I'm filling in this week, and I've got a laundry list of topics to discuss in "Quick Hit" fashion. I'll discuss things like the Ryder and Presidents Cup captaincy, drug testing on the PGA Tour, the (possible) "tweaks" to the FedExCup, and a few other stories.
Grab your hard hats and strap yourselves in - it's going to be a bumpy ride.
The Captaincy
Jack Nicklaus asks players who they'd like to play with. He takes a back seat, keeps things loose, and has fun. Additionally, he's never played against any of the guys on his team.
Contrast that to the Ryder Cup captains of late. As recently as last year the captain (Lehman) still had hopes of making his own team. Nothing could be more opposed to Jack's "Who do you want to play with?" approach than Hal Sutton's "Tougher than New Rope" pairing of rivals Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.
Jack told reporters at this year's Presidents Cup that he'd love to captain the Ryder Cup again if asked. I say let him. If I wasn't so eagerly anticipating the Azinger-Faldo Ryder Cup, I'd support Nicklaus for 2008… but I'm glad to hear that Azinger picked Jack's brain for a few hours following the Presidents Cup victory.
I'd go so far as to be in favor of electing Jack the "National" coach of the U.S. team. If the rules could be changed to allow Jack to choose all 12 guys, I'd let him do that too. When Jack has had enough, we can seek another National coach. Our other sports have them, and if the U.S. players are going to respond to having Jack as their captain by doing things like winning 10½ of a possible 11 points in their worst format - alternate shot - then American golf fans everywhere should support Jack for a permanent captain position.
Drug Testing on the PGA Tour
This sarcastic quote mate me chuckle: "If Tiger's test comes back negative, does it really matter what anyone else is doing? They're not beating him."
Of course, it does matter, and the PGA Tour is (finally) doing the right thing in instituting a drug testing policy. As I see it, the PGA Tour had two choices: institute drug testing or choose not to. If they chose not to, the shadow of doubt and suspicion would have continued to loom over the most honorable sport in the world. By choosing to institute a policy, the dark cloud can be dispelled and the PGA Tour can issue a bit of an "I told you so."
I don't believe that there are no golfers taking drugs solely to enhance their performance. There are simply too many professional golfers in the world and too much money to be made for that to be true.
I also don't really care what the penalties will be. Unlike in most sports where cheating is almost glorified, golf just isn't that way. We debate for weeks on end whether a guy who didn't even win a tournament meant to make a stroke at a par putt or whether he just set the putter down really close to the ball. Vijay Singh, Colin Montgomerie, and even Gary Player have failed to outlive their reputations for a shady incident apiece.
If Tim Finchem did nothing more than slap a large scarlet letter on the golf bags of pros caught cheating it may be enough to discourage golfers from doping up.
I'm not naive enough to believe that there aren't any drugs which can't help a golfer. But I do believe that cheaters in golf will be vilified more so than in any other sport.
FedExCup Tweaks
Doug Ferguson of the AP tells us not to expect too many tweaks to the 2008 FedExCup. One of them is fine: start with fewer players. If the PGA Tour is going to continue to call it a "playoffs" instead of the more logical "series," then they should start with less than 125 players, not more.
Doug tells us that we may see more volatility in the standings, including carrying players who finish in the top ten into the next event. I'm okay with how "volatile" the standings were this year because I believe in placing an emphasis on year-round performance. If you want the four tournaments at the end of the year to dramatically outweigh what happens in the first eight months of the season, by all means, make the standings more volatile.
However, you're going to have a hard time convincing me that a seven-win, two-major season by Tiger Woods is somehow less deserving than a guy who rides a hot putter to a two-win "playoff" season to take the FedExCup. The PGA tour needs to decide whether the FedExCup is truly a season-long process or whether it's simply a way of having, again, a little "series."
The PGA Tour lucked out this year, of course, because Tiger Woods rode a hot streak into the playoffs and took the crown. That may not happen next year if the third "tweak" is put into place: "Make everyone play all four events." If that's the rule, then Tiger, Phil, and perhaps even most of the rest of the Ryder Cup team - which will be played the week following the Tour Championship - will skip all four events.
I still think a lot could be fixed or improved if the PGA Tour simply decided whether they wanted a truer "playoffs" or if they were happy to have a "series" of semi-elite events. A name is just a name, but to sports fans, the word "playoffs" has certain expectations that the FedExCup will never meet.
Lorena Ochoa
Lorena Ochoa is, arguably, playing virtually as well and dominating just as strongly as Annika Sorenstam did only a few years ago, yet Lorena gets far less coverage than Annika Sorenstam did, despite the fact that Lorena is a (relatively) "new" face who not only rocketed to the top faster than virtually anyone in her sport has but unseated Annika herself in the process.
Does Lorena get less coverage than Annika because she's Mexican?
Does Lorena get less coverage than Annika because she doesn't have a well-publicized friendship with Tiger Woods?
Does Lorena get less coverage than Annika because there are no doubts about her incredible physical turnaround?
Michelle Wie
How good is it not to hear about Michelle Wie? Here's to hoping she's getting an education, ditches her parents, works hard on her golf game, and returns to the LPGA Tour in a few years (or four) prepared to take on Lorena Ochoa and the rest of the cream of the crop.
Here's to hoping that my prediction that Michelle Wie may be out of golf by 2011 falls through.
The Fall Series
Despite the fact that the Fall Series is nothing more than a bunch of glorified Nationwide Tour events, I'm happy to at least see some veterans - Steve Flesch (who already notched a weak-field win this year) and Chad Campbell notch victories. I'm also glad to see folks like Bill Haas and Johnson Wagner all but secure their PGA Tour cards next year.
But that's not enough to make me want to watch any of these events.
Colt Knost
Speaking of the Fall Series, Colt Knost will play in one this week - the Valero Texas Open - as a means of kick-starting his professional career.
Knost, who won the U.S. Amateur Publinx and the U.S. Amateur this year and was subsequently invited to the U.S. Open, the British Open, and likely the Masters should he remain an amateur, stupidly passed up the opportunity to do so by turning pro.
Even if he wins the Valero Texas Open, he won't necessarily be invited to any majors in 2008. The Fall Series tournaments still award a two-year exemption on the PGA Tour, but they don't earn an automatic Masters invitation, and Colt will still have a lot of work left to do to get inside the gates off Washington Road as anything more than an interested spectator.
Surely he was financially set enough to wait until late April to turn pro.
Photo Credits: © BBC, © Chip English, © CP.
Originally Published at http://thesandtrap.com/columns/thrash_talk..._the_thrash_pit.