Golfer

Tiger Woods outlasted Bo Van Pelt on the back nine at Congressional on Sunday to win the AT&T Invitational, winning for the third time in his last seven tournaments dating to late March. So does that make Woods the hottest golfer on the planet right now? A couple of years ago that would have been a silly question. He was clearly the best golfer in the world and held that status for a very long time. A couple of months ago it also would have been a silly question but for a much different reason.

BETHESDA, Md. -- In the old days, Tiger Woods might have won the AT&T National with ease. In the old days, Woods might not have needed his closest competitor to bogey the last three holes at Congressional Country Club. In the old days, Woods might not have stopped to acknowledge the two military officers awaiting his arrival at the 18th tee before he made his final putt. In the old days, Woods might not have acknowledged the crowd — twice — and high-fived some volunteers en route to the scoring tent.

Cory Whitsett shot a three-under-par 68 to help Alabama take a four-shot lead after two rounds of the NCAA Division I men's championships on Wednesday at Riviera Country Club. The Crimson Tide was four-over 572. UCLA is alone in second. Thomas Pieters of Illinois shot a second-round 68 and led by two shots over first-round leader Anton Arboleda of UCLA and Florida's Tyler McCumber . The NCAA individual champion will be crowned after 54 holes, and the top eight teams advance to match play.

Pro golfer Denis Watson and his wife, attorney Susan Loggans, have taken 24% off the price they were asking a year ago for their Pacific Palisades compound and relisted it for $17.95 million. The renovated Mediterranean-style estate, built in 1982, includes nine bedrooms, 91/2 bathrooms and 10,000 square feet of living space. The 2.5-acre equestrian property features a guesthouse, a tennis court, a swimming pool, corrals and a stream. Watson, 56, had three PGA tour wins before joining the Champions Tour when he turned 50. He was voted Rookie of the Year in 2007 and has four tour wins.

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Well, back to the drawing board. Or in Tiger Woods' case, the Jupiter, Fla., practice range. Two weeks after his romp at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, Woods tied for 40th — by far his worst Masters finish as a pro. "I had the wrong ball-striking week at the wrong time," he said. Woods fought a snap hook Thursday, blew his cool Friday, then spent the weekend trying to limit damage as the swing that won at Bay Hill mysteriously disappeared. "I get out there and I just don't trust it at all," he said.

AUGUSTA, Ga. — Oh, how badly I wanted to walk and see and smell and write about whatever it is that makes the Masters masterful. For we first-timers, on this first day of the tournament, it is almost mandatory. Craft an entire column that attempts to explain how there are golf tournaments, there is the Masters and never the twain shall meet. Sportswriting allows so few similar opportunities. Where else can you tell readers about a place that is color-coordinated in the greens of grass, the whites of sand and the blues of sky; where putting greens are more like green-carpeted gymnasium floors, after the water pipes below them have burst?

The tiny jail on Catalina Island is hardly Alcatraz. Just ask Frank Carrillo. The pro golfer turned jewel thief couldn't believe his luck when he was moved out of his bleak Men's Central Jail cell in downtown L.A. and allowed to do his time on the sunny tourist isle. But things got even cushier when he met a Los Angeles County sheriff's captain interested in shaving a few strokes off his golf game. Carrillo said Capt. Jeff Donahue escorted him in a patrol Jeep to a hilltop golf course last summer.

Yani Tseng finished her second round Friday at the Kraft Nabisco Championship with a series of shots that made golf seem like an easy game. Tseng's drive off the tee was a three-wood straight down the middle of the fairway on the 539-yard par-five hole. Her final shot was a birdie putt of about 15 feet. And that was followed by a series of fist-pumps, the kind athletes make when they know they've done well. Tseng, a 23-year-old from Taiwan who has won six of the last 12 tournaments she has entered, took a two-shot lead after two rounds of the LPGA Tour's first major of the season Friday at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage.

According to varying opinions, guided by one's level of cynicism, Amy Alcott either created a landmark branding moment for the women's golf tour, or a silly cliche. It was back in 1988, when she decided, moments after sinking her final putt on the 72nd hole of the Dinah Shore Classic she had won, that she would take a celebratory dive into a greenside pond. That was 24 years ago. The tournament is now called the Kraft Nabisco, it is still an LPGA major, it will begin at Missions Hills Country Club on Thursday for the 41st year, and the Amy Alcott pond jump is still a big deal.

The golf world is a twitter, and we're not talking about 140 characters on a keyboard. Tiger Woods has won again. For that portion of the population that isn't referring to flying creatures when it talks about birdies, and is not ashamed to wear white belts and loud-colored pants, that's great news. When the muscular man with the red shirt and receding hairline bent to pick his ball out of the cup on the 72nd hole of the prestigious Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill in Orlando, Fla., late Sunday afternoon, he dropped his shoulders noticeably.