Does it really matter that a victory in the WGC-HSBC Champions won't count as official on a PGA Tour player's resume, or that the money earned in the tournament won't count toward the money list?

Some think so, as this headline in the Mail indicates: "Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson caught in political storm in Shanghai."

The writer Graham Otway notes that when the WGC events were established in 1999 the major tours around the world agreed that the tournaments would count as official in each of them, yet PGA Tour Commissioner ruled that that would not be the case on the PGA Tour this year.

"As a result, the world's first- and second-ranked players [Woods and Mickelson] found themselves caught in the middle of a power struggle between their own US Tour and the rest of the world's," Otway wrote.

The vote here is that it is much ado about nothing. The HSBC Champions did not gain WGC status until the end of April. Better not to change the rules in the middle of the season. Presumably, it will count as official in the future.

Moreover, money spends the same whether it's official or unofficial. The results, too, count toward the World Golf Ranking, which is more important than the money list.

Then there's this: A final round featuring the two best players in the world vying for the championship doesn't require anyone's imprimatur other than own. Woods and Mickelson give it stature, not Finchem.

-- John Strege

Peter Stone in the Sydney Morning Herald recounts in Sunday's paper how in 1975 Jack Nicklaus donated the modest appearance fee he received for playing in the Australian Open to the purse give it more heft, bringing the total prize money to $35,000.

The Australian Masters purse this week is $1.5 million, while Woods is receiving a $3 million appearance fee.

"Would Woods do the same as Nicklaus this week?" Stone asks in conclusion. "Dream on."

In fairness to Woods, no one else today would follow the Nicklaus example, either.

-- John Strege

That's the headline on golf365.com from the Carlos Franco Invitational Stella Artois 2009 in Asunción, Paraguay.

Tournament host Carlos Franco shot a 79 in the Carlos Franco Invitational at Carlos Franco Country and Golf Club. Hence, Franco flops in Franco at Franco.

-- John Strege

Late in the first round of the WGC-HSBC Champions, Renton Laidlaw of the Golf Channel noted that rounds were approaching the five-hour mark. Five-hour rounds with a 78-player field?

Much has been made about China as golf's next frontier and the importance of the HSBC Champions in Shanghai having been designated a World Golf Championship event, thus enticing the best players in the world to China. All that is true, of course, but interminably slow play is probably not the best way to sell the game to neophyte golfers and golf fans.

-- John Strege

Sports Business Daily is reporting that the new LPGA event in Los Angeles in 2010 will actually wind up in north San Diego County, at the La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, once the site of the PGA Tour's annual Mercedes Championship and later the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship.

Is the LPGA sure it wants to be doing this? Apathy was always an issue when the men played at La Costa, even with Tiger Woods in the field -- hence the the Mercedes Championship wound up on Maui and the Match Play Championship moved to Arizona. Why would anyone believe the LPGA would deliver a different result there?

The LPGA Classic presented by J Golf, as the tournament apparently will be known, ought to have stuck to its original plan, to play in the greater Los Angeles area, where the enormous Asian population might have been a boon for a tour laden with Asian stars.

On the bright side, a new event played anywhere is a welcome development for the LPGA (or any other tour, for that matter).

-- John Strege

It must be that at that age they don't yet know how difficult the game is. How else do you explain (talent notwithstanding) how Mariko Tumangan of Presentation High shot a 10-under par 62 on the East Course at Rancho Canada Golf Club in Carmel, Calif., to win the California Interscholastic Federation-Central Coast Section for the second straight year?

Tumangan had six birdies and back-to-back eagles, one of them when she drove to the fringe of the green on the 277-yard, par-4 11th hole, then made a 35-foot putt. She had no bogeys on the 5,278-yard layout to win by seven strokes. Among CIF-CCS past champions is Christina Kim, who now is on the LPGA.

Last July, Tumangan, then 15, qualified for and played in the U.S. Women's Open.

-- John Strege

At least it is Down Under, where Woods will play next week in the Australian Masters in Melbourne.

To accommodate those in Sydney who can't watch him play live, two sites will broadcast all four rounds on big screens, at no cost. More than 100,000 are expected to watch Woods' rounds there each day, the Daily Telegraph is reporting.

-- John Strege

The perpetual presence of Tiger Woods atop the World Ranking may have given the impression that the U.S. is the dominant force in men's golf, but as John Hopkins of the Times (U.K.) notes, there are actually more Europeans in the top 20 now than there are Americans.

Victories by Ross Fisher in the Volvo World Match Play and Ian Poulter in the Singapore Open last week jumped each into the top 20, giving Europe nine players in the top 20 to America's eight. Each has five players in the top 10.

Of course, the ranking is still top heavy with Americans, who rank one (Woods), two (Phil Mickelson) and three (Steve Stricker).

-- John Strege

Or not, given that neither likely know how to play Chinese chess. Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson appear here at a Chinese chess table in a publicity photo shoot for the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai this week.

-- John Strege

(Photo by Getty Images)