Steiny Still Trying To Get Tiger To Commit Early, To No Avail!

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From Tod Leonard's update on the Farmers Insurance Open field at Torrey Pines in three weeks:

Tom Wilson, tournament director and executive director of the Century Club, said six-time tournament champion Tiger Woods has not committed, but the expectation remains that Woods will be here for the first time in three years.

"I talked to Mark Steinberg (Woods' agent) last week, and he said unless something disastrous happens he feels Tiger will be here," Wilson said. "He's trying to get Tiger to commit earlier, as he did for some tournaments last year. What earlier means, I'm not sure. I hope it's sometime in the next week or two."

"The golfer was once the most sought-after pitchman in sports and was the first athlete to earn $1 billion from endorsement agreements."

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I learned something new in the unbylined AP story on Gillette dropping Tiger at year's end when his contract is up.

The golfer was once the most sought-after pitchman in sports and was the first athlete to earn $1 billion from endorsement agreements. However, many corporations cut ties or distanced themselves from Woods after the scandal that broke just over a year ago and dominated headlines for months.

Remember when it used to be widely reported that he was the first athlete to earn a billion, now he's the first to do it on endorsements alone!

NORAD Returns To Defcon 1 After Twitter-Driven Tiger Woods Injury Scare

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And it all started on Twitter and ended with Tiger merely getting a cortisone shot from someone other than Dr. Spaceman. I'm not going to address the Twitter ethics debate that erupted amongst bored golf writers, but let's just say, Shipnuck resorted to pulling Marshall McLuhan out from behind a movie theater cardboard cutout. 
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"Tiger's talk was golf's TV moment of the year, but he provided more highlights when he made his highly anticipated return to golf at the Masters."

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Gary Van Sickle reviews the stories of the year and concludes item No. 1 on Tiger with this:

ESPN's first-round Masters coverage averaged 4.9 million viewers, the biggest cable audience ever for a golf telecast. Woods played with Matt Kuchar and K.J. Choi and shot a stunning 68, the best first-round Masters score of his career. Woods stayed on the fringe of contention all week, thanks to a tournament record-tying four eagles, until a careless three-putt on the 14th green on Sunday killed his chances. He finished a remarkable fourth.

I'm not sure what's more amazing, Van Sickle using that much hyperbole or Tiger's T4. In hindsight, Tiger's performance at the Masters just gets better and better considering what we know now about the state of his game and life during the remainder of 2010.