CBSSports.com senior writer Steve Elling and Augusta (Ga.) columnist and golf writer Scott Michaux scatter a few wild shots across the horizon as they break down an unexpectedly busy week in the global game.
Journeyman pro Doug Barron's petition for an injunction that would have allowed him to play in the second stage of PGA Tour Qualifying School, which began Wednesday, was shot down by a federal judge, which means he's effectively begun serving his one-year suspension for using banned substances. Does the punishment fit the perceived crime?
ELLING: Barron is an average schlub caught in a bad situation. He claims he needs his medications in order to function physically, but the substances he has been prescribed have been banned by the PGA Tour (and other sports leagues). There isn't a soul who wanted this to happen, especially at tour headquarters, but the final responsibility in this regard rests with the player. He asked for permission to continue taking his prescriptions and was denied. He knowingly took the drugs anyway, flunked his test and got rightly kicked to the curb. This is an admittedly harsh view, but he had managed to play in a total of five PGA Tour-sanctioned events this year, and four were on the lesser Nationwide circuit. He missed all five cuts. He has made $33,000 over the past two seasons as a pro. If that type of occupational meltdown happened to the rest of us, we'd be stocking shelves at Home Depot by now. The writing is on the wall. Barron is 40. His health is more important than his career. Legal wrangling like this can drag out for years -- just ask Casey Martin. As an aside, the federal judge in Memphis slow-played this issue to an embarrassing extreme. He first said he would announce his decision on Saturday morning, then waited until Monday night to deny Barron's request for a restraining order. Even if the Barron petition had been granted, he would have had one day to prepare for Q-school. Brusque ending to a brutal year for a player who is well-liked by his pro peers.
MICHAUX: Some people in this country refuse to support healthcare reform or any kind of public insurance option with the argument that they don't want the government stepping between the patients and the doctors. I wonder what the conservatives think of a the PGA Tour standing between Barron and his doctors? My guess is they'd say it figures that Finchem is a liberal. Personally, I think it is unconscionable that the PGA Tour, with all of its medical expertise, dared to deny a therapeutic use exemption filed by Barron to take legal medications that had been prescribed to him by doctors since he was diagnosed with low testosterone in the fall of 2005, according to a Golfweek timeline of events. Who the hell do they think they are to override the medical advice of Barron's doctors yet accept similar TUE's from other golfers who suffer from similar conditions? If they told me to stop taking medicine my doctor prescribed, I'd tell them where they can put their anti-doping policy. And can they possibly believe that these medicines were performance enhancing based on Barron's golf the past few years? Ridiculous. What turned me off the most was the tour's terse response to the judge's ruling that smacked of smugness: "We are pleased with the court's decision and have no further comment at this time." Way to look out for your people.
The hyperventilating and hyperbole regarding Michelle Wie's first victory as a pro has finally started to subside. What do you guys think will happen from here?
ELLING: Ah, the old subjective question about upside/downside, eh? Well, at least over the short term, her victory in Mexico offers a huge boost to the fortunes of the LPGA, which has lost so many sponsors and tournaments, the 2010 season might be measured in weeks, not months. Having the most marketable American player since Nancy Lopez in the victory column has got to make the tour's cold-calls to potential sponsors a bit easier. The multimillion-dollar question is whether she can sustain, if not improve, her momentum. After six-plus years of watching her play, it appears that she is as sound physically as she's going to get, which means I'd expect her to win one or two tournaments a year. She's going to have wrist issues throughout her career. She's clearly a top 10 caliber player, but being 20 years old on the women's tour doesn't make her particularly young anymore. As far as firepower, I believe she's a better player than Morgan Pressel but not as talented as Paula Creamer, her two nearest American peers. I hope I'm wrong, because an American hasn't topped the LPGA money list since 1993. Wie is already a household word -- she has already accomplished the hard part for a female player. Becoming a dominant player would save the tour and give golf a shot of adrenaline across the board. But based on her skill set at the moment, climbing to No. 1 feels far-fetched. The international tide has become a rip current.
MICHAUX: Predicting future performance is a dangerous game, especially when it comes to Wie. How did that go a few years ago when we labeled her the can't-miss kid when she turned pro? I believe every parallel to Tiger Woods was worn out. That didn't prove to be too prescient. So naturally when she got hurt and struggled and made a series of rules and PR blunders, we labeled her a failure. She became the female Ty Tryon. And guess what -- wrong again. Wie remains an incredible untapped talent who is capable of playing a game other LPGA golfers are not familiar with. That she's not young anymore will be her biggest strength. Annika Sorenstam was 25 before she won her first LPGA tournament at the 1995 U.S. Women's Open. Wie just turned 20. It won't be long before she's done with school and marks her own path beyond her parents' shadow. If she decides to dedicate herself to this craft, the sky remains the limit for her. Unlike any other female golfer, Wie has an "it" factor that is mesmerizing. Since her breakout performance at the Solheim Cup, she has stayed on the right trajectory. Instead of heaping tons more expectations on her now that the winning monkey is off her back, let's just sit back and see what Wie is capable of doing. It still could be dazzling.
At long last, the Race to Dubai finale is being held this week on the European Tour. Has it validated the buzz it generated when it was first launched?
ELLING: I'm not sure that feat was possible. In the two years since the tour's season-long money race was announced, Dubai's economy has collapsed, the sponsor has all but dried up, the purse and bonus pots were cut by 25 percent and the predicted migration of players from the U.S. tour never happened. Remember when we were asking guys like Woods and Mickelson if they would take up E-Tour membership in order to qualify to play in the mega-money R2D finale? Seems like eons ago. It would be easy at this point for us pious Yanks to sit here and fire salvos from abroad, calling the foreign version of the FedEx Cup a failure, but I believe it's been a successful maiden voyage. Most folks don't bother to look at the small print, but E-Tour purses are usually a fraction of what the American purses offer (why do you think Rory McIlroy is heading to the PGA Tour in 2010?). This week's event features a massive purse by European standards with 830,675 euros offered to the winner and even more available in bonuses. Four different players have a shot at the top bonus prize if they can top the money list Sunday night. Funny, but I noticed in the paper this morning that the points system the PGA Tour copied for its FedEx Cup is hardly cranking out intriguing finales. NASCAR's Jimmie Johnson needs to finish 25th this weekend in Miami to win the season-long Sprint Cup crown for the fourth consecutive year. That's reminiscent of some boring finishes at the FedEx finale in Atlanta. In many ways, I like the E-Tour's system better. Tracking the money list is clean and simple. No confusing points schemes are necessary. Play on, lads. Fill your pockets while you can ...
MICHAUX: In terms of creating a tour that would overtake the American version in strength and prestige, the Euro Tour's Race to Dubai has certainly fallen short. And the financial woes coupled with a few prominent absences have siphoned some of the luster on its debut. But that doesn't mean it's a failure. Quite the opposite. It has given a tour that was pretty much a never-ending collection of events all over the world some cohesion and an identifiable conclusion. Can you tell me what it was they were racing toward before Dubai? I'd bet you can't find one in 10 American golf fans who could name what the European Tour's climactic event was before the R2D. I'm not sure I can. The Volvo something-or-other? (I just looked it up, it was the Volvo Masters at Valderrama). It was hard enough to tell when one Euro season ended and the next began since there is no real offseason. Now we at least know where it concludes. The PGA Tour has long had the Tour Championship even before the FedEx Cup took over. Now the European Tour has Dubai. Neat and tidy bows that all make some kind of sense regardless of the point systems or economic factors in place.
