'13 World Cup Headed To Royal Melbourne

We first learned of the possibility last month from Mark Hayes and now it's official: Royal Melbourne will be hosting the 2013 WGC World Cup a week after hosting the Australian Masters.

Bruce Young is understandably excited:

The likely scenario of the Australian PGA Championship at Royal Pines on the Gold Coast, the Australian Masters and the World Cup of Golf back to back at Royal Melbourne and the Australian Open at Royal Sydney all being held in the month of November could mean Australian golf has a summer along the lines we saw here two years ago when the Australian Open and PGA Championship benefited from the Presidents Cup ’being in town.’

Update on 2013-05-12 03:49 by Geoff

**The press release which details the retro format that should be the Olympic golf format:

World Cup of Golf returns to Melbourne, Australia, in 2013

The Royal Melbourne Golf Club to host event week after Australian Masters

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla., USA, and MELBOURNE, Victoria, Australia (May 11/12, 2013) – The International Federation of PGA Tours, an organization of the top professional golf tours in the world that sanctions the World Golf Championships and the World Cup of Golf, is proud to join the State of Victoria and the International Golf Association in announcing that the 2013 World Cup of Golf will return to The Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, and will be played November 21-24.

The Royal Melbourne Golf Club, which hosted The Presidents Cup 2011, will host back-to-back events in November.  The World Cup will be preceded on the calendar by the Australian Masters, which boasts Adam Scott as the defending champion.

The World Cup has been played three previous times in Australia, each at The Royal Melbourne Golf Club. The event was last played in Australia in 1988 as part of the nation’s bicentennial celebrations when the U.S. team of Ben Crenshaw and Mark McCumber defeated the Japanese team of Masashi (Jumbo) and Tateo Ozaki to win the tournament.

“It is an honour to host the World Cup and welcome another international golf event to Melbourne, home of great sporting events and, of course, the incredible Sandbelt region,” said Victorian Premier Dr. Denis Napthine.  “Melbourne is the pride of Australia when it comes to major events, and we would argue rivals any city in the world in that regard.  Today’s announcement is another exciting chapter for Melbourne, and we eagerly anticipate the World Cup in November, when we can once again showcase all that Victoria has to offer to the event’s players and fans.”

As part of the move, the event boasts an $8 million total purse and returns to an individual, stroke-play competition for $7 million, with a team component (adding the total scores of two-man teams) for $1 million.  The qualification system for the event is similar to that which will be used in the Olympic Games, when golf returns to the program in 2016.  The field will include 60 players (no cut), with eligibility taken from the Official World Golf Ranking.  Up to four players can qualify, per country, if they are in the top 15 of the OWGR.  Beyond No. 15, up to a maximum of two players per country can qualify.
If two or more players from a country qualify, then the country is eligible for team competition, with the top-two players comprising the qualified team.

The major difference between the World Cup qualification model and that of the Olympic golf competition is that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will each be considered a separate country (for the purpose of the Olympics, those four countries compete as Great Britain). Further, the Olympic Games golf competition will not feature a team component.

Yes we know.

Players Round 3: The Sergio And Tiger Backstory

With Sergio Garcia a stroke ahead of Tiger Woods heading into a Saturday's 2:40 p.m. tee time at The Players, Ron Sirak tells us a bit about the past for these two lovebirds.

It dates to the Battle At Bighorn and Sergio's exuberance.

After a flight from Ohio to California, Woods arrived at Bighorn the next day with a touch of the flu and was lethargic in his round, clearly both sick and tired.

Garcia, meanwhile, got more animated as the round went on and when he closed out Woods on the last hole acted as if he had just won a major championship.

If there is such a thing as X-rated body language, that's what Tiger was speaking as Sergio cavorted. Lost on Garcia in the celebration, apparently, was the fact Woods had just won four of the five previous majors.

The second round highlights from the PGA Tour:

Update on 2013-05-11 12:46 by Geoff

**Ron Green Jr. considers what might have been for Tiger and Sergio. Along with the column is a great shot of the two in happier times wearing much baggier clothes.

Criminal: Marshal Prevents Turtle Dive Redux!

You'd think my posting of the turtle dive classic would have inspired this marshal to leave one of the 16th hole turtles alone to show off their improve diving technique, but noooo....

From Friday's Players Championship telecast courtesy of PGA Tour Entertainment.

A shame one of those snaps didn't get a wee nip of the man in teal.

Good Luck: Garrigus Intends To Try A First Tee Joke On Vijay

Stephanie Wei quotes the likes of Matt Every, Jason Day, Justin Rose, David Lynn and Robert Garrigus on Vijay's situation and lawsuit and they aren't overly supportive of Singh.

Including first and second round Singh playing partner Garrigus kind of supported Singh by saying that the PGA Tour has"created a situation where one guy gets busted for recreational drugs and then one guy doesn’t get busted  for performance-enhancing drugs, which is messed up."

That probably won't make Vijay laugh--what does--but Garrigus is still going to try to deliver some humor to Thursday's 2 pm ET proceedings.

He’s focused on trying to win a golf tournament, but Garrigus, who is friendly and gregarious, said he’ll probably make a joke out of it with Singh on the first tee on Thursday to keep things light.

“I have a feeling there’s going to be a lot of security guards with our group (the next two days),” he said.

That's Our Vijay: Files Suit Against PGA Tour!

He's becoming the gift that keeps on giving!

USA Today with the first details of Vijay Singh's suit against the tour over his deer antler spray doping policy violation, which earned a "no comment" from the tour.

The Tour, the lawsuit says, could have known by conducting some basic testing and research, the product that Singh sprayed contained no active biological ingredient and could not possibly have provided any performance enhancement.

"The PGA Tour has now finally admitted that the use of deer antler spray is not prohibited," the suit claims. "Rather than performing its duties to golfers first, and then determining whether there had been any violation of the Anti-Doping Program, the PGA Tour rushed to judgment and accused one of the world's hardest working and most dedicated golfers of violating the rules of the game."

Update on 2013-05-08 16:08 by Geoff

**Vijay's full statement. The poor, poor lad...

The PDF of the complaint courtesy of Golf Channel and reader BrianS.

Update on 2013-05-09 17:34 by Geoff

**Steve Elkington weighed in with a Secrets In The Dirt cartoon.

Ernst And Starting A Telecast While We're Young

Steve DiMeglio reports on 22-year-old fourth alternate Derek Ernst winning a Wells Fargo Championship playoff over Englishman David Lynn in just the UNLV rookie's eighth PGA Tour start.

The round started as early as any final round Sunday in recent memory to help get the round in before storms rendered the already dreadful greens even less playable. This put CBS in the unenviable position of showing tape-delayed golf that was widely reported on if you follow Twitter or log onto PGATour.com.

And in an era with a channel devoted to golf (showing early round coverage) and live digital streaming, John Strege took issue with CBS's choice to stick with a tape delayed telecast.

The tournament, as a result, ended more than an hour before the delayed telecast began on CBS.

We reached out to a CBS representative for an explanation. "We have the rights to the final round," she wrote in an email. "Our broadcast window is from 3:00-6:00 pm ET. Due to affiliate and/or other programming commitments, we can not move the broadcast window when tee times are moved up."

What then would compel anyone to watch had they already known that an obscure tour rookie, Derek Ernst, had won in his ninth career start? They might logically conclude that they hadn't missed anything.

The final round highlights from PGA Tour Productions: