The Tour Championship

Whew!
Date Written: September 28, 2009

I'm exhausted! The long, 2009 golf pool season has finally come to an end. Congrats to rookie winner, Charlie Tuna, who despite having two "No-Shows" over the last two tournaments managed to hang on and capture the first prize of $1,400. A few weeks ago he expressed an interest in selling his position for a small percentage of it's potential value. I talked him out of it. He's obviously glad he hung-in.

Doug B. and The Donald had the good fortune to pick Lefty "Mick" to win The Tour Championship, our final event for the pool standings. It was enough to vault Dougie past five players into second place and reward him with $700.00. It was nip and tuck for third, with Glenn Marzion holding off Bill Sundali by an eyelash to win $300.00. Both Glenn and Bill were stymied by No-Shows too. Checks to the three winners will go out in the mail tomorrow. It was the closest pool finish EVER!

Final thought on the Fed-Ex prize of $10,000,000...beyond the complicated format that even the players do not understand, IT IS AN OBSCENE AMOUNT OF MONEY. The powers that be would probably argue that the TV ratings doubled this year. Methinks that's because Tiger was in the field, whereas last year, he was on the sidelines recovering from knee surgery. Personally, I would like to meet someone...anyone...outside the commissioner's office, who understands the bloody format.

For you golfing purists who can't get enough competition, we now segue to the 5-tournament, Fall Season, which reminds me of a different kind of Q-School. The "also-ran's" try to find a late-season swing to go along with a new-found putting stroke in an attempt to get inside the exclusive, top 125 money list. In a devilish way, it's more fun to watch this part of the season than the regular weekly tour stops because there's so much on the line for the boys. They won't see the bigger names in most of the fields so they've got to think their chances are better. From Ryan Smithson of PGATOUR.COM:

"Making the top 125 on the money list grows more difficult with each passing year, and the ramifications for missing the magic number are great.Steve Allen and Rich Beem are good examples. Allen and Beem each fell $100,000 short of retaining their cards for 2009, and, as a result, they were forced to sit back and hope for playing opportunities. It's a process of writing letters to tournaments, asking for sponsor exemptions and waiting for players to withdraw. It brings a whole new meaning to the term "vicious cycle."

Thank god our season is over. I think I've run out of things to say. It ain't easy at this end trying to be clever and meet a writing deadline each week. That said, what will I do with all this extra time from October to the start of 2010? Yesterday, the weather lady alliterively suggested that it's time to trade my flip-flops for fleece. Clever, huh? The high on Wednesday will be the low tonight. Figure that out. This means that the last of my real joints will begin to talk back to me in louder tones. I'm obviously too old to reinvent myself as a capable person. What in the world am I going to do? Got any suggestions? Maybe it's time to move to warmer climes.I don't want to hurt myself in the off-season doing anything more strenuous than practice my new, 80% golf swing. Maybe I'll move to fire-ravaged, hoodlum infested, traffic-clogged, vanity-driven L.A. and teach the prodigal grandson a swing. Or maybe I'll just hunker down here for another "Winter of Wishful Thinking." I'll keep you posted. This might be my last stint as editor of the weekly blog. Anybody want to pick up the baton/pen? I might confine my writing efforts to making some money.

For now, I'm going to find a very quiet, remote spot by the Wood River and watch the colored leaves do their final dance into the water. That image is my homage to someone who can actually write, poetess, Mary Oliver.

BMW Championship

Playoffs?

Date Written: September 14, 2009

Jim Mora had it right... "Playoffs? What playoffs?" Playoffs are for baseball, pro football and basketball. GOLF HAS MAJORS! I will be happy only when Mr. Finchem and the Tour Policy Board dump this ridiculous playoff format. We are told once again to believe in the one-time, points reset feature for the last event in the series. Now ANY of the thirty "others" that have qualified to be in the field of the Tour Championship can win a $10 million dollar prize for winning ONE tournament.

I don't know of a prize ANYWHERE that discounts and/or disregards an entire years worth of work. First off, there ISN'T any more dominant player in any sport than Tiger...PERIOD! He's earned whatever huge bonus might be available by his performance. I say, just give him the money, period. The most glaring example of the inequity of the Schmed-Ex format can be illustrated by the fact that His Majesty's won six tournaments this year and nearly $10 million dollars in legitimate prize money...way more than anyone else. Hardly-knowns, Mark Leischman and Jason (What's in a Name?) Dufner, have won NOTHING, yet could theoretically win the Fed-Ex Cup and 10 mil. So what does Tiger get for his efforts all year....a number one seed? Give me a break! Have the commercial interests who run the stupid BCS, cross-pollinated to the PGA Tour Board? Finally, as long as I'm on my annual rant on this subject; listening to The Tour's lackeys on TV, trying to hype the system is downright nauseating. "Show Me The Money" is what it's about. The obvious theory is put up a big pot of dough and the players will show up. Duh? In my youth, the "$64,000 Question" was big time entertainment. Now it's, "Who Wants to be A Millionaire." Our popular culture's romance with big bucks borders on sickness. Given that The Tour likes to represent itself as a charity sponsor, I say give all the proceeds to the teachers of the world...they are way more important to society than pro golfers.

Last week there were rumblings from the mainstream press that His Majesty had lost his putting stroke. Last year, the same folks thought HE was washed-up because of his knee surgeries. What do you think all the "experts" thought on Saturday at Grog Hill? His Eminence starts with a bogey on the first hole and then proceeds to break the course record? The other lowly serf's that play this game for a living...Leischman, Dufner, Kucher, Snedeker, Harrington to name a few...know who's best. They know they are playing for second place when HE'S in the field. Golf statistics (like GIR) can be terribly misleading but try this astounding stat on for size...His Holiness made something like 40 of 45 putts inside 15 feet in the first three rounds.

I played like a dog in the local Bigwood tournament this past weekend but felt much better about my "yips" after watching Brandt Snedeker four-whack from 14 feet on eighteen to cost himself a spot in the Tour Championship and a small fortune in prize money. I loved Snedeker's candor when confronted by reporters as he was trying to leave the premises. Bob Harig of ESPN.com described Snedeker's meltdown best:

http://sports.espn.go.com/golf/columns/story?columnist=harig_bob&id=4470699

In our funky pool, our three top leaders have NO-SHOWS for the final event two weeks hence. The "Boise Boys" (Moloney & Winegar) along with The Muffins must be licking their chops. This could be a wild finish. I can't remember it ever being this close. Enjoy!

The Deutsche Bank

Worst to First

Date Written: September 8, 2009

Who'd a thunk that a guy named Stricker would be the one to come charging out of the golf peloton to challenge Tiger's run through history? It would be easy to name a half dozen guys who were more likely to threaten His Majesty's supremacy than Stricker. But his one-shot victory in The Deusche, makes him worthy of being included in any 2nd place dialogue.

Do you remember that this is the same guy who couldn't keep his card at the end of the 2005 season? Now he's the two-time reigning Comeback Player of Year who also happens to stand a good chance of cashing a $10 mil check for winning the inexplicable Schmed-Ex Cup. He's grooved a three-quarter swing that looks like he's had his wrists fused with a dead-eye putting stroke. Johnny (The Oracle) Miller, mused that Stricker has this big muscle swing that the next generation of golfer's might want to emulate. We'll see.

To excerpt from Jason Sobel of ESPN.com:

Steve Stricker is fast becoming known as golf's answer to Derek Jeter -- a guy who turns it up a few notches when the playoffs are in full swing. In 10 career FedEx Cup appearances, he owns two wins, six top-10s, no finishes of worse than T-24 and no missed cuts, leaving him as one of only three players to compete in all 40 rounds of the three-year system. It's a record that has some already referring to him as Mr. September. To date, his season includes six top-three finishes, 10 top-10s and more than $6 million in official earnings -- all numbers that have some wondering whether he could surpass Woods in the Player of the Year race.

Closer to home: for fellow jingoists that follow Idaho golf, Boise State grad, Troy (did his parent's go to SC?) Merritt, had a monster week in Mexico at the weekly Nationwide stop. Click on the link to read more:

http://www.pgatour.com/2009/tournaments/h095/09/06/rd4.recap/index.html

What with the field being reduced for the third Schmed-Ex cup event called the BMW (about 20 miles West of Chi-town), our esteemed pool leader, Charlie Tuna, is grateful for his T-23 pick of Mike Weir at The Deutsche, because that's the LAST money Charlie's gonna win. Neither of his picks are in the field for the last two events. Methinks it's a gonna be a dogfight for the top three spots.

The Barclays

The Statue of Liberty National

Date Written: September 2, 2009

So...as I'm traveling over the weekend in Southern California, I'm catching glimpses of "The Barclays" at various stops and wondering how-in-the-world did this here course, Liberty National, come into being? It looked "manufactured" or out of place or belonging in some other country. So, when I got home, I saddled up my favorite horse, "Internet Browser," to see if I could find out more about the joint. Voila! If you've got a few minutes and want to read a remarkable development tale about building a golf course on a toxic waste site, click on the link below, it's almost as good as the tournament itself:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/sports/golf/27pennington.html?scp=1&sq=liberty%20national%20golf%20club&st=cse

I'm left wondering how much it costs to join and/or play Liberty National. I'll bet it's expensive. I wonder if Emma Lazarus (the gal who wrote the slogan at the base of Lady Liberty), "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free," could afford the green fees? More likely, she would have wrote, "Give me your rich, your privileged, your suffering elite" dot, dot, dot. Golf is much more likely to be mentioned on the Republican Party platform...not on the other party's wishlist.

"Heathcliff" Slocum, independent contractor and Republican that he must be, might be up for consideration as a junior member at Liberty Nat'l now that he's 1.35 mil ahead on his green fees. He was the #124 seed out of the 125 players who qualified for the first leg of the contrived Schmed-Ex Cup Series. Heath hadn't won an event in four years. After one terrific week, where he was apparently the only player to feel comfortable on the tricky greens, He lept all the way to #3 on the schtupid points list. Not even Bob Beamon could jump that far. (If you do not know who Bob Beamon is, check below). "Heathcliff" was either real lucky or real smart to make a "take-your-medicine," up-and-down par from a fairway bunker on No. 18...finally drilling a 20-footer to win by one stroke over a quartet of the world's best players: Tiger, Ernie, Padraig and Stricker. I was one of four in the pool who had a shot at winning until S.S. yanked a ten-footer on the final hole and made bogey. Damn it! Our new pool leader, Charlie Tuna, had Stricker too and with his solid T-2 dough, leaps over Glenn Marzapan into first place by about 400 G's. I jump all the way into umpteenth. So much for my golf-picking skills. Three pool rookies continue to hold the top three spots going into the last three events of our season.

This week the field is paired down to the top 100 and plays at the TPC near Boston. Whoever wins will jump into the top five spots. Explain that to me, please Mr. Finchem? How can someone ranked 95 justify a whole season of mediocrity with one good week? In answer to my own question, maybe it's why Pro's play the game...they follow their dream and hope for one good week where their swing gets magically grooved. Five of us like Villegas to play back to his success in this format last year. Charlie Tuna likes the Weir-Wolf so we know who to root against.

Answer to the question, "Who was Bob Beamon?" (From Wikipedia): On October 18 at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, Beamon set a world record for the long jump with a jump of 8.90 m (29 ft. 2½ in.), almost two feet longer than the then, existing record.