6:16 a.m.
It's our version of the water cooler.
Although, in this instance, the body of water the weekend's golf topics are being discussed over is a little bigger than a five-gallon jug of bottled agua stationed in the corner of the office.
As the Gulf swing ends and the game's famous golf swings head for other parts of the world, European Tour correspondent John Huggan and CBSSports.com senior writer Steve Elling compare notes and opinions from opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean in this week's Pond Scrum.
Just a hunch, but after this exchange is posted, neither one of these guys will be getting a Valentine's Day card from Tiger Woods.
Now that Huggan and Elling have both seen Tiger Woods up close and in person in his first two starts of 2011, is there any light at the end of the tunnel for this guy?
Elling: From Woods, not their kids. Maybe he can get an endorsement deal out of it. For breath mints, dental floss. Or for a squeegee company. I see some marketing possibilities here.
Huggan: Sorry, I don't think it is funny. Not even a little bit. Fining him isn't nearly enough. A ban through the end of April might get his attention, though.
Elling: I make light of it just because so few will take it seriously. No doubt, his image just gets worse and worse. During a week when everybody was flabbergasted at what he was paid a few years back for designing that Dubai course -- emphasis on a few years back -- what company would use this guy as a marketing vehicle right now? Speaking of vehicle, that loogie he hawked up was the size of a Buick.
Huggan: Exactly. I think he needs to take another voluntary break from the game. The arrogance of it all is simply breathtaking.
Elling: His swing is coughing along, too. Frank Nobilo, one of the best analysts in the sport, broke down Tiger's swing on the Golf Channel pregame show on Saturday and lauded the recent improvements. But he failed to note that Woods' head dropped 10 inches during a three-quarter-speed 3-wood swing. He's got miles to go before consistency settles in. And evidently, he's frustrated by it. The wedge game seems MIA as well.
Huggan: I don't see any improvement -- quite the contrary. But, to be fair, it is early days for the Foley changes. It would be unrealistic to assume they have bedded in after such a short time. After what I saw and heard yesterday though ... I hope they never do. Golf can do without this spoiled brat, arrogant manager and despicable caddie.
Elling: Bedded? Good one, Dr. Freud. You'd be arrogant too if the tour fined you chump change for violations. I mean, the PGA Tour had a foot-thick file on John Daly and when those documents were made public last March, it turned out that for all the crap Daly pulled over the years, the tour had fined him around $100K. Or about what he would lose in an hour on a Vegas gaming table. You want to modify the behavior of a millionaire? Hit him in the wallet. Hard. Preferably in public.
Huggan: The contrast between Tiger's behavior and that of Rory McIlroy and Alvaro Quiros is more than marked. Those two have great personalities and are more than happy to engage with the galleries when they get a chance. Quiros is especially good fun. He may have the best smile in golf. And he hits a long way, too, in case you hadn't noticed.
Elling: Speaking of Spaniards, Woods achieved the unthinkable. He played alongside Sergio Garcia and made the guy look like a model of decorum, class and sportsmanship. They shot the same score and Sergio is going through a crisis of confidence, too. Yet if he was whining, I missed it.
Huggan: Sergio's body language veered between slumped and very slumped. He still hasn't got rid of the persecution complex. He and Tiger may be better off appearing in Shakespearean tragedies than golf tournaments right now. Woe is me, woe is me!
Is Dubai winner Alvaro Quiros another one-trick pony, an inveterate ball-basher with too many holes in his game to contend at a major, or does he still have more upside?
Elling: Yeah, once or twice. Frankly, I don't care if Quiros ever "figures it out" or contends at a major. He has charisma. He has charm. If he wins once a year, that's good enough for me. I wish U.S. fans got to see him more often.
After some hedging, Phil Mickelson committed to play in the Accenture Match Play event, which means he will have teed it up six weeks in a row. TV analyst Nick Faldo has stated several times over the past two weeks on the air that he believes Mickelson looks like he lacks energy, perhaps as a result of Lefty's arthritic condition. Do you buy it?
Elling: Circling back, in your decades in the game, have you ever seen Phil throw a club, drop an F-bomb or hawk up a loogie big enough to end a California drought? I have not.
Huggan: By the way, Tiger was noticeably limping last week.
Elling: His platelets might need spinning.
Huggan: True regarding Phil. And I can only imagine how legends like Palmer and Nicklaus view Tiger's antics. If I were either of them I'd be on the phone to the not-so great man to tell him this is the last time they'll be calling. Tiger needs to be ostracized by everyone in the game. That's the only way to get through to him, I think.
Elling: Maybe during the same call, they could thank him for getting a reported $50 million to "design" that course in Dubai. They have to be loving that. They get about $2 million.
Huggan: How much is that per actual visit?
Elling: Not sure, but Tiger got about $1 per grain of Persian sand.
Fixed pairings look like they'll be a fixture, pardon the redundancy, on both tours going forward. Is there a downside to putting the top draws, or guys with obvious connections, together to boost interest?
Elling: Back to the original query, I love the idea of fudging the tee sheet as long as it's done in moderation. Obviously, contrived pairings are only going to work in prescribed instances. Or the bloom is fast off that rose.
Huggan: I used to enjoy what USGA official Frank Hannigan did at the U.S. Open when he put each group together for a reason we had to guess. It was always fun finding the so-called ass---e threesome.
Elling: If the media had some semblance of a Hannigan trio, the way we are making friends here, it would be you, me and a third guy who would probably wish he were dead. A couple of weeks ago, I asked Paul Goydos about the contrived pairings (he is on the PGA Tour's Policy Board). He said he doesn't care about pairings and that his peers mostly feel similarly. The only time he looks at tee sheet is to note what half of the draw Tiger's in. If Goydos and T.W. are on same side of sheet, Goydos said he leaves his hotel 20 minutes early. Because of the extra fan traffic. Funny man. Is there any downside to the contrived pairings? Here in the States, TV contracts are up for renewal. When ESPN dropped out a few years back, it's been reported that the Worldwide Leader wanted Tiger and Phil in every afternoon window. At least this is an easy concession of some sort to broadcasters that should keep the dollars coming and the fans watching.
Huggan: I don't have a problem with the broadcasters having some say in the pairings. They pay a lot of money to shoot the show. I think we should have some input too. I'd find the guys who really hate each other and put them together every week. It was funny watching Tiger and Sergio trying hard to ignore each other yesterday. If I had my way, Ben Crane would be last off every week ... playing alone.
Elling: Personally, I am waiting for the Steve Ames, Tiger Woods and Rory Sabbatini trio, coming soon to a tournament near you. Last year in Boston, Ames and Tiger parked side by side in the parking lot. At one point, Tiger walked within five feet of Ames. They never even looked at each other. I was maybe 40 feet away, soaking in the animosity. Dream pairing or scream pairing, it works for me as a fan.
In an interesting development that was somewhat lost on the Dubai shuffle, the European Ryder Cup team tweaked its selection process, cutting the number of captain's picks from three to two and putting a greater emphasis on the world points list.
Elling: Did Ollie want the change because he didn't want the pressure of picking three?
Huggan: He thinks -- and I agree -- that in a professional sport, guys should actually qualify and not be left to the whim of the captain. Plus, he clearly wants to give an edge to the bigger names who play most of their golf in the States. I bet there is a lot of duplication of names at the top of the two qualifying tables.
Elling: I knew Ollie was a bright guy. He just reaffirmed it. One last change they should make -- don't announce the picks during the middle of the final round of a PGA Tour event in which half the Euro roster is playing.
Huggan: Why should the European Tour care what is happening on another tour? Would the PGA Tour pay any attention to Europe if situation were reversed? I think not.
Elling: That's different. No Yanks play on the Euro Tour. As we have detailed. Painfully. Over the past few weeks. But last time around, it did leave Donald, Harrington and Casey dangling in the breeze. They got word while they were on the course. Waiting until Monday to announce the at-large picks would be wise, which is why I expect Ollie, a former PGA Tour member, to strongly consider it.
Huggan: If those guys really cared, they would have been at Gleneagles, not somewhere in the U.S.
Elling: By the way, in response to your earlier aside, Bill Murray won at Pebble Beach, too. Surely you have heard of him. Irish guy from Chicago. Made a few movies. Gunga galunga.
Huggan: Appropriate that the star of Groundhog Day should win on the same day that Tiger behaved like a hog.
extracted from cbssports.com
Huggan: I watched him play nine holes live just yesterday in Dubai and can't say I see much hope for him, at least in the short term. Nothing he did was good. He hit it all over the course. Perhaps the only positive is that his play -- bad as it was -- was a mile better than his behavior.
Elling: Yep, once again, Tiger was news last week seemingly for all the wrong reasons. He blew up on the weekend, was carved up for getting paid a reported $50-plus million for a Dubai course that has been mothballed, and then he tossed up a loogie so big on the 12th green Sunday, the local camels were envious. Kudos to the European Tour for having the spine to confirm he was levied a fine, unlike their gutless PGA Tour counterparts.
Huggan: Indeed, although I'm sure the fine won't bother him one bit. I was standing by the green when he performed his disgusting act. It was so disappointing to see one of the game's best-ever players behaving like some kind of street punk. His language -- loud and profane -- was no better. I can only imagine what the parents in the gallery were thinking as they walked with their kids and had to listen to such immaturity. Elling: From Woods, not their kids. Maybe he can get an endorsement deal out of it. For breath mints, dental floss. Or for a squeegee company. I see some marketing possibilities here.
Huggan: Sorry, I don't think it is funny. Not even a little bit. Fining him isn't nearly enough. A ban through the end of April might get his attention, though.
Elling: I make light of it just because so few will take it seriously. No doubt, his image just gets worse and worse. During a week when everybody was flabbergasted at what he was paid a few years back for designing that Dubai course -- emphasis on a few years back -- what company would use this guy as a marketing vehicle right now? Speaking of vehicle, that loogie he hawked up was the size of a Buick.
Huggan: Exactly. I think he needs to take another voluntary break from the game. The arrogance of it all is simply breathtaking.
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Tiger Woods (Getty Images) |
Huggan: I don't see any improvement -- quite the contrary. But, to be fair, it is early days for the Foley changes. It would be unrealistic to assume they have bedded in after such a short time. After what I saw and heard yesterday though ... I hope they never do. Golf can do without this spoiled brat, arrogant manager and despicable caddie.
Elling: Bedded? Good one, Dr. Freud. You'd be arrogant too if the tour fined you chump change for violations. I mean, the PGA Tour had a foot-thick file on John Daly and when those documents were made public last March, it turned out that for all the crap Daly pulled over the years, the tour had fined him around $100K. Or about what he would lose in an hour on a Vegas gaming table. You want to modify the behavior of a millionaire? Hit him in the wallet. Hard. Preferably in public.
Huggan: The contrast between Tiger's behavior and that of Rory McIlroy and Alvaro Quiros is more than marked. Those two have great personalities and are more than happy to engage with the galleries when they get a chance. Quiros is especially good fun. He may have the best smile in golf. And he hits a long way, too, in case you hadn't noticed.
Elling: Speaking of Spaniards, Woods achieved the unthinkable. He played alongside Sergio Garcia and made the guy look like a model of decorum, class and sportsmanship. They shot the same score and Sergio is going through a crisis of confidence, too. Yet if he was whining, I missed it.
Huggan: Sergio's body language veered between slumped and very slumped. He still hasn't got rid of the persecution complex. He and Tiger may be better off appearing in Shakespearean tragedies than golf tournaments right now. Woe is me, woe is me!
Is Dubai winner Alvaro Quiros another one-trick pony, an inveterate ball-basher with too many holes in his game to contend at a major, or does he still have more upside?
Huggan: Quiros has a ways to go as a golfer, a fact he went out of his way to acknowledge in his post-match press conference. He knows he is erratic - his card yesterday had pretty much everything from 1-7 on it. But he is getting better every year. And he wins every year too. Five years on tour -- five wins. He brings a huge fun factor to every event he plays in.
Elling: Quiros makes Bubba Watson look like a plinker. And you're right, he has a telegenic smile that absolutely radiates. But he's the antithesis of the traditional Spanish mode -- no short game, great long game. Ballesteros and Olazabal could get up and down from inside the pyramids.
Huggan: That is true. Meld Quiros with either one of those two and Tiger needn't bother trying to get better. Did I mention how disgusting Tiger was yesterday? Elling: Yeah, once or twice. Frankly, I don't care if Quiros ever "figures it out" or contends at a major. He has charisma. He has charm. If he wins once a year, that's good enough for me. I wish U.S. fans got to see him more often.
After some hedging, Phil Mickelson committed to play in the Accenture Match Play event, which means he will have teed it up six weeks in a row. TV analyst Nick Faldo has stated several times over the past two weeks on the air that he believes Mickelson looks like he lacks energy, perhaps as a result of Lefty's arthritic condition. Do you buy it?
Huggan: I buy that Lefty is too heavy. Was he wearing that sleeveless top thing again last week? I have to admit I paid less than no attention to the Pebble Beach thing. Like our Dunhill Links Championship, another pro-am, it's unwatchable celebrities playing golf.
Elling: I will fill you in. Faldo, during both the CBS and Golf Channel telecasts in the States, said he believes Mickelson's biggest hurdle this year will be in pacing himself. Yet Phil said he hasn't been this excited to play for years, because his medical condition (and that of his wife and mom) have stabilized. Hey, what the heck, now we are criticizing Lefty for playing too much? Not me. I wish he played every week.
Huggan: It's hard not to root for Phil. Like Arnie, his proudest boast is that his autograph is worth nothing because he signs so many of them. Watching Phil is always fun. I must say I hadn't noticed he was playing this much. Maybe he is banking on an early exit from the match play. Elling: Circling back, in your decades in the game, have you ever seen Phil throw a club, drop an F-bomb or hawk up a loogie big enough to end a California drought? I have not.
Huggan: By the way, Tiger was noticeably limping last week.
Elling: His platelets might need spinning.
Huggan: True regarding Phil. And I can only imagine how legends like Palmer and Nicklaus view Tiger's antics. If I were either of them I'd be on the phone to the not-so great man to tell him this is the last time they'll be calling. Tiger needs to be ostracized by everyone in the game. That's the only way to get through to him, I think.
Elling: Maybe during the same call, they could thank him for getting a reported $50 million to "design" that course in Dubai. They have to be loving that. They get about $2 million.
Huggan: How much is that per actual visit?
Elling: Not sure, but Tiger got about $1 per grain of Persian sand.
Fixed pairings look like they'll be a fixture, pardon the redundancy, on both tours going forward. Is there a downside to putting the top draws, or guys with obvious connections, together to boost interest?
Huggan: I don't see one. Whatever it takes to get golf into the headlines is fine with me. Apart from spitting on the greens of course. Or cheating.
Elling: On that front, you were right when you predicted that Elliot Saltman would not appeal his 3-month suspension for cheating. I still think he has a nice civil case if he wants. Are polygraphs allowed as admissible in court in the UK?
Huggan: Polygraphs are no good in court. But, as I said, I think he knows he would win the legal battle. But he has lost forever the hearts and minds of his peers on tour. That must hurt. Elling: Back to the original query, I love the idea of fudging the tee sheet as long as it's done in moderation. Obviously, contrived pairings are only going to work in prescribed instances. Or the bloom is fast off that rose.
Huggan: I used to enjoy what USGA official Frank Hannigan did at the U.S. Open when he put each group together for a reason we had to guess. It was always fun finding the so-called ass---e threesome.
Elling: If the media had some semblance of a Hannigan trio, the way we are making friends here, it would be you, me and a third guy who would probably wish he were dead. A couple of weeks ago, I asked Paul Goydos about the contrived pairings (he is on the PGA Tour's Policy Board). He said he doesn't care about pairings and that his peers mostly feel similarly. The only time he looks at tee sheet is to note what half of the draw Tiger's in. If Goydos and T.W. are on same side of sheet, Goydos said he leaves his hotel 20 minutes early. Because of the extra fan traffic. Funny man. Is there any downside to the contrived pairings? Here in the States, TV contracts are up for renewal. When ESPN dropped out a few years back, it's been reported that the Worldwide Leader wanted Tiger and Phil in every afternoon window. At least this is an easy concession of some sort to broadcasters that should keep the dollars coming and the fans watching.
Huggan: I don't have a problem with the broadcasters having some say in the pairings. They pay a lot of money to shoot the show. I think we should have some input too. I'd find the guys who really hate each other and put them together every week. It was funny watching Tiger and Sergio trying hard to ignore each other yesterday. If I had my way, Ben Crane would be last off every week ... playing alone.
Elling: Personally, I am waiting for the Steve Ames, Tiger Woods and Rory Sabbatini trio, coming soon to a tournament near you. Last year in Boston, Ames and Tiger parked side by side in the parking lot. At one point, Tiger walked within five feet of Ames. They never even looked at each other. I was maybe 40 feet away, soaking in the animosity. Dream pairing or scream pairing, it works for me as a fan.
In an interesting development that was somewhat lost on the Dubai shuffle, the European Ryder Cup team tweaked its selection process, cutting the number of captain's picks from three to two and putting a greater emphasis on the world points list.
Huggan: Captain Jose Maria Olazabal got what he wanted.
Elling: Under the new scheme, Justin Rose would have made the team. So that's an improvement, right?
Huggan: If you want guys who barely try to make the team, yes. Give me an Edoardo Molinari over a Justin Rose any time.  | |
Jose Maria Olazabal (Getty Images) |
Huggan: He thinks -- and I agree -- that in a professional sport, guys should actually qualify and not be left to the whim of the captain. Plus, he clearly wants to give an edge to the bigger names who play most of their golf in the States. I bet there is a lot of duplication of names at the top of the two qualifying tables.
Elling: I knew Ollie was a bright guy. He just reaffirmed it. One last change they should make -- don't announce the picks during the middle of the final round of a PGA Tour event in which half the Euro roster is playing.
Huggan: Why should the European Tour care what is happening on another tour? Would the PGA Tour pay any attention to Europe if situation were reversed? I think not.
Elling: That's different. No Yanks play on the Euro Tour. As we have detailed. Painfully. Over the past few weeks. But last time around, it did leave Donald, Harrington and Casey dangling in the breeze. They got word while they were on the course. Waiting until Monday to announce the at-large picks would be wise, which is why I expect Ollie, a former PGA Tour member, to strongly consider it.
Huggan: If those guys really cared, they would have been at Gleneagles, not somewhere in the U.S.
Elling: By the way, in response to your earlier aside, Bill Murray won at Pebble Beach, too. Surely you have heard of him. Irish guy from Chicago. Made a few movies. Gunga galunga.
Huggan: Appropriate that the star of Groundhog Day should win on the same day that Tiger behaved like a hog.
extracted from cbssports.com
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