Steve Elling takes the measure of an unusually active week in golf, spanning continents, tours, ages and genders. You thought it was the offseason, right?
Up
Tiger heads south
Naw, we don't mean Australia. Woods appears almost certain to relocate in 2010 from his career-long digs in Orlando to his new oceanfront manse down the coast in Jupiter, where construction work continues. Of course, wherever Woody goes, attention follows, and his new home's architectural stylings have drawn some hilarious comments from one Palm Beach-area columnist, who described the design as "a cross between a discount motel and a beachside nursing home." Curious that with all the millions he spent to buy the property, Woods elected to build a home that's just a tad larger than the one he owns at Isleworth, but to each his own. After all, some people like velvet Elvis paintings. Whatever the architectural style, we're one step closer to Woods relocating and being able to officially write the sentence, "Tiger Woods is from Jupiter, and Steve Williams is from Uranus."
Irons in the fire
With the new rules and regs on grooves set to take effect on professional tours worldwide Jan. 1, manufacturers are finally getting conforming clubs into the hands of their staff players, who are scattered all over the globe. It remains in some ways a scramble to beat the deadline. Davis Love said last week he was given two conforming wedges with which to play -- he'd usually receive multiple versions in each loft -- but the wedges are in short supply. Just what sort of transition awaits tour players remains a matter of opinion. Love said he doubted the switch would be noticeable and then Stephen Ames basically proved him right. The Canadian star birdied five of the last seven holes at Disney World on Sunday and won, and all of his Nike irons conform to 2010 rules. Ames said he had some flier lies, as expected with the grooves change, but he handled matters well. "We got a couple, and the way the ball was reacting on the greens and everything, it was perfect," he said. Steve Ames is a conformist? There's a sentence I never thought I would read, much less write.
Rory roars past geezers
Hand it Rory McIlroy. The kid knows how to make headlines. Days after he became the talk of Europe for announcing he would take up membership next year on the PGA Tour and spent more time in the States, he stormed to the top of the European Tour money list heading into this week's big-money Race to Dubai finale in the United Arab Emirates. Like Michelle Wie, he's all of 20 years old and has been anointed as the future of golf. Unlike Wie, he's been steadily improving all along, with no setbacks or PR disasters. Now 13th in the world ranking, McIlroy will have to hold off Lee Westwood, Ross Fisher and Martin Kaymer to win the tour's Order of Merit this week. It ought to provide a seriously compelling finish, even though the Dubai purse is drying up faster than Middle Eastern oil reserves.
Easy Wiesy does it
For more than six years, I was able to tell my other media mates, "I was there the last time Michelle Wie won a tournament." It was the 2003 Women's U.S. Publinks event about 100 miles north of Orlando, and at the time, the two or three writers who attended were fairly certain we had just watched the 13-year-old's formal coming-out party. She was the youngest player ever to win an adult event in a century of U.S. Golf Association competitions. Turns out that Wie took more than a few detours along the way back to the winner's circle, was deservedly savaged for her insensitivities and self-absorbed decisions along the way, but finally won her first pro event in Mexico on Sunday, closing it out in style with a birdie on the last hole. Where does it go from here? The distance between the '03 Publinks and her feats on Sunday reminds us all that nobody's future is assured. But women's golf just got a lot more interesting, and perhaps financially solvent, just when it needed an adrenaline booster shot.
Matter of when for Whan
Timing is truly everything. The new commissioner of the LPGA, a guy named Mike Whan, will appear at his first event as boss this week at the LPGA Tour Championship in Houston. Most of us were wondering why anybody would want that job, since the tour is struggling to find sponsors in an ailing economy and hadn't had an American winner in six months. That's a doubly tough sell in these times. After last weekend's win by Wie, the outlook looks positively rosy by comparison, and the mood when Whan makes his first state-of-the-tour address should be measurably more upbeat. Unlike these seemingly comical news stories about how the U.S. economy is improving, the LPGA stock undoubtedly surged over the weekend, thanks to a certain Hawaiian-born player who is exactly what Whan needs, right now. That said, rookie Jiyai Shin is about to become the first Korean to lead the tour in earnings, which likely won't make the marketing task any easier Stateside.
Down
This cat needs a distemper shot
OK, we addressed this issue the last time Woods did a two-handed tomahawk throw with his driver and yet, played over and over on the Saturday highlight clips, there was the world No. 1, spiking his big stick to the turf, where it caromed into a crowd of Aussies. The PGA Tour does not acknowledge that it has a system of fines, much less disclose the sanctions for violations, but let me ask readers this question: If Jonathan Kaye was suspended for two months in 2001 for crudely placing his player ID on his crotch after a security guard denied him access to an event site, then what sort of disciplinary action does Woods deserve? Nobody saw what Kaye did. Everybody who watched a weekend sports highlight show saw Woods' tiresome act. He could have seriously injured a fan, especially if that driver had snapped and the jagged shaft had been exposed. This is the second time since September that Woods has gone volcanic with his driver. And yes, while the sanctimonious PGA Tour would not remotely offer any comment on Woods' actions in Oz on Saturday, an official did confirm that Woods is subject to penalties because he is a U.S. tour player, regardless of whether he was playing in a sanctioned PGA Tour event or not. Clearly, he's a repeat offender. Heck, he's a recidivist. The club throwing has got to stop. The penalty ought to be a six-figure fine, if not some time on the bench, and if the tour wants to correct his behavior, it ought to be publicly announced. But as far as any of us will ever know, they won't do a thing.
Wizard of Oz: Is Tiger defending defensible?
Now that we have dispensed with the preachy portion of the Woods-related news, it brings us to an equally sticky point relating to his Australian appearance. Woods was given $3 million to play at the Aussie Masters last week, half of which was from public coffers. In the past, when Woods has won and been asked whether he would defend the following year, his answer has been an unequivocal yes. I have heard it with my own pointed ears. Asked Sunday whether he would return in '10 to Australia, he danced around like his feet were on fire. "I want to," Woods said, trotting out a thin excuse about how he hadn't checked the global tour schedules for next year. For those used to reading between the lines with Woods, he was all but standing on an Aussie sandhill and yelping, "You pay, I'll play." The media reports generated in Australia seemed to concur that the highly scrutinized investment was worthwhile for the country and its sports fans, but government officials better think long and hard before re-upping with Woods for the same dollar amount next year. It had been 11 years since he last played in Australia, so there was a novelty effect to partly explain the big crowds. If he plays twice in two years, is a ticket sellout assured? Will the coverage be the same? Huge questions, huge money, huge gamble.
It's a painfully small world for Disney
In the spirit of full disclosure, I admittedly have a soft spot for the Disney World tournament. It's staged a few miles from where I live, the folks running the tournament are competent and conscientious, Nicklaus and Woods combined to win it five times, and everything about the staging is first-rate. It's too bad the same can no longer be said about the esteem in which the event is held. I have long lamented the fact that the PGA Tour has marginalized and rendered semi-irrelevant the events in the Fall Series, which offer reduced purses and are broadcast solely on cable television. That message of apathy has clearly been received elsewhere. The hometown Orlando Sentinel, once a paper that covered golf like it was a big-league entity, was excoriated by at least three golf bloggers for its thin coverage last week. Disney owns ESPN, but somebody in Bristol decided to send a writer to cover only two live days of the tournament. The Golf Channel, the Orlando-based network with the Fall Series broadcast rights, didn't send either member of its A Team duo to work the season finale, Kelly Tilghman or Nick Faldo, even though they both live locally. Worst of all, in a message that should make Disney sponsor Children's Miracle Network want to end its contract (good through 2012) early, even the PGA Tour deemed the tournament too unimportant to staff with writers from its own website. Tour headquarters are located 150 miles from Orlando, but the tour apparently decided to spend its dot.com travel money covering Q-school finals next month. So, in an era when the tour is laboring to find title sponsors, they all but blow off the Children's Miracle Network, one of the worthiest sponsor/charities in the tour stable. Disney is dying of not-so-benign neglect, and it makes me seethe..
Forty is the new 30
With the victory by 45-year-old Ames on Sunday, the tour officially completed its first season without a rookie victor since 1998, which is less an indictment of the youngsters than it is a validation of the increasing shelf life of the geezers. Kenny Perry, who turns 50 next year, won twice this year, and fellow 40-something Steve Stricker claimed three titles. Guys in their 40s won nine times this year, which doesn't include Masters winner Angel Cabrera, who has since reached that milestone age. Phil Mickelson, by the way, turns 40 next summer. Ernie Els is 40 already, too. No wonder upstarts like Rickie Fowler and McIlroy seem so young. They are half as old, if that, of many of the folks they are competing against. Players in their 20s won seven times in 2009. What does it mean? Guys are taking better care of themselves physically, and that there's positively no substitute for experience.
Is E-Tour screw-tightening worth risk?
One year after raising its tournament minimum for membership, the European Tour is mulling yet another rules change this week in Dubai that might require players to appear in a select number of designated events on the continent, and it's drawn the predictable backlash. Adam Scott, a member of the European and U.S. circuits, said he can envision dropping his E-Tour membership because the balancing act might become too much to handle. He suggested that the games of English Ryder Cupper and two-tour members Justin Rose and Ian Poulter have suffered as a result of the demands of dual citizenship, so to speak. Rose, who won the European Tour Order of Merit in 2007 despite making just 12 starts, didn't deny he might bail on Europe if it gets too complicated. Clearly, the European Tour should tread very carefully. "I think if push comes to shove, you gotta make a choice, and I think family wise we're pretty happy here in the States," said Rose, who makes his U.S. base in Orlando, when his son was born. "I think it's a great place to spend our time, so it's a very difficult situation for me right now."
