For nine holes on Friday it seemed
like Tiger Woods had finally figured it out. After opening with a three-under
69 on Thursday, Woods went out in four-under 32 to get to seven-under
on the day.

But that’s where things started to
go south for Woods, as he bogeyed three of his first six holes on the
back nine, before finishing with birdies on 16 and 18 to salvage the
round. Even though it wasn’t the finish Woods was looking for, he
remained optimistic about the weekend.

"If you take into account how I lost
it, yeah, in the middle part of the round, certainly," Woods said.
"It could have easily I could have shot even par. But I got it back
to 3-under par which is respectable considering my start."

A lot of that optimism had to do with
the 25 putts he had during the round, a sign that Woods was grinding
his way around the North Course at Torrey Pines.  

If there’s one reason to believe
he can be a player on the weekend it comes from a very ominous stat:
In three of Tiger’s six wins at Torrey, Woods has gone into the weekend
at six-under or worse, meaning he’s very much contention at five shots
back.

While Phil Mickelson‘s round wasn’t
as eventful as Woods’, he and Tiger shared a common trait on Friday:
neither could hit a fairway to save their life. Mickelson only hit 14-percent
of his fairways, but managed to hit 78 percent of his greens in regulation. 

It was a typical ho-hum round for Mickelson,
as he made four birdies and one bogey to get to 8-under to move within
three of Bill Haas. 

Mickelson also seemed to have a little
more pep in his step on Friday, after looking extremely lethargic in
his opening event in Abu Dhabi. It probably had something to do with
his wife Amy, walking 18 holes with him for the first time since the
2009 Masters.

With both Tiger and Phil in contention,
the weekend is shaping up to be a good one at the Farmers Insurance
Open. Past success at Torrey suggests both should be at or the top of
the leaderboard on Sunday afternoon.

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Around these parts, we always love a good golf bet, and there’s never been a finer golf sharp than Titanic Thompson, the subject of a fine new book by Kevin Cook.

Thompson, born Alvin Thomas, lived for most of the 20th century scamming, cheating and outwitting pretty much everyone he ever came in contact with, a list that includes everyone from Ben Hogan to Al Capone. He was one of those shadowy figures that pops up throughout American crime history, and he has connections to the 1919 Black Sox scandal, the founding of Las Vegas, the Chicago crime scene, and the World Series of Poker.

He also happened to be an amazing golfer, a guy who could make far more on side betting than he ever could as a professional. His swing was unconventional, more modern than his contemporaries, and his gambler’s mind put him miles ahead of his competition. His is an exceptional story, and Cook is here to get you started on it. Check the interview — there’s a bonus scam you can play on your own pals the next time you’re out on the course, free of charge.

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We think of golf as a refuge from the real world — one of many reasons fairways generally don’t run along highways, for instance –  but every so often, the real world forces its way onto the course.

Take, for instance, the case of the Tres Marias Championship. Held in Morelia, Mexico, the $1.3 million event’s status was undetermined when the LPGA released its 2011 schedule. And now it’s been determined, and now we know why.

In an interview with Waggle Room, LPGA Commissioner Michael Whan noted that the LPGA officially decided to postpoine the tournament due to a rise in drug-related violence in Mexico.

"As a father, I couldn’t say to other fathers, ‘your daughter should go
to Morelia,’" Whan said. "I feel the pressure of playing, but another
pressure I never want to succumb to is making a dumb decision to put
lives in jeopardy."

Solid long-term planning for some short-term pain. And the burden now falls to Mexico to secure a location that won’t be subject to potential violence. Overly cautious? Perhaps, but Whan has no interest in seein gthe LPGA make worldwide headlines for the wrong reasons.

(Yes, yes, I know that’s Tony Montana and he was Cuban and ran drugs through Miami. Poetic license.)

Drug-related violence forces LPGA to postpone Tres Marias golf tourney [Waggle Room]

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I played in a money game once in Mesa, Ariz. with a guy that holds the course record at the golf course I was playing. He golfed at New Mexico State, and seemed to be one of those rare types that could shoot 67 after four months off from playing. On the 13th hole, after a tough day on the greens, he calmly, politely snapped his putter over his knee, and ended up playing the rest of the round two-under.

Sadly, this man has nothing on Miguel Angel Jimenez. A man I ranked fifth in my "Top-25 Coolest Golfers of All-Time" now might be even cooler after he snapped his putter in the second round of the Volvo Golf Champions. Jimenez did this on 14th hole of the day, only to reel off three straight birdies to close his round and tie for the lead, putting with his lob wedge!

Yep, as you see in the above photo, Jimenez had to go lob wedge on the field, and made birdies on 15, 16, and 17 before closing with a par on his 18th hole to sit at 11-under, tied with Edoardo Molinari Raphael Jacquelin.

Don’t think that some of his friends on the European Tour didn’t take the opportunity to rib Jimenez about the lob wedge "decision." Ron Sirak tweeted that Darren Clarke said, of the putter throw, "His backswing was a little bit wrong but the release was perfect. It was beautiful."

So, my reminder to all the young golfers in the world, so you can avoid any incident like Jimenez had on Friday – if you’re going to toss a club, make sure it flies parallel to the ground, and there isn’t a tree or golf cart in the path to the next fairway. You’re welcome. 

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Here’s another one of those getting-old-really-bites stories. Next Monday, Arnold Palmer will pilot his final flight.

Palmer, an avid pilot, has flown just under 20,000 hours in his life, and as Golf Local Knowledge notes, he’ll bring it to a close on Jan. 31. His pilot’s license expires on that day, and he won’t be renewing it.

While most top-line players now have access to their own private planes, Palmer wasn’t content to ride; he had to pilot. He flew through most of the ’60s and ’70s, and as Local Knowledge points out, he knew what the heck he was doing: 

In 1969, Palmer piloted a Boeing 747 before the aircraft had gone into commercial service. In 1976, he set a round-the-world speed record that still stands. Taking off from Denver in a Lear 36 and heading east, Palmer circumnavigated the globe in 57 hours, 25 minutes and 42 seconds.

"The people there when Arnold took off were still there when he returned," laughs Doc Giffin, Palmer‘s longtime assistant and chronicler of Palmer‘s aviation exploits. The flight included brief refueling stops in Boston, Paris, Tehran, Sri Lanka, Jakarta, Manila, Wake Island and Honolulu. "The stops were brief, but Arnold had time to ride an elephant in Sri Lanka, and in Manila he was given a gift from President Ferdinand Marcos that he still has."

Yet another astonishing element of an astonishing life. Palmer may be finishing off this chapter, but once again, it’s a cooler chapter than almost anyone else has ever lived.

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It’s hard to not look at Anthony Kim and wonder "what if" most of the time. What if he took things a little more seriously and cut out the partying to spend more time on his game? What if he decided to forego having surgery on his thumb last year until after the Ryder Cup?

While you can play the "what if" game with a number of tour pros, Kim may top the list of budding, young superstars who’ve yet to live up to their full potential. If you were to plot his career on a chart, you’d notice a roller coaster theme

Every promising season is followed up by a letdown year that makes you question if Kim will ever get it right. As if on cue, he enjoyed a big season in 2010, winning in Houston and contending at the Masters with a torn ligament in his left thumb.

In an effort to be ready for the Ryder Cup, an event Kim ranks right up there with the four major championships, he decided to do the unthinkable — foregoing the U.S. Open and the British Open to have surgery on his shredded digit.

But karma wasn’t kind to AK; he never regained his form, going from a Ryder Cup lock to outside looking in, with four missed cuts in his first five events back.

This year suddenly became a question mark. Which Anthony Kim would show up in 2011? Would it be the dedicated one, or the one who tried to coast on past success?

So far, early indications suggest that this season could be a good one. After posting a T-13 and T-19 in his first two events, Kim fired a four-under 68 in Thursday’s first round of the Farmers Insurance Open to get in contention.

The round consisted of numerous errant tee shots and missed opportunities. But if there was a silver lining to be had, it came in the form of a brilliant short game that was reminiscent of the one that allowed Kim to win in Houston last year.

He attributed a lot of his success to a new Nike putter he put in the bag earlier this week that currently has him ranked first in putting after one round.

"I kind of hit it all over the map," Kim said. "So the putter saved me. I’m using the new Nike putter that I put in on Tuesday, and obviously it worked."

As Kim mentioned last year, after his win in Houston, he seems to be at his best when he’s grinding out pars and making clutch putts, something he did on Thursday.

Sure, it’s only one round. But if Kim can continue to grind like he did last year, pre-surgery, there’s a good chance 2011 could break his streak of roller coaster seasons.

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Let’s be honest here: the Farmers Insurance Open is a fine tournament, and it’s full of outstanding golfers, but a significant majority of people taking interest in this tournament want to see how Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson stack up against one another.

So here we go. The first round goes to Mickelson, who carded a five-under 67 to Woods’ three-under 69.

Now, Mickelson had a press conference afterward, and he used the words "great" and "excited" about fifty times in a handful of minutes. Still, he came out solid, and that’s exactly what you need to do, especially considering how ugly his first tournament was last week in Abu Dhabi.

Woods, for his part, played better than his final total would indicate. Had he gotten putts to drop, he’d be much farther up the leaderboard. But he didn’t have a single bogey, and he looked far more comfortable with his new swing than he looked for most, if not all, of 2010. And the way the winds were swirling, the fact that Woods could survive as well as he did was a good sign in itself. Bottom line: he’ll win again, and soon. Anybody who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves.

"I’m happy with the way I played, absolutely," Woods said in a typically deep press conference. "It could have been a lot
better if I took care of the par-5s a little bit more, but obviously I
didn’t do that. So hopefully on the South course I can take care of the
par-5s and put together a little bit better round."

Round 2 begins Friday, and so far, it looks like we’ll be seeing both these cats throughout the weekend. Which is exactly how it should be.

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