Tiger Woods

Phil Mickelson has agreed to compete in the LG Skins Game, the first time in 5 years the three-time major champion will play in the event. Mickelson, the No. 2 player in the world and a two-time winner on the PGA Tour this year, joins a four-man field that includes two-time defending champion Stephen Ames. The other two spots will be filled out this summer, although an invitation has been offered to Sergio Garcia as winner of The Players Championship. The LG Skins Game, which began in 1983, will be played Nov. 29-30 at Indian Wells Golf Resort in California.

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. ? The top two players in the world couldn't come up with a single birdie between them Thursday in the opening round of the U.S. Open at the sun-drenched Pebble Beach Golf Links. But while Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson struggled to make putts, birdies were no problem for Shaun Micheel (No. 200 in the world) and Brandon De Jonge (No. 169), who joined Paul Casey (No. 9) in a tie for the lead after the opening 18. Playing in the afternoon, when the course was firmer and faster, the three pacesetters each carded 2-under-par rounds of 69. Micheel and Casey birdied the 18th hole to share the top spot, while De Jonge got there with the help of a pitch that fell for an eagle at the par-5 14th.

Tiger Woods' father, angry at not being invited to the Ryder Cup by the PGA of America, said he would skip the three-day golf competition between the United States and Europe. "This is my protest at the way they treat the parents," Earl Woods was quoted as saying in yesterday's The Mail on Sunday of London. "It makes no sense, and it's not justified. Tiger is only 21 and does not have a girlfriend, but they don't think enough of the parents to invite them instead. " The PGA of America pays the expenses of wives or girlfriends of the 12 U.S. golfers to the biennial event, which begins Friday in Spain.

Tiger Woods has started to hit balls with short irons and says he is able to stabilize his rebuilt left knee. The 14-time major champion says he is on schedule to play the Masters. Woods had reconstructive surgery a week after winning a playoff for the U.S. Open title in June. His news conference in Thousand Oaks, Calif., yesterday was his first since that victory. Six months after surgery to repair a ruptured ligament - his third operation in six years - Woods said he was excited: "Everything has been right on schedule.

Is Tiger Woods as good as he was in 2000? Could he be even better? Can he win his third major of the year? As Woods and a phalanx of would-be pursuers prepare for tomorrow's start of the PGA Championship at Baltusrol Golf Club, these loom as the biggest questions in golf. In 2000, when he won three majors in a year, it seemed that Woods couldn't possibly be any more dominating and intimidating. And he didn't just win; he humbled the field in the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach by 15 shots, he cruised to an 8-shot victory in the British Open at St. Andrews, and he closed the deal at the PGA Championship at Valhalla by nipping Bob May in a playoff.

Golf superstar and all-around nice guy Tiger Woods has become engaged to his Swedish sweetie, Elin Nordegren. "She called this morning and was incredibly happy," Nordegren's father, Thomas, told the Swedish newspaper Expressen. "I only spoke shortly with them on the telephone, but they were happy and I congratulated them. " A spokesman for the Shamwari Game Reserve in South Africa said Woods, 27, proposed to the 23-year-old model Tuesday during a walk at the game park outside Port Elizabeth.

Activity in the fan zone located to the left of the fairway on the mammoth par-5, 605-yard ninth hole at Aronimink Golf Club came to a standstill when Tiger Woods stepped up to the tee Sunday in the final round of the AT&T National. It's good they were paying attention because Woods' drive was coming their way. The crowd scattered, then scrambled to see where the ball landed while roving marshals shooed them away and began to make a clearing. The ball came to a stop in front of a photo vendor on dirt packed so tightly it may as well have been concrete.

TIGER WOODS was never a child. He was a robot programmed to play golf by a demanding father much like Joe Jackson did with Michael. This programming reminds me of the East Germans and Soviet Union, which dominated the Olympics by separating their youth from their parents and sending them to a sports gulag. Remember that Andre Agassi recently admitted his hatred of tennis but was forced into it by a demanding parent. When children, like many child stars now living in misery, are forced to become adults, they then become children when they're adults.

Tiger Woods hit another one of those amazing shots that only he can hit yesterday - 217 yards, out of a bunker, up and over a stand of tall trees, nothing but pin. Then he made the 12-foot birdie putt. "It was one of the all-time best shots I've ever made," said Woods, who rarely speaks in superlatives. "I hit it so flush it was scary. " The latest installment in shots only Tiger Woods can pull off came in the early morning, when he was finishing the final two holes of his second round.

AKRON, Ohio - Tiger Woods appeared to face a big test Thursday in his return to golf. It was a 3-wood around the trees on the 658-yard 16th hole at Firestone that required him to go at it hard, cut short his backswing to produce the sharp fade, then let the momentum of his motion carry his body forward with an awkward step. Only it didn't feel like that big of a deal to Woods. "I was just trying to hit a cut," he said. "I didn't feel any problem with that. " His only concern in the Bridgestone Invitational was that he hit the ball too flush and too far. He still managed three birdies, including a 30-foot putt on the 16th hole, that carried him to a 2-under 68 and sent a statement that his leg was as healthy as he thought.

BETHESDA, Md. - Philadelphia was on Tiger Woods' mind yesterday at media day for his AT&T National tournament. About Merion Golf Club, site of next month's U.S. Open, Woods said he has never seen the Ardmore course but he is planning to play it before the Open. And while he said he wants to keep his tourney at Congressional in suburban Washington, he appeared to leave the door open for a possible return to Aronimink. The Newtown Square club hosted Woods' tourney for 2 years while Congressional was being prepared for the 2011 U.S. Open.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - A weekend filled with sharp words between Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia came down to one last showdown yesterday in The Players Championship, this one staged across the water in a tiny, terrifying section of the TPC Sawgrass. Tied for the lead with two holes to play, Woods kept his shots on land and made two pars. Garcia hit three balls into the water for a quadruple bogey-double bogey finish. If there was special satisfaction in beating Garcia again, Woods kept that to himself.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - Tiger Woods had the last word on Sergio Garcia by winning the Players Championship on Sunday. Woods ended a weekend of testy exchanges with Garcia by doing what he does best - closing out tournaments, even if he let this one turn into a tense duel over the final hour at the TPC Sawgrass. Tied with Garcia with two holes to play, Woods won by finding land on the last two holes for par to close with a 2-under-par 70. If only it had been that simple for Garcia.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. - Sergio Garcia made seven straight putts - six of them for birdie - on his way to a 7-under 65 to match his best score at The Players Championship. That gave him a 1-shot lead over Tiger Woods, who again made short work of the par 5s and posted his second straight 67. Woods broke his own 36-hole record at TPC Sawgrass by 6 shots and can't find much wrong with his game at the moment. Garcia ran off five straight birdies, ending the streak with putts from 20 feet and 25 feet, and then he added a 40-foot birdie putt on the par-3 eighth.

THE TELEVISION viewer who reported the illegal drop Tiger Woods took during the second round of the Masters was more than just a golf fan. Sports Illustrated reported yesterday it was David Eger, a rules expert who has worked for the USGA and the PGA Tour. Eger said he was watching the Masters from his home in Florida when he replayed the 15th hole to see how Woods had made bogey. Woods hit the pin with his third shot and it caromed back into the water. He dropped from around the same area, hit into 4 feet and made bogey.

TOM CARPUS has had less hectic weeks. That's what happens when you become part of a moment. He's the head golf professional at Kennett Square Golf & Country Club. He's also a rules expert who has worked at 18 PGA Championships and a couple of Ryder Cups. He was doing his fourth Masters, where in the second round he was one of the three rules officials stationed at the 15th hole. In case you missed it, Tiger Woods had to take a drop there after hitting the flagstick with his third shot to the par 5 and watching his ball richochet into the water.

AUGUSTA. Ga. - More and more, at the National, it is less and less about the golf. Perhaps it never really was about the golf. Perhaps it was always about a scene, an ethic, a morality; and, lately, a commentary on the glacial pace of change. It was never less about the golf than this, the 77th edition of the Masters. The richest and most controversial man in the sport's history added a complex chapter to his legacy, simply by being too masterful. Other subplots surfaced, or evolved.

AUGUSTA, Ga. - So, what were you doing when you were 14, other than trying to make it through puberty in one piece? It was, as you'd expect, quite an eventful week for China's Tianlang Guan, even if you took out the historic one-stroke penalty for slow play that he received late in his second round on Friday. Hey, he stuck around for all 4 days, which is more than could be said for, among others, reigning U.S. Open champion Webb Simpson, 2010 U.S. Open champ Graeme McDowell and 2010 British Open winner Louis Oosthuizen, who lost in a playoff at last April's Masters.

AUGUSTA, Ga. - You could say the 2-stroke penalty assessed Saturday morning to Tiger Woods kept him from making a serious charge at the leaders on Sunday in the Masters. But you could look at the other side and say Woods was extremely fortunate to have been competing at all on the weekend after signing an incorrect scorecard following the second round. One of the strangest Masters in memory concluded with Woods' falling short in his attempt to win his fifth green jacket and his first major since 2008.

AUGUSTA, Ga. - As the sun approached the western horizon Friday, Jason Day tapped in for par on the 18th hole to cap a grueling day that lasted almost six hours from the first tee to the finish but ended for him with a 1-stroke lead entering Masters weekend. "I'm just very tired," a weary Day said. "This round today was very difficult. It was a big grind out there. " Still the 25-year-old Day, seeking to become the first Australian to win a green jacket, shot the best second round, a 4-under-par 68, for a 6-under 138 at the halfway point that gave him the narrow advantage over 53-year-old Fred Couples and Marc Leishman.