Your Saturday golf tour update: Lee Westwood is running the show at the Dubai World Championships, owning a two-shot lead after three rounds. He's also leading Rory McIlroy in the hunt for the Race to Dubai championship. If Westwood takes both the tournament and the race, he'd become Europe's No. 1 player and pocket a handy $2.75 million. McIlroy was within one shot, but collapsed to fall five strokes back after three rounds. Ross McGowan is in second place, and Padraig Harrington and Alexander Noren are in third with McIlroy.

Meanwhile, things aren't quite so rosy in Houston at the LPGA, where rain has caused no end of havoc.  The second round is supposed to go off Saturday afternoon, but persistent rain could push the tournament to Monday or shorten it. Lorena Ochoa is currently leading with a six-under 66, but hasn't played a shot in her second round yet.

Stay tuned for more updates!

We're at the end of the decade of the 2000s, and so we're looking back on the highs and lows of the decade. And today, it's definitely about the lows -- the most painful coulda-been chokes from the last 10 years. How would the golf world have been changed had any of these gone a different way? We'll never know. Read and cringe.

1. Phil Mickelson, 2006 U.S. Open. For a brief moment, it appeared Phil Mickelson was ready to challenge Tiger Woods for the title of best golfer in the world. He had a two-shot lead on 16 and a one-shot lead on 18, but spanged his drive off hospitality tent, then dinged his second shot off a tree trying an overly aggressive shot. Agonizing moments later, he'd surrendered the Open to Geoff Ogilvy in one of the most painful collapses in golf history.

2. Sergio Garcia, 2005 Wachovia Championship. Sergio had a six-shot lead going into the final round, but gave it all away in the worst collapse since Greg Norman's 1996 Masters meltdown.

3. Kenny Perry, 2009 Masters. All he needed to do was make par on one of the last two holes. He bogeyed both. All he needed to do was drain a reasonable putt on 18. He missed. But like #10 on this list, being a great guy doesn't keep the Choke Monkey off your shoulders.

4. Thomas Bjorn, 2003 British Open. Bjorn had a two-shot lead with three holes to play, but double-bogeyed 16 and bogeyed 17 to gift-wrap the Open for Ben Curtis. 

5. Greg Owen, 2006 Arnold Palmer Invitational. Owen all but had the Arnold Palmer Invitational wrapped up when he three-putted the 17th from about two feet out. Owen would bogey the final hole, giving Rod Pampling the surprising win.

6. Matt Gogel, 2000 Pebble Beach. Gogel was seven strokes up on Tiger Woods with seven to play, and ended up losing in one of the most dramatic collapses in the face of a Tiger charge ever.

7. Stewart Cink, 2001 U.S. Open. Cink missed an 18-inch virtual tap-in that kept him out of a playoff at the U.S. Open. But as you may have heard, he did okay on another 18th-hole putt that led to a playoff a few years later.

8. Suzanne Pettersen, 2007 Kraft Nabisco. There are ways to win a tournament, but going bogey-bogey-bogey-double bogey over the final four holes isn't one of them.

9. Lorena Ochoa, 2005 U.S. Women's Open. Standing on the 18th tee with a chance to either win with a birdie the Open or at least get onto a playoff, Ochoa utterly grounded her driver and skulled the ball into the water to the left of the tee. Her approach ended in the grandstands, as did her tournament hopes with a quadruple bogey. 

10. Tom Watson, 2009 British Open. Oh man, was this hard to put on this list. Watson's 2009 Open was almost the best day ever in golf. But when all he had to do was make par on 18 -- and when he left short a winning putt that he's made a million times before -- what else is there to say? Take the emotion out of this -- and believe me, we wanted Watson to win, badly -- and replace Watson's name with any other golfer on Tour, and you'd call it a choke without a second thought.

Also receiving consideration: Tiger Woods at the 2009 PGA, Colin Montgomerie at the 2006 U.S. Open, Sergio Garcia at the 2008 British Open, Michelle Wie failing to sign her card at the 2008 State Farm Classic.

Your turn. What did we miss? What belongs higher (or lower) on this list? (And no, if we were in the position of these folks, we would have done even worse. So would you.) You're up!

Welcome to the latest episode of the Devil Ball Golfcast, where today we're trying something new, something I think you'll dig. Shane Bacon of Dogs That Chase Cars is joining us today and every week for as long as we can hold onto him to talk golf and life.

Today, Shane discusses caddying for Erica Blasberg at the LPGA Tour Championship, as well as his own pro tour experience. (Yes, folks, he's a blogger who's actually played a sport! Amazing!) We also talk Michelle Wie and Tiger Woods, and finish with a discussion of the guy you least want in your golf foursome.

As always, we welcome your thoughts, ideas, and recommendations on the podcast. Hit me up at jay.busbee@yahoo.com. And if you've got a question or comment for Shane and I to kick around, call our Skype line at 678-389-9173 and leave your message. Click the little arrow below to play the podcast or right-click it to download, and hit the iTunes site linked below to subscribe. Have at it!

Devil Ball Golfcast, Episode 25 -- The joys of carrying somebody else's bag

Michelle Wie's Salvation of the LPGA will have to wait until next year, as she's withdrawn from the LPGA Tour Championship because of a sprained left ankle.

Wie first hurt the ankle at the Solheim Cup this past summer, and said it had been bothering her on and off ever since. She played well in the opening holes of the Tour Championship, getting as low as three under through 12, but then had trouble on tee shots. After an hour of treatment, she called it a tournament and a season.

Wie, of course, caused all kinds of controversy back in 2007 when she may or may not have had a wrist injury called by a fall; not that it really matters, but she was off the course for awhile and had trouble once she returned. Conspiracy theorists guessed that she'd fabricated the injury to take time off from the game, and maybe she did, but bottom line -- as with many other elements of her game, it seems Michelle has learned a lesson or two, and this injury certainly appears legit.

That weeping sound you heard last night? Yeah, that was the LPGA brass, crying at the ratings bonanza that just vanished into the ether. Sure, it'll still be a dramatic weekend of women's golf -- stop giggling, I'm not being sarcastic -- but Wie would've brought in that many more viewers. Ah, well. Get well soon and start fresh in '10, Michelle.

Wie withdraws because of ankle injury [AP via Yahoo! Sports]

We're at the end of the 2009 season, and we're taking a look back at how the top 20 on the money list fared. Next up: Dustin Johnson.

Coming into 2009: 2008 was Johnson's first year on Tour, and he made a splash right off the bat by winning the Turning Stone Resort Championship. 

High-water mark: Johnson took the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am in a win shortened by rain. It was the best of five top-10 finishes. He wrapped the year 15th on the money list with nearly $3 million in earnings.

The low point: Johnson was arrested for DUI in March. but immediately said he'd learned his lesson. A couple weeks later, he played at Augusta for the first time, ahd he's been a model citizen since.

Outlook for 2010: Strong. Johnson finished the majors season with a tie for 10th at the PGA Championship, and he's set up well to have another solid season in 2010.

Related Dustin Johnson posts from 2009:
2009 hasn't been kind to rookies on the PGA Tour
Hey, ho, Pebble Beach has got to go

Coming into the season, many golf observers were picking Martin Kaymer as a breakout star. By the summertime, everything was lining up well for the young German, as he won the Barclays Scottish Open and the French Open in consecutive weeks.

But then came August, and an ill-fated trip on a go-kart. He wrecked and broke several toes, and just like that put a huge dent in his chances to win the Race to Dubai. 

He entered the current Dubai World Championships in third place, more than $330,000 behind leader Rory McIlroy. Now, he could still win the championship and the monstrous Race to Dubai, but it's much harder now. Lee Westwood and Ross Fisher are also in the mix.

If Kaymer wins, he becomes the youngest Vardon winner since Bernhard Langer in 1981 -- though, it must be pointed out, McIlroy would be the second-youngest of all time, behind the 19-year-old Seve Ballesteros in 1976.

Regardless, Kaymer is poised to be one of the major players on the golf scene for the next few years ... though it sure sounds like he's not giving up the golf carts: "It was just unlucky," he said. "It was not my fault. It was the fault of the other driver. He crashed into me and pushed me into the guys in front ... I'm sure I will do it again in the future and have fun."

All right, then. Well, for now, Kaymer in a tie for 22nd, six strokes off the lead, after the first round. Good thing there aren't any carts on the course.

Bringing you the best in golf news and opinion. Get up to date on your way to the first tee.

• Robert Allenby is off to a first-round lead at the Dubai World Championships, with Lee Westwood and Rory McIlroy lurking close behind. Drama! [PGA.com]

• Speaking of McIlroy -- how well will the young lad fare once he comes to America in 2010? [Armchair Golf]

• Mostly Harmless gives us a comprehensive breakdown of the 2010 LPGA schedule. Impressive work, and a more optimistic view than most. [Mostly Harmless]

• Would it be worthwhile to combine all the money won on all tours into one big global money list? [Golf Digest]

• A new take on the Doug Barron-vs.-PGA Tour debate. As we predicted, this one is ugly and getting uglier. [The Golf Channel]

Got a link/tip? Hit us up at jay.busbee@yahoo.com and follow us on Twitter. 

Fascinating scientific study out of Northwestern University's Kellogg School – turns out that Tiger Woods does indeed have the mojo to work over the entire rest of the field after all.

Professor Jennifer Brown analyzed every single player in every PGA tournament from 1999 to 2006, and found scientific and psychological proof for what every television broadcaster and viewer has known all along – the presence of Tiger Woods in a tournament has a dramatic and measurable effect on the performance of other players. (Visor tip to Press Tent and The Frontal Cortex blog for the find.)

Brown found that playing against Woods significantly decreased golfers' performance. When Tiger was in the field, other golfers' games increased by an average of 0.8 strokes, and that figure increased when Tiger was playing well. In other words, everybody in the field is giving Tiger a stroke to start with ... and it gets only worse from there.

Brown suggests that the "competitors scale back their effort in events where they believe Woods will surely win" – in other words, they're thinking, screw it – second-place money will still make me rich. Over at The Frontal Cortex, Jonah Lehrer takes the opposite tack – that competitors try too hard and run out of talent or, put more indelicately, choke. Interestingly, David Feherty offered this exact same explanation in our interview with him last year:

What the hell kind of hold does this guy have over the rest of the field, anyway?

That's it, it's a hold. You might be the second-best guy in the tournament, but then you watch him make some unbelievable shot. And you're thinking, I can't just do that ... I've got to do better than that. I lay up here, I'm going to look like a total [kittycat]. So Tiger birdies the hole or eagles it, you make a stupid shot and bogey or double-bogey it, and that's how the gap widens. That's how the pattern goes over four rounds of a tournament.

So there you have it – statistical proof that Tiger Woods gets in the heads of the rest of the field and sets up camp. Shoot, by this point he's probably built housing developments.

Tiger 101? College prof explains the 'Woods effect' [Press Tent]
The Tiger Woods Effect [Frontal Cortex]

Bringing you the best in golf news and opinion. Get up to date on your way to the first tee.

• Breaking down the value of Michelle Wie's win from a marketing perspective for both her and the LPGA. Short answer: it kinda helps just a wee bit. [Bloomberg]

• And still on the LPGA beat -- Ron Sirak's five-part plan for breathing new life into the LPGA. This makes an awful lot of sense, and it's worth a read. [Golf Digest]

• PGA/LPGA caddy Bill Harke holds a unique distinction in sports -- he caught Tom Brady's first-ever pass, way back in high school. [Out of Bounds]

• Two mens' victors this weekend, two sets of conforming grooves. Maybe this whole grooves-ban thing won't matter as much as everybody thought. [CBS Sports]

• The short, happy life of a golf ball retrieving tool. [Hooked on Golf]

• The Vice President snuck in a few holes of golf in Vegas, even though The Golf Club at South Shore initially told him that it was members-only. One phone call -- which I'm sure was not threatening at all -- and the veep was on. [Local Knowledge]

Got a link/tip? Hit us up at jay.busbee@yahoo.com and follow us on Twitter. 

Each week, Five To Watch breaks down the most significant players and storylines for the upcoming weekend's tournament. We're not saying these guys will win, or that you should pick them for your fantasy team; we're just saying you ought to keep an eye on them. You never know what might happen. Today, we've reached the end of the line with the LPGA. For this season! That's it!

Michelle Wie: Of course. You expected any different? After this past weekend, we now expect Michelle Wie to win every single tournament from here on out, and if she doesn't, she's a total failure. Hey, that's the price you pay for winning.

Jiyai Shin: One of the best stories of the year, the Rookie of the Year and money list leader could grab the Player of the Year title too.

Paula Creamer: She's still looking for her first win of the year, a 2009 in which the Pink Lady was buffeted by stomach trouble for much of the season. A disappointment? Perhaps, but one she could erase with a strong showing this weekend.

Lorena Ochoa: It's been as anonymous as a year can be for a three-time winner and current reigning No. 1. She could close out the year on a high note and cement Player of the Year, or she could fall short and wrap what would be, for her, a down year.

Cristie Kerr: She's got an outside chance at the Player of the Year, accordng to Hound Dog, but that's not particularly likely. Still, picking her won't make ya look stupid, as she's in the top 3 in scoring average, money and POY points.

Check Mostly Harmless and Links Life for more previews of the LPGA Tour Championship, and tune in all weekend. Now, make your own picks! Go!