Shag Bag

DORAL, Fla. – With inclement weather in the forecast for Friday (the storm doesn’t have a name but it is close) PGA Tour officials moved up second-round tee times at the WGC-CA Championship more than three hours.

Round 2 is scheduled to begin at 8 a.m. with the final groups going off at 9:55 a.m.

DORAL, Fla. – Although the broad-shouldered German wasn’t showing any signs of injury early in his first round at Doral, Martin Kaymer is headed for the DL shortly after next month’s Masters.

Kaymer broke four bones in his left foot in a go-cart accident last September and had to have an assortment of screws and plates surgically inserted. The injury forced Kaymer to miss eight weeks and likely cost him last year’s European Tour Order of Merit title.

The Thursday after he plays the year’s first major at Augusta National Kaymer plans to go home to Germany and have the hardware removed, a procedure that will take 10 to 12 days to mend.

“I wanted to play Quail Hollow (April 29-May 2) but I’ll have to take that week off now,” said Kaymer, who was hopeful he could return in time to play the Players Championship May 6-9.

Despite Kaymer’s solid play this year, he won the Abu Dhabi Championship in January and finished fourth two weeks later in Dubai, he said the injury has been causing him pain.

“Depending on the lie, if I’m under or over the ball, it really hurts,” he said.

Tiger Woods has hired former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer to help with damage control and a strategy for returning to golf, according to the New York Post. Sources told the Post that the former presidential advisor to George W. Bush has been meeting frequently with Woods where the two have been plotting a return strategy for the Arnold Palmer Invitational March 25 at Bay Hill.

Last week, Jack Nicklaus said that he believed Woods would play at least one warm-up event before heading to Augusta for the Masters in April. Woods’ longtime friend and neighbor Mark O’Meara told Golf Channel earlier this week that he wouldn’t be surprised to see Woods make his return at the Tavistock Cup, March 22-23, at Isleworth and that those exhibition matches would be a good way to ease back into the public spotlight.

“They were in his living room this week going over a strategy for how to handle Bay Hill in two weeks,” a source told the Post regarding Fleischer and Woods.

Fleischer, 49, was press secretary from January 2001 to July 2003 and left for a career as a consultant. He formed Ari Fleischer Sports Communications in 2008 and most recently advised embattled St. Louis Cardinals hitting instructor Mark McGwire on his public admission to using steroids.

DORAL, Fla. – Phil Mickelson took WGC gold last year after spending much of Saturday night in a local hospital recovering from dehydration. If one believes in omens go with Steve Stricker this week in an ER special.

Stricker spent most of Tuesday in his room suffering from what he originally thought was food poisoning.

“I was up at 4 a.m. (Tuesday) and it was coming out of both ends,” Stricker said.

After talking with some other players and caddies who suffered from similar symptoms Stricker adjusted his self-diagnoses and said he likely had some kind of “24-hour flu bug.”

Stricker played nine more practice holes on Wednesday and spent an hour on the practice tee. “I’m feeling a ton better,” he said.

Luckily he was rested, having taken the last two weeks off but it’s the start of a long stretch of golf that includes four events in five weeks.

DORAL, Fla. – Phil Mickelson’s heart is still being tugged away from golf more than those outside his camp realize.

He hasn’t fully thrown himself into his game yet this season with much of his attention still devoted to the progress his wife, Amy, and mother, Mary, are making in their recoveries from breast cancer.

That's the word from Butch Harmon, Mickelson’s swing coach, who saw the pull on his pupil’s focus during the West Coast Swing.

Harmon was on the driving range Wednesday at the WGC-CA Championship and so was Mickelson’s caddie, Jim Mackay, but Mickelson isn’t expected to arrive until later tonight. Mickelson is forgoing a practice round before beginning defense of his title here Thursday to spend more time with his family. He accompanied Amy on a trip to Houston for treatment at the MD Anderson Cancer Center last week.

“The treatment is going well, but it takes its toll, the reconstructive surgery takes its toll,” Harmon said. “There are things going on in Phil’s life right now that are more important than golf. That’s the way it should be. You’ve seen that in his golf game. He hasn’t been as sharp as we anticipated with the offseason work. Until Amy’s better, she’s going to be his focus.”

After winning the Tour Championship and the HSBC Champions at the end of last season, expectations soared for Mickelson coming into this year. He’s off to a sluggish start, though, with one top-10 finish in four events, his worst West Coast Swing performance in a decade.

Harmon said he believes Mickelson will commit to the Arnold Palmer Invitational and the Shell Houston Open to hone his game before the Masters.

“He needs to play,” Harmon said when asked if Mickelson will be prepared to win the Masters in five weeks. "He feels good about what he’s doing. It’s just a matter of getting your mind 100 percent on it, which is not easy to do.”

Growing up in the south, it was a big deal to get snow. It would happen maybe once or twice a year and everyone was absolutely thrilled. Even the old mean crusty types would get a smile on their face when they didn’t think anyone else was looking.

The reports would start coming in a few days out and the milk and bread would start flying off the shelves in the grocery stores. All of us kids would make plans to have a day or two away from school. In preparation for the big event we would round up our sleds, coats and gloves. I think the reason that everyone was so excited about the prospect of getting snow was that it was a break from the normal routine of winter.

The anticipation that something big and different is about to happen is in some ways bigger than the event itself. I think that is where we stand right now in the world of golf in regard to the return of Tiger Woods to competition. All reports are indicating that his return may be imminent. Why else would he be spending time with Hank Haney working on his game?

Rumors are circulating and they all point to an impending return. All of us that cover the game are scrambling to make sure we are properly prepared. That’s the forecast. You can feel it in the air. Something big is coming. But remember, in the south, a forecast for snow most often brings a cold rain.

Even so, I’m making sure my cupboard is full.  I’ve got a feeling a record setting blizzard is about to hit.

DORAL, Fla. – There was no confusing Steve Marino’s loyalties Wednesday morning as he worked his way through a crowd with a Washington Nationals hat pulled low on his head.

Marino may live in south Florida now, but he’s still a D.C. guy and the debut of pitching phenom Stephen Strasburg on Tuesday has given the Nats fan a reason to get excited.

“He looked real good,” said Marino of Strasburg, a rookie for the Nats who pitched a two-strike out, two-hit gem in his professional debut. “They say they are going to keep him in the minors, but we really need him.”

Marino – who lives in Palm Beach Gardens, not far from the Cardinals’ spring training complex – said he’s not playing next week’s Transition Championship and plans on seeing the phenom first-hand at a game.

DORAL, Fla. – There have been no Phil Mickelson sightings at the WGC-CA Championship this week, although his caddie Jim “Bones” MacKay was spotted on the practice tee just past noon on Wednesday.

Word is Lefty is spending extra time with his wife, Amy, who is recovering from breast cancer and will arrive in south Florida Wednesday night, which means no practice round for the defending champion.

No worries, however, since Mickelson won last year’s CA Championship after spending time in a local hospital for dehydration. Something along the lines of beware the injured, or tardy, golfer.