Sports is lousy with division and parity these days

In terms of excitement, golf is stagnant. The scene still depends on a player who is no longer the player that created that energy to begin with. Woods still makes ratings jump, but he's rarely jumping into contention.

But where this diversity is especially relevant is at the axis of golf, the PGA Tour, or post-Tiger-mania PGA Tour. The situation was exemplified by the recent Masters. The game's "Big Three," i.e. Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Gary Player, were easily the most enchanting players at Augusta National Titleist 712 AP2 Irons in April. Problem was, they were just ceremonial starters.

Sports is lousy with division and parity these days. The eighth-place Los Angeles Kings are in the Stanley Cup Finals, the 9-7 New York Giants won the Super Bowl, and the 2011 Cardinals — with the eighth best record in baseball — slipped in the back door to win a World Series.

Once the actual tournament began, things settled back into a more anonymous, diluted state. Coming off his first victory in 30 months, Tiger Woods offered up his worst performance as a professional at Augusta and tied for 40th. Bubba Watson won the tournament, but hardly won the ratings. Viewership was down 22 percent from a year earlier.

But the camera will continue to follow Woods until someone steps forward to hog the headlines. Mickelson will be 42 in June. He has carved out a place on the radar, but it's not going to grow any larger. Vijay Singh is 49, done winning majors. Ernie Els ... please.

Bubba's breakthrough continues a trend. After Woods won the Battle of Wounded Knee at Torrey Pines in 2008, and then took the year off, Padraig Harrington lifted the environment by capturing two majors in succession. Since, there has been 13 majors won by 13 different players. Two of the 13, Phil Mickelson and Titleist 712 AP1 Irons Angel Cabrera, had won a major previously. None of the 13 have won another.

But parity has a flip side. If Cinderella gets to the ball every time, it's not special. You need a sinister, prevailing stepmother for the fairy tale to happen. With parity, there is no David and Goliath, no Bronx Bombers, no Big Machine. There are only Davids, bombers and machines. The capital-letter attrition alone is alarming.

Watson now becomes the flavor of the week. He joins Rory McIlroy, Charles Scwartzel, Graeme McDowell, Martin Kaymer and even Harrington as players the golf press props up to fill the void. People got especially carried away with McIlroy, suggesting he had the perfect swing, perfect disposition and perfect opportunity to take the reins.

The PGA Tour is 22 events into the season and has 20 different winners. Last year, for the first time since 1991, as few as two wins paced the circuit. The anything-can-happen, anyone-can-win element is nice. But without predictability, you have no favorites, no upsets, no antagonists, no protagonists, no color, no romance. You have indifference.

The former No. 1 is now No. 7, approaching his 36th birthday and officially injury prone. He has been absent or missed the cut at six of the last 14 majors, finished 23rd or worse in three of the last four.

Look back at the history of the game. From Harry Vardon to Walter Hagen, Bobby Jones to Gene Sarazen, Byron Nelson to Sam Snead and Ben Hogan, Palmer to Nicklaus and Player, and then Tom Watson. Sprinkle Lee Trevino, Billy Casper, Johnny Miller, Raymond Floyd and Seve Ballesteros among them.

To be fair, he does have the perfect ancestry, but since winning the U.S. Open last year, McIlroy is an imperfect 0 for three in the majors. Don't misunderstand; McIlroy is a terrific talent and just 23. There is every reason to believe he will win discount golf clubs many more tournaments, even more majors. But to this point, he's not unlike like Schwartzel, Watson, McDowell, Trevor Immelman and others. All moved to the head of the class but stopped raising their hands.

Another NCAA championship is looking to add one more title

His players were on the cut line after 18 holes only to rebound and qualify for the championship by finishing second discount golf clubs at the Central Regional at Ohio State. They also have senior Marina Alex, a two-time SEC player of the year, as they host the first Division I national championship ever played in middle Tennessee.

“We know our capabilities,” Ernst said. “We know we can win. Coming off of last year we got third. We were right here. I feel like this team this year, we’re even better so I feel like we have a really good chance. And obviously tied for the lead last week we had a really good chance to pull it out ... We had a good chance to win it outright. I think we’re about as confident as we’re going to get.”

The Commodores have plenty of company with 24 total teams competing for the national title led by defending champion UCLA. The Bruins have been the top-ranked program for the longest stretch under coach Carrie Forsyth, and their seven wins in 11 tournaments is best in the country. They finished no worse than runner-up in three other events, and Forsyth has three players ranked among the top 15 by either GolfStat or GolfWeek.

The NCAA women’s golf championship begins today at the Legends Club, the home course for Vanderbilt — one of seven SEC teams looking to finish the week lifting the trophy. LSU, Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, South Carolina and Florida also are here, giving the SEC more TaylorMade RocketBallZ Driver teams than any other conference.

“It’s all about peaking at the right time of the year, and I feel like they’re in a good place,” LSU coach Karen Bahnsen said. “They’re hitting the ball really good, and it’s just a matter of going out and playing this golf course really smart.”

“Last year was last year,” Forsyth said. “We have a couple different players. The golf course is different than the course we played last year. Nothing ever stays the same in golf so you’ve got to do the best you can on every course with any lineup.”

The North Course hosted an LPGA event for a few years, but this week the course will play 6,377 yards with a couple changes. No. 4 will be played as a long par 4 this week instead of a par 5, while No. 9 will play about 455 yards as a par 5. Vanderbilt switched out the greens from bent grass to Bermuda dwarf grass last year, something Allen said the Commodores hope to use that local knowledge to their advantage

“We’re really comfortable with the golf course, with the facility,” UCLA junior Tiffany Lua said. “We love the greens. Definitely winning the Fall Preview gave us a confidence boost. We’re just looking to go out there to play one shot at a time.”

“There’s nothing like this,” Alex said. “We’ve never hosted a regional or an SEC championship, and this is bigger than both of them so it’s quite an experience.”

Ernst’s win in this event a year ago set off quite a run. She won the Cougar Classic last fall, made the cut at the Kraft Nabisco Championship earlier this year and was named to the Curtis Cup team. Ernst, whose father Mark is a PGA club professional in South Carolina, also is the highest-rated American amateur and No. 7 in the world.

They better because Purdue, the 2010 champ, is in the field along with Duke led by Lindy Duncan, the nation’s top-ranked player. There’s also LSU, a program that finished third a year ago and TaylorMade RocketBallZ fairway wood tied top-seeded UCLA at the West Regional with seeding going into the event the tiebreaker. The Lady Tigers are led by Austin Ernst, who also is defending the individual championship she won as a freshman.

Keegan Bradley enjoys his changed lift

But as he begins defense of his title today, Bradley is a changed man, far more comfortable in front of a media swarm than he has ever been. He's adjusted to make time for media requests, he's far more at ease getting to and from the golf courses and he's more relaxed inside the ropes.

Attention, however, hit its apex after the Northern Trust Open this season. During the final round, and subsequent Titleist 712 AP1 Irons loss in a three-man playoff, a fidgety, head-cocking, slow-playing Bradley and his copious spitting sent forth a torrent of criticism on Twitter that visibly shook him.

He had no idea how his life would change — nor any idea on how to handle his newfound fame. As he thought forward with excitement to receiving his first invitation to the Masters, he did so under a growing spotlight. When he won the PGA Championship three months later in his first start in a major championship, the klieg lights intensified on his meteoric rise, and most everyone associated with golf wanted a piece of Bradley.

"It was a tough time," Bradley said. "Luckily, I was able to stop. I was worried that I wasn't able to stop. But I'm a pretty stubborn guy, so when I told myself just to stop it and I just did it. And people can be pretty harsh on Twitter, which can be tough to handle."

His commitments are far from over. As defending champion of the fourth final major of the season, Bradley has a long list of interviews and outings. This year, he's looking forward to it.

"I was staying at the Hampton Inn down the road from the course at the Nelson, and I was just trying to keep my card, and no one really wanted to talk to me. Then I won, and everything changed. And it was especially hard at times because I was doing it on the fly. I was a rookie, and then dealing with being a major champion at the same time can be brutal."

Bradley was hard enough on himself in Titleist 712 AP2 Irons the offseason. Despite his success, he was committed to become more consistent. So far, the 2011 rookie of the year has played well, with nine top-25 finishes in 13 events. He leads the all-around statistical category. And his chipping, caddie Steven "Pepsi" Hale said, is improving.

"Some of the times were tough," Bradley told USA TODAY Sports. "The toughest times were dealing with all the extra stuff off the golf course, which is something I never had to deal with in my entire career at any level.

"There is no quit discount golf clubs in Keegan. Ever," Hale said. "He will always keep fighting. He is incredibly intense — in a good way. He channels it. When he's locked in, he has that look."

New Label "champion" for fowler

“You get guys who have won two, three, four times and they name the events, and then they say my name and I tee off,” Fowler said. “Now I’ve got the Wells Fargo Championship.”

“There’s a lot of people that have doubted or said, ‘You’ll never win,’ ” Fowler said. “So it’s nice to kind of shut them up a little bit.”

It has been a long path for Fowler, 23, who is better known for his bright outfits, especially the orange pants and shirts he wears on Sundays of tournaments. Fowler has finished second four times on tour but broke free Sunday with an aggressive approach shot on the first playoff hole that allowed him to birdie it and beat McIlroy and D. A. Points.

“Definitely relief, satisfaction,” Fowler said of the emotions of winning, which also earned him a spot in next year’s Masters.

“I sat back and made sure I got a lot out of the round on Friday, whereas times before I may have gotten a little bit more discount golf clubs frustrated and tried to push a little too hard and ended up shooting 76 when I pulled out a 72,” Fowler said.

Fowler got a chance to win when Points, who had gone without a bogey in his last 40 holes, bogeyed No. 18. Points’s approach shot landed in a bunker right of the hole and he two-putted. That dropped him to 14-under-par 274, joining McIlroy, his playing partner, who parred the hole, and Fowler, who had finished in the group ahead with that same score. Fowler shot a three-under 69 that included six birdies and three bogeys.

Fowler said the spark for his Taylormade R11 driver victory actually came in Friday’s second round, when he struggled and shot a par-72.

All three teed off on the 18th again to begin the playoff. The difference proved to be Fowler’s second shot: he was 133 yards from the hole and hit to 4 feet.

McIlroy could not duplicate the course-record 62 he used to win this event in 2010. Instead, he shot a 70, hurt by a bogey on the 17th hole that dropped him one shot behind Points. McIlroy, though, said it was a “sloppy bogey” at the 11th hole that left him most disappointed.

“I definitely didn’t want to play safe,” he said. “I had a good number, and I was aiming right of the hole with the Taylormade R11 irons wind coming out of the right, and if I hit a perfect shot, it comes down right on the stick.”

“Playing against those two guys, I know that they’re going to make birdie at some point, and I don’t want to sit there and try and make pars and stay in it,” said Fowler, whose victory was worth $1,170,000.

Fowler entered Sunday three strokes behind the leader, Webb Simpson, the local favorite who lives about a mile from Quail Hollow. Simpson shot a 73, missing a 23-foot birdie putt on 18 that would have put him in the playoff.

“I would rather win the tournament,” he said. “I want to try and play well for the next few weeks and try and solidify my spot there at No. 1 and hopefully start by doing that next week and giving myself another chance to win.”

Rory understands the importance of keeping both feet on the ground well

The boy, halfway through a draining, three-year chemotherapy regimen at St. Jude's in Memphis, stole the show, not to mention a few hearts. Because Dawson has been so ill and unable to attend school, he could not read his lines on the teleprompter, McIlroy said.

White, 25, actually requested that the genial McIlroy, who is also associated with UNICEF, be asked to participate in filming the spot, picking the world No. 2 over musicians, actors and other celebrities. Turns out that McIlroy, who will turn 23 on Friday, perhaps got more out of the experience than anybody involved.

"He was unbelievable," McIlroy said of their 7-year-old co-star. "To see someone go through what he's going through discount golf clubs and to have all this positivity coming out of him, it just makes you realize how lucky and how fortunate we are."

This week marks the second time that McIlroy has played since Doral, a span of eight weeks, and his first start since finishing a disappointing T40 at the Masters. He hardly spent the remainder of April sweating over his poor weekend at Augusta National, where he was in third place after 36 holes.

He left his clubs in the States during a two-week vacation in Europe, where he actually hobnobbed with the Queen of England at a thoroughbred racing event during a two-week stretch in Europe and spent time with his girlfriend, tennis star Caroline Wozniacki.

To put that in perspective, his two PGA Tour wins equal the combined total of longtime U.S. tour members Ian Poulter and Paul Casey. Decorated veteran and former No. 1 Lee Westwood, 39, also has two, so McIlroy is way ahead of the developmental curve in that regard.

He figures to scale that figure back to perhaps 23 starts between the Euro and PGA tours this year, an exercise in self-preservation as much as anything. Plus, he doesn't want to become a one-dimensional bore. He wouldn't be much fun around people when everybody's hoisting pints.

Along with Olympics snowboarding Mizuno Mp-63 irons legend Shaun White, McIlroy shot a promotional spot for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, along with a stricken 7-year-old named Dawson, who was over the moon at being placed in such proximity to a pair of high-profile sports figures.

"I'm trying to find the perfect balance between golf and having a normal life and everything else," he said. "For me, there's more to life than just golf. I don't know if people are surprised to hear that, but I have a lot more going on in my life than just golf."

"Basically, the most important time for me in the golf season is from the start of April until the end of August," he said. "That's when all the big tournaments are and that's when you want to play your best golf. All the stuff either side of that is more preparation work and making sure that your game is getting ready and your body is physically ready for that time of the year.

Along with Olympics snowboarding legend Shaun White, McIlroy shot a promotional spot for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, along with a stricken 7-year-old named Dawson, who was over the moon at being placed in such proximity to a pair of high-profile sports figures.

Hard to believe how fast two years have flown past since McIlroy won his first PGA Tour event at Quail Hollow with a stellar 62 in the final round, the best Sunday of his professional career Mizuno MP 53 Irons in terms of spotless execution. It also proved, at a point wherein the training wheels were still on the bicycle to a degree, that he could play anywhere, with anybody, and win.

The stretch includes a title defense at the U.S. Open, a victory that elevated him to uber-super-mega status last year as the sport looked for a worthy successor to the No. 1 position. The heavy lifting begins now -- McIlroy is playing in five of the next seven weeks, including the Players Championship next week, an event he skipped last year when he wasn't a U.S. tour member.

"You know, a lot of European players come over here and struggle to win, so to come over here and get a win early was nice," he said. "So, yeah, it gave me the confidence to know if I came over here a little bit more that I did have good chances of winning tournaments here."

in Memory of Dennis Bartholomew

The tournament preserves his legacy and honors those who have lost their lives to cancer, those who have survived the disease and those whose lives have been touched by it, according to Bill Blosser, one of the tournament's organizers. He said Bartholomew smiles from above on the tournament every year.

Monday's guest speaker said he knows intimately the battle people wage against cancer.

John Morelli, representative of presenting sponsor URS, said the company looks forward to continuing its Mizuno MP-59 Irons relationship with the Aiken Golf Classic.

Men and women took to the links at Woodside Plantation's two courses in the Sixth Annual Relay For Life Aiken Golf Classic in Memory of Dennis Bartholomew. Bartholomew was serving as the Relay For Life coordinator and planning the first golf tournament when he died of cancer six years ago.

Duncan Johnson Jr., president of Johnson Motor Company, said his son was diagnosed with Burkitt's lymphoma on Nov. 6, 2008. Doctors discovered two tumors in the 3-year-old's body, one the size of a grapefruit and the other the size of a child's soccer ball.

Johnson's son was in and out of the hospital for the better part of a year, during which time Johnson realized his son was tougher than he was.

"We just thought he was getting fat," Johnson said.

Every year the event has grown in size, and every year the amount of money raised has surpassed the year before, said coordinator Jack St. Clair.

He asked his son what people should know about fighting cancer, and the now-7-year-old said, "You can't do it Titleist 910 D3 Driver without God. Don't forget your friends, too." he also said, "Cancer is not contagious. But, love is. So let them have it."

There was even a hole-in-one. John Froedge shot a hole-in-one on No. 9 on The Reserve course.

Not only did the Relay For Life Aiken Golf Classic have a record number of players this year, but it also raised discount golf clubs a record amount of money - approximately $38,000. The goal was $35,000.

"The money you gave to this tournament is very much appreciated," he said during the 19th-hole reception.

"Denny's spirit lives through this golf tournament," Blosser said.

club-kicking back nine Friday at the Masters

If Billy Payne was watching he had to become horrified. The Masters chairman who famously chastised Woods a couple of years ago for conduct unbecoming a part model might have seen conduct unfit for your back nine of a local muni.

Amid the staid confines of golf's most hallowed grounds, Woods acted like a petulant teenager who wasn't getting his way. He cursed wayward shots, hung his head after missed putts, and took mock swings in anger. To top things off, he kicked his 9-iron about 15 yards on the 16th teebox after badly missing one more shot.

"I think we can easily safely say Tiger has lost his game ... and the mind," CBS analyst Nick Faldo said on air.

The gamer who vowed to honor and respect the sport as he returned from your sex scandal that derailed his career Mizuno MP 53 Irons and ruined his marriage did just the opposite. And he achieved it on the course where over time the game's greats have conducted themselves with merely the best sense of deportment.

Woods will likely be around for that weekend since the 75 he shot used to be sufficiently good to increase the risk for cut, though watching his histrionics because he unquestionably back nine might have led a not so formal observer to consider he was struggling to get rid of 100. He's eight shots back in the lead and can provide an early tee time Saturday with defending champion Charl Schwartzel, who might choose to bring along a helmet should the clubs start flying again.

If Payne was as serious about keeping club decorum intact while he is around keeping women members away from Augusta National, although flourish take it upon himself to indicate Woods the doorway.

Stand up to the bully. He's in a position to get away with things the other 95 players wouldn't dream about doing. Operate for a game that Woods insists on treating like it were a roller derby match.

Won't happen, obviously. Woods gets special therapy here not simply because he's a four-time champion who knows the best discount golf clubs way to say every one of the right things when they drape an eco-friendly jacket round his shoulders, but as he moves the needle in the media.

Its likely that he won't even get a tongue lashing from Payne, who may have already botched one bubbling controversy immediately and surely does not want to acquire associated with another. Payne has not been seen since declaring Wednesday that Augusta National is often a private club that can do what it really wants and that any conversations she has regarding his granddaughters about being unable to certainly be a member here are conversations he promises to keep quiet.

What set Woods off on Friday wasn't tough to figure out. He missed three putts under 5 feet on the front nine ?a two of them badly ?a and is already steaming when he started the rear. Then the swing he thought had been rebuilt to perfection with coach Sean Foley collapsed within the pressure when trying to create a score.

He swung a club in anger after pushing an iron shot badly on No. 11, then cursed as he missed the par putt. He muttered after another shot stuck secured of the hazard around the 13th hole, then threw a tee down in anger to mark the area for his pitch. A 4-iron at 15 went to date right he was yelling at it and looked like he desired to break his club, and so on the 16th hole he was irritated by way of a missed 9-iron that he dropped the club behind him, then kicked it as being hard as he could.

When Woods was over his agent as well as the person he pays to shield him from your media put him before an agreeable questioner on television scrum outside of the scoring area. He gave a grin TaylorMade RocketBallZ Driver for that cameras, brought up how he was still in the tournament and, in the final absurdity, preached the need for patience for your weekend.

That Woods continues to be fighting the demons which may have gotten into his game ?a and perhaps his life ?a is obvious. He's obviously frustrated at being where he or she is in a tournament he supposed to be competitive in after winning fourteen days ago from increasing Hill, and is arriving at the unsettling realization that the swing changes he's made don't always work being forced.