Phil Mickelson's Stand against Cell Phones?

We all know the drill: When you're watching a tournament live, the golfers demand absolute silence when they tee off. Like, hold-your-breath-till-they-swing silence.

But since this is 2012, and not 1952, times are changing on the golf course. Specifically, many tournaments now permit cell phones. (They did in 1952, but you had to install your own telephone poles and string your own wire, so most fans didn't bother.) And most cell phones now have cameras. You see where this is going: Even though people silence their cell phones, they somehow forget to silence the "shutter click" of their cameras.

Around Phil Mickelson's pairing on Thursday at the Memprial, the cell-camera-clickers made a noise with every swing like a thousand crickets being stepped on at once.

"It took Phil out of his game," playing partner Bubba Watson told the AP. "Phil's a great player and a great champion and it just took him out of his game. It's sad. It's sad that cell phones can make or break a championship."

"There were a few phones out there," Rickie Fowler, the third member of the group, said. "There were a few times when we had to back off and reset. You could see Phil was a little fatigued and was having trouble blocking it out a bit."

Mickelson didn't point to shutterbugs as the reason for his withdrawal; instead, he cited exhaustion. While it may be true, it's a rather weak defense, and one that likely doesn't sit well with tournament host Jack Nicklaus. Let's be honest, friends: The worst day playing golf is better than the best day doing pretty much anything else. After shooting a 79, Mickelson would have needed to bring out a 62 or so on Friday to make the cut; why not play one more day?

So it's likely not the cell phones' fault that Phil is out; Mickelson generally doesn't have much of a problem saying what's on his mind, and he's aware enough of his place in golf history, and his responsibility relative to Jack, not to make a stand on such an issue.

Still, it's not going away. Watson, who despite his newfound green jacket fame still has a bit of a prickly personality at times, was pointed in his critique of cell phones. "It's been pretty bad ever since they made that rule [allowing cell phones on the course]," he said. "When they make these marquee pairings, more people are going to follow them and more people want to take pictures. So it makes it very difficult. Ever since they made that rule that cell phones are allowed, it's just not fun playing."

That's going a bit far, perhaps, but Watson has a point. You could say golfers are too nitpicky, and perhaps they are, but the issue isn't the sound itself, it's the suddenness. And when you need to keep your body working within millimeters, disruption can be costly indeed.  As with everything else, there's a sweet spot here; getting people to figure out how to silence their camera shutters is now a necessity on the golf course.

Then again, maybe this is for the best. Ten years from now, golfers will have adapted to screen out the noise of cell cameras. They'll have something else to gripe about then, surely, but it won't be this.

Rory's #1 Ranking is new...as is his Body

Rory McIlroy has the swing and the temperament of a champion.

Now he has the body to go with it.

As McIlroy rose in the past 4 years from skinny teenager (below) to U.S. Open champ to the world No. 1 ranking -- thanks to Sunday’s heart-pounding victory over Tiger Woods at the Honda Classic -- his body and bearing changed as well (right).

His secret: bringing modern science to bear on the ancient game, and working on his legs and core muscles so he wouldn’t mess too much with a classical swing that Jack Nicklaus calls “the most natural motion in the game today.”

That, plus some inspiration from his girlfriend, No. 2 ranked tennis star Caroline Wozniacki. McIlroy found the way professional tennis players practice almost humbling.

“They work so hard,” says McIlroy, who good-naturedly joined Caroline and Maria Sharapova on the court at Madison Square Garden during an exhibition match Monday night. “That sort of made me realize that I could probably work harder, and gave me a little bit more motivation to go in the gym and hit more balls. It’s definitely paid off.”

After more than 15 years of domination by the hard-sculpted, hard-swinging Woods, the golf world is accustomed to fit golfers. McIlroy, by comparison, presents a slightly more approachable image: 5-foot-10, 160 pounds -- but with muscles that only began appearing in early 2011.

His posture and physique changed under the direction of Steve McGregor, Ph.D., a British trainer who previously worked with the burly-yet-trim Lee Westwood, no. 3 in the world. 

McIlroy made it clear in an interview with Men’s Healththat his new body is the foundation for his success. 

Truth & Rumors: Schwartzel wants BBQ for Masters dinner

Reigning Masters champion Charl Schwartzel doesn’t want to just host this year’s Champions Dinner -- he wants to prepare it. The 27-year-old has visions of grilling up a braai [right] -- a sampling of traditional South African meats -- under the iconic oak tree outside the clubhouse. Call it Pit Masters: Augusta National Edition. Global Golf Post has the details:

“We’ve put in the request and are still waiting to hear from them,” Schwartzel said. “But I’d love to be able to braai there. I want to braai everything myself, but we just have to see if that will be possible with the number of people there. I could end up with a very sore hand at the end of an evening turning all that meat.”

Schwartzel has already started planning his Masters braai. “I’ll keep it very simple. Ideally I would like to have a few lamb chops, some fillets and of course some boerewors (a traditional South African sausage).”

According to Scott Michaux of the Augusta Chronicle, Schwartzel would be the first champ to trade his green jacket for a green apron:

In general, the club balks at outsiders cooking in their kitchens. Other than Vijay Singh famously bringing in a prominent Atlanta restaurateur to prepare his Thai menu in 2001, Augusta National has used its own chefs to prepare whatever the host champion desires (with the possible exception of Sandy Lyle’s haggis).

New year, same old Phil

Phil Mickelson picked up his 2012 season pretty much right where he left off his 2011 season. An eagle here, a three-putt there, tee shots everywhere. It all resulted in a two-over 74 at the Humana Challenge on Thursday, a discouraging opening round at La Quinta Country Club that included a pair of out-of-bounds tee shots. Mickleson looked at the bright side: 

"The round wasn't indicative of how I know I was playing. I've been playing really well heading in. I played well the front nine, made some good birdies."

"And then the back nine those couple out of bounds, one was a matter of two feet and a couple of inches on the other and those could have been a big difference."

Mickleson, who dabbled with a long putter toward the end of last season, has returned to an Odyssey blade, which is “very similar to the putter I grew up with as a kid just going back to that type of freer motion.”

“I feel really good with the putter. And that was the one area that I was concerned with. I spent the whole off-season working on that, deciding on the direction I was going to go, with what putter and what have you.

“I'm trying to make, I feel like I can make everything on the greens. I had a couple 3-putts ... my speed was off on a couple, but really excited with the way it was transpiring and given the way I've been hitting it the last couple years I know I'll get that fixed and I can start shooting some numbers.”

Lefty's last win came the week before the Masters, at the Shell Houston Open.

Tiger says he’s executing “all the shots”

Hank who? After 17 months under the tutelage of swing coach Sean Foley, Tiger Woods says the Tao of Foley is finally clicking in an interview with ESPN's Bob Harig.

"Last year at this time I didn't truly understand what Sean was trying to teach me," Woods said. "I was very one-dimensional in my ball striking."

One-dimensional? Where does that leave the rest of us?

“I had this baby draw, didn't have a fade, and when I got to Dubai, my second tournament, the wind was howling and I couldn't hold the ball up against the wind with a fade.”

"One of the things we had to work on through the year was hitting all the shots. It didn't really start happening until the fall. I started picking up some good, positive momentum with the exhibitions I did in Asia, Australia and then winning [the Chevron World Challenge]."

Woods also revealed the genesis of his much-ballyhooed pairing with Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo in next month's Pebble Beach pro-am.

"He called me when I was in Australia [in November] and asked me if I was playing Pebble," Woods said. "And I said yes.” He said, 'I'd like to throw my name in the hat as a possible pairing.'

“I thought about it…"

What’s to think about? Who’s a better option? Darius Rucker? Kenny G?

"…and then I called him a day later and said, 'All right, you're in if you want to be in.'"

Gee, Tiger, way to make a guy feel good about himself. Romo later admitted that he hadn’t been that nervous since he asked Betty Finkelstein to his seventh-grade dance.

Tweet of the Day

John Daly runs out of balls during tournament, walks off course after Tin Cup-esque hole

The casual golf fan absolutely loves watching John Daly when he's in the tournament field. Want to know why? It's because he's the everyman golf pro; sure, he's going to have his moments of sheer brilliance, but sooner or later you know he's going to do something that will make you say "Hey, I could do that."

Well, friends, Daly had another one of those moments on Thursday at the Australian Open. Playing in the event on a sponsor's exemption, he had the opportunity to pocket a nice check at a world-class tournament in Oz.

But in typical Daly fashion, he found a way to ruin the tournament's generosity in spectacular fashion. After knocking his ball into a bunker on the 10th hole, Daly inadvertently hit the wrong ball out of the sand -- hard as it is to believe, the ball he hit was actually one from the range -- to take a 1-stroke penalty. That's where things went horribly wrong.

Frustrated with the penalty on the 10th, Daly came unglued after hitting his first ball into the water on the par-5 10th hole. After taking a drop, Daly then hit six more balls into the water. For a brief moment, it seemed like golf fans were watching a real-life "Tin Cup" moment.

The only problem was that unlike Kevin Costner's character, Daly didn't hit his seventh, and final, ball on the green. It found the water, leaving Daly without a ball. He immediately shook the hands of playing partners Hunter Mahan and Craig Parry and stormed off the course.

"[W]hen u run out of balls u run out of balls. yes, I shook my player's partners hands & signed my card w/rules official," Daly tweeted on his Twitter account.

Things got even worse when Daly's girlfriend, Anna Cladakis, took a swipe at a television camera, leading the Golf Channel announcers to lament the entire situation, as a camera followed Daly off the course.

Of course, tournament officials were extremely unhappy with Daly's antics. Trevor Herden, the tournament director for the Australian Open, told reporters at the tournament that Daly wouldn't be coming back to Australia anytime soon.

"I would say this would be the last time we see John Daly," he said.

Taking things to an even lower low, Brian Thorburn, CEO of PGA of Australia, made it clear that Daly shouldn't even bother hanging around to play the Australian PGA Championship, on a special invitation, in two weeks.

"The PGA does not need this kind of behavior tarnishing the achievement of other players and the reputation of our tournaments. John is not welcome in Coolum," Thorburn said in a statement.

If Daly hadn't burned all of his bridges yet, he certainly burned every one of them in Australia. There used to be a time when Daly was one of the marquee names in the game, but in recent years, he's turned into nothing more than a sideshow that people come to mock.

This was another incident that made you realize he's no longer good enough to contend on a weekly basis. If anything, he's just wasting a spot in the field. Running out of golf balls in a professional tournament should tell everything you need to know about the state of Daly's game. He's turned into a complete joke