After watching his play over the last two rounds, is there anyone left on the Tiger Bandwagon? I’m watching Tiger’s performance on the 12th on TNT. He hooks the drive into the woods, chips out and then hooks his next shot into the woods.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, he will never win another Major.

(For those under 30, we used to listen to music on vinyl disks called records. There were grooves cut into them, and a needle passing through those grooves reproduced the sound. When the grooves were damaged, however, the needle could get stuck, causing the spinning record to repeat the sequence of sounds over and over until you caused the needle to skip ahead. Thus “sounding like a broken record”)

Following the PGA Championship from GolfBlogger World Headquarters (and remembering my on-course experience at the PGA Championship at Oakland Hills), I’ve been struck by the many things the PGA does right—especially with regard to coverage of its premiere event.

The television coverage is extensive, running for six hours each day of the tournament. But the PGA extends this with some pretty good online viewing. With coverage beginning at 10am, they’ve got cameras following the marquee groups, as well as stationed at the par 3s. One neat thing about the online coverage is that it’s interspersed with lessons from teaching pros. I’ve actually found a lot of those interesting.

DirecTv also has several channels, but of course this is limited to those with satellite dishes.

The streaming video app for the computer has several neat features, such as a 360 cam, which allows you to pan and scan around the 15th hole, and a course flyover. Small apps within the app offer pop up windows with leaderboards, scorecards, and live chat on Twitter, Facebook and Linked In.

If you’re not near a television or your computer, you can follow the PGA Championship through a free iPhone app (where’s the Blackberry App for serious people?). My understanding is that it offers the same functionality of the browser app.

The PGA also has a twitter feed (@pga_com) and a twitter hashtag (#PGAChamp) to let people follow the tournament that way. I don’t know if they allow live tweets from the course as The Crowne Plaza Invitational did, but they should. TNT’s coverage regularly puts the hashtag in the lower left hand corner of the broadcast.

On the PGA.Com site, you can follow both the official twitter feeds, and the hash tag comments. That same page has a Cover It Live app installed.

Two things they’re missing, though:

First, I’d like to see some streaming radio coverage. And second, I think the website’s leaderboard needs upgrading. I like what the PGA Tour does at its regular events, where you can select a group of players and see a graphical representation of how they’re doing from hole to hole.

Still, I’m convinced that there’s more—and more innovative—coverage of the PGA Championship than of any of the other Majors.

Click on the photo to enlarge.

Credit: http://www.direct-golf.co.uk/

I’m watching the PGA Championship on dvr delay and just watched Rory McIlroy make an ill-advised, and potentially career ending shot. On the third hole, his ball was in the trees, and up against a root. Rory swung hard with an iron and hit the root, causing his club to wrench from his grasp. The ball kind of squirted out, but didn’t clear the trees. As I’m watching, Rory is obviously in pain, icing the wrist even as he heads to try to get his next shot out of a bunker.

Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. That’s the invincibility of youth.

I’ve been in that situation (in the woods, up against a root) that it’s my natural habitat. Here’s the proper shot: take a three wood and putt hard. There’s no chance of injury, and the ball will scoot under the branches and out of the woods. You can then take your third shot at the flagstick from the fairway.

I’m going to blame his caddy for this one. The caddy should have handed him a wood to putt or a wedge to pitch out sideways and refused to offer another alternative.

Continuing to watch this unfold ... where is the adult to tell him its time to quit? Why is he risking further injury?

Apparently its all worked out ok. The medic told him that he wasn’t risking further injury by playing. But that was THREE HOLES LATER. Even if it all turns out to be sound and fury signifying nothing, it still was dumb and some adult (i.e. his caddy) should have stepped in to put an end to it.

Followup. Now much of the golf media is praising McIlroy for gutting it out. I’ll say again. It was dumb. The shot was dumb, and continuing to play was also. Tiger tried to play on a leg that wasn’t quite right and missed most of this season. Rory risked that, and more.

Stevie Williams is the bettors favorite to win the 2011 PGA Championship, at 2-1.

No. Scratch that. Although, given Steve’s display after Adam Scott’s victory last week, I wouldn’t be surprised if he thinks so.

The real front runner is Rory McIlroy at 10/1. He’s a fine choice, as long as the weather is to his liking.

Lee Westwood is in at 14/1, along with Luke Donald. Repeat after me: Westwood is never going to win a Major. This might be Donald’s tournament. He’s probably deservedly the current world number one—as much as that flawed system tells us about anything.

I find it interesting that Adam Scott, Phil and Tiger are next, both at 20/1. Given Tiger’s performance—especially with the driver—last week, I can’t imagine that anyone would put money on him to win. Repeat after me: Tiger will never win another Major. Phil’s a marginally better choice. I think he’s still got one or two more in him. Adam Scott has been playing as well as anyone lately; I hope for his sake that Stevie doesn’t become too much of a distraction.

The next group, at 25/1, also is interesting: Dustin Johnson, Jason Day, Rickie Fowler and Steve Stricker. All of these guys are inevitable choices to break through for a Major. Stricker is running out of time, though. I’m putting him at the top of my list this week.

The complete odds for the 2011 PGA Championship are below, courtesy of Bodog, the world’s largest betting destination.

The PGA Championship is the annual professional championship hosted by the Professional Golfers Association of America. It long has been the season’s final “major” (although it once was held in January), and is generally held four weeks following the British Open Championship.

That the PGA of America has its own championship —and indeed, that there’s a PGA at all—has much to do with the fact that professionals have been golf’s second class citizens for much of the recorded history of the game. Club and teaching pros were after all the servants of wealthy amateurs. At Open golf championships, gentlemen amateurs were introduced as Mister, while their professional counterparts were referred to without any honoriffic. Pros were not even allowed into the clubhouse at the courses where competitions were held; they were of the same status as the rest of “the help” and didn’t rate. In fact, it was not until the 1920 US Open at Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio that the pros were allowed into the clubhouse.

In the United States, the formation of the United States Golf in 1895 led to the creation of two national championships to match those of the R&A’s Open Championship (1860) and British Amateur (1885). The US Open welcomed professionals in competition, but the USGA was, and remains, primarily an organization focused on amateurs.

Certainly feeling left out and under-served, a group of club professionals led by Walter Hagen met at New York’s Wykagul Country Club in January 1916 with department store owner Rodman Wanamaker. A month later, that meeting led to the formation of the Professional Golfers Association. The first Professional Golfers Association Championship was held later that year at New York’s Siwanoy Country Club. Jim Barnes won $500 and a diamond studded gold medal donated by Wanamaker.

The current trophy for winning the PGA is named for Rodman Wanamaker.

From its inception to 1958, the PGA Championship followed a match play format. That gave the PGA Championship a unique flavor, but made it unpopular among television producers, for the format could result in the marquee players being driven out before the weekend. (In this writer’s estimation, the change was a mistake that should be corrected).

The PGA Championship also has had some difficulty finding a place on the calendar. Prior to the 1960s, it often was played the week following the British Open, in late July. In 1971, it was played in Florida in February. It seems now to have firmly established itself in August.

It’s also worth noting that the PGA Championship is not a product of the PGA Tour. The PGA Tour split from the PGA of America in 1968, to form an association that focused on the needs of touring professionals. The PGA of America remained focused on “club” and teaching professionals. The PGA Tour, in fact, doesn’t manage any of golf’s “Majors.”

The PGA of America also organizes the Senior PGA Championship and with the PGA European Tour, the Ryder Cup.

Walter Hagen (1921, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927) and Jack Nicklaus (1963, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1980) each hold the record with five PGA Championship victories. They played under different circumstances, however. Hagen won all of his in the match play format, while Nicklaus won in stroke, or medal play.

Other Records:

• Oldest winner: Julius Boros in 1968 (48 years, 142 days)
• Youngest winner: Gene Sarazen in 1922 (20 years, 174 days)
• Greatest winning margin in the match play era: Paul Runyan beat Sam Snead 8 & 7 in 1938
• Greatest winning margin in the stroke play era: 7 strokes, Jack Nicklaus in 1980
• Lowest absolute 72-hole score: 265, David Toms (66-65-65-69), 2001 (This is the lowest 72-hole score ever recorded in any major championship.)
• Lowest 72-hole score in relation to par: −18, Tiger Woods (66-67-70-67, 270) and Bob May (72-66-66-66, 270), 2000; Tiger Woods (69-68-65-68, 270), 2006
• Lowest 18-hole score: 63 – Bruce Crampton, 2nd round, 1975; Raymond Floyd, 1st, 1982; Gary Player, 2nd, 1984; Vijay Singh, 2nd, 1993; Michael Bradley, 1st, 1995; Brad Faxon, 4th, 1995; José María Olazábal, 3rd, 2000; Mark O’Meara, 2nd , 2001; Thomas Bjørn, 3rd, 2005; Tiger Woods, 2nd, 2007

The Fourth Major, the PGA Championship extends back to 1916. It was a match play event until 1958. Below is a list of the past results of the Championship.