"Put it this way: Will Tiger let his own two kids carry on in public like that?"

/

Rick Reilly has had it with Tiger's on course antics:

The man is 33 years old, married, the father of two. He is paid nearly $100 million a year to be the representative for some monstrously huge companies, from Nike to Accenture. He is the world's most famous and beloved athlete.

And yet he spent most of his two days at Turnberry last week doing the Turn and Bury. He'd hit a bad shot, turn and bury his club into the ground in a fit. It was two days of Tiger Tantrums -- slamming his club, throwing his club and cursing his club. In front of a worldwide audience.

I would agree the club tossing is a bit much, but personally I love the swearing. Like this anecdote from Michael Bamberger's SI game story:

Tiger Woods likes to say "second sucks," and he acts as if he means it. When Steve Williams, Tiger's caddie, implored Woods to hit a provisional ball after a horrid way-right shot off the 10th tee last Friday, Tiger kept walking and muttered, "F--- it," before finally making a U-turn.

"I'm playing against Tom Watson, he's 59, he won his first major, I think, right around the time when I was born"

/

Cink would have had to be an idiot not to realize that his caddie was the lone man on the course pulling for him to beat the eight-time major winner and Hall of Famer. Rest assured, Cink is no moron.

"I knew that the people were really pulling for Tom to win, because that was the story that everyone wanted to be written," Cink said Wednesday in his first lengthy interview since winning. "It was, honestly, as a sports fan, it was a tremendous story.

"Maybe the biggest sports story in the last couple of generations and I was the one standing in the way of it. I had to really put that aside, though."

The magnitude of what he faced finally struck him when regulation ended.

"That really never got to be difficult until the playoff," he said. "That's when the bizarre stuff really started to hit me a little bit. Like, what, Tom Watson? You kidding me?

"I'm playing against Tom Watson, he's 59, he won his first major, I think, right around the time when I was born, and he's been winning tournaments ever since. You know, it was very strange."

Read More

"Nobody in the world’s going to want to take 70 million less."

/

With a contract expiring after next year's event, the PGA Tour has to be encouraged by today's comments from Deutsche Bank CEO's Seth Waugh:

“You can think of the golf tournament as a silly little thing in terms of what’s going on in the world,” Waugh said Wednesday, citing studies that put the economic impact of the Deutsche Bank Championship at $40 million to $70 million annually, “but these are the bricks that can build the economy back up. Nobody in the world’s going to want to take 70 million less.”

The Moon Shot

/

GolfDigest.com posts the moon shot video and a transcript for today's 40th anniversary.

"We'll have to see."

/

There was so much to enjoy in Tom Watson's post round press conference, but I most enjoyed the jabs at Augusta National and the R&A for over-the-top course changes. Granted, these things have been said many times before by Watson and others, but something about the setting and the magical week transformed these from mere jabs.

Q. With it all said and done, would you have rather gone through this experience at this stage in your career or have the memories be about things you did decades ago?

TOM WATSON: You mean having a chance to win it again?

Q. Yeah.

TOM WATSON: Well, hell, yes. Yeah, darn right. Winning it again was -- as I said, I don't like to go to Augusta anymore because I feel like I'm a ceremonial golfer there; I can't play that golf course anymore unless I'm absolutely perfect. But out here I have a chance. And I knew I had a chance starting out. So, yeah, I'm glad this happened.

Q. Do you think you'll also have a chance at St. Andrews, which is where next year you'll be, of course?

TOM WATSON: Well, it depends on the wind. If the wind comes from the west there, I have a hard time with that golf course. Hole No. 4 gets me. I can't hit it far enough to get it over the junk. You have the rough there, and it depends on how deep the rough is. I'm driving into the rough all the time. It's like the 10th hole at Bethpage Black there at the first U.S. Open; when they moved the tee back, nobody could get to the fairway.

But I feel like I can play St. Andrews. I still have some of the shots to be able to play that golf course. We'll just have to see. We'll have to see.

The fact that a west wind makes the carry at No. 4 nearly impossible does speak to the silliness of these newly installed tees, but also to player perceptions of R&A setup inflexibility.

Speaking of that, did anyone else notice the par-3 tees at Turnberry? All of the divots were in the same general area. The 11th tee appeared to not move more than a five yards over the four rounds.