Golf PGA – America Developing Smiles – Charity Tickets

ORLANDO, Fla. — Attention flamers, vicious posters and other reputation-savaging knuckleheads who hide behind the anonymity of chatroom walls while tossing grenades at others:

Phil Mickelson is fighting back.

In a move that could bring unintended light to a very personal issue, Mickelson filed suit in Canada to learn the identity of a person who has been ripping him on the Internet.

According to the Courthouse News Service, Mickelson alleges in the complaint that “the postings suggest that plaintiff has an illegitimate child, that his wife has affairs and other similar vexatious statements that are absolutely untrue and, simply put, vicious.”

Mickelson has long been dogged by wild and absurd rumors, and his wife Amy has even been known to make jokes with friends about them.

But nobody’s kidding around this time.

“I’m all for freedom of speech, but I won’t tolerate defamation, and so I’ve got a great attorney who’s on it,” he said after the first round of the Phoenix Open on Thurday.

Mickelson sought and was granted by San Diego Superior Court the right to subpoena Yahoo! for information about the identities of two screen names, “Fogroller” and “Longitude,” and Yahoo! responded with Fogroller’s Internet protocol address, which is registered to a Videotron subscriber, according to the Courthouse News report.  

The news report states that Videotron’s attorney said Mickelson needs a court order for the company to provide him with the information. In the filing, Mickelson seeks the court order.

“It is urgent, and in the best interest of justice, to accurately identify the person using the ‘Fogroller’ pseudonym and posting these offensive and defamatory statements, in order to stop the dissemination of false and wrongful statements about the plaintiff and obtain reparation for the prejudice already suffered,” the complaint states, according to Courthouse News.

Reparation, of course, is the legal euphemism that broadly means “blood and money.”

http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/
02/01/43527.htm

ORLANDO, Fla. — Intentionally or not, the City of Los Angeles certainly timed the announcement to ensure maximum impact.

Attorneys for the city have sued Northern Trust, the title sponsor of the town’s PGA Tour event, alleging that the company frittered away city pension funds on reckless investments.

The city seeks $95 million from Northern Trust, whose tour event begins in two weeks at famed Riviera Country Club.

“Northern Trust made false claims and statements regarding its management of the assets of the Los Angeles City Employees’ Retirement System [LACERS] in order to receive payments as a custodian bank and securities lending agent,” according to the complaint, which was filed in Superior Court and excerpted in the L.A. Times.

As though the case alone isn’t bad enough in terms of public relations, the timing could prove even more embarrassing, since Northern Trust has been hammered before for allegedly wasting money tied directly to the tour event itself.

Three years ago, after taking federal bailout money, the company was savaged by politicians and critics for staging a series of exclusive concerts, attended mostly by special invitees and featuring artists such Grammy winner Sheryl Crow.

A Northern Trust spokesman told the L.A. Times: “The Los Angeles Employees Retirement System did not lose money on securities lending. We regret that this meritless lawsuit will likely cost the LACERS pension plan, and the city of Los Angeles, millions of dollars in unnecessary legal fees and out-of-pocket expenses.”

That’s the beauty of working for investment companies like Northern Trust – just like with the lawyers who will butt heads on this issue, they get paid regardless of whether they win or lose.

L.A.’s been tough of late on the tour’s title sponsors. Last year, the city sued Deutsche Bank over a foreclosure issue, calling the company “slumlords.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011
/05/04/us-deutschebank-losangeles-i
dUSTRE7435NC20110504

ORLANDO, Fla. — Phil Mickelson signs more autographs than any star player on the PGA Tour.

He can also put a drafting pencil to paper.

An exclusive report in the San Diego paper this week noted that Mickelson has privately talked with high-ranking city officials about updating Torrey Pines North, the sister course to the more famous South layout, in the future, a redesign that’s been under discussion for years.

Mickelson said he’d do the tweaks for free.

“I tried to underbid everybody,” he said Wednesday at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. “That was the goal.”

Chalk up a win in that regard. It’s already generated a ton of attention, and in a cash-strapped city like San Diego, minimizing cost might help get a deal struck. Torrey Pines is one of the nation’s most famous municipal layouts and Mickelson, a native son, would mostly be viewed as a dream candidate for the post.

In fact, Mickelson, 41, is talking like it’s a done deal.

Mickelson played his high-school matches at Torrey and said he’d be a good steward of the property and would endeavor to make the canyons and trees part of the experience, and not just elements of a pretty view on the horizon.

 “It has been a dream of mine to turn that golf course into what I know it can be,” Mickelson said at TPC Scottsdale. “We will spend countless hours making sure that that course is right because the goal – the first goal, is to make it playable. 

“It’s got to be playable for everybody. It’s a daily golf course, municipal golf course.  Everybody has got to go out and enjoy it. The other thing is that the character is not being brought out right. The character of the canyons and the beauty of that place has not been pulled into the golf course. 

“It’s been separated. The canyons are on one of the side of the golf course and then there’s been no integration, so the character that we bring out will try to enhance the natural beauty that’s already there. There will be a lot more rustic areas … Kind of a rough canyon look, if you will, where I’m going to make the hard holes harder, but I’m going to make the easy holes easier. 

“I want guys having fun on some of these holes. The second hole is going to be moved up and shorter, little examples. We pretty much have it mapped out how we want to make it.”

So clearly, he’s not just ad-libbing here. It’s been on his draft board for a while.
 
On the design front, Mickelson has been famously critical recently of designer Rees Jones, who remade the South Course a decade ago. Mickelson, a three-time tour winner at Torrey, has struggled there ever since. Lefty has some definite views on course architecture that he has increasingly espoused publicly.

“I’m excited about this opportunity because it’s the most beautiful canvas out there, and it has not been utilized properly, and I feel like after playing for so many decades and looking at these courses and appreciating all their beauty, to try to take that and integrate it into a course that just – that I love is a fun opportunity,” he said.

Organizers of the high-powered European Tour event in Abu Dhabi staged an interesting promotion in the third round, allowing all of the fans who wore red clothes – the primary color of the title sponsor — into the event for free.

A day later, the most famous guy ever to don that identity-defining color didn’t much show up at all.

Seeking to end a 26-month drought in official worldwide events, former world No. 1 Tiger Woods struggled just to stay in the mix and blew a share of the 54-hole lead for the ninth time in 61 tries.

After playing as well as he had since his last victory in 2009 for most of the week, Woods spent most of the day in Abu Dhabi scrambling to keep pace of journeyman pro Robert Rock, who won by a stroke over Rory McIlroy and two over Woods, recording only his second European Tour victory.

The remarkably unflappable Rock, playing alongside Woods and under an extreme microscope, put together a three-stroke lead at one point and never caved when under duress, though Woods and other pursuers, including fellow major winners McIlroy, Paul Lawrie and Graeme McDowell kept up the chase.

“Early on, I was very, very nervous,” Rock conceded.

For Woods, it wasn’t just another high-profile opportunity missed — there were plenty of fairways and greens he failed to find, as well. Before this week, Rock was best-known for the bushy head of hair, which he doesn’t cover with a hat. But it was Woods who kept finding the shaggiest portions of the course Sunday.

Nine years ago, Rock was an unknown British club pro, so it’s a safe bet that while stocking shelves, he folded a few Tiger swoosh shirts in his day. Sunday, Woods folded himself.

“I was right there with a chance to win the golf tournament — didn’t do it,” Woods said. “I felt I was just a touch off.”

Entering the final round tied with Rock for the lead, Woods had found an impressive 46 of 54 greens and missed several others by a matter of feet, but that unerring accuracy was nowhere to be found Sunday. After making birdies on the second and third holes, he made back-to-back bogeys and it was uphill the rest of the way.

After weeks of showing progress in his game, Woods finished with a 72 and looked as mortal as he had at any point over the past few months. He found an abysmal two of 14 fairways and six of 18 greens in regulation, making for a day of gouging, hacking and scrambling to keep pace with the comparatively solid Rock. He didn’t have a birdie on the back nine.

All but made of Teflon at the peak of his Sunday powers, Woods has now lost the 54-hole lead in three of his past five opportunities, a figure that includes his unofficial Chevron World Challenge defeat at the hands of Graeme McDowell in late 2010.

How improbable was the victory by Rock, an Englishman ranked No. 117 in the world? Woods entered the week having won 52 of 60 global events in which he held at least a share of the 54-hole lead.

Woods hadn’t won on the PGA or European tours since Sept. 13, 2009, though he won the Australian Masters 26 months ago.

Maybe it’s something in the water, except that there isn’t any. Woods also blew a 54-hole lead in the sand-strewn United Arab Emirates in 2001, when he lost the lead to Thomas Bjorn in Dubai.

Rock made a tactical and physical mess with a bogey of the par-5 18th, but by then, Woods was three back and had missed yet another fairway, hitting a big hook off the final tee when an eagle might have given him a chance at a playoff.

About the only positive for the day for Woods was his putter — perhaps the last piece to his comeback puzzle — which was all that kept him in the hunt given the shocking number of greens he missed.

It was as though Rock and Woods changed personas on Sunday. With his lead cut to a shot over Woods, McIlroy and Lawrie, he birdied the 14th, the most difficult hole of the day, and added another on the 16th to claim a three-stroke lead.

Woods was the only player in the final top five who did not break par in the final round.

Where does it leave the once-impenetrable world No. 1?

It was probably akin to two steps forward, one step back. The defeat marked the second time he’s been taken down in head-to-head battle by a relative unknown, as Rock joined Y.E. Yang in the upset category.

In one regard, that he was able to compete well into the final round on a course with narrow driving corridors and high rough was a positive. After a sloppy first round, Woods’ putting was solid and then some, seemingly a harbinger of better days ahead.

But Rock, a former English club pro, gave even more hope to another legion of unheralded players seeking to put a dent in what’s left of Woods’ aura.

Woods’ next start will be his U.S. opener in two weeks at Pebble Beach.

“I’m pleased with my progress,” said Woods, who has finished in the top three of his past three starts that awarded world-ranking points. “I just need to keep building and get more consistent.”

Rock joined Bjorn, Yang, Phil Mickelson, Lee Westwood, Retief Goosen, Padraig Harrington, Graeme McDowell and Ed Fiori on the list of players who beat Woods on Sunday when he held at least a share of the 54-hole lead.

ORLANDO, Fla. – Ladies and gentlemen, start your DVRs.

The confident glare on his face looked all too familiar, though the goatee was a bit of camouflage we’ve only seen intermittently.

Yet the rest of Tiger Woods, from his gait to his golf game, looked like it did circa 2009, albeit with a completely different swing.

Shooting his best score since last March, Woods fired a 6-under 66 and moved into a share of the lead with largely unheralded Englishman Robert Rock at the European Tour event in the United Arab Emirates city of Abu Dhabi.

It marks the first time since his victory at the 2009 Australian Masters — his last official stroke-play victory event globally — that Woods has held at least a share of the 54-hole lead.

The ripples could fast be felt for continents. The Las Vegas Hotel & Casino immediately lowered the line on Woods winning the Masters from 5/1 to 4/1.

Woods is set to play in a threesome on Sunday with Rock and Sweden’s Peter Hanson, a former Ryder Cupper, starting at 2:45 a.m. ET. In all, there are 12 players within four shots of the lead, including former major winners Rory McIlroy, Graeme McDowell and Paul Lawrie.

Up top, it sure looks like a mismatch — Rock has one European Tour victory.

On a course with confining fairways and thicker rough than in previous years, Woods has hit a so-so 26 of 42 fairways yet found an impressive 46 of 54 greens in regulation. Even the putting, an area of concern for the past three years, seems solid at minimum.

Saturday marked his second bogey-free card of the event — he only has two of them over the first three rounds, so the mistakes that have dogged is comeback attempts have been almost utterly absent. It was his best round since posting the same score last year at the Masters,

“Not doing a lot of things right, but not doing a lot of things wrong, either,” Woods said. “Just kind of methodically moving my way around the golf course and the six birdies kind of piled up.”

Which beats regressing. So, is he back? Just one of many questions.

Despite pronouncements from many that the aura Woods once radiated is long gone – after all, he hasn’t won on the PGA Tour since late 2009 and a slew of rookies have barged through the door since – it will be interesting to see how the field reacts to his name on the leaderboard on Sunday if he stays in the mix.

Will his putting stroke hold up? No question, his swing looks less mechanical and he isn’t overswinging as often as before. But even as late as his unofficial win in December at the Chevron World Challenge, he was changing his putting grip, looking for answers.

What’ll it do for his world ranking? The official projections have not yet been issued, but Woods could jump from No. 25 to roughly 11th, depending on how a couple of other players finish. In early December, he was ranked outside the top 50.

Will the PGA Tour celebrate the victory if Woods holds on? No doubt, though it’s a mixed blessing it it happens. If he wins, Woods will presumably go back next year to defend, as is his custom. That means making his seasonal debut overseas, again, at the expense of another U.S. tournament.

Woods has been nearly invincible over the years with at least a share of the 54-hole lead, but he’s blown the pole position in the Arab nation before, losing a duel to Thomas Bjorn in Dubai in 2001.