Welcome to Teeing Off, where Devil Ball editor Jay Busbee and head writer Shane Bacon take a day’s topic and smack it all over the course. Suggest a future topic by writing jay.busbee@yahoo.com, or hit us on Twitter at @jaybusbee and @shanebacon. Today, we chat it up about college golf, and what could happen to make it a bigger draw.

Busbee: The weather’s cooling, the leaves are changing, and that means it’s time for a return to the holy sacraments of college football: tailgate parties and mindless, all-consuming hatred of your rival. Now, I know that college golf has no chance of even sitting at the same table as college football, just as professional golf gets shoved aside by the NFL, but why is college golf such a total non-starter in the minds of fans and the media? Virtually every major American golfer has come through the college ranks, as have many international notables (Graeme McDowell playing in Alabama being my favorite), but why don’t we hear more about the college game? Is this a case of the media dropping the ball (or whiffing the drive, as the case may be), or does college golf just not resonate with the fans?

Bacon: It’s just … there’s no coverage. You can’t turn on the tube and watch the SEC golf championship and no newspaper are really sending people there, but wouldn’t people be interested in watching? The U.S. Amateur is one of my favorite events of the year, so why wouldn’t people watch college golf?

Busbee: What if the major networks did cover it? Would people still watch? I wonder. There’s something about watching a live football or basketball game, with the bands and crowd and noise, that gets you jazzed just sitting there on your couch. And the galleries at golf tournaments, cheering and, yes, “get-in-the-hole”ing every shot, add ambience. But a golf tournament with a relatively low (or nonexistent) gallery is just … there. The problem in golf is usually stars vs. storylines; people come for one or the other. But college golf throws in the wrinkle of alma mater, an automatic rooting interest for many. Is there a way that networks could televise it to make it watchable and yet maintain the tension necessary to keep people hooked?

Bacon: College sports are just tough because if you aren’t football or basketball, people don’t care. That said, from covering golf at Arizona, people do come out and watch, and do seem relatively interested. That said, if you had tournaments on Mondays and Tuesdays, why wouldn’t the Golf Channel air it?

Busbee: I’d love to see some broadcast network give it a go. And figure a way to get the SEC loons interested. If those people are crazed enough to poison trees, they’re crazed enough to watch a little golf now and then.

Now your take … would you watch college golf if it was on TV?

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Rocco Mediate has never been one to mince words, so when he was asked recently about the state of Tiger Woods‘ game, you knew the words coming out of his mouth would be unfiltered and honest.

Mediate, speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle’s Ron Kroichick, touched on the usual stuff regarding the state of Woods’ game, saying he was “disgusted” was the recent decline, and that it was bad for golf.

That’s the same stuff we’ve been hearing from players on tour for some time. The interesting comments, however, centered around Mediate’s criticism of Tiger’s current swing coach, Sean Foley, and former coach Hank Haney.

“The physical motion is wrong,” Mediate said. “To get that stress off his body is a piece of cake – the guys working with him just don’t know. Sean knows some stuff, but what’s going on with Tiger is not correct. That’s why he keeps breaking and that’s why the ball keeps going sideways.”

Clearly, Mediate feels that whatever Woods is working on with Foley at the moment isn’t helping his game for the long-term. Who knows if getting the stress off Woods’ often-injured leg is really a “piece of cake,” but looking at Mediate’s comments, he seems to believe Foley is doing more harm than good at the moment.

But of course, Mediate wasn’t done, sticking the dagger in later by saying that Foley, as well as former instructor Hank Haney, helped Woods develop swings that, up until this point, have led to a host of injuries in recent years.

“Starting with Haney until now, it was a complete and absolute destruction,” he said. “If it was me (as Woods’ instructor), I would say to Tiger, ‘Look, dude, I’m not helping you. You’re getting worse. You’ve broken down three times and you’ve had 57 knee surgeries. It’s not happening.’ “

Is he saying Foley should step down from his post as Tiger’s coach? He didn’t say it directly, but he sure as heck insinuated that both swings led to a host of injuries that have derailed Woods’ career.

As we all know, Tiger has never been one to take criticism lightly, even when it’s regarding his swing coach. It’ll be interesting to see if he has anything to say after playing in Notah Begay’s charity event at Turning Stone.

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Like pretty much everyone outside of New England, I can’t stand the Boston Red Sox. But I understand that there are people who do love that team beyond all reason, and for any of those, the opportunity to throw out the first pitch at Fenway probably ranks ahead of the birth of their children. (Unless those children are named Yaz and Nomahhh, of course.)

Of course, if you win a major, a lot of doors open wide to you. Keegan Bradley brought home the PGA Championship, and now he gets to throw out the first pitch on behalf of the Jimmy V Fund. Not bad for a kid from Vermont.

“Every time I think of the first pitch tomorrow I get butterflies and sweaty palms,” he tweeted beforehand. “Needless to say I’m nervous.” He added the hashtag “#nobababooey,” a reference to the unfortunate first pitch thrown by Howard Stern Show producer Gary Dell’Abate a few years back. (Absolute must-watch video here.)

No problem. He didn’t bring heat, but he didn’t sling it into the upper deck, either. You can check out video of his competent pitch right here on the Red Sox site.

Jason Dufner, meanwhile, threw a beer can at his cat.

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It’s time for our own golf ranking system for the top players on the planet. Why? That’s easy. The one used now isn’t good enough. For one thing, it evaluates golfers over a two-year period. Two years! A lot can happen in two years. (Ask Tiger Woods.) For another, the current system gives too much credit to players who prevail against less competitive fields halfway across the globe.

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Here’s an interesting conundrum in the world of golf: everyone on earth derides these guys for being club-swinging automatons, but whenever one of them speaks up and offers a notable quote, much of the golf world goes crazy with disbelief.

Let’s back up a second. First, the complete U.S. Walker Cup team was announced this past weekend, and there was one notable omission: LSU’s John Peterson. Our own Jonathan Wall noted that Peterson, “considered by many to be a lock after he was crowned the 2011 NCAA Individual Champion and won the Arnold Palmer Award as the country’s top player, was excluded from the team. It left many wondering how you could leave a player with those kind of credentials off the 10-man roster.”

How, indeed? Well, prior to this particular snub, Peterson made an appearance here on Devil Ball for offering up this gem of a quote:

“The top guys in college, the top 20 or 30 guys, can beat the top 20, 30 guys on the PGA Tour. Maybe with the exception of two or three guys who are constantly up there, like a Matt Kuchar or Luke Donald, those guys that are always there … those top 20 college guys will beat those top 20 or 30 PGA Tour guys, if given the opportunity. They just don’t have the opportunity.”

Insane? Absolutely. But you’ve got to love the balatas on this kid. Unless, of course, you’re one of those whose game is being called into question.

“You have to wonder if Peterson’s post-round comments after that Nationwide event, where he said that there were a bunch of guys in college capable of regularly beating PGA Tour pros, rubbed some folks the wrong way,” CBS Sports’ Steve Elling wrote. “Still, even if he had said Gadhafi should be governor of New Jersey, he should have been a lock for the team.”

It’s an interesting point: is Peterson being reminded of his place in the world because he dared to speak out of turn? It’s certainly possible, even likely, and if so, it’d be an unfortunate comment on the USGA and the world of American professional golf. We need more guys like Peterson, more guys who will step up and say what they believe no matter how ridiculous it is. Golf has gone as far as it can with the milquetoast personalities; it’s possible to respect the game and its history while still remaining true to oneself.

Fortunately for Peterson, he’ll get an immediate chance to make good on his prediction. As he noted on Twitter in the wake of the snub:

Get on it, John.

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