"Phil [Mickelson] isn't going to come up (onstage) and try to do karaoke while I'm doing my show."

JT managed to lure both John Hawkins and Alan Shipnuck to Vegas for game stories in their respective publications, and in the same press center! A Nobel peace prize may be next.

Hawkins notes this about the Las Vegas event:

Still, this was a marked improvement over recent gatherings in Vegas. Timberlake wisely ditched the three-course rotation that made this tournament so needlessly complicated -- it wasn't like the venues were within a 7-iron of each other -- and centralized everything at TPC Summerlin. Formerly a 72-hole pro-am, J.T. removed the chopper factor from the competitive arena, saying, "Phil [Mickelson] isn't going to come up (onstage) and try to do karaoke while I'm doing my show."

Shipnuck focuses on the overall economic state of the tour after praising Timberlake's turnaround of the moribund event. He offers this about the tax implications of an Obama presidency:

Paul Azinger estimated last week that his colleagues are 99% Republican (and that may be a conservative number) primarily because the players vote their pocketbooks. An analysis by the Tax Policy Center, recently cited in Rolling Stone, estimated that for those who make more than $1 million a year — which, including endorsements, is pretty much the entire Tour — the out-of-pocket difference between the tax plans of Barack Obama and John McCain is nearly $270,000. If Obama rides his lead in the polls to victory next month, Tour players will be feeling pain that is more than ideological.