When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
News about the LPGA Commissioner's job status is breaking rapidly, and this NSA-obtained instant message exchange with PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem should shed some new light on the situation. Click on the image to read more:
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Tod Leonard talks to Tina Mickelson about her mother Mary's breast cancer diagnosis, just two days after Amy Mickelson underwent surgery.
SI's Gary Van Sickle is caddying for son Mike's PGA Tour debut this week, writing about it and Tweeting about it. First Tweet reports that Mike has been called into the press room. Oh to be a fly on the wall when dad tries to coach son answering questions.
Someone sent me a less than nice email about the Bivens-mutiny post below. I started to write back an explanation, but Alan Shipnuck summed it up better in the lastest SI/golf.com roundtable:
Shipnuck: It's clear Bivens's hard-charging personal style has rubbed a lot of players and corporate types the wrong way, but you can't fault her original vision: raise purses, improve the pension and retirement benefits, and expand the tour's TV presence. The problem seems to be that Bivens has stuck to her hard-line negotiating even as the economy has imploded. Sponsors are hard-pressed to maintain their current commitments, and she's asking for them to pour in more money for next year and beyond. Something had to give, and it's being reflected by the tour's contracting schedule.
There has been no sign that Bivens called an audible after the economic collapse and postponed her vision to get them through these tough times and save some of these mom-and-pop events that are dropping like flies. That will ultimately be her undoing.
I'm scheduled for around 10:40 a.m. EST/7:40 PST on the show, which starts at 10 and can be accessed through PGATour.com's home page link to PGA Tour Radio.
Jim Gorant reports that a "dozen or so" top players had dinner last week to decide if a different commissioner could run off fewer sponsors. He also indicates that a letter to the LPGA Board may be in the works.
Player director Juli Inkster, who was at the dinner, also said that as far as she knew no letter had come out of the meeting. Inkster told SI that the dinner "was kind of a personal talk about where we need to go and what we can do. As far as who was there and who said what, I can't get into that."
Don't we at least get to hear how much wine was consumed? That would give us a better idea how nasty the name calling got. Just a thought.
I can't post much because I'm looking into two health stories related to the 2009 AT&T National final round. One involves reports of several suicide attempts after the second mesmerizingly depressing SPCA ad ran during the finale. The other involves the poor lad turning his back and bending over to avoid Anthony Kim's 18th hole drive, only to be plunked on the tush.
Meanwhile, Thomas Bonk, writing about Tiger Woods' win over rival-in-the-making Kim:
Kim dropped to third behind Mahan with a one-over 71. The way things were going, his most interesting shot of the day might have been his tee shot at the 18th, where the ball went so far off-line, it popped a fan on the derriere.
Woods and Kim shook hands before they got started and that's about as close as they got the rest of the day, unless you count the times they stood in the tee box together. Until they chatted while walking down the 18th fairway, they hadn't exchanged a word.
"He told me to stay positive, something like that," Kim said.
See how took those words to heart!
Kim chalked the whole thing up as a learning experience, sort of on-the-job training.
"I learned that if you have a birdie putt, you'd better make it, especially on the last day," Kim said. "Tiger obviously wins for a reason."
See, he doesn't miss a beat.
Two mind-boggling Tiger stats, courtesy of the PGA Tour's Mark Williams:
• Woods has now won 46 of 49 tournaments (94%) when leading/co-leading after 54-holes. The three he didn't win -- 1996 Quad City Open/T5, 2000/2004 THE TOUR Championship/2ndboth times.
• Woods has won 32 of 38 tournaments after holding the 36-hole lead/co-lead -- that's 84 percent.
Doug Ferguson reports on Sunday's potentially exciting showdown between Anthony Kim and Tiger Woods, with background on Kim growing up idolizing Woods. But unlike Woods who committed every Jack Nicklaus record to memory, Anthony is still fuzzy on Tiger's history.
Actually, wouldn't it be fun if old geezer Michael Allen slipped in and won the thing?
The flood of fascinating, deep and almost-malaprops from pro golf's finest Tweeters has forced my hand: introducting, the Tweet O' The Week.
Ian Poulter, who displays a Brunoesque love for fashion and his own hair, also has captured Bruno's Tweeting vocabulary:
I took over July 1 and based on Rex Hoggard's posting, I have a claim ticket to cash in!
What remains to be seen is how the new rule impacts play on Tour – most players didn’t think there will be a drastic adjustment but few have actually tested wedges with the new grooves – and how players will react to having their opinions brushed aside by the Tour.
“If Tim wanted a union, he’s got one now,” said one player who noted that a healthy cross section of the Tour was in favor of delaying the rule one year.
Of all the reasons to form a union and open up the books, this is the topic that got some guys worked up? Really?
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
