Soporific Sunday

Winter has finally arrived, so since none of us is in a hurry to brave the cold, what say we euthanize a few browser tabs....

Tiger Stuff - Lots of loose ends from The Striped Ones 40th.  Tiger's been in a sharing mood lately, and he even shared some of the details of his birthday celebration:

Hootie?  Alex Myers goes with "age-appropriate", but to me that's just sad.  I guess Hall & Oates were booked?

To celebrate Tiger's milestone, Golf.com ran a series on his 40 "Biggest" Moments, and those scare quotes are there for a reason, as it's quite the curious list.  They don't provide a copy-and-pastable list, so I'll have to do some actual typing:

1. The 1997 Masters
   
2. The 2000 U.S. Open
3.  The 2008 U.S. Open
4. The Fire Hydrant (OK, they refer to it as The Scandal)
5. The Drop at the Masters
6. Completing the Tiger Slam at the 2001 Masters
7. The 2000 PGA (the duel with Bob May)
8. The Win over Chris DiMarco at the 2005 Masters
9. Hoylake -2006 (The Win for Earl)
10. The Ace in Phoenix - 1997
11. Y.E. Yang

Weird, no?  I guess it all depends upon the meaning of big...

My first reaction is that they probably should have limited themselves to  that which occurred on a golf course.  And even there they stray...Seriously, the drop at the Masters?  It was no doubt a fascinating story at the time and it was one that could have only happened to Tiger, but I'm not even sure that it's one of the five biggest moments in Fred Ridley's career.

The Phoenix ace is another fleeting moment of great television, but scant lingering importance.  As you further down the list there's much to criticize... For instance, the famed press conference is its own entry, whereas it obvious should have been covered in No. 4.  

His awkward pairing with Phil in the Ryder Cup gets a mention, thank you, Hal Sutton, but the far more significant singles loss to Constantino Rocca and other more significant Ryder Cup flame-outs are missing.  His break-ups with Hank and Stevie bear mention, but Butch is nowhere to be found.  

But while two of his three Am wins and one of his juniors are noted, it's those six straight USGA match-play titles that I think is most under-appreciated in his career.  I don't care about the level of competition, no one wins that many matches in a row.

And a little Dominance Defined comp has broken out between Alex Myers and Jim McCabe.  The former aspires to blow our mind with seven offerings, of which I'd go with this as most surprising:

3: Times Tiger has had at least a five-tournament winning streak. No one else has done it in the past 60 years. Woods also has three of the five longest streaks, including a personal best streak of seven in 2006-2007.

McCabe calls him with this bit:

2) At one point last season writers gushed because Day had a stretch in which he won four of six starts. Impressive, for sure. But perspective, please, because Woods at the end of 1999 and the beginning of 2000 won six consecutive PGA Tour starts. 

Then at the end of 2006 and beginning of 2007, he won seven straight tournaments — eight, if you count the Target World Challenge. 

Oh, and at the end of 2007 and into the start of 2008, Woods won eight of nine tournaments (including the Target), with his non-win being a second-place finish.

OK, the guy was pretty good there for a while...

And Mags sent along this summary of a selection of Tiger's greatest shots, with lessons to be learned from each.  Hey, I'm just happy to see that our old friend hasn't gone too L.A.  Yet...

And lastly, the Secret Tour Pro has been Punked.  He posted this photo yesterday, reported to be Tiger practicing half-shots in the dark at The Bears Club.  

Now, those of you that know too much about the Florida golf club scene immediately sense the issue, since Tiger belongs to Medalist.

It is Tiger, but one of Shack's readers identified the image as coming from the 2014 Honda Classic, where on Pro-Am day they were delayed by fog.  In the immortal words of Emily Litella, "Never Mind."

My Year in Golf - Fortunately for you, this isn't actually MY year in Golf...but rather that of actual working golf journalists.  They're all worth reading, but How can you resist this kind of anecdote from Alistair Tait?

Being the first journalist to shake Tom Watson’s hand when he finished his last British

Open. I just happened to be standing at the top of the steps to 18th green when Watson finished. When he came up the steps, I held out my hand and simply said, “Thank you.”

There were tears streaming down my face as I shook his hand. “The hardened press?” 

said a voice behind me. It belonged to Peter Dawson, who since has retired as the R&A's chief executive. 

“I’m not ashamed of these tears, Peter,” I replied. 

“Nor should you be,” he said.

 Adam Schupak packs a lot of emotion into two short 'graphs:

Access is the currency in which we writers trade these days. I was lucky enough to score a credential to the champion's toast at the PGA Championship. It has become cliche for the winner to thank the volunteers and course superintendent, but there seemed something especially genuine when Jason Day, who rose from a hardscrabble existence in Australia, told those holding glasses of champagne, “We’re just a bunch of overprivileged children out here.” I'll remember his candor and down-to-earth good nature as much as his eyes, rimmed red from holding back tears, when he holed his final putt. 

I was close to tears myself while watching former PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman, of whom I wrote a book, receive the PGA's Distinguished Service Award. The honor was long overdue, and frankly, unexpected, but not as unexpected as seeing Beman's eyes glistening, his lips quivering as he spoke of his family during his acceptance speech. It was a beautiful moment, matched only by seeing Julie Crenshaw and her daughters wipe away tears as they listened to Gentle Ben give a stirring press conference after missing the cut at his final Masters as a competitor.

But I am my mother's son, so I can't help but take Adam to the woodshed over this grammatical faux pas:

In March, Adams Golf invited me and several writers to participate in a clinic and golf outing with the Champions Tour stalwart.

Sigh!  Are there no editors left at Golfweek?

I Lied - And not for the first time for sure...  But I did like this from Cheyenne Woods in honor of Uncle Eldrick's birthday:

Sweet, and don't miss the Phoenix Open sweatshirt.

Hits and Misses - Style guru Marty Hackel has an amusing slideshow on the year in golf fashion...  

I have a number of quibbles with Marty, including his assessment of Jason Day, DJ, Billy Horschel and Victor Dubuisson, among others, but we can certainly agree on this Kevin Na blouse:

Seriously, what could he have been thinking?

Back9, Back Again? - Remember the "sure thing" golf lifestyle channel?  No real need to, unless of course you're a Connecticut taxpayer.  The Hartford Courant certainly remembers, and brings us this update:

Back9Network, the troubled golf lifestyle channel that received $5 million in state backing, is seeking bankruptcy protection and plans to revive as a "slimmed down" online company with additional private investment. 

The company, founded in 2010 as a golf lifestyle channel, suspended operations early this year and cut most jobs, about 85, in two rounds of layoffs. 

"The restructuring will result in a slimmed-down, online-focused golf entertainment network that can be successful and grow on a go-forward basis," CEO Charles Cox said . The company will remain in Connecticut.

Only this one mention of the Bosworths:

James Bosworth, founder, largest shareholder and chief executive until his resignation in 2014, criticized the bankruptcy filing. Cox did not inform him or other shareholders of the legal action, he said. 

"What people invested in is being changed dramatically," he said. "There has been zero communications to me or most of the other … investors. I'm not sure if restructuring makes sense or not."

I'm sure those investors will find Jamie's concerns touching, if a bit tardy.... since the money he raised seemed mostly to be to give his then hot wife a platform (a clarification, I've no reason to believe that she's not still hot, she's just no longer his wife).

This Wall Street Journal article casts a generally more skeptical eye on the filings, though there's a couple of journalistic howlers that I can't overlook, including this:

Under the purchase plan, the investors will continue to repay roughly $4.75 million in low-interest loans extended through Connecticut’s media tax credit program. The state’s decision to invest in the golf channel gave critics of Democratic Gov. Dan Malloy something to grumble about.

Wow, people can be so petty....I mean the man is beyond reproach, right?

As the Connecticut Post pointed out, Mr. Malloy’s former chief of staff is married to a former Back9Network employee. Former Democratic state Sen. Sanford Cloud Jr., his close ally, once served on its board.

This seems unconvincing in terms of the conflict of interest angle, how about we all just agree that taxpayer money shouldn't be used as a venture capital fund?

Then there was this:

The channel’s collapse stung an impressive list of more than 200 investors, including tech entrepreneurs, Wall Street executives, doctors and golf industry players. People who own small slices of the channel include New Jersey Devils part owner David Blitzer and UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma. It also names a Connecticut lottery winner whose Audi caught on fire in 2010, though Bankruptcy Beat couldn’t confirm that the channel investor is the same unlucky person.

Is the WSJ now covering car fires?  But lottery winners investing in startups is almost as good as the government doing so, with eerily similar ROIs.

I Have That Shot -  Friend of the blog Mark W. sends us this instructional video on how to add the stinger wedge to your shot-making arsenal:

Mark asserted intellectual property rights to the shot, though at best it's unprotected trade craft.  The problem is that Mark has used it in public with such frequency, that it's long since been found in the public domain.

It's reasonably cute, but it really should have been shorter and funnier, methinks.

Punching Down - He does make us laugh for sure...  Can't go the whole week without a Trump item, can we?

During a South Carolina stop on Wednesday, Trump tried to scare up the Hilton Head

Island crowd by claiming that second-place Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders wants to raise taxes to 90 percent (presumably the marginal rate) for the wealthiest Americans. Although Sanders has never explicitly mentioned a rate hike that steep, it didn't stop Trump from using it in tandem with one of the island's most enjoyed activities.

“This guy wants to tax you — think of it — this guy wants to raise your taxes to 90 percent,” Trump said. “No, no, think. You’ll have to move out — I love this area by the way, I’ve been here many times. Great golfing area, right? We love it. No more golf — no more golf. You won’t have any golf any more. You won’t have any money left to be golfing.”

Can someone explain to me the purpose of picking a fight with Bernie?  The sadness that there won't be golf under President Sanders is kind of hypothetical, no?