Presidents’ Cup Half Empty?

David Cannon/Getty Images

So riddle me this: How does a guy who has won twice on tour, one of which was a major championship, who is sure to be honored with both the PGA Tour Rookie of the Year and PGA Tour Player of the Year honors, NOT get picked to represent his country in the upcoming Presidents Cup? While the drama and excitement of the Tour Championship finish was indeed edge-of-our-seats good, we can’t forget three very important facts: (1) The Tour Championship was not a major tournament. (2) The Tour Championship didn’t include the top players in the world. (3) Billy Haas blew a 2-shot lead by bogeying 2 of his final 3 holes in regulation before finally prevailing in the playoff. Now let’s compare that to Keegan Bradley’s situation with 3 holes remaining in the tournament on Sunday at the PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club: (1) This was a major championship with the world’s top players in the field. (2) Keegan Bradley trailed the leader by 3 shots with 3 holes remaining. (3) Keegan Bradley birdied 2 of the final 3 holes to force a playoff and went on to win his first major championship.

It’s not that Billy Haas doesn’t belong on the team. Haas has had a great season by anyone’s standards, with 7 top-10 finishes that include a win and two runner-up finishes. But when Captain Fred Couples made the early call with picking Tiger Woods as one of his choices – he set himself up to have no other choice but to leave a deserving player off the team. In the grand scheme of things – who really had the more impressive season? A rookie who showed the grit and determination to battle back from a dastardly triple bogey on the 69th hole of a major championship to win his 2nd tournament of the year? Or the offspring of one of the assistant captains who squandered a 2-shot lead in a non-major tournament and eked out a lone win this season in the playoff? If the Presidents Cup came down to a player needing to come up clutch by birdieing the last two holes against his opponent to win the Cup, would it be Haas or Bradley? My money is on Bradley. But I would also take Haas over Woods, for whatever that’s worth….

Not So Rosie: Solheim Cup Bickering

Lots of finger pointing took place on Sunday after the European ladies battled back late in the day to overtake the American ladies for the Solheim Cup, and it all seemed to revolve around Cristie Kerr’s injury that led to a concession in her final singles match. It took very little time for the critics to pounce on American Captain Rosie Jones Sunday evening by questioning her decision to play Kerr in the Saturday matches instead of giving her some time to rest her injured wrist. To put this issue to rest – Kerr was adamant about playing every single match and informed Jones prior to each match that her wrist was fine. As is the case most commonly with tendonitis – it’s very difficult to know when the inflammation is going to flare up and the only thing that Jones had to go by was her player’s word. Unfortunately things didn’t go as planned on Sunday and Kerr’s injury ended up being a major setback to the American team. But despite that – there were 11 other players who were given the opportunity to step up to the plate and respond. Only 6 of those 11 players did.

The conditions on Sunday were brutal, with several stoppages of play because of puddled water on the greens. The wind was overbearing at times, with rain pelting the players as it was coming down sideways. It was a difficult day that was made even more difficult with the team’s strongest player essentially reduced to playing cheerleader on the sidelines. But the bottom line is that the European ladies played some phenomenal golf Sunday despite those conditions, and any attempt to make excuses for the American team’s loss does a great disservice to the quality of golf that the European players exhibited Sunday afternoon. I think it’s time to lay off of Rosie Jones. Captains in team events like these always get the blame when their team loses and get little of the credit when their team wins, and Rosie Jones knew that going in. But sometimes bad things happen and no one is to blame, and this just happened to be one of those times.

So what is the protocol for wanting to hire someone else’s caddie?

AP Photo/David J. Phillip

A couple of months ago he fired his former caddie and best friend via his website. Prior to that he and his instructor parted ways via text messaging. So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to Dustin Johnson on Sunday that his caddie, Joe LaCava, was the guy himself who broke the news to him that he’d accepted an offer to go loop for Tiger Woods. While there is no particular handbook or policy that defines certain protocols for tour players to solicit employment from currently-employed caddies for other players, there is an unwritten-yet-respected code for how such a process unfolds. And it usually starts with either a phone call or face-to-face meeting with the other player to get approval to approach his caddie and present him with the opportunity. In most circles it’s called common courtesy.

Now in all fairness – maybe LaCava arranged this situation with Woods ahead of time that he would be the one breaking the news to DJ himself, but it’s still outside the parameters of the code. If Woods and LaCava had been discussing things earlier, Woods should’ve informed LaCava that he (Woods) still needed to be the one to inquire with Johnson about offering LaCava the job, if for no other reason than to respect the common courtesy. The word going around is that Woods didn’t talk with Johnson until the news had already been broken earlier by none other than Butch Harmon, Johnson’s swing coach. And if this is indeed the case – that makes Harmon no different than Woods in that regard. But most of us already knew that.

Whan’s Whammy

Photo by Associated Press

Lexi Thompson’s win 2 weeks ago at the Navistar LPGA Classic should be seen as a godsend for a tour that is severely lacking domestic interest. But her win has also put tour commissioner Michael Whan in a compromising situation, as 2 years ago he declined her petition for exemption to the age requirement (18) to become an LPGA Tour member. Coming into the Navistar LPGA Classic 2 weeks ago, 17-yr-old Thompson had already advanced to the 2nd stage of the LPGA Tour’s qualifying school. After winning the event, however, Thompson wasted little time withdrawing from Q-school and petitioning the LPGA Tour for full exemption status, essentially forcing Whan to reconsider his stance on the issue.

Of course – Whan could once again decline Thompson’s petition for tour membership, but in doing so he would be turning away a great opportunity to inject some much-needed excitement into a product that has grown miserably stale. Commissioner Whan – swallow your pride and do the right thing. Thompson will meet the age requirement next season and there’s no point in making a statement for the sake of making a statement. The statement you should consider making is that your tour welcomes an exciting young player who has more than proven both her level of maturity and competitiveness on the golf course, and that you’re looking forward to improving the image of your brand to sponsors who need to be associated with your product.

Fred Vuich/SI

Good move for Tiger Woods, but whether or not it will prove to be a good move for Joe LaCava – that remains to be seen. There were some rumors floating around that LaCava and Dustin Johnson weren’t exactly hitting it off, and judging by the matter-of-fact way that LaCava broke the news to DJ after the final round of the Tour Championship on Sunday at East Lake, in the parking lot Sunday afternoon, maybe there is some truth to those rumors. In either event, Woods continues to be the Couples-Connection benefactor. Fred Couples wasted little time announcing that Tiger would be on the upcoming Presidents Cup team, and although this is just more of a gut feeling than fact, Couples probably played some sort of role in the construction of the LaCava-Woods partnership just announced.

But Lawrence Donegan reports that not everyone is happy with the way this new partnership went down, namely Johnson’s swing coach – Butch Harmon. “The thing that bothered me the most was Tiger not calling Dustin and asking if he could talk to Joe. That’s the way it’s done. I’m a little disappointed with the way Tiger handled it. But I’m not surprised.”

If this isn’t the shot of the year in golf, then shoot me now and put me out of my misery.

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CATHAL MCNAUGHTON/Reuters

There’s lots of stuff out there worth taking a moment or two to gloss over with regard to the weekend festivities in the Solheim Cup, but the Golf Channel’s Randall Mell offers a most interesting take on what he refers to as the “Gaelic Classic” HERE, with Mell opining that despite the American dominance in the Solheim over the past 3 events, “The Europeans, who had lost the last three competitions, transformed the event with a comeback as thrilling as any you’ll see in this sport.“

Congrats to the European ladies for winning the 2011 Solheim Cup.

American Players Performance (matches won – matches lost – matches halved):

 
Michelle Wie  1 – 3 – 0

Paula Creamer  3 – 1 – 1

Cristie Kerr  2 – 1 – 2  (Sunday Singles Match conceded because of injury)

Brittany Lang  1 – 3 – 0

Brittany Lincicome  2 – 2 – 0

Vicky Hurst  1 – 1 – 0

Stacy Lewis  1 – 3 – 0

Morgan Pressel  4 – 0 – 0

Angela Stanford  0 – 3 – 0

Julie Inkster  0 – 2 – 1

Christina Kim  1 – 0 – 1

Ryann O’Toole  2 – 0 – 2

Coutesy of Getty Images

Tiger Woods announced Thursday that he will be in the field next week in the WGC Bridgestone Invitational, marking his first tournament back since withdrawing from the Players Championship back in May with a knee injury. Woods broke the news via Twitter, where he tweeted,”Feeling fit and ready to tee it up at Firestone next week. Excited to get back out there!”

Woods enters this year’s WGC Bridgestone Invitational, however, with an even higher degree of uncertainty as to what the future may hold for the world’s former number 1 player. This time last year Woods was still clinging to his top spot in the Official World Golf Rankings, but has since fallen to 21st… and his left knee wasn’t nearly the issue last season as it has obviously been this year. Two weeks ago Woods officially announced that he and longtime caddie Steve Williams were no longer working together, and next week he will be employing the caddie services of childhood friend and business associate, Byron Bell. It is believed that Bell’s caddying arrangement is only temporary, although nothing has come from the Woods camp the past few weeks that would suggest a permanent replacement is being considered at this point and time.

Woods’ intentions of playing in the WGC event next week does hint that he’s trying to get some tournament time in before the season’s last major in two weeks – the PGA Championship at East Lake. But barring a good showing next week at Firestone or in the PGA Championship the following week, Woods will most likely not qualify for the tour’s playoff series that begins the last week of August with The Barclays. He’s currently ranked 133rd in the FedEx Cup standings, and only the top 125 in the FedEx Cup standings are qualified to compete in the first leg of the tour playoff series at The Barclays.

The 12-year partnership that began back in 1999 was the perfect match, or seemed to be. A successful dynasty awaited. Friendship happened. Marriage happened. Children happened. The loss of a father happened. Steve Williams became much more than just a looper for Tiger Woods – he became a close friend, if not a confidant. As Williams points out in his interview above – he was there with his friend through thick and thin, good times and sad times, good rounds and bad. He was the guy that maintained order inside the ropes, duties that included playing marshal to trigger-happy cameramen to barking at galleries to stop breathing while his player was trying to concentrate. To some he was seen as a villain, to others a modern-day Matt Dillon on the links. He was also very opinionated and unafraid to make enemies, as we learned a few years back that HE WASN’T IMPRESSED WITH PHIL MICKELSON. Steve Williams was a lot of things to a lot of people. But there was no denying that he was the right guy on Tiger’s bag, the guy who Tiger trusted more than anyone else.

But then came the scandal back in November of 2009.

For the past couple of years, Williams has seemed reluctant to talk much about how the scandal impacted their friendship, other than saying that he was just as shocked and disappointed to learn of the revelations as anyone else. That was about the extent of what he offered to the media. But within 48 hours of his firing, Williams opened up a little about how the scandal did impact their relationship, most notably in disclosing that right before his first tournament back last year that he told Woods that “he lost a lot of his respect and that he would have to earn it back.” Woods isn’t the type to be talked down to by anyone…. much less a caddie that he’s helped make a millionaire a few times over during the past dozen or so years. Would it be out of line to suggest that if Williams did indeed have that conversation with Woods – could that have been the beginning of the end? I think it’s a fair assumption.

And then we notice how much different their on-course interactions have been since then…. what used to be chatty, back-and-forth joking and laughter had pretty much been replaced by countless scenes of frustration and uncertainty with very little banter. They no longer appeared to be two friends embarking on destiny, but rather a boss and an employee trying to somehow get through their differences and challenges. No doubt – Williams was starting to feel the pinch financially… then when Woods admitted that his ongoing knee problem was going to impact his schedule and force him to take an indefinite leave of absence, Williams decided to do what most other tour caddies do in those instances – seek permission to find temporary work until his player was back in action. Granted – it was a surprise to see Williams anxious to work with another player, but it’s also worth noting that he too is highly competitive and enjoys winning…. Maybe spending the past 12 years with Tiger has rubbed off on Williams like that, the desire to compete and win.

But what gets lost in all of the changing scenery in the continuing saga of Tiger Woods is the changing scenery itself. He’s no longer the player most feared, nor is he the most sought-out athlete as far as the corporate sponsors are concerned. He’s on the verge of falling outside of the top 30 in the world rankings, his last win came two seasons ago and is currently ranked 20th in the World Golf Rankings. He’s not only up against father time as it relates to beating Jack Nicklaus’ career 18 major victories, but also as it relates to his health. It used to be a forgone conclusion that he would become the greatest golfer that ever lived, but currently it’s uncertain that he’ll ever win another tournament, period. Currently, Tiger is dead on pace to become the 2nd best player that ever lived, which is a milestone away from being considered the best-ever.

And not that his career has been anything other than impressive… who in their right mind could argue that Tiger hasn’t been the greatest player in this era of the game? But when you think about what might have been lost in the span of 2 years is absolutely mind boggling…. except now it just doesn’t appear to be an unprecedented career full of record-setting achievements lost. It now seems that he’s in the process of ridding himself of all emotional attachments that ever meant anything to him. Then again, maybe nothing outside of winning ever mattered.

After withdrawing from the Players Championship on Thursday for the second consecutive year in a row, albeit from different ailment this time around, Woods wasn’t so quick to discount the seriousness of his discomfort. When a reporter asked if he had personal worries about the condition of his knee injury, he replied, “I know I have. But it’s just a matter of what we’re going to do about it.” Without going into elaborate detail, Tiger’s concern is certainly justified. His history of knee problems go all the way back to his amateur days, and obviously he’s only 2 years removed from having his most recent surgery…. for those keeping count -  2008 was the third time that his left knee has been operated on. Judging by the degree of his own concern on Thursday, 2011 could very well end up marking his fourth.

On Friday, two notable golf personalities expressed some fairly serious concerns themselves. Former swing coach Butch Harmon opined that another extensive knee operation could throw “his future up in the air”, as if he’s not already at that point in his career with what has transpired over the past 18 months. But Harmon is no less correct. Another operation essentially means 8-9 more months away from the game, and another season of golf basically lost to injury. Whatever gains that he’s felt that he has made over the past year with his swing change, as ambiguous as his comments on the matter have often seemed at times, will obviously go back to square one with the extended layoff from yet another knee operation.

PGA Tour veteran and 2008 Ryder Cup Captain Paul Azinger said that while a successful knee surgery could put him back on the path to winning more major championships, there are also other significant factors in play that go beyond his knee injury. “This is career-threatening stuff. It’s sad to see, I was very disappointed to see it. People ask me all the time if I think he can beat Jack’s record? I think if he replaced his knee he could still beat Jack’s record. I have that much confidence in him. My question is – does he have enough confidence in himself now? I think he is really worried about this one.” But Azinger went further by speaking candidly about how Tiger’s personal life has also taken a toll. “His world self-destructed. I think he needs help, whether it is professional help or really a good friend that he can communicate with. I know he is angry, he is angry at himself and he is angry at the world that tore him down, he is angry at a lot of people. He has got a lot of stuff going on in his head – he has physical issues and he is trying to make a swing change. Tiger needs to be able to have a shoulder to cry on to get over some of the things that have gone on in his life.”

So what’s next?

I’m guessing that an MRI on the knee has either already been done or will be in the coming week. At that point his doctor can evaluate the severity of the damage and go over the options, but I think it’s safe to say that we won’t be seeing Woods back out on Tour anytime soon. The Memorial Tournament is typically the next big event on his schedule, but that’s only 2 weeks away…. and basically a month from now the US Open begins. If his injury is as serious as it seems to be, being healthy and prepared to compete in either of those tournaments would be a huge stretch. The last thing that Tiger wants to do, if he wants to avoid surgery at the very least anyway, is come back too soon. One of the more popular opinions floating around at the moment is that it would be in his own best interests to call it a season and get his knee taken care of sooner rather than later. Whether or not that will be his course of action – who knows.

But this much is certain – the longevity of his career is now the big hurdle that Tiger faces. It’s no longer about moving back to the top of the world rankings or winning major championships, but merely the ability to continue playing the game for the next several seasons. Some claim that he has plenty of time left to rewrite the major championship history book, but the fact of the matter is that this guy has been swinging a golf club for 32 years. He’s possibly looking at his 4th knee operation in the not-so-distant future. He might only be 35 years old, but he’s not a young 35 year old.

The pairings and starting times for rounds 1 and 2 are HERE.

Let’s hope that Sean O’Hair and Rory Sabbatini find themselves playing together on Saturday. That would add some additional excitement to the festivities….

“At this stage, when you’re 58 years old,” said Koch Tuesday at TPC Sawgrass, “you don’t expect to do anything. Anything is a surprise.”

I’m guessing he was pleasantly surprised to shoot 5-under 67 to win the Qualifier. As fellow cohort Johnny Miller would say, good stuff, Gary.

The Golf Channel is obviously attempting to change the scenery on their programming. The “Morning Drive” show has been better than I thought it would be. The “State of the Game” has potential, but the verdict is still out on that. And now they’re giving David Feherty his own show, and I suspect it will be a huge hit.

“This show is something I’ve always wanted to do, and I’m glad it’s found a home at Golf Channel,” Feherty said.  “I’m really overjoyed, so much so that I may have to cheer down, rather than up.  I think I’m tri-polar.”

I can’t wait to see it.