The Nova Scotia Golf Association will be hosting the first annual Women’s Learn to Golf Summit and luncheon at the beautiful Glen Arbour Golf Course in Hammonds Plains, N.S. on Saturday, May 24, 2014.

The Summit is designed for women who are new golfers or women who are interested in taking up golf. Participants will take part in breakout sessions that will include the following:

RULES & ETIQUETTE  101:

What to do and what not to do?

Participants will take part in an introductory rules session and that will provide you with a basic understanding of rules. The rules can be the most intimidating aspects of the game, but they certainly do not have to be.Participants will have an opportunity to ask questions and gain a better understanding of the game.

EQUIPMENT 101:

Participants will be taught the attributes of the fourteen clubs that traditionally make up a golf set. There will be a discussion as to where and how these different clubs are used during the course of a round of golf. Having your clubs fit to your stature, ability and swing speed will be a huge factor in the success of your game. You will be shown what equipment is necessary to get started and what extra essentials are required to improve your skills and your enjoyment of golf in general.

FULL SWING 101:

Are you right or left handed?

This session will focus on teaching participant’s proper golf grip, posture and stance. Focusing how to maintain balance and create a flowing motion when swinging a club. This is where you’ll get to hit shots and give golf a try.

SHORT GAME 101:

In this session, participant’s will focus on the short game, around the green. Different situations will employ various techniques and clubs. You will learn the most common techniques of these so that you feel confident when you play. You will get a chance to experiment with putting and chipping – important skills in any golfer’s repertoire.

About the SUMMIT:

The day will be broken into a morning session and an afternoon. Space is limited to 30 per session. The morning session will run from 8:45am to 1:20pm and the afternoon session will run from 11:45am to 4:30pm. For a complete agenda for the morning and afternoon sessions please CLICK HERE.

Also included in the package: Each participant will also receive a free round of golf at the Glen Arbour Par 3 Course that can be used during the 2014 golf season.

Both the morning group and afternoon group will take part in a luncheon from 12:00pm to 1:20pm with fellow new golfer and Olympic Kayaker, Karen Furneaux, as the keynote speaker.

Cost: $40.00 (tax included) which includes all breakout session, a green fee to the Glen Arbour Par 3 Course and lunch with Karen Furneaux.

For more information or to register now please CLICK HERE.

BEAUMONT, Calif. – France’s Aléxis Anghert shot a 6-under 66 Thursday at Oak Valley Golf Club to take a one shot lead into the final round of PGA Tour Canada’s California Qualifying Tournament.

The 26-year old Quebec City resident will take a one shot advantage over England’s Greg Eason into the final round of the 72-hole competition that will see 18 players earn exempt status on PGA Tour Canada for 2014, with the rest of the top 40 plus ties earning conditional status. The cut-off through 54 holes for exempt status stands at 4-under par, while the number for conditional status stands at even par.

“I played really well the first nine holes,” said Anghert, who hit approaches to tap-in range on the first two holes of an opening-nine 32. “The putts didn’t go in on the back nine, but I was playing so good.” Anghert caught Eason, the 36-hole leader, after the first two holes and would card birdies on his 16^th and 17^th holes to take a one shot lead into Friday’s final round.

“It’s a long day and I was getting pretty tired, but I’m excited tomorrow. I’m in a good position to try and go for the win, which would be nice.”

Anghert, who moved to Quebec to play at Laval, is looking to join former Rouge et Or teammate Max Gilbert, who won the TOUR Championship of Canada presented by Freedom 55 Financial last season, on PGA Tour Canada. Sonny Michaud, another Laval grad who helped the team win the Canadian University/College Championship in 2012, shot a 2-under 70 to move into a tie for 40^th spot, in position to earn conditional status for 2014.

Anghert and Eason will play in the final threesome tomorrow along with Indiana native Seth Fair, who shot a 3-under 69 to sit 10-under overall. Anghert’s 66 was tied for the lowest round of the day with Little Rock, Arkansas’ Joe Doramus, who moved up 31 spots into a tie for 10^th.

Michaud and Hamilton, Ont.’s Justin Kim, who shot a 2-over 74 to sit tied for 32^nd at 1-under total, led the Canadian contingent of players in position to earn PGA Tour Canada status for this year.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – No nerves. No worries. Adam Scott never knew the opening round at Augusta National could be so enjoyable.

With his green jacket upstairs in the locker room for Masters champions, Scott made only one bad swing that cost him two shots in a round of 3-under 69. It was the lowest opening score by a defending champion in 13 years, and it left Scott one shot behind leader Bill Haas on an otherwise demanding day.

“It was really how you hope to come out and play at any major, and especially the Masters,” Scott said. “And there’s no doubt winning the Masters last year had me a little more comfortable on the first tee than I’ve ever been in the past, because I didn’t have the legs shaking and nerves jangling for six or seven holes like usual.”

Haas, with a rich family history at Augusta that includes a green jacket for his great uncle Bob Goalby, settled down after an opening bogey with a collection of good birdie putts and an 8-iron to 5 feet for birdie on the 18th for a 68.

It was the first time in 18 majors that Haas has had the lead after any round. That only gets him a crystal vase for the low round of the day at the Masters. Haas knows better than to put too much stock into what happens Thursday. He was leading after the opening round in Houston last week and tied for 37th.

“There’s tons of golf left,” he said.

Only one first-round leader in the last 30 years has gone on to win the Masters.

Former Masters champion Bubba Watson, who slipped that green jacket on Scott last year, played his first bogey-free round in a major since the 2009 U.S. Open and shot a 69. So did Louis Oosthuizen, whom Watson beat in a playoff at Augusta.

They were the only players to break 70, the fewest for an opening round at the Masters since 2007.

“No one is really going crazy out there in perfect, perfect conditions,” Graeme McDowell said after fighting to salvage a 72.

But there was something about the way Scott played that grabbed most of the attention on such a gorgeous spring day in the South. Golf has been waiting for a star to take control all year, even more without Tiger Woods at Augusta for the first time in 20 years because of back surgery.

Scott was in control of his emotions and his game all day – except for once.

Walking over to the heart of Amen Corner, the fans behind the 12th tee rose in unison to cheer the champ.

“The memory that will stick with me forever today was walking up to the 12th tee and everyone getting out of their seats as I approached there,” Scott said. “It was great, the level of respect that everyone has for this golf tournament and what happens here.

“But then,” he said with a smile, “I went and hit it in the water.”

Scott’s tee shot bounced off the front slope and into Rae’s Creek – amazingly, he said it was his first shot into the water on that hole – and he made double bogey to fall out of the outright lead. He picked up a birdie on the 14th, and three-putted for par on both the par 5s on the back nine.

Still, there were few complaints.

Augusta National officials knew this would be a gentle day of weather, and it was clear they made sure the course was anything but that. The hole locations were severe for an opening round. With endless sunshine, the greens became firmer and quicker by the hour.

So many others paid the price.

Jason Dufner took a quadruple-bogey 9 on the 13th hole with only one penalty shot. The worst of his woes was a wedge from the drop area that didn’t even make it to the creek. He wound up with an 80 in his first round in a major since winning the PGA Championship last summer.

He was in good company. Phil Mickelson had a pair of 7s on his card for the first time in five years at a major, and his 76 matched the highest opening round at Augusta for the three-time Masters champion. U.S. Open champion Justin Rose shot 40 on the front and scrambled for a 76.

Jason Day had a 75 in his first event in six weeks.

Vijay Singh also opened with a 69 when he was the defending champion in 2001, but that was different. Conditions were easier that year, and Singh was four shots behind. On this day, only 19 players broke par.

Jimmy Walker, Kevin Stadler and Jonas Blixt – among the record 24 newcomers to the Masters – were in the group at 70. The group at 71 included young (20-year-old Jordan Spieth) and old (54-year-old Fred Couples), and a former No. 1 in Rory McIlroy.

“It was just on one of those days it was tough to get it close to the hole,” McIlroy said. “Anything under par today was a good score.”

And it felt even better when one of those scores belonged to a Masters champion – in this case, two of them. Watson was asked about his comfort level at Augusta.

“The comfort level is knowing you have a green jacket already,” he said.

Another Masters champion, Mike Weir, opened with a respectable 1-over 73.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Jonas Blixt played all kinds of courses in golf’s minor leagues before graduating to the PGA Tour and quickly grabbing two wins.

Even he wasn’t quite prepared for what Augusta National offered in his Masters debut.

“Every single shot can be the best shot of your life and every single shot can be the worst shot of your life,” Blixt said. “You really have to stay focused.”

Blixt did that well enough Thursday to shoot a 2-under 70, matching the best score among rookies as the Class of `14 debuted to generally favorable reviews on golf’s grandest stage. Joining him there was 35-year-old Jimmy Walker, a three-time winner this season who ran off four straight birdies on the back nine, and Kevin Stadler, son of former winner Craig Stadler.

Blixt did everything but stop to smell the azaleas as he took it all in with former champion Ben Crenshaw helping show the way.

“I just got a good feeling being on the grounds,” the Swede said. “It’s a soothing feeling.”

Jordan Spieth felt much the same way in his first crack at a tournament many in golf believe he will be playing in for a long time. The 20-year-old, who played his way onto the PGA Tour and the President’s Cup team last year, smiled as he approached his opening tee shot.

“I just soaked it in, it was really cool,” Spieth said. “I was watching the ball, and from there the adrenaline came in.”

Playing with Rory McIlroy and fellow first-timer Patrick Reed in the featured pairing of the morning, Spieth jumpstarted his round with a 30-foot putt for birdie on No. 5. He played Amen Corner in 1 under for an opening 71 that put him three shots off the pace set by Bill Haas.

Reed might have joined him there, but a bogey-bogey-bogey finish put him at 73.

“I felt they handled it really well,” said McIlroy, who had a 71 of his own. “They both had it under par, Jordan finished under par. Patrick didn’t have a good finish, but I felt like they played well.”

A Masters lacking Tiger Woods had plenty of newcomers, with 24 of the 97 players in the field making their Masters debut. Some handled it well, while others struggled on a course that can make golfers nervous.

Among them was Jordan Niebruge, a sophomore at Oklahoma State who got a spot in the field with his win last year in the U.S. Amateur Public Links. Niebruge shot a 9-over 81 that he said wasn’t as bad as it looked.

That can happen on a course that demands precise placement of the ball on approach shots to the green.

“I hit it well today and I found myself on the wrong side of the hole and got a couple bad breaks,” the 20-year-old said. “But other than that I was pretty close to having a good round.”

Another amateur, Oliver Goss of Australia, was at the Masters as a spectator last year with his college teammates from Tennessee. He took advantage of a practice round with defending champion Adam Scott to familiarize himself with the course before his first round.

“He basically just kept me calm out there,” Goss said. “We just chitchatted, and just kept me calm.”

When it came time to play for real, Goss used some inner psychology to get around in a respectable 4-over 76.

“I had a little thought this morning, every other tournament you play you try and play like you’re in the Masters,” he said. “But for the Masters you try and treat it like just another tournament.”

But it’s hard to ignore history at Augusta National.

Blixt found that out when he was paired with the 62-year-old Crenshaw, playing in his 43rd Masters. His caddie, Carl Jackson, has been around even longer.

“I told (Blixt) he’s been here, this is his 53rd time,” Crenshaw said. “And he just went, `Oh my gosh.'”

Canada’s Graham DeLaet would love to his first competitive round at Augusta National back. The Weyburn, Sask. native opened with an 8-over 80 and is tied for 90th.

Thursday didn’t start off on the right foot for DeLaet with a bogey on the first hole. That negative momentum carried the entire front nine as DeLaet bogied six of his first seven holes including four in a row on holes four through seven.

DeLaet calmed down a bit on the back nine where he pared every hole except 10 and 14 where he added two more bogies.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – What a wild ride for Phil Mickelson to start the Masters.

Seeking to become only the fourth player to win as many as four green jackets, Lefty put himself in quite a hole with plenty of erratic shots Thursday at Augusta National.

Mickelson made a triple-bogey at the seventh hole, where he knocked it back-and-forth past the cup a staggering four times before finally sinking a putt. He took double-bogey when he dumped one in the water at No. 15, and trudged to the finish with a 4-over 76 – one off the worst scores of his Masters career.

Not exactly the opening Mickelson needed in his bid to join Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods with four Masters titles. Six-time champion Jack Nicklaus is the only player to capture more.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Players come from all over the world to compete in the Masters, and so do rules officials.

And at times, they have their hands full.

From incorrect scorecards to free drops to wrong drops, the Rules of Golf can get as much attention as a yardage book.

Arnold Palmer refers to a “little solemn damper” when he looks back on the first of his four Masters victories. He was involved in a ruling on the 12th green that led him to play two chip shots under Rule 3-3 because he felt he was right. And the rules committee eventually sided with him.

Vijay Singh once summoned an official to the 12th green to complain about the size of the spike marks that belonged to Phil Mickelson in 2005, and while the officials deemed Mickelson’s 8-millimeter spikes within the rules, the two champions exchanged words in the Champions Locker Room that day.

Even though Tiger Woods is not at the Masters this year, the sequence of his improper drop under Rule 26-1, two-shot penalty, “incorrect scorecard” and Saturday tee time are sure to be discussed.

Here are five notable rulings at the Masters:

5. PILED FOR REMOVAL: Ernie Els was in the mix at the Masters in 2004 when he hooked his tee shot on the 11th hole in the third round deep into the woods. He appeared to have no shot with all the branches and debris around the ball.

He called for a ruling to seek relief, believing the debris from a storm had been piled for removal. Jon Brendle from the PGA Tour denied his request. The best option appeared to be for Els to declare it unplayable and return to the tee for his third shot. Instead, he asked for a second opinion. Will Nicholson, chair of the rules committee, was summoned.

He declared it “piled for removal,” and Els was given free relief. He got out of the woods and reduced the damage to a bogey. Els eventually finished one shot behind when Phil Mickelson made birdie on the last hole.

4. PRACTICE PUTTING: Dow Finsterwald had finished the eighth hole of the second round in the 1960 Masters when he set his ball on the green for a practice putt. Billy Casper told him practice putting was not allowed.

Uh-oh.

Finsterwald told Casper he had taken practice putts in the first round. An official showed him the back of the scorecard that listed local rules, one of them banning practice on or near the putting green of the hole last played.

The committee decided to apply a two-shot penalty to his score in the first round, turning a 69 into a 71. Instead of being tied with Arnold Palmer, he was two shots behind. Finsterwald finished third, two shots behind Palmer.

3. TIGER’S DROP: Tiger Woods was poised to take the lead in the second round of the 2013 Masters when his wedge took dead aim for the flag on the par-5 15th. It was too perfect, striking the flagstick and bouncing back into the water, a terrible break. Woods chose to drop behind his previous spot, telling reporters later that he purposely dropped 2 yards farther back to avoid hitting the pin. He salvaged bogey.

A former rules official, David Eger, was watching the live broadcast and thought it was incorrect. Woods was required to drop it as near as possible to the spot where he last played, which was one of his options under Rule 26-1. He alerted officials at the course and based on their initial reaction the rules committee, no one talked to Woods before he signed for a 71.

Once it was reviewed, Woods was assessed the two-shot penalty and had a 73. Augusta National said it was a committee error for not stopping him to talk about the drop before he signed his card. Woods tied for fourth.

2. PALMER’S CHIP: Arnold Palmer hit his tee shot behind the green at the par-3 12th hole in the final round of the 1958 Masters. He felt his ball was embedded and that he was entitled to free relief. The rules official, Arthur Lacey, declined.

Palmer argued the point and said he would play two balls – the original, and one after taking relief. He made double bogey with embedded ball, returned to the spot and made par with the second ball. Three holes later, officials approached Palmer and said he was entitled to relief and that the par would count.

He went on to win his first Masters by one shot over Doug Ford and Fred Hawkins.

Even this week, Palmer said there was a “little solemn damper” over the ruling because playing partner Ken Venturi protested the way it was carried out.

1. A “STUPID” MISTAKE: A player who returns a score for any hole lower than actually taken is disqualified. If he returns a score for a hole higher than actually taken the score as returned stands. It was the latter that cost Roberto De Vicenzo a shot at winning the 1968 Masters.

He took a one-shot lead over Bob Goalby with a birdie on the 17th hole, but then the Argentine made bogey on the final hole to fall into a tie and set up a playoff. One problem. Tommy Aaron, who was keeping De Vicenzo’s card, put him down for a 4 on the 17th hole. De Vicenzo signed the card, and that’s when the error was discovered.

Under Rule 6-6d, he had to accept the par 4 instead of the birdie 3. His 65 became a 66. He finished one shot behind. Goalby was the Masters champion.

That led to De Vicenzo uttering perhaps the most famous comment regarding a ruling. “What a stupid I am.”

AUGUSTA, Ga. – The tee shot is ceremonial, yet there was a sense that competition still exists between the “Big Three.”

Or at least two of them.

Arnold Palmer, 84, hit the opening shot Thursday morning down the middle of the first fairway, barely up the hill. He was followed by 78-year-old Gary Player, who hit his tee shot some 40 yards past Palmer. Last to hit was Jack Nicklaus, the six-time Masters champion who turned 74 this year. Nicklaus hit a tee shot on the same line as Player, and it took once last bounce and rolled about a yard or two by Player.

“But it’s not bad when you think he used to outdrive me by 50,” Player said. “But he did hit on a sprinkler. You didn’t see that?”

Palmer’s drive was the most meaningful. He said at Bay Hill he would be having back surgery after the Masters that will help him enjoy the game more. Nicklaus said for Palmer to be an honorary starter “adds a year to his life.”

“I’ve never seen a man who loves the game as much as Arnold Palmer,” Nicklaus said.

BEAUMONT, Calif. – England’s Greg Eason carded a bogey-free round of 6-under 66 at Oak Valley Golf Club on Wednesday to take the lead by one at PGA Tour Canada’s California Qualifying Tournament.

The 21-year old University of Central Florida student, playing as an amateur this week, made six birdies to take a one stroke advantage over France’s Alexis Anghert and Peter Campbell of California with two rounds to go. Thirty-three players are under par through two rounds of the 72-hole competition that will see 18 players earn exempt status on PGA TOUR Canada for 2014, with the rest of the top 40 plus ties earning conditional status.

Eason, who has seven individual collegiate wins at the University of Central Florida – including one this past weekend at the 3M Augusta Invitational – is looking to wrap up his NCAA career later this year, but not before attempting to secure status on PGA Tour Canada. Players can compete in Qualifying School as amateurs and defer joining as members until they turn professional.

“I didn’t know what to expect. I haven’t been to Tour School or anything like that before, so I’ve just tried to take it as it comes,” said Eason. “I’ve played some smart golf and luckily holed a few putts, so it’s mostly gone all right so far.”

Eason is looking to follow the footsteps of Josh Anderson in 2013 and Nate McCoy in 2012 as amateurs to earn status on PGA Tour Canada through Q-School, and said he’s looking forward to completing his last few weeks in college before taking on the professional ranks.

“I’ve still got finals in three weeks’ time,” said Eason.  “And then, conference championships and [NCAA] Regionals and Nationals, so there are a still a few weeks left. This Tour is a stepping stone Tour for the Web.com Tour, so hopefully this will be a nice step to go do something for the summer and see where this leads to. This is a lovely position to be in.”

One shot behind Eason are Anghert, the first round leader, and Campbell at 8-under. A group of three players – Charlie Winegardner, Clayton Rask and Seth Fair – are a shot further behind at 7-under. Hamilton, Ont.’s Justin Kim remained the low Canadian at 3-under after carding a 72, tied for 18th place.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Eighty years after it was founded, dozens of questions remain about the murky inner workings of the Augusta National Golf Club.

There are none about who calls the shots.

Chairman Billy Payne proved that again Wednesday, tackling a wide range of issues in his annual “State of the Masters” news conference. Since taking over from Hootie Johnson in 2006, Payne, the former Atlanta Olympic Committee CEO, has found himself facing such hot-button issues such as adding women to the Augusta’s membership and Tiger Woods’ suitability as a role model.

This time around, the mood was decidedly lighter. Yet judging by the frequent smiles and nods of assent from the dozen green jackets lining the back of the room, Payne’s pronouncements on the less-weighty issues of his own golf handicap and whether to replace the famed Eisenhower Tree on the 17th fairway – lost after being damaged in an ice storm – aren’t likely to face much headwind.

A reporter asked Payne whether he took the job with a “to-do” list and if so, how many items on it had been resolved.

“I had no list because I didn’t know anything about the job,” he said. “When I became a member of Augusta National, I had dreams of becoming a scratch golfer.”

Once the laughter stopped, Payne turned to Fred Ridley, chairman of the club’s competition committee, and asked, “Have I made it there yet, Fred?”

“Working on it,” Ridley replied.

“However,” Payne added quickly, “I compete quite well here because I’m also chairman of the Handicap Committee.”

Handicaps are hardly the only issue where Payne makes use of his bully pulpit. After several years of vigorously – and very publicly – defending the club’s longstanding policy of barring women, he presided over the quiet addition of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina business executive Darla Moore to the membership rolls in August 2012.

With the Royal & Ancient, golf’s oldest governing body, set to vote on admitting women later this year, Payne left no doubt how he planned to vote.

“Well, as I’ve said before, we readily and joyously welcomed our lady members when that happened a couple years ago, and it remains a very good decision on our part. We are so delighted, and I know I speak for everyone, that they are members. …

“Other than that, I would respect their process, their requirement to conduct a vote … and as I’ve said,” he paused, smiling, “I know where one vote is going to be cast.”

Payne also revealed the club no longer maintained a waiting list for Masters passes – among the toughest tickets in sports to obtain – for “some kind of ego purposes,” deciding instead to put any tickets returned to the club into an annual lottery.

But he may have bruised a few egos when asked why total donations to the club’s Masters Tournament Foundation were down significantly from its first year.

“I have a very simple answer. The donations went down because the first year we started it, all the members got a little encouragement from the chairman to donate,” Payne said.

“So when the second year rolled around, there wasn’t anybody left but the new members. So that’s the phenomena you saw.”

The accomplishment Payne touted most was the role Augusta National and the Masters Foundation played in creating and hosting last Sunday’s inaugural Drive, Chip & Putt Championship for youngsters ages 7-15.

“I was trying to make comparisons,” Payne began, “think about how I had been impacted like that before, and I can only go back to, I used to ask my mother, `How will I know when I meet my wife?’

“And she would always say, `Well, you’ll know. You’ll know.’

“And Saturday night at the banquet preceding the Sunday competition, I knew,” he said.

Payne added he was already looking forward to next year’s event, saying he’d heard more than 15,000 kids had already signed up. But Payne also took advantage of the opportunity to poke a little fun at himself.

Playing off his reputation as a promoter – Payne admitted using fuzzy math to convince the International Olympic the average summer temperature in usually steamy Atlanta would be 75 degrees during the games – he said, “You’ve got to ask the U.S. Golf Association to get actual (numbers).

“I am known to exaggerate a little bit.”

AUGUSTA, Ga. – The legends usually fade away gracefully here, part of the reason why the absence of Tiger Woods at the Masters seems so jarring.

He wasn’t at the Champions Dinner Tuesday night, won’t be on the first tee Thursday morning. Someone else will be putting on the green jacket when it’s all over, and not nearly as many people will be sitting in front of their TVs at home watching it happen.

“It’s part of what you do in April,” Augusta National chairman Billy Payne said. “You watch Tiger compete in the Masters.”

It might just be an aberration, and there’s always the chance Woods will be back one day almost as good as new. But there’s also the sense that one of the most spectacular reigns in the history of the game could be coming to an end in the same place Woods first burst into the public consciousness 17 years ago.

It’s now been six years since Woods won a major championship, and nearly a decade since he last won a Masters. With a surgically repaired back at the age of 38, it would be hard to find a bookie in Vegas offering decent odds that he will win another anytime soon – if ever.

None of that means all that much to the other players here. They’re beholden to Woods because he has helped make many of them rich, but they’re also here this week with a job to do that is always easier in his absence.

They’re his contemporaries, if not his rivals. Woods never really had a rival in the way Arnold Palmer had Jack Nicklaus or Ben Hogan had Sam Snead. When he put on his red shirt on Sunday the tournament was usually his to lose, not someone else’s to win.

“Players to some extent will miss him but then they are like, hey he’s not here, so it’s one less guy you have to beat,” Steve Stricker said.

Golf will miss him more, especially in the one place people associate with the game more than any other. From the time Woods won in a runaway in 1997 to become the first black man to win a green jacket, the Masters has been all about Woods – and both the tournament and the player have prospered greatly.

The buzz in the weeks and days before the Masters has for the last two decades been about how Woods will do. The TV ratings on Sunday soar when he’s in contention, as he almost always is.

It’s not the same without him now. It may never be the same again.

“It’s awkward to not have him here,” Phil Mickelson said. “I hope he gets back soon.”

Mickelson talked some this week about what Woods has meant to the game, reminiscing about the $180,000 first place purse offered when he won his first tournament in Tucson in 1991 as an amateur. He suggested to his agent that week that someone might win $1 million in a tournament someday, though probably not during Mickelson’s career.

Now a minimum $1 million first prize is as crucial as free courtesy cars just to get players to show up at a PGA Tour event.

“Nobody has benefited more from having Tiger in the game than myself,” Mickelson said. “Tiger has been the instigator.”

He surely has been, much in the way Palmer was when he turned the country on to televised golf with four Masters wins in seven years beginning in 1958. Palmer is 84 now and last won here a half century ago, but he and Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player still come every year to play in the par-3 contest and hit the ceremonial first balls.

Don’t count on Woods doing that someday. He’s not wired to interact with people the same way the players of yesteryear were, and it’s hard to imagine one of the most ferocious competitors in the history of the game even putting a tee in the ground if he didn’t think he had a chance of winning.

Palmer said he believes Woods can come back and win like he did before, though he cautioned he may have more trouble with his head than his back. Palmer said he didn’t win any majors after the age of 34 because his success had dimmed his inner drive, and that Woods might be having the same problem.

Palmer might be right, though no one has really figured Woods out yet. He’s one of the most recognized people on the planet, yet he remains an enigma in a red shirt

Without him, though, golf doesn’t seem nearly as fun.