Up & Down ... whatever: Just be glad 2009 is out of here

Steve Elling | January 5, 2010

With the PGA Tour opener set for this week in Hawaii, CBSSports.com senior writer Steve Elling takes a look around as golf exits 2009 and segues into a new season and new decade. After all, aloha means both hello and goodbye.

Up

From Baddeley to worse
With the release of the final world ranking of 2009, it should surprise exactly nobody that the biggest social climber on the PGA Tour in 2009 was none other than the Tiger tamer himself, Y.E. Yang, who began the year at No. 478 and skyrocketed to 31st, thanks to victories at the Honda Classic and PGA Championship. The former Korean Marine, mind you, had to return to Q-school late in 2008 to reclaim his card after a forgettable rookie season in the States. Italy's Edoardo Molinari made a similarly impressive climb on the European Tour, jumping from 653rd to 48th after starting the season without fully exempt status. Among prominent U.S. players not hampered by injury, Aaron Baddeley fell 103 spots last year to 139th and Carl Pettersson skidded from 62nd to 212th. For those who would care to submit a nominee for the rise-and-fall candidates for 2010, post a comment below.

Eldrick and Augusta
With the total absence of comment from the Woods camp over the past six weeks, the speculation with regard to his return to tour has become a popular pastime among fans and media alike -- and rest assured, everybody is guessing at this point. But keep the following facts in mind as the season unwinds. Woods has never skipped the Masters, which tightly controls the access of fans and media like no other tour-sanctioned event. No media, including photographers, are allowed inside the ropes, and the driving range is closed. Fan decorum is policed by private security. Invitations for 2010 have been mailed to players already, and no RSVP is required, because officials have no commitment deadline, like in events run by the PGA Tour. That means Woods can sneak into the field by merely showing up unannounced during tournament week, with no fanfare, a minimum of blaring trumpets, and no press credentials issued to TMZ.

Bigger than the Medici clan
It's been years since Italy put forth a player who seemed capable of pressing the top guns at big events, probably since Constantino Rocca made his presence felt 15 years ago at the British Open. That was at St. Andrews, which is where the Open will be staged this year, quite possibly with the aforementioned Edoardo Molinari in the field. In fact, the Brothers Molinari already made major headlines by becoming the first siblings to earn berths in the Masters since Jumbo and Joe Ozaki in 2000. Edoardo and Francesco, No. 38 in the world ranking, teamed to win the World Cup title last fall. Now, if they just had cool nickname like Jumbo or Jet.

Bill Powell, we salute you
As far as positive developments go, this definitely isn't one and typically would not be used as a component of the weekly Up category, but Bill Powell deserves a fitting sendoff. A golfing trailblazer in the black community, he became the first African-American to own and operate his own course in the States and was feted by several major organizations over the years, including being honored by the PGA of America last Augusta. He died of complications related to a stroke last week at age 93. If Charlie Sifford was the Satchel Paige of black golfers, then Powell was something akin to Frank Robinson, the first black manager in an exclusionary sport. Powell's daughter, Renee, became the second black to play on the LPGA. Bill Powell has been on the list of candidates for World Golf Hall of Fame consideration in the lifetime achievement category for years. The course, located in Ohio, opened in 1948 and was called Clearview. In that regard, it sounds to us like he deserves another long, coherent looksee by Hall officials.

Never thought I would say it
As much as Michelle Wie seems to have gotten her career back on the rails, her makeover might rank second to the turnaround of former bad boy John Daly. Besides, after what Woods has done, Daly's antics over the years seem sophomoric by comparison. Daly, who has no status on the PGA Tour, has been granted a sponsor exemption into the Sony Open next week, where a majority of folks will be stunned at how different he looks physically. His behavioral change over the past year has been just as stark. Nobody has been tougher on J.D. that we have over the past three or four seasons, but given the absence of the top player in the game, if Daly can recapture his old form and keep his head clear, it's all good for everybody. Say this for Daly: As a rule, when he got in trouble, he only hurt himself. Woods can hardly say the same.

Down

Do as we say, not as we do
For whatever reason, be it as a result of some consensus reached in-house or up the corporate food chain, the folks at Golf Digest elected two weeks ago to bench Woods as a member of their instructional staff, electing to instead let the scandal die down before putting his instructional pieces back in the popular magazine. Then there's the completely reverse philosophy espoused by Vanity Fair, which, rather unbelievably, is also a Conde Nast publication. The latter features Woods on the cover of its latest edition, sans shirt and doing biceps curls, and includes a feature story that seemingly was written in 15 minutes by a guy with no apparent knowledge of the PGA Tour. So while one Conde Nast mag was skirting the Woods situation entirely -- he has a seven-figure contract to pen the tutorial pieces for Digest -- another was exploiting his situation to sell magazines. How consistent, huh? Maybe Woods can pen an instructional piece when he gets back called, "The left hand should know what the right hand is doing." Good picture, though.

All this Ambien means I need an aspirin
Did you happen to read that there was another frantic 911 call that at least tangentially involved the same sleeping aid preferred by Woods? In a story that has caused plenty of hand-wringing in college football, the 911 call of the wife of Florida coach Urban Meyer was released last week, including her plaintive attempts to unsuccessfully rouse her sleeping husband from some sort of medical episode in the wee hours. Like with Woods, Meyer was said to be unresponsive and out of it, and reports later indicated that he might have had a heart-related episode. So, I guess this stuff really works. Meyer might have slept through a heart attack and Woods possibly snoozed through a tree-totaling car crash.

AT&Teed off?
Just when it seemed like the Woods news had started to die down, AT&T dropped him as a pitchman to end the new year with yet another kick to his ribs. But the intrigue hardly ends there, so please indulge us and follow the ellipses on this train of thought. The communications giant sponsors the AT&T National event, hosted by Woods, and another event at Pebble Beach, making the firm the lone two-tourney title sponsor on the circuit. ... Last Thursday, the PGA Tour announced that Woods would not serve as host at AT&T National this year, even though tournaments are like fast-food franchises and are run by individual owners, not by the tour, which has no real power over such decisions. ... The tour said it reached the decision to lift Woods as sponsor in concert with his foundation, which runs the tournament, because Woods has taken an indefinite leave from the game and will be unable to handle the host duties. ... When asked how that differs from two years ago, when Woods was on the shelf after having knee surgery and skipped attending the event entirely, the tour declined to elaborate further. ... Add it all up and the impression is clear: AT&T, a huge player in the tour's sponsorship pantheon, wanted to sever its ties to Woods across the board.

When Samson is Delilah
Ashley Samson wants to be a sympathetic figure in the Woods affair? Well, she got it at least partly right. She's a pathetic figure. The woman who started the whole sordid Woods scandal by ratting out an acquaintance's alleged affair with Woods to the National Enquirer, said that if she had to do it all over again, she might have taken $200,000 in hush money that she says the Woods' camp was dangling. Samson, not to be confused with the equally doltish Ashley Simpson, claims her life in Las Vegas has suffered since she was paid $25,000 by the magazine to detail the sordid relationship between Woods and Rachel Uchitel. You think? There are some real deep thinkers in this Woods scandal, huh? Like Samson, who when she finally agreed to meet with a New York Daily News writer to discuss the biggest sex scandal in sports history, conducted the interview in a restaurant called the Pink Taco.