Weekend Wrap

Thanks to those of you that expressed concern about my laptop's meltdown.  The good news is that the crisis has been dealt with and the device is back in business.... the bad news is that to do so involved restoring it to the original factory settings, scrubbing it clean of all documents and applications.  But we're thankful to have our multi-hour tech. service calls behind us...

To Ayr is Human - Though Inbee at her best seems not to be... The ladies' British was good fun, a mix of new names and show ponies, a wide range of conditions for the gals to play in and of course those stunning images of the Ayrshire coast and Ailsa Craig.  Since I was one of six people watching, we'll start with the game story:

TURNBERRY, Scotland -- Top-ranked Inbee Park won the Women's British Open after

coming from three shots behind fellow South Korean Jin-Young Ko in the final round Sunday, becoming the seventh female player to win four different majors.

Park picked up seven shots in her last 12 holes for a 7-under 65 to reel in Ko, who lost the lead at Turnberry when her second shot at No. 16 rolled into the burn. Park finished on 12-under 276.

Inbee played a flawless round, and it's a well-deserved victory.  JY Ko is a new name to us all, and she looked in total control for most of the day.  Then something happened, perhaps a peak at a leader board or hearing the roars from Inbee's eagle on No. 14.  Here's a little background on yet another South Korean player that will be coming to leaderboards near you:

Ko, a precocious 20-year-old playing outside Asia for the first time and in her first links tournament, finished runner-up on 9 under after a 71.

It's even more remarkable than that, as she arrived Monday night from Korea.  Jet-lagged as you'd expect, the Tuesday Pro-Am prevented her from getting on the golf course, though she played her one practice round Wednesday with her mentor....you guessed it, Inbee Park.

 Now to the controversy....:

The LPGA Tour is calling Park's achievement a career Grand Slam, although Park hasn't won the Evian Championship since it was given the status of a fifth major in 2013. She did win Evian in 2012. 

Ugh!  Dontcha just love this kind of nonsense, caused by having five majors.  Here's how the LPGA rationalizes it:

The LPGA endeavors to maintain fair comparisons - as they relate to major championships and grand slams – from generation to generation. Despite the dictionary definition of grand slam, when translated to golf it has been widely understood that accomplishing the grand slam has been to win all four major championships. 

The term grand slam was translated to golf 20 years before the LPGA was founded and the LPGA has not always had four majors. We began our major history with three. In some years we competed for two, in some years three, in some years four and now five.

OK, that's underwhelming logic at nest, as explained by Randall Mell:

GOLF CHANNEL

The phrase “Grand Slam” originated in card games in the early 1800s as a way to describe the winning of all possible tricks in a single game. The phrase is most closely connected to the game of Bridge, in which a standard deck of 52 playing cards is divided evenly among four players. There are 13 matches, or tricks, played in which each player uses one card with the goal of winning that particular trick. If a player wins all 13 tricks, he or she is considered to have won a Grand Slam. Park has not won all possible LPGA majors, since the Evian was not considered a major when she won it. 

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Same reasoning as Golf Channel – Park needs to win an Evian Championship to complete a career Grand Slam. The AP's position is significant because its copy is carried by thousands of news outlets around the world, including newspapers, websites and TV and radio stations.

Now, lest you think this is a problem only for the ladies, let's remember that the modern Grand Slam didn't exist until Arnie dreamed it up in 1960.  And a small little invitational in Augusta, GA was retroactively declared a major and The Western Open, which was considered pretty "major" by the standards on the 1930's and 40's, didn't earn its appropriate status through the gauzy lens of history.

And this mess is further complicated by the fact that Inbee has won Evian, just prior to it becoming major...she's the best woman player on the planet, that'll just have to be enough for her and the scribes.

I'll tale credit for my early week call that Lydia could be competitive on this track, as we was in the mix until a double bogey at No. 12 caused by a rare fried egg lie in a bunker.  But that she would fail to be low Ko, I didn't see that coming...

Here's a bit more on the unknown Ko and her caddie for the week:

For her caddie, 27-year-old Jeff Brighton from nearby Girvan, it has been a week like no other. He contacted her manager on Tuesday, shortly after her arrival from Korea the previous evening, and the new partnership only hit the course for the first time on Wednesday.

A first-round 68 hinted that his player had skills, but the 1-under 71 played in the cold wind and rain late on Friday was proof that something a little bit special was happening. Coming off the green in near dark, Brighton was in awe of Ko's efforts and also a little excited despite being soaked to the skin. "I've been caddying at Turnberry for 15 years, so I've walked this course thousands of times,'' he said. "I started playing here as a junior member, and that was as good a round as I have ever seen."

I wonder if this partnership will become permanent, as they seemed to be enjoying each other's company and, at least for 69 holes, worked quite well together.

Merritt Pay - One of the truisms of life on Tour is that it's difficult to back up a great round, so expectations were low for Troy Merritt on Sunday:

Golf sure is funny. 

Troy Merritt missed five consecutive PGA Tour cuts and seven in his last nine starts heading into the Quicken Loans National. Of course, he won. 

So it goes in golf, where Merritt followed up his brilliant 61 on Saturday with a solid 4-under-par 67 Sunday at sizzling Robert Trent Jones Golf Club to finish at 18 under and three shots clear of runner-up Rickie Fowler (69). Once he got to a weekend, Merritt, 29, made the most of it and shot 128 in his last two rounds to gain his first maiden Tour victory in his 96th start.

I watched none of it, but isn't Rickie having quite the strange season?  Last year he was top-5 in all four majors, but didn't win a thing.  This year he's won twice in impressive fashion and seems to be routinely contending, but has played rather poorly in the majors.

This is Tiger's event and the host actually played reasonably well, as per Steve DiMeglio:

He caught a bad break on the first hole when his approach caromed off the flagstick and wound up 50 feet from the hole.

Instead of a kick-in birdie, he settled for a two-putt par. Undeterred, he started putting up red numbers two holes later. Hitting fairways and greens, Woods made five birdies in an eight-hole stretch to reach 10 under. 

Then things started to fall apart. There was a missed 3-footer for par on the 11th, a drive into the hazard on 12, an approach spun off the green on 14. But there were far more ups the last four days than downs.

Well, that's been the pattern recently, a good score or stretch of holes, followed by a regression.  But in this case the step back was smaller, his worst round was Saturday's 74, and the good play was better.  Although this from Golf Channel's Ryan Reiterman seems to raise some recurring themes:

But perhaps more importantly, Woods said after four rounds at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club he feels like he's turned a corner with his new swing under instructor Chris Como.

"I'm getting some speed back, which is nice," he said. "I'm starting to pump the ball out there again, and I know the lofts on my irons are very weak compared to today's standards. I'm hitting the ball up there with some of the bigger guys again ... I was able to make some putts, and the short game's becoming good again like it used to be."

Since his troubles began, Tiger has seemed overly focused on distance.  While Tiger was the longest guy out there when he came up, that hasn't been the case for many years though to this observer he seems to be long enough.  Yet all he talks about is speed.... and the bit about iron lofts reminds of Phil's mocking of Tiger's equipment a few years back.

But the challenge now becomes tee times, as we might only see him once more this year at the PGA.  And given his continued estrangement from his driver, it's really hard to see him playing particularly well there.  But unless he were to win the PGA, there will be no FedEx Playoffs nor a Presidents Cup, so see ya at Torrey in February, Tiger.

But Shack notes an encouraging sign, the return of amazing rescue shots, such as this little gem:

Hurley Burly - News broke over the weekend that Tour player Bill Hurley's father had gone missing, and going public resulted in him being found far from home:

GAINESVILLE, Va. (AP) -- The father of PGA Tour player Billy Hurley III was found

safe in Texas after he went missing for nearly two weeks, police said Friday. 

Willard Hurley Jr., 61, was unharmed and told police in Leesburg, Virginia, he had simply been traveling. Police had traced him to Texarkana, Texas, before a citizen who'd seen his picture spotted him on Friday and called local police. 

The elder Hurley spoke briefly by phone to Leesburg police, but didn't provide many details, said Lt. Jeff Dube, a police spokesman.

My assumption with stories like this is encroaching dementia, though it appears to not be the case here.  Whatever the background. at least his family knows that he's safe.

A Wie Bit Fragile - Michelle Wie's annus horribilis continues unabated with this:

Michelle Wie withdrew from the Women's British Open after 13 holes of her second round on Friday, soon after aggravating her left ankle injury by slipping as she walked off a tee box. 

"Could be a week or two months," Wie told reporters after receiving medical attention in the physio room at Turnberry. 

Wie was 10 over par for the round, which was played in wet and windy conditions, and 14 over for the tournament.

I'm not sure which is worse, that she hurt one of her few unimpaired body parts or that she was +14 for 31 holes....  We all thought that last year's U.S. Open win was going to be the start of a great stretch for her, but she simply has proven to be far too fragile.  Oh well, we'll always have Pinehurst.