Thursday Shorts

Vartan Kupelian is skeptical that Nicklaus is really calling it quits. The Electric Newspaper comments on the golf ball issue. Early reviews of Monty's new course and it's 16-yard wide fairway aren't so hot. And Steve Elling has all sorts of fun stuff in his Orlando Sentinel notes column (reg. required). On Tiger’s cut streak: “The streak officially lasted 87½ months. According to one accounting, Woods played 532 stroke-play rounds in that span, averaged 69.26 shots, finished 1,158 strokes under par and won 37 tournaments.”

On O’Hair: “Rookie Sean O'Hair, a 22-year-old whose overbearing father used a distressing mix of corporal punishment, psychological warfare and Draconian training methods to put his son on the golfing fast track, finishes second at the Nelson, authoring the feel-good story of the year. O'Hair's twisted upbringing was first detailed in the Sentinel last December and father Marc O'Hair hasn't forgotten. Phoned Sunday night at his home in Lakeland, he unleashed a string of high-octane, high-profane epithets and angrily slammed down the phone.”