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Golf notebook: Tiger Woods talks about return; Phil Mickelson named as "relief defendant" in insider trading case

By Tom LaMarre, The Sports Xchange
Tiger Woods spoke about his return to golf this week at a media event for the Quicken Loans National in Bethesda, MD. File photo by Frank Polich/UPI
Tiger Woods spoke about his return to golf this week at a media event for the Quicken Loans National in Bethesda, MD. File photo by Frank Polich/UPI | License Photo

--Tiger Woods hosted media day for his Quicken Loans National, which will be played next month at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md., and didn't offer any new perspective on when he might return.

And he showed he might not be that close to being ready.

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Woods took part in a closest-to-the-pin contest against two veterans from the Wounded Warrior Project, and dumped three consecutive wedge shots into the water from 102 yards.

"Boy, that was stiff," said Woods, who didn't have a warm-up before taking the shots. "Holy cow."

Earlier, Woods fielded questions for about 15 minutes to publicize his tournament, which benefits Tiger Woods Foundation.

Of course, reporters mostly wanted to know about his return from three back surgeries.

"I have been practicing at home and am progressing nicely," said Woods, who would like to play in the U.S. Open next month at Oakmont. "I'm hoping to play; I don't know if I'm going to play. That's the overriding question I keep hearing: 'When are you playing?' I get it all the time.

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"If I knew, I would tell you because it would be fun to know. It would be nice to know that I am going to play on such a date, but I don't know. ... People have written me off. I'm not fertilizer. As far as my golf, I'm progressing, I'm getting better. Just give me a little time."

Woods said he is getting stronger every day but his practices from this point forward will have to be more focused. He doesn't plan any marathon range sessions or running dozens of miles per week, as he did in the past.

In his last event, he tied for 10th in the Wyndham Championship in September.

--Phil Mickelson has been named as a "relief defendant" in a federal lawsuit that accuses two others of insider trading.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed charges against Thomas Davis, the former chairman of Dean Foods, and noted sports gambler Billy Walters, accusing both of "repeated and very profitable insider trading" tied to the Dean Foods stock.

According to Reuters, as a relief defendant, Mickelson is not accused of any wrongdoing, but "has received ill-gotten gains as a result of others' illegal acts."

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According to the lawsuit, Mickelson had a history of placing bets with Walters and owed him money when, in July 2012, Walters called Mickelson and conveyed "material nonpublic information" regarding Dean Foods stock, which he "urged" Mickelson to purchase.

Mickelson did so the following day, purchasing approximately $2.4 million of the stock in three brokerage accounts. It marked his first-ever purchase of Dean Foods stock, and according to the lawsuit his collective brokerage balances before those transactions was less than $250,000.

The stock in question rose 40 percent about a week later on the heels of strong second-quarter earnings, allowing Mickelson to make $931,000 in profit.

According to the lawsuit, federal authorities requested that Mickelson "disgorge ill-gotten gains and pay pre-judgement interest thereon."

The SEC later confirmed that Mickelson has agreed to pay a total of $1,037,029.81 -- the profits, plus interest, for the stock trade in question.

"Phil has not been charged with insider trading," Mickelson's lawyer, Gregory Craig, said in a statement. "Phil was an innocent bystander to alleged wrongdoing by others that he was unaware of.

"Phil is innocent of any wrongdoing. He was only charged as a relief defendant, which means he did not violate, and is not charged with violating, the securities law."

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In another statement, Craig said: "The complaint does not assert that Phil Mickelson violated the securities laws in any way. On that point, Phil feels vindicated. At the same time, however, Phil has no desire to benefit from any transaction that the SEC sees as questionable. Accordingly, he has entered into an agreement with the SEC under which he will return all the money he made on that 2012 investment."

--Members of the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, which runs Muirfield Golf Club in Scotland, recently voted not to allow female members, and the reaction of the R&A was swift.

Muirfield, a fixture in the rotation of the Open Championship, will not host the oldest tournament in the world as long as its no-women policy is in place.

"We have consistently said that it is a matter for the Honourable Company to conduct a review of its membership policy and that we would await their decision," said Martin Slumbers, chief executive of the R&A, which manages the third major of the year.

"The R&A has considered ... the decision with respect to the Open Championship. The Open is one of the world's great sporting events and going forward we will not stage the Championship at a venue that does not admit women as members.

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"Given the schedule for staging the Open, it would be some years before Muirfield would have been considered to host the Championship again. If the policy at the club should change, we would reconsider Muirfield as a venue for the Open in future."

The vote to allow female members at Muirfield required a two-thirds majority for the Honourable Company to change its bylaws, but only 64 percent of members voted to include women.

Muirfield, located in Gullane, Scotland, has hosted 16 Open Championships, the first in 1892. The most recent was won by Phil Mickelson in 2013.

The only other club on the British Open rotation that doesn't allow women members is Royal Troon, site of this year's event. Troon recently consulted members on allowing females, and a vote is expected.

The Royal and Ancient Golf Club at St. Andrews opened its membership to women in 2014. Augusta National, home of the Masters, did so in 2012.

--Vandals recently damaged the 14th green at the Golf Club of Houston, where the Shell Houston Open on the PGA Tour is held every year.

The club is making made a public plea for any leads or information leading to identification of the two white males who apparently caused the damage by driving ATVs around the green.

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"To those of us that play golf, understand how terrible this is for a golf course and especially to our superintendent and his team," a post on the club's Facebook page said. "They work hard."

The 14th, a 215-yard par-3 from the back tees, was the only hole on the property damaged.

"If anyone can help find the morons who did this to golf club of Houston please do so," Shawn Stefani, a PGA Tour pro who lives in the area, wrote in a Twitter post. "Whoever does gets a (TaylorMade) M1/M2 driver."

On New Year's Eve, the 16th hole on the course was damaged, apparently by a car doing donuts on the green.

The superintendent's staff had the green repaired by the time Jim Herman won the Shell Houston Open by one stroke over Henrik Stenson of Sweden last month.

--The Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, the game's oldest governing body, is taking on one of the biggest problems in modern golf -- slow play.

The R&A published a new manual for clubs and golfers offering guidance on how to improve pace of play.

"Individual players can, of course, have a negative effect on pace of play, but that effect may be relatively insignificant when compared to the impact that course management practices and ill-considered course setup can have," an R&A spokesman said.

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After research showed that 60 percent of golfers, particularly younger participants, would enjoy the game more if it wasn't so slow, the R&A began to look at ways to make the game faster.

Three key issues were identified: management, course setup and player behavior.

The R&A places most of the blame for endless stop-and-start rounds at the feet of the people who run golf courses, not the players themselves. The R&A suggest that crowded scheduling and difficult setups are largely responsible for slow play.

The manual aims to alleviate these and other issues.

The R&A's new nine-hole championship competition, which will take place ahead of the Open Championship in July at Royal Troon, represents another, simpler solution -- play only half the course.

--The USGA announced that two-time U.S. Open champion Retief Goosen of South Africa received a special exemption into the tournament on June 16-19 at Oakmont.

Goosen earned his first major victory in the 2001 U.S. Open in a playoff over Mark Brooks at Southern Hills, then added a second title when he won three years later at Shinnecock Hills.

The 10-year exemption he received for the latter win expired in 2014, but Goosen earned a spot in last year's field at Chambers Bay through sectional qualifying.

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"I am incredibly grateful to receive a special exemption into the 2016 U.S. Open," Goosen said. "It is, of course, a very special championship for me, having managed to win it twice, and I am delighted to know that I will be in the field again this year."

Goosen, 47, has seven PGA Tour victories in his career, the last coming in the 2009 Valspar Championship.

This is the first time the USGA has offered a special exemption into its marquee event since 2010, when Tom Watson, who won the title in 1982 at Pebble Beach, and Vijay Singh, who won three majors but not the U.S. Open, received spots in the field at Pebble.

Hale Irwin remains the only player to win the U.S. Open while playing on a special exemption, having done so in 1990 at Medinah.

--Fans attending the PGA Tour's Greenbrier Classic this summer will see the golf free of charge, thanks to an ongoing political battle involving Jim Justice, owner of the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.

According to a report in the Charleston Gazette, Justice also announced that a concert series that would have included the likes of Keith Urban, Blake Shelton and Bon Jovi was cancelled.

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This reportedly is part of a larger initiative by Justice, who is running as a Democrat for governor of West Virginia, as he looks to have state legislators remove the state's $1.75 million sponsorship of the golf event.

Justice hopes to use the money to recruit new business to the state.

According to Justice's campaign, he annually pours between $9 million and $13 million into the production of the tournament, where he sometimes hands out cash to spectators who witness a hole-in-one.

"In these tough times, I am doing my part by finding a way to make it all work and promote our state to the world," Justice said in a statement. "Studies show that, for every dollar spent by our state to promote tourism, at least six dollars are returned.

"I refuse to listen to the Republican leaders beat up on me. Therefore, I am refusing the state's participation."

The Greenbrier Classic will be played July 7-10.

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