"I refuse to hit driver. It's against my religion."

About the only highlight of Tiger's first tour around Oakmont was his refusal to use driver on the 8th hole's absurd 288-yard tee. Someone from AP spills the beans on his practice round...

Woods played the back nine early Sunday morning with members and swing coach Hank Haney, then stopped for lunch and played the front nine in the afternoon.

The U.S. Open, to be played June 13-16, returns to Oakmont for the first time since 1994. It is one of the few classic championship courses in the United States that Woods had not played. He first qualified for the U.S. Open in 1995 as an amateur.

Woods said he thought Oakmont as a members' course was far tougher than Winged Foot, where last year he missed the cut for the first time in a major as a pro.

On the par-3 eighth, he played the back tee at 288 yards, and hit 3-wood to the middle of the green.

"I refuse to hit driver," Woods said, smiling. "It's against my religion."

"Or that Tiger Woods will ever play tournament golf again in Texas?"

The Star-Telegram's Gil Lebreton realizes that if Tiger isn't coming to the Nelson this year, he probably won't be coming back ever again.

The message this time, though, seems unmistakable. If the tributes planned for Byron weren’t enough to lure Woods back this year, what makes anyone think that he’ll come back next April? Or the year after?

Or that Tiger Woods will ever play tournament golf again in Texas?

His first and last appearance at Colonial came in 1997. A disappointing final round left Woods steamed and tied for fourth place, and he has never returned.

He played in the Texas Open, a fall tour event in San Antonio, in 1996 and came in third. He has never returned.

Woods has never played in the Shell Houston Open.

The Nelson, however, was supposed to be Woods’ tournament. The tournament where Fergie, the Duchess of York, once came to see Tiger play. From 1997 to 2004, Woods played in the Nelson Championship seven times, shooting a combined 77 under par.

Tiger's House Plans

Thanks to Steven T. for spotting this Jose Lambiet story in the Palm Beach Post about Tiger's house plans.

Golfing god Tiger Woods unveiled the look of his yet-to-be-built Jupiter Island home this week with the filing at town hall of a first batch of documents to support his upcoming building-permit applications.

First observation: The home will be seen by only a selected few, unless there's trespassing involved. The 9,729-square-foot, two-story main house is smack-dab in the middle of a 12-acre tropical forest that stretches from the beach to the Intracoastal.

"Obviously, this is someone who likes his privacy," said town building boss Jeff Newell. "Whether from South Beach Road or the Intracoastal, no one will know whether he's there or not. No one will even know that there's a house."

Second: The home is modest, almost nondescript, at least on paper. No Palm Beach-style castle. No McMansion. No flourishing Mizner job. The artist's rendition shows a simple, yet modern-looking building with giant windows on one side and barely any on the other.

The main home will be connected to a 6,400-square-foot gym-media room-bar with a glass-covered walkway. There's an elevator. A reflecting pond. A library and a children's playroom. A weirdly skinny lap pool. And a steel roof.

But from the outside, the place looks like a northern European part-brick, part-concrete motel or government building.

Clearly, his Swedish wife, Erin Nordegren, had a say in this.

"Can't comment," said the architect, Jupiter-based Roger Janssen. He declined to allow Page Two to publish the sketch.

Woods last year bought four adjacent properties in the tony Martin County enclave for a total of $44.5 million, and named his new place "Sand Turtle." His plans call for the late-summer leveling of the four homes currently on the land. There's no price tag on the upcoming construction as of now.

And from what Newell says, it sounds as if Woods won't have problems getting his way.

"By our standards here, this is a modest project," Newell said. "He's not pushing the envelope like some residents do when they build here."

Woods' lawyers have a mid-June date with the town's Impact Review Board.

The Snap

Well it was mentioned earlier on the live blog that plenty of editors were surely waiting anxiously to see if their shutterbugs captured the shot of Tiger breaking his club on one of those silly 11th hole pines. SI's Jim Herre surely was pleased that Robert Beck delivered. From golf.com:

 

"Trivial Inquiries"

The Telegraph's always entertaining Martin Johnson wasn't the only one bored by the media's Tuesday fawning over Tiger the soon-to-be-dad. Don't miss this column.  The highlights, for when the link disappears:

Until now, Mrs Tiger has not had much to disturb her in married life, apart perhaps from those infuriating moments when the old man is hogging the bathroom again. "Darling, I know you've got to put your game face on, but do hurry up. I want to do my nails." But all this is about to change.

It comes as no surprise to learn that the Woods' have already declined a request from an American television company to film the birth live. However, given that Tiger himself was almost as much a designer breed as his new pooch - making his first TV appearance on The Bob Hope Show at the age of three - we can hazard a guess at what the viewers might have witnessed had CBS been allowed to break off from their six o'clock news bulletin on the latest events in Iraq to go live to the maternity ward.

Soon after Woods Junior emerges from the womb, the midwives will marvel at how his hands clasp hold of the umbilical cord, using the Vardon grip of course, before taking aim at a ball of cotton wool and propelling it into a wastepaper basket for the youngest ever hole in one.

Woods himself says that he has no idea whether fatherhood will alter his legendary approach to business - he has a focus which makes Nicklaus in his prime look like a man having a carefree Sunday morning biff round the local municipal. Woods has already said, though, that he will not be playing golf when the birth is due, and we could see him at this year's Open at Carnoustie carrying a beeper on his belt. If there is a God, please let it go off on the top of Colin Montgomerie's backswing.

Comparing The Competition

Daniel Wexler takes on the tricky task of comparing the quality of Tiger's primary competition vs. Jack's in an ESPN.com piece.

I thought this was interesting from Al Barkow:

 "The players giving Tiger his competition are just as good as those who Jack faced in terms of pure talent, but they don't have the heart, the guts, the tenacity, maybe even the sense of pride that the [Tom] Watsons and [Lee] Trevinos had."

Why, one wonders, would such things be lacking?

"It has to do with money," Barkow continues, "although no one likes to say that. But today's players are so rich they don't have the real need for money the previous generation had, and are also so incredibly pampered and spoiled from the day they took up the game that they don't know how to respond to the dominant player. Watson, Trevino et al, gave Jack a good go and took him a few times head-to-head. I can't see anyone out there today giving Tiger that sort of competition. They don't need to."

"The courses I like are the ones where you have the option to play different shots."

Sports Illustrated featured two classic only-SI-can-do-it features that made weeding through the usual mishagoss of player profile stuff worth the effort. If you love baseball, don't miss Tom Verducci's piece on umpiring for a day, and if you love golf, definitely check out John Garrity's Tiger 2.0 cover story.

Highlights from the Garrity piece:

But here is Tiger, elbows on the table, working me like a cold-call broker. His business goal, he says, is to get to "a place where my family can be financially secure."

Sheesh, and I thought J.D. Drew talking about job security for his family was a tad much after he opted out of 3 years and $33 million!

His course-design work will be "a partnership between me and the owner of the property; I'm trying to provide a product they'll be happy with." His brilliantly successful endorsement deal with Nike, a multiyear contract recently renewed for a reported $100 million plus, is about "providing products that consumers will enjoy." He sums up: "We are in the providing business."

I wonder, for an instant, if Tiger is trying to sell me a fixed-rate annuity.

Beautifully stated.

There is understandable curiosity about Tiger's foray into course design. Typically, a champion golfer either partners with an established golf architect—Arnold Palmer with Ed Seay, for example, or Ben Crenshaw with Bill Coore—or hires a staff of practiced landscape engineers and architects a la Jack Nicklaus, whose design company has produced 310 courses in 30 countries. Tiger would seem to be leaning toward the latter model (he took advantage of Nicklaus's generous offer to let Bell visit his North Palm Beach offices to study the golf course operation), but he turns vague when asked who will actually read the topographical maps and produce the construction drawings.

In L.A., Tiger had assured me, "I will not be hiring some guy to design a golf course. I'll be hands on and involved in it." He was more forthcoming about his design philosophy. "My tastes are toward the old and traditional. I'm a big fan of the Aussie-built courses in Melbourne, the sand-belt courses. I'm also a tremendous fan of some of the courses in our Northeast."

"I'm not one who thoroughly enjoys playing point B to point C to point D golf," he continued. "The courses I like are the ones where you have the option to play different shots. I enjoy working the ball on the ground and using different avenues." "Like Royal Liverpool?" I asked, naming the English course on which Tiger won the 2006 British Open using a 19th-century arsenal of low, scooting tee shots (played almost exclusively with irons and fairway metals) and ground-hugging approaches.

He smiled at the memory. "Liverpool this year and St. Andrews in 2000 are the only times I've seen the fairways faster than the greens. You hit a putt from the fairway, it was running one speed. It got to the green, the putt slowed down." His smile broadened. "That's not like most golf courses, but that's what I like to see. It fits my eye."

Now, Nicklaus has been criticized for building holes that fit his game. Will Tiger be questioned for building designs that fit his eye?

"Tiger Woods is cherry picking his way into history?"

That's the question a bold (but unsigned) GolfWire commentary asks:

 Is it too late to change our mind on the question of whether or not Tiger Woods is cherry picking his way into history?

 A third straight victory at Doral Resort and Spa's Blue Course Sunday in the WGC-CA Championship suggests that Woods, smart man that he is, might be building a resume largely filled with tournaments he knows he can win.

Why is this bad? Well, we're not saying it is.

Doesn't he have a right, as an independent contractor, to set his schedule as he sees fit? Oh, yeah, he does.

Aren't there always horses for courses? Yep, and Woods is a thoroughbred on several of them, including that little old invitational next week in Augusta, Ga., where he has won four times already.

So why bring this up at all? Call it a gut feeling, akin to watching a waterfall. You know all about the path of least resistance. Water goes where it won't be impeded. Woods seems to be doing the same -- not that he is avoiding good competition on the way to winning 12 majors and 57 PGA Tour titles. In fact, he usually only competes in the tournaments with the best quality fields.

"Where do you come up with that?"

That's Tiger talking and it translates to, Doug, I think you've crossed under one too many airport metal detectors. Our beloved AP writer's unrequited love of the game led him to dig up a stat that reveals Tiger has had 50 different runner-up finishers in his PGA Tour victories.

The milestone even caught Woods by surprise, based on the fact he said nothing for a few seconds and even then had little to offer except for, "Where do you come up with that?"

Alright Doug, I admit it's amazing (and on behalf of everyone, I thank you for not quoting some player saying how it speaks to the extraordinary depth on the PGA Tour!).

But I thought this bit from Geoff Ogilvy later in the piece was more interesting:

"Here's a better stat," Ogilvy said. "Who's won the most times with him in the field?"

No surprise there, either - Singh with 13 victories, followed by Mickelson at nine.

Now, it doesn't always work both ways, because Woods has been a runner-up 20 times on the PGA Tour. He has been second to Singh and Mickelson three times apiece, with Lefty winning the tiebreaker.

Tiger's Pre-Masters Visits

After winning at Doral:

 Q. How many times in the years you've played the Masters have you gone to Augusta the week before you get there?

TIGER WOODS: Only when there's changes. Only when they decide to rebuild the place.

Q. So most.

TIGER WOODS: Lately.

Tiger At Dawn

SI's Michael Bamberger got up early to be there when Tiger teed off alone Wednesday morning and before the circus atmosphere kicked in.

"He's a phenomenon in the gym."

Golfobserver.com's Lorne Rubenstein, quoting Gary Player talking on Tiger Woods:

"I've seen him do a few things, and it's frightening," Player answered. "Tiger Woods is a phenomenon. He's a phenomenon in the gym. I'll tell you what I saw him do. I was in Dubai five days ago and he was playing in the afternoon. I was over there designing golf courses. I was in the gym. I turned around and he had two 25 pound weights." Player then went into some sort of pantomime while trying to show exactly what Woods was doing with the weights. It wasn't so much the weight Woods was lifting, because 25 pounds aren't much. It was more what he was doing with them, and, Player said, that he was working with them before playing that afternoon. "This is his warmup," Player said. His point was that Woods was being an animal in the gym before he would play a competitive round, and that he had no problem preparing that way. He was fit enough to handle the stress on his body."

Limited Fields and Pace of Play

During Friday's Bay Hill telecast (before I switched back to the NCAAs), Arnold Palmer endorsed limited field events because they're easier to operate and pace of play is faster. (In the same interview he also endorsed the idea of ending Q-School...)

On the subject of Tiger's new D.C. event as a limited field tournament, Ron Sirak pointed out the brewing battle over the emergence of the Tiger Tour.

The situation brewing here--a player revolt against the tour's most valuable player--is both unprecedented and potentially ugly. Beem says the players can override the PGA Tour Board with a two-thirds majority. If that happens it will formalize what we already know. There is the Tiger Tour--and then there is everything else. And the players will be biting the hand that has fed them well.

Now, I know this is probably an oversimplification of the issue, but it seems that pace of play should be the real issue here.  Tiger this week:

TIGER WOODS: Oh, I always liked reduced fields, because obviously play moves along a lot faster. You get around in a much more rhythmical pace. You know, I think that's important.

You can't blame the rank-and-file for today's pace of play, just as you can't blame the elite players. It's in everyone's best interest to adjust to the tepid pace of the rest of the field. This corresponding response has allowed the situation to fester as it has.

I guess it's hard to fathom how a problem that is so clearly impacting spectator interest (on the "Tiger Tour" or run of the mill PGA Tour stops) and lies at the heart of this limited field debate, is not being addressed more forcefully by the Commissioner and the Policy Board?

Reason 3,916 That Tiger Woods Names His Yacht Privacy And Probably Wants Nothing To Do With People In General...

...from "Def Poet" Alvin Lau, courtesy of reader Jon, who clearly wants upset me:

“If I really wanted to use raw power..."

From Rich Lerner at TheGolfChannel.com...

A quick perusal revealed that on the subject of “inferior equipment” Phil was joking, suggesting that Tiger dominates without having gone to the super high tech gear most players had already put in their bags---the longer drivers, lighter shafts and monster heads. He wasn’t bashing Nike, but people took the ball and ran with it anyway like Steve Nash and the Suns.
 
In any event, in the parking lot after his pro-am round, Tiger did open up to a small circle of reporters and while talking about power in the modern game unintentionally exonerated Phil on the long ago inferior equipment comment. “I don’t use raw power,” said Tiger. “If I really wanted to use raw power I’d go to a spinnier ball and a lighter shafted driver like most of the guys and get an extra 20 yards.” So the verdict’s finally been rendered: Phil Mickelson, innocent on all counts on the charge of defamation of a manufacturer’s character.

Well let's not go that far.