Tiger Woods saw his doctors in Utah on Wednesday for a two-week checkup on his surgically-repaired left knee.

"It went great," said Woods, who underwent arthroscopic surgery on April 15. "Everything is right on schedule."

Woods, 32, said he's ready to begin his rehabilitation, but he isn't sure when he will return to competition. Ideally, he would like to play in a tournament before the U.S. Open, June 12-15 at Torrey Pines Golf Course near San Diego, possibly two weeks earlier at the Memorial Tournament.

"The doctors said I should be able to play in 4 to 6 weeks after the surgery, but there are no guarantees about anything right now," said Woods. "I'm just going to work hard and do what they tell me to do."

Initially, Woods used crutches and wore a knee brace. The crutches are gone now, and he attended Game 5 of the Orlando Magic's Eastern Conference quarterfinals series against the Toronto Raptors on Monday night.

Despite a strong start this season--three wins, a second at the Masters and a fifth at Doral to lead the PGA Tour's money list by almost $2 million over No. 2 Phil Mickelson--Woods has been playing in pain and knew surgery was necessary.

"The knee has been bugging me for a while," he said. "The only decision was: do you miss the Masters or play in the Masters? I decided to play. Even if I had won, I still would have had the surgery."

--Mark Soltau

The USGA received 8,390 entries for the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines in La Jolla, Calif., with the applicants ranging in age from 12 (Rico Hoey, Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.) to 79 (Harris Moore Jr., Los Angeles).

Tiger Woods is among eight past champions fully exempt for the championship June 12-15. Woods, the 2000 and 2002 winner, is exempt in eight different categories, the most of any of the 58 golfers currently exempt.

Entries were received from golfers in all 50 states and 68 foreign countries, including professionals from Ghana, Nigeria and Guatemala.

Local qualifying begins May 5 at 111 sites.

--Bill Fields

SAVANNAH, Ga. -- Playing 36 holes with a tour pro is an education you don't quite get watching on television or walking in the gallery. You can hear the sound of the shots and feel the tempo, especially when someone has as fluid a swing as Jerry Pate, our pro Thursday in the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf pro-am.

Pate hadn't played a full round in a few weeks because of minor shoulder and knee injuries--he was wearing a neoprene brace on his left knee--but hit some beautiful shots. None was better than his final full shot of the day. On our group's final hole, the par-3 third, Pate's 3-wood from 227 yards into the wind faded about five yards just as he diagrammed it and finished four feet short of the hole.

He made the the birdie with a putter that is older than a lot of players on the PGA Tour, a Wilson Arnold Palmer blade he got in 1971 when he was a freshman at Alabama.

"I haven't used this putter in years," he said. "I won the [1974] U.S. Amateur with it. I won the [1982] TPC with it. I haven't used it on the Champions Tour, but at times I get a little too mechanical with a center-shafted, Ping-type putter. I like a heel-shafted putter at times where I can swing the toe a little
bit."

We had another 60 Thursday, for a two-day best-ball net total of 120, which beat 11 teams but was a whopping 14 strokes behind the pro-am winners (Shapiro, Shapiro, Green and Guernsey) who followed up their 51 with a 55.

Pate will be paired with his old Southeastern Conference rival Andy Bean in the tournament proper starting Friday. The Club at Savannah Harbor will be cleared of the amateur flotsam. I go back to work with a few swing thoughts from Pate and a reinforcement that the game they play and the one most of the rest of us play are different beasts.

--Bill Fields

SAVANNAH, Ga. -- Nerves, rust and a good old-fashioned talent deficit were a potent cocktail at 7:30 Wednesday morning. The first day of the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf pro-am began with a shotgun start, but I had a water pistol that wouldn't shoot straight.

I had gotten up early and eaten oatmeal for breakfast, worked my way through the bag on the range and left the practice green bursting with confidence having made two six-footers in a row.

Two holes in, I was wondering if I eventually was going to have to poach a couple of golf balls from our pro, Lonnie Nielsen.

Fortunately I found a temporary tourniquet for the mess I was making. At least on occasion, my swing tempo slowed to something approaching the legal limit. I two-putted from 100 feet on the 12th hole. I chipped nicely. I stayed out of everybody's through-line.

Besides, it was a team game and I had some good partners. I thought Leo Story, a 2-handicap local banker, had taken a wrong turn on the way to a long-drive contest, so formidable were many of his tee shots. After one of my better drives, Leo's ball was still a Ray Guy punt beyond mine. At 71, Jim Smith, a fixture in Savannah golf circles, was amazing. Just two weeks ago he had gotten dizzy on the course and gone to his doctor, who discovered a blocked heart artery. He had a stent put in. All Jim did Wednesday was shoot a neat 76, making 4-for-3 on the par-5 fourth hole to well-deserved applause from a few friends who followed us around. Kim Iocovozzi, a Savannah art dealer and tournament volunteer vice-chairman, struggled a bit on the greens but hung in there and had his moments.

Thanks to those guys and a couple of early birdies by Nielsen, we were eight under through our first nine holes before cooling down. Our 12-under best-ball net 60 beat a few of the 48 teams, but we can barely see the leaders (R.W. Eaks' team of Fred Shapiro, Bruce Shapiro, James Green and Kevin Guernsey), who carded a 51.

Tough crowd.

-- Bill Fields

SAVANNAH, Ga. -- Flying down to the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf, the smart play for a golfer of questionable ability with a long winter behind him and two days of pro-am golf ahead of him would have been to read Hogan or Snead, Harmon or Haney--to hope immersion in the fine points of the game would smooth all the rough edges.

I opted for the entertaining choice, the late George Plimpton's 1968 classic The Bogey Man, the account of his travails in three PGA Tour pro-ams back when woods were wood and the Crosby was the Crosby. Plimpton was an 18-handicap with a golf club but scratch with a typewriter. Better to laugh a little bit, I thought, than risk catching one swing thought too many.

When I got on the ground in coastal Georgia, I could have searched for a large bucket of practice balls, but sought to gather a couple of stories instead. One of the first people I ran into at The Club at Savannah Harbor was John Buchna, who has caddied for Joey Sindelar for 25 years. That's a lot of pro-ams, a lot of nervous amateurs, a lot of shots you don't usually see on Sunday afternoons.

"I've seen them hit scoreboards," Buchna said. "I've seen them hit cars out in the middle of a lake. I've seen them hit shots that end up behind them. If you top a ball just right,  the spin moves it in the wrong direction."

I would love to hit a few fairways, make a few pars, avoid having a to swipe at a ball lodged head-high in a tree, as Plimpton did.

If you cover golf, you don't pay much attention to pro-ams until you find yourself playing in one. In reporting on the Champions Tour since 2001, I've had the chance to play several informal rounds with senior pros. David Eger, Mark McNulty and Graham Marsh kindly put up with me during a round at Del Monte GC prior to The First Tee Open a couple of years ago.

Another year at that event, I got to play Pebble Beach with Peter Jacobsen and his junior partner in a practice round. Dana Quigley, Jim Thorpe and Jack Fleck were amiable partners in outings. My only sour experience was one round with an old pro who spoke as few words over 18 holes as I hit good shots, which was to say not many at all.

That won't be an issue over the next two days. Lonnie Nielsen is our pro today, followed by Jerry Pate on Thursday afternoon. I just hope Nielsen doesn't remember my leaving him out of a preseason top-30 ranking a few years ago (as one of his fans let me know). And I hope Pate doesn't recall the drive I pushed halfway to the Statue of Liberty as he played along for a hole or two during a round at Liberty National two years ago.

But as John Jacobs told me Tuesday, the pros don't care what the amateurs shoot. There isn't a bad shot they haven't seen. There was the fellow who was so nervous on the first tee in Tampa a couple of years ago that he couldn't get his ball to rest on a tee. "I teed up his ball for three of the first six holes," Jacobs said, "but he played pretty well after that."

Hope was high at the pro-am draw party Tuesday evening. "Have some fun, make some birdies," master of ceremonies Andy North told the audience.

The first command was within reach. And so were the shrimp.

--Bill Fields

Tiger must be successfully on the mend. He was spotted at Tiger Jam last night on crutches. Woods is expected to remain on crutches for about a week. He expects to return to putting practice next week, chipping the week after.

--Mark Soltau

Tiger Woods is progressing well after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on his left knee Tuesday. So well that he hasn't needed crutches; is expected to practice putting before the end of the week; and is hosting Tiger Jam XI on Saturday night at the Mandalay Bay Resort Events Center in Las Vegas, where rock legends Van Halen will perform.

"The knee is coming along very well," Woods said Friday. "I've been through this before and understand the rehabilitation process. I'm just taking it slow and steady."

Woods, coming off a second-place finish at the Masters, hopes to start chipping next week, then will progress to short wedge shots. If all goes well, he could return to competition on the PGA Tour in about six weeks. The Memorial Tournament, where Woods has won three times and missed only once (2006) in his 11 full seasons as a professional, begins May 29. The U.S. Open at Torrey Pines begins two weeks after that, on June 12.

"We'll just see how it goes," he said.

Woods has seen Van Halen in concert twice this year and is looking forward to a fun evening. Last year, a huge crowd came to watch Bon Jovi. The event, coupled with live and silent auctions, raised $1 million for the Tiger Woods Foundation and Las Vegas charities.

--Mark Soltau

Tiger Woods underwent successful arthroscopic surgery on his left knee Tuesday, it was announced on his website. It was the third operation the 32-year-old Woods has undergone on the knee.

The procedure was performed by Dr. Thomas D. Rosenberg at the Healthsouth Surgical Center in Park City, Utah. He previously performed a one-hour surgery in Dec. of 2002 to remove fluid inside and outside the anterior cruciate ligament, and removed benign cysts. In 1994, Woods had a benign tumor removed.

"I made the decision to deal with the pain and schedule surgery after the Masters," said Woods, who finished second in the tournament last Sunday. "The upside is that I have been through the process before and know how to handle it. I looked forward to working through this rehabilitation process and getting back to action as quickly as I can."

The typical healing process is 4-6 weeks. Woods, who will not need crutches, could return to competition at The PLAYERS Championship, May 8-11. A more conservative estimate would be the Memorial Tournament, May 29 through June 1.

"Tiger has been experiencing pain in his knee since the middle of last year, and when he had it looked at by his doctors, arthroscopic surgery was recommended," said Mark Steinberg, his agent. "Cartilage damage was found during the procedure, which Dr. Rosenberg was able to correct. Tiger has played through pain in the past, but knew it would be better for him to have the procedure done as early as possible."

Woods was released from Healthsouth Surgical Center on Tuesday. He is scheduled to host Tiger Jam XI in Las Vegas on Friday and Saturday at the Mandalay Resort. Proceeds benefit the Tiger Woods Foundation and select Las Vegas charities.

--Mark Soltau

Post-round interviews have a tendency to get mechanical, mostly number-speak of yardages and club selection. Every now and then a few gems surface from the mentally exhausted players. Here are a few from player interviews at the Masters this past week.

Boo Weekley, asked how he spent his time during the rain delay, answers "Nothing, just sat over there on No. 6 or right behind No. 5 green there. They've got a bathroom there, and we sat right there and went and got some crackers and some water." The reporter follows up, "Did you guys talk about anything?" Weekley says, "No, I sat out in the rain with an umbrella."

Zach Johnson, after his Saturday round, was asked to comment about "you know who" making his seemingly inevitable move up the leader board. At the time, Tiger Woods was on the course and on his way to a 68. Johnson replies, "Romero?"

A reporter says to Brandt Snedeker, "You told us you play fast, your tempo is fast, you speak quickly. Do you do anything slowly?" Snedeker says, "I probably think slowly. I'm not the fastest thinker in the world. That would probably be the only thing. I can't think of anything that I really do slowly."

The blooper here is on the reporter. The question to Raymond Floyd is, "When you play with a kid like Drew Weaver, an amateur here for the first time, do you kind of give him advice, do you talk to him or does he ask for that?" Raymond Floyd answers, curtly, "No. You're playing golf, you can't give advice. He and his caddie are the only people that can do that. It breaks the rules if you say anything."

Trevor Immelman, asked if he just pulls up his shirt to show the scar from the operation to remove a tumor from his diaphragm. "Yeah, for sure. Public indecency."

--Max Adler

Golf Digest's Jaime Diaz has been covering golf since 1984. We asked him for his take on the 72nd Masters.

How could Trevor Immelman win the Masters?
Jaime Diaz: I read where the oddsmakers pre-tournament had Immelman at 60 to 1 to win. I’d say there were probably 25 guys in the field I would have picked before Immelman, mostly because he has never shown the kind of putting touch that is thought to be required at Augusta. Immelman putted solidly this week, but mostly he won by being the best driver and iron player in the field and not missing too many six-footers. It was a virtuoso ball-striking performance by the young man Gary Player says has the closest thing to Ben Hogan’s swing that he has ever seen.

Does this end talk of a Grand Slam in 2008?
Although Immelman won the U.S. Public Links at Torrey Pines and he proved he can win a major at the Masters, Slam talk is dead, and should be. Now, if Immelman wins at Torrey Pines, that’s different.

Zach Johnson and Trevor Immelman have won the past two Masters. Is that good or bad for golf?
Every winner brings their own attractive qualities to golf history, so in my opinion, they are all good for golf. In Johnson’s case, it was inspiring to see a player whose stature and style seemed to make it impossible to win at the new, bulked-up Augusta. Instead, he showed how superb wedge play, clutch putting and poise can be the great equalizer on any course. Immelman’s victory showcases one of the great swings the modern game has ever seen, and unleashes the kind of potential that can make him an important challenger to Tiger. Though a Tiger victory in a major is always good for golf because of the attention it garners and the history it makes, the game also needs the most talented young players  to mentally break through so they are comfortable at the very top rank in the Tiger Era. Immelman is one of those players.

That makes three consecutive Masters that Tiger hasn't won. Why can't he win here anymore?
It’s a facetious question, but the fact is that the new Augusta allows more styles to be competitive than the old Augusta, where power was a bigger advantage. Tiger will remain the prohibitive Masters favorite, but his game will have to be at least at a B-plus level for him to win. This year, his A-minus ball-striking was undermined by C-minus putting and wedge play. The point is, as good as he is, the new Augusta, more than the old one, requires that he play well by his own standard to win.