"Tiger shot 18-under at Augusta, everyone was pretty happy with that. That started the problem, didn't it."

Warning: the scribblers are hard at work on timely "how to restore excitement to Augusta" stories this year. You can tell by the questions asked of Tiger Woods and Geoff Ogilvy during Wednesday's Doral press gatherings.

Isn't it nice to see that the folks who defended the madness of Hootie's ways finally coming around?

I thought this was interesting from Ogilvy, answering a question about whether he would have a problem with 15 or 17 under winning a major:

GEOFF OGILVY: No problem at all. I think the majority of guys out here, want to get rewarded for good shots. They understand you've got to get punished for bad shots. And they want the guy who plays the best that week to win the tournament, whether that's 15-over or 15-under, that's not really relevant.

Sometimes you feel like you're playing golf courses, and they get so hard, that it's impossible when you play well to kind of have it show in your score. Oakmont, Tiger had the best round in history tee-to-green on Saturday, and he shot 1-over or something like that or 1-under, and he hit 18 greens. It was ridiculous, because the greens were so crazy, he didn't get to -- we don't now talk about Tiger's third round at Oakmont because he wasn't allowed to do it.

But one of the best majors, probably ten years ago, Bob May and Tiger at Valhalla, it was at least, 16-, 17-under, 18; I mean, how good was that tournament to watch? That was incredible. Tiger shot 18-under at Augusta, everyone was pretty happy with that. That started the problem, didn't it. (Laughter).

It just needs to reward the guy -- I think it needs to reward the guys that are playing the best. Guys are sick of missing by a yard and having to chip it four yards out of the fairway, and the guy who is a yard away is hitting the green and making the birdie. There needs to be a correlation to how you play and how you score, and sometimes when it gets so hard, there isn't.