What's So Grand About PGA Slam?

Angel Cabrera, Lucas Glover, Stewart Cink and Y.E. Yang got together Tuesday and Wednesday in Bermuda to play 36 holes of golf.

They did this because each year the PGA of America invites the season's four major championship winners to some exotic site, puts up a boat-load of money and calls it the Grand Slam of Golf.

In the best of years, the ones when Tiger Woods shows up, the event can be mildly interesting because there always is a chance television will show a brief glimpse of "Privacy," the 155-foot, $28 million yacht he might have anchored in the harbor.

Most of the time, however, you get what this week so whole-heartedly provided: A reminder that golf all too often is its own worst enemy.

A good rule of thumb: If the final results do not count, there's no reason to care.

Golf, however, never has been able to grasp such a concept and continually cheapens its product with an off-season that never shuts down. If it's not the Grand Slam, then it's the Skills Challenge, or Skins Game or People vs. Pros.

Golf's off-season has become so cluttered there no longer is enough off to go around. The PGA Tour is still playing -- the Frys.com Open is this week in Scottsdale, Ariz. -- but it's 5 o'clock somewhere, so it must be time for the Silly Season.

Still need convincing?

Wednesday's PGA Grand Slam of Golf title went to Glover. The U.S. Open winner shot 65 on Tuesday and 66 Wednesday to win by five shots and collect $600,000.

He arrived in Bermuda Monday afternoon and never played the golf course until teeing off in competition.

Advantage, Lucas.

"Well, truthfully, yeah, because might not have known where some of the trouble was," he reasoned. "I think that's true on any course. Sometimes you can over think."

Sounds reasonable. Certainly the same logic will work next year when Glover makes his first appearance at St. Andrews for the British Open. You will recognize him on Thursday morning of tournament week, standing in the car park asking for directions to the first tee.

Yang, who came from behind in the final round of the PGA Championship to overtake Woods, wasn't nearly as crafty as Glover. That explains shooting 71-70, finishing last and collecting $200,000.

He showed up already tired.

"I'm not at my top condition," he said. "The jet-lag going around the world has taken a toll on me a little bit. But I tried my best."

All this is not to suggest nothing noteworthy came out of the two days in Bermuda. Quite the contrary. Fascinating about Port Royal Golf Course, site of the event, was its maintenance crew.

Four Chinese Muslims once confined to prison cells as suspected terrorists at Guantanamo, helped prepare the ocenside golf course for its big week.

Held at Gitmo for seven years following capture in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001, the Uighurs were released in June and moved to the British island territory. The have been working at the golf course on a temporary basis since, but nothing says permanent career move like the praise of a contented visitor.

"As far as the scenic views, the water here is just astonishing, the color of it, when the sun shines," Cink said. "Looking out over the eighth green and ninth tee, the entire 16th hole, it's amazing seeing that. It's hard not to let your mind sort of be distracted.

"On the 16th hole there were some parrotfish, the water is so clear you could see them. They are three or four feet, and easy to spot because they are dark colors. Some have really bright green tails and all different colors."

Just grand.

No, Grand Slam.