golf page
6-18-08
and so the communal golf watching community hangover is official, and will last for the rest of this golf season… here is something i grabbed from Geoff Shackelford’s website - figured i’d just copy and paste the work of “Joe.”
“What we have witnessed over the last 12 months was the greatest run in golf history- in his last 12 worldwide starts, Tiger has won 9 times with two 2nds and a 5th in the three tournaments he didn’t win. Included in those 9 wins were 3 8-shot victories.
And evn more mind-boggling, in Tiger’s last 8 majors, he has finished first or second 7 times.
2006 British Open - 1st
2006 PGA Championship - 1st
2007 Masters - 2nd
2007 US Open - 2nd
2007 British Open - 13th
2007 PGA Championship - 1st
2008 Masters - 2nd
2008 US Open - 1st
Words can’t describe how unbelievable that is.
06.18.2008 | Joe”
so, a LOT of sad PGATour sponsors right now, some PGA Tour players getting, in essence, a partial bye for the foreseeable future, and let’s just hope the doctors can fix this thing and he can continue his MARCH to history!
6-17-08
alright, so sunday was pretty cool, monday was probably the coolest 19 hole round of golf i’ve ever seen, and tiger celebrates his 500th week as world number one with one of the, if not THE most impressive of his career wins. 14th major, 7th pro win at Torrey, limping like Willis Reed for a week - he makes the ones that count, and you remember them, and then he does it again, and again, and again. truly a privilege to watch, hopefully the knee recovers from the week quickly.
how can one not mention Rocco, of course, battling as he did, and like Chamblee said on the golf channel it was impressive mostly because he didn’t wilt, didn’t change his game or his game plan, and he proved that he belonged there, and, he WAS a contendah…
6-15-08
so this is why weeks go by and people don’t care too much about golf. first we get the barrage of threes and a 30 - then we get yesterday! words are certainly inadequate for the task of describing what one watched yesterday, of course the last hour and a half was mind-boggling even for Tiger, and it’s tough to imagine if that was the first people were seeing of professional golf in it’s primetime spot - it probably will prove a tough act to follow - but good golly miss molly, what could be coming for us today???
6-12-08
Tiger is back, so i guess i can start writing about golf again - U.S. Open - best quote so far
6-1-8
couple of ugly wrecks on the lpga tour today - kind of like the “Y” word, don’t want to think about it too much, but squandering a 6 stroke lead is about as bad as it gets, (unless you’ve fought your way into a playoff and then jerk a little two foot putt so far left that it was reported in the daily kos…)
pgatour was much more “fun” to watch, as guys were putting on a new, as yet un-named surface that was measuring approximately 2,385.84 on the stimpmeter. a record 947 putts that began on the putting surface had to be played next from the sand, the fairway, the rough or the arguably slower cartpath. hats off to threepeterPerry, may he be granted his wish to play the Ryder Cup, although I believe I recently read that he can’t play 36 holes in one day, which is something i think happens regularly during said cup…
and, since so many great hockey players also play the small ball - would have liked to have seen the kids win another at home, but at this point their inexperience and lack of patience will no doubt get the better of them one last time tomorrow night. hopes for a nice seven game series in another 360 days….
5-29-08
itz hockey season - maybe we can get a 7 game series with some overtimes and game stopping brawls - and until we get red shirts on sunday again i guess we’ll have to deal with 14 year veterans earning maiden victories on the lpga, mechanical, OT wins on the eurotour and phil hitting megaflops to 6 feet and victory after trying ever so valiantly (ahem, interesting drive on that 72nd hole) to give another one away……..
5-19-08
Yup, tiger on vacation, not watching a whole lotsa golf. would be watching more of the Annika and Lorena show, but it’s just not on that often, or for very long. So Lorena is starting to look like the toughest player to get by out on any tour right now, and the victory lap for the current reigning queen could prove to be not so much with the victorious… will be fun to watch. The Players was fun until THE LAST HOLE - come on, deciding the “fifth major” with a sudden death playoff with wedges into the wind, maybe great tv, but not great sport - if y’asks me. This week was pretty cool on tour, with Ryuji bouncing back from sudden death one year from being suddenly dead - and old KP definitely got just about as bad a bounce from a “safe shot” as one could imagine, (although, i haven’t seen/heard mentioned just how far that ball would have gone over the green had it not hit the tree….)
5-5-08
it’s ironic how the PGA tour gets kind of boring when just one guy isn’t out there playing…
anyway the PGA Tour has the ability to follow just about any statistic imaginable, with their shot-link technology and the amount of data that they input to their website. i have a great fondness for the Bounce Back statistic, which measures the percentage of time that a player follows a hole played over par by a hole played under par.
This is a nice way of tracking mental toughness and resilience, and it’s always interesting to see who is bouncing back at any particular point in time.
This week, however, the bounce back we got to watch was on a far grander scale - as Paula Creamer bounced back from a sudden-death extra hole defeat against one Hall of Fame LPGA star, perhaps the finest LPGA player of all time, Annika Sorenstam, with a sudden-death extra holes victory over another Hall of Fame LPGA star, the venerable Juli Inkster.
While it may not have been the cleanest, prettiest win in golf history, it showed a great amount of courage, patience, and heart to rebound in one week from one of the toughest losses in her short but very impressive career. The Tulsa course played as tough as the women had seen yet this year for the first three days, and by day four it was basically match play between the “Pinky one” and the “Inky one.”
In an eerily similar manner to the prior week, Paula showed some shakiness down the stretch, and basically backed her opponent into the playoff. But after a pep-up session with LPGA great Nancy Lopez, and playing without her parents present for a change, Paula was ready for the playoff this week.
It’s always great to watch stars on the rise, and clearly the next step for “PP” will be lifting her first major championship trophy!
4-20-08
I heard Lorena’s taking a couple weeks off, better get out there and do some playing ladies….
We need Boo to win a little more frequently than once a year! (That would be a transcript of the best interview in professional golf.)
4-16-08
and as Tiger enters knee surgery rehab - he has extended his world ranking lead even further
1. Woods 22.36
2. Mickelson 9.75
3. Els 6.36
win them while he’s resting, guys…
4-13-08
So everyone crumbles, to varying degrees, and if Tiger simply shoots -1 on front and -2 on back he’s in a playoff that we all know he wins.
It’s possible that Tiger’s better at predicting the number he needs when he’s ahead; ( i really thought that -8 would be good enough). He probably thought he needed a 66 or 67 and with that/those thoughts in mind, his mantra which we heard all week long “patience,” goes out the window fairly early, and by pressing even just the slightest throwing himself into a little mental anguishy state. I don’t remember ever seeing a look on his face like the one after the lip out at 4.
so congrats to Immelman, and if Tiger ever figures out how to come from behind, well, things could really get ugly out there…
majors really are much more interesting than the other tournaments.
and, oh yeah, Lorena, AGAIN!
by 11 strokes!
now a hallofamer!
earned slightly more than the guys who tied for 11th at Augusta!
4-12-08
alright, it’s saturday night and most professional golfers and all amateurs have just about shot themselves out of the chance to capture the first major of the year. the two guns looked pretty sharp today, and if T-Imm can shoot a record setting fourth round in the sixties there’s pretty much no way he will get caught. Sneds looked pretty sharp for all but that place they call “amen” (for whatever reason, haha), and made a nice little bounce-back charge at the end there. Casey and Flesch could definitely do some damage, and of course Tiger probably has, as ridiculous as it sounds, as good a chance of winning from 6 behind as he ever will.
oh yeah, the par 3 picnic, maybe not so much on the television any more…
4-9-08
Master’s Week - one of the best for golf viewers, even better with coverage of the par three tournament today.
great article in the ny times this week with one of the most amazing stats EVER.
“Woods outperforms the field average from nearly every approach distance, and remarkably so from beyond 150 yards, where about 56 percent of his approach shots originate. Additionally, the average tour player shows an accelerating drop-off in his ability to hit greens from beyond 150 yards, yet Woods shows a decelerating drop-off.
The average tour player shows a 23 percent drop in his percentage of greens in regulation when moving from 125 yards to 200 yards, but Woods shows only a 3 percent decline.” (emphasis added)
Doc pointed out to me that the average margin of error for a statistic is very often between 3-4% leading one to the conclusion that Tiger is virtually as good hitting greens from 200 yards as he is from a buck and a quarter!
If that doesn’t scare/amaze/fascinate you, please, just don’t bother watching.
okeeokey, let’s watchus smoe golf….
3-28-08
thought the golf channel was going to have a huge “O” all over itself, when ooh, two golfers who were mad at each other had to finish a round together…
unfortunately, no fisticuffs ensued, and hence, tragically, no bloody photo for the cover of golfweek.
we did get some marvelous ”bonus coverage” however…
they know a big golf story when they see it!
ps. nice round Angela Stanford, good luck for the weekend!
3-24-08
Streak over, undefeated season postponed, 5th place finish =
| 1. | Woods | 21.87 |
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| 2. | Mickelson | 9.65 |
why, further separation, of course!
3-20-08
official world golf ranking top three:
| 1. | Woods | 21.75 |
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| 2. | Mickelson | 9.70 |
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| 3. | Els | 6.68 |
It’s almost simply truly absolutely
NOT FAIR!
sure is fun to watch, though.
3-16-08
holy shnikies
wow, what can one say? It was nice that there were no big disasters out there, and the legend just continues to grow. The one hiccup for Tiger was the three-putt, when he did not bother going through his routine on the come-backer, and it very well could have been over right there had he done so. Other than that, good stuff from Mahan and O’Hair, and of course, Bryant. But at this point it’s kind of pointless trying to find words to describe just how good Woods is, and like Bart said, he’s going to do it again! Still think the undefeated season is much more real a possibility than many “experts” are willing to concede.
looking forward to the new world ranking numbers tomorrow…
3-13-08
just a little offering of hope for jd, today, the first day of Arnie’s tournament. there haven’t been many more loved sports heros in history, and he deserves to treat himself much better.
3-9-8
It was a tough Sunday on the PGA Tour, (Ernie had the predictable let down from last week’s victory and didn’t even see Sunday), the wind was down, but the scores were up for all but the 10 players who shot in the sixties and the other nine who broke par with 70. The unfortunate story was the 8th loss in 9 events with a 54 hole lead or share for Stewart Cink, who admitted that he tends “to be less aggressive” with his putting when in the lead. The fortunate story, Tour win number two for the very talented Sean O’Hair. He could easily become the next best American golfer, with his impressive showing at Sawgrass last year and the rather quick follow up win here. Mr. Miller spoke of pace of play yesterday, which could certainly turn into a problem if not dealt with, but he might be the guy we should be keeping our eyes on.
3-6-8
Come and listen to a story ’bout a man named Jethro
I mean Tripp…
3-4-08
Just in case there is some way in the world you read this and don’t read geoff every day, here’s a tip off to a great National Post story that I oh so desperately wish we had the entirety of on tape…
“The CBS on-course commentator from Northern Ireland, who has been called the funniest man in golf - “Is that a compliment?” he says - screened out most of his X-rated material in deference to the females in the crowd, but he was still magnificently earthy.” read more
2-29-08
Thought i’d post some thoughts i expressed to a friend concerning my feeling that Tiger doesn’t necessarily try “harder” when the going gets tough, but that he trys better.
By this I mean he gets even more involved in executing the process, i.e., assessing the conditions, going through his routine, not hitting the ball until he’s visualized the shot and is completely comfortable over the shot. At that point he is able to access his unconditional confidence as all this is simply “routine” for him - and the more routine it feels, the less he will get in his own way.
2-25-08
and, like Emeril says, BOOM, Tiger’s lead back over 11, Phil’s status as closer to Tiger than Brian, once again, in serious question…
Rank Player Avg Pts.
1. Woods 21.24
2. Mickelson 10.12
3. Stricker 6.59
4. Els 6.16
5. Scott 6.03
6. Choi 5.91
7. Rose 5.73
8. Furyk 5.64
9. Sabbatini 5.59
10. Harrington 5.22
oh, i played my first league round this year, squeaking out a one-stroke victory with a very impressive 26 total putts…. please don’t ask how many other strokes i required, however.
2-24-08
I didn’t bother turning on the television for golf today - after the week Tiger had, and the front nine that Cink got out of his system yesterday, this was perhaps the biggest mismatch in a long time. had no desire to watch, and now with his crushing defeat of by all accounts a world class golfer, the legend has added the ”more wins than Arnold Palmer” descriptor to his constantly evolving bio. congrats on going 3-3 so far, this could be a heck of a year coming up.
steroid update - still nothing doing, how shocking.
2-20-08
A nice nod to the importance of the mental game in all sports by a fellow named Upson. (i’ve got to watch more of that futbol stuff…)
‘I have changed a lot since I last played for England, physically I am in the best shape of my career and I am a much better player now,’ said Upson.
‘I won caps and played in competitive internationals but I was not the finished article. I was not at the level mentally that I am now.
‘I was at a point at Birmingham were I was doing OK but not stepping up to the next level. I want to get the best out of my career and I want to play for England again, so I needed to change things.
‘That is what I have done and I think it is paying off.
‘I speak to a psychologist a lot and we analyse everything, my behaviour, training during the week, everything.
‘As a young player I did not pay too much attention to psychology. I don’t think it is something you do unless you are brought up in an environment like Tiger Woods or Lewis Hamilton, sports stars who are groomed at a young age to be mentally so advanced.
‘But psychology is a massive part of the game, just as much as physical training.’
2-19-08
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and just like that, Phil proved to us all that he is in fact closer to Tiger Woods than to Brian Heninger - all the rest, well, you all got some catching up to do…
2-17-08
golf’s a tough game - the PGA players who teed off late on thursday and earlier on Friday had an approximately 5 1/2 stroke disadvantage compared with the scoring of those who had the reverse… Riviera is truly a gem of a golf course, and the final round is almost always fun to watch. Phil did what he had to to secure the win, and though i personally love overtime in any sporting event, especially sudden death playoffs, congrats to lefty.
as for my round with the pro - it’s one thing to follow a player or group around at a tournament, the towering tee shots and radar precision approaches, the frighteningly deft pitches, chips and putts - they look impressive, but it’s a whole different story when it’s happening at you.
Doc and I played the tips with Tim at LACC. He was ninth in birdies on tour last year, and with the power, accuracy and touch I got to witness all day, there’s no wonder why. It was a cold nasty day, but it didn’t keep him from the fairways or greens, the greens were bumpy and slow, but that didn’t hinder his touch.
i halved about half the holes out there, didn’t win a one, and if he had really been trying, i’d hate to know how much i would have lost by.
but this is one of the great things about golf, we can go out and play the courses they do, even playing with them sometimes. we watch on television and often have played the course they are playing, knowing the intricacies of the holes and just how good the shots they are playing are.
oh yeah, nice to see Ms. S return to the winner’s circle!
2-15-08
well, Phil has pulled out to a Woodsy lead at the LAO, maybe he holds on…
played golf with a PGA Tour pro on Wednesday - if that doesn’t humble you, you are not being honest with yourself.
more later…
2-11-08
World Golf Rankings show Tiger at 20.07, Phil at 9.01, and Brian Henninger (#1350!) at .01. I learned this when one of the European chaps interviewed Tiger after he won at Dubai, (the way he put it to Tiger: why do you think there is a bigger gap between the number 1 and number 2 golfer, than between the number 2 and number 1000 golfer?).
I had to see it for myself - and I’ll be danged if this isn’t the scariest thing a professional golfer needs to see… I reckon the guys who compete with him on a daily basis know just HOW GOOD THIS GUY IS, but this is starting to get a little ridiculous now.
I like numbers, but the formula is a bit more intricate than I need to look at.
Interesting points: Tiger to Phil - 11.06 difference - the DIFFERENCE is larger than Phil’s rating of 9.01.
Phil to no. 3 Stricker - 2.48 difference.
After that, the numbers tighten dramatically, with no differential greater than the .52 between Stenson at 13 and (U.S. Open champ) Cabrera at 14.
Watching Phil make an 11 on a SIMPLE par 5 this past weekend actually makes it quite easy to believe he is closer to Brian than to Tiger, ( further confirming, as if necessary, the validity of the rankings!)
Worst news of all for professional golfers everywhere and anywhere - he doesn’t appear to be slowing down…
2-9-08
what the heck, i’ll write the night before…
we’ve had dj and kj, is that you, vijay?
and two very bright stars at the clambake in Jason Day and Dustin Johnson!
good stuff already from these two, looking forward to some possible greatness from one or both!
2-3-08
2fer2, keepem comin’
steroid watch - all clear.
1-27-08
did i mention that Tiger was back from vacation….
forget the grand slam, can he actually win every tournament he enters this year?
hmmm
1-23-08
The strategery of the best golfer in history. It is so much different than a mere mortal, or probably most of the other best golfers on the planet right now. This is part of an interview before his first tournament of the year:
Tiger Woods: I play certain events with a 2 iron. That was the British Open last year. Certain golf courses fit well with a 2 iron being in the bag. It’s just a matter of figuring it out. I carry two 2 irons, one with less loft for the British Open or hard, fast golf courses, and the other one with a little bit more loft. Last year at Oakmont I used a 2 iron that week because it fit well.
But this week I need some air. It’s not going to be very dry this week.
Question: Is it possible you could switch back to the 2 iron?
Tiger Woods: Yeah, definitely. Depends on whether or not I can reach 13. I can slice a 3 wood in there or I don’t know how it fits, but we’ll see how the course is set up. If it’s really that fast then a 2 iron might be in the bag.
For many of us a two-iron is but a concept, something that theoretically is slightly less difficult to hit than a 1-iron. For Tiger, he can plan an entire major championship around it, or consider putting it in his bag for one hole, if conditions are correct.
good luck to all the rest of you PGA pros out there, this year, and all the rest that this fellow is out there playing his game….
1-20-08
last week KJ
this week DJ
1-17-08
absolutely unreal cover ballsy photo on golfweek, (pansies took it down, of course) the new moral compass of America, if not the world.
1-15-08
Steroid watch ‘08 update -
all clear…
1-12-08
Oh goodness gracious, the scandal of it all.
well, imus-gate at golfcentral seems to have come and gone and all i can say is
hey, two weeks of golf coverage with rich lerner and nick faldo, there is an almighty, allseeing omnipresent and omniscient being looking out for us, if even for two weeks…
1-7-08
mercedes championship was amusing, at least the first and last rounds, which i watched pieces of:
verplank - come on buddy, you can’t not know not to even come close enough to your ball if you fear that at some point in time you could possibly be “deemed to have caused the ball to move.”
that is a sentence that i’m just going to leave alone, not even gonna try to fix it.
great stat of the year so far - no PGA Tour player holed more than 8 twenty-foot or longer putts during the 2005, 2006 or 2007 seasons. Chopra holed 9 through the four rounds, then left two more absolutely on the doorstep in OT. just goes to show how unrealistic the average player is with respect to putts that appear to be “makeable.” How many times do we hear players cursing themselves out when they miss a 25 or thirty footer on the local muni??!! Players who don’t get paid to practice and play golf, players who rarely if ever practice, players who are attempting to roll two year old, $1.00 golf balls on nasty, chewed up, stomped on public golf course greens!
reality check, EVERYBODY - once you are past 6 feet, putting gets difficult, VERY difficult.
take it easy on yourself, you’ll have a lot more fun out there.
kitty caddy - likes it better when we use a cart…
07 in twenty words or less
tiger - yes
lorena - yes
woody - maybe
michelle - not so much
fedex cup - yeah right
geoff shackelford - every day
and
BOO
speaking of Boo, here’s a nice exerpt from the last day of ’07:
Q. When you look at the — the thrill last year obviously was Hilton Head, and Honda I guess to a smaller degree –
BOO WEEKLEY: The thrill was Honda. I learned more about myself at the Honda than I have probably in the last — however long I’ve been playing golf. I learned that I’m a better person than what I thought I was, a better player.
Q. Did it take losing to figure that out?
BOO WEEKLEY: Yes, sir.
Q. What part of it, getting to the playoff, the way it ended on the 18th?
BOO WEEKLEY: Just the 18th, three-putting the last hole and then walking off. I wouldn’t say everybody would have felt the same way I felt. I mean, I felt like crying, but at the same time I felt rejoiced that, hey, I put myself in this place, it was my opportunity, and I’m the one that choked. Other people, granted, would have said, something else happened or I hurt something or the wind blew. I gave myself — it’s my fault, and I can handle this. I can handle it. No matter what pressure you put on me, I can handle it. I might not succeed but I can handle it.
Q. You blame no one but yourself?
BOO WEEKLEY: Ain’t no one else but me, dude. Who else is out there with me? I didn’t see someone standing behind me telling me to hit it. It’s just me.
read the whole interview at asap sports.
