Golfweek

OK, I’ll admit it. Something my friends already know: Over the past few months, through all the hydrants, FHPs and TMZs, SNL skits and various twists, a large part of me was fixated only on one question:

Are we going to lose the video game or not?

So for someone who still has trouble clicking away that years-old interactive Orbitz mini-golf pop-up ad, EA Sports’ recent announcement to (please excuse the following pun) stay the course with the “Tiger Woods PGA Tour” brand and its new batch of games – including “Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2011” for multiple platforms (due out around the U.S. Open in June) and the new “Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online,” which is in free open beta testing – came with some relief.

Now whether or not you agree with EA Sports’ decision to keep Woods’ name on the game is about as important to me as what Steve Stricker’s college roommate’s hairdresser’s cousin had for lunch last Wednesday.

They could have called the new console game “Kent Jones PGA Tour 2011,” for all I care. Just keep improving the experience of playing Pebble Beach (pictured, right) in my PJs and in my ...

Welcome to the Monday Scramble, feeling rather super this morning as you are about to find out.

Q. What’s the only thing better than having a ticket to Super Bowl XLIV?

A. Actually being a part of the victory celebration, like the Monday Scramble was Sunday night in Miami.

As you can tell from the pictures below (the first 100-percent authentic photos we’ve had here since Henrik Stenson went skinny-dipping at Doral), we are so insanely connected within the world of professional sports and entertainment that we were able to get a couple first-class shoutouts straight from ground-level at the big game.

You know what they say: Why have your name in lights when you can have it written it in marker on a piece of cardboard? (And yes, that is the same confetti that Peyton Manning had to angrily bat away from his face as he exited the stadium.)

However, what started as just dumb fun actually ended in another big story for us...

Q. Besides tearing up in his interview with Roger Maltbie, what did the PGA Tour’s poster good boy Steve Stricker do after winning the Northern Trust Open – and Tour victory No. 8 ...

Welcome to the Monday Scramble.

Busy week out there in Ol’ Golf Land, eh? In case you missed it, here were the highlights:

• John Daly missed the cut at Torrey Pines after rounds of 79-71, told Golf Channel producers “I’m done” and fooled everyone into thinking he was retiring; he later Tweeted that “I’m not retired & never said that I was retiring” but also that “I may look into doing some commentating--I really enjoy doing that”; and JD closed out the week by cooking steaks under a canopy with his “gf & close true friends” while watching the Pro Bowl.

Word is he will play again, most likely next season for the Minnesota Vikings.

• Bubba Watson, who we wrote about last week, finally got his invitation to appear on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” this Tuesday in Los Angeles.

According to the show’s Web site, Watson will “finally achieve his goal of dancing with Ellen!”

Next, that first Tour victory!

(Or at least a freestyle battle with LL Cool J, also a guest on the show. Sorry, Bubba... Heidi Klum is only on Thursday!)

• After missing the cut in his first two events to start his rookie season, the ...

Welcome to the Monday Scramble, a bit groggy from staying up all night catching up on long-driving PGA Tour player Bubba Watson’s library of homemade internet videos that he posts regularly on Twitter – which, if you didn’t know, has officially become more popular on the Tour and on golf news Web sites than the actual sport of golf.

In any case, here’s what we’ve learned about your current Bob Hope Classic co-leader Watson, who used to wear flourescent pink knee-high socks in junior golf tournaments and as you probably know features a similarly-colored shaft in his driver:

• At this moment, it is unclear whether Watson would rather walk home this evening with the Hope winner’s trophy or an invitation to appear on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” a daytime talk show with a live audience usually made up of dancing 65-year-old grandmothers that are also quite fond of the color pink.

But we’d probably throw a few bucks on the latter considering the following video clips, which show Watson serenading talk-show host/new “American Idol” judge DeGeneres with the “Happy Birthday” song and performing for her a trick shot, over a pool and into a ...

NEW YORK – Electronic Arts says its Tiger Woods game franchise grew over the past year, and holiday sales didn’t suffer even as the golfer’s personal life did.

Woods’ self-described extramarital “transgressions” and subsequent media fallout led other companies to drop him.

EA, however, has stood by him. EA Sports President Peter Moore said Thursday it would be “unimaginable” not to have Woods at the masthead of the company’s “Tiger Woods PGA Tour” games.

Moore says there has been no softening in sales, but he did not give specifics.

EA is launching an online version of the game in an “open beta” test on Thursday for anyone to play. It’s free, but added content comes at a cost.

“Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11” launches in June for game consoles and the iPhone.

Welcome to the Monday Scramble, still buzzing after finally seeing that much-talked about – and as of last night, Golden Globe-winning – blockbuster “Avatar” this weekend.

Accordingly, some thoughts – some more serious than others:

• Despite our contrarian nature, we have to admit it’s easily the best thing we’ve seen since “The Tiger Woods Voicemail Remix” YouTube video, and can’t wait for Part II of the trilogy.

• We swear we saw one of those lanky blue Na’vi creatures from the planet Pandora swimming around in the water at Doral at last year’s CA Championship...

• We also swear that those bright-pink Masters azaleas are everywhere in this movie.

• Of course, we were very happy to see that even in 4078 – or whatever year “Avatar” is supposed to take place – golf is still around.

For those of you that haven’t seen the movie, yes, we are being serious when we say that a golf ball, a putter (specifically, a Louisville Golf wood mallet putter, which director James Cameron’s team ordered about five years go), a practice putting mat and a putting stroke (or two!) appear in this 3D sci-fi epic along with such fantastical animals as Hammerhead Titanotheres ...

NEW YORK – Rocco Mediate, Duffy Waldorf and Natalie Gulbis will play themselves in an upcoming episode of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”

The plot of the Jan. 21 edition of the CBS show centers on the discovery of the body of a star player during a high-profile tournament.

Mediate and Waldorf are two of the most colorful personalities on the PGA Tour. Gulbis, one of the most recognizable players in women’s golf, appeared on “Celebrity Apprentice” last season.

Welcome to the Monday Scramble.

While the PGA Tour’s opener at Kapalua was much less disappointing this weekend than Tom Brady or even “Saturday Night Live,” we couldn’t help but spend most of the last 48 hours gearing up for Rickie Fowler’s debut as a PGA Tour member at this week’s Sony Open.

Since turning professional last September after the Walker Cup, the 21-year-old has only lived up to the gigantinormous hype, nearly winning a PGA Tour event and then earning his 2010 card with barely a drop of sweat or two.

We’ve heard it all. Fowler’s the “next Tiger,” “the answer to our prayers,” the “Leonardo Dicaprio look-a-like who will not only win majors but also Nobel Peace Prizes.” (OK, maybe not the last one.)

We do wonder, however, what golf would look like about a year from now if the stars aligned perfectly.

Actually, we really wonder what Fowler’s Facebook page would look like...

(Golfweek illustration)

E-mail the Monday Scramble: mondayscramble@gmail.com

Welcome to the Monday Scramble, and Happy 2010.

Here’s all you need to know about our New Year’s celebration: Probably the most exciting thing we did all weekend was watch James Taylor sing the national anthem at the NHL’s Winter Classic at Fenway Park. And so it wasn’t long before we fell asleep, only to spend the next couple hours dreaming that we were at Fenway Park watching the PGA Tour’s Winter Classic – an event that is about as real as, say, the PGA Tour’s All-Star Weekend, or even the Buick Open.

Anyway, thanks to our new iPod DreamRecorder 4000 (which for some reason didn’t make our Holiday Gift Guide), we’ve got pictures of what a golf event held at the Fens would probably look like...

Accordingly, we have but one wish for the new year, for golf, but mostly the PGA Tour:

Get creative and give us something next year as cool as the Winter Classic, but without the cold. Hint: Hickory shafts.

E-mail us at mondayscramble@gmail.com.

The longrunning “This is SportsCenter” campaign is one of my all-time favorites. The humor is usually subtle and understated (my favorite is when anchor Scott Van Pelt asks the spelling bee champ to help him spell Pujols) and I often wish they would run them and save us from another Skip Bayless-Rob Parker yelling match. But I digress.

On Dec. 11, ESPN premiered one of the latest spots, featuring Arnold Palmer. I caught it during Monday Night Football. In the ad, we’re told it’s April 7, 12:23 p.m., – a nice touch for those in the know since working off this year’s calendar that would be Tuesday of Masters week – and the setting is the ESPN cafeteria. Anchors Scott Van Pelt and Stuart Scott are holding their lunch trays when Palmer and his caddie “play through.” Palmer fixes his eponymous drink of half lemonade and half iced tea. I love how Palmer goes back to top it off with an extra splash of iced tea (maybe that’s his secret to getting the taste just right?).

Anyway, unless you’re my buddy in Australia who has never heard of the drink the Arnold Palmer, it’s ...

Welcome to the Monday Scramble, as ready for the holiday break as Rickie Fowler was for Q-School.

Of course, we still have a little last-minute shopping to do – but who doesn’t?

Have no fear, Part II of the Monday Scramble Holiday Golf Gift Guide (MSHGGG) is here. (If you missed Part I, click here.)

And, as always, if you find a site with a better list of holiday golf gifts, we’ll help stuff you into a cannon and shoot you over the gates into your private club of choice.

DeLorean Flux Capacitor golf balls

Description: As long as your swing speed reaches 88 mph or higher, you will be sent “Back to the Future” upon contact. (CEO Doc Brown says customers should expect to travel back to sometime around midnight on Thanksgiving.)

Cost: $164 each (Update: SOLD OUT).

Snuggie

Description: This whole blanket-with-sleeves phenomenon might seem like a new thing, but Walter Hagen was rockin’ one wayyyyy back in the day. In fact, he won the 1928 U.S. Open in one (pictured).

Cost: $15.

Golf Hero

Description: If you thought Guitar Hero was fun, you can’t even imagine what Golf Hero has in store. Even its ...

NEW YORK - Tiger Woods and his marital problems proved a tempting target for “Saturday Night Live.”

In both a skit and multiple “Weekend Update” jokes this weekend, NBC’s comedy institution took on the golfer, who has admitted to letting his family down with “transgressions” that came to light following a strange Thanksgiving weekend incident outside his Florida home.

In one skit, actor Jason Sudeikis portrayed Wolf Blitzer on CNN’s “Situation Room” reporting on a news conference that Woods (played by Kenan Thompson) and his wife (played by host Blake Lively) were holding outside his home. After Woods admitted to “multiple” transgressions, his wife looked surprised and the screen quickly shifted back to Blitzer.

“Breaking news,” Blitzer said. “Tiger Woods is back in the hospital. “Apparently just hours after a press conference where he confessed to multiple transgressions, Woods had an accident in his home where he fell down a flight of stairs then inadvertently threw himself through a plate glass window.”

Woods returned for a later news conference, his wife brandishing a golf club next to him, where he said, “Wow, I’ve been really clumsy this week.”

He had more such “accidents,” then returns to read a ...

Meet 2-year-old Quentin Coor. The Seattle toddler might remind you of someone.

From KomoNews.com (Click video to play):

Welcome to the Monday Scramble, still unthankful this week for those who don’t fix their ball marks.

On the other hand, we are extremely thankful for all of our hardworking interns who helped put together our inaugural Monday Scramble Holiday Golf Gift Guide (MSHGGG), just in time for Black Friday and the biggest shopping day of the year.

(If you find a site with a better list of holiday golf gifts, we’ll help stuff you into a cannon and shoot you over the gates into Augusta National.)

Tom Watson Wins British Open Highlights DVD

Description: Still unhappy with how this year’s British Open ended? Don’t worry. This alternate-ending highlights video doesn’t even show one shot by Stewart Cink (which is actually only like five less than ABC showed during the Sunday broadcast).

Cost: $29.95 (plus free case of Werther’s Originals)

TW Errant Club Helmet

Description: A necessary safeguard following Tiger Woods’ driver-into-the-gallery mishap in Australia.

Cost: $195 ($1,195 autographed)

Magic RangeFinder 3G Deluxe Portable 9000LX

Description: A rangefinder that would happily fail a PGA Tour drug test. The 9000LX model features not only extensive GPS capability, but also an iPhone, PlayStation Portable ...

So Tiger Woods’ driver flew into the gallery surrounding the 13th tee at Kingston Heath Saturday at the Australian Masters, which you can see in the video below.

It was a shot perhaps as lucky as his chip-in on No. 16 at the 2005 Masters, and as dopey as Jean Van de Velde’s driver off the 18th tee at Carnoustie at the 1999 British Open.

Some inside the golf blogosphere wonder why this whole Foul Driver Down Under (FDDU) incident isn’t a bigger story, saying that golf writers are just shying away from tainting El Tigre, as usual.

Count me in the Eh, Whatever group, for a few reasons:

1.) Tiger didn’t mean to throw his driver into the gallery, nor did he throw it directly into the gallery.

As you can infer from the video, he slammed his driver down onto the tee box and it somehow ricocheted off the ground back into the gallery. (Quick, someone check the grooves on that thing!)

Of course, had he flung the driver into the gallery with the help of his caddie Stevie Williams and one of those contraptions they uses to launch T-shirts into the crowd at professional ...