Never one to be shy about putting himself out there, Bubba Watson has kickstarted a game of oneupsmanship (yes, a word) with Ben Crane. On the heels of Ben Crane shedding his dry, no fun persona with a video portraying him as a dry, hilarious person, Bubba Watson is seeking to seize control of Tim Finchem's PGA Tour Def Comedy Jam.

How does he do it? With the help of Kelis and a hot dog costume.

What a fitting tribute to Peanut Butter Jelly Time.

Your move, Ben Crane. I wait breathlessly for a self-deprecating follow up with Crane - co-starring Rory Sabbatini and his wife - that reenacts their classic slow play conflict.

While Corey Pavin was announcing his four captain's pick for the 2010 Ryder Cup team, Jim Gray held a quiet press conference at the nearby NASDAQ stock exchange to say, "I told you so!" to all who questioned his claim that Tiger Woods would make the Ryder Cup team.

"It just feel so good, you know?," Gray said after unveiling a celebratory banner which will hang from his garage for the weeks leading into the exhibition at Celtic Manor.

Gray reported in the days before the PGA Championship that Corey Pavin told him that Woods would certainly make the Ryder Cup team. Pavin disputed the claim the next day, including a rebuke to Waggle Room in the hours before his joint press conference with European captain Colin Montgomerie. After the press conference, Gray and Pavin nearly came to blows with a strong verbal argument.

"I can safely say to Corey that he did, in fact, go down," Gray said in response to his own questions in a self-produced UStream special called The Retribution.

First reading from a prepared statement, Gray - wearing a Nelson Muntz t-shirt - said, "Ha. Haha. Hahahahahahaha. Ha. Ha."

A whole lot of newsworthy things have happened on the PGA Tour in recent weeks. The Wyndham Championship allowed fans to bring in cell phones during tournament play. Jim Furyk missed his pro-am tee time by five minutes and was DQ'd, prompting a Phil Mickelson repudiation of the Tour and a suspension of the rules. The FedExCup Playoffs continue. And, oh yes, play is as slow as ever.

Geoff Shackelford got me chuckling when he brought all of those ideas together in his new Golf World column on slow play. He thought about ways the Tour could incentivize players to get around the 18 faster in tandem with a quirky corporate sponsorship.

Well what about using Foursquare - a social media platform geared to getting people to check-in from where they are in the world - to track players' speed and tardiness? They could be asked to check in at tournament site - ranging from pro-ams to in-tournament checkpoints. It could be like a homing device on a bird, and fans could track the players on the Web! Pro-am participants would know if their player will show up or not. Fans will know if Jim Furyk just backed off a putt for the seventh time. Competitors can know if they can take a quick leak before finishing out the hole. 

Everyone wins using Foursquare, but there needs to be a motive. And on Foursquare, they're badges! So here are the three I suggest.

In addition to a slew of money, Lee Westwood got a patch to wear on his shirt for winning last year's inaugural Race to Duabi. I swiftly ridiculed it. I was ridiculed back. We all had fun.

Our friend Chris Chaney at Wrong Fairway now wonders if Ernie Els should get some kind of reward for winning the "regular season" of the FedExCup.

I particularly LOL'd at the photoshop of what the proposed FECT (FedExCup T-shirt) would look like.

Your thoughts?

NOTE: This didn't actually happen. Don't call any TV network in disgust or confusion. OK? This is to make fun of the 0.0003% of golf fans who might actually take advantage of this phony idea.

Can't believe what I just saw during the broadcast of the Safeway Classic

That was fast! 

(I found out 1-888-INK-STER actually goes to a maker of holsters & other leather goods. Seems right.)

Stewart Cink is a man. (He's not 40.) Earlier this year at his charity pro-am in Alabama, he let someone tee off a golf ball from a specially designed codpiece he was wearing. He let a trick shot artist - a trained golf stuntman, if there is such a thing - handle the execution.

Flash forward to now and the PGA Tour is offering an opportunity for fans to cover the Tour Championship if they can demonstrate they are the Tour's biggest fan(s). They can do that by submitting video pleas - a la the Real World but less typecast.

A Cink copycat decided to express his devotion to the Tour by trying the crotch tee.

Look what you started, Stewart.  Cink!

Watching the PGA Championship on the Interweb today, I was treated to Golf Channel's Michael Breed in the booth for the PGA.com coverage of Tiger Woods' group with YE Yang and Vijay Singh.  The Web feed is a lot more raw than TNT's on-air product, including shoddy (and dizzying) camerawork and verbal miscues.  

Oh, and the ghost of John Madden has apparently invaded Michael Breed's body.

Said during Woods' fifth hole today, Breed uttered, "The closer to the hole, the better off you'll be." Got that right!

And then when Woods was struggling off of the tee on the thirteenth hole, he went through Woods' sequence with a telestrator.  He closed with Woods' now signature club fling (that makes the women in Cleveland puke).  

The comment to accompany this? Eh, not worth it. We'll just improvise.

"You see there? BOOM! Club goes out of the hands. No club in the hands! The club's over there and the ball goes left."

Two 59s in a month. That's pretty ridiculous. It is a statistical anomaly that is awfully difficult to explain. Some of the more common explanations include that Paul Goydos had ball-in-hand, and that both he and Mr. 59 V Stuart Appleby were playing in weak fields on easy, damp courses.

What if it something more sinister? What if the PGA Tour is purposefully creating conditions that you might say are uncomfortably flirty with good scoring?

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