Paul Casey won on the second hole of a sudden death playoff in the TCL Classic, with Paul McGinley placing second.

Colin Montgomerie, the winner of this event when it was last played in 2002, finished in sixth place. Montgomerie needed a top-two finish to break into the top-50 in the world and qualify for next week’s The Players Championship.

Tiger Woods has made some comments recently about how much longer he will play the game of golf (an absurd question, given that he’s only 30), saying “not as long as people think.”

But how long is that? In an interview in PGA dot Com, Jack Nicklaus says that his own desire to compete waxed and waned after age 35.

“My desire past 35 ebbed and flowed a lot. I wanted to play but I never really wanted to work that hard to achieve this or that.

“If I had a record to beat, I think I would have won more majors. But once I got past (Bobby) Jones’ record, there were no more mountains to climb. Up to that point I worked at it pretty hard,” he explained. “Tiger’s work ethic, I think, is better than mine. He’s been more single-minded; he (doesn’t) have as many distractions as I had, but I liked my distractions—that was spending time with my family.”

Nicklaus also said that he might have stopped much earlier, but for new golf technologies that kept him competitive.

That’s an interesting comment from a man who’s part of the “ball is too long” chorus.

Peter Dixon writes that Ernie Els no longer feels intimidated by Tiger Woods and is ready to take his turn at being the World’s #1. That could come as early as this Sunday, at the close of Palmer’s Bay Hill Invitational. There are enough points available at that tournament that any of the top three could end up in the first position.

One thing I found interesting in the column was the Tiger mystique was shattered when Vijay Singh was able to sieze—however briefly—the top spot. If that’s the case, then every golfer on tour owes Vijay a big thank-you for his fanatical dediction to perfection.

Despite the absence of Phil Mickelson, this weekend’s tournament at Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill has the makings of a classic showdown. Golf Digest has a preview of the match, while the Golf Observer offers a history of the event.

If you’re playing Fantasy Golf, you might want to check out Dave Shedloski’s take on the likely winner at Bay Hill.

Among baseball statistics junkies, it’s long been an article of faith that Bill James’ On Base Percentage and On Base Percentage plus Slugging is the true way to measure a player’s effectiveness. As a Baltimore Orioles fan from way back, I know all about Earl Weaver’s winning formula: WPG + 3RH = W (a well-pitched game, plus the three run homer equals a win). Weaver knew back then, and Bill James has verified that batting average is overshadowed by the power game.

Now it appears that a similar emphasis on the power game has overtaken golf. And, like the power game in baseball, it has changed the nature of the game.

Geoff Shackelford has compiled some interesting statistics—and written a compelling article—on golf’s new power game.

He argues that professional golf has become professional “flog” (golf spelled backwards), in which the instinct of the top players is to bomb the ball as far as possible off the tee, without caring whether or not it finds a fairway.

Hit it within 160, and for the top players, it’s an 8-iron or less to the green. And with a club of that loft, the punishment for being in the rough is minimal.

Indeed, he says, narrow fairways may actually be contributing to the problem. With 25-yard wide fairways, there’s a good chance you will miss it anyway, so you might as well hit it as far as you can.

Its interesting that the top two currently on the Money List—Mickelson and Woods—rank 145 and 151, respectively, in driving accuracy.

I still contend, however, that you could end this by making the rough on every tour stop US Open-style punishing.

But I don’t think the sponsors will do it, for the same reason that baseball owners won’t push out the fences. People like to see the long ball.

Finally—and here’s the conspiracy theory—leveling the playing field would mean more victories by second and third tier guys at the expense of the superstars. And that’s not what the sponsors want.