Off the Wires

Glancing at the golf headlines this morning, a couple items of note:

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• Nick Faldo wants to put potential European Ryder Cup team members through a fitness exam:
  
  
  Nick Faldo has spoken highly of a plan to put candidates for his Ryder Cup team through a rigorous fitness examination.

  The top 20 players in the points standings will be invited to attend one of the United Kingdom's most sophisticated medical facilities during the week of the BMW European PGA Championship in Wentworth, England next month.

  Faldo has already participated in a five-hour dry run, undergoing a full range of eight separate procedures.

  If Faldo is trying to find a way to throw Monty off the team, this might be it.

• Target is out and Chevron is in as the title sponsor of Tiger Woods' California tournament in December, the unofficial one. The Chevron World Challenge is the new name, and Chevron also becomes one of the five "founding partners" in the Woods-hosted PGA Tour AT&T National.

  As the article points out, Chevron is believed to be investing as much in Tiger's "silly season" tournament as it would take to invest in a PGA Tour event. And there are PGA Tour events in need of new sponsors. Chevron decided that the Tiger Woods brand was worth more than the PGA Tour brand.

• Michelle Wie is making plans for the summer. She's accepted a sponsor invitation to the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic, and another one to play in the Wegmans LPGA.

  Wie's camp even checked with the folks at the Ginn Tribute hosted by Annika about getting into that tournament. Remember what happened last year? The Ginn had already given out its two exemptions.