A few golfers made the trek to Michigan to check out Oakland Hills today, the site of next week's PGA Championship. Phil Mickelson took three hours to analyze the front nine. Geoff Ogilvy and Adam Scott took four hours to play 18.

Mickelson and short-game coach Dave Pelz went through their pre-major routine, charting every hole and planning the attack. Said Phil: "We've got a lot more work to do." Yep, at least nine more holes of work.

I suspect the PGA Championship might be a 5-wedge tournament for Phil. Oakland Hills has perhaps the most severe greens in championship golf. Mickelson is going to want his full short-game arsenal.

Greg Norman today announced he is turning down the "special invitation" offered him by the PGA of America to play in the 2008 PGA Championship.

Said Norman on his Web site:

"While I truly appreciate the PGA extending me an exemption for this year's PGA Championship, I have elected to decline in favor of adhering to the professional and personal commitments I made prior to The Open Championship at Royal Birkdale. I wish the PGA and Oakland Hills all the very best for what I'm sure will be a great week for golf."

Business before pleasure.

The decision isn't a surprise, really, given that Norman - less than a part-time golfer these days - would have to play four straight weeks if he chose to accept the PGA's invitation. The news item on Norman's site denies, however, that Norman is worried about being too tired to play:

The decision proved difficult for Norman, who labored over the honor and privilege bestowed by the PGA against prior professional and personal commitments. While the PGA Championship would have been Norman's fourth consecutive week of tournament golf, physical fitness was not a factor in the 53-year-old World Golf Hall of Famer's decision to decline the invitation.

I don't think Norman was worried about having the stamina to play in the PGA Championship. I think he was worried about having the stamina to play with new wife Chris Evert (wink wink, nudge nudge, know what I mean?). The guy's on his honeymoon. How tired must he be?

The August editions of the various golf magazines are hitting my mailbox. And that means PGA Championship preview issues. And that means the annual rite: At least one of those magazines will include an article calling for the PGA Championship to return to match play.

And one of those this year is Golf Magazine, whose short article is entitled, "The ultimate match play championship." There are many reasons why the PGA Championship will never revert to match play, and Golf acknowledges the biggest one: the TV networks aren't interested. Still, the magazine prints its proposal, offering it with these words: "Here's our plan for how the PGA can become the major everyone is talking about."

It's crazy talk, is what the mag's proposal is. Ridiculous. But give 'em points for originality.

Here's how Golf's PGA Championship match play format would work:

• The Top 64 players in the world rankings are in the field.
• They are divided into four brackets of 16 players each.
• On Day 1, each player in each bracket plays three six-hole matches. On Day 2, each player plays another three six-hole matches (each of the six matches against a different player in his bracket). So six six-hole matches on the first two days.
• Players earn points for winning a match (and presumably half-points for halving, the magazine doesn't specifically map out its points plan).
• The top 16 point earners - four from each bracket - move on to Day 3, where each plays nine-hole matches against the other three survivors from his bracket.
• Only the top four overall - the four bracket winners - move on to Day 4, where they each play the other three in nine-hole matches.

Crazy talk. Too "Big Break"-ish. But interesting. Golf gets an "A" for at least proposing something original.