CA, who has been affiliated with the tournament since 2007, is officially out. From the Miami Herald-

As expected, CA has decided not to renew its title sponsorship of the World Golf Championships-CA Championship, the latest incarnation of the yearly PGA Tour event at the TPC Blue Monster at Doral Resort & Spa. ``There is a tremendous amount of interest in the World Golf Championships -- the great fields, global exposure, incredible venues -- and we will move forward in securing a new title sponsor for the CA Championship,'' PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said in a statement. ``We are confident we will be at TPC Blue Monster at Doral next year.'' Before it became a WGC event sponsored by CA in 2007, the title sponsors were Ford (2003-06), Genuity (2001-02), Ryder (1987-2000) and Eastern Airlines (1970-86).

I don't think finding a new sponsor will prove too hard. Doral has hosted a PGA Tour event since 1962 and is a popular stop with tour players. Some company will step in.

On a side note- I liked how NBC featured the 1980 tournament last weekend. That was one of Doral's greatest finishes, A Jack Nicklaus-Ray Floyd playoff which was decided by a Floyd chip-in on the 2nd hole of sudden death. The first playoff in Doral history.

With his recent announcement of returning to professional golf at this year's Masters (big surprise there), many golf fans are split about 50/50 when discussing Tiger Woods' potential for playing well after a 3 month hiatus. Well, I not only believe he will "play well", I think he's going to win the darn thing.

 

Hiatus be damned. Sure, any normal human being might have a little difficulty coming back to a professional athletic competition after being away for more than 90 days... but Tiger is anything but "normal". Consider his track record when it comes to playing in a tournament after taking a little time off for very specific reasons (family matters and injury):

 

2006:

 

- Dealing with the recent death of his father and taking two months off from competitive golf, missing the cut at the US Open, and after tying for second at the Western Open in 2006, Tiger took another couple of weeks off from tournaments until ultimately playing in the British Open... which he won.

 

- After the British Open, Tiger would not play again until the PGA Championship 14 days later... which he won.

 

- At his next tournament, the WGC Bridgestone, Tiger once again became victorious.

 

- Tiger proceeded to win in every single tournament he played for the rest of 2006... and then once again in January of 2007 at the Buick Invitational.

 

2008:

 

- While playing with a seriously injured knee, Tiger played in the 2008 Buick Invitational... and won.

 

- He would not play again until one month later at the WGC Accenture Match Play... which he won.

 

- He would not play again until roughly one month later at the Arnold Palmer Invitational... which he won.

 

- He would wait another month until playing in the 2008 Masters... which he finished second, BUT...

 

- Tiger would not play for another 2 months until the 2008 US Open... which he won.

As golf is directly connected to how I make my living, I have always found it interesting about what gets said ON Camera vs Off Camera. Jim Furyk who is a neighbor of mine in Ponte Vedra and is said to be good pals with Tiger had this to say in an ON CAMERA interview. "“We’re going to have to be patient,” Furyk said. “There will be times when a guy double bogeys the last hole or has a bad round, and the first question is about Tiger. Guys are not going to want to answer that question. It’s what we’re going to be dealing with at least for the next month. Hopefully, it will pass.”"  One difference Furyk sees is that most players and golf executives are happy that Woods is playing again. Even so, he expects the players to be tested as never before, not so much by the challenge of Augusta National, but the endless questions. As I've been saying for a long time now, the media needs to stop shoving tiger down our throats every chance it gets. Good, Bad, or Indifferent. !!!

The Transitions Championship (a few other sponsors also) has been coming to Innisbrook since 2000 and prior to that the Mixed Team PGA/LPGA was held here in the late 80's and early 90's. It was a lot of fun back then, still challenging, but it was the off season and a chance to make a little Christmas money. Now the course has been redesigned (1999), lengthened, and toughened up enough that a major could be staged here.

During the Mixed Team we were gathered around VCR's watching a Jerry Springer show depicting the first professional caddy ever to undergo a sex change operation, how appropriate for that event. We also had to bail a couple of players out of jail but we won't go there either. Today the boys are grinding, trying to make Augusta if not already in, and looking to conquer the ninth most difficult course on tour. This is the first week in Florida caddies will use their range finder's elevation change mechanism, Innisbrook looks like it should be in the Carolinas. There are 100 foot elevation changes throughout the course, something very unusual for a Florida tract.

If the USGA wanted they could host an Open here, the course is that difficult, and with the swirling winds it gets downright ugly in the afternoon sometimes. A couple years ago we walked off the eighteenth Friday morning wondering if we made the cut, by the end of the day we were tied for 32nd. The wind howled and we moved up over forty spots while sitting at Hooters, one of the original seven, across from the main entrance. Bring the fairways in a bit, manufacture some rough, up the stimp reading, convert a par five to a four, and par would be a good Copperhead score.  

Innisbrook with 72 holes of all types of golf is a great vacation spot, corporate getaway, or family weekend. There are lodges, condos, cabins, and rooms stretching throughout the complex and if you want to get away to old Florida drive about thirty minutes north on 17, you'll directly in farm country. The Gulf Coast provides all sorts of activities if you want time away from golf but you really don't need to leave the resort.

With the difficulty of the course look for someone who has patience, long and straight off the tee, and a good par putter. That usually works at any course but especially here. Also, if you can flight the ball below the tree line that takes the wind out of the ballgame, a distinct advantage, so look for a veteran ball striker this week.

Steve Stricker, my favorite and probably everyone's this week, is ready for a win and he's played well here in the past. A couple of hot guys at the moment and maybe a bit under the radar are Jason Dufner, a great ball striker and wind player, plus Chris Dimarco the straightest driver on tour. Retief Goosen is defending champion and always plays well on Open like courses, throw him in the mix, and beware of Dustin Johnson if the driver isn't erratic.

It's a strong field, there are about forty guys who could win and this course doesn't favor any particular type of player. There are a variety of past champions and this week there will be a bunch of great golfers gathered at the top of the leader board still in single digits. It's the toughest Florida swing stop watch out for a four or five man playoff on Sunday.  

 

Why is a Chicagoan writing an article about the Big Apple? Simple: the impact that golf makes on New York's state economy and my jaw hitting the floor.

 

According to Golf Course Industry Magazine, the golf industry has a "total economic impact of $5.3 billion" on the state of New York.

 

Simply put, golf is a major player in the success of the state's economic prowess even during a major national recession largely in part to the number of jobs and tourism the 818 golf courses draw each year.

 

As the birthplace of the United States Golf Association (1894) and the PGA
of America (1916), New York has 818 courses, 38 golf resorts, and it's hosted four U.S. Open Championships in the past decade and hosts as many as nine annual championships, including showcase events of the USGA, PGA of America, PGA Tour,
Champions Tour and LPGA Tour - all which enhances the game as a benchmark in the Empire State's economy.

 

The idea of even looking at how (poorly) golf effects the economy of Illinois almost makes me shudder... so I'm going to leave that alone until our next governor gets arrested.

Ya Ni Tseng just won the Women's Australian Open and she did it in style, blowing by Hall of Famer Karrie Webb and soon-to-be-Hall of Famer Laura Davies over the last 6 holes  In the process, Tseng denied the pair the chance for their 2nd win on the LET's Down Under swing. 

In the last calendar year, she's earned 2 golds, 3 silvers, 2 bronzes (in the 1st 2 LPGA events of 2010), 11 top 5s, and 16 top 10s in her last 28 starts around the world. And as Tim Maitland recently pointed out, she weathered a big slump (by her standards) mid-way through it all. 

How hot has she been since pulling out of that mini-nosedive?  Well, were it not for her T11 last week at the ANZ Ladies Masters, this win would have been her 10th-straight top 10. 

I wonder who'd win a team match, consisting of Tseng, Ai Miyazato, and Ji-Yai Shin against Lorena Ochoa, Suzann Pettersen, and Cristie Kerr? 

They'll all be going head to head (individually, of course) at La Costa pretty soon.  Can't wait!

Gene Wojciechowski

In an article on ESPN.com, Woj, under the auspices of chiding Woods for hiring former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, goes to the same tired 'because you spectacularly failed in your personal life and you are not as popular as you once were, I can demand things from you I wouldn't have dared before Thanksgiving 2009' meme.

After listing a number of questions he would ask Woods (to his credit the first few pertain to the level of his relationship with Anthony Galea, a Canadian sports medicine specialist who is under investigation by federal authorities for possibly supplying athletes with performance-enhancing drugs), he drops my (sarcasm on) favorite line in the article (sarcasm off):

Woods owes us at least this much. More importantly, he owes us sincere, non-spin-control answers that come from the heart, not from the legal pad of Fleischer. He owes us something as basic as the truth.

Why does Woods owe anyone who isn't his family anything?  He negotiates twelve foot putts, not health care legislation.  

More importantly, who is the 'us' Woj speaks of?  The general public?  The media in general?  ESPN.com correspondents?  It appears Woj is using some of the spin-control he calls for Woods to abandon.

After winning the US Amateur Championship four times between 1924-1928, Bobby Jones lost to Johnny Goodman at the 1929 event. Jones wrote this article for the October 1929 issue of the American Golfer. This article has been excerpted, with permission, from that publication.

(NOTE: Jones also found time after being eliminated to referee the match between Jimmy Johnson and George Voigt. Can you imagine a young amateur sticking around today after being beat?)

LITTLE Johnny Goodman of Omaha fixed it up for me to see more of the Amateur Championship at Pebble Beach than I have ever before been in position to observe. I cannot say that my gratitude to Johnny is not tempered by some regret, but I found that being relegated to the gallery is not an entirely unpleasant experience especially when the later rounds of the championship prove as interesting as those staged by Messrs. Johnston, Willing, Ouimet, Voigt and others.

Photograph of Bobby Jones' first round loss at Pebble Beach, 1929

I think everyone connected with the tournament was immensely pleased when Jimmy Johnston won. Certainly it was impossible to hear a note of regret anywhere. There has never been in golf a finer sportsman or a more lovable chap than the new champion, and throughout the week he displayed a command of his shots and a courageous spirit which entirely deserved the honor which he eventually won.

Johnston has long been a topnotch player, an outstanding member of several Walker Cup teams and always prominent in National competitions, although until this year he had failed to win one.

The feature of the tournament from a competitive standpoint was the thirty-nine hole match which Johnston won from George Voigt. I had the good fortune to referee this match, and so saw every stroke. Both played very consistent and very good golf with rarely more than one hole and never more than two separating them at any time.

The thirty-eighth hole of this match showed us by what slender margins are championships won. Both players put together two fine wood shots to this par-five hole. Voigt lay just off the front edge of the green, while Johnston's ball was in the rough to the right, where he had to pitch over a bunker to reach the hole. Jimmy played his shot very well, but the ball slid ten or twelve feet past the hole. Voigt's chip left him scarcely more than six feet away. Both had courageously saved themselves from a good many serious difficulties and everyone in the crowd felt that there must come a break on this hole. Yet Jimmy holed his putt, the ball going in then almost coming out as it rolled around the edge. Voigt rapped his putt in, as confidently as onecould desire. There was a splendid exhibition of nerve on both sides, but it was a fearfully close call for Jimmy, where the decisive margin was very narrow.

The tournament and all things in connection with it were handled with impressive efficiency by the California Golf Association and the Bel Monte organization, as everyone knew it would be. The event was something of which California may long be proud. The galleries were unusually well behaved and conducted themselves as though they thoroughly appreciated the players problems. In this it was easy to see the effect of the amazing popular interest in golf on the Pacific Coast. It is always a delight to a golfer to play before a gallery of golfers who appreciate the fine points of the game, as those did.

it's twoo, it's twoo...Newsmax posted that Fleischer has indeed been hired by Tiger to do the spin on his return...This is the same guy who did wonders for the college bowl game picture, advised the GB Packers on how to handle the dismissal of their quarterback, and advised a steroid druggie before a senate inquiry...boy, and we all know how well those all turned out...Oh, and not only that, but this is a joint venture with ...drum roll here...IMG....Tigers agents....wow, this just boggles the mind doesn't it?  Now, supposedly it's reported that Arnie Palmer has let it out that Tiger will play at BayHill.....TADATATATATAAAAAA!!!!....stay tuned, this seems to be a work in progress...STUB

I made a promise to myself earlier this golf season. I swore up and down that no matter what, I would remain as interested in the PGA Tour as I ever was... with or without Tiger Woods.

The task seemed easy enough; stars were abundant on the Tour, including the likes of Anthony Kim, Sean O'Hair, Phil Mickelson, etc, etc. The game was bigger than any one man, anyway, so why couldn't I just continue watching golf and enjoying it as much as I ever did. I love this game, and just because the world's number one wasn't on the fairways wasn't going to keep me away.

Then one tournament came and went. Then another. And another. There went Torrey Pines. There went Phoenix. Wait, the World Match Play already happened??

I could stand behind my own personal lie no further. I had been dishonest with myself from the very start, and I had to come to terms with my mistake in order to move forward.

Simply put, the PGA Tour sucks without Tiger Woods.

By no means do I wish to put down any of the other professional athletes on Tour. These guys ARE good (or so the slogan says) and provide hours of impressive talent on courses that boggle the golfing mind. And frankly, it has been nice to actually watch live coverage of the tournament leader instead of on a tape delay because Jim Nantz was too busy talking about Tiger's shot on 2.

But who are we kidding here? The man is the greatest golfer we have seen in a generation, and love him or hate him, people will continue to watch whatever it is that Tiger does on a golf course. I'm pretty sure I would even watch if he was simply in attendance at Bay Hill. That excitement just isn't there anymore whn watching coverage of an event. There are no huge crowds following one group because of one guy... and if there is, it is because there isn't anyone else worth following.

Say what you may about this entire sex scandal. The fact is, he Tiger has basically done all he can do up to this point. He's apologized both publicly and privately, he's paid the consequences of his actions in terms of sponsorship and family, and has entered rehab in order to make sure this thing doesn't happen again. Time for this guy to get back on the course and start winning tournaments again so everyone can put this situation in the past.