Monty Probably Won't Be Talking To Gary Player About His Experiences As President's Cup Captain

It's nice that Player at least soft-pedaled the part about the 2006 U.S. Open.

Asked which Scot had made the most impact on him during his career, Player replied: "I'm a great believer in looking at the record book. It doesn't lie. And Colin Montgomerie was the leading money winner on the European Tour eight times. That was phenomenal and for me it was a tragedy he never won either the Open or the US Open.

"If ever someone threw the US Open away, though, it was him at Winged Foot. He needed a par on the last hole to win, a bogey to tie and made double. It's a great shame he didn't win one. You have to be careful what you say, but (at 46] I think it's too late for him now.

"Who goes down in history as the better player – Sandy Lyle or Colin Montgomerie? It's a very debatable issue. But if you said to me personally, whose record would you rather have, Montgomerie's or Lyle's, then I'd take Lyle's."

"It seems the days of preparing by visiting Irish courses are a thing of the past"

Phillip Reid with some details about Tiger's pre-Open Championship preparation:

It seems the days of preparing by visiting Irish courses are a thing of the past, though this probably has more to do with his increased family commitments.

Instead, Woods intends to travel to the Scottish links on Saturday to get acquainted with the course. But he won’t be waiting until then before practising the type of shots he believes will be required if he is to reclaim the Claret Jug he last won in 2006.

To that end, his coach, Hank Haney, has been summoned to Woods’ home in Florida. What type of shots would they work on?

“Just making sure that you can flight your ball and making sure you can manoeuvre it both ways efficiently, because over there you don’t know what kind of weather you’re going to get,” Woods said.

“You’re going to get years like we had at St Andrews where it’s perfect, or you can get like a Muirfield day or what they had last year at Birkdale. You just don’t know, and you have to be able to be confident in controlling your golf ball and manoeuvring it all around and feel like you can do it efficiently.”

IM'ing With The Commissioners, Bivens Job Status Edition

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:

(Click on image to enlarge)

More Tough News For The Mickelsons

Tod Leonard talks to Tina Mickelson about her mother Mary's breast cancer diagnosis, just two days after Amy Mickelson underwent surgery.

Ouch: Lorena, Paula, Morgan and Cristie Sign Bivens Resignation Letter

Ron Sirak reports.

Van Sickle To Face Scribes

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.

"The problem seems to be that Bivens has stuck to her hard-line negotiating even as the economy has imploded."

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.

XM Radio Appearance Monday: Making The Turn With Peter Kessler

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.

Report: Top LPGAer's Convene To Roast Brand Lady, Ponder Possible Replacements

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.

"He told me to stay positive, something like that"

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.

Showdown With Woods Offers Kim Chance To Face His Hero And Ask How Many Majors He's Won

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?