LIke many others, I was sure that this would be the year that the extraordinarily talented David Duval would make his comeback on the Tour. But he’s played only sparingly in the first couple of months.

The reason: his wife apparently is having a difficult pregnancy and David is taking care of her three children from a previous marriage.

“This is something unexpected,” Duval said. “I had planned on playing, but family jumps ahead of everything else.”

Good for him.

To play on Tour this year, Duval had used his one time exemption for being in the Top 25 of lifetime earnings, and his only lifeline left is his one time exemption for being in the Top 50.

The Tour should give him a medical exemption. Under the family leave act, people can take time off to care for sick loved ones. The same should apply to Duval here.

Here’s a swing analysis of 2007 Masters Champion Zach Johnson. His extension through the swing is just amazing.

The question apparently is making the rounds: Is college golf hurting US competitiveness in the sport?

In an article on Jacksonville dot Com, writer Garry Smits offers the following observation:

College golf, especially for American male players, has come under assault.

Hank Haney, Tiger Woods’ current swing guru, wrote an article for Golf Digest earlier this year and asked the question: “If you want to be the best golfer in the world, why would you go to college?”

Jack Nicklaus, observing the recent defeats suffered by the U.S. in the Ryder Cup, said last fall that college golf is partly to blame, because the usual format of starting five players and scoring the low four rounds, “isn’t teaching kids how to win.”

And while Haney blames college golf for the fact that only one American in his 20s is among the top 50 on the World Golf Rankings (at the time of his article, it was Lucas Glover - now, Charles Howell III is the only such example), LPGA players who bypassed college are enjoying great success.

The thought is that the colleges do not do as good a job in training young players as national development programs in other counties, or even as well as private academies in the US.

I think that the argument is utter nonsense. Tiger went to Stanford. Phil went to Arizona State, where he was the 1990 consensus college golfer of the year. Jim Furyk, Adam Scott, Jay Haas, Fred Couples, Mark Calcavecchia, David Toms, Bubba Watson, Davis Love and Fred Funk all went to college—as did many dozens of other current and past PGA Tour players. The college experience didn’t seem to hurt any of them.

While it’s probably true that there are a few players who could or should skip college, the vast majority of college golfers are not going to play on the PGA Tour —any more than the vast majority of college football players will make the NFL. In fact, the PGA Tour is inarguably an even tougher nut to crack than the NFL or the NBA. There are only 30 new spots available each year through Q School, and a good many of those are going to go to existing players. There are more opportunities available on the Nationwide Tour, but not enough to accommodate even a third of the top college players.

No, most of those players are going to need degrees—and golf is their meal ticket through college. Lets not discourage them. Even the more sure-fire prospect has in the past come up well short in Q- School. Remember Ty Tyron? He could have used a bit of College golf.

Mike Purkey of NBC Sports asks the question: Is Ernie Els an underachiever?

He points out that Els is one of the most talented players in the game—long off the tee, an excellent irons player with a terrific short game and—more recently—a solid putting stroke. And while The Big Easy has won 15 times on the PGA Tour, has three Majors and 43 worldwide victories, Purkey has the nagging feeling that he has fallen short of his potential. So with all of those skills, why? Purkey writes:

Perhaps the real answer is that the Big Easy is Too Easy. Call it the Davis Love III Syndrome, but Els just might be too nice to win majors. Like Love, Els is superbly talented but isn’t mean enough to succeed often enough on the biggest stages. Woods wants to cut out your heart and stomp on it, whether he’s playing the Masters or ping-pong.

If he’s an underachiever, I put him up there with Davis Love and Fred Couples—guys who I’ve long admired for their game, but who havent’ put together the indelible careers that they seem to deserve.

Purkey’s article is a good read.

I’d also like to know who else you think is an underachiever on tour. Leave a comment.

CNN Money has an article that echos what The Golf Blogger has been saying for a couple of years now: That the Tour’s reliance on Tiger may actually be a detriment.

For all of the beating that LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens has taken the last year-and-a-half, Golf World’s Ron Sirak says that the ladies tour is in some way ahead of the men’s.

The LPGA, for example pioneered pro golf’s new playoff format with the ADT Championship. And it’s ahead of the PGA Tour in drug testing. Sirak even insinuates that the LPGA may have more starpower than the PGA—and certainly more than the Champions or Nationwide tours.

But the focus of the piece is on the drug testing, which Sirak says must be instituted sooner rather than later; he calls for the two tours to cooperate on the process.

It’s an interesting read.

Johnny Hart, creator of the classic comic strip BC died at his storyboard Saturday at age 76.

His brainchild, the “BC” Comic strip, was launched in 1958 and appeared in 1,300 newspapers. It also may be the only comic strip to have a tournament named after it—the BC Open in Endicott, New York. The BC Open was played from 1971 to 2006. This year, it becomes the Dicks Sporting Goods Open, a Champions Tour event.

The origin of the naming of the BC Open is somewhat in question. According to some sources, it was originally named the Broome County Open, after its geographic location. Hart was a native of Endicott, however, and his cartoons have been used as the logo for as long as anyone can remember.

Thanks for many years of enjoyment, Johnny Hart.