The PGA Tour’s groove war is over.

The pre-1990 Ping Eye2 wedges that were non-conforming but not illegal on the PGA Tour because of a legal loophole, will no longer be allowed, beginning March 29.

Ping chairman and CEO John Solheim announced Monday that Ping will waive its rights to a settlement that had kept the PGA Tour from banning the deeper, wider grooves that no longer meet USGA regulations.

“John Solheim and Ping had a terrific opportunity to do something very positive and significant for the game of golf and we very much appreciate his willingness to take this action,” PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said.

A firestorm of controversy was ignited early this season when Phil Mickelson, one of a handful of players to use the old clubs, was branded a cheater by Scott McCarron.

Mickelson, however, was not the only one to take advantage of the loophole. Others included Fred Couples, Hunter Mahan and John Daly.

“It levels the playing field on the PGA Tour and resolves a very unfortunate situation that we predicted would happen when the USGA first proposed the new groove rule more than two years ago,” Solheim said.

While the pre-1990 Ping clubs will no longer be legal on the PGA Tour, Solheim did not wave the company’s legal rights in amateur events, including USGA championships.

“We’ve heard from a lot of loyal Ping Eye2 owners who were concerned that a resolution of the tour issue might also keep them from playing their Eye2s that were grandfathered as a result of the 1990 USGA settlement,” Solheim said.

“I want to reassure those golfers that their clubs remain conforming in all amateur events played under the USGA Rules of Golf. The problem is solved on the PGA Tour and the integrity of the original agreements is unaffected.”

Both the PGA Tour and Ping said they were pleased with an announcement by the USGA that it will be conducting a forum in the fall of 2010 in an effort to find ways to improve the equipment.

Camilo Villegas’ Sunday afternoon at the Honda Classic, the first week of the PGA Tour’s annual Florida Swing, was so much more than your garden variety five-shot victory and third career win for the 28-year-old native of Medellin, Colombia: It was Take Your Country To Work Day.

What a scrapbook week it turned into for Villegas, who became a one-man Colombian golf embassy on the way to storming the difficult PGA National course with a closing 68 and 13-under total that left runner-up Anthony Kim in the jet wash.

Kim shot 67 to finish 8 under, while Justin Rose posted 64, the day’s low round by three shots, to finish third at 7 under. Paul Casey (67) and Vijay Singh (72) tied for fourth, seven shots back.

“Man, it’s been a week,” Villegas said. “I wanted to play good for all of the people that came out and watched me. I have a lot of people that really care for me in this area. I want to play good for my country and that’s exactly what I did. I kept my composure. I hit good shots.”

In his fifth PGA Tour season after arriving at the University of Florida in 2001 barely able to speak English, Villegas is everything that will help golf grow in new markets.

Included on a People magazine list of “Hottest Bachelors,” Villegas has romance-novel Latin looks, a boxer’s biceps and a tight-fitting, color-rich wardrobe. From a country that historically has shown little interest in golf, he’s so popular back home that Colombian TV now carries as many as 30 PGA Tour broadcasts a season.

Also because of Villegas’ appeal, golf’s popularity has blossomed to a point that the Nationwide Tour visited Bogota last week for what was the first PGA Tour-sanctioned event ever in South America.

Reflective of his favorite son status, Villegas spent the early part of the week in Bogota as an unofficial host before flying back to the U.S., just in time for Thursday’s first round of the Honda Classic.

Do you believe in karma?

“I’ve had good vibes all week,” Villegas said.

Even younger brother, Manuel, felt the energy. He finished tied for 15th in the Bogota event.

“I just loved ever second of it,” Camilo Villegas said. “Going back home for the first Nationwide Tour event in my country, and my brother played good today, so congrats to him. Just coming out here and taking care of business today.”

Villegas began the week by flying from Phoenix (where last Sunday he finished in a tie for eighth) to Miami and then on to Bogota, arriving Monday at dinner time.

From there is was a whirlwind.

“Spending some time with my people in my country and all of those Nationwide Tour players for the first Nationwide event in Colombia was awesome,” he said. “It was a long day. But it was worth every second of it. I mean, to go down there, do the junior clinic, play the pro-am, do the dinner and then be at the player party was unbelievable.

“I believe it can be a huge step for Latin American and South American golf. I think the Nationwide should keep exploring other countries down there. I’ve had a chance to play throughout all of South America, and it’s a beautiful place, full of great people, great golf courses, and the game keeps growing.”

Villegas, who now lives in Jupiter, Fla., only about 15 minutes from Palm Beach Gardens where the PGA National complex is located, arrived home late Wednesday and didn’t even go to the golf course until showing up for Thursday’s opening round.

The distractions never showed.

“Today I go on the range, I know you’ve got to put four rounds together to win a golf tournament,” Villegas said. “I wasn’t even hitting balls. I was be checking my phone all the time to see what my brother was shooting down in Colombia. He shot 67. So that was a good start to the day.”

The finish wasn’t bad, either. When Villegas’ finally raised his arm in victory, his 72-hole winning score was the lowest since Honda moved to PGA National in 2007, four shots better than Y.E. Yang’s winning total a year ago.

And Villegas made it look easy. He began the final round with a three-shot lead and made the turn Sunday up by five. With eight holes to play he led by six.

It was Villegas’ first win since back-to-back victories in 2008.

“We keep growing as a player and as a person,” he said. “Understanding the game, understanding life, understanding what we do, it’s got great things, it’s got bad things. You’ve just got to enjoy the good ones, put aside the bad ones, try to avoid distractions, and stay committed.”

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Florida (AP) — Camilo Villegas came back to the pack on his back nine and wound up rallying to take a three-shot lead over Nathan Green and Vijay Singh after three rounds of the Honda Classic on Saturday.

Villegas was at 11-under 199, so even after making three bogeys in a five-hole span in what became a round of 67, he’ll be the one to catch on Sunday.

“I’m sleeping in my own bed this week, which is always nice,” said Villegas, one of many tour players who call South Florida home. “I’ve been nice and relaxed. So we’ll show up tomorrow the same way and try to play some good golf.”

Green (67) and Singh (69) are at 8 under, while George McNeill (66) and Matt Every (69) were tied for fourth at 6 under. Anthony Kim, who shared the 36-hole lead with Villegas, shot 73 and wound up six shots back entering the final round, tied with Michael Connell (69).

It’s not over, Villegas quickly pointed out.

“Golf tournaments are four days,” Villegas said. “So with that said, you’ve got to put four good rounds together and see what happens at the end.”

All the talk before the tournament was about the difficulty of the course, before conversations on Thursday shifted to the gusting breezes and how they left players guessing.

On Saturday, a controlled burn left its mark on the Honda.

Earth, wind and fire, indeed.

A planned fire in Jonathan Dickinson State Park, about 14 miles (20 kilometers) north of PGA National Resort and Spa, made an already tough course even tougher. The wind shifted a bit after the fire started, sending thick plumes of smoke, ash and haze down directly toward the course. Play wasn’t halted, though the day was clearly affected.

“It’s not great, but everyone’s dealing with it,” said Green, an asthmatic who once worked in a crematorium his parents manage. “It’s strange when you’re looking down, hitting your putt and you’ve got ashes sort of going past your ball. We had that a few holes in, I think on 13 and 14. It’s different. I don’t think guys are really worried about it. You can just sort of smell it and taste it.”

Singh shot his third straight round in the 60s, a 69 to keep him in the mix for what would be his first win since capturing the FedExCup in 2008.

“It’s not going to be easy for nobody tomorrow,” Singh said. “I’m just going to go out and play solid, try not to make too many mistakes. If you can keep the mistakes to a minimum, I think you’ll be OK.”

Also with a third-straight sub-70 round was Sam Saunders, who shot his third straight 69 and was tied for 10th, eight shots behind Villegas.

His coach wasn’t expected to be with him on Sunday. Saunders’ coach was his grandfather, Arnold Palmer. “The King” knows that if he’s in the gallery on Sunday, the buzz he’ll create-on a course redesigned by Jack Nicklaus-might take away from what his grandkid is trying to do inside the ropes, so Saunders thinks he’ll stay away.

“Hopefully, someday, and I’ve said this many times before, that my game will become good enough and I’ll become a good enough player that I’ll be known as Sam Saunders and Arnold Palmer’s grandson,” Saunders said. “I think I’m getting there, but right now, it’s fine. If I’m Arnold Palmer’s grandson, that’s kind of the deal. I understand that.”

Villegas made four birdies on the front side-including the par-4 6th hole, the tournament’s toughest this week, for the second straight day. And after a bogey at the 10th seemed to derail him a bit, Villegas rolled in a 20-footer for birdie on the next hole, punching the air as the putt dropped.

Villegas had only four top-10 finishes in 21 tour starts last season, after winning back-to-back starts in September 2008 and thinking he was ready for a big breakthrough.

Maybe this is the year. So far in 2010, he was third at Match Play and then tied for eighth last week at the Phoenix Open.

“We have our good years, average years and bad years,” Villegas said. “I decided to look at the good side of it and work on those little things that I needed to get better, and show up this year a little more excited to be out here.”

A win and a $1.008 million check on Sunday would make him very excited.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Let’s hear it for the PGA Tour’s Florida Swing — home of golf’s best nicknames.

At this week’s Honda Classic, played in Palm Beach Gardens at PGA National, the “Bear Trap” awaits down the finishing stretch. Next week, the CA Championship goes to Doral Resort, where it will be played on a course called the “Blue Monster.”

After that, it’s on to Tampa for the Transitions Championship, played on Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course. That explains the three-hole finish tagged “the Snake Pit.”

And finally, the name game comes to an end with the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Orlando’s Bay Hill Club — where the torturous finishing hole is guarded by a ball-gobbling hazard called “The Devil’s Bathtub.”

But don’t be fooled. There’s more to the next four weeks of golf than cleaver monikers. There’s the guttural moans of the wounded tour pro.

“As far as quality golf courses in one state, it’s pretty darn good,” Zach Johnson said. “I don’t know what would be better. These are pretty sweet.”

Welcome to Florida. Now take your bogey and like it.

The Florida Swing, once viewed as a non-strenuous, coming-out party for players to knock rust off their early season games, in recent years has become a contact sport.

“If you don’t like this golf course, your game isn’t good enough and that’s it. That’s the reality of this course.”
- Padraig Harrington,
On PGA National PGA National, a Jack Nicklaus redesign, gets a lot of mileage out of the “Bear Trap,” a three-hole run of Nos. 15, 16 and 17 that creates a savage finish, but the other 15 are no walks in the park.

Since the Honda relocated to PGA National four years ago, the course has ranked among the 10 toughest courses every season. It played nearly 1.4 shots above par in 2009, the seventh-highest total of any course and fourth highest in non-majors.

“Just a big, tough golf course,” Padraig Harrington said. “Every golf shot it asks you to hit out here, it’s a strong shot, but there’s no rebound, It’s one of the toughest courses. If you don’t like this golf course, your game isn’t good enough and that’s it. That’s the reality of this course.”

The fun part is things do not get a whole lot easier.

Doral is a World Golf Championship stop, and the Blue Monster has long been one of the tour’s most noted layouts.

The par-4 18th with water running down the entire left side ranked as the second-most difficult on tour last year. The 235-yard, par-3 No. 4 checked in as 2009’s 15th-most difficult.

At Innisbrook the last two winning scores have been in single digits. And Bay Hill, its par-4 16th ranking as last year’s fourth-most difficult, is even harder.

Tiger Woods’ winning score last year was 5-under. Only once in the last five year has the winning score not been single-digits under par.

By comparison, look at this season’s winning numbers. After eight weeks, no tournament winner has finished worst than 15-under. At the SBS Championship it took 22-under for Geoff Ogilvy to win. Three winning scores have been 16-under. And, even it is was over five rounds, the 30-under that Bill Haas wasn’t exactly a grind.

“We play enough tournaments where it takes 18- to 20-under to win,” Charles Howell III said. “It’s nice to see 5-under win. It’s good. It rewards pars, and when you make a birdie it actually means something.”

Be careful what you wish for.

Florida’s pesky early-year winds greeted players for Thursday’s opening day at Honda and the results were reflective.

“You see the results,” said Alex Cejka after an opening 68. “It’s not so much under par. Every tournament is 14-, 16-under and here it’s 3-, 4-under par. The course is tricky with the wind. It’s tough.”

The Golf Writers Association of America wants the PGA Tour to discipline John Daly.

Again.

After the Florida Times-Union published a story detailing Daly’s history of punishments during 18 seasons on the PGA Tour — including five suspensions, 21 charges for “failure to give best effort,” and seven trips to alcohol rehabilitation — the golfer retaliated in an odd way.

Daly asked followers of his Twitter account to call and criticize the writer of the story, and supplied the cell phone number.

“Here’s the JERK who writes NON-NEWS article … CALL & FLOOD his line & let’s tell him how we feel,” the post said.

The writer, Garry Smits, reported he received nearly 100 calls.

In a letter sent to PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, GWAA president Vartan Kupelian said Daly’s actions deserve punishment given the vindictive nature of his actions. Kupelian pointed out Smits was reporting on a matter that was public record.

The Times-Union obtained Daly’s personal record by order of the court, after it became public record after Daly dropped a lawsuit filed against the newspaper parent company, Morris Publishing.

As part of his letter to Finchem, Kupelian also said the GWAA wants the PGA Tour to make public any suspension. The tour’s current policy is to not disclose player discipline.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Tiger Woods’ caddie said he knew nothing about the golfer’s extramarital affairs and was angry with him over the scandal.

Steve Williams told TV3’s “60 Minutes” program Wednesday that he also is bitter at the reaction toward him from the media and members of the public.

“It’s been the most difficult time of my life, no two ways about it, because every single person believed that I should know or did know or had something to do with it,” Williams said. “I knew nothing, that’s my answer. I don’t have to clarify or extend that answer, I knew nothing.”

The New Zealander, who has been Woods’ caddie for 11 years, said he would have spoken up if he had known about the player’s behavior.

“If the shoe was on someone else, I would say the same thing. It would be very difficult as a caddie not to know but I’m 100 percent telling you, I did not know, and that’s that,” he said. “I’m a straight-up sort of person. If I had known something was going on, the whistle would have been blown.”

Williams said he was angry when revelations about Woods’ private life emerged, but had not berated the player because he felt he needed a friend.

“Of course I’m mad at him, why would you not be?” Williams said. “I’m close with his wife and he’s got two lovely children and he’s let them down.

“When I talk to him, I don’t talk to him about what’s happened. I talk to him about the future and about what we’re going to try to accomplish and how we’re going to get over it.”
- Steve Williams “When a guy’s having a tough time, it’s not up to me to beat him with a stick right now. He’s getting enough grilling from everybody else.

“When you’re a true friend of somebody, that’s when somebody needs your support and need you the most. That’s when you don’t walk away. Tiger’s one of my closest friends and he needs my support right now and I’d never think of walking away.”

Williams said the two haven’t discussed the scandal.

“When I talk to him, I don’t talk to him about what’s happened,” Williams said. “I talk to him about the future and about what we’re going to try to accomplish and how we’re going to get over it.”

Williams said Woods recently hit balls on the practice range, but would not return to golf until he felt he was in top form.

Williams said he had personally tried to concentrate on his charity work and auto racing interests to avoid thinking about the controversy around Woods.

“Every week I try to focus on something to keep my mind off it,” Williams said. “You try to deal with it as best you can but in some peoples’ perception, I’m involved in it, I’ve committed a crime, I’ve done wrong or whatever it may be.”

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. Active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

He was his everything.

So here we are, nearly four years after the death of Earl Woods — who famously was the lion involved with “Training a Tiger,” which was the title of one of his three books — and his son’s life is suddenly a slice buried in the high rough.

The revelations of infidelity in his five-year marriage. That SUV crash near his Orlando home last November involving a fire hydrant, a tree, a broken back window, a golf club and a slew of questions. Sponsors bolting to trim more than a few pennies from his $1 billion in endorsements. Reported stays at sex-addiction clinics. A live news conference on national television featuring a visibly broken soul.

Plus, even though Woods has been spotted during the last few days working on his conditioning as well as his driving, chipping and putting, nobody knows when he’ll return to the game that has been obsession.

This isn’t close to the polished, disciplined and mostly perfect Tiger on and off golf courses that we saw when his father was around.

Coincidence? Not a chance.

“Yeah, his father would have been on top of everything. In fact, Tiger wouldn’t have been anywhere close to this mess if Earl was alive, because Tiger, as a rule, wouldn’t do anything that he thought would embarrass his father,” said Don Slater, 71, pausing. Then he added, while thinking about Tiger’s various issues out of nowhere, “Seems like to me, he just went off his rocker. That’s why he needed Earl.”

Who is Slater? For one, he has spent decades as one of the kings of community service in Manhattan, Kansas, where he does everything from running a tutoring program for children to delivering meals around town to the elderly. A few years ago, he was honored in Washington D.C. by the AARP’s National Retired Teachers Association for his work with young people, and Slater wasn’t even a teacher during his working career. He was a school custodian.

Here’s the other thing: Slater still lives at the Manhattan home of his youth on Yuma Street, which is a block away from the house where “Squirrel,” otherwise known as Earl Woods, grew up as the youngest of six children to Maude and Miles Woods. Both of Earl’s parents died within years of each other when he was around 13.

Afterward, Earl was raised by a combination of his older sister, Hallie Belle, and the close-knit folks in that African-American community on the city’s south side.

Said Slater, who was seven years younger than Earl, “We had a village back then, and the parents weren’t selfish. They looked at everybody as their kids. It was during the time of segregation, so everything we did was within the block or so in which we lived. We had our grade school, the USO, the park. The high school was two blocks north. So we didn’t have to go anywhere for entertainment. We all interacted with each other, and we all knew each other and everybody’s personality.”

According to Slater, Earl Woods was so introspective that “he’d rather have a good book than a friend.” He also was a prolific athlete. He even turned down a contract to catch for the powerful Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues to become the first black baseball player in what currently is the Big 12 Conference. That was during the early 1950s when Earl went to Kansas State.

Later, Earl entered the Army, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. He served two tours of duty in Vietnam as a Green Beret. Along the way, while stationed in Thailand, he met and then married Kultida, his second wife. She gave birth to Tiger in 1975, and you know the rest of that story.

It was the Tiger story, with Earl in every chapter.

Earl exposed Tiger to golf at 10 months old. Earl rattled keys or started up the golf cart during Tiger’s backswing to get his son used to distractions. Earl promoted the coming of Tiger’s greatness early and often, which led to an appearance with his little golfing son on the Mike Douglas Show. Earl was there to hug Tiger after nearly every one of his victories as an amateur and as a professional.

Earl also kept Tiger from roaring during controversy. There was 1997, for instance, when Tiger won the first of his four Masters titles. With folks fuming, Fuzzy Zoeller claimed he was joking when he referred to Tiger as “that little boy” and that Woods shouldn’t bring “fried chicken or collard greens or whatever the hell they serve” to the next year’s Champions Dinner when Tiger would get to decide the menu.

Tiger accepted Zoeller’s apology, but Tiger added that he didn’t believe Zoeller was joking. That was before Tiger said he wouldn’t discuss the matter any further — and then gave way to his father (as in he was muzzled by his father). Since Earl saw advertising dollar leaving their universe if Tiger got into a racial debate involving the hugely popular Zoeller, Earl shrugged for cameras. Then he told anybody who would listen that he thought Zoeller WAS joking.

Just as Earl used his military training to leap on grenades for Tiger back then, he would do the same now.

“You have to remember that Earl was a very intelligent person, and you have to remember that his training was in psychology,” said Slater, of Earl, who minored in psychology at Kansas State. “You also know something else, that he was good at brainwashing techniques, and that’s what he did with Tiger, really, to make him such a great golfer. So there is no question that, during the night when Tiger had the accident with his SUV, Earl would have been there telling him to handle it right away and to not wait around like he did. He would have called a press conference, and he would have been right by his side, calling the shots.”

Slater, by the way, helped create the Wall of Fame at Manhattan High School, and he was responsible for Earl as a recent inductee. Nearly a decade before that, when Earl returned to town for his 50th high school reunion, Slater said he had a conversation with Earl involving the kryptonite for golfing’s Superman.

“I said, ‘Earl, what can bring Tiger down?’ And that’s when he flat-out told me — women,” said Slater, which brings us to this: Earl often urged Tiger in private and public to remain single as long as possible, because the father thought marriage would ruin the son’s golf game.

Well, that and the son’s life — at least for a while.

As you might expect, Tiger Woods’ eventual return to competitive golf is being eagerly awaited by pretty much everyone at PGA Tour headquarters.

Absolutely and positively there is no one in the golf organization’s offices at Ponta Vedra Beach, Fla., who does not want their lead dog back playing for every reason you would expect.

Plus one more.

Can we, please, hurry up and get this over with?

While everyone is careful to the extreme to politely suggest Woods should take all the time he needs to reassemble his personal life before returning to competition, there’s no denying that the longer he takes the bigger the task of his arrival becomes.

And despite recent news that Woods returned home to Orlando following a week of family counseling and is preparing to resume golf and fitness routines, there has been no indication of a target date for a initial tournament appearance.

Beyond the golfer’s open-ended statement made Feb. 19 during his first public appearance since being engulfed by scandal three months earlier — “I do plan to return to golf one day, I just don’t know when that day will be. I don’t rule out that it will be this year.” — there is nothing to suggest when and where he might reappear.

That leaves only one thing for certain: Whenever and wherever Woods finally does come back, it will be an absolute circus.

“We are certainly anticipating that, especially the first week back, there will be issues that will have to be dealt with in terms of numbers, in terms of procedures and cautions that will have to be planned and thought through,” PGA Tour executive vice president Ty Votaw. “We’re in the process of doing all those things.”

“I think there will be people in the crowds that are saying stupid things that will be removed immediately, as they should be. I think the tour will handle it perfectly.”
- Rocco Mediate Numerous meetings at tour headquarters already have taken place, and more are certain to follow, for the purpose of discussing and preparing for the chaos expected to accompany Woods’ eventual return.

“We just have to be prepared for any number of different scenarios,” Votaw said.

Even during simpler times, when Woods was only the world’s No. 1 golfer and most recognized athlete, there were necessary tournament security procedures for weeks he competed and for the weeks he did not.

Now, having become a full-fledged paparazzi target and tarnished icon, Woods can expect to be on the receiving end of behavior — from both fans and media — that golf never before imagined.

“I think it’s going to be a bit dicey at first,” said tour player Rocco Mediate, who lost a 19-hole playoff to Woods at the 2008 U.S. Open. “There’s going to be some people around and probably some media around that usually aren’t here.

“I think there will be people in the crowds that are saying stupid things that will be removed immediately, as they should be. I think the tour will handle it perfectly. He’ll have the people around him he needs to have, and he should have the people around him that he needs to have.”

After Woods announced plans for an indefinite leave before the start of this year, PGA Tour observers mostly agreed that the importance the golfer places on major championships would draw him back before the Masters arrives in early April.

If that assumption is correct, it would be likely Woods would choose to play at least once before going into the year’s first major.

Next week’s World Golf Championship at Doral, where he has won three times, has been one of the tournaments mentioned when speculating Woods’ return, but it now seems unlikely considering the report he is just resuming practice.

The next possibility on the PGA Tour is the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, where he is the defending champion and a six-time winner.

The Masters, which Woods has played every year since 1995, follows two weeks later. Augusta National officials have not indicated whether they expect Woods to compete.

“Which ever is the first event back, there will be an impact,” said Eddie Carabone, tournament director for Doral’s CA Championship. “No question about it.”

Left unspoken is the part about not all of it being positive.

Security issues, crowd control, media demands and endless details will multiply the moment Woods announces his intentions. Adding to the challenge is Woods’ habit of waiting until moments before the 5 p.m. deadline the Friday before the tournament to commit.

“I’m sure we are going to have instances that we are going to have to deal with,” PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said. “I would not want to say if this were to happen, we’ll do X, of if that were to happen, we’ll do Y. We hopefully will be prepared for different contingencies and deal with them effectively.”

The most obvious concern will be fan conduct.

It’s not a case of “‘if” an over-imbibed fan will make a comment that breaks golf’s gallery etiquette, but “how many” and what will be the consequences.

Woods’ long-time caddie, Steve Williams, known for past run-ins with fans over noise or unauthorized use of cameras, already has gone on record vowing to shield his boss.

“When I go back to work with Tiger Woods, nothing will change,” Williams said recently. “My job is to give him the best information I can and get him around in the fewest possible strokes.

“And as I have always pointed out, it is to try and give him a level playing field. Nothing will change from that aspect. I won’t do anything differently.”

Very little imagination is needed to visualize the potential for a unsavory interaction between the looper and the looped that would earn an endlessly run on cable news.

“I think everybody who is going to be involved in Tiger’s return will have a full briefing on various issues that present themselves in regard to this, and that would include Tiger’s support team,” Votaw said. “That will include a tournament’s security personnel. That would include staff of the PGA Tour and volunteer forces.”

The fallout from Woods’ sex scandal so far has cost him endorsement deals with Accenture, AT&T and Gatorade, but it has made him tabloid journalism’s man of the year.

The guarantees an onslaught of non-traditional golf media descending upon the site of Woods’ first tournament appearance, adding to the potential ruckus caused by fans behaving badly.

The PGA Tour can restrict media credentials, but as a rule never wants to turn away any potential coverage. But even celebrity news outlets that might be denied media access can gain entrance into the tournament by purchasing tickets and potentially become part of the story.

“Most of these tournaments, especially the ones he plays in, have been at the same golf course a number of years and we understand the layout and crowd patterns,” Finchem said. “So we should be prepared.

“But you know, there probably are going to be instances.”

The harassing calls on Gary Smits’ phone approached 100 by mid-day Wednesday. Only one of them threatened to harm his family.

Congratulations, John Daly. Your people have spoken, and the PGA Tour has Page No. 457 for your bad-boy dossier.

Daly instructed his Twitter followers to blast Smits, a sportswriter for the Florida Times-Union. That after Smits wrote a story Tuesday detailing the Tour’s 456-page disciplinary file on Daly.

The only thing more predictable than a scoundrel blaming the media is for the media to lash back. I hesitate to do that because this whole thing smells like P.T. Barnum ploy.

There’s a sucker born every minute, the circus king famously said. Since Daly can no longer make a living being a golfer, he has to do it being John Daly.

That means acting like a clown and marketing it to his gullible fans. They no doubt loved Tuesday night’s Golf Channel premiere of “Being John Daly.” What better way to pump next week’s episode:

JD gets drunk and hits a tee shot into the media tent at The Honda Classic!

Cynicism aside, this week’s scheme does have some redeeming qualities. It shows what a joke the Tour’s disciplinary policy is. It fully illustrates what a joke Daly has become. It makes you wonder why anyone would still fall for his tired act.

Being a common man, I get Daly’s common-man appeal. His antics were long excused as “John being John,” but there’s been less and less to admire. We found out how much less when Smits opened Daly’s disciplinary file.

Four-hundred and fifty-six pages?

Can you imagine an NFL player with a 456-page disciplinary file? He’d be in the UFL before Roger Goodell got to page 12.

Can you imagine Tom Brady pulling a Daly? Better yet, can you imagine Michael Vick doing it and the public excusing it as “Michael being Michael?”

Being suspended five times, being placed on probation six times and being cited 21 times for “Failure to give best effort?”

Can you imagine an NFL quarterback incurring all those sanctions and the public never knowing about it? Or the media never writing about it?

It would happen if he were a member of the PGA Tour. The sport that celebrates nobility and personal responsibility doesn’t acknowledge when it disciplines a player. Maybe if it had made a public example out of Daly after the third or fourth suspension, he might not have squandered all that talent.

I’ll cut Daly some slack for his addiction problems, and can even laugh at him using a beer can as a tee. Those Dalyisms were well known before his file was opened. What few knew about was the incident at the 2005 U.S. Open.

Eugene Fleming worked for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Players were required to stop and show ID at a security checkpoint. Fleming had volunteered his services that week, only to have Daly almost run over him.

The Common Man’s Golfer was in a hurry, you see, and couldn’t be expected to follow the rules like everybody else.

The Tour implored law-enforcement officials to let it handle things. It labeled the incident a case of “mistaken identity.” That despite four eyewitnesses, all law-enforcement officials, saying it was Daly behind the wheel.

“I looked him in the eye,” Fleming told the Times-Union. “There was no mistaken identity on my part.”

To summarize: Daly put more effort into hitting cops than making putts. Even the most lemming of fans might not excuse that as John being John.

The funny thing is it wouldn’t have come out if Daly hadn’t sued the Times-Union over a column written by Mike Freeman in 2005. Daly lost the libel suit, but his disciplinary file became evidence.

It was public record, sitting for anyone to see since November. All Smits did was report what was in it.

You’d think Daly would thank the Times-Union for enhancing his brand. He could use the publicity since he’s won approximately one tournament in 14 years.

Instead, he went to his Twitter page and called Smits a jerk. Then he posted Smits’ cell phone number and instructed his followers to “flood his line and let him know how we feel.”

They did.

“You know how sports fans can bow up,” Smits said.

He wasn’t upset, though he probably had better things to do than listen to anonymous yahoos spew profanities all morning. Interestingly, Daly removed the Flood-the-Jerk’s-phone-line entries from his Twitter page.

You could surmise he was worried the PGA Tour might notice. Not that another $5,000 fine would matter to a guy who reportedly made $4 million in endorsements last year.

Or you could cynically surmise the entries had accomplished their mission. A few more people might click to the Golf Channel website and read the promo for his show.

“Being John Daly will chronicle not only Daly’s rededication to the game, but also his life makeover.”

Life makeover?

It doesn’t seem much has changed other than Daly has lost some weight and put on more clown makeup.

As embarrassing as the drunken mug shots are, Bozo’s still a huge draw for the PGA Tour. Same with the Golf Channel, Loudmouth pants and every other business associated with Daly. If they really wanted to help Daly, they’d deprive him of the one thing he must have – attention.

That would be bad for business, however. The worse he behaves, the more his embrace.

So scrap that idea about hitting a tee shot into the media tent this weekend. Daly should do something really rebellious, like knock over a 7-Eleven.

If Inspector Tim Finchem gets the assignment, expect it to be ruled a case of mistaken identity. At worse, it would quietly become Pages 458-479 in the disciplinary file.

It’s all part of Being John Daly. The ongoing story that proves P.T. Barnum was right.

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. (AP) – For his first round of golf since becoming a Super Bowl champion, Drew Brees wore a slightly mismatched outfit.

Blue pullover with a Golden Bear logo. And a beige Purdue cap.

Jack Nicklaus — remember, the Golden Bear is an Ohio State man — noticed.

“Brees had a great year this year,” Nicklaus said, “even if he was a Purdue guy.”

With plenty of barbs like that expected to go his way over the 18-hole jaunt, Brees played in a Pro-Am on Wednesday before the Honda Classic with Nicklaus, Dan Marino and saxophonist Kenny G — a trip that brought the New Orleans quarterback back to South Florida about a month after leading the Saints over the Indianapolis Colts for the Super Bowl title.

Brees, who can play to a 3 handicap, said it was the first time he’d gotten on the course since June, and acknowledged that he was nervous to play alongside the 18-time major winner.

“I have a signed Masters flag in my office with his signature on it,” said Brees, who wanted to pick Nicklaus’ brain about course design and other golf-related topics.

“Just to have the opportunity to not only meet him but then play with him, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
- Drew Brees “Obviously, you know what he’s meant for the game of golf. Just to have the opportunity to not only meet him but then play with him, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

The weeks since the 31-17 win over the Colts have largely felt the same way.

Calling the whirlwind that’s followed “nuts and mayhem,” Brees peeled off some of the highlights of his still-going victory tour: A parade at Disney … television chats with Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres and David Letterman … Mardi Gras parade … Super Bowl parade … team celebrations … the list goes on and on.

And the latest Super perk came Wednesday: Golf with Nicklaus.

“He’s been able to revolutionize the sport,” Brees said. “He was one of the guys who made golf popular, made it, I guess, what it is today. To play for the length of time that he’s played and the number of championships that he’s won, major championships especially, you just have to sit back and say ‘Wow.’ That’s so difficult to do.”

Nicklaus said he found that humbling, and added that his game — while lauding Marino and Kenny G, both of whom he played with previously — was no longer “for public consumption.”

Wednesday was the first time Brees and Nicklaus played together, and Nicklaus saw a silver lining in Brees winning a Super Bowl.

“He was a Big Ten guy,” Nicklaus said. “So that’s good.”

Brees said he intends to take maybe up to another month off to rest and recover, before starting to gear up for the 2010 season and hopes of a Saints repeat.

More golf, he vowed, will get played before football takes priority again.

“I think it’s important to take time away and kind of recharge your battery both physically and mentally, emotionally, because that was quite a ride,” Brees said. “It doesn’t seem like it’s slowed down at all here over the last three weeks, but I’m certainly going to take some time with my family and just relax and try to get away and not think about football for a while. Play some golf.”