FanHouse Golf

Not bad for someone who's "not an athlete," huh?

For the fifth time, Dale Earnhardt Jr., ranks among "America's Favorite Sports Stars" in a national poll. Once again, he is the only race car driver in any series worthy of mainstream recognition, further demonstrating his endless marketability.

Even so, he's still not as popular as the thrice-retired Michael Jordan, who is #3 on the list despite not being active in the NBA for four years.

Popularity aside, perhaps by the time Junior retires he can get his resume up to par with those of his peers in popularity:

1.) Tiger Woods
2.) Derek Jeter
3.) Michael Jordan
4.) Brett Favre
5.) LeBron James
6.) Dale Earnhardt Jr.
7.) Tim Duncan
8.) Peyton Manning
9.) Kobe Bryant
10.) Tom Brady

Which is to say he needs a championship to make it look legit. (Lebron, too.)

Hmm, I wonder if whoever wrote this actually believes it:

"There have been observations in some quarters that Woods' aura of invincibility was punctured when he failed to close out a victory in the Masters after holding the lead in the final round, the first time that has happened in a major tournament."

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that "some quarters" is a euphemism for "let's build a straw man and see what happens." For the sake of argument, let's assume this is conventional wisdom among golf scribes (we can even bet on when Woods' will win his next major). As Rick Vacek points out in the USA Today, there are two things worth considering:

• It took 11 years for Woods to finally slip up during the final round of a major;
  
• Jack Nicklaus -- you know, the guy Eldrick's chasing -- finished second 19 times in majors. "And we all know how much those runner-up finishes made all the other golfers in his era feel so confident when going up against the Golden Bear down the stretch."

You know, the same observers in the aforementioned quarters also were convinced Nicklaus would slip as his family continued to grow. Granted, he started having children relatively early in his career (he was 21 when Jackie was born in 1961 and his youngest, Michael, arrived in 1973), but the guy never went more than three years between majors from 1962 to 1980. Then, after he turned 40, he got really sloppy and didn't win another major until six years into it. When he became the oldest Masters champion ever.

Hey, I'm pretty good at shooting down these straw-man arguments ... I feel like Skip Bayless.

I watch a lot of television. And I have to say that golf is miles ahead of other sports when it comes to television announcers. On a national level, the NFL is a joke, MLB makes me suicidal, and college basketball can be summed up in two words: Vitale and Packer.

Jim Nantz, obviously a mass murderer in a previous life, is stuck with Phil Simms and Billy Packer for six months a year, but gets to spend the spring and summer covering golf for CBS ... and he does a solid job. Joining him are Nick Faldo (he's just like Lanny Wadkins but funny, insightful and smart), Peter Oosterhuis, David Feherty, Peter Kostis and (for most events) Gary McCord.

NBC has Johnny Miller -- maybe the best golf analyst anywhere -- and boothmate Dan Hicks, along with Gary Koch, Bob Murphy, Roger Maltbie, Mark Rolfing and Jimmy Roberts.

So, why, in the big three sports, are we force-fed the idiotic ramblings of guys like Theisman, Simms, McCarver, Vitale and Packer? Anybody? As best I can tell, the marketing angle with the NFL, Major League Baseball and NCAA basketball comes down to three words: cross-promotional infotainment. Basically, appeal to the casual fan and screw the diehards. The thinking, I guess, is that the network could put two monkeys in the booth and the hardcore fans will still watch.

Golf, on the other hand, is a different audience. And before Tiger Woods came on the scene a decade ago, it was pretty much white, upper-middle class. It's a little more diverse now, but not much. Plus, golf is less about posing and talking smack than it is about sportsmanship and self-governing. It just doesn't lend itself to a Tony Kornheiser-Sylvester Stallone interview during the final round of the Masters. Just wouldn't happen. And that's a good thing. I can only hope the other sports are paying attention.

Jeebus, golf has some idiotic rules. Sign the wrong scorecard: disqualification; the wind moves your ball after you address it: one-stroke penalty; accidentally knock the ball off the tee: no penalty. Okay, you see where this is going. The rule book, as best I can tell, is haphazardly written, and absurdly penal for seemingly innocuous infractions. PGA Tour pro Boo Weekley found out as much during the third round of the Bay Hill Invitational.

Weekley, who before this year was best known for wearing warm-up pants and sneakers during his rounds (golf pants gave him a rash and spikes hurt his feet), incurred a two-stroke penalty for trying to help his playing partner, Tom Johnson.

Johnson hit his tee shot to the par-3 second hole about 85 feet from the pin. Because of a steep slope, he opted to chip off the putting surface. No biggie, chipping on the green is legal (though I wouldn't suggest it at the muni), but Johnson forgot to tell his caddie to tend the pin. (Oh, by the way, that's another stupid rule: if you're on the green and your ball strikes the pin, it's a penalty. No idea why, but it is.)

Well, Johnson hit a great chip, and when it became clear his ball was headed for the cup, Weekley ran over and pulled the pin ... you know, because he's a good guy and probably thinks that's a dumb rule too. After the round ... and after some busybody spectator alerted the rules official of the potential infraction, Johnson admitted that he hadn't instructed Weekley to pull the pin. So, instead of shooting a 67 in difficult conditions, Weekley, signed for 69, after taking the two-stroke penalty.

Yep, great rule, that. Can't have too much sportsmanship on the golf course, even though it's touted as "a gentlemen's game."

Arnold Palmer has probably done more for golf than any other living player. Sure, Jack Nicklaus won more majors, and in the end, proved to be a better player, but the sport's popularity begins with Palmer's emergence in the late 1950s.

Over the years, it's easy to forget that Nicklaus wasn't very popular when he first joined the tour. He was overweight, and many fans viewed him as a threat to Palmer, who was ten years his senior. Anyway, after nearly 60 years, Palmer retired from tournament golf in October 2006. And now, at 77, he might have a new gig:

The four-time Masters champion said Wednesday he has given "careful consideration" to a request from Augusta National chairman Billy Payne that Palmer hit the ceremonial tee shot to open the Masters.

I'm kinda torn about this. In general, I love golf history, and hearing old timers recount what professional golf was like a half-century ago is always interesting. On the other hand, it's depressing to see these once-great players shuffling to the ceremonial first tee and trying to make a golf swing for the first time in who knows how many years. Inevitably, some unlucky member of the gallery patron gets domed with an errant tee shot, everybody laughs uncomfortably because the perpetrator has no idea what's happened, and chances are he's not sure where he is.

I know the idea is to honor great players -- and at 77, Palmer's still got game -- but it's a reminder that some day in the not too distant future he'll be old too. I just don't think I'm ready for that.

I guess this is what you do when you have millions of dollars to burn:

Golfing ace Tiger Woods is to demolish his $48.7 million Florida mansion to build a home less than half the size of the current property. Woods, whose wife of three years Elin Nordegren is expecting their first child this summer, plans to knock down the vast 23,000 square-foot building in the town of Jupiter Island in favor of a more "modest" home for his family.

If my math is correct, Woods' new home will be less than 11,500 square feet. Who can live under such conditions? Only 11,000 square feet? What, is he building a prison cell? Honestly, I have no idea what two (soon to be three with the addition of Tiger Jr. sometime this summer) people would do with that much room. But whatever, good for him.

I remember hearing somewhere that Woods saves all his tournament earnings and apparently he is finally ready to build his dream house. He's already got a yacht, a jet, and his own golf tournament, so throwing up an 11,000 square-foot home seems like the next logical step.

Unlike most professional athletes, I'm not too worried about Woods going broke anytime soon. He could be the first to surpass a billion dollars in earnings -- something Michael Jordan hasn't even been able to do -- and the word on the street is that Woods is ... well, extremely cheap. I guess that's how you get to build an 11,000 square-foot mansion. Well, that, and being the best golfer on the planet ... that doesn't hurt either.

I have a question: Why the hell is a guy in his mid-30s drag racing with a 48-year old dude? From the AP:

PGA Tour player Arjun Atwal is under investigation after police said what appeared to be a high-speed street race ended in a fatal crash near Orlando, Fla.

Atwal was not injured in the accident... The other driver, John Noah Park, 48, died at a local hospital, Florida Highway Patrol Trooper Kim Miller said Sunday.

Atwal has yet to be charged with a crime, but at the very least, he could face a "charge of engaging in a street race." Atwal's childhood friend and PGA Tour colleague Daniel Chopra said reports sounded "exaggerated" and offered this: ""I think it's even more important that the media be a little careful in jumping to conclusions and not make him out to be a villain."

Fair point, though I don't think any of the blue-hairs will find this quote particularly funny: "...[Y]ou have some old people driving 45 mph, and if you do 60, they might seem like, 'Oh, my God, it's a rocket ship.' It's all a matter of perspective." Again, fair enough. And he's right, old people, in general, do drive slow. It's not a crime (well, unless it's more than 15 mph under the posted speed limit then, in my opinion, it should be a felony), but generally, it's true.

Either way, terrible news. I just hope Park didn't needlessly die because he and Atwal were re-enacting their favorite scene from The Fast and the Furious.

Anybody remember Ty Tryon? In 2001, at the age of 16, he became the second youngest player ever to make the cut at a PGA tour event. Since then he has seemingly fallen off the face of the earth. A Google search doesn't list any recent news, and his ESPN.com page shows that he's currently tied with me in 2007 PGA tour earnings.

In November 2006, he bombed Q-School, finishing plus-17 over four rounds (10-under was needed to advance out of Round 2), and I found this from earlier this year:

And there's a once-familiar name "down among the dead men." It's Ty Tryon, the teenager who won his way on to the US PGA Tour less than a decade ago but whose game went into a spectacular decline. For the last few years he has been playing the mini-tour events, such as this one. Tryon's golf does not get any better. He had halves of 38 and 36 for a two-over-par 74. Even on mini-tours, that's not going to win a fistful of dollars.

The mini-tour event in question? The NGA Pro Tour Winter Series event at West Orange Golf Club in Winter Garden, Florida. In case there's any confusion, this is the NGA Hooters Pro Golf Tour. As in "Hooters ... you know, the place with the great 'chicken wings.'" The lesson, I guess, is stay in school kids.