Golf Boring Without Woods?

Well, Mark Figueroa thinks so and since he didn't have anything better to write about for his column, that's the topic. It is a subject that has been beaten to death, but here are the highlights.

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem has got a serious problem on his hands. With his best player rehabbing a bum knee, Finchem's product really isn't a product anymore, not a sellable one anyway. Sure, the money's still there (for now that is) and so are the rest of the players. And the core fan base isn't going anywhere. But lagging TV ratings are sure-fire indicators that sans Tiger, nobody much cares about the little white ball or, more importantly, who's hitting it.

Golf without Tiger is like the Los Angeles Lakers shooting without Kobe Bryant, the Indianapolis Colts throwing without Peyton Manning or "American Idol" judging without Simon Cowell. It just doesn't work.

For the record, even with Simon Cowell, ratings are down this season for American Idol by double digit percentages.

Everything else just seems to pale in comparison.

It's not for lack of trying by the other guys. While Tiger has been away, there have been some intriguing storylines: down-home country boy Boo Weekley won the Verizon Heritage (again), Adam Scott won a rousing playoff in the Byron Nelson Championship, young gun Anthony Kim ran away from the field in the Wachovia Championship, Sergio Garcia redeemed his British Open meltdown with a playoff victory at The Players Championship, and Ryuji Imada outlasted Kenny Perry in a playoff at the AT&T Classic to earn his first career victory.

All good stories, yes. But did any one keep me glued to the television set ---- or awake? No.

Of course, this is just Figueroa's opinion. Some people have really enjoyed watching new guys win, including Jason Sobel over at ESPN.com.

The PGA Tour is deeper than the LPGA. This isn't exactly stop-the-presses news, but there is proof of a palpable difference in the amount of players who can win an event on any given week. Whereas Ryuji Imada became the sixth first-timer to find the winner's circle at the AT&T, the LPGA's Sybase title went to -- yawn -- Lorena Ochoa once again. Nothing against the awesome LoCho, but with wins in six of the 12 events this season, she's as predictable as flipping a coin.

As they say, different strokes for different folks.

PGA Tour Millionaire Watch

Last year, there were 99 millionaires on the PGA Tour - a record, of course. Could we break 100 this year? Well, so far there are 39. 61 to go!

Rank This Week	Rank Last Week	Player	Events	Money
1	1	Tiger Woods	5	$4,425,000
2	2	Phil Mickelson	11	$2,709,270
3	3	Stewart Cink	12	$2,482,378
4	22	Ryuji Imada	13	$2,312,647
5	4	Geoff Ogilvy	11	$2,213,960
6	5	Vijay Singh	12	$2,182,017
7	6	Anthony Kim	11	$2,092,190
8	7	Sergio Garcia	9	$2,053,890
9	8	Boo Weekley	14	$1,879,780
10	9	J.B. Holmes	13	$1,844,295
11	10	K.J. Choi	10	$1,801,432
12	11	Justin Leonard	13	$1,786,402
13	12	Adam Scott	8	$1,740,924
14	13	Jeff Quinney	14	$1,685,764
15	14	Jim Furyk	13	$1,577,030
16	15	Andres Romero	11	$1,523,528
17	16	Trevor Immelman	11	$1,518,676
18	17	Steve Stricker	12	$1,518,039
19	18	Bart Bryant	11	$1,455,472
20	19	Sean O'Hair	12	$1,430,500
21	20	Ernie Els	7	$1,373,563
22	21	Daniel Chopra	15	$1,341,554
23	58	Kenny Perry	13	$1,341,063
24	23	Robert Allenby	14	$1,281,001
25	33	Briny Baird	15	$1,255,664
26	24	Luke Donald	9	$1,255,650
27	25	Chad Campbell	13	$1,239,386
28	28	D.J. Trahan	14	$1,235,380
29	26	Paul Goydos	14	$1,215,167
30	27	Stuart Appleby	11	$1,214,485
31	29	Stephen Ames	11	$1,176,765
32	30	Rory Sabbatini	11	$1,171,050
33	31	Steve Lowery	9	$1,164,856
34	32	Johnson Wagner	14	$1,153,249
35	34	Brandt Snedeker	14	$1,146,594
36	35	Padraig Harrington	7	$1,105,897
37	36	Aaron Baddeley	12	$1,101,775
38	37	Brian Gay	13	$1,092,513
39	38	Nicholas Thompson	17	$1,020,080

Lorena Lost Some Bucks

As you probably know, Lorena Ochoa is not in the field this week at the LPGA Corning Classic in New York. For those of you even more astute, you would know that this violates the LPGA's once every four rule which states that every player must participate in each event once every four years - though they get one CAREER exemption from the rule.

Well, Lorena paid the price for not participating this week.

Lorena Ochoa earned $300,000 for her sixth victory of the year at the Sybase Classic, which should help her pay a $25,000 fine for skipping the Corning Classic this week.

The LPGA Tour has a “1-in-4” rule, meaning players must compete in every full-field event on the schedule at least once every four years. Ochoa has not played Corning since 2004, when she tied for 19th.

The Mexican star felt she had no choice. She is defending champion at eight tournaments this year, the LPGA Tour added another tournament in Mexico and Corning is right before a buildup into the majors.

I cannot exactly blame her for having to defend so many titles and participate in the new event in Mexico with her name on it, as well as the HSBC Women's Champions event earlier this season. Still, a huge disappointment for the fans in Corning - especially with such a paltry fine in relationship to Lorena's back account.

Lefty Really Does Think He Grew Taller

Jimmy Burch has an interview with Phil Mickelson in the Star-Telegram ahead of the Crowne Plaza Invitational. Mickelson is generally pretty accessible, but this exclusive may have been helped along by Mickelson's endorsement deal with the hotel chain.

Why the move to a longer-shafted putter? I've known that I've become a half-inch, inch taller for a few years... through some of the stretching and stuff [but] I hadn't really made an adjustment to that. I just thought [after the Masters], 'Gosh, I'm not putting well and now is the time to make an adjustment if I'm going to go to a longer putter.' So when I came back and started working on it, I just started with a 35-inch putter rather than a 33 1/2 .

What kind of stretching do you do to increase your height? Just legs, low back, stuff like that. It has helped the elongation through motion. It's like a pitcher when he throws. He can't get his arm into certain positions statically when he throws a baseball. It's the same thing as using motion to stretch his length. It helped.

Have the stretching exercises led to shaft changes with any clubs other than your putter? Not really. But my posture has been more consistent and easier to hold throughout the swing, so that's led to a little bit more consistent ball-striking.

I am still of the mind that Mickelson just has better posture because he no longer has to slouch much due to a gut. That will make anyone stand taller. A whole inch, maybe not. Even still, why bump up the putter length 1.5 inches when he is convinced he grew no more than 1 inch? Test this guy for HGH. Just kidding, because there is no viable test for the substance.

It should be mentioned that Mickelson changed his height to 6'3" from 6'2" in the Tour media guide. That means that he has thought this all season and is just getting the word out now to everyone.

Richard Finch Video

I'm going to start posting more videos - those that I produce and those that I find.

Here's the Richard Finch dip into the river at Adare Manor. Nevermind the sound dubbed over it.

The 19th Hole: The LPGA Triumverate

Lorena Ochoa won the Sybase Classic in New Jersey for the third consecutive year on Sunday. It is her sixth win of the season. Before that, Annika Sorenstam had won two of her last three starts including a seven shot thrashing at the Michelob Ultra Open at Kingsmill. In between the Sorenstam victories, Paula Creamer won her second event of the season – with Lorena Ochoa in the field – at the SemGroup Championship in Oklahoma. Before all of that, Ochoa reeled off four consecutive victories.

On the season, only one person other than these three players has won an event on the LPGA Tour. That person is Louise Friberg and she won in Mexico at the Mastercard Classic. Other than that, no LPGA player has won. A limited few have sniffed victory. Juli Inkster lost in a playoff in Oklahoma for the second consecutive year, but this time went down to Creamer instead of Mi Hyun Kim.

The domination of three players over this tour is staggering. It is something that is reminiscent of the Big Three of Nicklaus, Palmer, and Player in their run of trading major championships – particularly the Masters – over a nine year period. The fact that it is happening in a single season is equally as impressive as that feat. Venues change from week to week, so do the players, as do the playing conditions. Despite all of that, Ochoa, Sorenstam, and Creamer still seem to find a way to win between the three of them.

Even when the three of them are not winning, they are still playing excellent golf. Creamer is the lagger of the three. In her nine starts this season, she has two wins and two other top 3s. The rest of the finishes are outside of the top 10. Again, that makes her the worst performing player of the three. That would be a career season for 90% of golfers on any professional tour.

Sorenstam has just two finishes out of the top 10 and three out of the top five, including a T11 this weekend in New Jersey. Ochoa has finished outside of the top 10 only once this season - at Kingsmill. She is winning at a 67% rate, a stunning and unheard of rate, even if down from the 80% winning percentage she had earlier in the season.

The interesting part about the dominance of these three players is that it can be spun into a negative thing.

Barker Davis of the Washington Times wrote a piece on April 25 in which he claimed, “[T]he fact that two players have dominated the LPGA to such a degree almost concurrently says nearly as much about the lack of depth in the women's game as it does about their individual greatness.”

On the Golf Channel’s Golf Central program last night, the topic of conversation switched to the same subject matter. Brandel Chamblee disagreed with Davis’ premise that this is a potentially bad thing. He claimed that sponsors love superstars, not parity. (That is not universally true. See the NFL for details.) In golf, that is true. The PGA Tour really only has two or three superstars and sponsors fawn over them.

The LPGA Tour may be able to experience the same kind of rub from the Big Three. That makes this year particularly critical for Commissioner Carolyn Bivens on multiple fronts. The Tour needs to close the deal on a television contract that is as beneficial as possible in 2008. Also, the Tour needs to sure up events that may be losing sponsorship or ending altogether – particularly the Ginn events and the event at Superstition Mountain.

With Annika’s announcement of stepping away from the game at the end of the season, the LPGA Tour will be hard pressed to be in a better position to negotiate with all parties come 2009. Yes, Ochoa leads a pack of next generation players and she seems poised to become one of the all-time greats. But, the position of strength for the Tour today is that there are two all-timers in the midst of an amazing season with another potential great joining in on the fun.

The fact that more writers appear to be covering the LPGA Tour in Tiger’s absence is telling. Quite possibly, the LPGA Tour has never enjoyed a window this large through which the game can grow. It must take advantage of this situation.

One Guy Doesn't Get it About Slow Play

Michael Collins writes for the Golf Channel and covers golf on PGA Tour Radio on XM. He wrote his weekly column for TGC.com and it is about slow play.

Yes, we’re slow; do you work for a chance at 9 million bucks a week? No? Then shut up.

If I hear one more person complain about slow play I’m going to punch ‘em in the nose and look at their face as they try to figure out how, and what just happened.

Last week at THE PLAYERS I’m on the fifth hole waiting by the green for Tom Lehman and Greg Kraft to putt out so I can call the shots of Phil Mickelson and Bernhard Langer when this “Goober” in a NASCAR hat, dirty t-shirt, and 13 teeth says to me, “These guys are too damned slow. Look at this Bill Shaft guy (he meant Greg Kraft), he’s backed off this putt twice already and it’s only 4 feet.”

I patiently waited for Greg to drain his putt (nice par save); he did back off four times, before I turned back to “Goober” and said, “Yeah, I bet you’d be much faster than these guys out there if you were playing.”

Collins, I hate to tell you, but you looked bad in this situation for two reasons: (1) you just publicly stereotyped a golf fan so you could feel superior to him in your opinion and (2) you actually talked back to the fan in the first place.

The exchange continued, though.

“So if it takes the best players in the world five-and-a-half hours to play a course with 35 mph winds and greens you couldn’t hit, more or less putt, maybe you should respect the fact that for 9.5 million they’re here giving it their all while you’re in THAT hat and t-shirt drinking a beer complaining. What do you do for a living?”

I believe the Internet expression is lollerskates. Seriously, that is terrible as a response and a rationale.

Guys in the NBA play for entire seasons for double or even triple that amount of money. They get five seconds to do something with the ball and 24 to get a shot off as a team. Baseball games are getting faster on the average. The NFL looks to speed up play. College football - notoriously slow - is enacting rules to increase the pace.

Basically, golf is the only major sport on the map that is getting slower. And, actually, only the PGA Tour is getting slower. American players have commented that the pace is much better in Europe. The LPGA Tour has enacted a serious slow play policy that is universally loved. Why the excuses, then?

Interestingly enough, Collins does understand the reasons for slow play. He talks about them in his column. Some are players themselves, some are logistics of the Tour, some are set up based. Despite responding to the fan commentator, he does seem to understand the issue.

He does offer one ridiculous suggestion - snipers - but then calls for a shot clock of 45 seconds per shot. That is basically the LPGA Tour policy +15 seconds per shot. That's something that I could live with for sure.

Also, Mike, I'll have my guard up when I meet you some day because I will be expecting that punch in the face.

UPDATE 1:29pm Monday - That link on the front page came down awfully quickly!

Did Sergio Win the Players or Goydos Lose It?

I happen to be in the camp that Garcia won the thing. No, really, he did. He had an abnormally good week of putting, fairways, and GIRs. Still Furman Bisher disagrees:

I was out of town at another golf event, watching Paul Goydos almost win The Players Championship. He has a better handicap than Hiaasen, and he doesn’t go around writing books about it. I mention Goydos over Sergio Garcia because Sergio won about the way Ernie Els won a tournament awhile ago. Neither won it, somebody else lost it, in the case of the TPC, Goydos. Good-natured, humorous and just recovering his game, as is Hiaasen.

Did Goydos lose it because he is all of the qualities Furman described? Is he referring to Els' victory at PGA National in the Honda event? I just don't see it.

Do you think Paul Goydos lost the Players - basically choked?

Sad Story for a Trick Shot Artist

Dennis Walters is a paraplegic trick shot artist. He is about to win the 2008 Distinguished Service Award from the PGA of America. I've had him as a guest on The 19th Hole before and he is a fascinating, talented, and inspiring man. To see his show is a delight. It has always been highlighted with his mastery of many shots and the help of his pal and dog Benji Hogan. Unfortunately, though, Walters now has to continue his shows and career without his long time friend. Randall Mell reports.

Two weeks ago, Walters had to put Benji Hogan to sleep.

He cuddled the 13-year-old dog in his lap when a veterinarian in Atlanta administered the drug that would end the suffering that cancer was causing.

"That dog's favorite place in the world was sitting in Dennis' lap," said Barbara Herman, Walters' sister. "He was happiest there."

After his dog's last breath, Walters was reminded that the loneliest place in the world can be the space between the metal bars of a wheelchair.

Walters was reminded again a few days later when he sat at the Quad Cities airport in Iowa waiting to fly to Los Angeles to do a show. It was his first flight without his dog.

Over the years, Walters has noticed how people often avoid the handicapped, how they'll avoid the awkwardness of connecting to someone bound to a wheelchair.

"It was different with Benji Hogan in my lap," Walters said. "If 100 people walked by me in an airport, 99 would either stop and want to pet him, or stop and talk, or just smile."

Benji did some really cool stuff in the show, including:

Asked by Walters where errant tee shots were most likely to end up, he would bark "ruff." Asked how many green jackets Nicklaus won at The Masters, he would bark six times. Asked how many points the Dolphins got for a touchdown, he would bark six times. How many for an extra point? He'd bark once. He could answer math questions, too.

Benji Hogan once beat Tiger Woods in a footrace, barked the chorus of How Much is That Doggie in the Window while performing a duet with country singer Vince Gill, appeared in eight Kmart television commercials and starred in an episode of Animal Planet's Pet Star.

Obviously, though, Benji was more important because he was a companion and friend for Walters. While this is not Walters' first dog - he has two others - it never is painful to lose a pet like Benji.

If you do get a chance, I highly recommend seeing Walters' show. Here's his website.

Sergio Garcia is NOT a Great Ball Striker

We seriously have to put out a memo about this myth. Everyone in the media seems to be of the belief that Sergio Garcia has always been this amazing ball striker that just could not putt well enough in each of the last three seasons (until last weekend) to pick up a PGA Tour win. That myth was propagated again by Barker Davis in the Washington Times.

Because while Garcia always has struggled with his putter, he has also always been the finest player on the planet from tee to green.

"I don't want to be cocky or anything, but when I'm feeling good, I don't think anybody can hit the ball much better than me, not even Tiger Woods," Garcia said after leading the Players field in driving accuracy (76.8 percent) and greens in regulation (77.8 percent). "Unfortunately, his short game is still better than mine, and that's what I have to keep working on. If I keep doing that and believing in myself, I can at least make it difficult for him."

That is just plain false. Sergio is seeing things through his own lens. Eric Barzeski at the Sand Trap made the same claim about Garcia's ballstriking in his site's podcast post-Players. Then he corrected himself and the record for everyone else. Here's the truth, expressed as a comparison of Tiger Woods and Garcia in 3 important ball striking categories over the last three seasons.

2008 (Driving Accuracy, GIR, Proximity to the Hole):
Sergio: 113, 8, 74
Tiger: 137, 1, 16

2007 (Driving Accuracy, GIR, Proximity to the Hole):
Sergio: 148, 105, 74
Tiger: 152, 1, 3

2006 (Driving Accuracy, GIR, Proximity to the Hole):
Sergio: 129, 37, 93
Tiger: 139, 1, 1

Garcia is no where near Woods when it comes to pertinent ball striking categories. As Barzeski notes, Sergio does put together good weeks, but he is nowhere near consistent. Still, Davis continues.

Garcia is among an elite few who could challenge Woods in next month's U.S. Open at Torrey Pines. The longest layout in major history, the San Diego course will measure more than 7,600 yards for USGA's annual survival-fest. That will add length to the Open's customary emphasis on accuracy, and nobody boasts a better combination of length and accuracy off the tee than Garcia, who has seen his best major finishes at comparable monsters Medinah (runner-up, 1999 PGA), Bethpage Black (fourth, 2002 U.S. Open) and Carnoustie (runner-up, 2007 British Open).

Davis is off on multiple fronts here. First, Torrey Pines will never play to more than 7600 yards at the Open. Mike Davis of the USGA said so himself this week in an article to preview the Open. He's the guy that sets up the place.

Davis said the USGA will utilize the variety of tee boxes available to them, resulting in a course that will play "somewhere in the neighborhood of 74 [7,400 yards] and change up to 75 [7,500 yards] and change." That's a big neighborhood, notwithstanding the USGA's benevolence in backing it down somewhat.

It seems, though, that there is selective memory when it comes to discussing monster length major championship layouts. It all starts with the last two Masters, where he missed the cut. He also missed the cut at last two US Opens - monster courses. (He was DQed from Southern Hills in the PGA.) He was 46th at the Masters in 2006. He finished '06 with two nice finishes at the Open, by far his best major, and the PGA.

With a more complete picture, it becomes obvious that Garcia certainly does possess the talent to be a major champion. But, he is so inconsistent - except in the Open Championship - that it would be difficult to bet on him or even call him the best player to have not won a major.