Notebook: Finchem gets four-year extension to stay on as commissioner

PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem has received a four-year contract extension, keeping him in charge of golf’s biggest tour through 2016.

Finchem has been commissioner since 1994. He suggested last year that he might be willing to stay on the job after his contract was up in 2012. The extension was approved by a policy board of five independent directors and four player directors.

Finchem is 64, meaning he will be 69 if he chooses to stay for the length of his new contract.

He is coming off a demanding three years of an economic crisis in which the PGA Tour remained fully sponsored and recently signed a nine-year television deal with CBS Sports and NBC Sports.

GLOVER OUT AGAIN: Lucas Glover has withdrawn from the Sony Open with a sprained right knee that still is not strong enough for him to play golf.

Glover injured his knee when he took an awkward spill off a paddleboard upon arriving on Maui for the season-opening Hyundai Tournament of Champions. He withdrew from that tournament, but thought he might be able to play the Sony Open because Waialae Country Club is a relatively flat course and easier to walk.

The former U.S. Open champion hit three wedges and a 9-iron on the practice range Wednesday and realized his knee still wasn’t ready. He planned to return home to see another doctor and give it more rest, and hopes to be able to play the Farmers Insurance Open in two weeks at Torrey Pines.

BLANK SLATE: Scott Piercy’s hat looks like a blank billboard, which is about what it is.Piercy has Titleist on one side of the hat and FootJoy on the other. The front was supposed to be another corporate sponsor but the deal fell through. Piercy, the Reno-Tahoe Open winner, wasn’t going to give it away for free.

“We had a couple deals that looked like they were going to close, and they fell through at the last minute,” Piercy said. “As everyone knows, it’s tough out there right now. The deals that we did have weren’t the greatest, so we decided to keep it blank.”

Piercy said he had a few offers, but “we didn’t get anything that we felt was fair.”

The hat deal didn’t sour his mood -- not in the least. Piercy made his first trip to the winners-only Hyundai Tournament of Champions and tied for 12th after a rocky start.

Next up is the Sony Open, and Piercy already has noticed a change that comes with winning. He has a two-year exemption on the PGA Tour and no longer feels he has to rush into the year.

“It’s nice not to play for three months and have the first tournament be one you can kind of work into it, instead of showing up at Sony and having a so-so day or two and you’re going home,” he said. “You have a so-so day or two here, you still have the weekend.”

At Waialae, the course will be filled with rookies eager to get going.

“They’re like, `Oh, man, I finally made it to the PGA Tour.’ We’ve all seen that. I’ve done it,” he said. “As a rookie, you’ve got to kick butt on the West Coast, and everybody but the rookies know it. So it’s nice to ease into the year.”