Houston, I want to see Phil Mickelson, I want to see Tiger Woods. I want to see the best players. They don't have to play it every year. But every three years, you should play every event (at least once) for the fans and for the good of the game."

Answer: Mark Teixeira. Unfortunately, he doesn't play golf, he plays baseball, for the New York Yankees. The quote came from a story by Mark Carig in the Newark Star-Ledger.

-- John Strege

The question: "If the Masters is Tiger's first tournament, would you consider him the favorite and does that change if he plays at Bay Hill?"

Miller's response: "If he wants to win at Augusta, which he does, he's going to have to play Arnold Palmer's Bay Hill tournament. No doubt about that. I really believe he needs to get one tournament under his belt -- get the cobwebs out, get his confidence going. And you can't do that at the Tavistock [Cup]...You've got to play it under competition. Even if you don't play well at Bay Hill, you just have to get things going, get the train going down the tracks. The big thing of Bay Hill is that he's got to go through all the hoopla, not just of the sports coverage, but the entertainment coverage. Get it out of his system. Answer the questions. Get it behind him. Go to Augusta and go ahead and win that green jacket."

Miller might be right, though it should be noted that Woods won the U.S. Open in 2008 after sitting out two months while recovering from knee surgery. And even in the run-up to the Open he was unable to practice much as a result of pain.

The question is why NBC saw fit to issue a news release, other than to try to drum up interest in the Arnold Palmer Invitational, which airs on NBC. And, of course, it would provide the network a huge ratings boost were Woods to return there.

Are you listening, Tiger? Probably not.

-- John Strege

But now thanks to a group of scientists crunching numbers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, there may be a more accurate way to gauge the best putters on tour.

The Wall Street Journal has a story on a team of researchers from the school in Cambridge, Mass., who have been working with the PGA Tour to come up with a new method that could wind up as the go-to stat in determining greatness on the greens. The new term is called "putts gained per round", with the goal to isolate true putting performance from other factors that can affect the statistics currently used by the Tour.

Using a measurement known as "putts gained", a player's putting performance is determined by comparing the results of each of his putts to how an average player would fare when faced with the exact same putts. This new way of keeping track of putting, which the PGA Tour has already begun to incorporate into its ShotLink system and could become commonplace in the near future, also takes into account both the difficulty of the greens and the strength of the field.

Translation: A 10-footer holed for birdie at this year's Masters will be weighted more heavily than a 10-footer drained at the Reno Tahoe Open when evaluating a player's putting. Of course, to find out exactly how much more it will count, the MIT team uses complex mathematical formulas akin to the ones Matt Damon solves in "Good Will Hunting."

Using this new metric, Luke Donald was No. 1 in putting during the 2009 season, while Steve Stricker, who led the Tour in putts per GIR, only placed 69th. Skeptical? Keep in mind this is the same institute of higher learning that produced the famed MIT Blackjack Team, which used sophisticated card-counting methods to strike fear into the hearts of casinos around the world.

Need some more relevant evidence? Tiger Woods, who has made more than his share of big putts in his career, comes in close behind Donald at No. 2 in these rankings. Tough to argue with that.

--Alex Myers

(Photo by Marc Serota/Getty Images)

This time, it's not of Woods' doing. The stories all pertain to rumors -- that he's either plotting his return at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill in two weeks or the Masters next month.

Of course, Woods could shut down the rumor mill by announcing when he intends to return in deference to everyone, notably tour players who this week have been badgered with questions pertaining to rumors.

The WGC events have largely delivered on their mandate to bring together on a more frequent basis the best players in the world, at a significant cost to their sponsors, who in 2010 at least have to be wondering whether they're getting an equitable return on their investment.

-- John Strege

Ferguson cites "two people with knowledge of his plans," though they are not identified. New York Post golf writer Mark Cannizzaro also cited two sources, neither of them identified.

-- John Strege

Eight-time European Order of Merit winner Colin Montgomerie has accepted an exemption into the Arnold Palmer Invitational, marking just his second tournament start in the U.S. since he was named European Ryder Cup captain in January 2009. Montgomerie competed in the '09 PGA Championship at Hazeltine, but has not played in a non-major event in America since the '08 Bridgestone Invitational.

A 31-time winner on the European Tour, Montgomerie, 46, has played just three times this season, with his best showing a T-60 at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship last month. He has played in the Arnold Palmer Invitational 12 times previously, with a T-8 in 1998 his highest showing. He missed the cut in his last start at Bay Hill in 2008.

--Dave Shedloski

"Two sources in the golf community have told The Post that Ari Fleischer, the former presidential advisor to George W. Bush and the man who was brought in to help repair the steroid-shattered image of Mark McGwire, has been huddling with Woods, plotting a strategy for his return to golf -- at the Arnold Palmer Invitational starting March 25 at Bay Hill in Orlando," Cannizzaro wrote.

The sources are not identified, it should be noted.

Fleischer's business, "Ari Fleischer Sports Communication," is a joint venture with IMG and was launched in March of 2008. IMG, of course, serves as Woods' agent.

On Fleischer's company home page, it states: "Ari Fleischer Sports Communications can help you handle the bad news and take advantage of the good."

-- John Strege

"To hear Brad Faxon tell it, the hecklers will have no chance," Teddy Greenstein wrote in the Chicago Tribune this week.

Faxon said that when Woods has encountered vocal galleries in the past, "he walks by like the deafest person in the world. He has always been able to tune that stuff out."

That's not necessarily a given in this case. Woods isn't deaf; how many times have we seen him stop in mid-swing over a camera click or an innocuous noise coming from elsewhere? Recall, too, that at his induction into the Stanford Athletic Hall of Fame during halftime of the Stanford-Cal game last November, he was momentarily rattled by loud booing coming from the Cal fans in attendance.

Woods' focus may be greater than any athlete in the world, but it surely has never been tested to the extent it will be upon his return.

-- John Strege

Angela Stanford shot even-par 72, Kristy McPherson a one-over par 73. Each put a ball in Rae's Creek, Stanford at 12 and McPherson at 13.

"I feel like a kidding waiting for Santa," Stanford wrote on Twitter the day before.

"Boy, am I nervous," she wrote on Tuesday morning.

"Well my friends Augusta was all I expected and more! We played the par 3 course first, lunch, then played National," she wrote afterward.

They played with Augusta National member Fleming Norvell, an Augusta native who played college golf at Auburn and helped establish the women's golf program at Augusta State University.

-- John Strege

"You prove yourself on the golf course, not in the press room," Davies, the defending champion, told the Australian. "Good luck to her."

It's a timely reminder that, as Thompson apparently contemplates turning professional before she's old enough to drive, even prodigies aren't cut any slack in professional golf, as Michelle Wie might attest.

-- John Strege

"I welcome the opportunity to work with a once-great event like the Hope, and it will be rewarding to bring it back to its place on the tour," Larry Thiel, the new tournament director of the Hope, told the Desert Sun's Larry Bohannan.

Thiel is a former president of the Jack Nicklaus Management Group, with which he was involved in the operation of the Memorial. He also was the tournament director of the International at Castle Pines Golf Club in Castle Rock, Colo., until its demise in 2007.

The Hope went forward this year without a sponsor and did not have the kind of field that might attract one. Mike Weir, No. 37 in the World Ranking at the time, was the highest ranked player in the field.

At least it's a problem with which Thiel is familiar. As the tournament director at the International, he was determined to get Tiger Woods back in the fold, but was unable to do so and it eventually contributed to the demise of the tournament.

-- John Strege

Black's wife, Sandra, knows his game and understands his swing. She was in his gallery at Newport Beach (Calif.) CC for the final round and positioned herself so he could see her as he walked toward the par-5 15th hole. "She came up to me and mimicked what the posture is supposed to be," Black said. "She didn't say a word. She just mimicked the posture, gave me the 'Come on dude,' and that's when I made my best two swings of the day, made the eagle. So I got to give her a little kudos there."

The situation presented an interesting window into the advice rule. Advice does not have to be spoken. A player indicating to a fellow competitor what club he hit by holding up a certain number of fingers would be a violation. It turns out Black was OK because he hadn't initiated the communication with his wife and it was the only time it occurred during play.

"Rule 8-1 prohibits a player from asking for advice from a spectator but does not prohibit a player from receiving unsolicited advice because the player can't control such an act" said John Morrissett, who is director, Rules of Golf, for the USGA.

However, Decision 8-1/24 (Advice Given by Team Coach or Captain) is analogous to what happened with Black. There is no penalty when an authorized party gives advice, but "the player should take action to stop this irregular procedure." He would incur a two-stroke penalty in stroke play if he allowed such advice to be given again.

After being informed of how Black described his on-course interaction with his wife Monday, Morrissett reached Champions Tour rules official Jim Witherspoon, who phoned Black. According to Morrissett, the golfer confirmed to Witherspoon that was the only time his wife communicated with him about his swing during the round.

"You can't penalize a player for receiving unsolicited advice," said Morrissett. "But what you can do is penalize him if it continues to happen. If, a hole later, she had done something similar and he hadn't done anything to prevent it, there could have been an issue. In this case, there was no breach of the rules."

-- Bill Fields