This and That

Blogging will be light today, as we celebrate the bride's birthday.  We'll be playing our first round together this morning, a great joy after her hip replacement surgery.  It hasn't been determined whether we'll be playing a match (for a backgrounder on our matches go here), but good friend Glenn will join us and send the fighters to their corners when called for.

In the interim, a few items to amazeand amuse:

• Bee The Ball - Spain's Pablo Larazabal really stirred up a hornet's nest...literally.  Playing in the Maybank Malaysian Open he stuck his nose where it didn't belong:

Funny and scary...

• Joe Bag-o'...Signed Baseballs -  Joe Buck, who will be the voice of the Fox golf broadcasts, reminds us that he's just an ordinary guy with few contacts to smooth his path in his chosen profession:

“When I was doing 162 Cardinals games a year, we'd be in San Francisco for

three and play all day at the Olympic Club, or we'd go to Chicago and play Medinah,” he said then. “Don't tell anybody, but a bag of autographed baseballs, especially when Mark McGwire is on the team, that will get you on a lot of great golf courses.”

Lucky thing he had those balls...otherwise he might have had to ask Dad to make a call, or perhaps have his club make arrangements:

He is a member of Old Warson Country Club in St. Louis and Boone Valley Golf Club in Augusta, Mo., and has a handicap index of 3.6. Old Warson hosted the Ryder Cup in 1971 and Boone Valley was named the best course in Missouri on Golf Digest’s Best in State rankings.

Or, in circumstances of extreme urgency, I'm guessing the starter would take cash.  I've got no axe to grind here, but I'm a bit put off by the "Average Joe" shtick, as the purpose of the bag of baseballs seems likely to be to avoid dipping into his pocket.

• Closed Shop -  One of the items in my multi-count indictment of Commissioner Ratched is the extent to which the Tour has become a closed shop.  By eliminating Q-school he's consigned new players to a full year on the Web.com Tour and now it turns out that graduating from that Tour guarantees your right to watch PGA events on TV.  Per Shackelford and Rex Hoggard:

“It’s an imperfect storm,” explained one PAC member, who asked for anonymity because players are advised not to discuss ongoing policy discussions.

At issue is a larger-than-normal number of Tour members playing on medical and career money exemptions and increased participation by higher-ranked players as a result of the new split-calendar schedule.

Of the two graduates cited, Will Wilcox has six PGA starts and Benjamin Alvarado has exactly one.  

• Math Is Hard -  Mike Bamberger, usually a level-headed sort, puts 2 and 2 together and gets 1,434 somehow.  

The day is coming. A man using reading glasses in the scorer's room, with half a hundred winters in his memory bank, is going to win the Masters. Here's a partial list of people who were talking last week about that inevitability: Gary Player (78), Fred Couples (54), Vijay Singh (51), Tiger Woods (38). Jack Nicklaus is the oldest winner of a Masters, at age 46 in 1986. Suddenly, that doesn't seem so old anymore. Fifty-six is the new 46. Couples will be 56 the year after next, and guys can win at 56, former Masters champions were saying last week. One of them held out hope for a win at 61.

Bernhard Langer shares those attributes. “I have said for years that a player in his 50s will win a major,” Langer, who is 56, said last week. He finished even par for the tournament and in a tie for eighth. His Sunday 69 matched the Sunday score made by Bubba his own self.

I have no doubts that a ma of 50 could win a major, especially since a man of 59 should have won a major.  But where I differ with Mike is whether that man will be named Woods.  The guys he's mostly citing, Langer, Singh, Player and Jimenez all have smooth golf swings and have been injury-free for most of their careers.  It's true that Freddie has battled back issues for years, but not much else.  Does Tiger's swing remind anyone of the swings of those guys?  And if his body can't withstand the punishment in his 30's, do we think it'll get better in his 50's?

• Supination Blues -  Luke Kerr-Dineen files a post on Tim Clark's preparations for life after anchoring:

We're happy for any excuse to show the Slammer.

Tim Clark is one of the players most likely to be affected by the USGA's upcoming ban on anchored putting, and not just because he's been using such a stroke for almost 20 years.

Clark has a rare condition that prevents him from being able to supinate his wrists. So, while other pros can return to a short putter, Clark's condition physically eliminates that option.

But with change fast-approaching, Tim Clark, who ordinarily anchors his putter into his chest, is preparing for the future ahead. On the putting green the day before the first round of the 2014 RBC Heritage, Clark discussed the upcoming ban with members of his team and hit a handful of putts sidesaddle.

 I'm generally in favor of the ban, though no doubt they waited far too long and as a result it's somewhat unfair to players like Clark.  On the other hand, they don't need to change how they putt, the just need a shorter broomstick so it's not jammed against the body.  Unfortunately, Clark is such a short hitter that even allowed to anchor for the next twenty months his prospects are tenuous.

• She Throws Like A Girl -  Go here if you must to see Lexi Thompson's no-good, horrible first pitch at a Marlins game.  But the best part was her self-deprecating tweet after the fact:

Lexi Thompson        ✔ @Lexi

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Threw a grounder :/ I think I was trying to play it more like a bump and run 😜 still a lot of fun! #stickingtogolf #badthrower

Ah yes, the old bump-and-run excuse...we like a sense of humor as much as anything. Well played, Lexi.

• Shall We Dance - We've dealt with celebrity golfers both good (The Babe) and bad (whoever maimed that Playboy model way back when).  I doubt it will surprise you that Fred Astaire was quite the accomplished golfer, per this Alex Holmes post.  

On April 15, 1938, Astaire and fellow golfer, Ginger Rogers, wrap the 2 minute and 45 second tap dancing golf sequence in "Carefree" in a single take.

For a glimpse of the type of dance/golf trick shot artistry Astaire could pull off, check out this other YouTube video:

Astaire, who played to a single-digit handicap, strikes five mid-irons and six drivers in the scene. It was said that when the balls were collected after the take all the shots were concentrated in two distinct landing areas with very little dispersion. Astaire was wildly considered a style icon on and off the course in his day and will always be remembered as one of the game's most fashionable fans.

I'm just glad to see that one can play golf well despite having "happy feet," an affliction I share with Fred.