After Sergio Garcia won the Players Championship last week, he had a funny little quip after it was over.

“First of all, I want to thank Tiger for not being here.  That always makes things a little bit easier.”

I love that for two reasons.  First, he acknowledges that Tiger is better than him.  To suggest otherwise would be crazy and arrogant.  Second, it’s just plain funny.

As strange as it may be, I think a little higher of Sergio because of that small comment.

Annika Sorenstam has decided to retire at the end of the season to focus on her family and to work some other golf-related businesses. Here is an interview where she explains her decision:

Picture this: The year is 2013. Tiger Woods, with 20 majors in the bag and chronic bad back and bad knees, is dialing down a bit with his schedule. Taking center stage and dueling for the big trophies are a couple of young 30-somethings — Adam Scott and Ryan Moore.

Perhaps Sunday was merely a prelude of things to come. Scott and Moore fought to a third playoff hole, with Scott winning the Byron Nelson on a 40-foot birdie putt. It was Scott’s sixth win on the PGA Tour and Moore’s fourth second-place finish without a victory.

But you know Moore will get his, perhaps sooner than later. At 25, he’s without a doubt the most talented young American player on the PGA Tour. A world beater while at UNLV, Moore was the first player since Woods to go straight from college to the Tour and earned his card without going through Q-school.

Meanwhile, Scott just might be the best 20-something player on the planet. He’s taking over that tag from the heretofore wunderkind Sergio Garcia. The 27-year-old Aussie has a big-time game that’s only been kept from busting out by his balky putter. And, having won the Players Championship, he needs to start collecting majors to fill out his resume.

It might seem a sad indictment that when Trevor Immelman won the Masters, he became the only player currently in his 20s to own a major championship. But if Scott and Moore have their say, that will change. Both players have unlimited potential, but they have holes in their game that need to be addressed before they’re able to contend with the Tigers, Phils and Els of the world.

The first thing on the agenda is winning. Scott is doing that, and now it’s Moore’s turn. His decision to skip some early-season tournaments to nurse a sore shoulder and a bum hand paid off with a steady performance at the Nelson. It’s time for him to take home some actual hardware instead of hefty checks.

 

PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem recently floated — actually, backed — the idea of getting golf back into the Olympic Games. Golf, which was dropped from the Games in 1904, will have an opportunity to state its case and be admitted for the 2016 Games, wherever that may be.

The chances are not good. There are seven sports applying for two slots: Baseball and softball, which were dropped for the 2012 London Games, along with rugby are probably best positioned for admittance. And there are also longshots Karate, roller sports and squash.

Golf’s chances are slim to none because it will not receive the backing of a majority of the International Olympic Committee member nations. Except for South Africa, none of the African countries would sponsor golf. The same goes for most of Asia and Latin America. Besides, golf also has this inconvenient image of being an elite sport, in an age when egalitarianism rules the day.

But the biggest issue is this: Most of golf’s elite players don’t give a hoot about the Olympics, starting with Tiger Woods. By 2016, Tiger will be 40 and probably already have Jack’s record in the bag. I just don’t see him getting all that jacked about a gold medal. Besides, the Olympics most likely will take place during the middle of the majors run — right around the time between the British Open and the PGA, another reason why few elite players would be all that interested.

In addition, golf has absolutely no tradition in the Olympics. Having been out of the Games for over 100 years, it’s been out of sight, out of mind.

We’ll know for sure in about a year and a half from now. But no worries. This is just another bad idea from Finchem. We just hope that some of his other ones would go away as easily.

Say, like the FedEx Cup?

 

 

 

Tim Finchem sounded both smug and defensive when the PGA Tour inexplicably signed a 15-year deal with the Golf Channel before the 2007 season.

Inexplicably is right.

Why anyone would dump ESPN, the most-watched cable network in the English-speaking world, for a glorified infomercial outlet is beyond any reason. And a little more than a year into the contract, Finchem is defensive as ever but no longer smug — for the PGA Tour is paying a dear price.

Money ostensibly was why Finchem and his cronies opted for TGC. ESPN was playing hardball, forecasting (accurately, as it turned out) that sportswriter talk shows such as “Pardon the Interruption” and “Around the Horn” can carry the afternoon slot as well as any mid-week golf tournament. TGC, hungry for actual programming and backed by Comcast’s deep pocket, was much more accommodating.

But there were just two problems: 1. TGC has no real talent. 2. The drive-by audience vanished.

There was no better illustration of TGC’s talent problem than the Kelly Tilghman fiasco that blew up during the 2008 Mercedes Championship — the year’s first tournament. Overwhelmed by the responsibility and lacking both experience and gravitas, Tilghman’s “lynch” gaffe exposed the network’s inability to bring forth a quality broadcast. While TGC paid top dollar for Nick Faldo as an analyst, it utterly struck out with Tilghman, a green cheerleader.

As if that wasn’t enough to tank its ratings, the second problem cemented it. ESPN is one of those channels that men, in the desirable demographic of 18-49, are predisposed to tune to even if nothing is on. Call it the default channel: I see TV, I tune to ESPN. They’re that way at home, they’re that way on the road.

When I’m flipping around for something to watch at home, my fingers go for 2-0-6 much more frequently than 6-0-5 on my DirecTV. In fact, it took me awhile to even remember 605. When I travel for business, I flip around for ESPN and will always find it. As for the Golf Channel, most of the name-brand hotels — Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton — don’t even include it on their in-room TV package because it’s way too obscure.

The recently completed Masters couldn’t have shed a harsher light on this. For the first time ever, ESPN got to broadcast the Thursday and Friday rounds. And of course, the Friday telecast scored the highest rating ever for golf on cable. Billy Payne, in his second year on the job as the chairman of Augusta National, knew what ESPN could bring to the table. And he hit a home run.

While Finchem continues to swing and miss … for another 13 1/2 years.

 

In 2004, in the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links final, two players who could not be more different faced off for the title.

One stood 6-foot-2, already ballyhooed as the Tiger Woods of women’s golf, and at 14, was making lots of noises about playing in the Masters and has already competed on the PGA Tour. The other was a tiny 5-foot-4 waif from Taiwan, who’s a dominant junior player at the age of 15 — but nobody’s ever heard of her.

When Yani Tseng birdied the final hole on the Green Course at Golden Horseshoe Golf Club in Williamsburg, Va., she won the grueling 36-hole final, 1-up. The vanquished sobbed in the arms of her parents after failing to defend her title. Her name was Michelle Wie.

That was the closest Wie has come to winning anything ever since. Now at 18, she appears to be all but washed up. Wie is nowhere to be found on the LPGA Tour, with a tired old claim of a bum wrist that’s been bothering her for 18 months now. Her Rolex World Ranking is at No. 136.

Exactly one hundred spots ahead of her and the leading candidate for LPGA Rookie of the Year is none other than Tseng. The feisty little fireplug just claimed second in the Ginn Open. That’s no shame, though, as she finished three shots behind Lorena Ochoa — the real Tiger Woods of the LPGA.

Tseng may never get the $10 million endorsement deals that Wie received upon turning pro in 2006. But her career trajectory looks much more promising. Besides her Publinx win over Wie, she’s defeated Morgan Pressel in the 2005 North & South Women’s Championship and amassed 15 international victories as an amateur — four in the United States.

She turned pro in 2007 and after winning tournaments in India and Canada, went to Q-school and got her LPGA card by finishing sixth. This year, she’s made the cut in all six tournaments, with no worse than a 25th place finish and two second-place showings. Tseng is third on the money list and third in scoring average — behind the grand poobahs of the LPGA (Annika Sorenstam is second on both, if you really needed to ask).

So this is probably the most you’ve ever read about Tseng, or anyone else other than a half-dozen players on the LPGA. The media, meanwhile, continues to obsess about the former child prodigy, though the most interesting thing about her these days is that she’s dating a Stanford basketball player. If you’re wondering why the LPGA isn’t getting the attention it deserves, well, don’t blame the players.

Don’t blame Yani Tseng. Chances are, she doesn’t even care. Chances are, she’s somewhere working on the range to improve her game. Chances are, she will win a major, or two, long before Michelle Wie ever becomes relevant again — as a golfer.

Tiger Woods hates the Players Championship. He hates everything about it. The slow play. The course. The 17th hole. And the fact that it’s the purported Fifth Major — and the way Tim Finchem kept talking it up as if it were a real major. 

I had waited for years for Tiger to finally skip this tournament. In the past, he just couldn’t come up with a good enough excuse. But this year, he struck gold. The knee scope conveniently lets him off the hook. He’ll be laid up for 4-6 weeks and voila! See ya later, Sawgrass gator!

Don’t think for a second that Finchem didn’t consider this a big-time dis. So much so that he even issued a statement expressing his thinly veiled annoyance. Let’s face it, while Tiger is out, the only tournament of consequence that he’ll miss is the Players Championship. He might makes it back just in time for Jack’s tournament, the Memorial.

But Finchem and TPC only have themselves to blame. By shifting the tournament from March to May, they practically invited the top players to skip the tournament. Before, it was an important tuneup for the Masters, and all of the world’s top players obliged by showing up. Now, it’s just another tournament between the Masters and U.S. Open, never mind it does boast the riches purse on tour.

After Tiger won TPC in 2001, it completed his checklist. By then, he’d already won every big tournament on tour in addition to the majors, and from that point and on you know it’s only a matter of time that he’d skip it. He’s done that to the Mercedes Championship pretty much annually now. He’d even passed on the Tour Championship, before it reincarnated as the final tournament of the FedEx Cup “Playoff.” 

Skipping TPC this year was totally premeditated. He’d had the scope done no matter how he performed at the Masters. And by being out, he most definitely realized that he’d miss the Players. You can almost see the mischievous grin on his face when he cooked up this little scheme.

Because Tiger gets it. Nobody is ever going to remember how many Players he wins. The Fifth Major. Yeah. Do you remember who’s the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse?

Exactly.

 

The dream of a grand slam is still alive. And the world No. 1 is looking more dominant than ever.

We’re talking LPGA, of course.

While Tiger Woods must put off his “easily within reason” for another year, there’s no such concern for Lorena Ochoa. After lapping the field with an 11-stroke victory at the Corona Championship — appropriately played in her native Mexico — Ochoa also has locked up a place in the LPGA Hall of Fame.

While Woods and Roger Federer have dominated their respective sports — and headlines — in recent years, Ochoa is on a run that is arguably at least equal to theirs. In winning her fourth event out of five played this year, Ochoa has failed to break par exactly once in her 19 rounds.

She has won 21 times in just five-plus seasons on the LPGA Tour. Since the beginning of the 2006 season, she’s played in 55 tournaments, finished in the top 10 in 45 of them and won 18 — winning roughly one of every three tournaments she’s entered.

The only knock on Ochoa during her domination of women’s golf was her inability to win majors. Well, that criticism is muted now that she owns the trophies from the two most recent major championships.

And the way she’s playing, Ochoa will be the prohibitive favorite to win the other three majors of the season. In her four wins in 2008, she’s won by 11, 11, 7 and 5 strokes, respectively. Yes, the tournament is over usually by the time she gets to the first tee box in the final round. Heck, it’s practically over when she decides to enter it.

Yet, Ochoa constantly flies under the radar in terms of visibility. There’s a teenage girl who’s never won a tournament as a pro and recently shot more times in the 80s than 60s, yet she’s considered the “rising star” of the LPGA. Other talented young ladies such as Morgan Pressel and Paula Creamer have also cashed in their celebrity for commercial success. But on the golf course, they’re merely playing for the second-place check.

About the only way Ochoa will get the recognition she truly deserves is when she wins the grand slam. Yes, I said “when” not “if.” Even though golf is a fickle game, her recent performance foretells a dominance unseen in women’s golf. Not even in Annika Sorenstam’s best years.

And you get the sense Ochoa is OK with that. She’d rather let her club do the talking and her trophies do the showboating.

With apologies to Trevor Immelman, Sunday’s Masters finish was devoid of any dramatic development. There were a few train wrecks here and there, but overall, by the time the final group made the turn, Immelman’s victory seemed all but inevitable.

This was no knock on Immelman, who did everything right as a front runner to secure his first major victory. He held his nerves together down the stretch and played cautiously as a man with a five-stroke lead should.

Sunday’s high winds were the No. 1 culprit. With the swirling gusts everywhere at Augusta National, it became extremely difficult to hit precise shots. Only Miguel Angel Jimenez (68) and Heath Slocum (69) managed to break 70 and only two others broke par.

Among them was not Tiger Woods, whose balky putter cost him any real shot at a fifth green jacket. When he holed out a long birdie putt on the 18th hole, his quick swipe of hand basically said: “Now you go in. Where were you before, chump?”

The putts that didn’t go down on 13th, 15th and 16th will roil Tiger for a while. But in truth, it probably wouldn’t have made that much of a difference. Immelman was rock solid all day, with a singular mistake on No. 16 when he hit his tee shot into the water. He appeared to be immune to the pressure of the moment, getting through Amen Corner at even par and, with the exception of 16, coasted home from there.

If Woods was too far back to make a charge, the other challengers simply collapsed. Brandt Snedeker, playing in his first Masters as a pro, was shaky all day. Paul Casey was never a factor and Steve Flesch, after holding his own on the front nine, blew up following a water ball on No. 12. By shooting par, Woods moved from fifth to solo second.

It was Tiger’s second straight second-place finish at the Masters, where his green jacket drought now reaches three years — matching the longest in his career from 1998-2000. And he has to be wondering why he’s having trouble closing the deal on one of his two favorite golf courses in the world.

As for the winner, Immelman won’t care if his victory was drama-free. He became the only 20-something player currently holding a major title. Whether this catapults him into major stardom, it remains to be seen.

But this much we know for sure now:

There won’t be a grand slam winner this year. And because of that, the biggest storyline of the year will have to be shelved until we meet again in Augusta.

There is nothing in Trevor Immelman’s resume that suggests that he’s ready to don the green jacket. Let’s face it, despite his obvious talents, Immelman has done little to distinguish himself as a professional golfer. In his five years as a pro, he’s won just twice outside of his native South Africa — once on the PGA Tour.

But on Saturday, the supposed Moving Day, he further solidified his position as the leader at the Masters. The 28-year-old with a Hogan-like swing and seemingly steely nerves, now must be taken seriously as a front-runner. Playing under immense pressure in the Augusta twilight, he birdied three of his final six holes to finish the day at 11 under, two ahead of Brandt Snedeker — but more importantly, still six ahead of Tiger Woods.

Woods mounted a charge, and for a while, it looked as if he was right there at the end. When he walked off the 18th green after a 68 that put him at 5 under, he was merely three shots off the lead. But Immelman’s late birdie binge might have left him with an insurmountable deficit with just 18 holes to play.

In retrospect, Saturday was a lost opportunity for Woods. He missed all sorts of makeable birdie putts that might have helped him to card a 65. While he easily eclipsed Phil Mickelson, who self-immolated with a 75, Woods must not have envisioned that he’d still be stuck in Immelman’s vapor trail.

Few would have. Immelman’s played eight events this year and failed to make the cut in half of them. His best finish in a stroke-play event was a T-40 at Doral. In his previous five appearances in the Masters, he’s broken 70 once — when he finished fifth but a distant eight shots back behind Woods and playoff loser Chris DiMarco in 2005.

But he’s shot in the 60s in all three rounds this tournament and done it with poise. He’s made two bogeys in 54 holes and none in the back nine. Immelman really seems to be enjoying himself strolling around Augusta National this week.

Come Sunday, it will be a matter of controlling his nerves. He’ll have the benefit of being paired with Snedeker again instead of a big-name contender. Woods will be cushioned by another group of relative no-names of Steve Flesch and Paul Casey, so Tiger won’t have the chance slam-dunking him in the group immediately ahead. Finally, with the forecast calling for winds gusting up to 20 miles per hour, going low will be difficult — even for Tiger.

Does this mean that Immelman will become the second South African to win the Masters, a feat that has eluded his more celebrated countrymen Ernie Els and Retief Goosen? Not necessarily. But barring a collapse of Greg Norman proportions, the green jacket is well within his grasp.