Chris Lewis's Golf Blog

Repurposing Tiger

Of every golf-related piece of news I've read over the past few days, none has haunted me more than the announcement that Tiger Woods "will no longer be the primary pitchman for Buick."

Looking past the official explanation (as rendered by the AP: "because General Motors wants a broader role for the golf great"), it's hard not to wonder if GM has come to believe, after eight years, that Buick and Tiger weren't a great fit. Of course, it would be silly to correlate Buick sales (for years in steady decline) and Woods' effectiveness as an endorser. On the other hand, the "meaning transfer" (as the ad execs call it) between Tiger and Buick was always iffy. Indeed, the original idea behind linking the sexy, youthful golfer (again, ad exec-speak) to old school bastion Buick was precisely to recast the brand's image.

If it hasn't worked, it's hard not to go a step further and wonder about Tiger's value to sponsor brands like Nike and American Express. It's anyone's guess what Nike thinks of him nowadays, for two reasons: (a) Nike Golf's sales figures aren't publically disclosed, even in the parent's annual report; (b) the terms of Tiger's deal with the company, always a fair index of their faith in him, weren't purposefully leaked to the press in 2006, the way they were with every previous Nike-Tiger contract. As for AmEx, well, who knows? Their only recent movement on the golf landscape has been their disappearance as a PGA Tour title sponsor. Disney, of course, declined to renew its agreement with Woods at the end of '05, effectively becoming the first company to fire Tiger.

In this context, it's only fair to mention AT&T's eagerness to get in bed with the World Number One, which is what their recent sponsorship of the Washington Tour event amounts to. And I don't think EA Sports could be happier with Woods, as sales of their golf game have anything but slowed. Also, Tiger's Q rating, which measures general recognizability, was better in Spring 2007 than in Spring 2006.

All this, however, is taking place against the background of a kind of golf recession. Both TV spectatorship and participation have been slumping in recent years, calling into question the marketplace appeal (in important consumer demographics) of pro golfers as a group and Tiger in particular.

Such uncertainty may help explain why Woods this year has ramped up (in quality if not quantity) his endorsement-related appearances (from Nike's new "Tee It Up with Tiger" promotion to American Express's members-only affair at Oakmont prior to the U.S. Open).

It may also explain why Tiger over the past eighteen months has done far more one-on-one press and TV than he had prior to 2006. The extended sits he did with Ed Bradley on 60 Minutes last April, and CNN International's Living Golf in March (actually filmed earlier in the year in Dubai), were his first in several years, and easily his most substantial spots since he appeared on Oprah in 2000. (Here I'm discounting briefer spots on the Golf Channel; a couple of EA-launch appearances on The Tonight Show; and 2004 spots with Conan O'Brian and Regis and Kelly.) Since last fall, he's also done Ellen and The Today Show, for an unprecedental total of four TV sit-downs in 16 months-- precisely as many as he did in the five and a half years between mid-2000 and the end of 2005.

As for print, the photo-rich feature in last spring's Men's Vogue (owned by Conde Nast, which also publishes Golf Digest, where Woods is on the masthead) was the first (non-Digest) feature since Sports Illustrated's 2001 Sportsman of the Year issue. Next in the glossies: this month's workout extravaganza in Men's Fitness (which, suprise!-- is owned not by Conde Nast, but by American Media Inc., which also publishes the National Enquirer and the Star!).

If Tiger is doing a little more press and TV nowadays, it may also be because the endorsement-marketing context is demanding it.   

UPDATE FRIDAY JUNE 29, 6:00 AM: Apropos of Tiger's Men's Fitness appearance, can't resist linking to this post about Andy Roddick's recent MF cover shot (discovered via reader Kevin on Geoff Shackelford's site). Hey, Tiger: We pump you up! (as Hans und Franz used to say).

USGA Head Agronomist Ousted: U.S. Open Fallout?

Word on the superintendent grapevine is that Tim Moraghan, the USGA’s head agronomist, has been relieved of his post. USGA spokesperson Marty Parkes, contacted by telephone at the U.S. Women’s Open site at Pine Needles in North Carolina, would not officially confirm or deny the rumors, but did say the grounds were being overseen this week not by Moraghan, but by “an agronomist from the green section in this part of the country.” The talk of Moraghan’s dismissal, which surfaced on Monday, suggested it had to do with disagreements among USGA personnel about course set-ups and playing conditions at recent U.S. Opens. Moraghan had been with the USGA for about 20 years.

UPDATE FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 4:25 A.M.: Brad Klein and Steve Elling confirm on Golfweek's site and CBS Sportsline.

Oakmont Revisited: Rough Toughest Ever, and Here's Why

In Oakmont's aftermath every golf writer in the country offered his two cents about the nastiness of the U.S. Open rough. Sadly, most commentary was throwaway loose change (sorry, brethren) focussing on Phil Mickelson's remarks rather than playing conditions themselves. Phil's a baby, most said, claiming that no one else complained, and that it couldn't have been any worse than previous Opens. But those scribes were off base in three ways. First, whatever you think of Phil, running him down is meaningless as a rebuke of his criticism of the rough. (The dead white males called this sort of thing an ad hominem attack. Logic: Phil bad, Phil no like rough, therefore rough good.) Second, plenty of other people complained. Who? Ben Curtis, Chris DiMarco, and most notably, Richard Lee and David Howell, who voiced their dissatisfaction by leaving town early.

Third, this was healthier, thicker rough than the US Open has ever seen. Of course, this was easier to gainsay than explain, which is why virtually no one explored the topic. Besides, turf growth ain't sexy. Well, at least not to most of us. By I for one find it fascinating. So I made some phone calls to find out just how the rough got so tough.

First I called a couple of superintendant friends (one of them with major championship experience). They laid the foundation, familiarizing me with words and phrases like "fertigation" and "potassium silicate." Then I called USGA Director of Competitions Mike Davis. Davis, a candid guy, demurred on this particular issue. When it came to rough thickness, as opposed to height, he said, "I don't grow the grass, I just cut it," and directed me to a colleague, USGA head agronomist Tim Moraghan. I tried to reach Tim (another good guy, who I've know for a long time) but got no callback. (Yesterday a USGA spokesperson told me Tim might be unreachable for a while.) Today, though, I had a nice long chat with John Zimmers, the head superintendent at Oakmont, and the guy who (even more so than Tim) was in the best position to describe what was done to toughen up Oakmont.

Again, I warn you, this stuff ain't sexy. But I think what you'll read below (if I haven't already lost you) will come closer than anything else you've read in describing why that grass was so tough to play out of.

A little background: Zimmers has been at Oakmont for eight years, but has seen plenty of other Opens. He's a member of what's known in greenskeeping circles as the Latshaw Mafia, a group of young men who apprenticed under Paul Latshaw, the American dean of superintendants, who's run the yard at just about every golf course of any importance in this country, from Augusta to Congressional to Winged Foot and so forth. He and his progeny (including one real son, Paul B., who's now at Muirfield Village) have presided over something like seven or eight of the past ten US Opens.

Anyhow, Zimmers ticked off for me the four primary agronomics advances that made Oakmont machete-worthy. Here they are.

• Fertigation. This word's really two words, "fertilizer" and "irrigation." What it means is running liquid fertilizer (recall Mickelson using that phrase) through the irrigation system to promote grass growth. Zimmers told me that a good number of the country's best courses have been fertigating (as it were) for a few years, but guessed that Winged Foot was the first Open site to do it. Oakmont, of course, was the second.
• Potassium silicate. "The hardest thing to do," Zimmers said, "is get your grass to stand straight up." This is where potassium silicate comes in-- it's botany's answer to Cialis. Where other greenskeepers use potassium nitrate, this silicate stuff dramatically hardens the plants' cell walls, to the extent that the grass takes on a waxy look. Zimmers was the first Open superintendent to use it.
• Lawn mowers that think they're vacuums. Perhaps the principal reason, in Zimmers' opinion, that this rough was the toughest ever was lawn mowers. He said that he and Eric Greytok, who oversaw last year's Open at Winged Foot, have been working closely with mower companies to develop machines that optimally suck up grass while it's being cut. The problem in previous years, Zimmers said, was that grass cut every evening during the Open (including after competitive rounds) would to varying degrees just sit there weighing down the live blades, effectively making them lie down. This new generation of mower, however, siphons just about everything up into the bag, further helping the live grass to stand up straight.
• Bluegrass overseeding. This isn't so much a new development as a peculiarity at Oakmont which, as far as rough difficulty was concerned, was the coup de grace. Three or four years ago, Oakmont introduced the notoriously hearty grass into its native poa annua to spruce up areas that used to reside underneath their famous 5,000 removed trees. Gradually, that bluegrass outcompeted the poa. No further explanation necessary, as anyone who has ever played out of bluegrass can attest.

So, what have we learned from all this? Not just the reasons that Oakmont's Open rough was the most beastly ever, but that the USGA now has a second kind of technology to worry about. Turfgrass science is progressing just as fast (if not at this point faster) than ball and club science. Unless you're the kind of person who watches golf tournaments while wearing black leather, you're probably rooting, like me, for the USGA to think about exercising a little caution next time around. Even if you don't like Phil.

Who's This Guy?, Vol. 1

One of the things that drives me nuts about golf on television is how bad TV is at providing a sense of the players’ personalities. On Sunday, watching the final round of the Travelers on CBS, I got the feeling none of the broadcasters had ever actually had a conversation with either Jay Williamson or Hunter Mahan, the two guys battling it out down the stretch.

Sure, Jim Nantz read from the media guide. And David Feherty mentioned the presser that Jay Williamson did on Saturday night, describing the hardships of living at the bottom of the PGA Tour food chain. And the truck did good job of retrieving tape of Mahan’s 2000 amateur appearance in Hartford, his first in a pro event. But that was about it.

The farthest CBS went was producing a little questionnaire interview with Mahan, during which the 25-year-old revealed (gasp!) that he likes Mexican food and Linkin Park, which differentiates him from, oh, about three American 25-year-olds. Mahan also mentioned that he likes to tool around with cars, key word being "mentioned"—the interview zoomed right by the topic, as if to say, we’re just going through the paces here, and we’re not really that interested.

The car stuff, now that I think of it, was the focus of Tim Rosaforte’s spot on Mahan last year on USA Network’s PGA Tour Sunday Morning—which, to be honest, I never thought I’d miss, but now find myself pining for. I mean, the last hour and a half of the Traveler’s was basically match play. It would have been nice to have something that meaty on either of the two guys on the actual broadcast. But no such luck.

The best TV usually does in such circumstances is anecdotes from its commentators-- you know, a little something-something about a funny lockerroom encounter or an interesting conversation on the range. Earlier this year, for example, I remember Feherty being pretty well-armed for Boo Weekley’s win at Hilton Head. But last week, it was pretty clear nobody had any kind of relationship with the front-runners. It was cool when Ian Baker-Finch, a relentlessly social guy (especially with fellow Australians) related that chaser Nick O’Hern was currently living in Craig Parry’s house at Isleworth. Would have been better, or course, if IBF had told us what the heck ever became of Craig Parry, or if O’Hern ever met up on Isleworth’s range with Tiger Woods, who O’Hern has knocked out of not one but two Accenture Match Plays, but, well, whoa there, doggy—this is TV. Don’t get your expectations up.

So, anyway, what was I talking about here? Oh, yeah, Hunter Mahan. Sorry. He was the guy I set out to write about in the first place, but I guess I got a little sidetracked.

So, the first time I met Hunter was in early 2001, when he was a freshman at USC. I was doing a little piece on him for the late not-so-lamented Maximum Golf, on occasion of his having taken NCAA golf by storm the previous fall, winning two of his first five tournaments, probably the best collegiate debut since Tiger. This was after having been AJGA junior player of the year and winning the US junior in 1999 (beating Camilo Villegas in the final), and, in the summer of 2000, losing to eventual winner Jeff Quinney in quarters of the US Am after being three up after twelve holes.

When I met him, Hunter had just moved to Southern California, and, on the face of things, seemed pretty happy. Slouching in a chair in the SC athletics building, he was wearing an In-N-Out Burger T-shirt that was about six sizes too big for his scrawny 19-year-old body, and singing the praises of the Double Doubles with Cheese that he professed to love (though he looked like he lived on a diet of bean sprouts). His long blond hair was spilling all about his Titleist visor. Generally, he looked like he had just washed ashore on Huntington Beach. He seemed content and unaffected.

But he was carrying a little secret. He was born in nearby Orange—about one town inland from Tiger—and still had a grandmother in SoCal, but he had (if memory serves) grown up in Texas, and missed home. He was already planning to head back east (though he hadn't yet told anyone about it). It was an interesting situation—on the golf course he was fearless, he was still pretty timid about the idea of living away from home.

He wound up transferring, of course, to Oklahoma State. I’ll spare you the details about the subsequent All-Americas and U.S. Ams (that’s what TV’s for). When he got out on Tour (which was pretty much immediately—he came out in ’03, almost got his card on sponsors exemptions, and then got through Q-school on the first try) there was pretty much no looking back. The most telling thing about him was his ambition. Unlike most newbies, he was hugely confident. Most young players stand on the range out in the sun trying to perfect their one golf swing; Hunter was out there hitting shots, working the ball, looking to become a better player. At one point his desire to improve involved switching coaches—I believe it was in 2003 that he walked away from longtime tutor Randy Smith (who also had a long association with Justin Leonard). One of my most vivid range images of Hunter is his helicoptering a club at Bay Hill in early ’04 because the changes just weren’t taking.

By mid ’04 he was back with Smith. That summer, I spent an afternoon talking with teacher and pupil on the range at the John Deere Classic, watching Hunter hit balls under the shaft of a five-iron that Smith was holding a few feet off the ground. They were working on the low ball-flight Hunter would need at the following week’s British Open. That week, a lot of other young players were second-guessing him for (a) trying to qualify for the British and (b) going over to Troon, because it meant missing two easy dollar-earning events (the B.C. Open and whatever followed it that year). It would probably be a better idea, they said, for him to worry about making enough money to keep his card. But to me that was what was really impressive. His image of himself as a player required playing the majors every year. It didn’t involve worrying about keeping his card. I remember asking him about those second guesses, and him just looking at me like I was speaking Portugeuse. I mean, he didn’t even understand the question.

Anyway, throughout his first years, he remained approachable and unaffected, at least as far as I could tell. It was therefore a little surprising to me when he had his little commercial outburst on TV the other day, squaking to the walk-along camera about his Under Armour equipment in mid-round, after his tee shot on the sixteenth. Yeah, it was, well, immature. Golf gods got him back, though—the lead he had at that point quickly disappeared. But it says a lot about his talent, and his maturity at a player, that he stiffed two straight approaches on 18 to win the tournament. The victory won’t be his last.

So that, for what it's worth, is my little bit of insight on Mahan. I promise you that there would have been more had I been on site in Hartford on Sunday.

Featured Bout: 84 Lumber vs. Travelers; Winner: PGA Tour

     Sometimes the golf at a PGA Tour event is far less interesting than what happened behind the scenes to make the tournament happen in the first place.

     Such is the case with this week's Traveler's Championship in Hartford.

     As Hartford Courant writer Bruce Berlet recalls in the current SI Golf Plus, the last two years of the Travelers’ history have been quite stormy. At the beginning of 2006, when the Tour announced its initial 2007 FedEx Cup schedule, the tournament, previously a summertime fixture, had been demoted to a late-season spot in the so-called Fall Series. Its place had been given over to the three-year-old 84 Lumber Classic.

     Then, three months later, in April 2006, Hartford was suddenly reinstalled in more or less its traditional summer spot, and 84 Lumber had completely disappeared from the schedule.

     Berlet credits the Hartford event organizers for the reversal, concluding that the reinstatement “prove[d] that hard work and determination can sometimes prevail over [the Tour’s] disloyalty and greed.”

      No argument here about the organizers' resiliency, nor the Tour's fixation on the bottom line (even if Berlet's being overly dramatic about it-- the Tour is supposed to rip people's hearts out for the financial benefit of its players). But based on conversations I had last year with 84 Lumber officials during September's final edition of their tournament, the dealings between Hartford, the Tour, and 84 Lumber were a lot more complicated than Berlet says. Moreover, they indicate that Hartford’s reinstatement wasn’t a case of the little guy triumphing over the big bad Tour, but the Tour playing two little guys against each other to get what it wanted all along—the most lucrative possible event for the greatest possible number of years.

     On a superficial level, the Tour loved the 84 Lumber Classic, Joe and Maggie Hardy’s vanity tournament up in Western Pennsylvania at Nemacolin Woodlands Resort, their version of Neverland Ranch. (Maggie is formally known by her married name, Maggie Hardy Magerko, but around the company campus, she's still called Maggie Hardy.) 84's initial spot on the 2007 schedule was a promotion: it had previously been a fall event. They got it because the Hardys’ relationships with players like John Daly and Vijay Singh (not to mention Michelle Wie!) promised a marketable field, despite the tournament's being staged directly after the U.S. Open.

     Hartford was initially relegated to the 2007 Fall Series because as of January 2006 it had no title sponsor. Ailing GM was about to take its Buick brand name off the tournament. Tournament organizers were said in early 2006 to be close to a new title sponsor agreement, but nothing had yet been finalized.

     Funny thing was that although the Tour had placed 84 Lumber on its 2007 schedule, there was no ink on that contract either. According to one 84 executive, negotiations hit a snag early in 2006 because the Tour was insisting on a long, six-year deal (with an option for a seventh at the Tour’s discretion).

     The six-year ask was at the same time unremarkable and unusual.

     Many of the Tour’s title sponsor deals expired at the end of 2006. As it negotiated renewals, the Tour proposed the same six-year term to most every tournament, according to tournament directors I spoke with this week. 84 Lumber was put in no different a position, say, than Chrysler or Bank of America.

     What was unusual was that in 2002, during its last big round of title sponsor negotiations, the Tour pursued four-year deals with most of its title sponsors. The difference in term, to a company of the size of 84 Lumber, was colossal. Look at it this way. If you approach a business partner demanding a 50% increase in term, you are essentially asking them to commit 50% more money-- in fact more than that, because each year usually reflects an incremental increase in fees or costs.

     How much, then, was the Tour really asking for? Currently, the going rate for a Tour title sponsorship (for a garden-variety summertime event) is about $5 million. On top of that, title sponsors are required to make what’s known as a TV buy—they’re obliged to purchase a certain amount of advertising during television broadcasts. (Sometimes secondary sponsors get involved in this outlay, helping title sponsors make the guarantee.) Depending on the event, the TV buy can run as high as $2 or 3 million. Add in a contractual clause demanding that a sponsor help sweeten the purse every year, and its commitment (again, for an average, garden-variety summer tournament) can threaten or even surpass $8 million.

     That figure, however, is for the 2007 edition of a given tournament. When you come to 2012—the final year of a proposed six-year contract beginning in ’07—the price would climb still higher. As one tournament director put it, the $10 million that gets you a FedEx Cup playoff event in 2007 probably only gets you a regular Tour event in 2012.

     As 84 Lumber negotiated with the Tour in early 2006, golf was perhaps the least of its concerns. The company, sellers of building materials to the construction trade, had been number two in its industry. But now, because of a merger between competitors, it was being pushed down to number three.

     Even in that situation, the 84 exec said, a four-year deal might have kept the company on the PGA Tour schedule. But a six-year deal (actually, a seven-year deal, if the Tour chose to exercise its option) would have been a staggering commitment. “We were looking at maybe $120 million total over seven years,” he said. “Granted, we didn’t have to spend that much. But we like to do things a certain way, and make the players comfortable. Anyway, it was just too much money. We could have done it. We’re a private company. It’s not like Maggie had to get anyone’s permission. But she couldn’t have made that deal in good conscience.”

     You've heard of offering someone a deal he can't refuse? Well, in 84 Lumber's eyes, the Tour, looking to put them on the financial hook for seven years, was making them an offer they couldn't accept. If the Tour was guilty of any grand evildoing, it would have to do with the unprecedentedly long terms-- which may indeed have been designed to drive out relatively small companies like 84 Lumber. It wouldn't be suprising if the Tour, during negotiations with 84, became aware that Hartford was lining up Travelers, and refused to compromise on the length of the term precisely to shove the company out and make room for Travelers under its umbrella. (If it appeared to the Hartford organizers that the Tour was committed to 84, so much the better-- that kind of appearance could have served to get Hartford and Travelers to come across with more dough more quickly.)

     When I talked with tournament directors this week about that 84 exec's $120 million estimate, each initially said it seemed too high. There was a lot of joking about the priciness of chartering planes to fly players and wives in from the previous week’s event, as the Hardys did in 2005, and bringing in the Black Eyed Peas for an evening's entertainment, as the Hardys did last year.

     Yet when the figure was carefully considered, it stopped looking so unrealistic. Because such a deal extended so far into the future, and because the cost of a 2013 tournament might be, say, 20% higher than a 2007 tournament, it indeed looked possible to spend $50 million for the sponsorship alone, and $20 million for the TV buy. Throw in a couple of paper clips, rubber bands and grandstands, and you’re well on your way to $120 million, even without the Black Eyed Peas.

     In 84 Lumber’s eyes, what may have been decisive was the way the new deal would have encouraged them to pressure secondary sponsors for more money-- especially since 84 has to deal with those sponsors not just one week a year, but 52. “Those people who are out there in those corporate tents,” the executive told me during last year's tournament, “are Andersen, Boise Cascade, and Masonite. These people are all our clients. We would have had to go back to them and say, well, that tent you had last year for $100,000 is now $250,000. Plus, you have to buy some TV time. That wasn’t going to happen.”

     So, looked at from today's perspective, the schedule switch looks simple. 84 Lumber demurred at the cost of the event. Hartford and their new title sponsor, Travelers Insurance, did not. So Hartford got the event.

    Except for one thing. Travelers wasn’t made to sign a six-year deal. Published reports had the deal at four years, which left 84 Lumber scratching its head, and encouraged employees to complain, however quietly, about what had happened. Indeed, their fundamental question seemed legitimate: why was Travelers given a four-year deal (with a two-year option, discretionary terms undisclosed) when 84 Lumber (and everyone else) was being asked to sign for six (potentially seven)?

     The popular answer at Nemacolin last year was simply this: that the Tour would rather be in bed with a deep-pocketed Fortune 500 company in a big city with a long Tour history than with a relatively small company in rural Pennsylvania with a history as short as Michelle Wie’s last name.

     As the 84 source pointed out, it was also advantageous to the Tour to have 84 Lumber in the bullpen, so to speak, instead of in the starting lineup. The company’s fondness for golf made it a good bet to rush in at the last minute, if needed, and bail out a wobbly event, especially since it is a private company, whose principles don’t have to answer to stockholders about quickly-made decisions.

     All told, then, Hartford’s organizers may have worked hard, and the Tour might be disloyal and greedy, but it would be wrong to presume that Hartford prevailed over anything, got the better of any kind of fight. They got a better deal than the other guy only because the company standing behind them had a big checkbook. If this were the kind of story in which the little guy won, the Tour would have let 84 Lumber sign a shorter-term deal. But the only real winner here was the Tour. Business as usual.

What, No Baby Pictures?

A friend of mine, an avid reader of the tabloids, wondered yesterday who would be the first-- the Star or the Enquirer (or maybe Vanity Fair?)-- to publish pics of Baby Suri, er, Sam Woods. My money, however, is on Golf Digest, since (in the immortal words of Michael Bamberger) I think Tiger owns it.

(By the way: don't assume that Tiger walked around Oakmont all weekend knowing Sam's birth was imminent. Golf writer gossip is that she arrived early, surprising everyone including mom and dad. Of course, we won't know for sure until someone asks Tiger about it at a press conference. If he's willing to tell us.)

Oh, and that lack of noise you hear in the background is Cabreramania reaching its peak. Not that Jaime Diaz's piece on our... You... Ess... Ooo... (sorry-- just can't get the words out of my mouth)... pen Champion isn't a good one. <cough!>

(By the way Part Deux: wrong recollection on the alleged SI Cabrera-Romero piece. What I was thinking of was actually just a section of a 2001 piece on the World Cup's visit to Argentina, and didn't contain anything on El Gato-Pato that wasn't in the media guide.)

Duck Rock

Congrats to El Pato, even if Woods and Furyk seemed a little incredulous about it.

Two quick thoughts about the week. First, most of the time Tiger didn't quite seem like himself. Sure, Saturday's round was masterful, but he otherwise seemed just a touch off, especially when it came to holing birdie putts and hitting shots around the greens (Oakmont's difficulties notwithstanding). (The stats bear me out on this: his 31.5 putts-per-round average was his second-worst at a US Open.) Anyway, I have a theory about this. So far this year Tiger has only played ten tournaments (including this week, as well as his trip to Dubai in February). That's two fewer than usual, and just not enough: skipping Riviera and the Nelson has meant lopping off a full 20% of his pre-U.S. Open sked. He's not really going to hit his stride until he's playing every other week on a regular basis. Only he and Elin know for sure whether that will ever happen this year.

My second thought is, well, less a thought than a haunting suspicion. In the end, this Open may have ultimately been decided by who got better breaks. Can't not make this sound like I'm dissing Cabrera, but with rough like this, luck is bound to play a prominent part in the proceedings. Friday was the only really ugly day at this year's Open, but overall, something just doesn't sit right about it. Tomorrow I'm going to make some calls about this liquid fertilizer stuff. I'm not kidding.

(One more small thought. I remember several years ago SI doing a nice piece on Cabrera and Romero. Hopefully the long-memoried folks over at Golf.com will republish it online. If not, I'll dig it up and scan it or something for all six of my loyal readers, copyright laws be darned.)

The Scariest Image of Them All

Seriously, I wouldn't step to this guy in Walter Driver's body. Call him RoboTiger.

The Bad Pants Open

Thought the images couldn't get any scarier than yesterday's. But I was wrong.

Hoylake Tiger? Flint Tiger?

Far as I can tell, no reporter has kept a strict daily count of what Tiger is hitting off the tee this week. My best estimate for yesterday's round comes primarily from two sources. ESPN.com said after Thursday's round that he hit six drivers that day; last night, Tim Rosaforte said on TGC that yesterday he hit two more than has been usual this week (specifically, on holes 1 and 2). So let's say Tiger hit eight drivers, mixing in 3-wood or iron on six other holes. That's a pretty far cry from Hoylake, where he hit precisely no drivers after Day One. It's much more like last year's Buick Open in Flint, following right on the heels of the British, where he pulled driver twenty times on the week, hit two-thirds of his fairways, and made a career-best 28 birdies (against four bogeys) to win by three. Obviously, this week isn't going to produce a stat line like that. But apart from all the birdies, it won't be that far off.

Now, nobody's going to confuse a Buick Open with a U.S. Open, and Tiger himself would probably say that there's nothing special about his strategy off the tee this week-- that he's just showing the same caution he'd ordinarily show at a national championship. Still, I'm convinced he's hitting substantially fewer drivers than, say, at Pinehurst or Winged Foot or any prior U.S. Open since maybe Pebble. (Actually, maybe that's what we're really looking at here, as far as strategy goes: Pebble Beach Tiger.) Anyhow, the point I'm trying to make is that Tiggy, when bearish with the driver, becomes "a very dangerous poisen" (as Burgess Meredith would say). On his two best days at Oakmont (Thursday and Saturday), he's hit 9 of 14 fairways; that 65% is way better than his season average of 55%. That's almost two more scoring opportunities per round, a huge difference.