English: Time To "Slap" McIlroy

Strong stuff from Tom English as usual, this time coming to Brandel Chamblee's defense and in a bad sign for Rory McIlroy, a strong UK press attack on the young lad's rationale for exempting Tiger from criticism.

English writes:

He questioned Chamblee’s “authority” to say “anything like that” about his pal. Then this: “People wouldn’t know who Brandel Chamblee was if it wasn’t for Tiger Woods.”

At that point, you’d have to administer the slap.

Is Rory saying that anybody with reservations about Woods’ on-course behaviour this year should hush their noise because, well, he made us all and we should be eternally grateful? Is that it? Is every golf analyst to turn a blind eye because, hey, they’d be irrelevant without him? Such a lot of nonsense from McIlroy. It’s not less scrutiny that Woods needs. Quite obviously, it is more.

HSBC Really Wishes Tiger Was Playing This Week

Generally I find the stories of late where sponsors complain about the lack of star presence to be a bit silly since golf is now a 52-week-a-year global sport and most of them signed on knowing this. However, after reading the grumbling of HSBC's Giles Morgan about Tiger's non-appearance in this week's WGC-HSBC despite being in China, I can kind of see the point.

Reported by Doug Ferguson from Shanghai:

Morgan said he was told a few months ago by Woods' agent that this was not going to work with his schedule. After a week of corporate work, Woods is playing (for another big appearance fee) in the Turkish Open, a European Tour event.

Like other overseas events, HSBC once paid to get the best players. But now that it's a full-fledged WGC, big appearance fees have been replaced by an $8.5 million purse.

"What I can't do is pay him," Morgan said. "And I feel enormously strong about that. This is a World Golf Championship. This is the flagship event of Asia. This is going to be the beacon to carry the game into this continent for many years to come. We could do the wrong thing by golf and drop the prize money right down and just pay one or two players huge fees. From a publicity standpoint, that would give us a certain amount of kudos because we'd get the top player in the world. And I'm absolutely not going down that route.

"We have an opportunity to be a genuine top 10 event in the world," he said. "That requires a massive investment, which we're pleased to do. And that means we want to be an authentic sponsor in the world of golf."

Of course HSBC also might think it's owed a favor as a founding partner of the Tiger Woods Learning Center, but as opening day headliner Bill Clinton can tell you, that doesn't mean a whole lot to Woods. And that may be why he's down to two blue chip sponsors.

golf.com's Story On Brandel's Writing "Resignation"

It's a great read. It looks something like this:

Whew! Take that, Fergie!

Making matters worse is the headline reel story on Tiger putting the ball in Brandel's court from a few days ago.

Since then, Chamblee (sort of) took that ball, did his thing and said sayonara to his role at Golf/golf.com.

How do you ignore a national news story made so by your own website? Especially since Chamblee exonerated you from any kind of criticism for bad editing by saying he overruled his editor? I know the lawyers are running the show, but this is a bit much.

Here's the news reel the day after the on-air resignation, sort-of apology. ESPN hosts dressing as Lindsey and Tiger, but now Brandel having been dressed down by Tiger?

R&A Holds Firm On Ticket Prices...

...even though the weekdays at Muirfield in 2013 were easily the worst attended of any major and the weather was absolutely perfect.

Well, perfect to some, because as Martin Dempster notes, the "heat wave" (high of 75 degrees) remains the reason retirees on fixed incomes stayed away.

Raising ticket prices by £5 from Lytham the previous year £15 more than Sandwich in 2011 – for this year’s event coincided with almost 18,000 fewer people watching Phil Mickelson win at Muirfield than saw Ernie Els 
triumph in East Lothian in 2002.

Attendance figures were down for all four championship days as a total of 142,036 entered the gates compared to 160,595 11 years ago. The R&A countered claims ticket pricing was behind the drop, saying a heatwave had been the reason for the event failing to hit its projected target of 170,000.

“More than 142,000 people attended the Open,” said a spokesman at the time. “That is almost 90 per cent of the figure in 2002 and we are pleased with this attendance. Advance ticket sales were very strong and we believe the warm weather put off some of our pay-at-the-gate customers."