FanHouse TimFinchem

John Daly is a lot like Johnny Depp: born in the South, in his 40s, loves kicking it in Europe, and now, thanks to lap-band surgery, looks unreasonably thin (well, relative to the old JD, anyway). And while he has yet to bust out the pirate ensemble (although I suspect it'll soon be in the rotation), he enjoys dressing up in funny outfits.

Now, after serving a six-month suspension, Daly will be back on the PGA Tour. The former two-time major winner is still without his card, but he'll be in the field at the St. Jude Championship in three weeks on a sponsor's exemption. Just like old times. Save the fact that he's 40 pounds lighter and probably playing some of his best golf in recent years.

Save the mustache and the mullet, the John Daly who won the 1991 PGA Championship at Crooked Stick looks a lot like the guy who finished second at last week's Italian Open. The new JD -- 40 pounds lighter and now taking fashion advice from Craig Sager -- finally seems committed to saving his golf career after years of interventions, rehab and falling off the wagon. It's a refreshing change, frankly.

PGA Commissioner Tim Finchem suspended Daly for the first six months of the 2009 season, presumably in response to his latest beer-and-wings-fueled mayhem. But instead of seeking solace at the nearest Hooters, Daly decided to rededicate himself to golf. Again. Last year, golf instructor to the stars Butch Harmon dumped Big John after four months, citing that the most important thing in Daly's life "was getting drunk."

On Thursday, FanHouse columnist Greg Couch put together a piece from TPC Sawgrass about how the PGA Tour has been 100 percent clean so far with its drug testing. The elephant in the room about drug testing was that Tim Finchem started it because Tiger Woods (and others) had ballooned and golf, just like other sports, didn't want to deal with what baseball dealt with.

Well, Tiger admitted that he's been tested twice since the PGA Tour started testing last July, and came up negative both times, including one time where he had to test when he wasn't even playing in the tournament.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. -- At least one game has integrity. Manny Ramirez, with his 50-game suspension, is just another cheater in a line of steroid users in baseball. How can you trust anyone anymore?

Well, thankfully, we have golf. Not one golfer on the PGA Tour has ever failed a steroid test.

Not ... one.

Zippo. In the power age of golf, when fitness has started to include weightlifting because muscles help to keep up with the Tigers and Phils, every ... single ... golfer is clean.

Golf season starts tomorrow, which means it is time to actually start thinking of the best game with dimples. While the giants take a nap, others will play at the Mercedes Championship, and golf will be around the rest of the year. FanHouse spent a couple of minutes thinking what is to come in 2009. Here is what transpired.

Which golfer will be the first to break through in the Majors?
A lot of the time this is overlooked, but look back a few years ago to Tiger's first full year on tour. The guy won his first-ever start in a major as a professional. With Tiger, the monkey never even had a chance to find a nice place to rest on his back. How long did it take for Tiger to win number two? Eleven major championships. Yeah, it isn't nearly as easy as he makes it seem now.

What I'm trying to say with all of this is that winning a major championship is really, really, really tough and as Sergio Garcia (and Phil Mickelson a few years back) can tell you, if you don't get one early, then the questions about "When will it happen?" start to stir around.

Garcia has gone 38 majors as a professional without a victory. That might seem like a tremendously long time until you think of some of the talented guys that took a while to win their first big one. Vijay Singh didn't get his until his 27th major. Fred Couples went 34 until he took the 1992 Masters. Tom Kite played in 67 majors before taking his 1992 U.S. Open crown.

Garcia is in panic mode but he's still young (in golf terms) and has enough talent to open the floodgates in the major championship sense.

Along with him, Anthony Kim is due to take one of these as a youngster, as well as Hunter Mahan, Adam Scott, Aaron Baddeley and Camilo Villegas.

Interesting stat to close all this up and make it apparent how hard it is to win a major: Out of the top 10 in the Official World Rankings, five have won majors, five have not.

Tiger Woods and his enormous head are back on the range hitting golf balls. Which likely means that he'll be teeing it up in a real live tournament in a few months, much to PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem's delight. (Philbert, on the other hand, is less thrilled. His moobs couldn't be reached for comment*.)

Woods currently has 14 professional majors, just four shy of Jack Nicklaus' record, and depending on how he bounces back from his knee injury, he could conceivably surpass the Golden Bear in 2010. (Optimistic, yes ... but still quite plausible.) Jack, however, wants to make sure Woods doesn't rush things. You know, for health reasons.

Earlier this week, Phil Mickelson announced that he might start playing in Europe because of the bigger purses (thanks, "Race to Dubai"!), and because golf has become "stagnant" in the United States. (Seems like an odd thing to say; I mean, when I think of PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, "stagnant" is the last thought to pop into my-- okay, fair point, Philbert.)

"I think Dubai has taken one of the giant leaps to making the game of golf more global in the quality of events," said Mickelson, adding that there had been a number of contributing factors that made international golf more attractive. "Certainly, the dollar weakening over the past few years has made foreign currencies much stronger, which makes the purses much larger, so there's been a lot of international wealth being created," he said. ...

"So I look forward to having opportunities to continue to play more internationally and I understand that that is going to be an important part of being an international golfer."

And while Mickelson has been a proponent for growing the game internationally for some time, he's not the only American player looking to tee it up overseas more often in 2009. In fact, Anthony Kim, the PGA Tour's best young player, has decided to join the European Tour.

With all the majors past us and the Ryder Cup still a month away, it's nice that the PGA Tour started the FedEx Cup to give us something to keep our attention. Or is it?

The Cup seems to bring out the creative because it's such a new idea and fans tend to want to tweak the four tournament playoff system like a VCR repairman.

With Tiger Woods busy walking on water, our precious playoff picks will be wide open to a new winner. Can Phil Mickelson actually do something during the absence of his Swoosh-ness? Will Kenny Perry claim the Cup as a 48-year-old? Can Anthony Kim add a piece of tin way bigger than any of his belt buckles?

Join us at 1 p.m. EST for a chat about all things FedEx Cup. If you have any suggestions about things you'd like to see changed, let us know. We have a lot of pull with Tim Finchem.

As someone who prides himself in golf knowledge, I am not afraid to tell you this -- I had absolutely no clue how the FedEx Cup worked when it was initiated last year.

Sure, I read about it and knew it was coming up, but the whole system behind it just seemed unnecessarily complicated and a little bit ridiculous. Why can't they get the money until they retire?

Luckily for most, the PGA Tour tweaked the system a bit, making it a tad more friendly for the viewer and a lot less confusing for morons like myself. With the FedEx Cup playoffs kicking off this week at the Barclays, here is a quick guide to what exactly will happen over the next four weeks.

• Wait, How many players again? -- Last week was the final chance to get in the top-144 for this week's Barclays. Tiger Woods had the most points and Lee Janzen (no, seriously, that Lee Janzen) was the last guy in. After this week, the number will go to the top-120 at the Deutsche Bank Championship, then down to the top-70 playing the BMW Championship and will conclude with the top-30 at the Tour Championship. 144, 120, 70 and finally 30. Got it?

No matter the time of year, or his current physical state, the story is ALWAYS about Tiger Woods. Yesterday, Bacon pointed out that Eldrick won't even pick up a club until 2009, and today, the Los Angeles Times speculates that Woods could even miss the Buick Invitational.

Hardly noteworthy except that Buick pays Tiger larges sums of money to endorse their automobiles, and part of that deal includes playing a few Buick-sponsored events. Also, the tournament is at Torrey Pines, site of Woods' jaw-dropping U.S. Open victory two months ago. Resuming his career on the same course where his season came to an abrupt end six months prior somehow seems fitting.

But what makes for a heart-warming story doesn't always mesh with real life.

If Woods waits until January to swing a club for the first time, it could delay his return to the PGA Tour until after the Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines, the first week of February.

And then there are the ratings, which, frankly, have been abysmal in Woods' absence. The British Open and PGA Championship suffered huge losses in viewership, and that doesn't bode well for the upcoming Ryder Cup and FedEx Cup.

Worst case, PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem makes a temporary rules exception and outfits Tiger in a golf cart. Thing is, this wouldn't even be an issue if the people making such decision weren't a bunch of prigs about it when Casey Martin was looking for a little help. Reap, meet sow.