After watching Lee Westwood's dominating final round at the Dubai World Championship, shooting a 64 to finish at 23 under par, I watched the trophy presentation, and noticed some unfortunate symbolism in one of the trophies handed to Westwood.

I like the sceptor, very cool, but the big trophy was in the shape of an oil derrick with a golfer on top.  Pretty ironic considering that the country of Dubai has put the oil trade in the rear view mirror in order to become a worldwide tourist destination...a decision that isn't exactly working well for them thanks to the economy.

Oh well...no pun intended...they hosted a terrific tournament and we got to watch some excellent golf....even if there were members of the media who tried to rip the course and tournament by railing on an unfinished clubhouse and unfiinshed houses lining the course.  Last time I checked, neither of those had anything to do with anything between the ropes.  You can pick on the low scores and the wide resort course fairways, and say that it isn't a course to challenge some of the best golfers in the world...but they were all playing the same course, and Westwood showed the field and the European Tour that he was #1 in 2009.

Now go work on that trophy.

The LPGA Tour Championship has been on hold since Friday afternoon due to weather problems. It is now Sunday and, rather than seeing the last 30 players duke it out for the title after playing 54 holes already, instead we have most of the field waiting to tee it up for their second rounds. Play will not resume today before noon Central Time.

For the last several years, the LPGA's final event were played here in Palm Beach County, Florida - where we have seen no rain and at most had partly cloudy skies since Thursday morning.  After all the anger at how Carolyn Bivens handled the negotiations for the ADT last year, did the company or Donald Trump (host of the tournament) pay someone to seed clouds in Texas so the LPGA Tour Championship be in the state it is now?

Cue the sarcastic laughter.  Seriously,  if Player of the Year wasn't on the line, do you think the LPGA would have called the tournament already?

Mrs. Williamson's favorite son, Jay (ranked 579 in the world), is on the front page of PGATOUR.com. It seems he shot a few good scores at Southern Hills Plantation Club in Brooksville, FL and, along with 21 other golfers, will now play in the final stage of the PGA Tour Qualifying School at Bear Lakes starting on December 2nd. He will be accompanied by other big name players like Billy Horschel and renowned tour players like Arjun Atwal (420) and Marco Dawson (637).

Early this year, Alex Rodriguez hurt himself and missed some time. He then went to the baseball minor league system until his game was good enough for the majors. NBA players go to Europe (or the NBDL) if they get cut. But, once you have played on the PGA Tour, the 'Big Show,' suddenly you are too good to play anywhere but the 'Bigs,' so you wait all year for Q-School. Well, that is not all you do.  You also pester tournament sponsors for exemptions.

When it suits them, PGA Tour players call the Nationwide Tour the 'second best tour on the planet,' but you can almost also hear the words, "...but, I never want to play there."

This year, the Nationwide Tour brought golf tournaments to thirty different cities, including six outside of the United States. Cities like Boise, Sandy, Utah and Fort Smith, Arkansas enjoyed top level professional golf tournaments this year thanks to this little 'red-headed stepchild'...

I feel the Nationwide Tour should replace the PGA Qualifying School as the main vehicle for getting a PGA Tour card. Any players on tour not in the top 100 that year go back to the Nationwide Tour. That tour fills the remaining spots with its own Q-School. The top fifty on that tour each year get a shot at the 'Big Show.' These guys represent the PGA Tour in all of its glory all year and currently get 25 lousy tour spots and those spots are very, very low on the exemption priority category list.

I have nothing against Williamson, Atwal, Dawson, Wittenberg, Pride, Micheel, Duke, Franco, Riegger, Lancaster, Uresti, Day, Gainey, Stankowski, Knost, Taturangi, Kaye and the dozens of others who have proven they cannot compete on the PGA Tour and yet hang out each year to try Q-School and beg exemptions. The Nationwide Tour could really use some of those bigger names to sell more tickets in the cities they visit.

Marco Dawson

And, the PGA tour could REALLY use from fresh faces...

Robert Allenby, on the heels of saying the Korean translation of "John Daly is Anthony Kim,"  has made a minor ripple in the golf world with his "American golfers are spoiled" comments. The comments have only made a ripple because:

• Other players have made similar laments that American golfers don’t travel
• Allenby may be right
• Allenby may be a bit of a jerk

Breaking down his comments shows a lack of understanding of the golf world today.

"You know, Americans play for so much money, and when you've got a purse where $1 million, a million plus, is first prize, not to say that they are spoiled, but it's a little bit that way. It's like, well, why would I want to travel, when I can make a million bucks instead of going to Europe and only making $500,000 or $600,000?"

Doing a job in America for one million instead of doing the same job in Europe for $600K isn’t spoiled.  Greedy, perhaps.  Sensible even.

"The reason why I want to travel and play elsewhere is because I want my game to get better, and always, even at the age of 38, I want to get better. And the only way you can get better is to play different golf courses. If you're playing the same golf course every week, every year that you come back to, it just gets a little boring. For me, that's what I've found. I've got a little bit bored playing in America. I'll still play there full time, but I'm still going to try to play more tournaments in Europe at the same time and combine the two together."

I would argue you get better at golf by playing against better players regularly.  And pretty much every metric shows the fields in the average PGA tournament is stronger than the fields in the average Euro PGA tournament.  Why?  See that $1 Million/$600K difference.

"But I just think, you know, they have got it a little bit too easy. It's just everything is handed to them on a silver plate. And not to be rude or anything like that, because I'm very respectful for the amount of money that we do play for in America. We are very lucky and very fortunate. But I think the money that we play for in America, that's the reason why you don't see a lot of Americans or a lot more international players coming over and playing in Europe. They are in a comfort zone, and I think that's pretty much what it is."

Allow me to compare golf to professional soccer.  It is understood that the best club soccer in the world is in Europe.  Leagues in England, Spain, Italy and Germany have the best players from around the world wearing their kits.  They spend the most money and garnish the most attention.   Outside of playing for their country, the majority of talented players would do almost anything to play for Manchester United, or Real Madrid, or Inter Milan.

If Landon Donovan publically complained that European players were spoiled because they didn’t have to leave their continent to play soccer at the highest level, while North and South Americans had to prove themselves in their home leagues to get a shot at the big time, he would be laughed out of the room. 

That is where Allenby makes his mistake.  He assumes the money makes the tournament, as opposed to the money following the tournament.  The purses on the Fall Series are less than tournaments before the Fed Ex Cup because the world of golf has decided they Fall Series tourneys are less prestigious.  The Scottish Open has more than three times the purse than the SAS Masters in Sweden not because the Scottish are awash with cash and the Swedes are paupers.  It has been decided the Scottish Open is more important than the SAS Masters, so the people running the Scottish Open can demand more money from Barclays, ticket purchasers, etc.  The fine southern gentlemen who run the Masters Invitational Tournament could cut prize money for 2010 in half tomorrow and not one eligible golfer would decide playing wasn’t worth his time.

At this point, playing in America is considered more prestigious than playing in Europe.  Or Australia.  Or anywhere else on the planet.  Just ask Rory McIlroy, who will join the US PGA tour in 2010.  Because…

I just feel I will become a better golfer if I also play in America. I will be playing in world class fields with more world ranking points on offer and the only way for me to get better is to play alongside better players.

Golf writing has hit some horrible lows this week. Right now the half assed meme that is being spread is the lack of American golf tournaments on next year's schedule.  Steve Elling took a whack at it, and I blasted him in return. Now Bill Huffman comes to bat.

The Constructivist does a great demolition job(I suggest everyone go read it) on what Huffman wrote. Which included the obvious proposition that people in Phoenix should make an effort to host next year's Tour Championship.  The tournament is TBD other than the week it is going to be played. Come on Arizonans, put up or shut up. I'm not whining about no tournament in Florida.

Huffman is a perfect example of 2010 LPGA derangement syndrome. In an article on whining,  he also clearly states why the LPGA isn't coming to Arizona next year.

 "Most people had expected Arizona to be left off the master plan chiefly because corporate sponsorship for golf in the Valley has been nil since the economy went belly up. Or did you forget that the Champions and Nationwide tours met a similar demise here, and that the FBR Open is desperately searching for a title sponsor? "

Bill, other tours are having problems getting corporate sponsorship in Arizona, obviously the LPGA is no different. Then what the hell was the point of what you wrote?

Maybe it was to show how poorly informed you can be. Like this-

With only 13 of its 23 events in the U.S. for 2010, a rapid decline on American soil due to a gloom-and-doom economy, more than a few observers are asking questions about the LPGA’s future.

*****

Trust me, we will rue the day we let this tournament get away. Especially when the LPGA announces that its “outsourcing’’ almost half of its schedule -- 11 or 12 events (one tournament in Korea still is uncertain) – to countries like China, Singapore, Thailand, Mexico, France, England, Japan and, of course, Korea. I know some people, and especially Whan, think it’s a grand idea.

Is it 10 or 11 or 12 events that are being played outside the United States, Bill? It's 10 or 11 whether you count Korea in the equation. You really shouldn't let your anger cloud your golf writing.

Bill isn't through yet-

Ironically, the LPGA’s fall from grace also began in ’05, when Carolyn Bivens – the seventh commissioner in the 55-year-old history of the LPGA and the first woman – ascended to her throne. The new queen promised to enhance the LPGA and leave a legacy of revolutionary change that included an English-only edict and, well, Twittering. But in the end, it cost Bivens her head, which was lopped off by the very hands that had put her in power.

English only policy? I never heard of such a thing. The policy was reported by Golfweek's Beth Ann Baldry as-

PORTLAND, Ore. - For the past several years, the LPGA has impressed upon its membership the importance of communicating effectively in English. As the game's dominance shifts to the East, the LPGA has strengthened its stance. Learning English no longer is a tour suggestion; it's a requirement.

At a mandatory South Korean player meeting Aug. 20 at the Safeway Classic, the tour informed its largest international contingent that beginning in 2009, all players who have been on tour for two years must pass an oral evaluation of their English skills. Failure would result in a suspended membership.

Players were going to be required to be proficient in English, not speak only English. Swedish, Mexican, Korean, Japanese, Tagalog, Thai were all going to still be permitted.

Also the LPGA has been around for 60 years, not 55. It's 60th anniversay is next year.

Huffman's derangement continues

Whan, who has about as much experience running a professional golf tour as Bivens – or zilch -- said it’s not all bad despite how it looks. Of course, he made no reference to the fact there will be no LPGA tournament in Arizona for the first time since 1980, nor did he point out that Florida, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii and Washington, D.C. also were erased in the blink of an eye.

There was no LPGA tournament in FL last year or in CO or GA or even Washington DC. Unless you counted the LPGA Championship at Bulle Rock or the Kingsmill in Williamsburg as DC. Williamsburg being called part of DC is sounding like Steve Elling saying West Palm Beach is outside of Miami.  I will cut Huffman a little slack, and say he was referring to the LPGA.

The LPGA hasn't been to some of those places Huffman lists since 2005 or 2006.  No erasing by Bivens or Whan needed to take place.

The biggest problem with all the nonsense that Huffman wrote is that he placed the blame for the lack of American tournaments at the feet of Michael Whan. Whan isn't even commissioner yet, and he wasn't even appointed to take over from Acting Commissioner Marty Evans till a few weeks ago.  Sal Johnson, who I disagree with on many things, was right when he said

"it could of been even uglier if the LPGA didn't get rid of Carolyn Bivens and got a stellar performance out of Marty Evans and Zayra Calderon."

The golf media would be wise to drop this lack of American tournaments meme before they get themselves a huge black eye. Anyone who studies what is being written out there could easily equate this nationalistic zeal as a form of racism or xenophobia.

Dave Seanor has already touched on just that.

Meanwhile, all the xenophobic gnashing of teeth over the LPGA’s 2010 schedule, which features only 13 tournaments in the United States, and fretting over new commissioner Mike Whan’s plans to further globalize the women’s circuit are symptomatic of so many Americans’ failure to come to grips with reality in the 21st century.

A former Golfweek editor, not some pain in the neck blogger, calling these diatribes xenophobic. Calm down guys and gals, the LPGA is changing and in the long run I think it is for the better.

It involves one of the LPGA's all-time greats. Lets begin with a little background. According to the LPGA Media Guide book and online records, Only 3 golfers have won the same tournament on five different occasions. They are-

Se Ri Pak Jame Farr Toledo

Annika Sorenstam Mizuno Classic

Annika Sorenstam Samsung World Championship

Mickey Wright Sea Island Open

While looking up some information on Amy Alcott today, I did a google search for her first tournament win, the Orange Blossom Classic.  The OBC, which was aka USX Golf Classic and S&H Golf Classic, was played in St. Petersburg Florida from 1963 to 1989. My google search found this 1971 Boca Raton News article.

It said only that Kathy Whitworth was a four time winner(1965, 1968-1970) of the OBC. When I checked the tournament's history, I discovered she also won the tournament in 1974. Taking it one step further, I checked the list of Whitworth's 88 tour victories. The tournament is listed all five  times. Whitworth therefore belongs on the list I cited up above.

A major record involving none other than a Hall of Famer and the Tour's most prolific winner in its history, has slipped through the cracks. I will say it again, both the PGA and LPGA have many holes in their record keeping. Golf's history is getting lost  in the process.

I can't ever recall a non-major championship week where there has been so much half baked golf writing. From the LA Times-

The LPGA Tour held a news conference in February in Beverly Hills to announce it would host a tournament in the Los Angeles area in 2010.

The tour also announced a lucrative partnership with J Golf.

It made good on only one of those announcements.

Wednesday, the LPGA released its schedule for 2010 and there was no tournament in Los Angeles. The LPGA instead added the J Golf Classic, March 25-28 at La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad.

"It's the same event," acting LPGA commissioner Marty Evans said in a phone interview. "We're working with J Golf and it was a great opportunity at La Costa.

"We're hoping some people from L.A. will drive to north San Diego County."

That's an 85-mile drive, or about an hour-and-a-half - without traffic.

Fast someone get Steve Elling to call Jill Painter and explain to her how Carlsbad is just outside Los Angeles. I was a Southern California resident from March 1985 to July 87.

The LPGA has had to scramble to get even a 24-tournament schedule. Mostly thanks to Carolyn Bivens mismanagement and the poor economy. I'm willing to cut the LPGA some slack when it comes to their broken promise to LA. However note that Painter admits when Bivens gave that press conference that very little of the local media was in attendance. So really how many Southern Californians are upset about this?

Since an American won a golf tournament last weekend, the golf media needs a new meme and it didn't take long for them to settle on one. The lack of American golf tournaments on the 2010 LPGA schedule. Gene Yosuda at Golfweek chimed in on it yesterday and since then Steve Elling, Mick Elliot, and Peter Dixon at least have chimed in saying similar things.

Anyone who has been following the LPGA's woes for the last year should have seen this coming for six months at least. Why are the media fixated on this feature of the LPGA schedule. Because again, the golf media shows itself to be mostly a group of unimaginative lemmings.

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That is the only conclusion I can draw from this diatribe of his.

The LPGA, in yet another sideways bit of marketing savvy, elected to stage Evans' press conference on Wednesday at the Sugar Land City Hall, off-campus from the site of its season finale. Maybe they hoped players wouldn't notice the details of the schedule if they handed it out elsewhere.

Unless you're dumb or a non-jealous LPGA fan living in a cave, you would know already that the LPGA schedule was given to players at a meeting on Tuesday night. That's why it was reported  by the likes of Ron Sirak, Beth Ann Baldry, and Associated Press on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Some LPGA players leaked the new schedule out to certain members of the media.

It sounds to me as if Elling wasn't one of them and that's why he wrote what he did.

I got a couple of other problems with what Elling wrote.

Setting aside the bombast and bluster, the LPGA season next year will likely consist of 24 tournaments, the fewest since 21 were staged in both 1970 and '71, a rollback spanning nearly four decades as the tour prepares to celebrate its 60th anniversary next year.

 

More alarmingly, only 13 of the tournaments will be staged in the United States, the smallest number ever. If it wasn't the LPGA, with that kind of minimalist American presence, they'd be calling it a mini-tour. A mini-tour with major underpinning issues.

 

*****

Out of sight, out of mind? Playing abroad means even less media attention in the States and mostly tape-delayed TV coverage as the Golf Channel becomes the tour's primary broadcaster in 2010.

Before a golf writer complains about the tape delay coverage of the LPGA or its foreign based schedule, they out have something drummed into their heads. Firstly GC's contract with the PGA Tour which includes Nationwide events. They get first placement on the broadcast schedule over the LPGA.

Secondly, and more pertinently to Elling's remarks, of the 11 foreign LPGA tournaments four of them are still played in North American time zones. Yes Virginia, Canada and Mexico are on the same clock as the United States of America.

As for the other 7, the Women's British Open is broadcast by ABC who puts it on  tape delayed. Which I have repeatedly complained about in the past.What's your solution Steve? Play the British Open in Newport RI or Portsmouth NH?

Of the last six events, if they aren't on tape delay, look at the hours they would be broadcast. Three, Four a.m. in the morning. How many golf fans are going to rise for that? The 2003 Solheim Cup went on the air at 4 a.m. in the morning but since it was without Michelle Wie almost nobody in the golf media noticed.

The tour instead created a season-ending LPGA Championship, signed Stanford Financial as the title sponsor, made it a full-field event and moved it to Houston, where it will be played for the first time this week. Now the radioactive part.

Allen Stanford, who wanted the tournament played in Houston, where his company has a large corporate presence, was tossed in jail. No replacement has been found to foot the title sponsorship bill, the format of the tournament has been criticized, and the event is running opposite the European Tour's big-money Race to Dubai finale. Nice timing.

The ADT has been played the same weekend in November going back to 2003.(At least. I didn't check 2001 and 2002 because I'm in a hurry.) Which is the same weekend the 2009 Tour Championship is played.  When do you suggest they play the tournament? Next weekend is Thanksgiving.

One last bit of Elling derangement.

Twelve months ago, Bivens announced that the popular ADT event outside Miami,

Steve, you're from Florida. The City of West Palm Beach where the ADT was played is not considered outside of Miami. When you were working at the Orlando Sentinel, were your offices outside Daytona Beach or Ocala? Those are Florida cities closer to Orlando than West Palm Beach is to Miami.

Did anyone at LPGA HQ notice that the Champions Tour’s fifth major – the Jeld-Wen Tradition, played in Oregon – is being played the same weekend as the LPGA’s Safeway Classic at Pumpkin Ridge?

The Jeld-Wen Tradition is being played in Bend, Oregon.

Just up the road (or 186 miles away according to Mapquest), the Safeway Classic is being played in North Plains, Oregon.

Two tournaments in the same state that close together? Anyone think was a scheduling foul up? One problem I see right off the top of my head is finding pro-am partners sufficient for both tournaments.

Today the PGA Tour finally broke their silence regarding the case against Doug Barron and his alleged violation of the Tour's anti-doping laws, and I have to admit... I am now leaning more towards Barron for this one. Apparently, Barron suffers from mitral valve prolapse, a condition that can be treated via the use of specific therapeutic drugs.

According to Rex Hoggard, a senior writer for GolfChannel.com:

The PGA Tour’s silence regarding the ongoing challenge to its first anti-doping violation ended on Tuesday when Rich Young publicly addressed Monday’s ruling by a U.S. magistrate regarding Doug Barron.

Young, a Colorado-based lawyer who argued on behalf of the Tour the first challenge to the circuit’s anti-doping policy on Friday in Memphis, said U.S. magistrate Tu Pham’s rejection of Barron’s request for a restraining order to play Q-School was “encouraging,” and called the one-year suspension “fair."

”“If a player wants a (therapeutic use exemption for a banned substance) he’s given every chance to submit his medical records to a committee and ask for one,” Young said. “The question is if he didn’t get a TUE would he suffer and, in Doug’s case, the recommendation from the committee was no, he would not and that didn’t justify a TUE request.”

Unfortunately for this argument, Barron DID file for a TUE twice (once in 2008 and again in 2009), both of which were denied, and was told to no longer take the drugs in question. Furthermore, let's take a moment to educate ourselves on what a patient with mitral valve prolapse could go through:

According to the Mayo Clinic, mitral valave prolapse is a condition in which "the valve between your heart's left upper chamber (left atrium) and the left lower chamber (left ventricle) doesn't close properly. When the left ventricle contracts, the valve's flaps bulge (prolapse) upward or back into the atrium. Mitral (MIE-truhl) valve prolapse sometimes leads to blood leaking backward into the left atrium, a condition called mitral valve regurgitation" (MayoClinic.com).

To be fair, people with the same condition as Barron can typically lead long, happy lives without the need for drug treatement. However, have we gotten to the point in professinal sports when we can dictate what an individual can or cannot take for his or her own well-being because the treatment in question is "banned?"