Is Feherty allowed to assist players?

Having opened the day with a five-stroke lead, Tiger Woods had fairly staggered to the finish line, accumulating three bogeys in the last five holes in winning the $1 million first prize in last Sunday's NEC World Championships in Ohio. It was through a deft bit of course management that he had played the final three holes to hold off (by a single shot) the challenge of runner-up Phil Mickelson.

What had particularly struck us was the air of near-serenity with which Woods had approached the 16th tee after going bogey-bogey on the previous two holes. It had almost seemed as if he were, well, clairvoyant. After all, the tournament lead was - at that moment at least - theoretically tied, but Woods played the 16th as if he still had a comfortable cushion - or as if he somehow knew Mickelson had caught a tree with his second shot to the final green and was about to drop a shot there.

When the winner met with the press at the conclusion of the championship, I determined to ask him about it.

"At that point, you had no way of knowing Mickelson was in trouble on 18," I began.

"Ah, but I did know," Woods interrupted.

"How?" we wondered.

"Feherty," replied Woods, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

The one-word explanation spoke volumes. David Feherty, in his new career as a television analyst, had drawn the assignment of following the lead match involving Woods and reporting its progress from hole to hole. He would have been wired to a headset and fully informed of what not just Mickelson but every other player still on the course was up to at that moment. The revelation was so obvious and so simple that the denizens of the interview room, including this one, chuckled in unison and moved on. No more was said about the matter.

Given a night or two to sleep on it, however, I found the episode increasingly troublesome for at least a couple of reasons.

One was that it seemed to exemplify a disturbing trend in which journalists, particularly the television variety thereof, can influence the conduct of events they are supposed to be covering, and potentially influence the outcome as well. The other was that if Feherty had done what Woods said he had done, it struck me that it was uncomfortably close to violating the sacred proscription on the matter of giving and receiving advice from anyone other than one's caddie, as spelled out in the Rules of Golf.

A few days later I phoned Feherty in Texas, where the Irish former Ryder Cup player now lives, and asked him about it.

Feherty readily acknowledged that while Woods was failing to get up-and-down on the par-three 15th he had told his caddie, Steve Williams, that Mickelson was about to make "bogey at best" on the 18th. Feherty also said that after Woods had negotiated the long 16th in par, he told both Woods and his caddie that Mickelson had indeed made five on the last.

Armed with this knowledge, Woods proceeded to make an adventuresome birdie on the penultimate hole, and then milked his two-shot lead for all it was worth, cautiously taking three shots to reach the 464-yard 18th as he happily made bogey to win the tournament.

"The rule is against giving advice, but there's no rule against providing information," explained Feherty. "He'd want to be in possession of every bit of information available. Tiger is a friend of mine and so is Steve Williams, but in fairness, Mickelson is as well. I've done the same thing for Phil in the past, and would have this time had the situations been reversed."

Depends. The Rules of Golf rather obliquely defines both terms:

"Information on the Rules or on matters of public information, such as the position of hazards, or the flagstick on the putting green, is not advice," says Rule 8. " `Advice' is any counsel or suggestion which could influence a player in determining his play, the choice of a club, or the method of making a stroke."

It seems to me there's a pretty fine line here, and I'm still not sure we haven't crossed it. Feherty, however, seems persuaded that his role is covered by the allusion to "public information".

"The information is right there on the scoreboard for everyone to see," said Feherty. "In that respect I'm just another scoreboard. Live television is the ultimate real-time scoreboard."

Feherty went on to explain that his function as an on-course reporter requires a two-way exchange of information, particularly with the caddie.

"I need to be able to report what club the player is hitting and how far he's got to the pin," said Feherty, who considers the exchange only fair. "All I'm telling him is what millions of television viewers already know."

At the same time, it would be hard to argue that the information thus provided didn't influence Tiger's play in this case.

Since trading in his golf clubs for a headset and microphone, the erudite Feherty has become enormously popular with American television audiences. His droll wit has won him a legion of admirers, and the week before last he was the subject of a glowing profile in Sports Illustrated.

And, for obvious reasons, he remains one of the more popular commentators among the players themselves. After all, he was one of their own.

"As I said, Tiger and Phil are both friends of mine, and I've done this with both of them before," said Feherty. "There are certain players on the tour for whom I wouldn't necessarily volunteer information, but there would never be a situation where a player asked me for information and I'd refuse."

"As long as the question wasn't something like, `Which way is this putt going to break?' " we supposed.

"Believe me," Feherty said with a laugh. "I'm the last one these guys want reading putts for them."