If The Golf Thing Doesn't Pan Out, Graeme Can Always Tend Bar

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Nona Blue opened recently according to the Orlando Sentinel and golf.com posted a nice (quick) video of Graeme McDowell showing how to properly tap and serve a Guiness from his newly opened restaurant. There is also a slideshow posted by USA Today.

Reminder to all the mooching media in Orlando this week: Graeme is offering free beer to PGA Tour media badge holders. Try to represent the profession well by not ordering the left side of the menu, okay? And DiMeglio, don't go every day please?

Yours truly asked this tough question at the World Challenge that McDowell won last December:

Q.  You mentioned the free drinks that we're all entitled to at your bar when it opens.  Can you take this opportunity to tell us the name of it?  How much are you going to be working on that here during your off time, and have you thought of a tradition that the bar might have when you actually win a tournament?

GRAEME McDOWELL:  Yeah.  The bar's called Nona Blue.  It's a tavern restaurant.  It's just outside the gates of Lake Nona.  Free bars are with PGA TOUR media credentials only.

Traditionally when I win an event I call home to my home golf club.  Lake Nona has kind of become my second home golf club, and I typically have a free bar for the members for a defined period of time, obviously.

Vijay In Fine Spirits! "No comment to you. No comment to anybody."

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Bob Harig calls the PGA Tour's deliberate handling of Vijay Singh's admission to violating the tour's doping policy "pathetic" and hopes Singh contends so that the World Golf Hall of Famer can display his grumpy attitude for all the world to see.

Harig writes:

Singh would not even give a PGA Tour media official a few cursory comments about his round.
"No comment to you. No comment to anybody," were Singh's relayed words.

It would be great if he won the tournament and said the same thing.

It would be even better if he captured his fourth major championship at the Masters, becoming the oldest major champion in the game's long history.

What then?

Harig goes on to remind us that Commissioner Finchem said there was "no time urgency" in this case of a player admitting to violating the rules. What could possibly take so long to process that claim?

No doubt, the folks at WADA are watching this farce play out.

Tiger Still Has Skeptics Files!

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Following Tiger Woods's second win of 2013 and just a month before the Masters, it's hardly a surprise that many are back on the bandwagon.

Derek Lawrenson in the Daily Mail wasn't so impressed:

Reading some of the reports coming out of America on Monday they might just as well skip the tournament part of the Masters next month and head straight to the green-jacket ceremony.

But they ignored one vital fact. Tiger won’t win the Masters playing like he did at Doral. Or rather, he won’t win driving the ball like he did at Doral.

Add Ron Sirak to that list too.

The thing about bandwagons is that they are moving targets. Jumping on and off comes with its share of risk. Right now, the Tiger Woods bandwagon, light of load in recent years, is once again buckling under the weight of its cargo.

Golf Channel Sets Some Ratings Records At Doral

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Big preliminary numbers from Friday's telecast of the 2013 WGC Cadillac:

· Round Two PRELIM: 1.5 HHs, 1,471,000 viewers.  A 24 percent increase over same round in 2012 and a 45 percent increase from Thursday’s round one on Golf Channel.

· Highest rated / most watched early round since cable ratings started to be reported for this tournament (1995-2013).

· Highest rated / most watched early round since Friday’s second round at the TOUR Championship by Coca-Cola (Sept. 21, 2012, 1.6 HHs / 1,559,000 viewers)

2013 WGC Cadillac Final Round Open Comment Thread

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A stellar leaderboard is pursuing Tiger Woods who, according to Dave Shedloski, "has never lost a 54-hole lead when ahead by at least three strokes, and he's won 50 of 54 times when owning at least a share of the lead."

This will be the final time we see this iteration of Doral, as it's slated to undergo a makeover soon after the final putt drops today. Try not to get emotional.

Coverage starts at 1 pm ET on Golf Channel, and 3 pm ET on NBC with bonus coverage of holes 15, 16 and 18 on Golf Channel at 3 pm ET.