Noh And Ko

Things work out in strange ways sometimes...

On Sunday, we had theater tickets with Al Z., proofreader to the stars, and his wife Leslie.  We were to see The Velocity of Autumn, featuring Estelle Parsons and Steven Spinella.  The former is a longtime fave of Theresa, and the latter Theresa studied and worked with back in her artistic days.  When we arrived we discovered that Parsons would not be performing, took that as an opportunity to recoup our cost for a show that had been poorly received, and had dinner at 3:00, early even by my standards.

The significance of the above is that we arrive home by about 5:15 p.m., allowing me to see the entire Golf Channel coverage of the Swinging Skirts LPGA Classic, featuring an anticipated final round shootout between Stacy Lewis and girlfriend Lydia Ko, for whom my inappropriate affection was previously shared here.  

Actually we arrived home in time to see the end of the men's event from New Orleans.  While the event held little drama, I would have liked to see a bit more of Seung-Yul Noh's shotmaking.  From Matthew Ruddy's post at The Loop:

Blustery winds and a final-group pairing with a major champion conspired to take away 22-

year-old Seung-Yul Noh's chance to win his first PGA Tour title.

"He really showed his shotmaking ability there," says Top 50 teacher Brian Manzella, whose academy is based at nearby English Turn G. & C.C.

"That's a tricky, short par-4 with a pin cut close to all the water and the alligators that live there. He played a low, boring tee shot with a long iron well away from the fairway bunker, and it rolled out for miles. Then he picked the perfect shot for the wind, knocking down a short iron and going right at it."

You know it's a second tier event when the shower  is Bud-Lite.

From the little I saw, he seemed to hit those stingers with every club in the bag.  He might be a worthy fantasy pick for Hoylake, but more importantly if you can play in the wind, you can play, full stop.

But my real pleasure was in watching the action from the ladies' event, from beautiful Lake Merced.  That's a club that's a bit below the radar as compared to its more famous neighbors, but proved to be a wonderful choice of venues.  The West Coast location also provided for evening television coverage, which has to be a good fit for the LPGA.  

Lewis and Lydia put on quite the show, and Jenny Shin  got her self into the act as well.  As I've noted before, Lydia seems possessed of an almost unnatural calm, and we'd be hard-pressed to identify a more important asset for a professional golfer.  Well, there's soft hands and an uncanny short game, but then she's got that as well. doesn't she.

Lewis and Ko played together all four days, and they clearly both benefited from the pairing.  And we all benefited from the pairing as well, as the mutual respect and appreciation came through, from the mini-fist bumps to the smiles, and at least for the first three days they conducted their post-round pressers together.  

What was perhaps most interesting about the final round was watching them both struggle with their games.  Ko had the worst of it early, but had time to regroup, and salvaged her round with some dramatic short-game wizardry.  

It all culminated with a great exchange on the finishing hole, after Lewis stuck her third shot within about four feet.  Ko had made an unfortunate mistake on her lay-up, running it through the fairway into what looked like a thick lie.  But she calmly (there's that word again) stuck her wedge six feet under the hole, and drilled her putt into the exact center of the cup.

Much has been made of Lydia's caddie tryouts, such as here and here.  

Along the way, while showing impressive poise, she quickly developed a habit for changing

Ko with looper-du jour Jojola.

caddies as often as most people change clothes. She started 2014 with Scott Lubin, then switched to Mark Wallington, then hired Steve Kay. For the final round of last week’s tournament in Hawaii, Ko’s dad, Hong, replaced Kay. 

This week, she hired a local caddie in Domingo Jojola. He’s a former USF golfer and longtime junior member at Lake Merced, so he knows the course well. Jojola and Ko worked together two years ago, when she played in the U.S. Girls Junior at the club.

This was obviously a situation in which, especially in the absence of a permanent caddie on her bag, Lydia was well-served by a caddie with great familiarity with a new venue.  But I wonder if this concern about parental control (can you say B.J. Wie?) has any basis in fact, as Lydia's family ahs not seemed to have  particularly strong on Tour:

It’s a slippery slope Ko is traversing here, especially amid chatter about heavy parental involvement in the revolving door of caddies. 

“I never really hired a caddie saying I wanted to go with that person for a whole year,” Ko said. “I don’t know what it’s like out here and I don’t know the majority of the courses. … I think it’ll take time to find somebody who will suit me.”

 I don't mind her swapping caddies every week, I'll get concerned only when I see her changing to more stylish eyeglasses.