As the world heads to Orlando to honor the King, winter makes its last stand and your humble blogger prepares for one last trip to that land called Park City, let's peek in and see how golf folks are amusing themselves:
- Standing Room Only - It seems that it took John Daly shooting a 90 to wake folks up to the disgrace. First, Ryan Lavner in Golf Channel's After Further Review feature:
John Daly continues to receive sponsor exemptions on the PGA Tour … why, exactly?
Because he’s a fan favorite? Those fans must enjoy seeing bad golf, because JD hasn’t won since 2004, has just two top 10s since 2006, has 38 career withdrawals and now has 62 rounds of 80 or higher.
Because he’s a two-time major champion? Sorry, but his most recent major triumph was 19 years ago. Jordan Spieth was about to celebrate his first birthday. At least use an excuse from this century.
Daly, No. 582 in the world, has made five sponsor-aided starts this season – or one more than talented up-and-coming American Peter Uihlein, who is No. 73 in the world. Something is wrong with that picture.
That's great, but perhaps if golf writers such as Ryan had been decrying the criminal waste of sponsors exemptions earlier, then they would have gone to more worthy recipients.
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| Long John, ever so slightly beyond parallel. |
Also piling on a tad late is Alan Shipnuck in his weekly
Heroes and Zeros, who makes Long John Numero Uno of his Zeros:
John Daly. The surprise is not that he failed to break 90 for the first time in his PGA Tour career. The surprise is that it didn’t happen years ago.
That's my point exactly.
And lastly, Alex Myers reminds us of this in this week's
The Grind:
Random tournament fact:
If you thought John Daly's 12 in Tampa was bad, try this: In the final round at Bay Hill in 1998, Daly made an 18 on the par-5 sixth hole, his worst recorded score on the PGA Tour. Unfortunately, he won't be in the field this week to try to top that mark.
The bus is suddnely getting very crowded.
- Play Along with Your Favorite Blogger - If you're into such things, the new Links Magazine Equipment E-Mag has a challenging golf history quiz that can be found here. I legitimately got ten out of eighteen correct, and anyone that can beat that will get the keys to this blog.
- Ladies Day, Teenage Division - England's precocious Charley Hull, all of 17-years old, won her first Ladies European Tour event over the weekend, winning the Lalla Meryem Cup in Morocco by shooting a final round 9-under 62. She becomes the fourth player to win an LET event before her 18th birthday, which happens to be Thursday. Hull won in a playoff over Gwadlys Nocera by hitting her tee shot to four feet on the first playoff hole. Hull was a Captain's pick for last year's Solheim Cup, beating Paula Creamer in singles and then asking for her autograph.
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| Charley Hull celebrates her win in Morocco with her many fans. |
- Ladies Day - Alter Kocker Division - Juli Inkster is to be named as the Captain for next year's U.S. Solheim Cup Team. Inkster's selection has in some circles been compared to the selection of Tom Watson to lead this year's U.S. Ryder Cup team, though at 53 she's much closer to the age of her players. The Solheim Cup is to be played September 18-20, 2015 at St. Leon-Rot Golf Club in Germany. Unless and until the format is tweaked to include the Asian players, it's all a bit of a yawn.
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| Julie Inkster will take on the job of ending the U.S. Solheim Cup losing streak. |
- 23 Days and Counting - Until The Masters, that is. David Owen is back with his slow-motion Augusta tease, providing a far deeper history of the nursery on the site, as well as the clubhouse. I'm far too lazy to summarize or excerpt, so go and read the thing already. I'll be here when you get back.
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| The Fruitland Nurseries Catalogue from the late 1880's. |
The South African native injured a rib when he sneezed on the 14th tee. A PGA Tour physical therapist applied a bag of ice to his right shoulder and Sabbatini limped to the finish, shooting a 78 to finish at 8 over (T-70).
- Zaftig Shot of the Week- Alan Shipnuck also had Jason Rose as one of his Zeros:
Justin Rose. He was in the hunt on Sunday until he laid the sod over a pitch shot and whiffed a couple of short putts. Otherwise, things went great.
Anyone catch that chunk of Rose's? It was about as fat as any of us catch our worst swing, and from the best ball-striker on Tour. You just never know what you'll see in this silly game of ours.
- We Get Results... or Not - On Saturday I left you glued to the screen not knowing the meaning of the Scottish term, "Hitting into the skink." Of course, that was in the same post as the Playboy video so no doubt Maggot and the rest the lot didn't read that far. Our Scottish coresspondent Elsie (a/k/a The Scottish Housewife) has concluded her field research, and reports as follows:
It is now official we cannot go away on holiday again.. has taken me 8 days to catch up on your blog.. as I was going through them had a few queries for you and then find you have a question for me....re the word skink....don't know if you have heard of cullen skink? it is a seafood soup.. similar to a chowder... From Cullen..... so initially I would have thought skink would mean sea... which might be the case re playing the Cullen course...however looking up a few sites.. skink is a shin bone or shank which would be used for soup... we shall have to visit Cullen and find out exactly what the locals mean!!
So, we'll get back to you on this.... though staying with Elsie's soup thought, perhaps they were playing in a dense fog like the notorious Haar on the Aberdeenshire coast?
- Norman's Ego Jumps the Shark - Greg Norman has announced that he will no longer play in The Open Championship because of perceives slights inflicted upon his sensitive self by sponsor Rolex. Per Derek Lawrenson in The Mail (h/t Shackelford):
Such is their competitiveness that Norman, who represents Omega, reckons Rolex kept him out of playing in the pro-am for the Senior British Open — an event they sponsor — in 2012 over a Turnberry course where he had walked away from the field in the Open in 1986 (Rolex deny this).
A month later, Norman was at Gleneagles and planned to be present to hear his friend, Ryder Cup captain Jose-Maria Olazabal’s wildcards announcement. Again, Rolex were heavily involved and, again, Norman believes he was denied entry.
Shackelford with the rebound:
Rolex is also a USGA partner. Norman has declared himself the lead candidate for theFox Sports analyst job starting in 2015 when the 12-year USGA contract commences.
That could be delightfully awkward.
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