English: Time To "Slap" McIlroy

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Strong stuff from Tom English as usual, this time coming to Brandel Chamblee's defense and in a bad sign for Rory McIlroy, a strong UK press attack on the young lad's rationale for exempting Tiger from criticism.

English writes:

He questioned Chamblee’s “authority” to say “anything like that” about his pal. Then this: “People wouldn’t know who Brandel Chamblee was if it wasn’t for Tiger Woods.”

At that point, you’d have to administer the slap.

Is Rory saying that anybody with reservations about Woods’ on-course behaviour this year should hush their noise because, well, he made us all and we should be eternally grateful? Is that it? Is every golf analyst to turn a blind eye because, hey, they’d be irrelevant without him? Such a lot of nonsense from McIlroy. It’s not less scrutiny that Woods needs. Quite obviously, it is more.

HSBC Really Wishes Tiger Was Playing This Week

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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 But now that it's a full-fledged WGC, big appearance fees have been replaced by an $8.5 million purse.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.

“This is a bad-guy move Tiger is pulling, trying…to get a TV golf analyst fired for something the TV golf analyst didn't even say on TV.”

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Gregg Doyel says Tiger plays dirty and the latest comments from China will be a mistake.

All because Chamblee pointed out -- in a creative way -- that Tiger was, shall we say, cavalier with the rules during the 2013 season.

But facts are facts, and the facts would be Chamblee's defense in a slander lawsuit, should Woods file one, which he won't. Because he has no case -- and if he doesn't know it, Steinberg does. So in lieu of a legal remedy that doesn't exist, they're trying to cut off Chamblee's biggest source of income. Why? Because they can.

Now we'll see what Golf Channel does. The ball truly is in their court. We'll see if the people who run that network are as scared of Tiger Woods as Tiger Woods hopes they are.

Martin Kaufmann answers that question and says Tiger needs Golf Channel more than Golf Channel needs him. I'm not sure I buy that, but here's his case:

Here’s the reality: Brandel Chamblee is more valuable to Golf Channel than Tiger Woods. Yes, I realize that sounds crazy at first glance. I follow the TV ratings. I know that Woods can double the viewership when he’s in contention.

But Woods has no leverage in this instance. Golf Channel and its parent, NBC Sports Group, have locked up PGA Tour rights through 2021. If Tiger Woods wants to play on the PGA Tour, he’s going to have to appear on Golf Channel and NBC. And the Tour’s media rules mandate that he make appearances in the media center before and during events.

Lindsey (Kind Of) Regrets Putting Sammy On Tiger's Shoulder

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An Access Hollywood report quotes Lindsey Vonn about the Presidents Cup moment when she put Sammy the squirrel on Tiger's shoulder and how it didn't even scare her man. (Eat your heart out, Herb Wind, that you never typed a sentence like that!).

“It was bad timing on my part,” she said. “He was very concentrated, of course, on his shot and he was more annoyed than anything. But he thought it was really funny. I mean my whole goal was to try to scare him, clearly it did not work.”

She was also asked about Tiger's attendance in Sochi, home to the Winter Olympics in just 100 days.

“We’ll see. He doesn’t like the cold very much so,” she revealed.

Fits somewhat perfectly in his schedule. The first two weeks of the Sochi games are the AT&T National Pro-Am in Pebble Beach and the Northern Trust Open at Riviera, two almost guaranteed non-starts for Woods.

Then again, it's Sochi. Maybe we have just the thing to get Tiger to finally return to Riviera!

WSJ: Most Of China's Golfers Have Never Set Foot On A Course

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With Monday's "Match at Mission Hills" featuring Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, John Paul Newport looks at golf in China and shares some staggering numbers.

Of course, the numbers are estimates...

These days there are roughly 600 courses in China and possibly one million golfers: estimates vary. Townend puts the figure at 700,000 and guesses that half have only hit balls at practice ranges—of which there are several thousand—never on a course.

"The average annual salary in China is something like $2,100 and the average cost to play golf is around $150 a round," said Dan Washburn, an American journalist who lived for several years in China and wrote "The Forbidden Game: Golf and the Chinese Dream" due next spring. "Golf isn't even on the mind of the average Chinese person. It's perceived as a rich man's game, and that's true, more so in China probably than anywhere else in the world."

Speaking of rich guys, the Back Nine Network is streaming the match except in the U.S., citing PGA Tour rules forbidding anything hosted by Ahmad Rashad to be censored.

That's a shame since last year's match featured arguably the best TV moment of the year when Tiger openly admitted his struggles with Sean Foley's swing ideas and dropped some colorful language in describing how he was hitting his short irons.

It was as if they didn't know they were being recorded!

Golf.com has posted a slideshow of the Blackstone Course at Mission Hills where the event will be played.