Hooked On Golf Blog

It has all come down to the 18th hole and you have a three foot putt to beat your buddy out of $2.00 ($1.00 for the original bet and $1.00 for the press of course).  Do you shine?  Do you make the glorious putt and collect the cash and associated bragging rights?

Then how about the pressure you might feel if you were KJ Choi today.  He sank a putt on the last hole of the Skins Game which was worth $270,000.  Total take in this “so-so” silly season event for Choi, $415,000.

Tony Korologos a.k.a. mediaguru Hackers, Miscellaneous, PGA Tour

It has been eight days since I smashed my chest into a cement wall at that football game.  I thought I’d just bruised my sternum, but I can pretty safely say now that I’ve cracked at least one rib.  The good news is that I can swing a golf club with little or no pain.  Sleeping at night on the other hand is quite an experience.

Tony Korologos a.k.a. mediaguru Life

It is that time of year again.  One of the most anticipated web events on this, or many other planets is upon us.  The golden turkey trophy has been engraved. IT IS TIME.

4TH ANNUAL HOG TURKEY AWARDS

10. Michelle Wie fails to sign her scorecard at the State Farm Classic.  She may have made enough dough to earn her LPGA Tour card had she not been DQ’d. DOH!

9. Michelle Wie attempts to play against the men, after saying she wouldn’t do it.  Then she finishes in 118th place. Well done!

8. Ian Poulter WD’s from the Singapore Open because his driver was stolen.

7. The UGSA fails in an attempt to jump on the blogwagon.  Last update there January 2, 2008.

6. The LPGA loses sponsors and tournaments.  The also try to institute and English only policy.  DOH!

5. The FedEx Cup is once again not all that exciting.  Vijay wins it with little fanfare. There’s a terrible loophole in which this year’s winner of the British & the PGA (Padraig Harrington) doesn’t get to play in the TOUR Championship.  WTF? That ain’t right.

4. “Cut” and “money” confusion on the PGA Tour.  Players could confusingly make money but not make the cut, though they get credit for making a cut, but they couldn’t play the weekend despite being credited for making the cut, which they make money in without making the cut which they got credit for like um yeah…  Huh?

3. Kelly Tilghman gets a turkey leg for the now world famous “Tiger lynching” comments. She had to take two weeks off and apologize to the man.  The politically correct crowd blows a gasket.

2. The entire field of the US OPEN has to share a turkey leg. None of them, as healthy as they were, could beat a man (Tiger Woods) who had a blown ACL and two fractures in his leg. WEAK!

And the winner is….

….drum roll

1. BIG JOHN DALY. JD wins the Turkey of the Year in a landslide for a blockbuster 2008. JD’s list of turkey like antics include:

~Saying he’s getting serious with his game.
~Blowing his new relationship with coach Butch Harmon.
~Having Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden caddy for him after a 2.5 hour rain delay beer fest in the Hooters tent.
~Showing his incredible physique by doing a shirtless and shoeless interview on the course.

And last but not least…

~The now famous “jailed for passing out drunk at a Hooters” incident.

Tony Korologos a.k.a. mediaguru Golf Media, Golf Videos, LPGA Tour, Miscellaneous, PGA Tour, Site News, Tiger Woods

I’m still recovering from Saturday night’s Utah/byu game. I don’t type “byu” in caps yes. I really hate ‘em. I won’t give those &*$#*&s the courtesy of caps.

The Utah/byu rivalry is extremely heated and bitter. This week’s 48-24 (yes, 48-24) win was as sweet as ever for many reasons. First, beating byu ranks up there with any of the top joys in life for a Ute fan. Second, the Utes won the Mountain West Conference championship outright. Third, they went 12-0 for the 2nd time in team history, and the 2nd time in four years. Last but not least, they moved up to #6 in the polls and will be busting the BCS for a 2nd time (1st time 2004 Fiesta Bowl). It looks like the Utes will be in the Sugar Bowl this year.

I’m proud to be a Ute.

Now why am I recovering? Well first my voice is gone. I sound like I have laryngitis. Screaming obscenities at your team’s opponent for four hours is hard on your voice.

I also did some damage to my ribs and sternum at the game. After the win the audience rushed the field (see image). While climbing over the railing my Ute FootJoy MyJoys (yes I wore them to the game) slipped on the cement wall. I held on, rather then dropping 12 feet. My body weight (which there is plenty of) hit the cement wall directly on my sternum. My chest is killing me but I’m still happy!

Tony Korologos a.k.a. mediaguru Life, Miscellaneous

The 4th annual HOG Turkey Awards is coming this week.  I’ve got a list of candidates going which you can read here, but I’d like to hear your suggestions in case I missed any.

Comment in or email me your suggestions for boneheads in the golf world for 2008!

Previous HOG Turkey Award Winners

~ 2007 winner was Sergio Garcia for spitting in the hole and also for gagging away the British Open.

~ 2006 winner was Phil Mickelson for gagging away the US OPEN.

~ 2005 winners, Vijay for withdrawing due to a ping pong injury, and David Duval for earning $381 per event.

Tony Korologos a.k.a. mediaguru Site News

The LPGA Tour has suffered yet another tough blow.  Due to sponsorship losses, they’ve dropped three tournaments.   Overall prize money for $2009 on the LPGA Tour has dropped by $5 million.  Unfortunately for the LPGA this surely isn’t the last setback they’ll encounter in the near future.

Perhaps Annika is even smarter than I thought before for ejecting this year.

Tony Korologos a.k.a. mediaguru LPGA Tour

There’s been a lot of discussion about Sergio Garcia being #2 in the world, and some even more entertaining discussion here about where Sergio ranks #1.

14 year old makes cut in European Tour

Jason Hak, a 14 year old, became the youngest to make a cut on the European Tour.  How cool is that?  To top it off, he replaced Sergio who was previously the youngest at 15 years 46 days.

Tony Korologos a.k.a. mediaguru European Tour

This news came down the pipe while I was in server hell.  But in case you missed it, Seve Ballesteros is out of the ICU, though still in the hospital.  This is ver good news and I continue to wish Seve my best.

Tony Korologos a.k.a. mediaguru Miscellaneous

HOG back at 100%

I’ve now got the header banner running, which was (I hope) the last thing to get working since the big move to a dedicated server. Please let me know via comments or email if you find something messed up so I can fix it.

Dedicated server

For those who don’t know what a dedicated server is, basically it is an entire computer (server) in a data center. The “box” only has one client on it, me. It is “dedicated” to my site. Previously HOG has been on “shared” hosting servers. Shared hosting is cheap, but can be very problematic as I’ve found out. Shared is good for starters, but when a site moves as much traffic as this one does shared hosting won’t work. Shared hosting is often hacked and slow, because there can be many hundreds or even thousands of web sites on one server.

What to expect

Now that HOG is on a dedicated server, we should expect a serious speed increase. Those times when it took several seconds to load the page, or when the site would hang, should be gone for the most part. The gallery should run and load faster.

Room to grow

There’s plenty of room to grow too. The storage capacity available now is 100x what I had before. Plenty of room and plenty of horsepower. HOG has upgraded from a Yugo to a Porsche SUV.

Back to our regularly scheduled blogram

Now that this is done I need a mental break. I’ve gotten hardly any sleep the last couple of days and my brain, back and body are toast. I’ll get back to my regular blogging when I’ve recharged my batteries and put some fresh ProV1’s in my bag.

Tony Korologos a.k.a. mediaguru Site News

I got to sleep at 2am last night. I found that there were problems with many files transferred and had to do many of them again unfortunately. I continued working on the gallery at 7am this morning. As of 8:41am the HOG Golf Photo Gallery is up and running. Let’s test it out:

I also deleted thousands of unnecessary files and tables in the database. The database alone was cleared of over 50,000 “temporary” tables or files. This should help the gallery run quicker, as should my new dedicated server.

Next and (hopefully) final fix, the rotating banner in the header.

Tony Korologos a.k.a. mediaguru Site News