A few readers objected to yesterday’s blog in which I said Arnold Palmer ought to stop playing golf on television. One reader called me a loser. A second said he was surprised that hit men hadn’t already gunned me down. What we are dealing with here is a taboo. I don’t like taboos. Here’s how Webster’s defines a taboo: “The stinking turd on the carpet that everybody is too polite to smell.” Every one of you, including the guy who called me a loser, knows it’s undignified for Arnold to play golf in his present state of deterioration. Have you looked ...

Here I am in a Southeast Asian country men call paradise, and what am I doing on a warm and sunny Thursday afternoon in late February? I’m watching a three-week-old re-run of the Wendy’s Champions Skins Game on Thai satellite TV. How pathetic is that? And yet, I can’t tear myself away. Watching the immortals of the game turn mortal holds a fascination for me. As long as they’re able to perform without peeing on themselves, I’m attentive and sitting upright This was a tag-team match of the following pairs: Nicklaus-Watson, Player-Irwin, Floyd-Quigley and Jacobsen-Palmer. Of the eight, only Peter Jacobsen ...

Nobody in the history of sports has fallen further from a higher place than David Duval. To go from the world’s No. 1 player to a guy who has trouble breaking 80 is unprecedented in golf. Every sport has examples of athletes who have fallen from grace, but few have done it as dramatically while still in their prime. The most prominent, baseball pitchers Steve Blass and Rick Ankiel, both of whom developed mysterious control problems, were not stars of Duval’s magnitude or duration. Whenever a great athlete’s game disintegrates for no apparent reason, you’ll find a writer taking the role of ...

Joo Mee Kim of Korea won the LPGA Tour’s SBS Open in Hawaii over the weekend. She beat 22-year-old Soo Young Moon, also of Korea, in a playoff. Korean Charlie Wi won the European Tour’s Malaysian Open on Sunday. Michelle Wie, a Korean-American, is the most promising young player in women’s golf. Before Wie, another Korean named Grace Park was probably the most promising. Why are Korean golfers becoming so prominent in the game today? I can only relate a personal experience I had recently in Thailand. I was at a driving range, doing my usual impeccable job of spraying drives ...

Although defending champion Thongchai Jaidee of Thailand is seeking his third straight Malaysian Open victory this week, Padraig Harrington was tapped as the favorite in Kuala Lumpur, despite the fact that he’s never won the tournament before. This gives you an idea of how Eurocentric some people can be. It’s the Asians who know the golf course best. But somehow the oddsmakers still favor an Irishman coming off a nine-week layoff. I watched the first round today on Thai satellite television, and found it to be an utterly listless beginning. Harrington looked rusty, and all the other European players were sweating ...

When I worked at The Denver Post we had a Sunday columnist who, whenever she wanted to generate a ton of letters from readers, wrote negative stuff about the pope and the Catholic Church. I don’t see much resemblance between the pope and Michelle Wie except one - every time one of us writes a blog on Wie, we get a bigger-than-usual reader response. Can somebody tell me why? What is the big fuss over Michelle Wie, and why are golfing fans so ardent in their praise and condemnation? Why the unusual level of interest in a girl who has never ...

I was disappointed when Mike Weir came apart in the final round of the 2006 AT&T Pebble Beach, carding six bogeys and a double-bogey to finish with a 78. After his brilliant opening-round 63 – and having finished fourth, third and second in the AT&T the previous three years – I thought he might win, but Sunday wasn’t his day. I have always liked Weir’s game, his character and style. He is by most accounts a genuine and caring guy, and I can’t resist pulling for a golfer who, in this era of the big boppers, stands 5 feet 9 and ...

Some of you remember when the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am Tournament was known as the Bing Crosby Pro-Am. The crooner started the event as an informal get-together with his Hollywood friends and some pro golfers in 1937. Sam Snead won first prize of $500 at the first tournament at Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. - and probably never spent a dime of it. After World War II, a deal was struck to bring the tourney to the Monterey Pensinsula, and it was Crosby’s brilliant idea to play it at three golf courses. Bing died in 1977 and a foundation took ...

I have a rooting interest in this week’s Johnnie Walker Classic where Colin Montgomerie, the moody Scot, is itching for a win. Last weekend, Tiger Woods won the Dubai Desert Classic while a subdued Monty finished 101st. Even more distressing was the size of his estimated $14 million out-of-court divorce settlement. One can only imagine how painful, especially for a Scot, such an expensive trip to the cleaners must be. Taking Monty’s money woes into consideration, won’t everyone please be especially civil to him this week? Stow away your cameras, stand nice and still, and keep those barbed comments to yourselves. ...

The Zagat Survey’s “America’s Top Golf Courses” names Riverdale Dunes in Colorado the best budget course. Zagat’s criterion for a “budget course:” greens fees of $40 and under. I don’t know about you, but $40 twice a week puts a big dent in my budget. How can a fellow play golf often enough to improve his game? Here’s one answer: Move to Thailand like I did. Thailand really is a golfer’s dream. Weekdays, many excellent courses here charge $10 per round plus $5 for the mandatory caddie. Even the driving ranges are super. Pay about 35 baht (less than 90 cents) ...

By the final hole of the Phoenix Open (I prefer the old name to “FBR Open"), the TV announcer was predicting superstardom for the winner, J. B. Holmes, who won by seven strokes in only his sixth PGA Tour event. Granted, the kid from Kentucky – who looks like a young model for Red Man Chewing Tobacco – put on a show. But can we please give him time to win a couple of majors before we turn him into Sam Snead? Over the years, many now-forgotten guys in sports have made a brief splash. Bobo Holloman threw a no-hitter in his ...

According to the February GQ article naming Phil Mickelson one of the most hated guys in sports, the other players on the PGA Tour call him “FIGJAM,” which stands for “F**k I’m great, just ask me.” Why do they call him FIGJAM? Just go to Phil’s official website www.philmickelson.com which contains Phil’s letters to his fans and a description of what a truly warm, caring, cuddly, charitable, big-lug-you-love-to-hug Phil really is. Excerpt: “What separates Mickelson from his peers is there truly is more to this young man than his smooth swing, silky putting stroke, booming drives off the tee and ...

Congratulations to Phil Mickelson for making GQ’s list of the “10 Most Hated Athletes” in the February issue, now on the newsstands. Way to go, we’re proud of you, Lefty! After years of trying, you finally won a major tournament. And now you’ve been exposed as a phony in a major magazine. Phil was named the eighth biggest jerk in sports, and what makes the accomplishment really noteworthy is the select group of certified schmucks he joins, among them: 1) Terrell Owens, 2) Barry Bonds, 5) Kobe Bryant, 7) Bonzi Wells, and 10) Lleyton Hewitt. The article says Phil doesn’t have ...

Talk of Michelle Wie winning a major is just so much blah-blah Pretty courageous of Jennifer Mario to bet us in her blog that Michelle Wie will win a men’s major sometime in her career. Way to go out on a limb, Jennifer. Since we’re talking about a 16-year-old kid, will we have to wait 25 years to collect on that bet? Or is that 30 years? If Wie hasn’t won a men’s major by the age of 50, will that be conclusive? Sorry to say, many of us will be dead by then. Fact is, nobody born before the Age of the ...

Michelle Wie has signed up to play in a men’s tournament again, this time the SK Telecom Open in Korea in May. It’ll be her eighth attempt to make the cut against the guys, and maybe eight times is a charm. This business - and it is about business - of Wie challenging the boys reminds me of the time when Pete Rademacher challenged Floyd Patterson for the world heavyweight boxing title in his first pro bout. Predictably, Rademacher suffered four knockdowns in the fifth round and was bombed out in the sixth. The difference between Rademacher and Wie is that Pete ...

I was surprised this morning to read, belatedly, that The International tournament in Castle Pines, Colorado has signed a new six-year deal with CBS and The Golf Channel. Surprised why? Because after last year’s sleep-inducing 36-hole closing day, I thought the tournament was kaput – finally and at long last. The International was an ambitious attempt by its founder, Jack Vickers, to create a new major golf tournament, one that was so different that it would capture the imaginations of golf fans worldwide. But it has never succeeded on that level because it employs a scoring system that most people ...