Blog Posts by Jay Busbee

Ken Venturi enjoys the spoils of winning the U.S. Open in 1964. (Getty Images)Ken Venturi, winner of the 1964 U.S. Open and a longtime commentator for CBS, has died at the age of 82.

To one generation, Venturi is best known for the major he won as well as the major he didn't. To later ones, he was the voice of golf for decades. In recent years, Venturi had suffered from numerous health problems, including prostate cancer in 2000, quintuple bypass surgery in 2006, and heart issues in 2011. He had spent the last few weeks in the hospital in Southern California, and developed infections in his back and intestine as well as pneumonia. His son Matt revealed the news of his father's death.

Venturi won the U.S. Open at Congressional in triple-digit heat; at that time, the final of the U.S. Open featured 36 holes of golf. Venturi was advised to quit, but did not, proceeding onward through dizziness and heatstroke. That year, he won Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year and the PGA Player of the Year honors.

That would be the only major that Venturi would win,

Late Sunday afternoon, back nine of The Players Championship, and Tiger Woods was rolling. Up two strokes on the field with five holes to play, Woods had the game and the demeanor of a man in total control.

And then came the 14th hole, and just like that, another Tiger Woods drop controversy. Unlike a similar event a few weeks back at Augusta, however, this one was squashed within moments ... even though the evidence suggests it shouldn't have been.

The scenario: Woods hit his tee shot on 14 into the water running along the left side of the hole. He took his customary one-stroke penalty and dropped a ball at what he (and, upon questioning, playing partner Casey Wittenberg) said was the point where the ball crossed over into the water ... about 250 yards down the fairway. Thing is, a replay from the blimp overhead, which was at a sharp angle to the fairway, didn't appear nearly as conclusive, and in fact suggested the ball could have crossed the

Get that camera out of Tiger Woods' face. (Getty Images)

There are courses where Tiger Woods can shoot sub-70s rounds blindfolded with left-handed clubs. Augusta National fits into that category, as does Pebble Beach. TPC Sawgrass, site of this week's Players Championship, most assuredly does not.

Woods regards Sawgrass with about the same level of love he apparently has for the golf media or divorce lawyers. Yes, the 17th is the site of the famous "better than most" 60-foot putt in 2001. But that year marked the only time in 15 attempts that Woods has won at Sawgrass. He's only finished in the top 10 once since then, in 2009.

In fact, he hasn't posted consecutive sub-70 at Sawgrass since 2004 ... until Friday, that is, when he carded his second straight 67. And that's a signal that something might just be afoot with Woods this year. He hadn't broken 70 in an opening round until Thursday. He'd never scored as low as 67 until Friday.

Woods now sits a single stroke behind clubhouse leader Sergio Garcia, who is in at -11 and looking like a

The deer antler spray saga will not die.

Vijay Singh has filed suit against the PGA Tour, charging that the Tour failed in its duties to properly investigate deer antler spray and allowed Singh to be subject to "public humiliation and ridicule." Singh had admitted to using deer antler spray earlier this year, and at the time it was on the Tour's list of banned substances. The World Anti-Doping Association has since provided the Tour with information that led the Tour to remove it from the list of banned substances.

That was not enough for Singh. "Rather than performing its duties to golfers first, and then determining whether there had been any violation of the Anti-Doping Program, the PGA Tour rushed to judgment and accused one of the world's hardest working and most dedicated golfers of violating the rules of the game," the suit states.

"Singh seeks damages for the PGA Tour's reckless administration and implementation of its Anti-Doping Program," Singh's attorney, Peter Ginsberg,

Adam Scott. (Getty Images)

AUGUSTA, Ga. – The gray, rainy afternoon was one of the ugliest in years at Augusta, but for Adam Scott, it’s one of the most beautiful of his life.

With the rain steadily falling, Adam Scott and Angel Cabrera back-to-backed two of the finest pressure shots in recent memory at Augusta. Scott stood on the green, his ball 30 feet from the hole, his telephone-pole-sized belly putter in his hand. Behind him, Cabrera stood in the middle of the fairway, waiting.

Scott found the putting stroke that had eluded him during the final holes of his British Open collapse last season, draining a putt that toured all the way around the cup before dropping in. But before Scott could even reach the white bricks of the scorer’s building, Cabrera’s approach dropped to within four feet of the cup. One birdie later, and the Masters was headed to extra frames.

On the first playoff hole, No. 18, the players matched each other virtually stroke for stroke, and their drives off 10 were nearly identical as well.

AUGUSTA, Ga. - In a Masters that just keeps getting stranger, it's a former Olympic skier, of all things, who's now your clubhouse leader in the battle for weirdest moment of the weekend.

On Saturday, news broke that a television viewer had called in a violation on Tiger Woods for play on Friday; a subsequent investigation penalized Woods two strokes. And then, late Saturday evening, the following tweet showed up.

No problem Masters tournament happy to call in and help. You always have to keep an eye on those cheaters ;)yhoo.it/Zh7TBu

— Thomas Vonn (@ThomasVonn) April 13, 2013

That there is Thomas Vonn, former Olympic skier and ex-husband of Lindsey Vonn. You know, the Lindsey Vonn who's now Tiger's girlfriend. The same Tiger who, as you may have heard, admitted to cheating on his wife of many years.

Yeah. This is, well ... kind of awkward. But still funny. Nice job of making us both laugh and cringe, sir. (Oh, and thanks for the link, too.)

Now all we need is a comment from Tiger's ex

Tianlang Guan. (Getty Images)

AUGUSTA, Ga. - For a brief moment, Tianlang Guan was Augusta's cause célèbre, a 14-year-old amateur who'd captured the sympathy of the golf world when Augusta National tagged him with a controversial slow-play penalty. But he made the cut on the number, and for a brief moment, all was forgiven.

Then came the Tiger Woods possible-DQ scandal, and Guan suddenly became yesterday's news, literally and figuratively. The slow-play penalty was a sidelight to the possible disqualification of the world's No. 1 golfer, and Guan was left to do what he came here to do: play golf.

And he did, better than you or I ever could at Augusta but not well enough to make much of a dent in the leaderboard. He carded five bogeys and finished the day with a 77, leaving him at +9 for the tournament and right at the bottom of the field that made the cut. The highlight, though, was a long — Guan estimated it at 20 yards — putt on 18 to save par.

Still, when he finished, he was parked between a couple notable

Tiger Woods — Getty ImagesTiger Woods has been served with a two-shot penalty for a violation that occurred on Friday's 15th hole. He will tee off at 1:45 p.m. Saturday and is now five strokes behind leader Jason Day.

Woods faced disqualification stemming from a possible rules violation committed on Friday afternoon. After he struck one of the unluckiest shots in his Masters career, an approach on 15 that hit the flagstick and bounced back into the water, Woods dropped a new ball and began playing again. However, it's how he dropped that new ball that's at issue.

The rules of golf stipulate that a player may drop a ball in a designated drop zone, drop in the original spot from which the ball was hit, or drop in a spot that's in a direct line from the flag to the place where the ball last hit the water. Woods appeared to combine options 2 and 3. (For a fuller explanation of the rules at issue, see here.)

However, there was enough wiggle room in the rules, particularly in regard to new so-called "HD television"