“I don’t think there is any money missing"

Good news for the PGA Tour and LPGA Tour!

A feisty Allan Stanford, looking eerily like John Cleese, tells the New York Times Clifford Krauss that this is just an SEC witchhunt and all of this Stanford Financial business stuff will be cleared up.

“I don’t think there is any money missing,” Mr. Stanford said. “There never was a Ponzi scheme, and there never was an attempt to defraud anybody.”

“Today’s professionals are bigger, stronger, fitter, have more technology at their command, and it’s very important that we keep our great links courses relevant to the modern-day professional"

Some day they'll look back and say, wow, the R&A changed courses to mask their regulatory incompetence. But surely they were discreet about it, right?

For Immediate Publication

THE R&A ANNOUNCES COURSE CHANGES AT TURNBERRY’S AILSA COURSE

21 APRIL 2009, Turnberry, Scotland: In advance of the 2009 Open Championship, Turnberry’s Ailsa Course has undergone a number of adjustments designed to ensure that, as one of Britain’s finest links, it continues to challenge modern professionals. The most extensive changes are on the 10th, 16th and 17th holes, though most have been enhanced in some way.

“Today’s professionals are bigger, stronger, fitter, have more technology at their command, and it’s very important that we keep our great links courses relevant to the modern-day professional,” explained The R&A’s Chief Executive, Peter Dawson. “We’ve been doing that at every Open venue, with Turnberry having had a considerable number of changes since the 1994 Open Championship.”

Thankfully, circa 2002 Major League Baseball owners never declared that the players were bigger, stronger, fitter with more technology at their command, therefore, proudly announcing that they extended the Green Monster skyward 40 feet and spent millions to alter their ballparks so that the lads can keep injecting their rear ends!

The 10th has been redesigned to bring the coastline into play and now requires at least a 200-yard carry over the rocks from a tee perched on an outcrop by the lighthouse. The fairway has been moved closer to the beach to tempt longer players to cut off more of the corner, and three new fairway bunkers force a decision to be made between safer tee-shot with a longer approach or a riskier, braver and more aggressive drive.

Significant changes have also taken place at the 16th and 17th. The shape of the 16th has been radically altered and it now dog-legs right from a re-positioned tee around newly-created dunes and hollows. 45 yards have been added along with a new bunker on the left of the fairway. The bunker, which used to guard the left side of the old fairway, now protects the right edge of the new one.

The realignment of the 16th has allowed a new back tee to be constructed on the 17th, extending the hole by 61 yards. A newly-constructed approach bunker, along with another to the front and left of the putting surface, adds difficulty to the second shot.

Including those on the 10th and 16th, a total of 23 bunkers have been added on holes 1, 3, 5, 8, 14 and 18, with two removed at the 3rd and 14th, making players think more about their course management strategy.

Uh no. They are intended to make players leave driver in their bag so you don't have to regulate equipment.

Though many Open Championship courses have upwards of 120 bunkers, Turnberry still only has 65, testament to the natural test that the landscape provides.

New tees have also been introduced at holes 3, 5, 7, 8, 14, and 18, extending the course to 7204 yards, 247 yards or 3.5% longer than when The Open was last played at Turnberry in 1994.

"It was a great win for Oakmont."

Gerry Dulac reports that the folks at Oakmont are quite happy with Angel Cabrera's Masters win. For a while there, they were thinking maybe they'd have to rethink all that over-the-top rough and the narrow fairways for giving them a one-off major champ. But not now...

Club officials have been wanting to bring Cabrera back to Oakmont so they can officially -- and ceremoniously -- present him with their own version of the green jacket, symbolizing lifetime membership in the club. Oakmont does that for all players who have won a major championship at its club.

They also want to show him the room in the club's newest guest cottage, overlooking the swimming pool, that bears his name. Located on the second floor, the Angel Cabrera room is right down the hall from rooms that bear the names of Steve Melnyk (1969 U.S. Amateur champion) and Gene Sarazen (1922 PGA), other past winners at Oakmont.

Angel has to know he's made it when he shares something in common with Melnyk.

"Damn, I found Anthony Kim obnoxious."

Jack McCallum, bought-out SI NBA beat legend, novelist and occasional golf scribe fresh off covering the Barkley-Haney show, joins this week's SI/AOL/Golf.com/ page-turner to kick around the state of golf. There's an interesting discussion about Rory McIlroy's decision to pass on a PGA Tour hall pass and comments about slow USGA sales in New York at the end, but McCallum's take on Anthony Kim didn't come as a total shock.

Jack McCallum: I hate to swing at the first pitch in such an august group of golf scribes, but since you asked ... Damn, I found Anthony Kim obnoxious. He came out to one of the Barkley-Hank Haney sessions I was covering for the SI story a few weeks back and acted like a 13-year-old. Then again, Charles acts like a 17-year-old, so it was kind of a draw.

"Gee Nick, I didn't realise that you are such a big guy. How come you used to hit it so short?"

John Huggan examines the Phil-Tiger relationship and shares several juicy anecdotes. Two of my favorites:

Then again, Mickelson is hardly devoid of a sense of humour. Less than two weeks ago at the traditional Tuesday evening Champion's Dinner, he got stuck into, of all people, Nick Faldo. Standing next to the six-time major winner for the official photograph, the present world number two didn't miss the past number one. The trash-talking conversation went something like this:

Phil (loud enough for everyone to hear): "Gee Nick, I didn't realise that you are such a big guy. How come you used to hit it so short?"

Faldo: "Listen Phil, when you shoot 19 under par to win the Open at St Andrews you can start giving me a hard time."

Phil: "I understand that. But how come you hit it like such a pussy?"

Faldo: "I played golf the proper way."

Phil: "Yeah, like my wife."

And...

Still, even when Phil and wife Amy sent the Woods family a present to celebrate the birth of daughter Sam, there was an edge to the gesture. The miniature ping-pong table was a not-so-subtle reference to the fact that, at every Ryder Cup, Lefty is too good for his teammate when it comes to table tennis. (Rumour has it that Tiger has searched out expert coaching in order to rectify that situation next time round).