Congratulations to Hunter Mahan!

The PGA Tour returned to some semblance of normalcy yesterday with Hunter Mahan's victory at the Bridgestone Invitational at Firestone Country Club, and it didn't come any too soon!

For months now professional golf has had one relatively unknown player after another win tournaments, including two majors, with the television ratings dropping as a result. Not only did a name player, and an American, win at Firestone, but the next six place finishers included five recognizable American players and one two-time U.S. Open winner.

Now things are getting better on tour. With the PGA this week, the last of the four majors of the year, I hope this trend continues.

And what happened to Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson this last week? Tiger understandably is still fighting his mental demons from his private life even though he is blaming it on something else, lack of practice. When your mind is troubled in golf, it is even hard to concentrate on practicing.

Phil played fairly well for the first three days, but then his having to play Callaway equipment caught up with him one more time, and he ballooned to a 78 on Sunday, one higher than Tiger's 77! And these are the two best golfers in the world?

With Phil, it is just one more example of golf equipment companies trying to pull the wool over the golfing public's eyes, paying tour stars millions of dollars to tell the world that Callaway golf equipment is the best, while each player's game suffers from having to play Callaway.

It reminds me of the days when I worked the Senior Tour back in 1991 through 1994, when Callaway first introduced its Big Bertha driver on tour. I watched the likes of Chi Chi Rodriguez, Jim Dent, Bob Murphy and Jim Colbert try the Bertha on the driving range, and one after another had its face cave in! The Callaway tour reps said, "No problem, here's another one!"

The same was true of the Callaway irons at the time. The players complained that they could not work the ball left to right, or right to left. Callaway rushed to solve the problems the tour players had with the irons while at the same time they were advertising to the public in golf magazines and on television how many tour players were playing those irons!

For a game that advertises how golf teaches us honesty and integrity, I wish there was some honesty and integrity among the equipment manufacturers.

Then, and only then, will golf truly become the greatest game ever played.