Shotgun Start: Thorpe's punishment; L.A.'s troubles; groove resolutions?

CBSSports.com senior writer Steve Elling and Augusta Chronicle columnist and golf writer Scott Michaux spray around a few shots as football season ends, golf season warms up out west, and assorted stumbling blocks get in the way.

Jim Thorpe, who has won $13 million in his 11 years as a star on the Champions Tour, was suspended by the PGA Tour last week as a result of his tax-evasion sentence from the Department of Justice. Was that piling on?

ELLING: Thorpe, who owes the U.S. public $2 million, pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges of tax evasion and must report to prison by April 1. He might as well report early, because the tour chose to bench him for the four events that are scheduled between now and his reporting deadline. Outrageously, Thorpe said the tour informed him by e-mail last Friday that he had been kicked to the curb, one of the most insensitive and gutless acts we've ever heard of. He lives perhaps 120 miles from tour headquarters. Sure, there's no right answer on whether Thorpe deserved to be benched -- by playing, he would have become a sideshow for the Champions circuit. By suspending him, they rob Thorpe of a chance to begin paying back what he owes us. But one thing we can all agree on is that notifying a guy via e-mail that he has been suspended is as callous as it gets. The tour made Thorpe a sympathetic figure by treating him like a street thug. Moreover, hiding behind its archaic policy of not confirming or discussing disciplinary policies just makes the tour look even worse. The NFL, NBA and MLB all have player unions in place and they announce suspensions and fines with immediacy and, at times, outright fanfare. The tour can mete out whatever sanctions it wants regarding discipline, with zero oversight, yet prefers to act as though nobody ever runs afoul of the rules and regs. If there were one thing I could change about the tour, this would be it.

MICHAUX: I very much like Thorpey -- one of golf's more interesting characters -- but I'm having a hard time working up a lot of sympathy for him on this. Like most Americans, I pay my taxes and I make less money in a year than Thorpe made last March. He absolutely should be punished for skipping out on his obligations. And I'm not buying this line that without the chance to play in the four weeks until he has to report to prison that he won't be able to repay his debt to the government. The guy is the seventh-richest golfer in senior tour history. He has banked more than $13 million as a golden oldie. Are you telling me he doesn't have any of that squirreled away for a rainy day when he might, I don't know, have to pay a big chunk of money to the government he was ignoring for the past few years? The tour has every right to suspend a player who violated the law and has been sentenced to jail time. Not exactly the image the Champions Tour is trying to project. How they handled his notification is immaterial. He probably deserved at least a phone call asking him to drive to Ponte Vedra Beach and check in with human resources, but would that have made it any better? Thorpe needs to do his time and pay his debt to the society he has been mooching off of for the past few years. If he can't earn his keep on the golf course when he returns, Wal-Mart is always looking for a few good greeters.

It was estimated that, despite considerable fanfare about upgrades and management changes, the Northern Trust Open lured a scant 40,000 fans for the week to L.A.'s Riviera Country Club. What happened?

ELLING: It wasn't a good sign when Jerry West, the former L.A. Lakers legend who was propped up as the tournament figurehead, had his career scoring record broken by Kobe Bryant two days before the tournament started. The PGA Tour's in-house Championship Management arm took over the running of the event and raised walk-up prices from $30 to $50, and if you know L.A. fans, they don't buy golf tickets that far in advance (if they buy them at all). When the rains fell in the first three rounds, you could have counted the bodies by asking for a show of hands. When the sun came out Sunday, the Super Bowl siphoned off the fan base and there were fewer than 1,000 people ringing the 18th as the leaders finished. Riviera is a gem located in a pricy neighborhood and faces massive geographic hurdles. True story: Three or four years ago, after the second round had ended on a rainy Friday night, it took two hours to drive from Riviera to my hotel, which was a mere 12 miles away. That's illustrative of the problems the tournament faces regarding access and logistics. Outside of Pebble Beach, which requires a windy trip down 17-Mile Drive, I can think of no other tour course that requires so much planning and timing as it relates to travel. Of course, at Pebble, you have the panoramic view. At Riviera, you get an eyeful of I-405.

MICHAUX: I understand that a combination of foul weather, the Super Bowl and a six-shot lead by Steve Stricker over a host of personality-challenged challengers conspired to make the perfect storm to keep L.A. fans from flocking to the Riv this weekend. But those pictures of the hundreds of fans sprinkled along the bank behind the 18th green Sunday was so sad when you recall those images of Ben Hogan and Phil Mickelson winning under the gaze of massive galleries in that classic amphitheater. Let's hope the folks at PGA Tour HQ get a clue that slapping an exorbitant sticker price on the affair was simply ignorant. Single-day tickets to Riviera cost more than a ticket to any single day of the Masters ... and there isn't a waiting list. Common sense, people! Have they seen the economic news reports from California or checked their own stock portfolios lately? Now is the time to offer fans bargains, not markups. You put $50 and golf in the same sentence, I better be swinging on the first tee. One of these days, the tour is going to realize that it's not the NFL and that putting on a good show at a reasonable price is the way to go. I won't hold my breath waiting for them to come to that conclusion.

Has the mind-numbing grooves situation been resolved to your satisfaction?

ELLING: Resolved? There has been no resolution at all. The tour and Tim Finchem admitted they were caught with their pants down when a handful of players showed up this year armed with Ping Eye 2 wedges, which are legal for tour play only because of a loophole in a lawsuit filed so long ago it's main point (to keep Ping's signature line of irons from being ruled illegal) is long moot. For a fast fix, it's going to take an act of largesse by Ping CEO John Solheim, who could be the hero if he takes the high road and waives the 1993 agreement that allows the clubs to be used in the first place, or something that's moderately embarrassing to all parties. Like, say, Augusta National officials putting their considerable foot down and declaring the clubs will not be permitted for use at the Masters, which is not run by the tour and is exempt from the Ping loophole. Like, say, somebody winning a tournament with Eye 2 wedges in the bag. The whole issue is messy, right down to the fact that Scott McCarron wildly, repeatedly and incorrectly accused other tour players, including Phil Mickelson, of cheating by choosing to use Ping wedges and wasn't suspended for it. Then again, like Thorpe, maybe he had better keep his eyes on his e-mail messages from tour headquarters in Ponte Vedra Beach.

MICHAUX: It's resolved in my 2 Eyes -- I am resolved not to care about this anymore. Speaking for all of the golf fans whose brains stray every time the conversation gets too technical, I really don't give a lick what wedges these guys put in their bags. If it's in the rules -- no matter how stupid the rules may be -- it's not cheating. End of story. Most of us long ago resigned ourselves to the fact that the governing bodies lost complete control of technology and are too scared of litigation to really do anything about it. And the PGA Tour's hands are tied on this. At this point, I think the only hope for true change rests in the hands of the powers at Augusta National (which is sad commentary on the USGA and R&A). While I used to hate the idea, I now hope that the Masters Tournament opts to implement its own rollback of the golf ball, forcing anyone who wants to play in their spring invitational to use their retro pills or stay home (and I hope this announcement coincides with a plan to restore the old course to its former strategic glory). If this happens, it will be the first substantial step into a bifurcation of the rules between pros and hacks that could reinstate fiscal sanity in a game that has run amok. Fix the ball and the players can use whatever bats they want. That would be groovy. Just wondering: Is Masters chairman Billy Payne carrying any Ping wedges in his bag this week in the Pebble Beach Pro-Am?