Golf

A year ago, Dan McLaughlin spent hours every day at the St. Petersburg, Fla., golf course Mangrove Bay, putting, putting, putting. He was not quite a year into what he calls the Dan Plan.

McLaughlin had decided at 30 to try to become a professional golfer on the PGA Tour. He had never played the game. He had almost no interest in the sport. What he really wanted to do was test the theory that anybody could become expert at anything with 10,000 hours of measured, deliberate practice.

The resident of Portland, Ore., quit his 9-to-5 commercial-photography job and started living, frugally, on about $100,000 of savings. He came to Florida because of the warmer winter weather.

It's well documented that Tiger Woods hasn't played in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in a decade, and he won it just once in 2000, his lone victory in six tries between 1997 and 2002.

Strangely, Woods' 2000 AT&T victory hasn't stood the test of time very well--and there are reasons for that--but that's an injustice in golf history. Even if the memory of it is now largely hazy, it still stands as one of the most amazing and electrifying victories among Tiger's 71 PGA Tour wins.

Strange how many are expressing sympathy for Kyle Stanley, as if he'd suffered through something more horrible Sunday than a valuable learning experience.

It was a high-profile one, of course, and an expensive one at that. But, on the upside, those tend to be the most effective.

The dramatic reversal of fortune that led the Gig Harbor, Wash., golfer to take second in the 2012 Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego is certainly not an event that will define his career.

OGDEN -- Weber State University director of golf Jeff Smith recently announced the hiring of Scott Erling as an assistant coach for the Wildcat golf programs.

Erling, whose primary responsibility will be coaching the men's golf team, replaces Dave Kearl, who retired this past fall after heading up the men's program at Weber State for the past 11 years.

"I'm really excited to be here," said Erling. "To get to be a part of Weber State, and to get to work with the kids is a dream come true for me. I can't wait for things to get started. I think we've got some really good kids, and we've got some really good things coming up for the future, so with (Jeff Smith's) guidance, I think things will be really good for the program."

Former Weber State golf standout Mike Malaska keeps adding to his resume.

The former Wildcat, who earned All-America status back in 1974 and is a member of the WSU Hall of Fame, was named 2011 PGA National Teacher of the Year this past week.

HONOLULU -- Luke Donald took to Twitter to vent about a contentious issue on the PGA Tour. If nothing else, it was refreshing to see golf with a No. 1 player who was willing to express his opinion freely and publicly.

As for that issue that stirred Donald from his holiday in Barbados?

ORLANDO, Fla. -- From all indications, "The Big Miss" has no juicy tidbits about any young misses who played a supporting role in Tiger Woods' downward spiral.

Hank Haney has maintained since Woods' sex scandal captured headlines in late 2009 that he had no inkling about the philandering behind the scenes. Some will find that hard to believe from a guy who spent the equivalent of 3 1/2 months a year in Woods' company, but we'll have to take him at his word.