Elling and Huggan: Pond Scrum - Pond Scrum: Headed to Florida finish with Augusta dead ahead

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The final gate on the Florida Swing is swinging closed.
The Arnold Palmer Invitational is set for this week, the azaleas are already running riot in Florida, the temperatures are up and so are the expectations with the season's first major two weeks away at Augusta National.
The first day of spring was Sunday. Players are taking quick day trips for a gander at the Masters venue between tour stops, and like the astounding pollen count in Florida, anticipation is already high.
Unlike many casual followers of the game, European Tour correspondent John Huggan and CBSSports.com senior writer Steve Elling are hardly just emerging from a long winter's nap. They have been tweeting and bleating at each other for three months in their weekly, across-the-pond pounding, Pond Scrum.
This week, they discuss a newly discovered Woodland creature, a squirrel named Sergio and a squirming TV cat named Tiger, among other musing and meanderings.

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Absurdly long Gary Woodland, practically a PGA Tour rookie after an abbreviated freshman season in 2009 and eight starts last year, wins on a Tampa course supposedly suited for target-golf specialists. What can we make of this guy?

Elling: He missed much of his first and second seasons after having shoulder surgery. If this is how guys play after that procedure, sign me up for both shoulders and a brain transplant. Woodland certainly has potential that few others can claim at age 26 because he is so incredibly raw. Compared to kids who concentrated on golf for their teen years, he was a college basketball and baseball player who switched priorities far later. He's just now figuring out what finesse means. He quite reasonably could have two wins this year after losing in a playoff to Jhonny Vegas, who had the hotter putter, at the Bob Hope. Tee to green, Woodland outplayed him down the stretch.

Gary Woodland earned his first PGA Tour victory in Tampa on Sunday. (Getty Images)

 

Huggan: Finesse? He hits a 5-iron 220 yards! Of course, maybe he took something off it. Still, as we said last week, it is nice to see some emerging young Americans. Winning this sort of event -- which, let's be honest, no one will remember two weeks from now -- is a good steppingstone toward bigger things.

Elling: Down the stretch, he used a 2-iron off the tee and hit it (gulp) 284 yards. Sort of what I mean by raw. Unlike some mashers, he's starting to figure things out. He was only hitting driver four to five times each day. Impressive that he contended at Hope and Tampa, decidedly different tracks in terms of what is expected from contenders. He could be a popular player. Let's face it -- chicks dig the long ball.
Huggan: That sort of stuff is good to hear. I must say I was happy to see him beat that Webb Simpson fellow. He is so slow it must take him an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes. It's time something was done about the Simpsons of this world. They are killing the professional game as a spectator sport. I'd give them a time for 18 holes and when that is up they have to walk off -- no matter where they are on the course. Watch them get 'round, then. Let's say 3 hours, 36 minutes for a twosome - that's 12 minutes per hole. And 4:30 for a threesome, 18 minutes per hole. Ample in anyone's language.
Elling: Simpson is 25. It was his first crack at a title. I am not going to excessively bury the kid for being slow in his first rodeo. Although I will concede, Simpson went all J.B. Holmes on Sunday. Grinding over every shot, backing off, changing clubs. He had more pump fakes than the NCAA tournament games. As for Woodland, he lost the Bob Hope because he didn't putt well. Sunday in Tampa, he made 17 of 17 attempts from inside 20 feet, which is deal-with-the-devil stuff. Might have been the best putting round in several years given the margin of error he had. As in zero strokes.
Huggan: Please stop defending that pace-of-play stuff. It is inexcusable under any circumstances and incredibly bad manners apart from anything else. All I know is they'd be thrown off at St. Andrews.
Elling: You mean, St. Andrews, where the British Open had five-hour rounds last July?
Huggan: I'm talking when the St. Andrews isn't being run by the R&A! Of course, the tours don't seem willing or able to do anything about slow play. I'd also post the names of the slowest every week -- name and shame, baby.
Elling: I can absolutely agree on posting and roasting the offenders. Shame and ridicule: The ultimate motivators.
Now that both of you have seen Sergio Garcia play in person this year, what's the heartsick patient's prognosis, doctors?

Huggan: I see some hope for Serge. Most noticeable was a renewed level of enthusiasm. I even saw him get a little hacked off by a bad break or poor shot. That wasn't happening last year. What had not changed much, however, was his work on the greens. You can't win putting like that. So, if this continues, look for a host of T-15s like he had last week.

Elling: You mentioned that during the Desert Swing, Sergio still seemed to be moping, that his body language conveyed his true mood more than his words. Well, I was heartened to see that he was back to his squirrelly self in the first two rounds in Tampa. His 66 on Friday was his best score since the very first round, at the first tournament, of 2010. Long time coming.

Huggan: Amazing. Is Greg Norman's daughter that good looking?
Elling: Google Morgan Leigh Norman and you make the call. You're right on the putting component, too. His good weeks with the short stick will be when he'll truly contend. He missed four putts from inside five feet on Saturday and the world blew past him. It even made me flinch.
Huggan: I tell you one thing that might light a fire under Garcia. At the Ryder Cup last year he was an assistant captain. While commendable in some ways, that can't have been an easy thing for him to do. I say it will make him more determined than ever to get back into the top 10 at least by year end. That would give Ollie a good excuse to pick him for Medinah 2012 if need be.
Elling: I think the "fire" is at medium heat right now, but it's burning hotter than it was a month ago. The telling sign for me was when he got bitten by a bee on Friday, on his ring finger. When I asked him which finger had been stung, he grinned and playfully flipped me the bird. "This one," he said. Just like old times. I was never happier to get flipped off in my life. I loved it, and he knew it, and for a while, all was right with the world.
Huggan: Again, that's good to hear. I approve of anyone and everyone showing you the level of respect you deserve.
Elling: He was merely reinforcing the fact that I am numero uno -- with any digit.
Tiger Woods was making the rounds last week while pimping his latest video game. Did you form any new impressions?

Huggan: Nothing new. But I did laugh at the fixed grin on his face when he appeared on that late night talk show. The host roasted him pretty good and he had to sit there and take it. Not something Tiger is used to, I suspect. As for the interviews themselves, they, as per usual, revealed nothing of any substance. Come to think of it, does he have any substance?

Elling: You're talking about the Jimmy Fallon show on NBC, where Fallon made him squirm for several awkward minutes. It even made me squirm, it was so awful. I guess these are the levels to which Woods will sink to hawk his few remaining wares -- humiliated on TV and forced to sit there and take it. With a smile, no less. He was a good sport, to be sure. And a well-compensated one.

Huggan: More interesting is how the formerly great man will do at Bay Hill. As I recall, there is never a shortage of rough at Arnie's place, so Tiger better be hitting more good shots than we have seen so far this year.
Elling: When Woods' interview with the Golf Channel aired -- access again granted as a result of him hawking the video game -- it was aired in the Tampa press room and nobody asked for the volume to be turned on. Seriously, the only writer comments were about how his hairline is backing up like a balata ball.
Huggan: Let's also hope we've heard all we're going to hear -- at least in the short term -- from Sean Foley, golf's poisoned dwarf. And I never ever comment on hair. I think you know why.
Elling: I won't say he had nothing of interest to offer. His comments to ESPN (culled from another video-game interview) were illuminating when he said he wasn't playing more often now because of his kids, who are his priority. Of course, he said this before: "Family comes first." So, are we to believe him this time? ESPN, of course, didn't pursue that line of reasoning, or question the fact that he is using his children as an excuse not to play or alter his schedule. Hmmmm.
Huggan: You mean the kids whose christenings he missed? Or the ones whose birthdays he routinely skips? If Tiger's lips are moving, etc. The laughable thing is that he claims to be playing less because of his kids. Have you noticed any change in his schedule? I haven't.
Following up on John's comment a moment ago, is this week's Bay Hill event any bigger than usual for Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson?

Elling: It must be more important for Phil, or he wouldn't have added the stop to his schedule in order to get more rounds under his belt. Mickelson said he wanted to win on the West Coast to get his season rolling and he only contended once. He hasn't contended at Bay Hill since early last decade. Then again, he gets a different look in his eyes at the Masters, where his early results don't matter.

Huggan: Bay Hill is a big deal because a fair few Europeans are in the field -- an Orlando home game for most of them -- and so this is a better Masters guide than anything we've seen over the last couple of weeks. How T.W. and P.M. compare to G-Mac and the rest will be interesting. Is there too much rough for Phil at Bay Hill?

Elling: Your earlier reference to the Bay Hill setup is true -- Woods will be tested more this week than he was at Doral, where winners routinely find fewer than half the fairways and get away with it. Don't think that will happen at Arnie's Place. Plus, it's worth noting that while Tiger has six professional wins at Bay Hill, they blew up the greens since he last played in 2009. And as we all know, he "putts by memory."
Huggan: Just a thought, but this might be the last Masters where Tiger and Phil are even considered possible winners. Who would have thought that a year ago?
Elling: Wow, hadn't considered that. By the way, the updated Masters odds as of Monday are Tiger 7-1, Phil 8-1, followed by McIlroy and Westwood at joint 15-1. So Americans are still plunking down early money on Woody and Lefty.
Huggan: Here's a good Masters tip, especially each-way: Martin Laird at 150-1. I may just have a bit of that action.
You guys have both had plenty of fun chiding the LPGA for staging an event last week in Phoenix that had no payout for players and a virtual purse to be applied to the money list. Is it really a bad thing?

Huggan: It certainly isn't a good thing.

Elling: Well-intended or not, playing for nothing is anathema to the entire premise of being a professional, no?

Huggan: Exactly. I'd love to know what most of the ladies really thought. Still, I'm always happy when that awful Christina Kim doesn't win. Which she doesn't with some regularity.
Elling: I bet there were huge sighs of relief at LPGA headquarters when veteran Karrie Webb was the winner -- nice career turnaround for the Aussie with back-to-back wins by the way. She is one of the top players who can afford to win and not receive an actual dollar payout. She has made her fortune already, unlike the rank-and-file outside the top 50 in earnings, who sometimes struggle to make a living traveling on the increasingly global tour. Let's see the men play for nothing. I bet the field that week would be zero.
Huggan: Harsh words, Mr. Elling. I think you may be spending too much time hanging around me. But your point is well made. This sort of tournament will die a swift and painful death and never be heard of again. Good riddance, I say.
Speaking of harshness, you two are clearly on opposite sides of the fence on last week's Tavistock Cup merits. Huggan openly ridiculed it, while Elling has defended it. State your cases.

Elling: This is going to take some deft double-talk. I am going to applaud the Tavistock people for generating millions for charity while I am chiding the LPGA for essentially taking its entire tournament purse and doing likewise? Flip, meet flop.

Huggan: I think the world's best golfers need to be very careful with things like this. There is a thin line between Twittering and Facebooking to the general public in a semi-revealing way and alienating everyone with excess like we witnessed at Isleworth. The financial gap between them and the rest of us has never been larger and doesn't need to be emphasized any more than it is already. Apart from all that, the whole thing was just vulgar. I mean, the helicopters? Give me a break.

Elling: Most people seem to take offense at using helicopters for a 20-mile flight. I can understand that. It's like having your nose rubbed in their success. Not that there is anything wrong with the former, or wrong with a rich man staging a tournament for the exclusive fun of his friends, residents and clients. I don't have any tax returns, but I bet the Tavistock Cup donates more money to charity than the tournaments run by Jack and Arnold.
Huggan: I'm not sure that is anything worth bragging about. If the players were to donate all their "prize money," I might give this distasteful affair a pass. Might.
Elling: Here's a format to ponder: Make the players put up $100,000 apiece. Each. Then play for that bucket of cash. Oh, right, nobody would play.
This week at Bay Hill marks the last chance to crack the Masters field for those who have not qualified. If you could make a personal tweak to the qualifying process, what would it be?

Huggan: To be a true major and not just a big American tournament, the winners of bigger events from around the world need to be invited. The Australian Open, for example. Or the PGA Championship at Wentworth. Things like that.

Elling: First, I would get rid of the laughable FedEx Cup exemption, which gives anybody who finishes in the top 30 in points the previous year a free pass. A guy who finishes second in a FedEx event is almost guaranteed a Masters berth, while guys who win actual tournaments (Fall Series, opposite events) don't get invited. Secondly, I would add at least 10 more spots to the field. With around 95 players, the Masters is, without any question, the easiest major to win. Of the 95 players, a half-dozen are amateurs and another 10 to 12 are senior players with no real chance of competing.

Huggan: Of course, it shouldn't really be a major at all. As five-time Open champion Peter Thomson once said to me, "The Masters is the biggest con job in sports." May god strike me down for saying this, but the Players Championship has a bigger claim than the Masters in this modern world.
Elling: It's interesting that an organization that is tech- and media-savvy and forward-looking in many regards is resistant to changing the numbers in the field. They change the golf course every 15 minutes. Indeed, there are several tournaments with a higher strength-of-field weighting. But nobody talks about these things. Except delusional purists like us.
Huggan: Then again, as for the Players, the last thing golf needs is another major in America.
Elling: By the way, god isn't going to strike you down. Because you aren't wrong. And he's a member of Pine Valley.