This and That

I've been quite out of the loop lately, so let's take a moment to clear the decks before our Linksapalooza kicks into high gear.

The Weekend - I've not much to say on the weekend golf results, except to reaffirm my love of Angel Cabrera.  One of the CBS announcers made a point with which I completely agree, that when he's on his game he looks like he should win everything.  But I do love the lumbering hulk of a man, and I'll remind the reader of his memorable show of genuine sportsmanship during his ultimately unsuccessful Masters playoff with Adam Scott last year.

As for the French Open, I only discovered this morning that Kevin Stadler shot 76 and coughed up his big lead, including a horrible three-putt at the last to avoid a playoff.  Let's not be thinking young Stads is any better than he is, as it was only a gagged 4-footer by Bubba that assured him his lone PGA Tour win in Phoenix earlier this year.  But at least he gave us this warm and fuzzy photo of Clan McDowell celebrating GMac's win.

While I still owe the readers a Ryder Cup update post, McDowell desperately needed this to get himself back in the discussion.

Tiger Beat - We'll no doubt be allocating far too many pixels to the Striped One next week, as we try to gauge his form for the Open Championship at Hoylake.  But there was news of a sort from a surprising source:

Released Tuesday, Blood Sport: Alex Rodriguez, Biogenesis and the Quest to End Baseball’s Steroid Era, co-authored by Tim Elfrink of the Miami New Times and Gus-Garcia Roberts of Newsday, claims that the Canadian sports doctor Anthony Galea who treated Rodriguez also visited Woods 14 times between January and August 2009 and charged Woods a total of $76,012 as he recovered from knee surgery following his 2008 U.S. Open victory. Previous reports had identified only four or five visits. 

In 2011, Galea pled guilty to smuggling human growth hormone and other drugs into the United States to treat professional athletes. Both Woods and Galea have said that Woods only received only legal platelet-rich plasma therapy from Galea. 

The book also reports that according to the Florida Department of Health, Dr. Mark Lindsay, an associate of Galea's who also treated Rodriguez, visited Woods' 49 times from September 2008 to October 2009 and charged Woods' $118,979.

That's a lot of visits and especially a ton of green for the notoriously tight-with-a-buck Tiger.  Though he's got Hank in his corner on this one:

"I was there and watched the whole procedure," Haney said. "There was never anything that went into Tiger Woods's body that didn't come out of his body. They take blood out, they spin it, they inject the plasma back in. I totally believe that Tiger Woods has never taken any performance-enhancing drugs."

It's presented as evidence from a hostile witness, which I guess he is.  But unless he was there for all 63 visits, I'm not sure of its relevance.  His willingness to understate the relationship and number of visits is certainly not confidence-inducing, but the reality is that we'll likely never know.  Especially since anything gleaned by the suits in Ponte Vedra Beach will be held under stricter security measures than the nuclear codes.

Nadia With The Rebound - Concerned that Rory McIlroy has been moping around his hotel rooms?  Worry not, my dear readers, he's taken solace in the comfort ofa good book his faith his family.....who am I kidding, he's taken solace in the arms of Irish model Nadia Forde.  Per Luke Kerr-Dineen:

There are plenty of fish in the sea. Just ask Rory McIlroy. 

On his way to the Scottish Open after a quick practice round at Royal Liverpool, site of this year's British Open, Rory reportedly made a quick pit stop in Dublin to visit Irish model Nadia Forde, according to the Irish Mail on Sunday. Forde's fellow model and friend, Katie Larmour, is engaged to Rory's friend Harry Diamond. The news comes a little more than a month after Rory broke off his engagement with Caroline Wozniacki.

Anybody but me wondering if this is why he suddenly decided to play for Ireland in the 2016 Olympics?  Just a coincidence I'm sure...

At Golf.com Mike Walker has this:

Forde is the 94th sexiest woman in the world, according to FHM Magazine.

94th, eh?  I've never heard of FHM, but they must be the last folks on the planet not grading on a curve (pun intended).

 And to tie together two of our threads, Martin Dempster had this update on claims that Team Rory deliberately timed a court filing to coincide with McDowell's wedding:

The claim, which McIlroy vehemently denies, was made in papers submitted to a commercial court in Dublin last month by Horizon Sports Management, the sports agency the two-times major winner is suing in an action which is threatening to become increasingly bitter.

 It is also claimed McIlroy’s team referred to McDowell’s marriage in emails as “D-Day”. McIlroy’s team has denied this, insisting the “D-Day” references related to the day when the lawsuit would be filed and that the date was selected due to a “simple gap” that emerged in his busy schedule.  It’s already messy and could get worse between now and going to trial, but McIlroy, while conceding that his relationship with McDowell has become “strained” at times due to what is going on in the background, is adamant it will have no effect whatsoever on Europe’s bid to hang on to the Ryder Cup later this year.

It's never been quite clear to me why Rory's schedule would affect court filings in the case.  Depositions, of course, are another matter, and it so happens that Rory's is currently scheduled for September, right around the time of the Ryder Cup.  Obviously that schedule will change, but it's an amusing thought nonetheless.

Wirral In This Together - When last we visited him, Liverpool factory worker John Singleton had amazingly qualified for the Open Championship at nearby Hoylake.  There was one small detail, he needed to get permission to take the time off from his boss.  Per the Liverpool Echo, the boss in question didn't say yes, he said Hell Yes!

A Wirral factory worker will be cheered on by workmates at next week’s Open golf

championship – after bosses gave staff a day off and bought them tickets for the tournament. 

John Singleton, a resin plant mixer at Advanced Electrical Varnishes (AEV) inBirkenhead, booked his place at the prestigious event at Royal Liverpool golf club after winning a qualifier with clubs borrowed from a friend last week. 

Factory bosses have not only agreed to give the 30-year-old two weeks off to compete in the tournament – they have also paid for his colleagues to cheer him on at the course.

How great is that reaction?  A tip of the cap to these gentlemen, I only wish they made consumer products so I could show my appreciation in a more tangible manner.

How Green is My Ego - Regular readers might have read between the lines and picked up on my less than laudatory opinion of PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Ratched Finchem.  I've been terribly subtle, I know, but perhaps some of you have connected the dots.

See how you feel about the man after reading this Chris Elsberry interview with Peter Kostis from the Connecticut Post:  

But he hasn't seen anything like what the PGA Tour is doing to Ken Green. 

"Quite frankly, I'm flabbergasted that the Tour won't help him get into a tournament," Kostis said recently at the Travelers Championship. "The fact that the PGA Tour is not going to bat for him, not helping get sponsors' exemptions, to me is mind-blowing. It's mind-blowing."

Here's the background, if the name Ken Green only rings a faint bell:

Long story short, Green, a five-time winner on the PGA Tour, lost the lower part of his right leg in a June 2009 RV accident that took the lives of his brother, his girlfriend and his dog. Thanks to a prosthetic, Green has been able to return to competitive golf -- but only in a very limited capacity -- because the Tour refuses to grant him his request for a major medical exemption. 

And that's what has Kostis, Green's longtime friend and swing instructor, scratching his head in frustration. 

"It's going against everything that the Tour stands for, you know?" he said. "It's the uphill battle, it's the never-give-up, it's the competitive spirit, it's all the things that professional golf and the PGA Tour embodies, and he deserves a chance. He doesn't deserve carte blanche, he doesn't deserve 10 sponsors' exemptions without even asking, but he deserves a spot or two.

So, what's the issue?  Per Kostis again:

When asked if he felt that Green was being blackballed by the PGA Tour and specifically by commissioner Tim Finchem for past actions -- Green wasn't exactly a model follower of PGA regulations -- Kostis again shook his head in frustration. 

"If (Finchem's) holding grudges from the past, then that's a sad state of affairs," Kostis said. "Ken had his issues ¦ for example, at the Masters, he received a letter of reprimand for having his son caddy for him at the par-3 tournament back in the '80s. Now, that's a staple at the Masters, everyone does it. 

"Once, he and Mark Calcavecchia got chastised for skipping balls across the lake at 16 (at Augusta National). Now, everyone does it in the practice rounds. So, the times change and if he's being under-represented because of what he did in the past, then I think that's really small."

Green was no doubt a bit of a troublemaker, and I doubt his transgressions were always as innocuous as those cited by Kostis.  But time marches on, punishment for said transgressions was presumably meted out, and the man has experienced profound tragedy.  As the Greg Germann character on Ally McBeal would put it, "Bygones."