WSJ: Golf's "Ugly Season"

Besides dismal ratings, the ubiquitous nature of over-saturated pro golf this time of year makes very nice people like John Paul Newport are prone to tape their keyboards a little harder than usual.

His uncharacteristically pithy rant about the silly season becoming golf's "ugly season" highlights how many in golf haven't been behaving at their best lately. He laments some things taking place right now, most of them in the name of money. Not your usual WSJ take, but then I realized this is the product of golf not going away for a month or two like every other sport.

In just the last two weeks, golf fans have been blitzed with headlines about the feud between Tiger Woods and Golf Channel announcer Brandel Chamblee, stemming from Chamblee's assessment that Woods is "cavalier with the rules." They have heard new allegations from Vijay Singh's lawyer that the PGA Tour plays favorites in drug testing. They've pondered Rory McIlroy's claims, in a new lawsuit, that he was taken advantage of by his recently fired management team. They have tried to decipher the European Tour's new regulations that have several top players, including Ernie Els and Charl Schwartzel, angrily sitting out the Tour's finale in Dubai next week, despite $12 million being up for grabs. And they've monitored the charges against six-time European Tour-winner Simon Dyson, whom video showed tamping down a spike mark in his line after marking the ball.

All this as the world's top players barnstorm the globe picking up humongous checks, from both prize purses and appearance fees, in unlikely places like Turkey, China and the United Arab Emirates.