“I don’t think there is any money missing"

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Good news for the PGA Tour and LPGA Tour!

A feisty Allan Stanford, looking eerily like John Cleese, tells the New York Times Clifford Krauss that this is just an SEC witchhunt and all of this Stanford Financial business stuff will be cleared up.

“I don’t think there is any money missing,” Mr. Stanford said. “There never was a Ponzi scheme, and there never was an attempt to defraud anybody.”

"The LPGA deserves better."

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Bradley Klein watched the Nabisco and explains how the bare-bones CBS operation left him wanting more.

Yardages and clubs would help – more of it, anyway. We saw 31 iron shots/full wedge approaches to greens on par-4s and par-5s Sunday. By my count, we got the yardage 18 times and the club only 14 times. Yet when a viewer knows both, it adds to the drama.

"It really does take a lot more energy to be upset than it is to not."

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One of my favorites characters, Christina Kim, is tied through two rounds of the Nabisco. Though I don't like the sound of this chilling out stuff, which was posted on the LPGA's excellent notes and quotes recap page.

Q. Did you have an epiphany or a moment or incident where you felt you had to chill out? Was there something that happened?

CHRISTINA KIM: There is something that happened that I cannot disclose at this time. (Laughing). More than anything, you wake up, you go out, you play, you're grumpy out there, people are like, that's not you, that's not what you're normally like. You get off the course, your feet hurts, your back hurts, your head hurts. It really does take a lot more energy to be upset than it is to not.

I remember when I was at the prime of my game a couple of years ago, I was the person that would go to volunteers and say: ‘Thank you for coming out this week, without you we would not have an event,’ thanking spectators; instead of: ‘Get out of my way, you're in my line,’ or things like that.

Sometimes it just happens. You wake up one day and you realize, what on earth am I doing? This is not right; this is not who I am. That kind of happened on Monday morning probably around the same time I got the new putter actually.

"The LPGA has long been fan-friendly."

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Alan Shipnuck on the LPGA event at Papago last week:

At Papago an autograph booth was set up behind the 18th green, and even the most high-profile players signed until their fingers were numb, repeatedly thanking fans for waiting in line. Throw in reasonable pricing — a one-day pass in Phoenix cost $16 — and it's no accident that attendance was up by 24% through the first four tournaments of this year. Michelle Wie's presence had given the LPGA more than a little box-office appeal. Last Saturday, Wie had dew-sweeping duty as the third time off, at 7:56 a.m., but about 300 fans turned up to follow her, and the Wie group was chaperoned by four armed Phoenix cops.

Wie Drama No Drama At All

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Beth Ann Baldry explains that a simple typo/oversight led to the latest Michelle Wie drama, this time at Papago where Jiyai Shin is going for her fifth win in the last eight months. Also, it seems Lorena Ochoa doesn't appear to understand the meaning of a hazard.

Ochoa also said that the sand felt “heavy.” And “it seems like there is a lot of sand under it,” she added.

It will take a near-miracle Sunday for her to win the title for a third consecutive victory.

“Maybe tomorrow (Sunday) I won’t hit any bunkers and I’ll make putts,” she said.