Notebook: Open Season at Pebble Beach

A week of notes, quotes and golf gossip ...

There's always something special about golf on the Monterey Peninsula, but the fascination level gets dialed up even more for this week's AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am because of the U.S. Open's return in June.

Nine times previously, a venue has hosted a PGA Tour event and major championship in the same year. This week's event will be the sixth time for Pebble Beach. Riviera in L.A. did it twice, and Torrey Pines, once.

And while conditions, course set-up and the slew of celebrities who are competing will make this week considerably different than the summer return visit, it's never a bad thing to increase local knowledge.

This week's field has attracted a list of 16 major championship winners, including Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh and Davis Love III.

Also of interest, Sergio Garcia is making his PGA Tour season debut this week.

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

There's nothing funny about what has happened to Tiger Woods, except, of course, all the stuff that makes you laugh.

Like this: Joslyn James, the porn actress who's among the list of Tiger Belles, reportedly is upset because a Canadian company has put her portrait on a golf ball that is being marketed as the "Mistress Collection."

The match set is a dozen balls emblazoned with pictures of everybody's favorite home wreckers, including party girl Rachel Uchitel, waitress/reality TV show star Jaimee Grubbs and Perkins Restaurant manager Mindy Lawton.

Being an adult-film vixen is one thing, but being pictured on a golf ball is too much exposure for James.

And she's not going to take it, uh, lying down.

"I feel that it is wrong for a golf ball to have my picture on it because golfers hit their golf balls with a lot of force," she said in a story that appeared in the New York Post.

"As a victim of violence myself, it bothered me to think that someone would be standing with a dangerous club in their hands hitting a ball with my photo on it."

James did not detail the abuse she claims to have endured. And there was no immediate reaction from the manufacturer.

Better Fields by Legislation?

A golf tournament is only as good as its field, so anytime a particularly large chunk of top-line players skip an event, a lot of head-scratching and theorizing usually follows.

One of the ideas that is continually mentioned is PGA Tour legislation that would require all members to play at every tournament site at least once every four seasons.

In theory, it sounds logical -- eventually, every tournament sponsor is rewarded with an appearance by every star.

Ernie Els, however, is one player who does not believe it would work.

"The guys that are playing here and there, the guys that mean a lot to the tour, you don't want to start trapping them," Els said. "That's not going to work. That's going to backfire, and you're probably going to lose players."

Rocco Mediate provides the opposing view.

"I've always thought that every couple years you should have to play pretty much every event," he said. "Not every event, but if you skipped San Diego last year, you need to play every two or three years, which I think is not asking that much. Whether it be Tiger or whether it be me or whether it be whoever ... it doesn't matter where you are in the food chain we'll say, you should have to play certain events."

Goydos a Smart Pick

U.S. Ryder Cup team captain Corey Pavin announced four assistants -- Love, Tom Lehman, Jeff Sluman ... and Paul Goydos.

At first glance, that seems like New York, Chicago, L.A. and Omaha.

Lehman, Sluman and Love are major champions. Goydos has two career wins, period, and never finished in the top 10 at a major.

Love has played in six Ryder Cups and Lehman three, in addition to serving as a captain. Sluman has made numerous appearances as an assistant on U.S. teams.

Goydos? He used to be a substitute high school teacher.

So let Pavin explain the selection.

"Paul Goydos with his lack of team experience makes him an ideal choice," the U.S. captain said. "He is unconventional, thinks outside the box, and is an excellent judge of character and talent. Paul is also well-respected amongst his peers. He will give me his untarnished opinion, which no doubt will have his unique stamp on it."

Goydos quickly lived up to the advance billing, when asked his opinion of Michael Jordan being invited to assist last year's U.S. Presidents Cup team by captain Fred Couples.

"All due respect, I don't get the Michael Jordan thing," Goydos said. "I don't get it. He's a nice guy, but I don't know what he has to do with golf other than he's tall."

Enough to Make a Cheesehead Spin

Nobody in golf dislikes Steve Stricker. The Wisconsin native is friendly, respectful and a reflection of the middle-class working-stock that is his roots.

So his victory Sunday at Riviera CC was widely applauded -- except for a lot of folks back in Wisconsin whose Cheeseheads exploded after Stricker was asked to weigh in on the Super Bowl, the NFL and a former Green Bay Packers quarterback.

"I'm actually a Bears fan," Stricker revealed. "I kind of liked when (Brett) Favre was sticking it to the Packers."

More Tiger Speculation

That unsubstantiated report from a week ago that said Woods would return to golf at next week's Accenture World Match Play event outside Tucson, Ariz., is looking less and less credible.

First, few observers believe Woods, who last week reportedly completed his stay at a sex-addiction clinic, would return to competition without more time to prepare.

But more telling, whenever Woods decides to return, he is going to need a caddie.

And long-time bagman Steve Williams is emphatically denying any plans.

''The stories stating Tiger will return at the match play have no truth to them,'' Williams recently told the Sydney Morning Herald.

A new trendy rumor is that Woods might choose the unofficial Tavistock Cup to warm up before making his first tournament appearance at tightly confined Augusta National for the Masters.

The Tavistock Cup is an annual match played in Orlando between the tour members from Lake Nona and Isleworth. The two-day competition is aired on Golf Channel, but played on the two private country clubs, meaning only members are present.

Around the Green

Golf Channel has extended the contracts of analysts Frank Nobilo and Brandel Chamblee, reaching agreements that will keep both at the network through 2014. ... Alex Prugh is the leading rookie money-winner so far this season. Prugh is the only player to post top-10 finishes in the three California PGA Tour events -- a fifth-place at the Bob Hope Classic; a T5 at the Farmers Insurance Open and a T10 at the Northern Trust Open. ...

Former U.S. Amateur champ Ricky Barnes posted rounds of 66-71-69-69 to finish at 9-under par and finished ninth at Northern Trust. It was his first top-20 finish since he made a run at the 2009 U.S. Open title, where he was the second- and third-round leader, but shot a 76 in the final round to finish T2. ...

Jason Bohn posted five consecutive birdies during the final round Sunday in Los Angeles en route to a 65 (-6). It matched the longest birdie streak of the season (set by six other players). Bohn ended the round with his only bogey of the day but still finished T10, his first top 10 since August.