Even with his golf done for the year, Tiger Woods found something to celebrate Tuesday: His wife is pregnant with their second child.

Woods said on his Web site that Elin is expecting in late winter without being more specific on a due date.

He has not played since his U.S. Open victory in June, and two weeks later had reconstructive surgery on his left knee that put him out for the year. Woods’ first child, daughter Sam, was born on Monday after the 2007 U.S. Open.

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Assuming he finishes — i.e., doesn’t have a disqualification (DQ) or withdrawal (WD), or doesn’t play (DNP) — he needs to have a 10,501 point lead over second place to guarantee he’ll win the FedExCup. As of now, his lead over Sergio Garcia in second is 12,225, so the only way Singh can control whether he clinches in St. Louis is to win. Then, even if Garcia finishes second, Singh will have at least a 15,825 point lead and will be the FedExCup champion even if he doesn’t earn any points in THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola.

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The joke on the driving range at TPC Boston on Tuesday concerned the new week-to-week volatility in the FedEx Cup playoffs. Scuttlebutt said that a player could advance all the way to the 30-man Tour Championship and still fail to finish in the top 125 on the money list, thus losing his Tour card.

But is that actually true?

Lee Janzen is the low man on the money list (149th) among those in the field at the Deutsche Bank this week. He barely made it into the field at last week’s Barclays, the first stop in the four-week playoff series, and then made the cut to get to 119th in FedEx Cup points. Again, that was barely enough to make it into the 120-man field at the Deutsche Bank, which starts Friday.

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The LPGA boasts players from all over the world, and it wants all of them to be able to speak English.
 
The LPGA will require players to speak English starting in 2009, with players who have been LPGA members for two years facing suspension if they can’t pass an oral evaluation of English skills. The rule is effective immediately for new players.
 
“Why now? Athletes now have more responsibilities and we want to help their professional development,” deputy commissioner Libba Galloway told The Associated Press. “There are more fans, more media and more sponsors. We want to help our athletes as best we can succeed off the golf course as well as on it.”
 
The tour held a mandatory meeting with South Koreans last Wednesday at the Safeway Classic to inform them of the new policy, which was first reported by Golfweek magazine. There is no such rule on the PGA TOUR.

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Australia’s Katherine Hull won the Canadian Women’s Open on Sunday for her first LPGA Tour title, taking advantage of Yani Tseng’s final-round meltdown for a one-stroke victory at Ottawa Hunt.

Michelle Wie, using the last of her six LPGA Tour exemptions this year, tied for 12th at 3 under. She had rounds of 75, 70, 69 and 71.

The 18-year-old Stanford student had to finish first or second to guarantee a spot on the 2009 LPGA Tour. Having fallen short, she said she hasn’t decided whether to go to Q-School in a bid to earn an LPGA Tour card.

“I feel like I gained a lot of confidence in myself again this year,” Wie said. “Being pain-free in the later part of the year, I started feeling confident. From May on, it’s getting better and better and now in the offseason, I know what to work on for next year.”

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Justin Rose and Oliver Wilson, eighth and ninth in the European Ryder Cup race entering the penultimate tournament, will go head to head in the first two rounds of the KLM Open starting Thursday.

Rose’s failure to make certain of a place in the Nick Faldo’s side has brought him back from America, where he had been planning to play the first leg of the FedExCup playoff series with its $7 million jackpot.

“It’s a frustrating situation,” he admitted. “I don’t know whether I have done enough yet to get into the team. I hope so, but I might not have.”

Last season’s European Tour No. 1 is about $90,000 ahead of Wilson, who in turn is about $5,000 ahead of Dane Soren Hansen in the 10th and last automatic spot. The closest gap, though, is between Hansen and 11th-placed Martin Kaymer. Just about $500 separates them.

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Someone is going to win the golf tournament this week, and that will carry with it a range of important benefits, including a significant jump in the FedExCup standings, invitations to a number of big events next year and, of course, a sizeable check. However, the most interesting competition this week may be elsewhere on the leaderboard, as players work to make the most of their last chance to get into the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup.
continue reading "Who to Watch: Wyndham Championship"

The PGA TOUR’s Player of the Year honor, until Sunday at Oakland Hills, was being conceded to Tiger Woods. And with good reason.

In six starts, Woods won four times, finished in the top 10 in the other two, and capped it off with that awe-inspiring playoff triumph on wounded knee at the U.S. Open.

To deprive Woods — who has won three consecutive Player of the Year awards and nine in his career — somebody had to do something special.

Enter Padraig Harrington.

Never has a golfer won two majors and not been rewarded as Player of the Year by a vote of the membership. Simply put, two majors trumps anything else that has happened this year, including Tiger’s accomplishments before his season was shortened due to injury.
continue reading "Harrington, not Woods, should win Player of the Year"

What was billed as Annika Sorenstam’s farewell to the majors turned into yet another showcase for the young stars from Asia.

Hours after Sorenstam walked up the 18th at the Women’s British Open to a standing ovation and closed her final major with a birdie, Ji-Yai Shin won the last major of the year by three strokes after a final round 6-under 66 on Sunday.
continue reading "Shin wins Women’s British; Ochoa T-7"

Padraig Harrington is Europe’s best hope to end a 78-year wait for a winner at the PGA Championship.

Ever since Scotland’s Tommy Armour beat Gene Sarazen 1-up to win the 1930 tournament (then following a match-play format) fans across the pond have had little to cheer about in the last major championship of the season.

continue reading "Harrington Europe’s Best Chance for Victory"