The New York Times has a piece detailing something that professional golf fans really have to hope is just a passing storm.  Stanford Financial - sponsor of Eagles for St. Jude, the season ending LPGA event, and the wildly popular Tennessee event at Southwind - is under investigation by the federal government.

Several federal agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the F.B.I. and the Internal Revenue Service, have spent “many months” looking into the business activities of the Stanford Financial Group, which is based in Houston, and Mr. Stanford’s bank based in Antigua, which issues high-yielding certificates of deposit, according to two individuals briefed on the investigations who were not authorized to speak publicly.

The focus of the investigations appears to be how the bank could issue C.D.’s that pay interest rates that are more than twice the national average.

Apparently, this company has been engaging in some awfully shady behavior.

• Mr. Stanford and his firm have also emerged in recent years as major contributors to various lawmakers, appearing to focus particularly on legislators considering bills that would change offshore banking rules.
• [A] wrongful-termination suit filed in a state court in Texas last summer alleges the asset sizes may have been inflated. The two former Stanford brokers who filed the suit said they had left the firm amid fears they could be implicated in the various “unethical and illegal business practices” they claim to have witnessed. In their suit, they claim Stanford overstated the asset value of individuals in order to mislead potential investors, failed to file mandatory forms disclosing its clients’ offshore accounts, and purged electronic data from its computers in response to an S.E.C. investigation. A lawyer representing the two men did not return a call.

And if that wasn't enough, R. Allen Stanford is just a plain weird guy.

• A colorful and controversial figure, Mr. Stanford has claimed ties to Leland Stanford, the former governor of California who started Stanford University in the 1800s. The university, however, has said there is no genealogical relationship between the two.
• And a decade ago, Mr. Stanford told The Associated Press that he had flown a Roman Catholic priest displaying signs of “stigmata,” or bleeding wounds on his wrists and ankles, from the tiny Caribbean island of Antigua to New York City on his jet.

Who knows if the investigation will actually turn up any kind of federal charges.  But, seriously, can golf do a little bit better due diligence in checking out sponsors?  Ginn was a house of cards.  Stanford is run by a nutjob.  Let's get serious here.