Golfweek

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – Rory McIlroy is turning into the European Tour’s go-to boy.

He’s in good company.

Need someone to boost your ratings and get you some publicity? Rory can do it. So can a bunch of his peers.

Rory’s doing it here this week. Just when you wondered if he was going to get left choking on Lee Westwood’s dust as the Race to Dubai winds to a finish, Rory throws in a tidy little 5-under 31 on the front nine of Round 2 to spice up the Race.

He’s going to fight Westwood right down to the wire to become the European No. 1.

As I look at the leaderboard coming into the tail end of the second round, I see McIlroy’s name along with fellow Irishman Padraig Harrington, an Australian in Robert Allenby and Englishmen Westwood and Ross McGowan. Louis Oosthuizen of South Africa, Sergio Garcia and Rafael Cabrera-Bello of Spain, Sweden’s Johan Edfors and Colombian Camilo Villegas.

Talk about cosmopolitan. Although I suppose it figures we’d have an international field in the city that’s allegedly the world’s greatest melting pot. The array of international talent ...

Just when you thought it was safe to start recapping the season’s major golf championships, the stop sign appears. You’ve got to hold on, because the majors aren’t over.

The final one tees off Saturday upon the terrific Island Course at the Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor, Fla. It may have arrived well beneath the radar, given that it’s a first-time event and all, but the Legends Tour Open surely has attracted the best qualified players.

Pat Bradley, Patty Sheehan, Rosie Jones, Amy Alcott, Betsy King, Nancy Scranton, Jan Stephenson, Hollis Stacy, JoAnne Carner, Jane Geddes, Sandra Haynie . . . that’s just a sampling of the names who represent the glory days of the LPGA Tour, and they’ll be among 44 players competing over 36 holes for a $300,000 purse.

It will be the fifth of six tournaments planned for the Legends Tour this season, but the first one ever designated a “major.”

RICHMOND, Texas – Michelle Wie withdrew from the LPGA Tour Championship Nov. 19 with a sore left ankle. Four days after winning her first professional title, Wie’s momentum was cut short in a fitness trailer where it was decided she needed an MRI. Wie first injured the ankle at the Solheim Cup, indicating she had stepped in several holes.

“I felt like Gary Player today with my swing,” said Wie, who opened with an even-par 72. She limped around in Mexico as well, but the euphoria of winning likely diminished the pain. 

“This tournament, and the support shown from the fans in Houston, meant a lot to me and I wanted to do everything I could to fight through the injury,” Wie said. “It bothered me last week in Mexico, but I was able to play through the pain. I realized today that I wouldn’t be able to continue to play through it. I want to make sure that I’m being smart with it, so I will return home to have it looked at by my doctors and follow their advice for treatment.”

Looks like she might not miss that Stanford-Cal football game on Saturday after all.

RICHMOND, Texas – This is a home tournament for Texas’ Stacy Lewis, which means her off-course obligations get a little nutty. So far this week she has roped a cow, toured NASA, visited Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital and spent Tuesday’s practice round with a very special 7-year-old.

“The last few days I left the hotel at 6 a.m. and didn’t get back until 8 or 9 p.m.,” said Lewis, who grew up in The Woodlands, Texas. “Just doing as much as I can to help promote this tournament.”

Lewis, who seems to go above and beyond for the LPGA quite regularly, opened with a 2-under 70 at the Houstonian. The Tour Championship has a TBD for location on the 2010 schedule, so Lewis is acutely aware that her tour needs to make a good impression to attract a title sponsor here for next year.

Speaking of good impressions, Lewis can’t say enough good things about Abigail Davis, a local golfer who shadow caddied Lewis during Tuesday’s practice round. Davis, who was born without a left hand, plays golf left-handed and has finished third twice in her young career.

Lewis grew up with her own ...

RICHMOND, Texas – Just call Na Yeon Choi Miss Independent. When she buys her souped-up Hyundai Genesis next week in Orlando, Fla. – “You know, bling bling” – perhaps Kelly Clarkson will blare out of her speakers.

Choi, 22, is basking in the success of a two-win season. A season in which she changed caddies, bought into Vision 54 and told her parents to go home to Korea.

“I run everything,” said Choi, who told has been traveling on her own since May. “No longer a child.”

Choi said she felt tremendous pressure down the stretch during her first victory at the Samsung World Championship. The next month in her native Korea, however, she was composed on Sunday. With mom and dad on hand to celebrate her second victory, Choi cried on the 18th green. The pressure she felt from Korean media and family had finally subsided.

Choi started working with Kevin Smeltz at the David Leadbetter Academy at ChampionsGate after her Samsung victory. She also bought a house there and plans to spend the offseason working in the Florida sun. 

Her parents thought about making the trip to Houston.

“After two wins, they stay in Korea,” Choi said with a laugh.

Good ...

Who is the No. 1 player in women’s golf?

Most settle for the obvious answer of Lorena Ochoa, who has collected 18 tournament titles since the start of the 2007 season. What’s maybe more impressive is Ochoa has placed inside the top 10 in 50 of 68 starts (or 73.5 percent of her appearances) during that same time frame. However, Ochoa’s 2009 season has brought those numbers down. In her 2009 starts she has finished outside the top 10 nine times, compared to only nine times in all of 2007 and 2008.

Ochoa remains the top player in the Rolex Rankings by a comfortable margin, and she ranks No. 1 in scoring average. Ochoa would be considered by many to be the top player in the women’s game, and you won’t get any real argument from me.

But, this week a new player could jump to the top in what is really a close race for the top women’s player right now.

In the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index, which measures players based on their past 52 weeks of play, Ochoa has a very narrow lead over Paula Creamer. If Creamer were to repeat ...

Natalie Gulbis withdrew from the season-ending LPGA Tour Championship due to illness. She was replaced in the field by Audra Burks, No. 155 on the money list.

While it’s strange that 120 players make up the Tour Championship, it’s even stranger that so many players would choose to skip this event. Can’t quite wrap my head around the fact that the LPGA had to go down as far as No. 155 to fill this field.

RICHMOND, Texas – So who is the lucky caddie who can claim he walked Michelle Wie into the winner’s circle? Brendan Woolley. Or caddie No. 857.

All kidding aside, Woolley owes his good friend Patrick Tarrant a steak dinner at the very least. Tarrant, who had been on Wie’s bag since June, told Wie just before the Lorena Ochoa Invitational that he thought it might be a good idea for her to get started with a new caddie these last two events since he planned to return to his regular PGA Tour gig in 2010. Tarrant caddied for a now-injured Brett Wetterich the last seven seasons on the PGA Tour.

Tarrant contacted Woolley, a fellow New Zealander who worked with Wie in Kingsmill, and the pair immediately hit the jackpot in Mexico.

Many who have ridden the Wie caddie carousel stopped the ride on bad terms. Team Wie, however, insists this entire caddie exchange was an amicable parting. Tarrant held true to his word with Wetterich, and Woolley cashed in.

Woolley and Wie have agreed to work together through 2010.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – The scribes and the sherpas are getting a lot of respect this week. More than we’ve gotten all season.

Writers and caddies can’t complain about the treatment at this week’s Dubai World Championship. It’s nothing but five-star.

We writers have a front-row seat beside the 18th green, prime real estate usually reserved for corporate sponsors.

We’ve got air conditioning, comfy chairs, free Wi-Fi and free food. Good food, too. We won’t be losing weight this week.

In fact, the food and the Wi-Fi are so good that I hope Michael Tate, assistant secretary of the R&A, took notice when he was in the media center today. The R&A charges us for Wi-Fi at the Open Championship, only for it to go down several times a day.

We have a bar and lounge chairs in the dining room overlooking the 18th green. We’ve even have a balcony so we can sun ourselves and watch golf when we take writing breaks.

So much for the days of the poor scribe.

Don’t think it’s always as salubrious as this. It isn’t. We’re normally treated pretty well ...

RICHMOND, Texas – The big news out of the final player meeting of the year is that Wegmans will sponsor the LPGA Championship in Rochester, N.Y., next year, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation. The 2010 schedule will have 23 events, six before June. Last year the tour announced 31 events for 2009, though only 27 were played.

The Houstonian looked like a ghost town early Tuesday evening as the entire field gathered to get a sneak peek at the 2010 schedule and meet incoming commissioner Mike Whan.

The LPGA will make a formal announcement regarding 2010 Nov. 18 at 9 a.m. at Sugar Land City Hall. (Only the LPGA would decide to announce its schedule away from the golf course.)

It’s strange having a Tour Championship with 125 players. Don’t be surprised if that number goes down for 2010. There are two cuts this week. The field will be cut to low 70 and ties on Friday and then 30 and ties on Saturday.

An interesting side note: The Rolex Player of the Year race has three players still alive. Jiyai Shin, 2009 Rookie of the Year, holds the outright lead. Lorena Ochoa ...

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 ...

How’s this for Chapter 784 of “Golf, The Global Game”:

A young man from SoCal (Tiger Woods) won Down Under in Australia; a Frenchman (Gregory Bourdy) outlasted an Irishman (Rory McIlroy) to win in Hong Kong (a European Tour event, no less); a golfer from tiny Trinidad & Tobago (Stephen Ames) now residing in Canada won outside Orlando, Fla., at Disney (he stayed at FantasyLand, we presume).

And a girl from little old Hawaii won her first LPGA title. In Mexico.

With that, grab your carpet for the next stop in this magical ride: We’re all off to Dubai.

Try to follow that one with a large globe and some stickpins.

There’s been a lot of talk this year about LPGA players heading to Japan for more playing opportunities. At one point, it looked like as many as a dozen players might sign up for JLPGA Q-School. Rumor had it even Paula Creamer and Natalie Gulbis were heading East. (That turned out to be false.)

In the end, only three LPGA members will try to gain full status in Japan: Seon-Hwa Lee, In Bee Park and Candie Kung. The final stage will be held Dec. 1-4 at Katsuragi Golf Club’s Yamana Course.

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – In the 90 minutes after finishing the Children’s Miracle Network Classic, the PGA Tour season finale, a nervous Rich Beem knocked down two beers and two vodkas. This was a touring professional’s medication for high anxiety.

When Beem left the 18th green area as a nervous wreck, he was a projected 124th in season earnings, one precarious spot ahead of the final exempt spot. But several players still on the course had a chance to bump him out of the top 125 and out of a full-time Tour job for 2010.

“I can’t handle this,” he said. “I’m going to have a beer.”

So the 2002 PGA champion waited, fidgeted, sweated, drank, visited his kids in day care, watched on a clubhouse television and came into the media center to check the constantly changing projections on one of the Tour’s computers. When all the chasers were done playing, the emotional Beem had his happy news: He was No. 122 at $676,899, just $17,213 ahead of the 126th spot.

Ecstatic sums up how he felt. By the sound of it, he had won a second major. In reality, he avoided ...

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – Forget what the sports psychologists say. Nicholas Thompson’s focus wasn’t solely on his target or pre-shot routine during the final-round of the Children’s Miracle Network Classic. He was thinking about the cash, knowing he needed a good round to keep his PGA Tour card.

“I knew approximately where the number was going to be,” Thompson said. “... I went to Georgia Tech, so I can do (the calculations) on the fly out there. ... Certain people, it’s really bad to do it. Me, I like to know where I stand and what I need.”

Thompson shot 66 Sunday at Disney’s Magnolia Course to finish in a tie for 11th in the tournament and improve to No. 123 on the final PGA Tour money list; the top 125 earned 2010 PGA Tour cards.

Thompson earned $238,400 in his final two events this year to keep his card with about $16,000 to spare.

Despite continuous changes in the money list throughout the final round, just two players who started the week outside the top 125 moved their way in. Thompson, who started the week at No. 132, was one. Jimmy Walker was the ...