The Golfer's Wife

Weekend Update

First the Pros. If you recall I said it would be nice if John Daly made the cut, and Rocco and Woody Austin finished high enough to get enough Ryder Cup points to make the team. And how did things turn out? John Daly didn’t make the cut. Neither did Woody. And Rocco did okay Thursday and Friday, but fell apart over the weekend. Both Rocco and Woody actually dropped down in Ryder Cup standings. A TGW curse perhaps?  Naaaaw. At least not until a longer trend line emerges. For now, I am just a bad judge of golfers.

Padraig Harrington won. This is his second major this year ( he also just won The Open Championship, if you recall ). He is having a very good year. Which is well deserved. And once again let me just point out, he has the cutest kids.

The final groups on Saturday got rained out. So they had to play 36 holes on Sunday. Sergio made a run. A really good run. In fact by hole 15 he was ahead by 3 strokes and the tournament was his to lose. Which he proceeded to do. Although not as badly as he has before. His putting is still much better than it was. He just hit some bad shots. He was playing with Padraig, who also made some bad shots. The difference was Padraig recovered from his bad shots better than Cutie Pie. But, Sergio kept playing, and actually hit some great recovery shots. Just not as great as Padraig. And he didn’t give up, as he has been want to do. He kept fighting till that final putt. And it was the final putt that won it for Padraig. When it was over he didn’t whine and pout either. He basically said ‘I played good, but he played better. But my game has improved and I’m happy with what I did, plus I secured myself a spot on the Ryder Cup team and that was very important to me.’  He didn’t play with quite the maturity and brilliance he showed in TPC, but it was definitely the new Sergio, not the old whiny one. Slowly he is maturing. Next year I think he will be a force to be reckoned with. Of course next year Tiger will be back so……

Now for me. You remember I was playing in a Rally for the Cure tournament, right? The results? Out of 36 teams, we came in 5th. Not too shabby, eh? Especially since I was on the team. Our final score was 58. Now lets pretend you have actually been paying attention to what I have written on this blog, and are not just reading it to humor me. You will look at that 56 and say ‘Wow TGW. A REALLY good round for a pro on the tour is a 69. A 58 is fantastic. You must’ve played the game of your life!’
Well, no. Let me explain.

First off, it was a scramble. Modified. We had to use 2 drives from each team member each nine holes. But that still means we got to use the best shot of the 4 the rest of the time. That will lower a score. Then there were the ‘extras’. The whole point of the tournament was to raise money. To raise even more money, they sold Mulligans( basically a do-over. See the glossary.), and putting strings. Each player could buy 2 Mulligans and 5 feet of putting string. Now I understand Mulligans. If you hit a bad shot, you get a do-over. And I thought I understood the putting string. The way I thought it worked was you used the string for gimmes. A ‘gimme’ is when you make a putt, and the ball just misses the hole. Stops 6 inches short, or goes left 2 inches at the last second. And the person you are playing with says ‘I’ll give ya that one.’. Meaning they are assuming you will make that final small putt, so you don’t have to actually putt it. YOU STILL HAVE TO TAKE THE STROKE ( she says in capital letters because some people seem to think a gimme means you don’t even take the stroke. AND THEY ARE WRONG. You know who you are. ). Here is something you will learn if you play golf: there is no such thing as a sure putt. Even if it’s only a one inch putt, it can be missed. And has been, even by the pros. That is why it is nice of a playing partner to give you the gimme. Because even though chances may be 98% that you will make the putt, there is still a 2% ( or more ) chance you won’t, and will end up taking 2 strokes instead of the one they just gave you. Generally speaking gimmes are given after you make a long, or impossible looking, putt, and the ball gets thiiiiisss close, but not in. The other player is impressed that you even got that close, and as a sort of pat on the back, gives you the gimme. Also generally speaking, gimmes are putts of less than 1 foot.
And obviously no gimmes are given during tournaments.

So that is what I thought the string was for. The team could decide that certain putts were gimmes, and every time you did that, you marked off the length of the putt on the piece of string. When you ran out of string, no more gimmes. Seemed semi-legal. And it was a just-for-fun tournament. So, okay. Only that’s not how the putting string worked.

Here is how the putting string worked. You pretend the ball you just putt went in the hole. If it stopped 2 feet short, you marked 2 feet off your putting string and, and here is the ‘this is soooooo wrong part’, DON’T TAKE THE STROKE. I can not tell you how WRONG that feels. To just not count what would be a stroke. There was much grumbling, and discussion, but in the end we did use the putting string. Between the 4 of us we had 20 feet. 20 feet worth of strokes we didn’t count. Please don’t tell the golfing gods. I’m sure there is some horrible punishment awaiting us if they ever find out. Although hopefully the fact that it was for a good cause would get us some leniency.

And so between the string and 2 Mulligans each, we logged a 58. There was one 54, one 56, and two 57’s ahead of us. All in all it was considered a successful outing, even though none of got a hole-in-1 on the hole where the prize was a trip to play at Bay Hill ( Arnie’s Course. Yeah, have to be golfer to appreciate it. But you would have heard us screaming all the way to, well, wherever you are, if any of us had won. ). The prize for the team in last place was lessons at the McGetrick Golf Academy. Assuming the prize is the same next year, we are changing strategy. No string, no Mulligans. And of course me. Last place for sure.

Weekend Update

There was a lot of golf this weekend.

Let’s start with the Reno-Tahoe open. Michelle Wie missed the cut. Again. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

Vijay Singh held on to win the Bridgestone Invitational, despite not being able to make the short putt. General consensus is he has ( said in a very soft voice, after looking around to make sure no one can hear ) the yips. I sincerely hope that’s not true. I have always liked Vijay. And having, well, those, is the absolute worst thing that can happen to a golfer. Someday I will get up the nerve to write a post about, them. Till then, just know that it involves putting, and it’s baaddd, and don’t ever, ever say the word out loud around a golfer. Very bad luck. And I really hope that Vijay was just having an off day, putter wise.

Eduardo Romero won the US Senior Open out here in the Wild West. It was a great tournament. Did you watch it? Here in The Household we watched the Women’s British Open in the morning, and the Senior Open in the afternoon. Pretty much skipped the Bridgestone ( except for me. I watched a little bit on Saturday and Sunday. Had to get my Feherty Fix.). Did you see the bear? Okay, that’s not too common here in the WW. Elk, deer, marmots, foxes, coyotes, hawks, owls, skunks, raccoons, and of course the ubiquitous rabbits and geese. But not usually bears. That was special, just ‘cuz y’all were watching.

And last, but certainly not least, Annika played in her last major. It was not her best tournament, but there were as many cheers for her as for the winner, Ji-Yai Shin, of Korea. Annika admits she just doesn’t want it as much as she used to. And as the season gets closer to its end I’m sure it’s getting harder emotionally to go out there and play. But even though she didn’t stand a chance of wining on Sunday she still went out and played great golf. Unbelievable competitor, and class act all the way around.

Coming up this weekend:  The PGA Championship – the 4th major for the men. Aaaannnnd me. Playing in a Rally for the Cure tournament. The team consists of The Mother in Law, The Golfer, Golfing Offspring #2 ( who is a 15 year old member of her high school golf team, for those who aren’t keeping track ) and Me. Guess who’s the D player?  And I’m only D because they don’t go down as low as F. However, I do look good in pink, so I got that goin' for me.

THE Open, 2008 Final Notes

Well. That was a tad anti-climatic. Unless of course you are Irish, or Padraig Harrington. Harrington won last year as well. He injured his wrist so he wasn’t really supposed to even contend this year. But he played beautiful steady rounds of links golf, and came out on top again. Which was, actually, fine with me ( because of course what I think matters most, and it has to be fine with me or it’s a do over ). And there were lots of interviews so I got to sit there and listen to that wonderful Irish accent. Which I really needed to hear, since there wasn’t David Feherty. And doesn’t Mr. Harrington have the cutest kids? There is nothing in this world cuter than a small child with an Irish accent. Seriously. Anyway.

What happened to Greg Norman? He didn’t play links golf. He didn’t, as has been his habit in the past, actually choke. He just played golf like he was playing on a US country club course. He should have left his driver in the club house. As I said, Padraig Harrington played a text book game of links golf. Stuck to his irons. Kept the ball low. Tried to avoid making bogey instead of trying to make birdies. Which is how you have to do it when the wind is blowing like it was, and you are playing a course full of gorse bushes and pot bunkers. Instead Greg played as he always does. Aggressively. Taking chances. Hoping for the huge hole. Which I suppose, if you’ve played that way for 20 odd years, and it’s made you millions and won you previous Opens, you’re not going to change now. Still. He’s a smart guy, and seeing how things were working for Harrington, you would think he would have made a few adjustments. Ah well. He gets to finish his honeymoon and go on with life with Chrissy, so it’s hard to feel too sorry for him.

And so ends this years, Tigerless, Open Championship.

Next up, The Canadian Open.

The Open, 2008 notes

It’s been cold, rainy, and above all WINDY. In other words, as far as Golfers are concerned, the weather’s been perfect.

But seriously, The Wind. As an example Greg Norman used a 4 iron to hit the ball 175 yards. Normally he would hit an 8 iron for that shot. 4 clubs worth of wind. It’s blowing so hard that the balls are moving on the greens. The R&A were thiiiiiiisssss close to stopping play because of The Wind.

I just love the links course. Tall grass. Gorse. Pot bunkers. No trees. Miss the fairway and chances are good you will never find the ball. The only reason these guys are hitting drivers are because of the wind. Personally I like playing links style courses. Of course I much prefer playing them when it’s 75 degrees and no wind. But when the top of the leader board is +2, you know conditions are tough.

And speaking of Greg Norman(aka The Shark). Wow. 53 years old. Just married Chris Evert. This Chris Evert. He has admitted to playing much more tennis than golf lately. And yet he is leading by 2 strokes. Of course this is also Greg of the famous chokes. He has made a habit over the years of being in the lead on Saturday, and then doing a severe choke on Sunday, and losing. But he has won this tournament twice before, and he knows how to play links courses. And he is happy, and relaxed and golf is no longer THE most important thing in his life. So who knows.

I have mixed feeling about this. I like Greg. And he was/is a great golfer. And he is definitely ‘of a certain age’ and it’s nice to see someone in your own demographic doing well. But. He’s hard to root for on a Sunday, because he has choked so often. And he’s already won this tournament twice. So personally I have to say, while I won’t be unhappy if Greg wins tomorrow, I am rooting for several others.

David Duval was really looking good on Thursday and Friday and I would have loved to see him win, but he fell off pretty bad today, and it will be hard for him to come back tomorrow. So right now I am pulling for either Jim Furyk or Rocco. I would like to see the golfing gods get behind either one of them. However, if the gods decided on either Cutie Pie or Retief Goosen I wouldn’t complain. They all know their way around a links course, and if Greg does his usual Sunday choke any one of them stands a chance.  I like KJ Choi, but the others have paid more dues, and deserve the win a bit more. He can have it next year. Given the weather, how hard the course is playing, the movement of players up and down the leader board today, and Mr. Normans tendency to choke on Sunday, realistically anyone +9 or better has a chance.

In case you hadn’t noticed, coverage is not on CBS, as I thought. It’s actually on TNT/ABC. So I am not getting my David Feherty fix. Which just doesn’t seem right. There ought to be an Irish accent at The Open, don’t you think? Of course I think there ought to be a certain Irish accent at every tournament. But then, as mentioned before, I’m extremely biased. ABC is doing alright. And at least I don’t have to listen to Johnny Miller.

And finally. Most of you probably don’t haven’t noticed this, but ABC keeps playing Irish music. As mentioned previously Golfing Offspring #2 does Irish Step Dancing. As it happens, in my previous life (i.e. before marrying The Golfer ) I played the bagpipes. And GO#3 is following in my footsteps and plays the bagpipes. So I know where-of I speak. The music ABC is playing is Irish. There is nothing wrong with Irish music. I happen to love Irish music. It occupies much space on the iPod. But. This is The Open. This year it may be being played on an English course, but the whole tournament evokes the sports distinctly Scottish heritage. So the least ABC could do is get the music right. Some Wicked Tinkers would be just perfect I think.

Stay tuned. Tomorrow should be a very interesting day.

THE Open

This weekend is The Open Championship. Or simply The Open, if you are A Golfer. The British Open to most of the rest of the world. The Open is the oldest major championship in golf. The first one was played on October 17th 1860 at Prestwick Golf Club, in the town of Prestwick, South Ayrshire, Scotland. So it’s been around awhile.

The first field consisted of 8 golfers. Prestwick was a 12 hole course at the time. The tournament consisted of 3 rounds, all played on the same day. The prize was a magnificent carved leather belt with a silver buckle. The rules around the belt were the same as those around The Green Jacket. It was left at the club and the winner could wear it when they were there. In 1870 Young Tom Morris won for the 3rd time in a row, and was given the belt to keep. This caused a little bit of a problem. A proposal was made that Prestwick join with other clubs to put on the championship, and the cost of a new belt be split between the clubs. This was voted on as a good idea, but, as usual with these kinds of things( the slow pace of decision by committee being even older than the championship), no decisions on which other clubs would be included were made, so the championship wasn’t played in 1871. By 1872 they had pretty much gotten their act together and three clubs had agreed to host The Open – Prestwick, the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, and The Royal And Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews. Each club contributed 10 pounds ( which was a considerable sum in those days ) towards the purchase of a silver claret jug to be given as the prize. They didn’t get their act together soon enough though, and there wasn’t time for the jug to be made before the tournament was played. Young Tom Morris won again in 1872, and was given a medal. In 1873 the jug was present and the winner was Tom Kidd, but Young Tom Morris’ name was the first to be engraved on the jug. That Claret Jug, officially known as The Golf Championship Trophy, has been presented to every winner since then. When referring to The Masters you will hear people refer to it as ‘playing for The Green Jacket’. When they say ‘playing for The Claret Jug’ they are referring to The Open.

Since 1872 The Open has been played at a number of courses in rotation, with only a few courses added and dropped over the years. The current rotation consists of 9 courses: The Old Course at St. Andrews, Carnoustie, Muirfield, Turnberry, Royal Troon, Royal St. Georges, Royal Birkdale, Royal Lytham and St. Annes, and Royal Liverpool. These are all links style courses in either Scotland or England. 

The courses involved shared hosting duties until 1920, when all responsibility for the championship was handed over to The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews. (side note: The R&A if you are A Golfer. Although there is now an actual group officially known as The R&A.  The Royal and Ancient was the ruling authority of golf everywhere except for the US and Mexico, where it is the USGA, until 2004, when that authority was handed over to The R&A. ).

A Scramble That Doesn't Involve Eggs

So you have been playing for a little while now. A few friends know. And your family. But you don’t think you are all that good yet, so you haven’t made a big deal out of it. But apparently one of your friends has been discussing you with one of their friends, because when you are all over at the first friends house for some evening cocktails this friend-of-your-friend says ‘Hey, I hear you play golf. Me too! Listen I’m setting up a team to play in a tournament for charity XYZ. How ‘bout you be on my team?  It’s no big deal. Just a fun tournament for charity. It’s a scramble, you can be our D player. What do you say?’  The friend-of-your-friend is awfully cute/handsome, and you think spending a few hours with him/her playing golf would be a good thing. But A Tournament! And what the heck is a scramble? And is being a D player an insult? So you tell them ‘I have to check my calendar, let me get back to you.’.  And when you get home you head straight to your computer because you are sure TGW can clear things up. And I can.

First of all, charity tournaments can be a lot of fun, and are usually very low pressure. Everyone is there to support the charity, not to win anything. And the people organizing it are very aware of 2 things. 1 – the more people they can sign up the more money they get. 2 – there aren’t that many really good golfers out there. So in order to get a complete field they are going to have to sign up a lot of not very good golfers. And in order to do that they need to make things easy, and take the pressure off.

The first way they do this is to sign up teams, instead of individuals. And there are usually requirements around the make up of the team. The most common requirement is there can only be one A player, and there has to be at least 1 D player. And what is an A player vs. a D player?  Pretty much what you would guess. In the world of the weekend golfer things are divided into the A flight, the B flight, the C flight and the D flight. With A players being the best and D players being the worst. This is true for public courses, private courses and country clubs. The break down for each flight varies from place to place and tournament to tournament. So for the tournament the very cute/handsome FOAF is involved in the requirement for the A player may be a handicap of 9 or better. The B player would be handicap of 10 – 15. The C player 15-25. And the D player may not even need to have a handicap. By setting the requirements up this way the organizers ensure they don’t have a team of A players that run away with things and take all the fun out of it for everyone else. They also avoid a team of all D players that would not know what they are doing, play slow, and ruin it for everyone else. By registering only teams, and setting up team requirements, they usually end up with a field of pretty evenly matched teams. And every C and D player knows that every other team also has C and D players, so they are not a disadvantage to their team. Which takes the pressure off.

Programming Note

The women's US Open starts tomorrow. None of the Tiger-has-bum-knee-go-Rocco-go excitement here. But there will be lots of other excitement. This will be Annika's last Open. Lorena has something to prove. Morgan Pressel is playing very well. And as evidenced by the last two women's events, there are lots of un-knowns in the field waiting to break out. Definitely worth space on the Tivo. And of course actually watching as well.

US Open Update

Well the big Tiger/Phil match up pretty much fizzled out. Mostly because Phil fizzled out. Tiger has far from fizzled. Have you been watching? It’s been great. Really. In spite of Johnny Miller. Rocco Mediate was in front all day yesterday, until the 15th hole, which he double bogied.  Lee Westwood played a very consistent round all day and when Rocco started falling apart Lee was in first place when he finished his round. That lasted for about 10 minutes. Because then there was Tiger. Not a great round. And the knee was obviously bothering him. When he stepped up to the 13th tee he was 5 shots behind Rocco. He made an amazing putt on 13 for an eagle, which put him 3 shots behind Rocco. He bogied 14, which put him 4 back. And at this point he is grimacing with pain after his tee shots, and hitting other shots that don’t require putting pressure on his left knee.  He managed to pull out pars on both 15 and 16. Then on the par 3 17th he hit an errant tee-shot ( once again grimacing because of the knee ) which ended up in the rough, on a slope, next to the green. At which point people are thinking he’ll be lucky to get par. But he hit this fantastic shot out which hit the flag stick and dropped into the hole. It was unbelievable. Even Tiger was laughing. So at this point Lee Westwood is in the club house at -2, Tiger is heading for 18 at -1, and Rocco is at 17 at even par. On the 18th Tiger is on the green in two with a long downhill putt, which no one in their right mind thinks he can make. But he does. Just amazing. Did you see the crowd? Dead silence as everyone watches the ball roll down towards the hole, then they start to stand up to see better, then there is this huge cheer. So Tiger finishes, limping, at -3 and goes to the clubhouse in first. Rocco manages to hold it together and is still at even par when he steps up for his first putt, for a birdie, on 18, At which point he asks one of the announcers close to him, ‘If I make this putt will I be in the final group with Tiger?’ The answer was no. And he was disappointed. He really wanted to play with Tiger. He ended up missing the birdie putt and finishing the day in third place, at even par. So, final group today is a limping Tiger, and Lee Westwood. And Rocco will be in the next to last group. Which is too bad. A Tiger-Rocco pairing would have been great. Rocco is one of those journeyman players. Been on the tour for years, but never really contending. But Rocco is a very animated guy, especially for a golfer. And in a good way, not in the snarky Rory Sabatini way. Most of the tour pros are pretty taciturn during interviews. They smile, and tell a few jokes. Little laugh here and there. But they don’t come across as the kind of guy you would invite to the neighborhood BBQ. And then there is Rocco. Non stop talker, and funny. And he has a good time. In the post round interviews he was asked how he felt out there, knowing how close Tiger was. Did he feel any pressure? He just smiled and laughed and said no, it was great. He was just having a great time out there playing. And you knew he wanted to play with Tiger just for the fun of it. Not that he necessarily thought he would beat him, just that this was probably the one time in his career he would even be close to being in a group with Tiger and he just really wanted to enjoy the experience. Rocco does it for the fun. Rocco is the kind of guy you would definitely invite to the neighborhood BBQ.

So, today you have steady consistent Lee Westwood and Tiger who will be trying to gut it out through knee pain. And right behind him is Rocco who is playing very well and having the time of his life. And right behind him are several other top notch players who normally wouldn’t think they had a chance with Tiger being in first. But then there is that knee issue…..so who knows? Going to be a very interesting final round. Definitely worth watching. And you will be watching right?  You really have no excuse to miss it. It’s being broadcast in prime time, and since it’s summer everything else is re-runs. So there isn’t anything else worth watching anyway. Unless you’re into that whole Lakers/Celtics thing. But that’s what remotes were made for, easy channel switching. But really, once you switch to the US Open, you’ll forget all about Paul Pierce and Kobe Bryant.

Programming Note

Just a quick programming note. The US Open starts tomorrow at Torrey Pines. And in case you have just returned from the Moon and weren't aware ( although if the latest Gatorade commercials are to be believed they are even aware of this on the Moon ) Tiger is back. And he and Phil will be paired together in the first two rounds. Complete US Open post( or two or three ) to follow later, but this is definitely one to set the Tivo for.

TPC on a TPC

This weekend is The Players Championship. Or, as it would like to be known, THE PLAYERS Championship. And referred to by those who speak the lingo as TPC. Not to be confused with the other TPC, although TPC is played on a TPC course. On the first TPC course actually. Anyway, acronyms aside, about the TPC: it is owned and administered by the PGA Tour. There is the PGA itself, which owns the PGA Championship, which is one of the 4 'majors' in golf. Then there is The PGA Tour, which is a completely separate and unrelated group. The Tour has always been kind of the red-headed step child. It doesn't get near the recognition it feels it deserves. In particular it feels it should have a major golf tournament. However, in case you haven't noticed, let me say again, golf is nothing if not tradition. And The PGA Tour has found it very hard to crack the tradition of '4 majors', in spite of doing it's best to get everyone and their brother to refer to TPC as 'the 5th major'. As for how well this marketing campaign has worked, well, Tiger scheduled his knee surgery specifically so he would avoid missing any of the majors, but he didn't worry too much about missing TPC. So, if they won't let you into their 'major club', but you need the big names on The Tour to play in your tournament ( since it would look pretty silly if The Tour held a tournament and none of the players on The Tour showed up ) what do you do? You have the highest prize money of any tournament. Lots of money means lots of big names will be playing this weekend.

The tournament is played at TPC Sawgrass in Florida, home of 'the island green'. This is perhaps the most famous hole in golf. Even non-golfers know about this one. Recognize it?

That's the tee box over there on the left, by the tree, which, although it doesn't really look like it in this picture, is actually on it's own island. Not much room for error.

The Golfers record on this green is 50-50. Wet once, dancing once.

So, if you've got some extra time this weekend give TPC a look-see, and watch how the pros hit a ball into the water.