Shane Bacon from Dogs That Chase Cars and Devil Ball Golf joins the show to talk about the state of golf with and without Tiger and planes landing on fairways. Yes!

But first, Nick is back on Skype and we talk about Federer getting to the Aussie Open final against Andy Murray. It’s on at 3:30AM on Sunday, so I’m debating waking up to watch the match, which leads to the question of what sporting events would you wake up at 3:30 in the AM to watch? World Cup, for me. The Super Bowl? Olympics? Let us know.

GOLF:

Shane Bacon and I talk about the story where a plane landed on a fairway. I guess if you’re plane needs to land, a golf course is the smartest place to do it. So we talk about the strangest things either of us have seen on a golf course. And I get to tell my story where I almost killed a bird. Good times.

We dissect Phil Mickelson’s quotes about Tiger Woods, calling them ‘good friends’ and discuss the timing of said comments -- to lead off his press conference before an update about his mother and wife battling cancer. We think it was shrewd to bring up Tiger before family because after you mention the family stuff, it’s hard for a reporter to go back to Tiger talk.

We talk about when Tiger will come back, how many tournaments we expect him to play and if that has any impact on Phil’s plans this year. Does the PGA need star power to keep people’s attention? Obviously. Can Phil provide that, and will Tiger decide to play more tournament once he gets back out on the course and realizes that playing golf is the only time people will leave him alone.

Or will they? With the fan walking onto the court at the Aussie, we talk about how easy it is for a fan to walk around the course on the PGA tour and talk to the players. It’s just a thin rope separating them! How will the PGA police things when Tiger comes back? What if people start to yell in his backswing in an effort to sabotage him? What’s the over-under on attractive women who run out onto the fairway/green to hug him so everyone takes their picture? I set it at 15, which is probably more than two per tournament.

Maybe someone should just land a plane on the fairway while he’s trying to hit a shot.

Talkin’ Baseball:

The Baseball Prospectus PECOTA rankings are out! Christmas for seamheads! Nick and I discuss how we love stats, yet they scare us.

Housekeeping:

We talk briefly about the Paul Shirley thing. He made a few good points before going completely batshit insane. And his “I’m sorry if you were offended” response was necessary, but not very well done either. He assumes we didn’t understand his point and that people are taking it out of context. No, we got it perfectly clear, and as a writer, you have to know whatever you say that’s inflammatory will always get taken out of context. It just usually doesn’t make everyone hate you because you have no heart.

Thanks for listening.