Seve Ballesteros passed away overnight at the age of 54.  He was a 5-time major winner who finished second place at the ’76 British Open to Johnny Miller at the age of 19.

Nick Faldo probably put it best when he said:

I think the Cirque du Soleil is the greatest show I’ve ever seen.  It’s passion, artistry, skill, it’s drama. That was Seve.

That man was in a different state. It was quite something. We talked about the swashbuckling way he played. He hit it and chased after it and hit it, but there never was two follow-throughs the same.

You had to stand back and admire it.

Seve had been diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2008 and underwent several surgeries that year.  On Friday his family issued a statement that his conditioned had deteriorated.

RIP Seve, you will be missed.

SI’s Gary Van Sickle caught up with Hank Haney on Monday to ask him about last night’s season finale of The Haney Project.  Of course they talked about Rush and the significant improvements he’s made over the course of this season, but the great quote from Hank came when he was asked about Charles Barkley’s swing:

He is physically able to, he isn’t mentally able to. It’s bizarre when somebody shoots less than 50 percent from the foul line, it’s bizarre when Chuck Knobloch can’t throw it to first base, it’s bizarre when Rick Ankiel throws 18 pitches in a row to the backstop. But it happens.

So Barkley is in that club?
Yeah.

Ankiel?  Knobloch?  Ouch.  Pretty accurate though… especially when you consider that Barkley used to be a single digit handicap.  You’ve got to love Hank Haney’s honesty.  He definitely speaks his mind.

Sir Charles wasn’t the only target of Haney’s bluntly honest assessments recently.  Johnny Miller, who has also ruffled some feathers in his day, was the subject of commentary by Haney this weekend via Twitter:

If you’re so inclined, head over to Hank Haney’s Twitter feed,.  He doesn’t pull any punches which means you’re always sure to find an interesting opinion or two (including a few on Tiger).

Proving that Twitter really is the best place to keep up to date on the latest drama in professional golf (especially for the Europeans), Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood took some time to share their thoughts on Johnny Miller.

Westwood asked Poulter if he had already sent Johnny Miller his X-mas card yet.  Poulter replied by asking if Westwood had sent one himself, given that Miller had recently called Westwood and Paul Casey chokers.  He then threw in a slam about Miller’s putting.  Westwood then (half-jokingly?) stated that he was beginning to think that Miller was just anti-English.

This isn’t the first time that Miller and Poulter have had their differences.  But this go-round is interesting because in the same interview that Poulter was referencing, Miller specifically said that he thought Poulter was a good ballstriker and that he was just surprised to see that it didn’t show up statistically – although he did more or less name Paul Casey and Dustin Johnson as the biggest chokers in golf.  He didn’t exactly say that Westwood was a choker though as Poulter alleged.

WUP: What about someone like Lee Westwood, who some say has trouble closing out majors?

JM: Thing is about Lee — the way he plays in the Ryder Cup, he doesn’t appear to be a choker, but maybe for majors. Everybody has their choking point. The only thing that Tiger in his prime would choke is maybe winning the Grand Slam in the calendar year, but to be honest, he did win a non-[calendar] year Slam.

Say what you want about Johnny Miller, you can’t say that he doesn’t speak his mind.  And it seems like a pretty fair assessment to me.

At the end of all of this, I’m just left thinking about how boring golf would be without Twitter and characters like Ian Poulter and Johnny Miller.  It (Twitter) has basically become the Peyton Place of professional golf.

Not content to let Johnny Miller’s on-air comments drop after Brad Faxon’s prank a couple of days ago, Ian Poulter thought that posting a link to his European tour leading GIR stats on Twitter would prove that he IS a good ballstriker.  In reality, it just makes him look thin-skinned.  Who cares what Johnny Miller thinks… You’re a top-caliber player on the best golf tour in the world.  You make more money with a single win than Miller ever did in an entire season.

Thankfully, Brad Faxon stepped back in with a little reality check for Poulter (along with a nice dig at Miller):

This past weekend Johnny Miller said on the air that Ian Poulter is not a good ballstriker.  Ian Poulter, being the relaxed laid back guy that he is, immediately responded on twitter, basically saying that Miller was full of it, and that he thinks he does pretty well for being a duffer.

Enter Brad Faxon.  He saw an opportunity for comedic gold and seized it with gusto.  He sent Poulter the hat shown above, pretending to be Miller.  Immediately the interwebz were buzzing with talk of Miller and Poulter and a simmering feud.

Poulter, not realizing that Faxon was pulling one over on him, was not amused by the supposed gift from Miller:

But once he found out that it was Faxon, and not Miller that sent the hat, he seemed to take it in stride:

Score one for being late to the show as at least one golf blog got snagged hook, line, and sinker.