On Our Mind Golf Blog

An international field has gathered this week at Cog Hill Golf & Country Club just outside of Chicago for the third leg of the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup Playoffs - the BMW Championship. If golf gets the nod as an Olympic sport to be included in the 2016 Summer Games next month as is expected, this week's tournament could very well be a preview of an Olympic golf event.

A week prior to ratifying the recommendation of golf as an Olympic sport, the International Olympic Committee will vote for the host city. Chicago is one of four finalists, along with Rio de Janeiro, Madrid and Tokyo. If both the Windy City and golf are successful in their efforts, Cog Hill is a likely choice for the event venue.

For those of you expecting to plop down on your couch after work today and enjoy a couple of hours of coverage from TPC Boston, you might be surprised to find that the second leg of the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup Playoffs doesn't get started until Friday morning.

This week's Deutsche Bank Championship features a rare Monday finish in honor of the Labor Day holiday. Tiger Woods and the 99 other men chasing him for the Cup will wrap things up on Sept. 7 and then head to the BMW Championship at Chicago's Cog Hill Golf Club. It amounts to what we'd refer to as a short week for football teams who land a coveted Monday Night Football appearance. 

For golfers who eventually reach the ranks of the PGA Tour, collegiate golf is merely a stepping stone to the next level. Yet many of the world’s best golfers who did choose the path of college golf are dedicated supporters of their schools.

During his unlikely run at the 2008 Players Championship, Paul Goydos famously sported the cap of his alma mater, Long Beach State, throughout the tournament. Goydos later auctioned off the hat and donated the money to his school. 

In the presumably posh player’s locker room located within the Sydney Opera House-style clubhouse at Liberty National Golf Club, host of last week’s PGA Tour Playoffs opener The Barclays, complaints about the course occurred with the same regularity as outbreaks of Swine Flu on college campuses as fall semesters began across the country according to various reports filed from Jersey City throughout the course of the tournament.

Tiger Woods seemed to hint at Liberty’s ridiculousness by implying that the course was still an arduous test despite the fact that he and his peers played from the ladies tees during Saturday’s round, and when asked what he thought about the layout prior to the event, Woods smugly replied, “It’s interesting.”

Should a player who has a major championship to his credit in 2009 win the FedEx Cup does he deserve consideration for PGA Tour Player of the Year, even if the world's most recognizable athlete has won five tournaments during the current season?

Undoubtedly yes. Although that scenario is unlikely, and the favorite to win the FedEx Cup can squash any and all debate by taking care of business as he's done at Bay Hill, Congressional, Muirfield Village, Warwick Hills and Firestone CC. 

The only athlete to receive more pub than Tiger Woods last summer was swimmer Michael Phelps, who captivated the country for two weeks with his record-setting performance at the Beijing Olympic Games.

In 2016, Woods will have an opportunity to shine on the world stage. 

Conventional wisdom has Tiger Woods winning the 91^st PGA Championship going away. The man who transcends his sport is firing on all cylinders as the world's best golfers descend upon Hazeltine National Golf Club for golf's fourth and final major, and two convincing victories in two weeks have made Woods the overwhelming favorite and swept his dismal performance at Turnberry under the proverbial rug.

The story of the major championships in 2009 is simple. In his final performance before the Masters, the U.S. Open and the Open Championship, Woods has won, effectively leading everyone to believe that finding his name alone on top of the leader board as each major concluded was inevitable. 

While the ‘On the Clock Rule' designed to govern slow play on the PGA Tour hasn't been enforced since 1992, the rule itself and the official who threatened to use it are being called out for playing a critical role in Padraig Harrington's unfortunate triple bogey during the final round of the WGC - Bridgestone Invitational.

After rules official John Paramor informed the Woods-Harrington group that it would be timed by stopwatch for each shot on No. 16 tee, Harrington hit a series of poor shots, including a flop shot that came out hot and found the water guarding the 16^th green. Harrington wound up making triple bogey, while Tiger Woods stuck an 8 iron only a few feet from the pin on his third shot and subsequently rolled in a short putt for birdie. The exchange left Harrington three shots behind Woods and effectively ended what had been a captivating battle between superstars. 

The PGA Championship is rapidly approaching, and the last major of the year is the final chance for Phil, Tiger and the rest of the world's best golfers to capture one of sport's biggest prizes.

It's also a chance for you to win a prize pack from the 2009 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black, which includes a sleeve of U.S. Open logo golf balls and an official souvenir program.

In a column published in Monday's edition of the Washington Post noted author and Golf Channel contributor John Feinstein explored the weekend that was in sports, and concluded that a normally uneventful period on the calendar had turned out to be rather fruitful for sports talk radio fodder.

"This is supposed to be a quiet time of year in sports," Feinstein wrote. "Things are usually so dull that a one-day holdout from an NFL training camp by a first-round draft pick passes for news."