Golfers

They spent nearly seven hours together Tuesday, Phil Mickelson and his short-game coach, Dave Pelz. In between all those practice chips and pitches at Bethpage Black, Pelz did his best to avoid the delicate topic -- the condition of Amy Mickelson, whose breast-cancer diagnosis prompted Phil to leave the PGA Tour for three weeks. "He and Amy have been through so much trauma and stress," Pelz said by telephone. "I wanted the day to be as different as possible. I wanted it to be normal."

A decade ago, she was an anomaly: a 20-year-old from Korea whose golf game articulated what her limited English could not. Se Ri Pak did not know then that becoming the youngest to win the U.S. Women's Open would inspire droves of Koreans and Korean Americans to dream of the LPGA. Inbee Park was among them. Last year, when she clinched the U.S. Open title at age 19, she earned Pak's previous title and humbly filled the shoes of her idol. Park's story echoes dozens on the tour.

Over here at the playhouse usually known as Riviera Country Club, there hasn't been this much hubbub about a high school student since 1992, when some 16-year-old from Western High in Anaheim turned up and missed the cut yet wowed the crowd. "These guys are just too good," Tiger Woods actually said that Friday. "I just don't think I'm ready for this."

There's a new putter in Fred Couples' bag for the Northern Trust Open; he just forgets what it's called . . . besides putter, of course. But forgetting stuff is probably what happens when you're 48, your aching back sometimes feels 88 and you can't remember what it feels like to be comfortable on the greens. Couples long ago switched to using a belly putter, which earned its name because you anchor the thing in the middle of your stomach. His new putter is 44 inches long.

Of course, Tiger Woods can't win every tournament he plays; it's just that he's making it look that way. It was probably about the time his ball scooted across the 18th green at Bay Hill on Sunday, felt the tug of gravity and dived into the hole, when everyone started figuring out what's next. As in, what's next after five consecutive PGA Tour victories? Well, how about six consecutive?

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Welcome to the Masters, where the world's best golfers have gathered this week to carry on a tradition like none other. Kissing up to Tiger. Have you ever heard anything like it? In a sports world whose very pulse is pumped by the heartbeat of competition, would this happen anywhere else? Tiger Woods showed up here this week reiterating his understandable belief that he can win this summer's golf Grand Slam. Then his opponents -- exasperated gasp -- agreed with him.

Tiger Woods said he won't play next week at Memphis, Tenn., but that his surgically repaired left knee is improving and he is on track to play in the U.S. Open in two weeks. Woods, who had arthroscopic surgery to correct cartilage damage in his left knee April 15, just after he finished second at the Masters, decided he wasn't ready to play in this week's Memorial tournament, or next week's PGA Tour event at Memphis.

So you're one of the roughly 42,000 fortunate fans with a ticket to the first two days of next week's U.S. Open, and you just found out that Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson are playing together in the same group. Does that mean you're going to follow them? Uh, is a Torrey Pine a pine tree? It's going to be a forest of people out there.

The instructions are straight from the book on Pebble Beach Golf Links on how to play the sixth hole: "The optimum placement for the tee shot is left center of the fairway." But that's not how Tiger Woods played it. He knocked his drive into the right rough, the ball diving into a thick patch of grass atop the lip of a fairway bunker. It was the third round of the 2000 U.S. Open, and Woods seemed to be in trouble up over his ankles.

They're still trying to assess the potential damage that Tiger Woods' prolonged absence may cause the PGA Tour and all of its entangling business alliances. Television ratings may decline, the casual fan may disappear, attendance at tournaments may drop . . . but it's also possible something good may come out of all this, according to Ty Votaw, the PGA Tour's executive vice president for communications and internal affairs.