I don’t think so, but I sure will be pulling for him. We mid-50 year olds have to stick together.

If Norman can pull it off, his victory should put to rest one of the cruelest golf jokes of recent lore:

Q: What is the English pronunciation of Jean Van de Velde, the Frenchman who blew the 1999 British Open at Carnoustie by taking a triple-bogey 7 on the final hole and then losing in a playoff?

A: Greg Norman

Daniel Wexler passes along the following analysis of Norman’s remarkable career from The Book of Golfers:

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Several years ago, during the early part of the final round of the U.S. Women’s Open, I was hitting balls at the driving range of the Player Course here in The Woodlands. I figured that I would hit balls for awhile and then catch the final part of the Women’s Open on television.

It was quite hot that day and so the only other person hitting balls that day on the range was a young woman and her father. In between hitting balls, I watched the young woman hit some shots. Her swing was impeccable and frankly much better than most of the professional golfers who I had seen during the earlier rounds of the Women’s Open. As I left the range that day, I complimented the young woman on her swing and observed that, with that swing, she really ought to be playing that afternoon in the final round of the U.S. Women’s Open. The young woman and her father thanked me graciously for my compliment.

Well, what do you know. That young woman — Stacy Lewis — is now playing in her first tournament as a professional and leads the 2008 U.S. Women’s Open going into the final round. Read about Stacy’s remarkable story here.

Update: Lewis faded to a 78 in the final round and finished third behind Inbee Park.

Just off one of the most remarkable performances of his amazing career, Tiger Woods is going on the shelf for the rest of this golf season and probably for a good chunk of next season rehabilitating from surgery to repair a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. This will be Woods’ second surgery on his left knee in two months and his fourth since 1994.

But first, a few comments on last week’s U.S. Open.

Frankly, it’s been difficult this close to the thrilling tournament to provide any decent perspective of the event.

Unquestionably, the tournament will go down as one of the most entertaining U.S. Opens of the modern era. Torrey Pines is a great muny golf course, but it’s not considered an architectural gem on the level of many other U.S. Open venues, so there really was not much anticipation going into the tournament that the course would produce a particularly memorable event.

Nevertheless, to the surprise of most golf fans, the USGA wisely moved away from its draconian past course set-ups and arranged Torrey Pines in a first-class manner that facilitated the competition rather than restricting it.

That set the stage for 45-year-old journeyman Rocco Mediate — ranked 158th in the World Rankings coming into the tournament and without a win on the Tour since 2002 — to somehow find a rhythm over the week that allowed him to take the best player in the history of the game to the brink of a crushing loss on two different occasions.

One of the friendliest players on the Tour, Mediate looked all weekend as if he was just as surprised as everyone else that he was battling Woods toe-to-toe. Amazingly, had he been able to hit a decent wedge shot on either Sunday or Monday to set up a birdie on the relatively easy par-5 18th hole, Rocco Mediate — not Tiger Woods — would be the 2008 U.S. Open champion.

Meanwhile, playing on what we now know is a torn ACL a couple of stress fractures in his left tibia (an injury apparently suffered during rehab from his recent knee surgery), Woods was certainly not at his best during the tournament, perhaps best reflected by the fact that he double-bogeyed the par-4 first hole three times in the first four rounds.

But those missteps were offset by Woods’ extraordinary play at other times, such as his three eagles on the par-5’s and holing more clutch putts than any player in the field.

Stated simply, Woods and Mediate put on a great show that will rank as one of the best U.S. Opens ever.

Sadly, however, Woods’ once-in-a-lifetime talent will not be on display for a good while now. What is perhaps most baffling about Woods’ injury is that it is largely self-inflicted.

He has unwisely for years included a frequent long-distance running regimen in his intense exercise protocol, which has at least contributed to the injury in his left knee. Woods’ running program reflects a common and destructive misconception within America society that “more is better” when it comes to exercise.

In fact, allowing the body to recover adequately after intensive periods of exercise is at least as important to good health as the exercise itself.

Although we will almost certainly read stories over the coming days on how Woods will come back even stronger and better after the surgery, my sense is that he is facing almost certain chronic arthritis in his left knee and total knee replacement surgery within 10 years or so.

I sincerely hope that Woods’ stubborn adherence to a physically-damaging exercise regimen does not end up taking from us the enjoyment of watching one of the most gifted athletes of our time compete at the highest level of his ability.

Golf course author and blogger Geoff Shackelford is blogging the U.S. Open this week at Torrey Pines in San Diego in the same manner as he blogged The Masters earlier this year, and he kicks off the U.S. Open week with this email interview of the best golf writer of the past generation, Dan Jenkins. As usual, Jenkins is in mid-season form:

GS: Are you excited about visiting California, where we treat smokers like lepers?

DJ: I would be more excited about going to California if I was 20 years younger and sitting in the Polo Lounge.

Read the entire interview here. Also, check out this interesting map of Torrey Pines and the slick USGA course overview while perusing Jay Flemma’s and Daniel Wexler’s reviews of the course.

Well, he didn’t do it with a belly putter, but Sergio Garcia fulfilled my prediction after last year’s British Open that it was just a matter of time before he won a big-time tournament.

On Sunday afternoon, the 28 year-old Garcia won The Players in a one-hole playoff against journeyman Paul Goydos (169th in the World Golf Rankings) as he shook off — for the most part, at least — the putting woes that have bedeviled the former prodigy over the past several years. The victory is Garcia’s first on the PGA Tour since 2005 and easily the most important championship in his career to date, reflected by the fact that his World Golf Ranking went from 18th to 10th with the win. For the record, Garcia burst on the scene as a 19 year-old when he went toe-to-toe with Tiger Woods before taking second place at the 1999 PGA Championship at Medinah. Few who saw him play in that tournament would have predicted at the time that it would take him nine years to win a tournament of the The Players’ stature.

By the way, fourth-place finisher Briny Baird summed up as well as anybody the final day of The Players, which saw contenders such as Phil Mickelson (78) and Kenny Perry (81) flame out: "I don’t care who wins the tournament," Baird said. "The wind won. It kicked everybody’s butts."

Although Garcia’s unexpected victory and Goydos’ stirring play were compelling story lines, the big winner this week was the tournament itself, which provided a much more entertaining product than the Masters for the second straight year. Dean Barnett notes the main reason why:

Particularly when paired against the Masters, The Players shows some strength. The field of competitors is stronger at The Players; indeed, it’s the strongest field in golf on an annual basis.

The Masters’ history also has to give The Players some encouragement. The Masters is a relatively new tournament, ostentatiously and boldly designed to achieve major status some 70 years ago. And the plan worked. The Players has the same sort of dynamic, plus the additional benefit that the venue and the tournament belong to the PGA Tour. In other words, The Players truly is the players’ tournament. In a manner of speaking, they own it.

Where The Players actually belongs to the players, the Masters and Augusta National belong to a bunch of weird guys who are prone to despotism. Additionally, the Masters has looked a bit long in the tooth in recent years. In a misguided effort to modernize the course, Augusta National unleashed a supremely mediocre architect to modify one of the best and most original golf designs ever.

The changes to the course have been horrendous on a number of levels. The most damaging has been the fact that the changes sucked the drama out of the tournament in the name of “defending par.” Augusta is now so long and difficult, there are few birdie opportunities and the players take over five hours to make their way around the course in twosomes. If the lords of Augusta National were capable of embarrassment (which they almost surely are not), this last fact would shame them no end. The course is now harder (and more boring), but is it a better and fairer test of golf? Does it effectively identify the world’s best golfers? Leader boards the last couple of years populated almost exclusively by no-names and an angry Tiger Woods suggest otherwise.

Meanwhile, The Players takes place at the Tournament Players Club (TPC), a course that is also very difficult, but still manages to identify the best golfers and be fun. The trademark short 17th hole with its island green is pure fun and excitement. (Journalistic integrity compels me to confess to playing the Tournament Players Club this winter and effortlessly parring the 17th by hitting a nice easy nine iron to the center to the green. I’m not sure why the pros have so much trouble with the hole. Maybe it has something to do with having hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line.)

Although a beautiful venue, Augusta National is currently so long and difficult that it provides a disincentive for the players to take risks, similar to the type of golf that has long been played in the usually boring U.S. Open. The Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass, on the other hand, is much shorter than Augusta National and most U.S. Open venues, and the course continues to encourage creative risk-taking. A course that encourages risk-taking will usually produce a more entertaining tournament than one that does not.

It’s not one of the four majors (despite the PGA Tour’s constant drumbeat to make it the fifth), but The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach just south of Jacksonville, Florida is my favorite golf tournament of the year. This year’s edition starts today.

This is the 35th Players Championship, which bounced around for its first eight years before settling at Pete Dye’s legendary Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in 1982. Not only is the Stadium Course a great modern layout (Jay Flemma’s excellent review is here), the Tour has continually renovated and improved the course over the years so that it has matured into one of the best courses that the Tour plays each year. Adding to the fun is the fact that The Players usually has the best field of any tournament of the golf season and this year is no exception — every one of the top 25 in the World Golf Rankings is playing with the exception of the Tiger Woods, who is convalescing from recent knee surgery. Not surprisingly, from the standpoint of most players, winning The Players is at least as prestigious as winning the PGA Championship, though still not as important as winning the other three majors.

So, a great field competing over one of modern golf design’s most interesting courses almost assures good entertainment — that’s why this is my favorite tournament. Add in that the 17th hole island par-3 is arguably the most creative (and highly controversial) hole in the backstretch of any Tour event is a virtual guarantee for high drama come Sunday afternoon. TV times for Thursday and Friday are noon-6 p.m. (CDT) on the Golf Channel, and 1-6 p.m. (CDT) Saturday and Sunday on NBC.