Up & Down: High-flying hijinks, underwhelming crisis control

From somewhere along Interstate 5, CBSSports.com senior writer Steve Elling takes a passing look out the window as the PGA Tour heads up the California coast from San Diego to Los Angeles and into the second month of an unusually controversial season.

Up

Creative marketing in a changing media world
It was a decidedly old-school tactic, something reminiscent of the Coney Island days of a half-century ago. A local strip club in San Diego hired an airplane to pull a banner over Torrey Pines reading, "We miss you Tiger! Déjà vu Showgirls." It generated more free publicity and fan conversation than any stunt since Hugo Boss brilliantly put its name on a sailboat and camped it a few feet offshore of the famed Turnberry lighthouse at the British Open last year. The airplane idea worked so well that, in the second round, a competing strip club did the same thing, with its banner reading, "We miss you too Tiger! Dreamgirls." Irreverent, yes, but sort of funny. And we can all use a laugh these days, tawdry or not.

Shake your groove thing
OK, we're through four weeks of play on the PGA Tour and the asinine and complex grooves issue is still on the front burner. Three-time winner Scott McCarron characterized anybody who uses Ping Eye 2 wedges, which are technically legal, as a cheater in spirit, touching off a misdirected bonfire. It's become divisive and confusing, and the tour needs to intercede and ban the clubs, although there's some question whether it has the power to blacklist the wedges, which the tour indicated Friday it might soon consider. With the game already bruised and battered by the economy and the lack of its marquee player, it needs this circus sideshow? Then again, it took the onus off Tiger for a while and put it back on competition-related issues, no? Maybe it's a small blessing of sorts -- although, if I'd had my reputation sullied like Mickelson, I'd have lawyered up by now.

The DNA of dad-and-son winners
Last week, Bill Haas joined father Jay as a winner on the PGA Tour, which noted that they were the eighth father-son combo to win on tour. Well, not exactly. The incredibly small list of names requires some amplification. The Morrises, Tom Sr. and Tom Jr., played more than 100 years ago, and their British Open wins have been grandfathered in as PGA Tour-sanctioned wins. Same deal for Willie Park and his son. Clayton Heafner and his boy, Vance, won modern tournaments, but the latter's victory was in a team event at Disney, and while it was official at the time, it probably deserves an asterisk now. Al Geiberger's son Brent is adopted, so the bloodline there doesn't really exist. So, technically, based on decades-old victory totals the tour now has embraced, the Haas duo was the ninth familial pair. But in the 42 years of actual PGA Tour existence, the list of biological dads/sons to win individual titles consists of Julius and Guy Boros, plus the Haas pair. Just wanted to point out how rare it really is.

Daly sees writing on wall (but he won't read it)
About three years too late, John Daly has finally come to realize that his career is over. Last week, after missing the cut by eight shots at Torrey Pines, he told the Golf Channel folks filming his reality show that he was quitting. Huh, eh, ah, d'oh? He changed his mind an hour later? Wow, what a shocker. Daly indicated that he doesn't have enough money to continue his so-called career, which certainly cannot be sustained on winnings alone. Let's see, he rides around in a million-dollar luxury bus, he recently returned from a tropical vacation, and he probably spends $10 a day on smokes. Half the world is in tougher financial straits these days, including many of his blue-collar fans, and he's complaining that he can't continue on tour with his current income and sponsorship levels? Then try corralling those extravagant expenditure levels and living within your means. Moderation and Daly -- two words never spoken in the same sentence. Hey, maybe that second album he's working on will go platinum, win a Grammy and earn him a fortune. What, you didn't buy the first one, either?

Why I like Ernie Els
Sure, he has good days and bad days, like the rest of us, but it sure would be nice to see Ernie Els get back in the top five in the world rankings, purely based on his ability to occasionally reduce complex issues to their crux and give honest answers. Just last week, he was peppered with questions about why he hadn't played at Torrey Pines for several years, despite having a solid track record there. Els, also a member of the European Tour, which is in the middle of its lucrative Desert Swing and thus is again forking over appearance fees to top players, all but laughed. "The cash was good," Els said, defusing any potential media bomb. Asked if he missed the title-devouring Tiger Woods as a competitor, Els laughed and said, "No." Note to Ponte Vedra brass: See, sometimes the obvious and honest answer is also the best one. Failing that, humor is always a welcome substitute.

Down

Phil's waffle deal is toast
Mickelson's manager told us that a bid to purchase a string of financially troubled Waffle House eateries in the South went amiss and that the deal, which was impressive in its scope, has stalled. The plan was for Mickelson and some partners to purchase 105 bankrupt, Nashville-area Waffle Houses for $20 million. For us amateur joke-writers, it would have offered a full menu of possibilities. WaPhil House? Lefty could have been the boss and Tiger could have auditioned the waitresses. This news is a bigger buzzkill than decaf coffee. Oh, well.

Asleep at the wheel
As headline-grabbing allegations of cheating flew fast and furious around Torrey Pines for two days, it was interesting to note how the PGA Tour handled the sticky, uncomfortable situation. The tour brass took a page out of the Tiger Woods crisis-aversion manual, ducking for cover under the nearest table and disappearing. McCarron characterized Mickelson as a cheater Thursday, then essentially repeated his sentiments on Friday, yet the tour did nothing to diminish the impression that Mickelson -- who was using permitted clubs -- had broken any rules. Unforgivably, they left their de facto No. 1 player twisting in the wind for parts of two days. Then, miraculously, just as Lefty started to throw around words like "slander" and hinted at the possibility of legal action, the tour issued a press release noting that he had violated no rules and that anybody who claimed otherwise was off base. Even then, the tour didn't mention McCarron or Mickelson by name. In its first network broadcast of the year, in Mickelson's hometown, the tour snoozed while a fire raged and the grooves issue became an embarrassing, name-calling sideshow. Just what the game needs with the economy in the tank, a first-year title sponsor mulling a possible extension, and Woods on the bench -- utterly ineffective leadership.

If it wasn't for bad luck ...
Ken Green was an enigmatic figure for years as a PGA Tour regular, a guy who was known for brash comments, some non-traditional views on things and occasionally, stellar play that once landed him a slot on a Ryder Cup team. Inconceivably, somewhere along the way, he must have upset the deities above, because his current run of dogged misfortune is just plain staggering, if not tear-inducing. Last year, while traveling as a member of the Champions Tour, his motor home crashed, tragically killing his brother, girlfriend and dog. Green lost part of a leg in the aftermath, and though he has remained amazingly resolute about playing again with a prosthetic device, his career is probably over. Last week, his 21-year-old son died while attending college in Dallas and the circumstances remain unclear, though foul play is not suspected. The totality of his losses is incomprehensible. Cross your fingers for Green, who somehow must summon the strength to soldier on. He can use all the good karma he can muster.

The real 1-2 punch
There's been plenty of huffing and puffing about Phil Mickelson's renewed run at Tiger Woods as the No. 1 man on the golf totem pole, and rightly so. Lefty has all the tools, his confidence is soaring after a stellar fall, and the parts of his game seem solidly in place with no obvious weaknesses. Indeed, if Woods sits out until the summer and Mickelson merely retains his current status, he should pass Woods and assume the top spot for the first time -- but a caveat should be noted. All told, Woods' time atop the Official World Golf Ranking totals an astounding 11 years. So while a tip of the visor would be due Lefty, who has never ranked higher than second, Woods is losing ground each week by virtue of not playing. The last time he was unseated as the top cat, Vijay Singh was either winning nine tournaments in a season or Woods was overhauling his swing. If Mickelson can topple Woods, here's hoping he does it with a flurry of wins, too, so it represents a true ascension, not just the gradual erosion of the reigning champ. We like Lefty's chances this week in Los Angeles, where he has won two in a row and lost in a playoff in 2007.

Match play rises, match play falls
It was one of the earliest de-commitments in memory. Mickelson this week said he was bailing on the big-money Accenture Match Play event next month because he has plans to take his family on vacation. That raises the very real possibility that the event will be staged without the Nos. 1-2 players in the world, because Woods hasn't been seen in public in more than two months. Yet as the men's premier match-play event was ailing, the LPGA salvaged the Sybase event in New York last week, and announced that later this year, it will be staged as a five-day match-play format with 64 players, just like the Accenture. After absorbing a victory and a loss of sorts in a span of hours, in match play terminology, the famed ol' format is "all square."