Word on the street has Tiger Woods making his triumphant return to the PGA Tour as soon as February, which must've been wonderful news for arch-nemesis Phil Mickelson. No, seriously. You see, the world's No. 3 player admits that he pines for those halcyon days of watching Woods blow away an entire field while everybody watched on helplessly.

"The entire golf world cannot wait for his return. I miss him as a player. I miss him as a person. And I miss trying to track him down because that is always a great challenge."

Lefty does admit that he blew a great opportunity to make up ground on the hobbled Woods last season, and has spent much of the winter trying to rectify his putting woes. I blame his short-game coach and resident egghead, Dave Pelz. Honestly, Philbert doesn't need fancy-pants gadgets, he needs to quit doing stuff like this. I'm pretty sure there isn't a golf robot on the planet that can fix Lefty's above-the-neck issues.

Whatever, Mickelson could still make a dent in Tiger's lead early next year. Despite Mark O'Meara's proclamations, it's not clear when Woods will actually return, and even when he does, you'd have to expect him to be rusty. I know, this is Tiger we're talking about, but between caddying and building golf courses, there hasn't been a lot of time for working on his game.

Which means we should only expect him to win one major in 2009. And definitely no more than two.

It sure isn't "John Daly comes out of nowhere to win the PGA Championship"-style news, but anything that doesn't involve Daly and too many brewskis is worth reporting.

Daly, who made a whopping five of 17 cuts this season on the PGA Tour, is actually in contention at the Hong Kong Open, firing a first-round 68 to find himself in a t-16 after day one. Daly opened with a sub-par 70 round twice all season in the U.S., so anything in the red at this point has to be a move in the right direction for the wing expert.

"I'm not too disappointed, being a little rusty. I haven't played in a month. Two under par on the first round here is pretty good. I'll take it" the 42-year-old American told reporters.

Daly made five birdies and three bogeys at the Hong Kong Golf Club and averaged a whopping 314 yards off the tee, which probably was made more manageable by his 10 of 14 fairways hit in the round.

His 2008 season has been absolutely pitiful, and the golfer now ranked 788 in the world understands that. In a way only Big John can make workable, he compared his season to ... Australia?!?

"My drought hasn't been quite as bad as Australia and the water situation, but it's been close. You just keep fighting and keep working on it.''

Interesting approach there for Daly, to compare his golf came to a liquid drought. There are almost too many beer jokes there to pick the right one. I almost went with, "the North Carolina Hooters can feel Australia's pain," but I thought it was too easy.

Anyway, there is your story. John Daly, back in the swing of things.

She isn't just the queen of golf, she was the LPGA when golf hit its boom. Annika Sorenstam was the female equivalent of Tiger Woods when Tiger became the face of the sport and not surprising, the two became competitive buddies.

Sorenstam, in news that has to make golf fans a little disappointed, is stepping down from the game this week in her final event as a full-time LPGA member, at the ADT Championship. Just 38, Sorenstam made the announcement in May to leave competitive golf because she, like so many other prominent females, has made the difficult decision to trade the birdies for the babies.

Annika's legacy is undeniable. She burst on the scene in 1995 with a U.S. Open victory that she successfully defended the following year. A product of the highly successful University of Arizona women's golf department, Sorenstam took some years to find that major championship touch again, but find it she did.

From 2001 to 2006, Sorenstam won the same amount of majors as Tiger has in any six-year stretch of his career. Annika claimed eight out of the possible 24 majors, putting her career total at 10 and placing her fourth all-time in major victories on the LPGA.

Although you probably come to FanHouse for your business news, you don't need me to tell you that the economy is currently in the Thomas Crapper and things don't look to improve anytime soon.

It's gotten so bad, in fact, that the LPGA will have fewer tournaments in 2009, and worse yet, as a cost-cutting measure, some PGA events might do away with courtesy cars. Buick is the official car of the men's tour and, according to the AP, has provided courtesy cars to virtually all PGA events for years.

Parent company General Motors posted a $2.5 billion quarterly loss earlier this month, which brings us to the current predicament.

You can play golf many ways, but the rules only give you two paths -- you either follow them and earn respect or break them and become that guy.

At the second stage of PGA Tour Qualifying School, where nerves go to die, J.P. Hayes became a guy we can all respect a little more. A 43-year-old journeyman that has won on both the PGA Tour and the Nationwide Tour, Hayes was trying, like thousands of his golfing peers, to make it through the second stage of Q-School to the all important final stage, where you either get another crack at the PGA or the solid consolation prize of the Nationwide.

Hayes won't be getting either. This is because he broke one of the many rules in golf that can cause you to be disqualified. Hayes played a non-conforming golf ball for one hole in the first round, and figured out he'd broke a big rule while laying in his hotel room a day later.

On his 12th hole of the first round at Deerwood Country Club last Wednesday, Hayes' caddie reached into his golf bag, pulled out a ball and flipped it to Hayes, who missed the green with his tee shot. He then chipped on and marked his ball. It was then that Hayes realized the ball was not the same model Titleist with which he had started his round. That was in violation of the one-ball rule, which stipulates that a player must play the same model throughout a round.

"I realized there was a penalty and I called an official over," Hayes said. "He said the penalty was two shots and that I had to finish the hole with that ball and then change back to the original ball."

Two-shot penalty, no big deal, Hayes still shot a 74 after the penalty strokes and followed that up with a 71 in the second round. That was when he came to this horrible realization while hanging in his digs that he had done more than just evoke a two-shot penalty. Hayes might be in danger of disqualification.

It's the tradition that will not die. You win a major sporting event, any sporting event, and you either get a call from the President or a visit to the White House.

On Monday, the United States Ryder Cup team, months off fresh off their win over those pesky Europeans, took a trip to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to visit our good pal George W. Bush as what could be the last sports team to make an appearance with His Stumbleness.

Only seven of the 12 members of the team showed, with no real report on why the others didn't make. Phil Mickelson, Anthony Kim, Kenny Perry, Steve Stricker, and fellow Texan Justin Leonard decided not to show their face around Bush, which always makes you wonder what the motives behind the shunning were.

Bush did say that he watched "every minute" of the Ryder Cup, which bodes well for the leader of a country that is in such stable condition right now. I hope he was at the ranch when he watched the golf. That is really the only way to enjoy a nice game of white ball on the tele.

Team captain Paul Azinger said afterwards that meeting with Bush was the "icing on the cake," which means Azinger was about 4,000 times more happy to have Bush around than anyone at the Republican National Convention would have been.

Hey, don't get mad at me, blame McCain. Or the economy. Yeah, blame the economy for my Bush jokes.

In golf news these days, there are basically two things to talk about -- Tiger Woods and Tiger Woods' bum knee.

The top golfer in the land (as of now) has been quoted as saying he has absolutely no clue when he will be back on the links in top tournament form, but Mark O'Meara said he could see Tiger being back as early as February.

"Tiger is doing really well and he is pleased with the way the operation went," said O'Meara.

"I'm afraid the (Dubai Desert) Classic (on Jan 29) is coming round a little early for him to be able to defend his title. That's a real pity. He is going to aim for a return in late February or early March.

He is not going to start hitting balls until the end of December so it would be pushing it for him to come here in January. I imagine he will make his comeback in one of the Florida tournaments. His plan is to play a couple of events before the Masters [in April]."

Good news for golf nuts who are also not huge fans of their lungs -- Michael Jordan and his cigars will be playing in the Golf Digest U.S. Open Challenge next season at Bethpage Black.

Jordan will be joining Justin Timberlake, or as we call him round here, Mr. Big Bertha, as two members of the Challenge that puts three celebrities and one random golfer together to try and take on the U.S. Open course the week before the tournament.

"Oh, this was a difficult yes," says Jordan. "I've been in a little slump with my golf swing and haven't been playing well for the last couple of years. I had the shanks -- real bad. Now that I've gotten rid of them, I finally feel comfortable over the ball again. This will be another great challenge for my competitive nature."

Last week, Callaway Golf announced that they had signed Justin Timberlake to a sponsorship deal. Timberlake isn't a professional golfer (does anybody not know that?) but he dated Brittney Spears, was a member of 'N Sync, and loves golf. Hardly seems like a reason to sign a celebrity to a club deal, but I'm not a marketing whiz, so what do I know.

Tom Rotunno, on Darren Rovell's CNBC blog, writes that "Timberlake won't be used in Callaway advertising, [but] he will play a full complement of Callaway Golf clubs, golf balls and will carry a bag branded with the company's logo."

Terms of the deal weren't announced, but assuming that actual money was involved, I'm not sure how the few hundred people who see Timberlake on the course every year toting a nifty new Callaway bag will put much of a dent in sales.

But Timberlake is a celebrity and sometimes that's all it takes. Rotunno talked to the brainiacs behind the Davis-Brown Index (according to Wikipedia, DBI "is an independent index for brand marketers and agencies that determines a celebrity's ability to influence brand affinity and consumer purchase intent.") to run the numbers and here's the deal:

You know, being racist is a bad thing, I'm sure we all can agree. But, being racist on live television? Yeah, that's going to get you a little heat.

Sky Sports reporters, when broadcasting the HSBC Champions last week from Shanghai, China, thought they had run into Anthony Kim the night before at the hotel. Yeah, that's fine. Not being sure if it was him because, "all these Chinese people" were around, is not.

Richard Boxall and Bruce Critchley are golf announcers on Sky TV and worked last week's HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, won by Sergio Garcia. But the most jarring moment came when the pair were talking on air about rising American star Anthony Kim.

"With all these Chinese people around, I'm not sure if I bumped into him [Kim] in the hotel reception last night," Boxall said. "I'm not sure if it was him."