I had 3 or 4 lame paragraphs written about Ernie Els and the Memorial this week. I nuked them. I just wasn’t feeling the joy.
The short version is I think Ernie has had a disappointing season this year, even though he’s won 3 times outside the PGA Tour.
There’s a new golf blog that just popped up called World Golf Views. It is the creation of a guy named Kevin who seems to be cool in the couple of emails I’ve had with him. He’s a sports writer of some sort.
He’s just starting out and has done his 2nd post. Hit is blog and help break in this golf blog virgin!
Hecklers rejoice! Monty has scratched his way into the US Open.
Monty finished in 11th place at the BMW which put him in the 50th position in the world rankings. 50th in the world gets an automatic berth into the US Open.
I’m sure the crowd at Pinehurst is a little more mellow than the crowd in New York or some other Open locations, but least they’ll have someone fun to heckle now.
A quick wrap up of the weekend’s pro tours. I’m calling it “Gag Central.”
PGA Tour
Justin Leonard came into Sunday with an 8 stroke lead at the St. Jude Classic. He pushed that lead to 9 strokes at one point. You could tell Justin was doing that old “playing not to lose” thing. He was playing very conservatively. He completely went away from the aggressive play that put him in the 8 stroke lead to begin with. That “prevent defense” only seems to prevent you from winning…
Meanwhile David Toms made a serious charge on the back 9 on route to a smokin’ 63. That smokin’ 63 included a water ball when he bounced his tee shot off the hard green at the par 3 11th.
Justin gagged his way into the finish line and came into the par 4 final hole with a 2 stroke lead. Trying to play safe he knocked his drive into the right fairway bunker. From there he flared his approach shot wide right of the green almost into the grandstands. After a free drop he chunked his pitch shot way short and barely two putted for the victory.
Justin narrowly avoided one of the worst nuclear meltdowns in PGA history. But it is a victory and now he’s got two this year.
Champions Tour
The 2nd gag job of the day was by Jerry Pate. All he had to do to secure the Senior PGA victory was make a 3 foot putt. Gag. He put a terrible stroke on that putt which forced a 3 way playoff between himself, Mike Reid and Dana Quigley.
Mike Reid made an amazing eagle on 18 to get himself into the playoff. He finished the job on the first playoff hole with birdie to secure the title. Jerry Pate had a similar putt on the first playoff hole to continue the playoff. Once again he put a gag stroke on it, missing terribly.
Teeing off 3 strokes behind on the 72nd hole, Mike Reid was shocked to eventually win the tournament. He’s probably not as shocked as Jerry Pate…
LPGA Tour
A person who didn’t gag Sunday was Jimin Kang. She started the final round of the LPGA Corning Classic 3 strokes behind, but fired a 66 to hold off Annika Sorenstam and Meena Lee by two strokes. Jimin Kang notched her first LPGA victory in style
European Tour
Since I seem to be covering all the major golf tours today I might as well mention that Angel Cabrera shot a 67 to take home the BMW Championship trophy. Paul McGinley was battling Cabrera down the stretch. He gagged on 16 & 17 allowing Cabrera a two shot victory.
Ernie Els tied for 39th, 15 strokes behind.
I just sold my house and now the chaos of cleaning out all my old crap has begun. I had no idea how many golf clubs I had in my basement. I’m guessing I have over 100 clubs… Years back I used to do some work for Browning/Bag Boy so I had a bunch of their gear, along with tons of other stuff.
Today I had a garage sale and it looked more like the local golf demo days. On my front grass I had 3 complete sets of irons, 3 brand new pull carts, about 15 brand new drivers, 4 putters, 5 sand wedges, 3 umbrellas, 3 golf bags, 12 dozen Nike balls and more. I was selling old dressers to the wife and throwing in a sand wedge for the husband.
This pic you are seeing is what I had left after dumping a ton of my “backup” golf gear.
Do you think this set is in violation of the 14 club limit?
I could spend an hour or two regurgitating the same golf news a thousand other golf sites are reporting right now. But I won’t. Though I will cover the latest in the golf world, I don’t want to be strictly a “news” outlet. You can get that anywhere. I’ll blend the latest with my take, if I have one. If I don’t post on the LPGA or Nationwide, it’s because I just plain don’t have a take.
So here’s my quick take on the St. Jude Classic 05:
Nobody will catch Justin this time. If they do, it will be the worst meltdown on the PGA Tour since the 60’s.
They’re catching on everywhere. The US Open will be blogging this year.
We’ll have to see if these bandwagon jumpers do a decent job.
I check all the golf blogs and sites I know each day. There are a couple I really like. My two favorite golf blogs right now are Jamboy and Saguaro Open.
My golf surfing somehow ended up at the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews last night. Strange how you can end up at certain places.
I saw some interesting nuggets there. First I read the HUGE list of illegal drivers. Most seem to be Japanese models. Pick up an illegal Japanese version of your favorite driver and blow your drives past your friends…
Then I took the rules quiz. These rules quizzes are tough! I found myself just trying to make an educated guess on some of them. I eeked out 4 out of 10 for my first quiz, on the “medium” setting. Smokin’.
The last and perhaps most interesting nugget is courtesy of my pal Bogeyman over at Bogey Lounge. There’s an article floating around in cybergolfspace showing Danielle Aimee of the Big Break III topless and in a G-string. (She does have her clubs with her). There’s something odd about the pic so I’m guessing it’s a photoshop job. Seems odd to me that she would be posing topless for a photo opp, but not have her usual “level” of makeup. Some of the shadows don’t quite look right either. But if it is real, she has a bodacious set of…..clubs. VA VA VOOM.
Justin Leonard has a 5 stoke lead now after round 2 of the St. Jude Classic. (62, 65) He’s just cruising along spanking the field right now. I don’t see any major changes there. He’ll have to melt down or someone will have to shoot pretty low to catch him over the weekend.
Every last piece of his gear has a Nike swoosh on it. That swoosh on the back of his putter couldn’t be any bigger.
Justin Leonard dropped a 62 today at the FedEx St. Jude Classic. He’s averaging 294.0 with the driver which is good enough for T83. Yup…Justin is one of the short hitters.
Speaking of short hitters, John Daly appears to have a case of “golfer’s elbow.” After doing a ton of work on my basement last year I had a case of “tennis elbow” AND “golfer’s elbow” at the same time. The difference? The pain is on top of the elbow with tennis elbow. The pain is under the elbow when you have golfer’s elbow.
I was at the point last year where I couldn’t reach up to touch my nose. I couldn’t lift a glass of water or gallon of milk. It took an entire year before all the pain went away. The strange thing with this ailment is that taking time off doesn’t really seem to help. I took an entire month off from golfing, and within one driver strike the pain was back.
I still get small flareups, especially if I hit harder balls. I have to hit softer balls (like V1’s).
JD is my buddy and I hope he doesn’t have tennis or golfer’s elbow. It is no fun at all.
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