It was Jack Nicklaus, as Derek Lawrenson recounts in the Daily Mail in a story on Rory McIlroy's rising popularity.

"McIlroy was leaving a shopping mall in Florida one night when a retired golfer came running over and banged on the window of his courtesy car," Lawrenson writes. "‘I thought it was you,’ the man said. ‘I just wanted to introduce myself. I’m Jack Nicklaus.’"

-- John Strege

The Associated Press' Doug Ferguson notes in a story on the perplexities of the World Ranking that Davis Love III would have done better to sit out the Bay Hill Invitational rather than playing in it. Had he sat, he'd still be in the top 50 in the World Ranking and in contention for a Masters berth. By missing the cut, he fell from the top 50 and will have the win the Shell Houston Open to go to Augusta.

Ferguson also notes that had Love made the cut and finished 41st or better, he'd have secured a place in the Augusta field.

"Presented that scenario at the start of the week, the choice would have been simple," Ferguson writes in conclusion. "Because no matter how complicated it has become, it ultimately comes down to performance."

-- John Strege

It is a futile debate, arguing whether Tiger Woods is better than Jack Nicklaus was, but columnist Tom Boswell tackles it anyway in Tuesday's Washington Post, beneath the headline: The Game Deprived of Woods vs. Nicklaus.

Boswell gives the nod to Woods, though he makes the argument that he's had an easier way of it:

"Tiger has faced no contemporary of historic consequence except (wrong-stuff) Phil Mickelson," Boswell writes. "Nicklaus got all of his major titles in the face of Hall of Famers in their primes. Woods has finished second in a major only five times. Part of the reason is that he knows how to finish. But part of the reason is who he's had to beat.

"When Nicklaus finished second (19 times), look who beat him: Tom Watson and Lee Trevino, four times each, Arnold Palmer twice, Gary Player and Seve Ballesteros once each. That's a dozen major titles where Nicklaus finished runner-up to Hall of Fame players, from three distinct golf generations, with better career records than anybody Woods has ever had to beat."

Conversely, one could argue that the modern game has substantially more depth, producing a greater variety of major championship winners. This is why the debate is pointless.

So we'll yield to Lee Trevino on the subject. "You can't compare them, he told the Sun-Sentinel. "Different equipment, different golf courses. The only thing you can go by is tournament wins and major wins. When Tiger beats Jack in tournament wins and major wins, then he's the best player. Until he does that, he's not the best player."

-- John Strege

Seve Ballesteros, who has undergone four operations to remove a brain tumor and faces another round of chemotherapy, has spoken about his ordeal and proclaimed it, "the longest par 72 in the world...When you wake up in the morning, you do not want to get out of bed and you say: 'Where do I go?'

"But the way I look at it this is the biggest battle of my life, this is the sixth major."

-- John Strege

The Shell Houston Open this week should provide an interesting contrast between Tiger Woods' singular appeal and the collective appeal of the rest of the golf world.

Houston's field is inordinately strong -- eight of the top-10 ranked players in the world (missing only Woods and Kenny Perry), 15 of the top 20 and 21 of the top 30. In addition, it has Fred Couples, who played college golf at Houston, and Greg Norman.

Woods' final-round charge at the Arnold Palmer Invitational was a ratings boon to NBC. The Shell Houston Open, featuring virtually everyone but Tiger, will, in all likelihood, be largely overlooked.

-- John Strege

Tiger Woods in contention remains the greatest show in golf, as the Nielsen Media Research overnight ratings show, the Associated Press has reported.

Sunday's final round of the Arnold Palmer Invitational produced golf's highest overnight raings since the 2008 U.S. Open, exceeding even the Ryder Cup, the British Open and the PGA Championship, none of them featuring Woods' participation.

-- John Strege

This won't play well on the home front, Robert Allenby shredding Australian golf and its fans to the point that even were he to express remorse for having done so (and that doesn't seem likely given the vehemence with which he denounced the homeland), he's made playing there in the future problematic at best and impossible at worst.

In this story in the Australian, Allenby took Australian golf to task for, among other things, a lack of appreciation for what he's done for the game there, and fans' mistreatment of him in part by invoking his mother's death in their verbal abuse. On the latter point alone, his anger seems justified.

Among Allenby's statements:

-- "I'll be playing this game over here (in the U.S.) until I'm 55, but I just don't need to put up with any (bleep) anymore (in Australia)."

-- "I've been very supportive to the Australian Tour in my life but they don't look at it like that. They don't understand what I've actually done for the Australian Tour. There's no kickback towards me so there's no benefit for me. There's no benefit for me going back there and winning all three (Australian Open, Australian Masters and the PGA) tournaments. I don't get anything from it apart from the paychecks and the trophies. In the rest of the world, it doesn't mean anything because the Australian Tour's become like a little pea."

-- "My mum was dying and some of the comments that came out from the drunks at the back of the green towards me were disgusting. Obviously, I broke down on 15 green at the (Australian) Masters. My mum came out and I knew how sick she was. I broke down, I lost it, because I knew she wasn't going to be there for much longer. What they said in Sydney ruined me forever. These drunks yelling, 'That's all right mate, your mummy's not here now, you don't have to cry.'"

-- John Strege

In an earlier gig covering another sport, I chronicled the travails of a team that was notorious for blowing leads, very often in dramatic and spectacular fashion. It had reached such comical proportions that whenever this team would pull ahead in a game, a group of us jaded writers would roll our eyes and say something like, "Beware the dreaded three-goal lead."

I am reminded of this because of what confronts young Sean O'Hair this afternoon at soggy Bay Hill. As our own Thomas Bonk points out, O'Hair's five-shot cushion would appear to be sufficient if not for the fact that the man directly behind him happens to be the greatest athlete to ever don pleated pants.

But disregard Tiger Woods for a moment, if you can. Even if O'Hair's nearest pursuer was someone you had never heard of, there can be very little comfortable about a five-shot lead. Because immediately, all you can think about are ways that it can evaporate. Don't go for that flag. Stay left off the tee. That cart path could be in play. Golf is a difficult enough game as it is. But it becomes outright paralyzing if your predominant swing thought is, "Whatever you do, don't screw this up."

Or at least that's the way I'd be struggling with a five-shot lead in the final round of a PGA Tour event. Of course, this is just one of the countless reasons that I will never find myself in that position in the first place.

-- Sam Weinman

Among the many romantic elements that make the Masters so endearing -- the majestic drive down Magnolia Lane, the sprawling oak tree behind the clubhouse, the Hooters just outside the club gates on Washington Road (OK, maybe not that last one) -- not to be forgotten is the annual presence of wide-eyed amateurs in the field.

It's true, the one who will attract the most attention at Augusta will be Danny Lee, the reigning U.S. Amateur champion from New Zealand who will surely be making return visits to the Masters as a professional.

But me, I have a soft spot for the guys who earn an unlikely invitation into the field and seek to lap up every ounce of the experience. Hence, the letters to their heroes asking to play practice rounds with them; the wardrobes comprised entirely of Augusta National paraphernalia; the countless trips to the club for practice rounds in the months and weeks before the tournament.

Steve Wilson is one of those. The 39-year-old mini-tour-player-turned-gas station owner from Ocean Springs, Miss., earned a berth into the Masters by virtue of his win in the U.S. Mid-Am last September. He's played 15 practice rounds at the National since December (an impressive enough tally that he might consider pulling the George Costanza mind trick of just showing up to play next year pretending he's a member); and is now hoping to parlay the tournament into another run at a professional career.

If you're looking for someone to root for outside of the obvious crew, you could do a lot worse.