No. 8: Cal Men Do It Again!

From an unbylined Golfweek.com report on Cal Men's golf winning their eighth tournament this season, a ridiculous tally with several weeks to go in the spring.

This is just unfair:

Cal headed into the final round with an 11-shot lead by shooting the low team scores during the first- and second-round. On the final day, they shot 3 over.

All five Cal players finished in the top 12.

Sean Martin profiled the program earlier this year and revealed some of the keys to their epic run.

Turns Out Rory Might Add Pre-Masters Event...

...this ought to get Las Vegas stirring, altering Rory McIlroy's current 9/1 Masters futures odds (thanks Steve Elling for Tweeting that).

From Doug Ferguson's WGC Cadillac Championship game story:

McIlroy said he won't add a tournament the next two weeks, returning at the Houston Open before going to the Masters. He is signed up for the member-guest a week from Monday at The Medalist Club, presumably as the guest of former NBA great Michael Jordan.

"He's asked me, so depending on what my schedule is and where I have to be ... we'll see," he said.

I smell live shot-by-shot Tweets from Rosie!

Golf Channel Sets Some Ratings Records At Doral

Big preliminary numbers from Friday's telecast of the 2013 WGC Cadillac:

· Round Two PRELIM: 1.5 HHs, 1,471,000 viewers.  A 24 percent increase over same round in 2012 and a 45 percent increase from Thursday’s round one on Golf Channel.

· Highest rated / most watched early round since cable ratings started to be reported for this tournament (1995-2013).

· Highest rated / most watched early round since Friday’s second round at the TOUR Championship by Coca-Cola (Sept. 21, 2012, 1.6 HHs / 1,559,000 viewers)

2013 WGC Cadillac Final Round Open Comment Thread

A stellar leaderboard is pursuing Tiger Woods who, according to Dave Shedloski, "has never lost a 54-hole lead when ahead by at least three strokes, and he's won 50 of 54 times when owning at least a share of the lead."

This will be the final time we see this iteration of Doral, as it's slated to undergo a makeover soon after the final putt drops today. Try not to get emotional.

Coverage starts at 1 pm ET on Golf Channel, and 3 pm ET on NBC with bonus coverage of holes 15, 16 and 18 on Golf Channel at 3 pm ET.

Weird: Cards Reliever Injured Playing Golf

Derrick Goold reports on Cardinals reliever Marc Rzepczynski injuring himself during a spring training golf outing Friday

"It's a freak, freak, freak thing," Rzepczynski said.

On his second shot on the first hole of a round of golf, Rzepczynski attempted to punch shot around a tree. He made the shot and collapsed, his eye struck and bruised by something. The golf ball traveled far enough that he is unsure how it could ricochet off the tree and his eye and still carry into the fairway. He is unsure if something else was hit by the club and damaged his eye.

"SI is a dead magazine walking."

Clay Travis analyzes the news of Time Warner spinning off magazines like Sports Illustrated and concludes that it's only a matter of time before print is gone and SI becomes another online Grantland.

I wouldn't agree, and certainly hope he's dead wrong. But then again this is shocking...

SI's descent has been a slow slide, preciptated by difficulty leaving behind print dollars to chase Internet dimes.

As recently as last year do you know what the posted rate was for a full-page ad in Sports Illustrated?

$392,800.

$392,800!

When you were making that kind of money, it was hard to get very excited about the opportunity of the Internet. You want to know who the companies were that got very excited about the opportunity of the Internet? The ones that didn't have the ability to sell full page magazine ads for $392,800.

In the halcyon days of print, the magazine business was amazing. Hell, all of print was. You might read the articles, but the magazine or newspaper existed for one reason -- as a mobile ad device to deliver advertisements to your doorstep. Yep, the first mobile ads were in print media.