BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. -- Apparently, the bounty on spandex-clad Irishmen is nationwide and not just in the state of Texas. CBS announcer David Feherty, after having been run over by a truck near his home in Dallas last March (breaking three ribs, puncturing a lung and severely injuring his left elbow), was struck again Tuesday while riding his bike near the Dearborn, Mich., hotel where he was staying prior to the PGA Championship.

Before going on the air Thursday, limping along gingerly with the aid of an aluminum cane he purchased at Wal-Mart and looking very much like Colonel Sanders, Feherty stopped long enough to telescope the cane to its tiniest height and go into his favorite Marty Feldman routine from the movie "Young Frankenstein." "Hump? What hump?" he said.

"People have been driving over me," deadpanned Feherty, who suffered a concussion and has no memory of being hit. The driver didn't stop and Feherty had no idea what kind of vehicle struck him. "I was lying in the bushes for 20 minutes or a half-hour," he said. "I have no recollection of riding my bike back to the hotel. I was talking in left-handed Swahili in the lobby and they called an ambulance."

In addition to a concussion, he injured his already separated left shoulder ("My shoulder and I sleep in separate rooms," he says.) and bruised his left butt cheek. The joke that accompanies that particular injury can't be published on a family website. Feherty said the brain scan at the hospital confirmed the existence of one, otherwise, "I have one very big tumor," he says.

After returning to the land of the cognizant at the hospital, Feherty asked the doctor what had happened to him and the doctor explained he'd been run over. "Oh, you've got to be ****** kidding me," Feherty replied.

--Jim Moriarty

LA JOLLA, Calif. -- After it was over, Lee Westwood joked he had his eyes shut when he came within inches of joining Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate in Monday's U.S. Open playoff, missing a downhill 20-foot birdie putt on the 72nd hole that would have given him an opportunity to become the first Englishman to win a U.S. Open Championship since Tony Jacklin did it in 1970 at Hazeltine CC.

"Well, it's sickening not to be in the playoff tomorrow," said Westwood, who was ill with tonsillitis for the two weeks prior to arriving at Torrey Pines, "but, all in all, I played pretty good all week. My nerves were pretty good. My mind was on winning the golf tournament. I didn't have the greatest preparation coming in here. I didn't hardly hit any balls, just did a bit of chipping and putting because, physically, I wasn't up to (it). If you would have said that I'd have had a 20-footer to get in a playoff for the U.S. Open on the last green, I would have been surprised."

Both Westwood and Woods got off to rocky starts in the final pairing Sunday, with Westwood making a bogey to Woods' double. Westwood struggled in the middle of the round, playing the 10th through the 13th holes three over par. But he nearly drove it on the 14th to make birdie and sank a crucial par-saving six-footer on the 17th to give himself a chance to tie Mediate, already in the clubhouse.

On the 18th, the Englishman was forced to lay up when he drove it into the fairway bunker on the right. "I got a little bit too close to the green and I was caught between sand iron and lob wedge. These fairway traps have been difficult all week to play out of. You really need to take them absolutely clean. Sometimes you catch them a bit thin as I did on 10 and as I did on the last and it went just a little bit further. I was looking for like 96, 97 (yards) to the front and I got about 88 or so."

The U.S. Open was just the latest bit of evidence that Westwood, once the fourth-ranked player in the world before tumbling all the way to 256th, has returned to top form. "It's the first time I've really sort of been in the firing line, and I think I came out of it well," he said. "While I'm disappointed, I'm pleased with myself and I think that I've proved to myself and a few others that I think there is a major championship in me. Anytime you get in contention in a massive event like this it gives you a boost for tournaments coming up. Can't wait for the next one. I'm not planning on getting tonsillitis two weeks before the British Open."

--Jim Moriarty

LA JOLLA, Calif. -- A quadruple-bogey 9 on the 13th hole meant Phil Mickelson's unrequited love affair with the U.S. Open is destined to continue for another year, made all the worse this time because it came at the hands of his high school sweetheart, Torrey Pines, the course where the boy became a man.

Early in the week, Mickelson, who will be 38 on Monday, talked about his love for the Open and his four runner-up finishes in it. "It just hasn't loved me back," he said. The par-5 13th certainly didn't give him any on Saturday. From a good lie in the first cut of kikuyu rough, Mickelson tried to stick his L-wedge close to the pin, make a birdie and get back to even par for the day. Instead, the ball spun back down the hill, and it took him three more tries with a 64-degree wedge to reach the back of the green. He three-putted from above the hole for the quad and finished the day nine over par for the tournament, 12 behind leader Tiger Woods and too far back to be a
factor on Sunday.

"It's a great pin that will entice guys to get a little close," Mickelson said afterward. "Certainly that's what I did on my first shot. The other two were just poor." Asked if he ever made a 9 on that hole before, he deadpanned, "Oh, no, I've had a 9 on 13. I mean, I was 8 years old."

Mickelson played the third round with his driver back in the bag after relying solely on his 3-wood as his longest club the first two days. "The 3-wood carries 275. It's running about 300 here. It's just easier to hit fairways at 300 than it is at 320. It just felt more comfortable. I didn't hit it well, and it cost me because I couldn't get it in the fairway," Mickelson said. "I've lost Opens, like at Winged Foot, where I didn't hit it in the fairway and I was hitting drivers, and I thought I'd hit another club, and it just didn't work out. I still missed them." The irony is, Mickelson's near miss at Winged Foot came, at least in part, because he didn't have a 3-wood in the bag on Sunday, hitting driver off the 18th--which bounced off an exhibition tent--because his 4-wood wasn't enough club to reach the dogleg.

Despite the obvious frustration of coming up short in his hometown, Mickelson was already thinking about next year. "This is something I wanted a lot. I just didn't play well this week. I'm certainly disappointed I'm not in the mix right now. That was the goal," he said Saturday. "So, I'm going to come out tomorrow and enjoy my final round and then Bethpage [Black] is one of the best memories in the game of golf I've ever had. [Mickelson finished second, three strokes behind Woods.] I get to go back there next year for the Open, so I'm excited about the chance of trying to break through and win my first Open there."

His wife, Amy, had a different description for the day, however. "A little bit of heartbreak," she said.

--Jim Moriarty

LA JOLLA, Calif. -- It was just over a year ago after winning the Masters that Zach Johnson declared himself a regular guy from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Well, there's nothing regular about Cedar Rapids at the moment. Johnson is at eight-over 150 after two rounds of the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines GC but you'll have to forgive him if his mind is a couple of thousand miles away. His family may be California with him but his friends are, literally, under water back home in Iowa.

Johnson was in Cedar Rapids as recently as the Sunday morning before Open week. "It was wet," he said. "I was actually there a week and half for my sister's wedding. That's when the rain started. It's the same band coming up out of the Plains, moving east-northeast every day, it seems like. Flash floods, tornado watches, everything. Every system had it. There's been maybe one or two days off in the last 14. The Midwest has been pounded this year."

The rains sent the Cedar River spilling over its banks. The city's water system was in danger of complete collapse until 1,200 volunteers showed up to protect the last functioning well with sand bags. So far, 24,000 people have been evacuated from the city and the floodwaters are expected to crest at just under 33 feet.

"Any time you got your heart somewhere else, you want to do something for the community. It's only natural," Johnson says. "There are a couple hundred thousand people in that community. They push their own and they support their own and I'm one of them. I'm doing the same thing for them. I've always said if I wasn't playing this game I'd be the one outside the ropes pushing that person that is."

City Hall, the Linn County Jail and Linn County Courthouse are located in buildings on an island in the river. "I saw the picture from 380, which is the interstate," said Johnson, who has been following the developments in the crisis on the Internet and calling friends in Iowa. "There's First Avenue, Second Avenue, Third Avenue. Intermingled in those is this island. You see water and two structures sticking out. You see light poles sticking out of the water. That's how you know where the streets are. I can't even fathom. It just seems like it's so far up, under water."

Johnson, who is particularly concerned about his father's chiropractic clinic located just a few blocks from the river, has barely begun to think about how to respond. "It's only been a day and half," he said when he finished playing Friday afternoon. "I've got a lot of friends back there, a lot of family. They're pretty smart individuals. I think we'll put some plan together, something that will help. I don't know if it will be the smallest things or the biggest things. I don't know where things are. It's kind of a question mark because it hasn't stopped yet."

-- Jim Moriarty

They may not be sharing the same operating room but Shaun Micheel and Atlanta Braves' pitcher John Smoltz will be sharing the same surgeon Tuesday in Birmingham, AL, when the 2003 PGA Champion has his left shoulder operated on by renowned orthopedic surgeon, Dr. James Andrews, while the future Hall of Fame pitcher has his right shoulder surgically repaired. Both will be season ending, and hopefully career-prolonging, procedures.

Micheel has been experiencing problems since last year but it was only recently that the shoulder became painful. "Last year my shoulder was making lots of noises," Micheel said after missing the cut in the Stanford St. Jude Championship in his hometown of Memphis, TN. "It pops every time when I swing. I saw Dr. Andrews the Monday after the Players Championship."

The initial MRI and diagnosis of a torn labrum and torn biceps tendon was made in Jacksonville. "The only reason I had it looked at is because I was playing with Zach Johnson on Sunday at Charlotte and he saw me rub my shoulder and asked me what that noise was when I hit. He thought I was hitting like the top of my hat or something like that." As it turned out, Dr. Frank Jobe was also at the Players Championship, looked at the MRI and immediately called Dr. Andrews to set up an appointment. Micheel's surgery was originally scheduled for the week of the Memorial Tournament but he opted to continue playing until a conversation with Jack and Barbara Nicklaus changed his mind.

"It's just a career choice. Do you try to play and do more damage? I've just been trying to play. I thought I was on to some things. I've been putting very well and that's been kind of keeping me around," said Micheel who has only made five cuts in 16 events this year and is 159th on the money list. "The last couple of weeks, some of the things are starting to catch up to me. I have a bad attitude. It's just frustrating, with this being the last year of my five-year exemption. Injuries never come at a good time. I don't care if you won 20 times or once. They just never come at a good time. You're trying to compete at a high level against these guys. It's mental, too. I've had a lot of stuff going on off the golf course this year with my former manager, having to sue him, with the drug testing policy because I take a banned substance (for low testosterone) and the shoulder."

It may be as long as four months before Micheel can touch a golf club. "When you have the best orthopedic doctors looking at you basically saying you need to get this fixed, I don't really have much option," Micheel said. "I was fighting it. I was really fighting it. I seemed to be the only person who didn't want to have it." Since this is the last year of Micheel's PGA Championship exemption, he'll get 13 events on a major medical exemption next season to make enough money to qualify as one of the top 125.

--Jim Moriarty

Dan Jenkins doesn't care Kenny Perry's not playing in the U.S. Open. He's still mad Adam Scott is paired with Tiger and Phil instead of Ben Hogan. But, for some reason, everyone else seems to find Perry's distaste for Torrey Pines unacceptable. For his part, Perry doesn't much care. As he's said over and over, his only goal this year was the Ryder Cup team and he's done everything he could to get on it. For the first time in the soon-to-be 48-year-old's career, he actually wrote a goal down on a piece of paper and stuck it in his wallet. Captain Paul Azinger wanted to base the Ryder Cup points on money. Fine. Perry's won a boatload. Captain Azinger wanted winners, not just high finishers who bank balls off trees. Fine. He won Memorial.

"If the Ryder Cup had been anywhere else," Perry says of Valhalla GC, in his home state of Kentucky, where he lost the '96 PGA Championship in a playoff to Mark Brooks, "I might not have had that burning fire."

While it's no doubt true the USGA's 36-hole qualifier factored into Perry's decision, the golf course played a much greater roll. Perry has only played events at Torrey Pines three times in his career for a reason. "If it had been a different venue I would have definitely set my schedule up differently," he says. "But, when I saw it at Torrey Pines I just said, that's not me." And Perry is not alone in his ambivalence for the course on the cliffs. Jim Furyk, the '03 U.S. Open champion, is another who will tell you he doesn't much care for it.

A more pressing decision for Perry is whether or not he plays in the British Open. "See, I was in nothing this year," says Perry. "So I went on and committed to John Deere and Milwaukee because those are two of my favorite places. I've always supported Milwaukee. I won there. That place opened up a lot of doors for me. Now, I still have an opportunity to go to the British and I may change my mind. I may pull out of Milwaukee and go on over. That's a tough pull. I'm torn right there. I've done OK in the British Open. Had a chance to win at Royal St. George's. I played with Jack during his last British Open. I got to play a practice round with him and Tom Watson and Mike Weir. A tremendous day for me, the chance of a lifetime. I always tell everybody I feel like I'm on the moon because the golf is so different. I'm just torn. Birkdale was my first British Open, the year Ian Baker-Finch won. If these few weeks go well and I know for sure I'm on that Ryder Cup team, yeah, I'll probably go."

If not, he'll stay in the U.S. and keep piling up points because he knows he can.

--Jim Moriarty

AVONDALE, La. -- Les bon temps did not roule Friday afternoon at the Zurich Classic when Bubba Watson and Steve Elkington had a catfight on the back nine of the TPC Louisiana. Apparently, what happened was this:

Bubba detected some movement while he was trying to play his approach shot from the right rough on the 10th hole. He felt it wasn't the first time Elkington was moving at inappropriate times and unleashed a torrent of expletives, a portion of which was captured by the Golf Channel's microphones.

Afterward, Elkington and Watson settled their differences in the scoring hut. They were playing with Shigeki Maruyama who emerged from the glass-walled tent with his usual smile, bobbing and weaving like Sugar Ray Leonard. "Big problem," Shigeki said as he walked away.

Elkington, who finished the day three shots off Briny Baird's lead of eight under par, left without speaking to the media. Watson, on the other hand, apologized to virtually anyone who wasn't moving, as it were. He said he and Elkington had "hugged it out."

"I want to apologize to everybody in the tournament," Watson said. "Everybody who heard it, whoever saw it, especially Steve and Shigeki and their caddies. I heard something and I took it out on them and shouldn't have done it. I apologize to the tournament, to anybody that's involved in this tournament, all the volunteers, all the caddies, the spectators, the kids that came out here. I'm not like Charles Barkley. I'd love to be a role model. I make mistakes. My mistake was I got angry today.

"Everything's good. He's not mad. He's looking at me like this is like his son, basically. I'm a lot younger, he took me aside and said, 'Look, be strong in what you're doing and make sure you don't do that.' I apologized to him as best I could."

--Jim Moriarty

AVONDALE, La. -- According to news accounts in the New Orleans Times-Picayune -- which incidentally remains the best-named newspaper in the United States  -- world-renowned Cajun chef Paul Prudhomme was struck in the left arm by a .22 caliber bullet randomly falling out of the sky as he set up his cooking station on the practice ground of the TPC Louisiana at the Zurich Classic Tuesday.

Though the bullet left a hole in the chef's cooking jacket and a small cut on his arm, Prudhomme gamely never left his post. In an effort to follow up on the news reports (and to inform accounting as to the reason for the rather sizable meal voucher), we dined last evening at Prudhomme's K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen. While there was no information available concerning the shooting itself, the food remained delicious.

-- Jim Moriarty

MIAMI -- On a day featuring the fits and starts of a man crossing an icy street on crutches, Geoff Ogilvy took a four-shot lead into the final round of the WGC-CA Championship only to see his advantage cut in half by Jim Furyk and Vijay Singh by the time darkness fell at Doral. Play was halted with Furyk having completed the par-5 10th and Singh and Ogilvy just behind him in the fairway.

"A long day," Ogilvy said of the early start completing the third round Sunday morning, followed by the weather delays in the afternoon. "I warmed up four times. It's a bit fatiguing, going out, warming up, getting in the van, driving all the way out, coming all the way back, in the air-conditioning, out of the air-conditioning, in the air-conditioning, out of the air-conditioning. That wears you out. Yeah, it's frustrating."

Lurking in the distance was Tiger Woods, trying to beat the odds and keep his winning streak alive. "I'm sure he probably thinks he has a chance," Ogilvy said of Woods who started and finished the afternoon five behind. "We've seen him do crazy things before. But Jim and Vijay have won a fair few tournaments and Adam (Scott) has won a few. There are some pretty tough players right up there. He doesn't only have to catch me, he's got to catch me and pass Jim Furyk and Retief Goosen and Adam Scott. It's a pretty stellar leader board. I've got my work cut out just beating any of those guys."

No one gained more ground Sunday afternoon than Steve Stricker, who saved par from just inside the hazard line on the 18th to close with a nine-under 63, finishing at 13-under 275, four behind Ogilvy's lead of minus 17. "It wasn't hard for me because I had a good round going," said Stricker of the frequent stopages in play. "I really had nothing to lose. I wasn't scaring the leaders at all. I've got a four in a row stretch [starting] here, [then] New Orleans, Houston and the Masters and I'm trying to build up toward that Masters and this is a good start."

Furyk finished his morning round with a pair of birdies to get in contention, then made four in a row on the front nine to highlight an outgoing 33. "If I want to win the golf tournament, I'm going to have to make a bunch of birdies again tomorrow," Furyk said.

-- Jim Moriarty

MIAMI -- While it's true the only thing more boring than a weather delay at a golf tournament is a Pauly Shore film festival, there were, nonetheless, a few interesting developments before and after the deluge washed out play at the WGC-CA Championship at Doral Saturday. It's fascinating how every Spring the whiff of distant flowers at Augusta brings out the red numbers in golf's finest players as each attempts to firm up their games for the year's first major championship.

Everyone knows Augusta National is one of Tiger Woods' "happy places," as the CA Championship leader Geoff Ogilvy calls the courses where Woods so often dominates. The third-round threesome was among the players returning to finish  Easter Sunday morning with Ogilvy assuming a four-shot lead at 16 under par. But while Woods was busy wrestling the Aussie tag-team duo of Adam "Facebook" Scott and Geoff "The Flying Quote" Ogilvy, others were coming into shape, too.

Among the notable names was Vijay Singh, the 2000 Masters champion who finished in the top 10 there every year from '02 through '06. Earlier this year Singh couldn't keep his "new" swing under control and he lost the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in a playoff. This week, he changed from a standard-length putter back to the belly and led the group of five players at minus 12.

While Singh made the biggest move Saturday afternoon/Sunday morning with a nine-under 63, another familiar name from the last two Masters, Tim Clark, got to 11 under before he dropped a shot from a tough lie in the wet rough Sunday morning on the 16th. "I really struggled the start of the year," said Clark, who was runner-up to Phil Mickelson at Augusta in '05 and shared the halfway lead last year. "Last week I found my swing again and that felt great and that gave me confidence coming here and I just had to figure out what I was doing with the putting. I got that sorted this week. I'm looking forward to Augusta now. You don't want to be going there playing badly. Now that I feel like I'm playing well, you kind of get excited to go back and play."

Singh and Clark weren't the only ones cobbling something together in advance of Augusta. After a mediocre opening to his season, all of a sudden Jim Furyk was on the leader board with Singh at 12 under. Mike Weir, the '03 Masters champion, was five under in his third round. Retief Goosen, who finished second at Augusta last year, had his best showing of the season last week at Bay Hill and worked his way into the logjam at minus 12, too. The Masters defender, Zach Johnson, is a shot behind Clark.

There were two names missing from the list of usual suspects, however. The first was Ernie Els. The winner at the Honda Classic just three weeks ago was six over par for the tournament but suffering from the flu all week. "I'd like to put some good rounds together when I start feeling better," Els said. "Obviously, I've got the Houston tournament before the Masters."

Not part of the conversation was Colin Montgomerie, who came to the CA needing a high finish to earn an invitation back to Augusta. His opening rounds of 75 and 74 left him with the stunned and vacant look more often associated with people trying to change planes at Miami International.

-- Jim Moriarty

MIAMI--One of the three players tied for fourth at six under par after the second round of the WGC-CA Championship hadn't even gotten over his jet lag yet. Jeev Milkha Singh qualified to play at Doral when he lost to Graeme McDowell in a playoff at the Ballentine's Championship in South Korea last Sunday, moving him into the top 10 on the European Order of Merit and earning a fast trip to South Florida.

Though Singh didn't arrive in Miami until Tuesday night, he was planning on coming to the States anyway. The first Indian golfer ever to play in the Masters, Singh finished T-37 last year at Augusta and was invited back again in '08. In fact, Singh was in the Masters before he was in Doral.

"I'm in Abu Dhabi and I've missed the cut," Singh says. "I've had the flu for the whole week and I'm lying in bed. I mean, I'm beat up completely. I'm lying in bed and my mobile rings. Someone says, 'Hi, is this Jeev? This is Buzzy Johnson from the Augusta National Golf Club.' He said, 'Jeev, what are you doing?' I said, 'I'm lying in bed. I'm running with the flu.'

He said, 'Jeev, you better come out of bed because Augusta National extends the invitation for you.' I said, 'Buzzy, you know what, I'm out of bed. I'm jumping. My flu's gone.' " Singh even asked if he could confirm his acceptance over the phone or if he needed to do it in writing. Johnson allowed as how they'd take his word for it.

Singh, 36, who was awarded the Indian equivalent of a British knighthood, the Padma Shri, last year, has an unusual move at the top of his swing. A self-taught player, his club points well left of the target, then he reroutes it on the downswing. Singh's father, Milkha Singh, nicknamed the Flying Sikh, was an Olympic runner in the 400 meters, competing in the 1960 Olympics in Rome where he finished fourth, though all four runners broke what was, at the time, the world record.

Singh got to eight under par Friday before he double-bogeyed the ninth, his last hole of the day. "I played really well today and got lucky also," he said.

On the third hole, Singh's 12th, he drove it in the first cut but pushed his second shot into the water. He took a drop, then slam-dunked his fourth with a sand wedge from 68 yards to save par. "It was a bogey-free round until the ninth. I just hit it short of the flag in the rough, short of the bunker. Trying to get too cute with it, left it in the rough, chipped it on and two-putted for a double. Otherwise I think I handled myself really well today."

Singh birdied the fifth from inside three feet and the 16th from inside eight feet, in addition to birdies at the sixth and eighth, to finish six behind the halfway leader, Geoff Ogilvy.

--Jim Moriarty

The winds at Doral were blowing so hard on Wednesday even Tiger Woods cut his practice round at the CA Championship short, seeing more potential for harm than for good. The 18th was playing into a Blue Monster of a gale with many players hitting 3-woods into the green and some barely reaching the front edge. Phil Mickelson, on the other hand, spent his day jetting back and forth to Augusta National.

Mickelson and his caddie, Jim Mackay, left Miami at 6:30 a.m., stopped in St. Simons Island, Ga., to pick up Augusta member Fleming Norvell and then joined another member, Warren Stephens, for a casual round. They got a tour of the latest course changes, particularly the extension of the seventh green, courtesy of Masters Chairman Billy Payne and were back in Miami by 6 p.m.

"The course is in tremendous shape," Mickelson said of Augusta. "There's great coverage with the grass. It was windy up there too, not as bad as it was here. The point was to see the changes and just kind of get a visual because the ball chips and putts so different on those greens than anywhere else. Going into my off week next week (when he's scheduled a practice session in San Diego with Dave Pelz) I want to kind of have that mental picture of what I need to practice and how to do it."

While Augusta's 17th seemed like an even tighter driving hole than it had been and there was some minor softening of the ledges on the ninth green, the biggest change was the room added to the back of the seventh green. "It changes the hole because now long is OK," says Mickelson. "You can go over the green and get up and down possibly. Whereas before that wasn't really realistic."

On Thursday, Mickelson got off to a five-under-par 67 at Doral that included a double-bogey on the third hole when he hit 3-wood off the tee into a horrendous lie and his 9-iron from the rough shot right, hit the bank short and ended up in the water. By Mackey's reckoning, Mickelson hit 17 greens in the opening round but, coming off his putting performance last week at Bay Hill when he averaged over 30 putts per round, making a few birdies was crucial.

"It was important to get a few to go in," Mickelson said. "It meant a lot coming in to make those four birdies because I had to make putts on all of them. The shortest one was five or six feet. I have a lot of confidence on these greens. It's the same grass as TPC Sawgrass and they just putt and track so nice." While Mickelson's ball-striking has, for the most part, been superb this season, his putting has faltered. In a stark contrast with Woods, who ranks 14th in putting between 15 and 25 feet, Mickelson is 164th from that distance. Overall, they rank first and 39th, respectively, in putting. "It's coming," Mickelson says. "I just have to get it all together, the whole thing together."

Maybe the most visible change Mickelson has made is to his physique. He appears trim and in shape. "It's kind of a mixture of a lot of things," he says of his workout routine. "StairMaster is kind of my cardio thing. Overall I'm trying to build up strength. I'm not trying to lose weight as much as I'm trying to get physically stronger and quicker through the golf ball to accommodate some of the changes, the shorter backswing, that I've been implementing in my game. I don't want to lose distance."

--Jim Moriarty

MIAMI -- Tiger Woods has never shied away from showing his emotions on the golf course but have you ever seen him throw his hat to the ground the way he did when he birdied the 72nd hole to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational? Does anyone remember seeing Arnold fling his visor deep into the patrons around the 18th green at Augusta National? In what was no doubt an inadvertent homage 24 years apart, the only difference was the direction. Palmer launched his visor into the air, sending an entire sport into orbit on the final hole of the '64 Masters while Woods drove his down into the fringe of the 18th green at Palmer's own Bay Hill Club like he was planting his personal flag and, once again, claiming the sport for his own.

"I was knocked at how off I went," Woods said of his Bay Hill celebration at the CA Championship at Doral Golf Resort and Spa. As familiar as Woods is with golf history, however, if it wasn't intentional, it was probably subconscious. "I didn't think it was really that bad until I saw it. I got pretty excited there, didn't I? The whole week I was trying to make sure I didn't leave myself a second putt on those greens. The only hole I did that on was the 10th hole on Sunday. I ended up three-putting. I didn't want to have that happen again on 18. I just really concentrated on my speed and once the green started taking that putt sideways, it looked pretty good from where I was."

If the video clip from '08 will inevitably be associated with the one from the '64 Masters, it was also a kind of anniversary present to Woods' caddie, Steve Williams. Bay Hill marked the 10th anniversary the duo began working together. "Did you get him diamond earrings or anything?" Woods was asked.

"He would look interesting with diamond earrings," the best player in the world said of the Kiwi caddie/auto racer.

-- Jim Moriarty

(Photo: Scott A. Miller/Getty Images)

PALM HARBOR, Fla. -- At the scoring trailer near the clubhouse of the Copperhead Course, Paul Tesori (right) couldn't wait to fold up his caddie bib from the PODS Championship and stick it safely inside Sean O'Hair's golf bag. "I hope you don't mind," he told the volunteer who was collecting them, "but I'm keeping this one." Tesori has quite a collection of them at home. He's got 10 from his years spent with Vijay Singh but this one, you could tell, was special to him.

"I've got the best job in the world," Tesori said after O'Hair won the PODS by two shots for his second career victory, qualifying for the Masters (and next week's WGC-CA Championship) in the process. "I worked for Vijay for almost five years. You know, Vijay, basically you just did your work, did your numbers. He knows how to play this game with his eyes closed. So there wasn't a lot of help that you give Veej. Whereas, this guy, it's a true team. There are things you don't know at 25, things  I didn't know six years ago, that now are second nature to me."

As if to prove that fact, O'Hair was standing in front of the NBC cameras waiting patiently to go on air with Jimmy Roberts. Tesori trotted over to his player, tugged at his shirt and more or less told him to get in the trailer and sign his scorecard, TV can wait. It's not over 'til it's over.

-- Jim Moriarty

(Photo: Sam Greenwood/Getty Images)

Captain Paul Azinger is so determined to play the hot hand in the Ryder Cup that he doesn't care where those hands come from, as long as they're from America.

"I think if some guy wins three tournaments in a row on the Nationwide Tour and his last tournament is the week before the week I pick, I probably pick him," Azinger said at the PODS Championship. "I probably pick him because I'm pretty sure that dude is hot. I'm looking for anybody that I think is blazing hot." And, just in case you thought he was kidding about the Nationwide Tour, Azinger added, "I might not care if they come from the Senior Tour, keep that in mind."

Um, Paul, for when you get there, that's "Champions," not Seniors.

All of the changes Azinger requested to the selection system -- increase in the number of captain's picks to four and basing the point system on money, weighted to the year of the competition and the majors that season -- have been made to put together a team with forward momentum. Said Azinger, "I think the big question really is going to be after the eight guys are established, who am I going to pick? Am I going to pick the same guys or am I going to pick other guys? That's going to really be the question. I'm going to pick the guys that are hot."

And, he's not overly concerned with whether or not he knows the players well, either. "I think it's really not that important, to be honest with you, for me to know anybody. I believe that I could probably not come back out until the matches start and it would be just fine. The point list is going to speak for itself. All I [have] to do is pay attention. They don't need to know me and I don't need to know them. They are all big boys and they are all professionals and they all want the same thing I want. I just want guys that want to be there and be prepared when they show up."

Of course, one of the delicious back-stories to Azinger's captaincy is his television and playing relationship with Europe's captain, Nick Faldo. "It's a nice dynamic, I think, to the matches that he and I can banter and be fairly cordial to each other," said Azinger. "I think I was more competitive with him than he was with me. The rivalry was from me to him, not from him to me. He was more like, 'I didn't know you existed.' Whereas I was like, 'All I want to do was beat Nick Faldo.' "

-- Jim Moriarty

(Photo: David Cannon/Getty Images)

At one point, it seemed as if half the field at last week's Honda Classic was either sick or playing on a medical extension. Jesper Parnevik lost 11 pounds during his trip to Mexico for the Mayakoba Golf Classic and Tim Herron summoned paramedics when his heart began to race on the golf course, a result, it turned out, of a sinus infection. Brett Quigley made his first cut since having knee surgery before the 2007 Fall Series, finishing T-12 and earning enough money to keep his card for the rest of 2008. And Ben Crane (T-12) and Dudley Hart (T-15) got closer to regaining full-time tour status. But 36-hole leader Brian Davis took a back seat to no one.

"I had been swinging it bad for a couple of years and not been happy," said the Englishman, who finished T-7 after weekend rounds of 73-73. "I had a back problem early [last] year. That went away and I started having pains in my neck. I played the last seven events of the season and I herniated two discs in my neck at Disney. I sneezed and I heard it pop. Because it was the last event, I just carried on. Unfortunately, it was quite a long road back."

The road included two months of therapy and inactivity. "I've been lacking in strength," Davis said after his opening rounds of 65-67 gave him a one shot lead. "Having two months [between tournaments], I thought I might as well shut down. I probably came back a little too early. It's one of those things, you've got to start playing sometime." Davis made two cuts in five starts on the West Coast, his best finish being a T-26 at the Hope.

"It was a real struggle to hang in there," Davis admitted after the third round. "I kept myself in it and I could have played myself out of it. I felt like I shot 80. I started off OK, but I hit a couple of bad shots and all of a sudden started hitting it left and right and left and then left again. I just had to hang on for dear life coming in and hanging on for dear life at the Bear Trap isn't the best thing in the world."

-- Jim Moriarty

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. -- Zach Johnson still hasn't made up his mind what he's going to serve at the past champions dinner on Tuesday night at Augusta National during Masters week, though he has noticed the time is growing short. He remains committed to his Midwestern roots and figures corn and pork will probably work their way onto the menu. His wife, Kim, comes from the Florida Panhandle so there may be a little shrimp in the offing, too. "Some kind of surf and turf," he says.

As for his game, it's beginning to round into form but Johnson doesn't plan on doing much different in preparation for his defense. "I'll emphasize my wedges a little more and work on the speed of my putts," says the man who laid up on all the par fives and still played them 11 under par in 2007. "Nothing very different. It's worked before."

-- Jim Moriarty

MARANA, Ariz. -- Tiger Woods calls Stewart Cink "Kitchen" and he'll be hoping he doesn't throw it at him in the finals of the WGC-Accenture World Match Play the way he did in the semis against Justin Leonard. All Cink did was go out in a little six-under-par 29, build a huge lead and coast to a 4-and-2 win into a Sunday meeting against Woods, who beat defending champion Henrik Stenson, 2 up.

"Boy, it was a hot start," said Cink, who distinguished himself both in the most recent Presidents and Ryder Cups, beating Nick O'Hern in singles in one and Sergio Garcia in the other. "I felt like everything was going in and it was, pretty much. You know, when you get off to a start like that, sometimes you almost find yourself in a position where you don't really know what to do. I think I ran out of gas a little bit. Good thing I had a big cushion because I was leaking a little oil."

Woods' 2 up victory over Stenson, who had won 10 straight in the Accenture Match Play, was a methodical, if somewhat pedestrian match, with both players making birdies on the holes they were supposed to birdie and avoiding mistakes everywhere else. Stenson grabbed a bit of momentum on the 13th when he rescued a par after driving it left deep into the desert. He got all square in the match with a birdie on the 16th, but Woods came right back on the par-5 17th, getting up and down from the greenside bunker for a winning birdie of his own while Stenson couldn't reach the green after driving into the right rough.

"I felt like I was in control of the match all day," said Woods. "I was up early and even though we got all square, he never took the lead." Even on the 17th tee, Woods still felt in control. "We're both long hitters and I've been in that position before. I've played umpteen more matches than he has. I've seen it all and nothing really surprises me out there." Against Cink, Woods will be seeking his third straight title in '08, his sixth straight worldwide (dating back to the BMW Championship last fall) and 15th World Golf Championship title.

And, in the Gone But Not Forgotten category:

Good Monty: It was Good Monty rather than Petulant Monty on the premises all week. He was clever, witty and candid talking about his pending marriage, wanting desperately to get into the Masters and even doing a little not-so-tongue-in-cheek lobbying of European Ryder Cup captain Nick Faldo in the television booth. Warming up next to Boo Weekley before their third round matches (both of which were lost), the American had Monty laughing so hard he could barely pull a wedge back. Seems Boo got in a little fender-bender leaving the course the night before. Montgomerie was a witness to the scene but was just that morning getting the whole story, country-style. At one point he turned to his caddie and said, "Can I take him home with me?"

The Tank: On the 15th hole in their morning semifinal match, K.J. Choi stuck his approach four feet from the hole in an attempt to close in on Woods -- only to have Tiger hole out first from 31 feet. As he was walking off the green, Choi's caddie, Andy Prodger, said, "The magician has done it to us again."

The Desert: Adios. In the desert, all the plants want to hurt you. After tomorrow it's time to go east young men, which means Bermuda grass, warm weather and Augusta on the horizon.

--Jim Moriarty

MARANA, Ariz. -- A stomach virus is probably not the best of all possible preparations for a title defense but Henrik Stenson seems to be making the best of it anyway. "I was sick as a dog," said the defending champion at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship of his condition the week before the event.

"The first week I had a cold so I took it fairly easy. Then, the second week when I was going start practice and we were going to travel over here, I picked up a stomach virus and was as sick as I have ever been," Stenson said. "I've been to Morocco. I've been a few places. I've had a few bugs in the past. It was pretty brutal."

Instead of getting to his Orlando digs on Wednesday the week before the Match Play, Stenson couldn't make the trip until Friday. It was on to Tucson on Sunday. The day before the matches began was his first day of practice in two weeks. "I like match play," said Stenson, which is a good thing because every match he's had so far has gone to the 18th hole or beyond. "The task at hand is very clear. You either beat or get beaten. You need to do better than the guy you're playing. It's the simplicity of it."

Stenson, who already has a pair of good finishes in the desert this year with seconds in Abu Dhabi and Qatar, nicked Robert Allenby 1 up in the first round, then went 25 holes against Trevor Immelman in his second match before beating Jonathan Byrd 1 up to reach the final eight.

"Trevor had a few 15, 20-footers yesterday to put me out of the tournament and, fortunately for me, he didn't make any of those," said the 31-year-old Swede, who finally ended the tussle when he got up and down from the greenside bunker on the drivable par four seventh. Against Allenby, Stenson had to pitch out of trouble on the last, then stiffed a 7-iron to save par and close out the match against the Australian.

Byrd had the easiest opening matches of anyone (outside of Aaron Baddeley, who was conceded his second match when David Toms pulled out with back problems) easily defeating Ernie Els and Andres Romero, neither of whom shot under par, but he had his hands full with Stenson. Byrd made four birdies on the front nine to Stenson's two birdies and eagle. On the back nine Byrd was unable to match Stenson's birdie on the 17th when the Swede reached the 601-yard uphill par 5 in two shots and two putted from 27 feet.

Stenson draws Woody Austin next. "The first time I played with him was at the Wentworth Match Play in October last year and we had a good, tight match," Stenson said. "We had to suspend due to darkness and then come back the next morning and I just managed to make a birdie on 18 to win that one, so I'm sure he wants to make it one-all rather than two-nothing. He's a tough competitor and there are not too many lakes for him to fall into here, either."

-- Jim Moriarty

TUCSON, Ariz. -- It's not at all unusual for mates to meet along the way in the WGC-Accenture Match Play, but in the case of Boo Weekley and Woody Austin, it sometimes seems more like inmates. If the field was paired by eccentricity and candor, they'd be the No. 1 and 2 seeds.

"I think Boo is awesome," said Austin. "I'd love to call him a good friend. I chide with him and he'll chide me back." Weekley got through to the Round of 16 with a 3-and-1 victory over his old scoring buddy, Sergio Garcia, when the hole got in the way of a screaming putt from off the front of the green on the 16th and Sergio couldn't get up and down out of the bunker on the 17th. Austin went 19 holes to beat Adam Scott in one of the handful of exceptionally well-played matches the second day.

Weekley knew Austin's caddie, Brent Henley, from his mini-tour days, so when Boo improbably made it to the big tour the first time in '02, Austin was one of the players who took him under his wing and they've remained friends since.

"Tomorrow is going to be fun," Austin said. "We'll probably be the most talkative of (any) two people in a match."

Though he doesn?t share Boo's passion for hunting and fishing, Austin thinks they're kindred spirits when it comes to golf. "I didn't come from any kind of (golf) background at all. I didn't play or practice in any kind of country club. I have no teacher. I have nothing that you would consider as (being) a professional golfer," he said. "Boo fits the same build. As far as golf backgrounds, I think that's why we get on because we're both not supposed to be here, basically."

And, of course, Boo is just so deliciously Boo. On the practice ground the first morning, when he was asked who he was playing (German phenom Martin Kaymer), Boo looked down the range and replied, "I don?t know. Somebody down there."

On the first hole of his match with Kaymer, he didn't know you could concede a putt. "Martin hit it up on the first hole there and he putted it first and it wasn't probably eight or nine inches from the hole and I'm putting my ball down and he's looking at me and I'm looking at him, like, you going to tap it in? Joe (Weekley's caddie Joe Pyland) said, 'Just pick it up.' I?m like, 'Pick it up?' Honestly, I didn't know. That's how it started out. I mean, it's very strange to just walk up there and just pick your ball up, you know what I mean? Especially when you ain't used to doing it."

Weekley is fighting through some shoulder issues. He fell off a ladder when he was working in his barn at home in the Florida Panhandle before he went to China at the end of last year. "I've got bursitis in my left shoulder and I think a little tear up there, too, so I'm struggling a little bit with it," he says. More than that, he's just ready to get home to Florida next week.

"That's when the season starts," he says, depositing a little tobacco juice on the practice tee.

--Jim Moriarty

TUCSON, Ariz. -- While Tiger Woods was busy dropping a dime on J.B. Holmes with five birdies and an eagle on the back nine to rally from 3 down and Phil Mickelson was trading long bombs with Pat Perez -- the marquee No. 1 seeds both surviving 1 up -- it was a case of the good, the bad and the Utley for the rest.

The Good: No match was better played than the one between Ryder Cup mates Paul Casey and Robert Karlsson, neither of whom made a bogey. Casey was nine under par to win 2 up while the Swede was seven under and X'd out. This is what's known as the "vagaries of match play" though the Swedish version of that phrase is probably unprintable at present.

Woody Austin managed to block out enough Aquaman references to shoot 30 on the outward nine and drown Toru Taniguchi, 6 and 5. Lee Westwood wasn't half bad making eight birdies to beat Brandt Snedeker, 3 and 2. And British Open champion Padraig Harrington admitted to being "a little jumpy" because his game's not on this early in the season, but he was still six under par through 12 holes to take out Jerry Kelly.

Harrington was up at precisely 4:50 a.m. for his 8:08 match. "It's all timed," said the Irishman. "It takes 40 minutes of gym work and 20 minutes to wash up. That's an hour. That's ten to five. It took 40 minutes to get here. That's 6:30. Fifteen minutes for breakfast, 20 minutes for physio. Three minutes to get out to the tee or to the practice ground. An hour to warm up. It's normally two and a half hours, plus travel. So, three hours, 10 minutes and I gave an extra eight minutes today just because it takes a few minutes to get around the place here." Obsessive much?

The Bad: With the family off visiting the Grand Canyon, last-second entry Ernie Els couldn't take as much pleasure in the view from The Gallery. In fact, Els hasn't been a very pretty sight anywhere this year. Two in the water to lose the Alfred Dunhill Championship, one in the hazard to lose to Woods in the Dubai Desert Classic, a 75 to open the Indian Masters and today a 40 on the front nine to lose his match to Jonathan Byrd 6 and 5. "To be honest with you," Els said earlier in the week, "I've taken some big blows in the last four or five years." And the pummeling doesn't seem to be easing up.

The Utley: Sergio Garcia has turned to Stan Utley, the putting and short game guru, to help him get the ball in the hole but he still wasn't comfortable enough with his new stroke to rely on it completely. Instead, Garcia took two putters out on the course with him, using the short putter for the first 14 holes against John Senden and then switching to the belly putter when the nerves frayed, eventually winning 3 and 2.

Oh, and, just one piece of advice, J.B. If all Woods has to do is two-putt from 17 and a half feet to win a hole, tell him to pick it up. Otherwise, you might just set him off.

-- Jim Moriarty

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif.--Golf takes a backseat to no one in its love of acronyms. You can be DQed, DNSed and WDed. We've been MOIed and CORed. And, even though the season is still in its infancy, 37 innocent victims have already been MDFed (made cut, did not finish), their reputations left in tatters, except for D.J. Trahan, who got MDFed one week and won the next. But don't think the Cinderella story of one solitary player can blunt the ignominy of the masses.

M, D and F have become the scarlet letters of the PGA (there they go again) Tour. In truth, it sounds as if these poor souls have, in fact, done something just a little bit naughty, if not bordering on the morally reprehensible--and the tour wasn't supposed to test for that until July. If you prick them, do they not bleed? If you tickle them, do they not laugh?

Apparently not, because so many players are irate about MDF that the policy, in the proud and historic tradition of the FedEx Cup, is on the fast track to tweekdom at the Northern Trust Open in Los Angeles where it will likely get PACed by the Player Advisory Council.

In fact, the wicked 37 are guilty of nothing more egregious than not familiarizing themselves with something called Green Sheets, which apparently explained in language a ferret could understand that if too many of them didn't play badly enough in the first two rounds to miss the 36-hole cut on their own, the tour would courageously take matters into its own hands and lop off their hybrids, thus making network television safe for all mankind and allowing "American Gladiators," or some such thing, to begin glistening, grunting and growling on schedule.

Imagine the confusion this must have caused during a very difficult and somewhat embarrassing transition period. Like mongrel dogs, players began showing up unexpectedly at their homes Friday night. No doubt the living-room conversations went something like this: "Sit down, honey, I have something to tell you." Sniff, sniff. Sob. "I'm MDF."
"You're what?"

"MDF. It just happened. Honest, I never intended to stray to the short side. One thing led to another. It didn't mean anything to me, honey. Really, it didn't."

Of course, Rule 78 deep-sixed the disenfranchised 37 because if more than 78 players make the 36-hole cut then the number of players allowed to keep their courtesy cars for the weekend is reduced to the number closest to 60. Everyone else is dismissed with last-place money and the home version of the FedEx Cup point system as lovely parting gifts. It happened first in Hawaii and then, like flu, migrated to the mainland in San Diego. This was supposedly OK because few players ever made the cut on the number and went on to win. On the other hand, legions have made the cut on the number and gone low enough on the weekend to be able to finance a lock in the Panama Canal. So how come you get that chance one week and not the next?

"There are a lot of things we have to do for TV," says Arron Oberholser, "but this shouldn't be one of them."

The rule does bring to mind the proverbial camel--a horse designed by committee. It was meant to avoid threesomes and slow play. But there are other ways to get there. They could trim to 65 or institute an additional 54-hole cut. Of course, they could just play faster, too.

One thing is certain. This year someone will go into the record books for most Massively Dysfunctional Finishes, all-time.

--Jim Moriarty

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif.--One is dark-haired with a dark complexion and a powerful lower body that unwinds into the ball like Tiger Woods. The other is blond and lean, his skin weathered like driftwood, and he slides into the ball exactly the same way he did when he drove it better than anyone else in the world. Greg Norman has spent the past two days on the Monterey Peninsula playing golf not just with his son but, perhaps, with his heir, too.

Norman, who turns 52 on Sunday and is the oldest player in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, can, as 20-year-old Jason Day put it to his caddie, teacher and mentor, Colin Swatton, "still mint it." Norman is partnered with Gregory, his 22-year-old son and an aspiring golfer, while fiancee, Chris Evert, has looked on from behind the gallery ropes. But it is Day whose name went up on the leader board after two rounds, and it is Day who may well be Norman's spiritual son, at least when it comes to being the next great Australian player in that seemingly endless list of Aussie talents.

Though they had played together once before the AT&T, Day and Norman don't know one another well. Not yet, anyway. They've scheduled a more relaxed practice round in Mexico at the Mayakoba Golf Classic in two weeks on a course Greg designed. So far, Norman appreciates Day's game mostly from afar and is none too solicitous.

"It's consistently solid. He doesn't make too many mistakes," says the two-time British Open champion. "Putts well. Makes a lot of good four- and five-footers when he needs to. All around good game, I would say. There are a lot of 20-year-olds out there hitting a thousand golf balls a day trying to be better. I wish him well. I just hope it works out for him."

Not exactly the wow factor. And Day has yet to avail himself of the opportunity to find out what made the Shark swim. "When I saw a Nicklaus or a Watson or Trevino or Floyd, I always picked their brain. Absolutely," said Norman, who replied, when prompted, that Day hadn't asked his advice about much of anything.

The young Aussie, who was barely alive when Norman ruled golf, instead chummed with young Gregory. "We got off pretty quick," said Day. "We were always talking about, like, riding motorbikes, snowboarding, watching cartoons, funnily enough."

After Day won the Junior World Golf Championship and turned pro, he got into seven events in '06 on the PGA Tour and made five cuts. But, he was so shy, he wouldn't associate with the other players, preferring to hang out in the caddie pens with Swatton. The backstory of Day, losing his father to cancer at 11 and then losing his way as an adolescent, is well known. Just as well known are his highly publicized comments about wanting to take down Tiger Woods, something Day regretted saying not so much because he aspired to anything less than being the World No. 1 but because he was afraid, when he finally met Woods, that the man he looks up to so much might look down on him.

"He idolizes Tiger," Swatton says. "Tiger changed his life." It was Swatton, golf and a book about Woods that ultimately turned Day's life around at 15, beginning with daily 5 a.m. practice sessions. At Spyglass Hill on Friday, on the downhill par-5 seventh hole, Day smothered a 2-iron on his second shot. It looked destined to one-hop into the water, front and left of the green. Instead, the ball plugged just outside the hazard. It wasn't exactly a miracle at soggy Spyglass, but it was a nice piece of good fortune. Day took a drop, then one-hopped a little half wedge to two feet for birdie.

Day has his teacher on his bag, a steady girl, Ellie Harvey, who he was introduced to at Mavis Winkles Irish Pub in Twinsburg, Ohio, and a healthy right wrist after a cortisone shot, therapy and three and a half months off at the end of last year. Fresh from a solid week in Scottsdale, he chose to rest rather than play practice rounds, despite having never seen any of the three AT&T courses, including the one that requires the most courting and where he'll play today, Pebble Beach. He opted to trust Swatton instead, an approach that has worked out nicely for a young man who needed some looking after.

"The thing with me," Day said of his game, not his life, "is I make a lot of mistakes and I make a lot of birdies. So, if I can minimize those mistakes, I can hopefully go out there and win." Clearly, he's learned from his. Maybe that's why he didn't need Greg's advice. Not yet, anyway.

--Jim Moriarty

(Photo: Jeff Gross/Getty Images)

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. -- Ever since the days when Jimmy Demaret could really sing and Bing Crosby could really play, celebrities and golf have gone together like Scotch and soda. There are a couple of reasons for this, not the least of which is that, in both walks of life, someone has to have big enough nerve to get up in front of a bunch of strangers and do something that has every possibility of making them look completely foolish. So it's too bad that, in the place where fame and fairways found their most perfect meeting, there is such a gnashing of teeth about B-list pros and the stars of B-list shows.

In this day and age, any tournament without He Who Is Without Peer struggles to seem even remotely relevant. It's the challenge of our time. But, if you think not having Tiger Woods in the field is a problem, try holding an AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am without Bill Murray. It leads to comments like this one, overheard in the media center: "What does Kenny G play, anyway?" Even so, the AT&T isn't exactly like the end of Doc Hollywood when Nancy Lee asks, "Is that a star?" and Hank replies, "Naw, that's Ted Danson." The same guy who couldn't summon soprano saxophone could have gone outside and seen Kevin Costner pushing his son, Cayden, around the putting green in a stroller.

And, on the competitive side of things, Jim Furyk, Vijay Singh, Padraig Harrington and Phil Mickelson make a pretty stout four-ball in any league.

It's still Pebble Beach. How bad can that be? Sure, the greens are bumpy. And, yes, the rounds take six hours, even though it might not be your partner/friend who is the root of all evil ... it's the other guy's partner/friend who insists on holing that putt for an eight.

The suggestion that comes up more often than any other (besides bribing Woods, of course) is returning Cypress Point GC to the rota and dispensing with Poppy Hills. That would be the Glamour Shot equivalent of replacing Roseanne Barr with Gisele Bunchen, though it should be pointed out the supermodel is 5-10. As stunning as Cypress Point is, it was replaced in 1990 in the wake of Shoal Creek and the controversy over minority memberships and it's still just 6,500 yards. Even assuming none of the access issues exist today, Cypress Point last hosted these guys in the antediluvian days when titanium was found only in space stations and the ProV1 was just a twinkle in an aeronautical engineer's eye. Think the members would be keen about building a bunch of new tees, if that was even possible?

Phil Mickelson played Cypress Point before the tournament started and thinks, because the ball doesn't fly very far on the Monterey Peninsula, it would still stand up. Dave Pelz walked with him and had the distinct impression Phil was hitting an awful lot of wedges into holes. Of course, the tour could always play it with hickories. Tiger might even enjoy that, though the bribery plan probably remains the best one.

This quirky old clambake unquestionably works best when the leading roles are played by people with one name: Bing, Arnie, Clint, Tiger. There's no substitute for star power in showbiz or golfbiz. Maybe, with all that's at stake inside the ropes these days, the era of celebrity golf is passé. One hopes not. The ability of golf to reach beyond itself, not to mention the quality of the scotch, would suffer. Stars and superstars come and go but Pebble Beach isn't going anywhere. In the end, you have to like its chances.

--Jim Moriarty