Gary D'Amato

MILWAUKEE -- It's not enough in mixed martial arts to be strong, though strength is a requirement.

It's not enough to be in tremendous physical condition, though that, too, is mandatory.

MILWAUKEE -- David Leadbetter didn't single-handedly turn golf instruction into a cottage industry, but he arguably was the first swing teacher to achieve celebrity status.

Thirty years ago, teaching pros were all but invisible on the PGA Tour. Then, in the 1980s and early 90s, Nick Price and Nick Faldo won major championships while working with Leadbetter, a tall, lanky Englishman who had played on the European and South African tours with little success.

MILWAUKEE -- As the only man to win two Olympic gold medals in the 1,000 meters, plus a pair of silver medals in the 1,500, Shani Davis already has taken his place among the greatest middle-distance speedskaters in history.

BIG BEND, Wis. -- Simon Ecob, an expert club fitter for Cleveland Golf / Srixon, sees it all the time. He'll hand a golfer a driver with more loft and a softer shaft than the driver in the guy's bag and watch him pound balls out of sight.

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- The first clue that something was going to be different about the 38th annual Golf Writers Association of America awards ceremony was the no-nonsense security guards checking the guest list at the front door of the Savannah Rapids Pavilion.

MILWAUKEE -- They have been with their athletes every step of the way, through bad times and good, through broken skate blades and hearts, through the tedium of training stretched out over months and, in some cases, years.

Sooner or later, Tiger Woods is going to go back to work.

When and where he returns to the PGA Tour is the great unknown. His self-imposed "indefinite" break from the game after the disclosure of his shocking extramarital gymnastics could last weeks, perhaps months.