As I’m watching the webcast of the Amen Corner from the Masters, it occurred to me that Tiger Woods’ winning the Grand Slam of golf (Masters, US Open, British Open and PGA Championship, for those not in the know) could actually hurt the PGA Tour. It’s a bit of a stretch, perhaps, but follow my reasoning.

First, all of the attention of golf fans will be focused on four events—none of which are owned by the PGA Tour. If Tiger wins the Masters, all eyes will be focused on the US Open—looking right past the suddenly irrelevant Players Championship—in spite of the Tour’s attempts to position it as the fifth major. In the face of a potential Slam, it simply won’t matter. Then everyone will lay back and wait for the Open Championship ... then the PGA. None of the other events will matter.

Second, attention on Tiger’s run at the slam distracts from the Tour’s attempts to create a buzz with the FedEx Championship. Who gives a rat’s patootie who is in the FexEx cup lead when Tiger is in the hunt for the Grand Slam?

And finally, if Tiger does manage to pull it off—or even if he takes it down to the PGA Championship at Oakland Hills but falls short—it’s not out of realm of probability that he sits out the FedEx Cup four match finale, citing fatigue. And rightfully so. The pressure at that point would have been a lot even for someone as stoic as Tiger.

The Chicago Sun Times Media Critic says that as good as he is as a golfer, Tiger isn’t very good as a pitch man.

OK. So Tiger Woods is a pretty amazing golfer. But truth be told, he’s not the most compelling of performers when he’s put in front of a camera and asked to pitch a product to skeptical consumers. All right, maybe he’s a bit more compelling to his ardent fans. But to the general public—not so much.

Which is probably why Element 79/Chicago, which is still clinging to the Gatorade account, decided to cast Woods as an astronaut golfer and put him on the moon in a new spot called “Moon Shot” to promote Gatorade Tiger, a line extension that is apparently basic Gatorade with more electrolytes. Thankfully, Woods isn’t asked to say a single word in this new commercial.

I agree. Most of Tiger’s ads have been—how can I say this nicely?—less than convincing. I don’t believe for a minute that he drives a Buick. The new razor ads are ridiculous. And the less said about the moon suit ads, the better.

Still, for the enormous sums the companies are paying Tiger, they must have figured out that they’re getting a good return on their dollar. Gatorade is paying him $100 million for the right to produce Tigerade. They must figure that there are millions of golfers out there who can’t wait to consume a drink based on a chemical analysis of Tiger’s sweat.

I’ll stick to water.

ESPN.Com’s Jason Sobel has a great line about Tiger’s five tournament winning streak, and Byron Nelson’s eleven:

Weakened fields and easier venues be damned, Nelson’s streak is more prodigious than it gets credit for. The greatest golfer of all time just played the greatest six months of golf in his career … and still came up six tourneys short? Wow.

I’m on break this week, so I had a chance to watch the end of the oft-delayed WGC Championship at Doral. Here’s the long and the short of it: Geoff Oglivy won following a week of solid, even extraordinary, putting. Tiger finished fifth, behind Jim Furyk, Retief Goosen and Vijay Singh, who all tied for second.

So here’s what we now know:

• Byron Nelson’s streak of 11 straight victories will not fall.
• Tiger will not go undefeated this year.
• There’s enough talent on the Tour that if a couple of them play very well, and Tiger plays less than extraordinary golf, it’s anyone’s game.

That last is the most important lesson here. Tiger wasn’t edged out by a single shot on the last hole. Four players finished ahead of him; all of them are previous major winners. What this says is that—in spite of the endless hype by The Golf Channel—the other players are not going to simply roll over and allow Tiger to cruise through the season. 

To that, I’ll repeat my prediction: Tiger will not win the Grand Slam this year. He’ll lose at the Masters.

There’s been a lot of speculation these past few weeks about the Tiger Woods in a spacesuit photos that have been surfacing. It turns out that they’re from the upcoming Gatorade advertising campaign. If you’ll recall, Tiger signed a $100 million deal to endorse Gatorade and develop his own Tigerade product.

You can see a clip of the ad below. I don’t have high hopes for the campaign. He looks incredibly silly in that suit.