"In America it is the other way round, they don't care how it plays as long as it looks good. As a country, we need to get back to playing golf the way it is supposed to be played."

Two must reads on the eve of The Players: Paul Goydos, who nearly held off Sergio Garcia in the 2008 edition, is profiled by John Feinstein in Golf Digest and John Huggan in his Sunday column. Feinstein's piece focuses on the tragic passing of Goydos's ex-wife, Wendy, while Huggan explores the more opionated side of the native Californian who tells a story about squaring off with Tom Watson over gangs and this about the state of American golf:

"It would do wonders for American golf in general to go to Australia to take a look at the courses," he says. "The greens there are the best in the world. So are the fairways. But they don't spend a lot of money on the rough. At my home course in California, they spend thousands of dollars over-seeding the rough. All that does is make the fairways too wet. It's completely backwards. Golf in America looks like a park. But it shouldn't. Courses are places where people go to play a sport and have fun; they are not places that should look good on a postcard.

"I didn't see many courses in Australia worrying too much about what they look like from above. But they really care about how they play; in America it is the other way round, they don't care how it plays as long as it looks good. As a country, we need to get back to playing golf the way it is supposed to be played."