Phil On Morning Drive: WGC's, Playoffs Taking A Backseat In '14

Phil Mickelson talked about his work with KPMG on their Reading Relay initiative, The Open at Muirfield, Pinehurst in 2014 and his upcoming schedule. Other than dropping the Humana Challenge, he said he's playing most of his traditional early season schedule. But since one can only play so much golf, it looks like he'll be dropping a WGC and playoff events later in the year.

"The first half of the season won't be too different. My performance levels off and goes down a bit as we start to go into the second half of the year," he added. "I think where the changes are going to have to take place are in the second half of the year ... Those events to me are going to have to take a backseat, because I physically and mentally just wasn't able to perform at the level I expect."

The video:

 He also discussed the 1999 U.S. Open and preparing for 2014 U.S. Open at Pinehurst:

HSBC Really Wishes Tiger Was Playing This Week

Generally I find the stories of late where sponsors complain about the lack of star presence to be a bit silly since golf is now a 52-week-a-year global sport and most of them signed on knowing this. However, after reading the grumbling of HSBC's Giles Morgan about Tiger's non-appearance in this week's WGC-HSBC despite being in China, I can kind of see the point.

Reported by Doug Ferguson from Shanghai:

Morgan said he was told a few months ago by Woods' agent that this was not going to work with his schedule. After a week of corporate work, Woods is playing (for another big appearance fee) in the Turkish Open, a European Tour event.

Like other overseas events, HSBC once paid to get the best players. But now that it's a full-fledged WGC, big appearance fees have been replaced by an $8.5 million purse.

"What I can't do is pay him," Morgan said. "And I feel enormously strong about that. This is a World Golf Championship. This is the flagship event of Asia. This is going to be the beacon to carry the game into this continent for many years to come. We could do the wrong thing by golf and drop the prize money right down and just pay one or two players huge fees. From a publicity standpoint, that would give us a certain amount of kudos because we'd get the top player in the world. And I'm absolutely not going down that route.

"We have an opportunity to be a genuine top 10 event in the world," he said. "That requires a massive investment, which we're pleased to do. And that means we want to be an authentic sponsor in the world of golf."

Of course HSBC also might think it's owed a favor as a founding partner of the Tiger Woods Learning Center, but as opening day headliner Bill Clinton can tell you, that doesn't mean a whole lot to Woods. And that may be why he's down to two blue chip sponsors.

Tiger Trying To Wrap His Head Around The Wraparound Schedule

Bob Harig covered several of the topics from Tiger's pre-World Challenge conference call and shared this about the PGA Tour's new calendar-year schedule.

"The whole idea of ending the season earlier was to give us a bigger break," Woods said. "Guys were taking their breaks basically in October and sometimes even into November, then going down to either South Africa or Australia and playing those events in December. You had a month or two off where guys would take their breaks because of the FedExCup ending earlier at the end of September, then guys would go support their home countries either in South Africa, Australia, or the American players would go down there to play to get ready for the following year.

"It's going to be interesting to find our break time now with this scheduling. It's new to all of us, this wraparound schedule."

Some of you longtime readers will recall that I believe the West Coast swing--when the most eyeballs are traditionally watching the PGA Tour on television--serving as break time.

Adam Scott Apologizes To Aussies For New Calendar Year Schedule

This Ben Everill story is just the kind of thing that hurts Viagra sales in greater Ponte Vedra, but mostly it makes me sad that the PGA Tour's "calendar year" schedule welcomed by no one but the four fall events, has this kind of residule effect.

The gist? Adam Scott is essentially apologizing for the PGA Tour taking quality Australian golfers away from visits to their home country events so they can play early fall PGA Tour events.

'Playing the PGA Tour is very tough, it's a fine line week to week and it's players' careers at stake,' Scott said.

'You can easily be off the tour and it would be unfair for these guys to jeopardise their careers for a couple of events at home.

'It is too much to ask.

'I am in a fortunate position where I can play and I am happy about that.'