The thing about Heather Deranek is not that she’s a woman. Or that she’s an attorney. Or that she has boundless energy. Or even that she has enthusiasm that’s downright contagious.

The thing about Deranek is that she’s all those things. Breaking into professional golf as a player agent – and competing in her rookie year – she’s going to need everything that makes her stand out to survive the shark tank into which she has plunged headfirst. Plus, a great deal of good luck couldn’t hurt one bit.

But you’re not telling her anything she doesn’t already know. And that makes her resolve even more steely.

“There’s nothing I love more than to prove people wrong,” says Deranek. “And being able to be successful when people think it couldn’t be done. I’ve had people say to me, ‘Oh, you’re really cute. You should be in sales but you shouldn’t be an agent.’

“I’ve had people tell me that I wouldn’t be successful if I didn’t work for a big agency first. It just makes me want to work that much harder. The more people tell me that I can’t, the more I want to prove that I can.”

And therein lies a big part of the mission statement of Hi-Def Rep, Deranek’s newborn agency, based in Seattle, about a half hour from where she grew up. Her road to the golf business has been circuitous. But in her mind, she kept her cart on the path that led from where she was to where she wanted to be.

A graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in communications, she is also a graduate of the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego. “Doing your homework on the beach is not a bad way to go,” she says.

In 2010, there were two professional golf events in the Seattle area – the U.S. Senior Open and the Boeing Classic, both on the Champions Tour. Through a friend, she was introduced to Phil Stambaugh, a media official on the Champions Tour. She told Stambaugh at the Senior Open that she wanted to learn everything there was to know about his job.

The two connected two weeks later and Deranek started her journey, getting her post-graduate education about how the media center works at a professional event. For the next few weeks, she flew on her own dime on the weekends, volunteering in each media center and becoming immersed in the background of golf.

Now that she knew more about how the media works, she set out to find out how players are represented.

“I started on a fact-finding mission and I met with a number of agents, all the way from the guys at IMG down to the guys who were one-man shops, and I just picked their brains,” Deranek said. “What did they like about the job, what they didn’t like, what was their background.

“When it comes to agents in golf, I found out there weren’t very many lawyers. What would it take for me to get a job here? I didn’t really find an agency I loved. So I decided that if I couldn’t find an agency who did it the way I wanted, I’d just do it on my own.”

And Hi-Def Rep was born. Deranek started her agency with a couple of aspiring golfers and a cyclist from the Northwest. But they weren’t going to make much money, which meant that Deranek wasn’t going to make much money. So, she set out on the road to make her case.

“I started going to Nationwide Tour events to see who was available. I’m not in the business of poaching guys who had agents. So I had a list of guys who didn’t have agents. Once you get to the point where people see you on Tour and know you by name, you know you’ve made an impact. The only way I was going to do that was to be out there. I wasn’t going to accomplish much sitting on my couch.”

A friend of a friend got her in touch with Gary Christian, who, at age 39, will be a rookie on the PGA Tour next year by virtue of finishing in the top 25 on the Nationwide Tour in 2011, and before long, a deal was struck.

“It’s a tough business for her to break into,” said Christian, an Englishman who lives in Alabama. “But she’s not high-pressure and she came across as extremely intelligent and keen to go the extra mile.”

Cleveland Golf was not willing to extend Christian a deal for 2012, even though he had been using the company’s equipment for several years. But Deranek negotiated a contract for Christian with Adams Golf, done in an environment where club and ball deals are shrinking, especially for players without a big name.

One of Deranek’s clients is Tommy Bahama and she brokered a deal for Ken Duke to wear the company’s clothing and logo while he won the Nationwide Tour Championship. It’s not huge, but it’s a place to start.

“Gary likes to say that we both have a little underdog in us,” Deranek says.

And, who doesn’t love an underdog?

The thing about Heather Deranek is not that she’s a woman. Or that she’s an attorney. Or that she has boundless energy. Or even that she has enthusiasm that’s downright contagious.

The thing about Deranek is that she’s all those things. Breaking into professional golf as a player agent – and competing in her rookie year – she’s going to need everything that makes her stand out to survive the shark tank into which she has plunged headfirst. Plus, a great deal of good luck couldn’t hurt one bit.

But you’re not telling her anything she doesn’t already know. And that makes her resolve even more steely.

“There’s nothing I love more than to prove people wrong,” says Deranek. “And being able to be successful when people think it couldn’t be done. I’ve had people say to me, ‘Oh, you’re really cute. You should be in sales but you shouldn’t be an agent.’

“I’ve had people tell me that I wouldn’t be successful if I didn’t work for a big agency first. It just makes me want to work that much harder. The more people tell me that I can’t, the more I want to prove that I can.”

And therein lies a big part of the mission statement of Hi-Def Rep, Deranek’s newborn agency, based in Seattle, about a half hour from where she grew up. Her road to the golf business has been circuitous. But in her mind, she kept her cart on the path that led from where she was to where she wanted to be.

A graduate of the University of Washington with a degree in communications, she is also a graduate of the Thomas
Jefferson School of Law in San Diego. “Doing your homework on the beach is not a bad way to go,” she says.

In 2010, there were two professional golf events in the Seattle area – the U.S. Senior Open and the Boeing Classic, both on the Champions Tour. Through a friend, she was introduced to Phil Stambaugh, a media official on the Champions Tour. She told Stambaugh at the Senior Open that she wanted to learn everything there was to know about his job.

The two connected two weeks later and Deranek started her journey, getting her post-graduate education about how the media center works at a professional event. For the next few weeks, she flew on her own dime on the weekends, volunteering in each media center and becoming immersed in the background of golf.

Now that she knew more about how the media works, she set out to find out how players are represented.

“I started on a fact-finding mission and I met with a number of agents, all the way from the guys at IMG down to the guys who were one-man shops, and I just picked their brains,” Deranek said. “What did they like about the job, what they didn’t like, what was their background.

“When it comes to agents in golf, I found out there weren’t very many lawyers. What would it take for me to get a job here? I didn’t really find an agency I loved. So I decided that if I couldn’t find an agency that did it the way I wanted, I’d just do it on my own.”

And Hi-Def Rep was born. Deranek started her agency with a couple of aspiring golfers and a cyclist from the Northwest. But they weren’t going to make much money, which meant that Deranek wasn’t going to make much money. So, she set out on the road to make her case.

“I started going to Nationwide Tour events to see who was available. I’m not in the business of poaching guys who had agents. So I had a list of guys who didn’t have agents. Once you get to the point where people see you on Tour and know you by name, you know you’ve made an impact. The only way I was going to do that was to be out there. I wasn’t going to accomplish much sitting on my couch.”

A friend of a friend got her in touch with Gary Christian, who, at age 39, will be a rookie on the PGA Tour next year by virtue of finishing in the top 25 on the Nationwide Tour in 2011, and before long, a deal was struck.

“It’s a tough business for her to break into,” said Christian, an Englishman who lives in Alabama. “But she’s not high-pressure and she came across as extremely intelligent and keen to go the extra mile.”

Cleveland Golf was not willing to extend Christian a deal for 2012, even though he had been using the company’s equipment for several years. But Deranek negotiated a contract for Christian with Adams Golf, done in an environment where club and ball deals are shrinking, especially for players without a big name.

One of Deranek’s clients is Tommy Bahama and she brokered a deal for Ken Duke to wear the company’s clothing and logo while he won the Nationwide Tour Championship. It’s not huge, but it’s a place to start.

“Gary likes to say that we both have a little underdog in us,” Deranek says.

And, who doesn’t love an underdog?

No matter how many ugly demons dance in his head, no matter how much you really want this to be the last time he does something this egregious and offensive, there comes a time for John Daly to accept responsibility for his behavior – and to pay some consequences.

Daly, golf’s wickedly troubled stepchild, pumped seven balls in the water at the 11th hole in the first round of the Emirates Australian Open. He called it a tournament and packed it in, claiming he had been cleaned out of ammo. He was out of balls, all right, in more ways than one.

Until now, time has been Daly’s friend, giving him more chances than anyone deserved to finally set right his unbalanced world and become an adult. All those opportunities failed miserably. After walking off the course – for the second time in six weeks – an entire continent has kicked Daly out for good. And the five other continents that play professional golf need to pay attention.

For the past four years, Daly has been scratching out a living in golf, depending on sponsor’s exemptions because he hasn’t played well enough to earn his playing privileges on any tour through his own merit. Tournament officials have refused to stand up and do the right thing and lock Daly out of their events. Some of them still believe he moves the needle and brings fans through the gates.

That might have been true in years past, but the time is long past due for Daly’s career to be over. He’s 45, non-competitive and too damn unpredictable. He’s a ticking bomb and you never know when he’s going to blow.

The tired old rationale was that the common man identifies with Daly and his struggles. That’s not true anymore, either. The few stragglers who are still in Daly’s camp do so because he makes everybody else look good by comparison. In the past couple of years, he draws more pity than praise.

In Australia, he hit a wrong ball in a bunker at the seventh hole, took a two-shot penalty and slap-shotted it around the green, winding up with a triple-bogey seven. Four holes later, he tried to go for the green in two and drowned it seven times. He would have been hitting his 16th shot, had he chosen to continue.

He walked in with his young son and girlfriend in tow on international television. His girlfriend, Anna Cladakis, slapped at a photographer. What will his son, John Patrick, remember from his trip to Australia?

Maybe Daly had a flashback, coming up a couple of letters short and thought he was in Austria again. Six weeks ago at the Austrian GolfOpen, he was chopping it around in the second round and had a run-in with a European Tour rules official over a disputed drop from a television tower. He pitched a wedge into the lake, stormed in without finishing and dumped his fans and tournament officials in the process.

“It’s very disappointing for the tournament … that he has treated the championship this way,” Trevor Herden, Golf Australia’s director of tournaments, said Thursday. “It is a bit of a habit.”

Herden said later, “We’ve seen the last of John Daly in Australia.”

He had been invited to play in the Australian PGA next week, but in light of current events, that invitation has been rescinded. Daly was kicked out of that event before it even started.

“The PGA does not need this kind of behavior tarnishing the achievements of other players and the reputation of our tournaments,” said Australian PGA chief executive Brian Thorburn. “John is not welcome at Coolum.”

He shouldn’t be welcome on the PGA Tour, either, and hopefully, tournament directors are taking notice. Until now, they have been among Daly’s biggest enablers. And there’s more than one reason to refuse Daly a sponsor’s exemption. His behavior is certainly cause enough. But the other is his performance, or lack of it.

This year, he has played in 18 PGA Tour events, making the cut only six times. In Europe, he played in eight events, making four cuts and withdrawing twice. He called it quits in the middle of the second round of the BMW PGA Championship. In 2010, he made 14 of 20 cuts on the PGA Tour but withdrew three times and made only $158,000. From 2006-09, he withdrew 14 times on the PGA Tour.

The bottom line is that not only can’t he comport himself like a professional, he simply can’t play anymore. No one could imagine what Daly would do if it weren’t for golf. However, it’s high time he find out.

His legacy will not be that of a two-time major champion with as much raw talent as anyone who has ever played the game. Instead, he will be remembered as golf’s most prolific give-up artist.

He has used every excuse imaginable and we keep on buying it, making us just as culpable. He keeps on asking for yet another chance. Beginning immediately, the answer should be, “No.”

Because no matter how much he needs golf, the other way around is simply no longer true.

No matter how many ugly demons dance in his head, no matter how much you really want this to be the last time he does something this egregious and offensive, there comes a time for John Daly to accept responsibility for his behavior – and to pay some consequences.

Daly, golf’s wickedly troubled stepchild, pumped seven balls in the water at the 11th hole in the first round of the Emirates Australian Open. He called it a tournament and packed it in, claiming he had been cleaned out of ammo. He was out of balls, all right, in more ways than one.

Until now, time has been Daly’s friend, giving him more chances than anyone deserved to finally set right his unbalanced world and become an adult. All those opportunities failed miserably. After walking off the course – for the second time in six weeks – an entire continent has kicked Daly out for good. And the five other continents that play professional golf need to pay attention.

For the past four years, Daly has been scratching out a living in golf, depending on sponsor’s exemptions because he hasn’t played well enough to earn his playing privileges on any tour through his own merit. Tournament officials have refused to stand up and do the right thing and lock Daly out of their events. Some of them still believe he moves the needle and brings fans through the gates.

That might have been true in years past, but the time is long past due for Daly’s career to be over. He’s 45, non-competitive and too damn unpredictable. He’s a ticking bomb and you never know when he’s going to blow.

The tired old rationale was that the common man identifies with Daly and his struggles. That’s not true anymore, either. The few stragglers still in Daly’s camp do so because he makes everybody else look good by comparison. In the past couple of years, he draws more pity than praise.

In Australia, he hit a wrong ball in a bunker at the seventh hole, took a two-shot penalty and slap-shotted it around the green, winding up with a triple-bogey seven. Four holes later, he tried to go for the green in two and drowned it seven times. He would have been hitting his 16th shot, had he chosen to continue.

He walked in with his young son and girlfriend in tow on international TV. His girlfriend, Anna Cladakis, swiped at a photographer. What will his son, John Patrick, remember from his trip to Australia?

Maybe Daly had a flashback, coming up a couple of letters short and thought he was in Austria again. Six weeks ago at the Austrian GolfOpen, he was chopping it around in the second round and had a run-in with a European Tour rules official over a disputed drop from a television tower. He pitched a wedge into the lake, stormed in without finishing and dumped his fans and tournament officials in the process.

“It’s very disappointing for the tournament … that he has treated the championship this way,” Trevor Herden, Golf Australia’s director of tournaments, said Thursday. “It is a bit of a habit.”

Herden said later, “We’ve seen the last of John Daly in Australia.”

He had been invited to play in the Australian PGA next week, but in light of current events, that invitation has been rescinded. Daly was kicked out of that event before it even started.

“The PGA does not need this kind of behavior tarnishing the achievements of other players and the reputation of our tournaments,” said Australian PGA chief executive Brian Thorburn. “John is not welcome at Coolum.”

He shouldn’t be welcome on the PGA Tour, either, and hopefully, tournament directors are taking notice. Until now, they have been among Daly’s biggest enablers. And there’s more than one reason to refuse Daly a sponsor’s exemption. His behavior is certainly cause enough. But the other is his performance, or lack of it.

This year, he has played in 18 PGA Tour events, making the cut only six times. In Europe, he played in eight events, making four cuts and withdrawing twice. He called it quits in the middle of the second round of the BMW PGA Championship. In 2010, he made 14 of 20 cuts on the PGA Tour but withdrew three times and made only $158,000. From 2006-09, he withdrew 14 times on the PGA Tour.

The bottom line is that not only can’t he comport himself like a professional, he simply can’t play anymore. No one could imagine what Daly would do if it weren’t for golf. However, it’s high time he find out.

His legacy will not be that of a two-time major champion with as much raw talent as anyone who has ever played the game. Instead, he will be remembered as golf’s most prolific give-up artist.

He has used every excuse imaginable and we keep on buying it, making us just as culpable. He keeps on asking for yet another chance. Beginning immediately, the answer should be, “No.”

Because no matter how much he needs golf, the other way around is simply no longer true.

SOUTHAMPTON, BERMUDA | Never does Stephen Urquhart’s glass get below half full. And along with that endless optimism comes vision. For instance, we think in this country that golf is stagnant at best, receding at worst.

Not Urquhart. He sees incredible opportunity in golf for his company. That’s why he and his company – Omega, the world-renowned Swiss watchmaker – are investing in the game in this country in a big way.

Omega signed a deal with the PGA of America in July to take a sponsorship and time-keeping role at the Ryder Cup and the PGA Grand Slam of Golf. Part of Urquhart’s zeal comes from his world view. When golf in Europe is compared with the game in the U.S., there’s one winner. And even in an economy that’s shaky at best, Urquhart believes that America is where his company has the best potential for growth. And that golf is the right vehicle.

“I’ve been around the (U.S.) in the last nine months and I really don’t feel all the negative things that people are saying and writing,” said Urquhart, the president of Omega, who holds British and Swiss citizenship. “Of course, there’s high unemployment and consumer confidence is down but I think we (at Omega) need to be in the U.S.

“The U.S. market for us has been undersold and under promoted and under showcased. With our boutiques and the PGA deal, this will get us in the U.S. market, where we should be. We can double or triple our sales in America, which we cannot do tomorrow anyplace else.

“We can’t get involved in the Super Bowl. It’s a different level and not for Omega. But golf in America is so big, the grassroots are so big. It’s not just Florida or two or three states, but it’s all over the country.”

Omega was involved in golf in the late 1960s, primarily in Japan. In the early 1990s, Omega was the umbrella sponsor for what is now the Asian Tour, then called the Omega Tour. But golf was quite small in Asia at the time, not the burgeoning game it has become in the last handful of years.

Omega began to be involved in the European Tour, sponsoring the European Masters, Dubai Desert Classic and Dubai Ladies Masters. In 2009, the Omega European Masters was held at Crans-Montana in Switzerland and was the first event to be co-sanctioned by the European and Asian Tours.

In 2007, Omega began to sponsor the World Cup of Golf, which is held at the Mission Hills complex in China. But this is the last year of the company’s sponsorship and the reasons have nothing to do with marketing the company’s product.

“The format is not working,” Urquhart said. “The first year we sponsored the tournament, we had to pay players to come. That’s ridiculous. We would continue if the World Cup was redefined. It’s a tournament that belongs to everybody and nobody. The IGF (International Golf Federation) is supposed to be the owner but actually it belongs to the PGA Tour. The European Tour was our contact. It’s a little vague.

“If it was held every two years, say in non-Ryder Cup years, we would reconsider. Every year is too much. And, the event needs to travel. The World Cup cannot be in the same country every year.”

Nor does Urquhart think the event should be called the Omega World Cup. “It should not be called that any more than it should be called the Omega Ryder Cup,” he said.

This year was Omega’s first involvement with the PGA Grand Slam, which features the four current major championship winners and a 36-hole event at Port Royal Golf Course in Bermuda. Urquhart believes that the event’s imprint could be much larger.

“It’s a great event and people should know about it,” he said. “You have four major championships in completely different environments and the winners gather here in one place to compete. I think it warrants a lot more exposure. How, it’s too early to say.

“They need to showcase it differently, do more for it. It needs to be in a major media market. It’s a special event. Grand Slam means a lot; it’s a very meaningful name.”

According the sources, 2012 will be the last year that the PGA Grand Slam will be held in Bermuda. In 2013, it will be moved to an undisclosed location on Long Island in New York.

Urquhart is the most excited about being involved in the Ryder Cup, believed by many to be the greatest event in the game.

“The Ryder Cup has really become the tournament for non-golfers,” Urquhart said. “It’s easy. You can understand it. If you can’t really appreciate the finer points of the golf swing, if you have a match that’s 2-up, it’s easy to understand. I know people who don’t follow golf who do appreciate the Ryder Cup.”

Which is exactly why Urquhart wants his company associated with the Ryder Cup. In that respect, that particular cup is completely full – and running over.

It’s hard to drum up any sympathy for the player who finishes 126th on the PGA Tour money list when this week ends. Whoever that turns out to be has made upward of $600,000 playing golf this year, not to mention enough in endorsements that will likely take care of his travel expenses for the season.

There aren’t a whole lot of CEOs pulling down that kind of compensation package. And with the economy doing a slow bleed, unemployment at 9.1 percent and even folks with portfolios watching their net worth shrink with each negative move in the market, no one is going to shed a tear for those who just missed being fully exempt on Tour in 2012.

Besides, whichever players finish from 126th to 150th on the money list will get about 15 starts from that category next year and, if they are creative enough, they can get another 10 or so sponsor exemptions to get around 25 starts on Tour for an opportunity to make another $600,000 – or more – while working only half the year.

They’re flying first class, eating steak and being treated like kings, so it’s a tough sell to convince anyone that these guys have it tough.

Yet, if you watch golf on television this time of year, the on-air talent will do its best to convince you that the guys fighting to get inside or stay inside the top 125 have their backs to the wall and that their entire livelihood depends on whether they can make enough money in the final two weeks of the year to get inside the magic number.

Nonsense. They’re fighting for convenience and nothing else. Those inside the top 125 can pretty much lock in their schedules and those who aren’t are at the mercy of who plays or doesn’t play from week to week. And those outside the top 150 are probably going to have to enter the Tour’s Qualifying Tournament, which is no picnic but it ain’t heavy lifting, either.

And the antidote to avoid the Fall Classic is, in the immortal words of Jim Colbert: “Just play better.”

No, if it’s pressure you want, turn your eyes to the Nationwide Tour. The top 60 on that Tour’s money list play this week at the Nationwide Tour Championship to determine the top 25, who will get their playing privileges on the big tour in 2012. As of last week, the 60th player on the Nationwide list is Nicholas Thompson, who has made a hair more than $87,000 this year and a good chunk of that has been eaten up in expenses. By contrast, 60th on the PGA Tour money list checks in at about $1.4 million.

In fact, Thompson is being out-earned by his kid sister, 16-year-old Lexi Thompson, who just cashed a check for $270,000 for winning the Navistar LPGA Classic three weeks ago.

Nicholas Thompson really has his back against the wall. He would have to win this week to get inside the top 25 and get his Tour card. If he doesn’t, he’s back at Q-School with the rest of the desperate and the dreamers, with a guaranteed spot on the Nationwide Tour.

It’s a Herculean task making the top 25 on a tour where there are 50 guys every week who aren’t afraid to shoot low, where it takes 20 under or better to win most tournaments, where if you shoot even par in one round, 20 players stampede past you.

And even if you make the big Tour, depending on where you finish in the top 25, it’s no guarantee that you will get in tournaments, particularly during the first half of the year. Michael Sim, the can’t-miss kid, won three Nationwide Tour events in 2010 and received a performance promotion to the PGA Tour that happened during the Fall Series.

Because of the smaller fields, his status wasn’t enough to get him in any of the final events. So he finished the season on the Nationwide Tour, leading the tour’s money list with a little more than $644,000. By the way, Sim has played in 17 tournaments this year on the big tour, making just four cuts and $47,000.

On the other end of professional golf’s food chain, Luke Donald entered the Children’s Miracle Network Classic, the final event of the Fall Series, in an effort to protect his top-ranked position on the PGA Tour money list. He is being chased down by Webb Simpson, who overtook Donald by finishing xx at the McGladrey Classic last week.

The leading money winner will receive a five-year exemption on Tour and both players are likely to finish the year with around $6 million in earnings. The 125th player on the money won’t have to sweat for his starts in the way the guy one spot below him will.

Granted, it’s not the easiest way to make a living. Ask Michael Sim right about now. But it beats to death having to hold a real job. If you’re at the right spot on the money list, it’s truly a charmed life.

Before we get too carried away about whose interests Mike Whan represents, make no mistake that he acted on behalf of the LPGA and the LPGA only. Allowing Lexi Thompson membership into the LPGA next year, when she turns 17, will prove in time to be the wisest decision the commissioner ever made.

She will be the best thing that has happened to the LPGA in a long, long while. She will certainly become the player and the personality that everyone hoped Michelle Wie would be when she emerged nine years ago, when she qualified for her first LPGA tournament at age 12.

Those who are concerned that Whan might not have had Lexi’s welfare in mind are mistaken. Besides, that’s not really his job in this case. Whan was smart enough to leave that to the Thompson family. And it’s because the Thompsons are who they are that allowed Whan to make his decision in good conscience.

This is not Scott and Judy Thompson’s first rodeo. They have raised three accomplished golfers and Lexi is only the second professional in the family. Brother Nicholas Thompson, 28, played on the PGA Tour last year and is competing on the Nationwide Tour this year. Middle child Curtis, 18, is a scholarship golfer at LSU.

Scott has been caddying for Lexi since she turned professional last year and Judy works full time in a dentist’s office, processing insurance claims. From all accounts, the family is happy and well-adjusted and Lexi has more than a stable support system.

It was clear from the beginning that Lexi was a special case. She became the youngest ever to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Open, at age 12 in 2007 at Pine Needles. By the time she reached 15, she, along with her parents, decided that she had done everything she wanted to do in junior and amateur golf and it was time to become a professional.

The problem is that the LPGA has a minimum age requirement of 18 and Whan was unwilling to budge, no matter how much his Tour needed a young, attractive American star. Earlier this year, Thompson’s agent, Bobby Kreusler of Blue Giraffe Sports, petitioned the LPGA to waive the rule and allow Lexi to become a member of the Tour.

Whan turned them down but did capitulate. He told the Thompsons that if Lexi could qualify for the Tour through all three stages of the LPGA Qualifying Tournament, he would allow her membership for 2012. Lexi entered first stage and won by 10 shots.

That was after she held the third-round lead in April at the Avnet LPGA Classic and shot 78 in the final round to finish tied for 19th. So when she led by five strokes after three rounds of the Navistar LPGA Classic in Alabama three weeks ago, players, officials and observers – Whan, most notably – wondered what would happen.

Her five-shot lead that ballooned to seven early in Sunday’s final round and she walked into the house with a five-shot victory to become the youngest player ever to win an LPGA tournament. Scott Thompson was so moved that he told Lexi to walk ahead to the 18th green so she could not see his tears.

The concern is that Lexi is being plucked right out of teenage-hood and is missing the chance to be a kid and graduate high school and play college golf. The Thompsons have seen this movie before. Nicholas and Curtis went the college route but Lexi is a once-in-a-lifetime case and the entire family knows it. Nicholas said last year that Lexi would do wonders for the LPGA Tour.

He’s right. She’s tall and lithe and powerful. She has physical skills beyond her years. She’s almost six-feet tall and led the field in driving distance at the Navistar. But she also has a maturity that few young people her age possess. And what she doesn’t have will be filled in by her support system. Scott Thompson will continue to serve as both father and caddie and that’s just fine with Lexi. If she needs advice on how to survive and thrive on a professional tour, she has brother Nicholas to lean on.

She is exactly what the LPGA Tour needs at exactly the right time. With a dearth of American stars on LPGA leaderboards, Thompson’s arrival will no doubt bring television viewers, bigger galleries and, Whan hopes, more sponsorship dollars and greater exposure for his Tour.

Whan’s job is to grow the LPGA Tour and after Thompson won, he was criticized for not showing up at the 18th green at the Navistar with a check and a Tour membership card. The problem is he couldn’t have done that. According to LPGA regulations, Whan had to wait for Kreusler to make another petition and when that happened, he did the only thing he could do: he welcomed Lexi with open arms.

Now, the biggest dilemma in Lexi’s life is what kind of car is she going to buy now that she has some new-found cash. If the way she and her family have handled this situation is any indication, her brand new ride will no doubt be something perfectly sensible.

The thing is, nobody gave much of a rip about long putters until Keegan Bradley went all sacrilegious on us by winning a major championship with a putter stuck in his stomach. Now, it’s all anybody can talk about and, boy, are they talking.

The latest high profile person to pipe up is Vinny Giles, former player agent and world-class amateur, who last week called the USGA “gutless” for not banning anchored putters. First off, Giles has been using a long putter for eight years and won the 2009 U.S. Senior Amateur using one.

Giles is 68 and the long putter has no doubt extended his competitive years longer than it would have otherwise. If the long putter were banned tomorrow, well, he’s had a great career and it wouldn’t hurt him a bit.

To Giles’ credit, at least he qualified his comments by making sure people knew he uses one of the instruments he was condemning. He even pointed out that his comments were worth more because he has benefited from a long putter and clearly wasn’t making his case just to help his own game.

Giles, one of the smartest and most respected men in the game, is, of course, entitled to his opinion. He long ago earned his chops in the game and the right to speak out. He’s not alone, regardless of the fact that the disgruntled are in the vast minority.

But note to anyone listening: This is not a trend. A handful – a small one, at that – of PGA Tour players are trying long putters and it’s a good bet that most of them won’t stick with it.

Bradley missed the next two cuts after winning the PGA Championship. Adam Scott hasn’t done much after winning the WGC Bridgestone Championship with a long putter. Jim Furyk isn’t setting the Tour on fire since switching to a belly model. And Phil Mickelson hasn’t shot more than one or two under-par rounds since his experiment.

Webb Simpson is the most successful user at the moment and he’s putting so well because he believes that he will make every putt he stands over. As everyone knows, putting is about attitude and confidence, not the instrument you use. Ask Ben Crenshaw and Brad Faxon.

For the record, I’ve putted every way you can putt. Long, short, anchored, left-hand low, you name it. I once shot 72 at Pinehurst No. 2 putting one-handed with a Bulls Eye. I have witnesses: Ask Ron Green Sr. and Dave Kindred. It was the best putting round of my life.

I’m for whatever’s legal and whatever works. The witnesses for the prosecution point to their idea that anchoring the putter to the body is not a golf stroke. Billy Casper and Arnold Palmer, when they were the best putters in the world, rested the back of their left hand to the inside of their left thigh and just hinged their wrists. Is that anchoring?

Jack Nicklaus was the best clutch putter of his era, perhaps ever, and you don’t find anyone copying Nicklaus’ stroke. By the way, he pinned his right arm to his side and putted by using his right arm as a piston, back and through. Is that anchoring?

The naysayers also claim that using the longer putters constitutes an unfair advantage, which is absurd because only a small minority of competitive golfers use one. If it was so easy and such an advantage, why isn’t everyone doing it? Just because something does not meet some purists’ definition of “normal” doesn’t mean that it should be taken out of the game.

When Karsten Solheim introduced Ping Eye2 irons to the world, using them seemed like cheating because they were so much easier to hit than forged blades. Now the vast majority of competitive players use perimeter-weighted irons. Should they now be banned?

Drivers with 460cc titanium heads and graphite shafts three inches longer than the norm when we used steel shafts and persimmon heads make it easier to hit the ball farther and straighter. Should they be banned?

There are a variety of putting grips, including left-hand low and the claw or the pencil grip. That’s not a “normal” stroke. Should they be banned?

One of the endearing features about golfers is that they are hugely creative and downright ingenious. What saves us it that we have checks and balances in the USGA and the R&A, who get to decide what is legal and what isn’t.

Putting has long been an individual adventure. George Low could beat anyone on the putting green by putting with his foot. Bobby Locke, the South African putting wizard, was once banned by the PGA Tour because he putted so well. He believed you could impart hook and fade spin on putts.

It is not likely that the USGA or R&A are going to take long putters out of the hands of hopeful or desperate golfers, so there’s no need for panic. Just because a handful of high-profile players have had some success and another handful are experimenting should not be seen as a threat to the integrity of the game.

The sky is not falling. It’s just not as dark, for some, as it used to be.

We’ll get you back to your regularly scheduled programming on Thursday but, in the meantime, this week off on the PGA Tour seemed to be a good chance to take a look at where we find ourselves.

Except that no one knows. There are two more events in the playoffs for the FedEx Cup and not one person has any clue who might take home the $10 million on offer for the winner of the playoffs.

The only thing that we do know is that anyone in the top five in points going into the Tour Championship will win the FedEx Cup if they win the tournament. That’s it. The rest we have turned over to television.

The points system cannot be simply or easily explained, which is why you can’t find anything in print or on the Internet that tells you how this thing actually works. Fortunately for the Tour and for FedEx, someone somewhere did some math and created software so that the Tour’s television partners can project where each player will wind up on the points list that week if his position on the leaderboard remained as it was that moment.

That’s great and it takes the heat off people like us to try to sort it out. The only problem with television is that the networks use the projection model starting with the first shot fired on Thursday, when it really doesn’t matter. It would be nice if TV would just wait until Saturday to start projecting, but that’s obviously too much to wish for.

On the other hand, some of the best stories of the playoff season were created by television and this magic software. The fact that the likes of Ernie Els and Padraig Harrington entered the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro – the final “regular season” event on Tour – so they could try to make the top 125 on the points list and qualify for the playoffs was pretty compelling. Unknown William McGirt was the man on the bubble and his birdie on the 17th hole on Sunday got him into the playoffs, but not before a couple of hours hanging by the television and the computer to learn his fate.

And Els has been a story for the first two rounds of the playoffs for playing his way into the next round, even though the best he could do was finish T30 at the Wyndham, T32 at The Barclays and T16 at the Deutsche Bank. He’s qualified for the BMW Championship, but he’ll need to finish third or better to advance to the Tour Championship.

But the fact that we need this mechanism at all epitomizes exactly what’s wrong with the playoffs – it’s just too darned complicated. Even NASCAR, which, by the way, was the model for the Tour, simplified its points system. Even the BCS system in college football is easier to understand.

Which is exactly why the playoffs have not resonated with the fans. The “regular season” doesn’t mean much, if anything. And once the playoffs have started, there’s no buildup after each round. All we know that 125 start the playoffs and it’s cut down to 30 at The Tour Championship. In between, it’s a mess.

The Tour calculated what each player needs to do this week to qualify for The Tour Championship and it turns out that 21 players are guaranteed a spot, no matter what they do this week. So, we’re playing 49 players for nine spots at the BMW Championship, which makes it a four-day, not-so-sudden-death playoff.

The bottom line is that the current system doesn’t get anyone talking. Nobody cares about the playoffs during the regular season and very few care once the playoffs have started. The only thing golf fans get excited about is the outcome of the current week’s tournament.

In fact, there has been much more talk about long putters than there has been about the playoffs, mainly because the long putter debate is much more interesting. Webb Simpson won with one at the Deutsche Bank and Els, Jim Furyk and even Phil Mickelson used one in the playoffs, even though none of the non-winners had much success with the belly putters.

But ask yourself this: If you find yourself in a golf conversation this week, what’s the topic likely to be? FedEx Cup playoffs or long putters? Thought so.

I don’t mind in the least admitting that it’s pretty cool to see your name on a scorecard and a scoreboard with the USGA logo printed on it. That is, until they write your score beside your name, and that’s what the rest of this story is all about.

I entered qualifying for the U.S. Senior Amateur at Old Tabby Links on Spring Island near Hilton Head Island, S.C. We’ll jump to the end and tell you that I didn’t make it and now we’ll fill in the blanks without taking you hole-by-hole, for which you’d need a cart or caddie fees.

I walked into my friend and club repair guru John Gamble’s shop one afternoon and said, “You might think I’m crazy, but I’ve entered U.S. Senior Am qualifying.”

“Not crazy at all,” he replied, even though he’s seen me play. “It’s the purest examination of you as a player and as a person.”

And I knew that he was absolutely right. I didn’t enter because I thought I could get in the tournament. I did it because I wanted to stretch and test myself. My USGA Handicap Index is 1.5 and, believe it or not, that’s not good enough to compete at a national level. I’ve determined that you need to be a plus-handicap to qualify for national events.

Here’s why: A career day for me is something in the 60s, which I’ve only done a handful of times. A good day is a score from 70-73. An ordinary day is 74-77 and a lousy day is 78 and higher. Competition adds about four shots to your normal score, so you can do the math and it would take a career day to get me into a national championship or even into Carolinas Golf Association events, but more about that later. It’s no secret that in golf, we’re selling hope as much as anything else.

We had 60 players for four spots at Old Tabby Links and a score of 74 played off for the final spot. I threw a smooth 80 at them and they didn’t even flinch. In other words, I had an ordinary day when you add the extra shots for competition.

The course was set up at just over 6,700 yards (we’re seniors, for goodness’ sake) and the fairways were soft, so it was playing about 7,000 yards. The par-5s weren’t reachable and there was only one driver-and-wedge hole. I don’t make many birdies with 6- or 7-irons and I didn’t make any that day. Two double-bogeys and no birdies and sooner or later it adds up to 80.

Even at that, I finished in about the middle third of the pack so I didn’t completely embarrass myself. But I did find out some of what I needed to know about me. I don’t mind saying that I had difficulty controlling my 56-year-old nerves.

Even though I was in a twosome with my new friend Al and no one else was watching, I was as nervous as I’ve ever been. That cost me a stretch of four holes late in the front nine with two doubles and two bogeys, which took me right out of the running.

I also discovered why they’re referred to as elite amateurs. It’s because of their ability but, in addition, it’s because they can afford it. Playing in this qualifier was not cheap. Entry fee is $125 and I stayed in a Bluffton hotel the night before because Hilton Head is not in driving distance to make a 9:30 a.m. starting time. That cost another $100. Mandatory cart fees for the practice round and the competition round was $25 per day. And the 500-mile round trip cost me a little more than a tank of gas, which runs about $65.

So, all told my qualifying experience totaled just under $350. That’s some expensive golf and I can’t afford to do that very often. I did get two rounds at a really good golf course and an experience that I can’t duplicate anywhere else.

Three days later, I was playing in the qualifier for the Carolinas Senior Amateur. It was dramatically cheaper. The entry fee was $80 and the cart fee was $25 for the practice round, which I didn’t play, and for the qualifying round.

I didn’t make that one, either, shooting 77 to miss by three. I hit 11 of 13 fairways and hit 15 greens but took 38 putts, which left me looking for a pistol. But given my accuracy at short range, I would have missed me and hit someone else.

If I am going to keep trying this, I am going to have to find a way to feel comfortable in competition. Bobby Jones once said, “There’s golf and then there’s competitive golf, and the two have nothing to do with one another.” Most golfers have trouble taking their driving range game to the course. I have trouble taking my casual golf to competition.

But I did play with my new friends Jimmy and Bill at the Carolinas Senior Am qualifying. And I came to find out later that Bill is actually Father Bill, a Catholic priest. The good news is that I didn’t swear the entire round, at least not where he could hear me.