A weekly look at 10 issues, elements or players that are heading in opposite directions on the game's cultural, topical scorecard:
Up
Arnold Palmer Invitational
According to odds set by one U.K. gambling site, that's the March stop where Tiger Woods will make his 2009 debut after he returns from knee surgery nine months earlier. Staged two weeks before the Masters, Woods is the API's defending champion and the odds are listed at 9-4 that he will make his initial start in Orlando. This can't hurt Arnie's early ticket sales, right?
Fresh LPGA faces
While LPGA officials wrestle with expiring contracts with dozens of sponsors, the tour has three first-year players who should help make the product far more sellable. Former teen prodigy Michelle Wie, longtime college standout Stacy Lewis, Futures Tour star Vicky Hurst and Korean star Ji-Yai Shin have the talent to win right away on the women's tour. Heck, Shin won three times on the LPGA last year as a non-member before taking up her card for 2009. In these tough times, it helps to have fresh talent to market, especially when three of the four are Americans.
Ryuji Imada
The veteran makes his debut in this week's Mercedes-Benz Championship, where the native-born Japanese star and longtime U.S. resident will get plenty of love from his homeland media. Ever been to Hawaii? The Japanese presence in the islands is considerable, and with no big names left on the PGA Tour (Shigeki Maruyama has fallen on hard times), the personable Imada is the golf-happy country's biggest U.S. export.
Race to Dubai
OK, so the official 2009 European Tour season began a few weeks ago. But this is like NCAA basketball -- the real interest doesn't start building until after Jan. 1. It should be interesting to see how many American stars make starts overseas in order to qualify for the first-year bonus event at season's end, and how the Race is received by the international media.
Union bosses
According to a Fox News report, the leadership of the United Auto Workers continues to operate a $33 million personal playground and retreat, complete with a golf course, in Michigan. The course alone cost more than $6 million to build and is costing the UAW brass a fortune to keep prim and proper, and the facility has lost $23 million in the past five years. Ladies and gents, your tax bailout dollars are hard at work, even though the UAW leadership clearly isn't.
Down
John Daly
Golf's biggest fathead is serving a six-month suspension levied by the PGA Tour. Two questions: What took so long and why wasn't the benching longer? For the thousandth time, Daly doesn't respect himself (drinking, smoking, gambling, serial womanizing), doesn't respect the game (playing like a reckless 4-year-old) and doesn't respect the fans (how many times has he quit and walked off?). Other than that, he's a credit to the traditions of the game.
Ginn Company
After pulling the plug early with three years left on its contract for the Ginn sur Mer event during the PGA Tour Fall Series, and folding one of its two huge-money tournaments on the LPGA circuit, a handful of the Florida-based realty developer's communities have fallen into bankruptcy. Right now, it's anybody's guess whether Ginn's LPGA and Champions Tour events will be staged in the spring.
Mercedes-Benz Championship
It'll be broadcast in prime time because of the difference in time zones, but minus the marquee players, will anybody bother to watch? Just when you thought 2008 couldn't end soon enough minus the ailing Tiger Woods, the new season starts in similar fashion, with Woods, Sergio Garcia, Phil Mickelson and Padraig Harrington all skipping the once-prestigious PGA Tour season opener in Hawaii. They are ranked Nos. 1-4 in the world, mind you.
PGA Tour calendar
With the forthcoming Fall Series two events shorter than in 2008, although one event is still in the works and could be added, players are looking at two so-called "dark weeks" this season. Moreover, with so many short-field (such as WGC and FedEx Cup) tournaments on the roster, some lower-tier veterans, Q-School and Nationwide Tour grads had better hit the gas early, because opportunities for starts down the stretch are dwindling.
Buick Invitational
According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, tournament officials are using the likeness of Tiger Woods to market the tournament, to be held Feb. 5-8 in San Diego, even though it remains highly doubtful that Woods will make his return to competitive play by then. Tournament officials defended the decision, claiming they always use the image of their defending champion in promotional literature, but this sounds like a debatable case of bait and switch. At best, it's ethically shaky. Woods' wife is due to deliver the couple's second baby in February.
