Tiger Woods Answers McIlroy's Challenge

 I'd sort of like to see this young upstart get his comeuppance, myself. According to the following article,
Rory McIlroy told the BBC he would love to face Tiger one-on-one in the Ryder Cup. 'Unless his game rapidly improves,' McIlroy said, 'I think anyone in the European team would fancy their chances against him.' Apparently, Tiger heard his challenge and offered a terse reply:  "Me too." I'd like to see that too, McIlroy!
    . . . June


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Careful what you wish for: Tiger Woods responds to McIlroy's challenge
Devil Ball Golf - Golf- Yahoo! Sports:

After all that's happened to Tiger Woods in the last year, after the Escalade and the fire hydrant and the 'transgressions' and the apologies and the tantrums and the divorce and the godawful play, we may have lost sight of an important fact: It's not that long ago that Woods was the best golfer on the planet, bar none. And thus, it may not be the wisest move, tactically speaking, for his competitors to get him riled up again.

Later this week, Woods and the 11 other best golfers of the United States will challenge their European counterparts in the Ryder Cup, a biennial tournament that's far closer in atmosphere to an SEC football game than, say, the Masters. The competition is cutthroat, the galleries are raucous, and there's actually trash-talking. No kidding. In golf.

Rory McIlroy, the Irish wunderkind, kicked off the verbal sparring a few weeks ago when he told the BBC he 'would love to face' Tiger one-on-one in the Ryder Cup. 'Unless his game rapidly improves,' McIlroy said, 'I think anyone in the European team would fancy their chances against him.'

Fancy this, Mr. McIlroy: Woods heard your challenge. When asked at a press conference about McIlroy's comment that he'd love to face Woods one-on-one, Tiger leaned forward and offered a terse reply:
"Me too."

Not bad. Not quite an instant classic like Ivan Drago's "I must break you" from Rocky IV, but it'll do for golf's purposes.

Woods has obviously known about McIlroy's comments for several weeks -- there was a rumor going around a tournament a couple weeks back that Woods told McIlroy "careful what you wish for" -- but, as always, Woods only speaks publicly when he absolutely has to.

The U.S. and European teams will play two days of team golf for 36 holes on Friday and Saturday. The two teams only play head-to-head singles matches on Sunday. Even that's a blind draw, so McIlroy only has a one-in-12 chance of facing Woods.


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Saturday Ryder Cup Matches On NBC Will Be Tape Delayed

 According to the article below, live golf will not be available on NBC on the Saturday of the Ryder Cup. Instead it will show the entire Saturday matches in tape-delay. If you're like me, you'll be quite happy that they've done this. It means that here in North America we can watch it comfortably during the daytime instead of in the middle of the night. For the purists, I guess they'd prefer to stay up all night.


    . . . June


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NBC will show Saturday Ryder Cup matches tape delayed
Devil Ball Golf - Golf- Yahoo! Sports:

In a move that will make golf fans shrug their shoulders at Leno over Conan, the National Broadcasting Company, or NBC for short, announced that this Saturday, during the second day of the Ryder Cup, Americans will not be allowed to watch live golf.

Nope, the network that seems to make its decisions wearing a blindfold and tossing dull darts at a random decisions mat, won't give us live golf for 33.33 percent of the Ryder Cup this year, and that my friends, is ridiculous.

On Friday we get live golf. That's because ESPN has the rights to the opening day of play, and will show live golf from 2:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET. While the argument could be made that ESPN doesn't have anything else to show at that time on Friday, it still gives us live golf. This is 2010.

NBC won't do that on Saturday. Instead, it will show tape-delayed golf from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET. That will change on Sunday, when it decides to show live golf again, showing the singles matches from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET.

What does all this mean? Here's what it means: If you are a network that can't find it in your schedule to show a big sporting event live, you should forfeit the rights.

Put it on MSNBC. Or CNBC. Hell, put it on Telemundo or Bravo for all we care. You have the outlets and resources to do so, and a lot of Americans care about this golf event as much as any of the majors. If you aren't going to show this thing live, then at least let ESPN or some other network show it live in the early hours, and you can show the tape delay later in the day.

It's ludicrous, really. As my good friend Chris Chase over at Busted Racquet has had to endure countless times with this network, NBC just doesn't get sports anymore. It bumps things to make room for Notre Dame, which is now 1-3 for the season, and continues to be the NBC of the college-football season (stubborn, confusing and downright putrid).

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'Tiger Woods got me to Ryder Cup' says Lee Westwood

 According to the article below, Tiger persuaded Lee Westwood to let his injury heal properly, thus making him healthy for the Ryder Cup. So Lee Westwood will be playing on Colin Montgomery's International Team and  Tigerwill be traveling to Celtic Manor this week as  part of the Corey Pavin's US Team
    . . . June


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Lee Westwood: Tiger Woods got me to Ryder Cup
Golf, Sport - Belfasttelegraph.co.uk:

Lee Westwood has said that it was Tiger Woods' advice that persuaded him to take a six-week break and get himself in what he calls “100 percent shape for the Ryder Cup”.

“I played with Tiger in the first two rounds of the Bridgestone [Invitational] back at the start of the August and I was struggling with my ruptured calf muscle,” the Europe star said.

“Tiger saw me battling on and said to me, ‘God you're stubborn. What are you doing?'

“What he said resonated with me and I thought maybe I should look at this a bit more sensibly, withdraw from that event and the following week's USPGA and do the rehab properly.

“Tiger's right, I am stubborn and if I'd carried on playing I probably wouldn't be at Celtic Manor.”
That he will be is a huge relief to his captain Colin Montgomerie in the run-up to the big showdown, which starts on Friday.

“It was dodgy for a while and that was why I was so pleased when I had the text off Lee two weeks ago saying, ‘don't worry, I'm ready'. He brings a consistency to the team that the others can rely on,” said Montgomerie. “From a captain's point of view to have that sort of player you can rely on is absolutely vital.”
Nevertheless, Montgomerie is prepared to let down Westwood, who has stated his desire to play in every session.

“I think Lee possibly won't play five matches,” he said.

In fact, Montgomerie is considering taking the unprecedented step of resting all his players in at least one of the sessions. Yesterday, Thomas Bjorn, his vice-captain, explained the rationale.

Read entire article . . .

Tiger Woods commits to Playing the Chevron World Challenge

 Well, I have to hand it to Tiger - he's trying to get back into the winning mode and I hope he succeeds before his top spot on the money list gets overtaken.  Thanks to Phil Mickelson, this gives Tiger another chance to keep his lead in the world ranking, but he'd better get busy and start winning some tournaments because it's only a matter of time before some of those smart young players catch up..
    . . . June


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Tiger Woods commits to Chevron, Phil Mickelson out of PGA Grand Slam of Golf
National golf  Examiner.com:

September 21 -- While the golf world counted down the days to Thursday’s start of (anti?) climactic FedEx Cup playoff finale, Tiger Woods added a stop to his 2010 schedule and Phil Mickelson opted out of one of his.

Following Mickelson’s turn at Atlanta’s East Lake Golf Club this week, Golf’s No. 1 and No. 2 will meet up in Wales at the beginning of October for the Ryder Cup and then take different routes to closing out a trying 2010 season for both

Woods commits to Chevron. Tiger, who has struggled with his mental game and shot-making since returning to golf in April, will brandish his new Sean Foley-inspired swing at the year-ending Chevron World Challenge. This, after playing in back-to-back events in China and Australia in November.

Lefty, who’s had to deal with a serious arthritic condition, will go home to rest instead of teeing it up with other 2010 major champions at next month’s PGA Grand Slam of Golf.

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Beware Of The FedEx Cup Curse!

 It's true. So far, winning the FedEx Cup hasn't boded well for anyone. Mind you, Tiger Woods can certainly find other reasons for having a bad season this year, with all the negative publicity of the affairs and the very public breakup of his marriage. Lets hope that the Ryder Cup is luckier for Tiger.
   . . . June


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Beware, golfers, of the curse of the FedEx Cup!
Devil Ball Golf - Golf� - Yahoo! Sports:

The FedEx Cup is only three years old, yet in that time it's already amassed a dark and dreadful history of carnage. No man who's won the Cup has escaped Fate's icy clutches the next year!

(Laying it on thick? Sure we are. But hey, there was no PGA tournament over the weekend, so we've got a few over-the-top adjectives to spare.)

Anyway, there's not any kind of legend of a FedEx Cup curse, but there damn sure ought to be. Let's take a look at the winners and what happened the very next year:

2007, Tiger Woods: Just a few months after winning the FedEx Cup, Woods underwent season-ending knee surgery that took him out of the hunt for the season's final two majors. He hasn't won a major since the surgery.

2008, Vijay Singh: The season after his big win, Singh went on the DL with knee surgery -- hmm, just like Woods -- and had his worst season as a professional. He's yet to win a PGA Tour event since the 2008 FedEx Cup.

2009, Tiger Woods: Although Woods did win after the Tour Championship, he posted a godawful winless season in 2010 and didn't even qualify for a return trip to East Lake. Oh, and there was something about an Escalade and a hydrant, but we're a little fuzzy on the details.

So what can we draw from this? Is there a curse at East Lake? Does endorsing that $10 million check torpedo your next year? (Me, I'd take the chance; $10 million cures a lot of woes.) Possibly, possibly not. Either way, Matt Kuchar, Charley Hoffman and the other competitors may not want to make too many plans for 2011 just yet.

Read entire article . . .

There Is No Tiger at The PGA Tour Championship This Year

I had sincerely hoped that Tiger would be back in form by now but that hasn't happened. Now there will be a new FedEx Cup champion this year and he is very close to losing his top spot status. You can still see the brilliance in his play at times, which gives me hope that he will soon be back to his old form, but the consistency is lacking.
   . . . June


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No Tiger at Tour Championship is appropriate
The Associated Press:  By DOUG FERGUSON (AP) – 1 day ago


LEMONT, Ill. — Leave it to the PGA Tour to find the upside of Tiger Woods missing out on the Tour Championship.


In a press release Monday promoting the 30-man field at East Lake, it notes that Woods' failure to qualify for the last playoff event guarantees there will be a new FedEx Cup champion this year.

Phil Mickelson said it 'absolutely' will be strange not having the world's No. 1 player at the Tour Championship, although it's nothing new. Woods has only played East Lake twice in the past five years, skipping in 2006 after a long year coping with his father's death and in 2008 when he was recovering from knee surgery.

The difference, of course, is that Woods couldn't play the Tour Championship even if he wanted. He needed to shoot 65 in the final round of the BMW Championship, and it took him until the 17th hole just to get under par for the final round, and the tournament.

In an explanation he offered three times Sunday — to NBC Sports, XM Radio and the rest of the media — he blamed only himself.

"I didn't play well in the beginning of the year and I didn't play well in the middle of the year," he said.
He said he is starting to play well now, but that only shows how far he had fallen. Woods tied 12th at The Barclays, tied for 11th at the Deutsche Bank Championship and tied for 15th at the BMW Championship.

Three straight weeks out of the top 10 used to be called a slump.

Now it's called progress?

But there are other examples of Woods' weird year on the golf course.

He has gone seven consecutive tournaments out of the top 10, the longest stretch of his career. His previous worst was five straight tournaments out of the top 10. That was in 2001, between victories at the Memorial and Firestone.

And to get an idea of how he is playing, just look at when he is playing.

Woods is typically among the last to arrive because he is in or close to the lead so often. This year, he has teed off before noon in the final round at eight of his 12 tournaments.

The exceptions were the Masters, U.S. Open and British Open. The other tournament was Quail Hollow, where he didn't make it to the final round after missing the cut with the highest 36-hole score of his career.

Read on . . .

Tiger Plays in the Ryder Cup but not The PGA TOUR Championship

 Tiger will be playing in the Ryder Cup - not because he earned it, but because he was a Captain's Pick. Corey Pavin elected to ask Tiger to play, but he also has the right to limit how much he plays, depending on how well he's doing. Today, he has just lost the opportunity to play in the PGA Tour Championship for the first time since 1995, although he finished strong. He just hasn't been consistent. Come on Tiger, we're still rooting for you!
   . . . June


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Pavin not scared of limiting Woods at Ryder Cup
Newsvine LONDON — Tiger Woods is not guaranteed to play in the maximum five matches against Europe in next month's Ryder Cup.

The top-ranked Woods, chosen as one of U.S. captain Corey Pavin's four wild-card picks last week, will be playing in his sixth Ryder Cup but has only been on the winning side once, in 1999.

'I am going to treat every player the same. The objective is to try to win the Ryder Cup and if in my judgment I think Tiger is to play five matches, or should play four or three, then that is what I will do — that's my call as captain,' Pavin told BBC Radio on Sunday.

"For me, it's how he's playing golf. That's my concern as far as the Ryder Cup goes."

Woods, a 14-time major winner but without a tournament victory this year, has picked up 11 points from a possible 25 in the Ryder Cup. He has won three of his five singles matches but only seven of 20 matches in foursomes and fourballs, which are played in pairs on the opening two days. He also has two halves.

Woods was missing when the U.S. won back the trophy from Europe at Valhalla, N.Y., in 2008.

"Tiger told me he will do whatever is necessary to help the team win, and that is going to be my call, and I will probably be making that decision a little bit on the fly. But I'm not afraid to not play him every match, that's for sure," Pavin said.

Read on . . .