A funny comment from Paul Goydos was just reported on the tournament telecast:

Goydos apparently noticed that Sergio Garcia had hit a seven iron where Goydos had hit a four iron. Goydos said “I think we’re in trouble if Sergio’s clubs are divisible by ours.”

Never letting a rule stand in the way of a good time, our golf league allows each player one Mulligan per round. And why not? Friday night is supposed to be fun, allowing teachers to blow off some steam after a long week trying ensure that disinterested students all score above average on Ted Kennedy’s No Child Left Behind tests (I’ll make no commentary on the mathematics of this).

While I was at first dismayed at the Mulligans (I tend to be a purist) I’ve discovered that playing with them creates a new dimension of strategy. Under regular rules, a poor tee shot offers only one option: play it as it lies. You trudge to the spot where the ball landed and whack it again.

Introduce Mulligans into the equation and players suddenly are faced with an entirely different decision set. With each weak pop up and massive slice out-of-bounds, you have to evaluate the full extent of the damage: Was that last shot bad enough to warrant using your one and only Mulligan?

I rarely use my Mulligans. No mattter how bad the shot, my pessimistic nature leads me to imagine that there is another out there that’s even worse—or one that could come at a worse time. So I save my mulligan for later. And by the time I get down to the last couple of holes, I generally don’t need the do-over. I’m warmed up, and hitting fairways and greens.

Using the Mulligan requires gambler’s instincts and I don’t have them.

The primary risk of playing your only Mulligan is that the second shot might not be any better than the first. If you follow your duck hook into the woods with another exactly like it, you’re still hitting three—and now you’ve lost your security blanket.

There’s a great deal of guesswork in a mulligan, and thus, some of the more creative players in our league have created the “Provisional Mulligan.”

The Provisional Mulligan takes all of the guesswork out of the play. If you hit a weak pop just beyond the ladies tee, you immediately reload and declare that you’re going to play a “Provisional Mulligan.” If the second is better than the first, you use the Mulligan. If, however, you slice your Mulligan out of bounds, you play the original ball, and keep the do-over for later.

Yes, it’s cheating. But strangely, I don’t mind. I don’t use them, but if the other guys think it’s more fun, I say more power to them.

Fortunately, the Provisional Mulligan seems to get used on only the most questionable of shots. Otherwise, it could make for some very long rounds, indeed.

The Wall Street Journal’s golf writer has a great column on why we love to hit the ball a long ways.

We love big drives for at least a couple of reasons. The first is the sheer intoxicating pleasure of catching one pure. Even for someone whose long drive is only 200 yards, if that’s 50 yards longer than normal, it’s a kick. The power seems to come from nowhere. When all the levers of the swing fire in rare perfect sequence, the ball explodes off the clubface and seems to hang in the air forever. For most of us that sensation, when we first experienced it, marks the moment golf got us in its stranglehold.

I agree.

Jeff Maggert’s brother died in a small plane accident in Colorado:

Jeff Maggert withdrew from The Players Championship, telling tournament officials that his brother died in a small plane crash in Colorado en route to his son’s college graduation.

The Gilpin County (Colo.) Sheriff’s office said one man died and a 23-year-old passenger was injured Thursday afternoon when the single-engine plane crashed into a snowy mountain in Black Hawk, about 40 miles west of Denver.

Jeff Maggert, seen here at a tournament in March, left The Players Championship after his brother was killed in a plane crash in Colorado on Thursday.

Maggert told the PGA Tour that his older brother, Barry Maggert, died in the crash.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with Jeff and his family,” PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said.

Barry Maggert was on his way to Boulder for his son’s graduation from the University of Colorado. He had 23-year-old twin sons, Leen and Bryant. Gilpin County officials were waiting for the family arrive to release the name of the passenger.

More here.

ESPN’s Jason Sobel says that among the Majors, The Players gets it “just right.”

Once upon a time, there was a group of golfers who traveled to Augusta, Ga., for the year’s first major championship. The wind howled, the greens were fast and their scores soared. “This tournament is too hard!” they cried.

Later in the year, that same group of golfers happened upon the U.S. Open for the year’s second major championship. The course was long, the rough was gnarly and once again their scores soared. “This tournament is too tricky!” they claimed.

In between, the golfers came to the Players Championship, technically not a major but the next-biggest event of the year. Good shots were rewarded with good results. Bad shots were penalized with bad results. And the golfers were overjoyed by what they considered to be a satisfactory course setup. “This tournament is just right!” they crowed.

He may be on to something.