Doug Ferguson is reporting out of Bethesda that Kenny Perry will play the Open Championship this year.

Kenny Perry has decided to play in the British Open next week after meeting with doctors for his mother, who is dying of blood cancer.

He had planned all along to play this British Open, which starts next week at Turnberry in Scotland. Perry had second thoughts, however, when doctors put his mother in hospice. She has been suffering from multiple myeloma.

"Kenny had to wait to see what that meant," his agent, Alan Bullington, said Monday. "He didn't know if that meant she had a month, a week, a year. He met with doctors, and she was stable enough that he felt comfortable leaving for a week."

Tough situation all around for the Perry family.  I know that I rode him hard last year for skipping to Open in his quest to make the Ryder Cup team, but you can't criticize a guy either way when it comes to this type of sensitive medical situation.

All the best to the Perry family.