Prior to Padraig Harrington winning the Open Championship in 2007, no Irish golfer had won a major in 60 years.  Since that victory, Irish golfers have now won 5 of the last 16 major championships.  That’s pretty amazing when you think about it.

CNN recently took a look at the reasons behind the success of Irish golf.  Video after the break:

With Martin Kaymer missing the cut 78-72, the #1 world ranking is officially up for grabs this weekend at the Masters.  Lee Westwood (#2), Phil Mickelson (#3), Luke Donald (#4), and Tiger (#7) could all take over the number 1 spot depending on how the other contenders finish.  Graeme McDowell (#5)  missed the cut and because of the math, Paul Casey (#6) can’t move to #1 even if he wins.

You’d have to be a statistician to figure out all of the possible scenarios, but thankfully the Golf Channel’s Randal Mell has laid out the possibilities for the rest of us:

No. 2 Westwood and No. 3 Mickelson can become No. 1 with a Masters’ victory regardless what anyone else does.

No. 4 Donald becomes No. 1 if he wins and Westwood finishes worse than solo second.

No. 7 Woods becomes No. 1 if he wins and Mickelson finishes worse than solo second and Westwood finishes outside the top three.

No. 5 Graeme McDowell missed the cut. No. 6 Paul Casey by virtue of divisors and OWGR rolling two-year math has no shot to become No. 1 this week.

My head hurts now.

[Image Flickr/Keith Allison]

Courtesy of a last week from Graeme McDowell, us mere mortals can get a sneak peek of the view from the back porch of the clubhouse at Augusta last week as they prepared for the Masters.  Very cool.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9Bh-ZVAz48

Did you see it?  Neither did anybody else.  Or at least not until a TV viewer using slow motion replay determined that the ball moved forward 3 dimples and back 1.5 dimples, meaning it came to rest in a different position.  Harrington knew that his hand brushed the ball but thought it came to rest in the same spot.

Because he didn’t take a 2-stroke penalty, he was DQ’d for signing an incorrect scorecard.

If you ask me, golf is starting to look a bit silly.  We’ve had 2 high profile DQ’s in 3 weeks now, both for completely unintentional and frankly harmless rules violations.  Harrington’s violation had absolutely no material effect on the outcome of his round, but he’s receiving the same penalty as somebody that willfully cheated.

In fact, this violation was so difficult to detect that the rules officials had to view the video over 60 times before they determined that the ball did not come to rest in it’s original spot.

Harrington’s opinion on TV viewers calling in penalties?

I hope there are 100 million people watching me play and checking me out. It’s good for the game. Yeah, it takes a certain individual to act upon it, but we do need those individuals.

Ian Poulter was less enthusiastic on Twitter:

Rules of Golf Book Rule 22-4 paragraph 3 line 7, “the rules of golf are complete bollocks and are stuck back in 1932″. Couldn’t agree more

Graeme McDowell was almost disqualified for the exact same violation as Harrington this morning after another TV viewer called in, but rules officials eventually determined that his ball did not change position.

The really frustrating thing about both of the recent disqualifications (and most others) is that the DQ comes from signing an incorrect scorecard, not the original infraction itself.  With the increase of high-def and 3D TV broadcasts of golf tournaments, we’re only going to see more examples of viewers calling in infractions after the fact that the players, caddies, their markers, and rules officials weren’t aware of.

And get this, if this had all happened on Sunday, Harrington wouldn’t have been penalized at all because you can’t be DQ’d from a tournament after it has ended.   All of this makes perfect sense doesn’t it?

It’s about time that golf come up with an equitable way to deal with infractions that clearly weren’t intentional and are only discovered after the scorecards have been turned in.  There really isn’t any reason that the 2 stroke penalty (plus an additional stroke?) couldn’t be added after the fact.  Don’t ignore the penalty.  But don’t disqualify guys for something unintentional that they (and everybody else there in person) were unaware of.

Padraig Harrington, currently 26th in the world rankings,  recently told the Irish Golf Desk that he believes he can become the #1 player in the world.

I think Tiger has opened it up to everybody else. In fact, I am closer to being world No 1 now than I was when I was world No 3.

Technically, that is true.  He’s currently less than 6 points behind Lee Westwood compared to almost 11 points behind Tiger in 2008 when he was ranked 3rd.  But does anybody besides Harrington think that he’s got a legitimate shot at becoming the world #1?

An unwavering belief in yourself is a part of what lets somebody compete at the highest levels of sport, but in this case Harrington is borderline delusional.  He’s 39 years old, hasn’t won since 2008 and would literally have to play the best golf of his life over the next 2 years, while hoping that Tiger doesn’t return to form and that guys like Lee Westwood, Graeme McDowell, Phil Mickelson, and Jim Furyk forget how to swing a golf club.

Harrington isn’t even on top of the list of Irish golfers who could become the next world #1.  If I had to pick an Irish golfer who could become the next #1, Harrington would be a distant 3rd on my list behind Graeme McDowell (#4) and Rory McIlroy (#12).

I do have to say though, that if Harrington does manage to grab the #1 spot, at least we’d have a world #1 that has won a major (or 3).  Oh no he didn’t!  Oh yes I did.

Irish Golf Desk (via Waggleroom)

[Image Flickr/James Marvin Phelps]

Professional Darts Player Phil Taylor - He came in 2nd in the voting for BBC Sports Personality of the Year

Phil Taylor didn’t have a fancy campaign video, but he apparently has more fans than Graham McDowell because he finished ahead of McDowell in 2nd place for the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHnBppccI0o

Seriously, the guy plays professional darts.  I know that there’s always a debate about whether golf is a sport, but darts?  Banning drinking at top events on TV is basically what killed the sport and split the governing body in two.   Is next year’s winner going to be a professional tiddlywinks player?

Who actually won?  Jockey Tony McCoy.  He’s won a bunch of events over his career or something like that.  I guess being a jockey is a sport.  Although it seems like the horse is doing most of the work.  But at least you could fall off and get trampled to death.  Although I suppose with enough booze, you could lose an eye while playing darts at a Pub.

I’m a little disappointed that Graham McDowell didn’t win.  It was a long shot though.  The last golfer to win was Nick Faldo in 1989.  He did however get voted player of the year by the Golf Writers Association of America.  After the year he had, chasing down Tiger at the Chevron, Winning the US Open, and closing out the Ryder Cup for Europe in the final match he deserves it.

This past week, Tiger toyed with us.  He made us think that he was back and would come roaring out of the gate next month to dominate golf once again.  But instead, he showed that while he’s close, he’s not quite there.  He played 3 brilliant rounds of golf and one mediocre round that cost him the tournament.

For what it’s worth, my 2 cents is that he’s really, really close to being back.  His swing looks solid and for at least the first 3 days, he putted like he was Tiger Woods.

Cameron Morfit, from Golf magazine, agreed in the Monday SI Golf roundtable:

I’d say Tiger is back, probably. It takes time to make a swing change, and I’d say he’s really close to believing in it enough to be dangerous

But Tiger didn’t lose this tournament.  Graeme McDowell stepped up and won it.   His bogey on 17 was huge.  It could have easily been a triple.  And then after Tiger hit a laser beam approach into 18 and the tournament looked all but over, McDowell drained back to back 20+ footers for birdies and the win.  It was only the 4th time that Tiger has ever lost a playoff.

The big learning point for me though was how interested we all were about the final round of an 18-man silly season event.  Twitter was on fire.  My friends and I were glued to the TV and stayed an hour and a half past closing at Phil’s cigar shop to watch the finish.  I can’t recall doing that at all for a golf tournament in 2010.  Certainly not a silly season event.

[Update] Apparently plenty of others felt the same way. The ratings Sunday for the Chevron were up 170% from last year.

My pal Morgan commented, “If you told me this time last year that I’d be rooting for Tiger Woods, I’d have said you were crazy.”  Sundays with Tiger are more interesting.  Simple as that.  And I think we’re going to be seeing plenty of Tiger Woods on Sunday leaderboards in 2011.

Click here for a write up of Sunday’s action if you missed it.  Oh, and Barney’s favorite player is Tiger Woods.

Tiger shot a first round 65 today to take the lead at the Chevron World Challenge ahead of Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell. He has a chance to take back the #1 world ranking with a win this week against the 18-man field.

This round follows a strong finish a few weeks ago in Australia.  Is Tiger Back?  Or is the fact that a couple of strong rounds is leading many to ask that very question just a sign of how rocky his 2010 performance has been?  Either way, having Tiger in the mix at a tournament (even an 18-man silly season event) is good for golf.