Flotsam and Jetsam™ - Polar Vortex Edition

After a blogging-free day, I'm back and anxious to make my unique contribution to world harmony.  Or not...

• Honda Highlights - Rory's pre-tournament presser was a predictably hot ticket, as the state of his infamous wisdom tooth was a continuing concern of the scribes.  Rory's last two Honda appearances perfectly encapsulate his rise and fall, the dramatic win in 2012 in which he withstood Tiger's final round 62 followed by the sudden withdrawal as he espied the parking lot while struggling to break 90.

He appears genuinely contrite over his actions of last year, and this was the takeaway from his comments: 

"I'm glad that everything has sort of just been cleared up. I'm happy with where I am now."

I should say so as he posted one of the most effortless 63's on a difficult track that you'll ever see.  Now let's see if he can keep it going through the weekend.

As for that other guy, he was last heard from telling ESPN's Bob Harig:

"Then I went to India and it was just a continuation of that. I finally have my golf feels back. It just took a little longer than I would like."

 One over on a calm morning in South Florida resulting in a T81.  Glad we found those elusive "feels."

• Timing is Everything - Cameron Morfitt has a video piece in this week's SIG+D about the strength of the field at the Honda.  At the time he filmed the top eight players in the world were planning to tee it up, though Justin Rose later withdrew because of an injury.  Morfitt attributes the strong field to Honda's position on the schedule between the two WGC's (the match play and Doral) and to the move of many Tour pros, most notable Tiger, to South Florida.  One related point that he omits, in the opinion of your humble blogger, is the wraparound schedule.  It necessarily weakens the West Coast swing, but that means the lads will be looking for more places to peg it leading up to the Masters.  

• David Delivers - After teasing us for days, David Owen follows through on his Road to Augusta promise with a long, photo-filled post on how different ANGC might have been. It should be noted that David literally wrote the book on the Masters.  Here's his grab:

The original plans for Augusta National Golf Club called for two eighteen-hole golf courses—a Championship Course and a Ladies Course—plus tennis courts, outdoor squash courts, an eighteen-hole pitch-and-putt course, a bridle path, a couple of dozen houses for members, and, possibly, an on-site hotel. In addition, $100,000 was to be spent on a clubhouse—which was needed because the existing manor house, which had been built in 1854 by an indigo planter named Dennis Redmond, was going to be torn down.

Egads, a Ladies Course?  That sound you hear is Martha Burke spinning in her grave, despite the fact that she's not, you know, dead.  

David's caption: Redmond’s house, post-Redmond, in the 1800s. Redmond was, in addition to a planter, an architectural historian and an editor of an agricultural publication called The Southern Cultivator. His house had eighteen-inch-thick walls made of concrete, a material that before that time had not been used in residential construction in the south; Redmond called it “artificial rock.”

 Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts hired a local architect to design their new clubhouses, which appeared in the Augusta Chronicle in 1931:

David's caption: This is the Augusta National clubhouse that was never built. It was designed by Willis Irvin, who died in 1950. I apologize for the appalling quality of the image, which is a scan of a photocopy of a microfilm print of a newspaper reproduction of an architectural drawing.

 Per David:

According to the Chronicle, Jones had been involved in the planning, and the locker room was going to incorporate “the best features of the clubs he has visited.” There were to be nooks and corners in which golfers could gather before, after, and between rounds to play cards, drink gin, eat lunch, watch the action on the course through large bay windows, and converse. A separate wing was to contain similar facilities for women.

Again with the women.... Funny how things evolved, no?

I encourage you to click through and read David's entire post, as I've already grabbed more than is seemly.   So, what saved us?  Here's David's close:

The demolition plan would have proceeded if the club had had the money to carry it out. But Roberts and Jones were unable to sign up more than a handful of members, and therefore had to make do with their crumbling old manor house (and no tennis). Thank goodness.

It's strange for us to realize that Augusta National ever had money problems, but the club weas not an immediate success and almost went under during the Great Depression.

One more photo from David: 

David's caption one more time: Masters competitors did more between-rounds drinking and smoking in the early years than they do nowadays. This photo is from the second tournament, in 1935, when the clubhouse was still a dank mess. Clockwise from lower left: Lawson Little, Charlie Bartlett (the golf editor of the Chicago Tribune, after whom the press lounge in Augusta National’s media building was later named), Billy Burke, Tommy Armour, Ben Hogan, and Olin Dutra.

• At the Movies:  The USGA has found a good use for its Fox money, producing a wonderful short video about William J. Powell, a black soldier who took up golf while stationed in Scotland during World War II and built the first integrated golf course in the U.S. when he got home.  I thought I had solved my embedded video issues, but this one is resisting, so go watch it at Shackelford's site.  

Speaking of movies, Golfblogger has a post on curing the winter blues by watching a golf movie, an idea better in theory than practices given the quality of most golf movies.  But No. 2 on his list is Dead Solid Perfect, an underrated little film that combines Randy Quaid with Dan Jenkins to good effect.  Keep your expectations low, but it's worth a look.

• Golf and the Blues:   Driving to the office this morning, I caught the end of a previously unknown to me Little Milton song called Still Some Meat Left on this Bone.  Now I see where that expression comes from...

'Dis and 'Dat - Getaway Day Edition

Some amusing stuff in the golf world this a.m., so as time permits let's see who else we can help realize the error of their ways:

• Leave the Tree-Wood in the Bag - Shackelford provides this photo from Mark Immelman (brother of Trevor) of the naked 17th hole at Augusta:

Current view from the 17th tee.  Not sure how that guy's tee ball ended there, with no Ike tree to stop it.

This is a good follow up to the discussion in the prior post, as that line of trees down the right side was a recent addition.  In the good old days you could balloon it way right without being blocked, though you'd have a very difficult angle into one of the trickier greens on the golf course.  

• Upon Further Review:  Sergio Garcia, the gift that keeps on giving.  Shack points us to this Golfweek staff item.  The relevant bit:

What if the same situation presented itself in the Ryder Cup, Garcia was asked?

“Yeah, I probably would have done it, too,” he said. “You shouldn’t change because it’s the Match Play, the Accenture Match Play, or the Ryder Cup. I think at the end of the day, we all have a great opportunity to be role models to a lot of guys, a lot of kids and a lot of people, and you should be like that every time you have the chance.”

Carpe diem, captain McGinley. 

•  The Grind:  That's the name of Alex Myers' weekly feature at Local Knowledge, and the current version is full of juicy link bait.  Let me just copy-and-paste the good stuff and try to stay out of the way.  First, from his prop bets of the week:

-- Rory McIlroy will withdraw because of a wisdom tooth again: 1 million-to-1 odds 

-- Johnny Miller will correctly pronounce Victor Dubuisson's name the first time he brings him up: 10 million-to-1 odds 

-- Johnny Miller will still do a better job than Nick Faldo: LOCK

Next, his quote of the week:

"For a 23-year-old kid, he's got a lot of game." 26-year-old grizzled veteran Jason Day on Dubuisson.

And his photo of the week (Jason Dufner's bad hair photo was excluded due to its lifetime achievement award:

Ian Poulter's first round loss allowed time to hang with his homies, including 50 cent.  I'm guessing Poulter is the one on the left.

 Myers closes with a few questions, as follows:

What would Seve think of Victor?

What would Seve say to Sergio?

Do you know what gophers can do to a golf course?

• Stop Him Before He Tweets Again - Steve Elkington is of an age where tweeting is optional, a fact he simply refuses to acknowledge.  He burst on the tweeting scene with this gem of a sequence about golf blogger Stephanie Wei:

Let this be a lesson for you all, friends don't let friends drink and tweet.

In subsequent Twitter adventures, Elk has managed to offend the entire nation of Pakistan and the Asian continent.  Quite the accomplishments in only 140 characters, I'll grant you, but doesn't he have any friends to arrange an intervention?  His latest contribution displays the same profound level of sensitivity:

• Legends Revisited - Bill Fields has the scoop on a new PGA Tour initiative, alter cockers playing a Par 3 course, with format going something like this:

Seniors -- the field will feature divisions for ages 50 to 65 and 65 and older -- will split rounds Friday and Saturday on the Tom Fazio-designed 18-hole Buffalo Ridge course and the Top of the Rock nine-hole Par 3 designed by Jack Nicklaus. The final round of the $2.75 million event, also sponsored by the State of Missouri and MasterCard, will be contested solely on the short course.

Somehow this is supposed to promote alternative forms of golf that take less time....whatever.  It's all worth it, though, for the accompanying photo:

That's our hero in the PETA-approved headgear with Bass Pro Shops founder John Morris, who thankfully had the sense to go hatless.

• In the E-Mail - I always love hearing from Theresa's former pen-pal Mike Keiser.  Especially as the restraining order should be expiring any day now.  Always business-like, Mike wanted his closest friends to know that Punchbowl was ready for its close-up:

Situated next to the first tee at Pacific Dunes, The Punchbowl is a 150,000-square-foot, 18-hole putting course designed by Tom Doak with Jim Urbina. Here they’ve built a stand-alone course that’s fun to play with friends either between rounds or to celebrate the end of your day. The Punchbowl is complimentary for resort guests and will be open for play beginning May 20.

Want a look?

It's modeled after the original Himalayas putting course at St. Andrews and looks like good fun.  The only small negative is it's location near the first tee at Pacific Dunes, noot especially convenient unless you're playing that track.  

I'm still struggling for the perfect analogy... Hiring Tom Doak and Jim Urbina to build a putting green is like hiring Da Vinci to paint your bathroom (couldn't go with ceiling there, could I?).   

Wednesday Q & A

I don't know why I've rushed to get these out on Tuesday, when hump day provides a far superior rhyme scheme.  Let's see what the SI lads want to discuss this week:

1. Jason Day and Victor Dubuisson put on a show for the ages in their Accenture Match Play Championship final, won by Day in 23 holes. Where does Dubuisson-Day rank in the annals of great PGA Tour duels?

The Pros:  They loved the match, but were very qualified in their use of superlatives because it's a.) Not a major and, b.) No marque players involved.  Also cited as a limiting factor was the quality of play, as the two made all of one birdie in their last 6 holes and halved an extra hole with bogeys.

Best Line:  From Josh Sens, "Somewhere far below the Watson-Nicklaus Duel in the Sun in '77 at Turnberry and somewhere just above my extra holes victory last week over my neighbor Joe in Tiger Woods EA Sports."

My Take:  Alan Shipnuck made what I think is the relevant point, that this testifies to the inherent drama of the match play format.  No marque players and a dog-patch of a course, yet a riveting match.  Take note, Commissioner Ratched.

2. Day is a world top-10 player with a stellar record in majors, yet gets little respect as a pre-tournament favorite. Is this fair since he only had one PGA Tour win before he won the Match Play on Sunday, or unfair, given his ability to raise his game on big occasions?

The Pros:  A bit of appropriate push back since Day has always gotten respect in excess of his one win.  One of the wags notes that he took Day in all four 2013 majors and came up empty.

Best Line:  From Jeff Ritter, "Not sure it's fair to say he wasn't a favorite -- after all, three of the 14 entries in our office bracket pool had Day as the winner, making him the most-picked champ."

My Take:  The answer is provided before the end of the question.  Only one win, and that in a second tier event back in 2010 has made Day an enigma.  There's never been much doubt about Day's talent, it was just a matter of if and when he'd learn to close.  

3. Frenchman Dubuisson looks like he'll be another steely Ryder Cup killer for Team Europe. We saw a lot of U.S.-Europe matchups at Dove Mountain. Were the results encouraging or discouraging for U.S. Ryder Cup captain Tom Watson?

The Pros:  A little more love for the Yanks, though most go out of their way to point out that what happens in the desert in February is a big nothing burger as relates to the RC.

Best Line:  A Jeff Ritter double-play, "Rickie Fowler made the biggest statement -- his wins over Poulter and Sergio were extremely impressive, and he just looked mature and in control for most of the week. Also, he's no longer dressing like a crayon, and now more closely resembles a Lithuanian wedding deejay. I'm not completely sure that's a sign of maturity but feel it should be mentioned."

My Take:  Meaningless, unless you were expecting Gary Woodland to be the backbone of the U.S. team.  Though it was nice to see Poulter's myth punctured a tad.  That reminds me, I should take a gander at the updated Ryder Cup standings at some point.

4. Sergio Garcia was both praised and mocked for offering Rickie Fowler a conceded 18-foot putt on the 7th hole while 2 up in their third-round match. What’s your take?

The Pros:  Some praise for his sportsmanship, but they're basically as perplexed as the rest of us.  The thesaurus page for bizarre is likely dog-eared.

Best Line:  Josh Sens, breaking the Jeff Ritter streak, "Sergio's a sensitive guy. That's good when you're writing sonnets. Not so good when you're trying to close someone out in a cutthroat competition."

My Take:   Several days later, and it's still quite inexplicable.  Has anyone asked Captain McGinley his take on it?  If Sergio doesn't make the team on his own, doesn't that make it an interesting dilemma for McGinley.

5. Last week, Augusta National announced that the Eisenhower Tree on the 17th hole had to be removed after being damaged in an ice storm. If it’s possible, should the club replace the tree?

The Pros:  A hung jury.  Some loved it, some hated it and some just can't wait for the Masters regardless of how this plays out.  

Best Line:  From Eamon Lynch, "No. Move up the tee and make it a reachable par 4, which Augusta doesn't have. Enough of the back-breaking holes already. Put some fun back in the course."

My Take:  As one of the writer's notes, the real problem on No. 17 was the row of trees added down the right side.  Combined with the 65-foot Ike tree, it was hard to see from the tee where you could set a golf ball down.  They'd never do as Eamon suggests, because one of their strange rules is only two tee boxes on each hole.  

6. CBS announced a shakeup in its NFL pregame show, dropping Dan Marino and Shannon Sharpe while adding Tony Gonzalez. Which golf broadcast crew could use a shakeup?

The Pros:   If you feel as I do about the quality of golf announcing, please do go and read all of their comments.  I'd sum it up as an all of the above, with Sir Nick called out most frequently.  Johnny mostly gets a pass, and there's some hope that Fox will shake things up.

Best Line:  A very competitive category, but the Scottie goes to Josh Sens for this one:

 I keep waiting for CBS to replace Faldo with a mannequin equipped with a pull-string. Jim Nantz pulls the string once, and the doll waxes nostalgic over one of its major victories. Two pulls and the doll says, "He's going to just try to trundle it down there" but no one complains because it speaks in a British accent.

My Take:  Hello Friends,  I think what our game needs is more Chris Berman.  I think Johnny has been mostly good for the game, but is perhaps getting a tad long in the tooth.  Faldo is simply incomprehensible and cloying, adding nothing to our understanding and trying way to hard to be amusing.  I've always wondered why Chamblee doesn't get a shot at the analyst gig somewhere.  The rumors have been that Greg Norman will be the Fox Johnny Miller, and I'm not terribly excited about that.

.

Morning Mishegoss

A bit of this and that to post this morning before the lifts start turning.

• The "C" Word - Alex Miller has a piece at Local Knowledge about Johnny Miller, who has been available to the press in conjunction with NBC assuming the weekend golf coverage through the Masters.  One of things I like about Miller, besides the sufficiency of simply not being Nick Faldo, is that he's as harsh about himself as about other golfers.  To wit:

Miller's three runner-ups at the Masters came in 1971, 1975 and 1981. His closest call came in 1975, when he and Tom Weiskopf lost to Jack Nicklaus by one shot. Looking back, Miller wishes he had learned more watching the six-time Masters champ and 18-time major winner in the game's biggest events. 

"I think in Jack's mind he always thought he was the guy to beat," Miller said. "I had a little run there where I could shoot lower than Jack because my iron game was way more aggressive and quite frankly better than Jack, and I had a lot more horsepower because he played a very conservative game, which I wish I would have learned for the major championships. But like a dumbbell I thought that the U.S. Open was played like the Phoenix Open, and it was pretty stupid of me. I should have changed gears."

He didn't actually use the "C" word about himself, but that was what he meant.

I've always thought the '75 Masters might be the best ever, especially the Sunday scene at No. 16.  Nicklaus was in the group ahead of Miller and Weiskopf, and they saw him make that 40 foot snake and take a couple of victory laps around the green.  Miller later said when he got to the green all he saw was bear tracks.  But what I like is the reason they were on the tee watching.... Nichlaus was paired that day with a very young Tom Watson, who rinsed his ball on the 16th tee.  The time it took for Watson to take his drop resulted in all the protagonists being on stage for the sword scene.

• Of Course He's a Lefty -  Luke Kerr-Dineen has a short piece on golf in Ukraine at Local Knowledge.  OK, not so much, but Viktor Yanukovich did leave behind a set of Japanese-made clubs.  Obviously he's not a real golfer, otherwise they would have been the first thing on the escape chopper.

No surprise that Moscow's man in Kiev would be a lefty.

• Miguel Angel Jimenez, Call Your Office - The Most Interesting Man in Golf might need to be looking over his shoulder, as Victor Dubuisson turns out to be quite the international man of mystery.  James Corrigan fills in what he can in The Telegraph: 

His back story is shrouded in mystery. The nephew of Hervé Dubuisson, France’s greatest basketball player, Victor claims to have left school at 10 to concentrate on golf. “I was very young and it was difficult to do both,” he said, straight-faced.
What did his family think about that? Dubuisson will not say. There is plenty Dubuisson will not say. If his emotions give little away – he truly is the Gallic Jason Dufner – then his words grant even less. This avowed film buff even refused to tell an inquisitor what his favourite film was last week.

OK, France's greatest basketball player sounds like one of those shortest book jokes, and a Gallic Jason Dufner sounds more alliterative than realistic.  But Corrigan has a strong close for us:

Yet before that, Dubuisson could easily become known as the man who saved the WGC Matchplay. There have been fears that without a new sponsor, a new location or a new date in the calendar, the championship could be lost.

Surely after this, the greatest final which was also the youngest final, with the players having a combined age of just 49, , there will be a rush to maintain it. Every event this year will have to go some to match the drama we witnessed in the desert on Sunday night. Dubuisson translates as “from the bush”. At 23, it is already his epithet.

Good friend Mark W. has written to confirm that Victor will be his Masters longshot pick.  Unfortunately for Mark, the judges have ruled the Victor no longer qualifies in that category.  

Shack quotes GMac electioneering at the polls for a foursomes slot with Victor at the Ryder Cup:

"He’s going to be a massive part of the Ryder Cup team this year and I am hoping to be there with him and maybe get a foursomes game with him," McDowell said after his defeat to the 23-year old, who went on to produce some incredible recoveries from the desert to take Jason Day to the 23rd in the final having coming back from three down after seven holes to beat Ernie Els one up on the semis.

Shack also provides this amazing photo take by the AP's Ted Warren:

• In the End, Who Won the Thing? - No doubt that the loser has sucked all the oxygen out of the room with his dramatic golf in the late stages of the final. However, it was former wunderkind Jason Day that actually took home the trophy. Bill Zimmerman (sorry Al, only one "n") had this cute note at Golfweek: 

At 26 years, 3 months, 11 days, Day becomes the fifth youngest player to win a WGC event – the four ahead of him all spelled "Tiger Woods."

Anybody know what happened to that Tiger guy?  

• 스크린골프  -  Our old friend David Owen has a couple of cute posts in recent days, though he's teasing us unmercifully by sitting on his Masters preview materials.  Most recent is a reader's report on simulator golf in South Korea, the ubiquitous sign for which is the title for this bullet point.  I was most interested in the use of birdie-buddies, explained as follows:

I’ve heard of, but never personally experienced, “helper players,” who can be called in to the room: young ladies with picture-perfect swings and amazingly short skirts. Seems like an all-right idea, except that they out-drive you on every hole.

That's his story and he's sticking to it.  I'm just relieved that it helps fulfill my quota of golf cheesecake.

In this prior post, David deals with some techniques for managing the cold in winter golf.  Best is this picture of a shrink-wrapped golf cart:

Since most cart facilities don't include pallet wrapping equipment, this option won't be available to most.

It's David so he's quickly off on several flights of fancy.  Just enjoy the ride if you're so inclined. 

• The Ike -  Via Neil Sagebiel comes this short Don Van Natta, Jr. First Off the Tee feature on Ike's love of golf:  As you'll see from the swing, he was an avid golfer which is often quite a different thing than being a good golfer.   

Kennedy spoke of the spike marks that Ike left in the oval Office.  

And speaking of the eponymous tree, don't think I ever posted a photo of what it look like from the tee:

The view of the tee shot from Augusta's 17th tee.  The tree was 65' high, so only the big boys could go over it.  

 

Ramis Reax

Lot's of reaction to the death of Harold Ramis, and Shackelford is our helpful tour guide.  He has items both at his own blog here and here, as well as at Golf Digest's Local Knowledge blog.

The LK piece has some great detail on the chaotic creation of Caddyshack, crediting Ramis with coaxing memorable performances despite the fact that he never played golf.  The piece also included this video of quotes from the film:



In the pieces at his own place, Shack links to many worthy sources, most notably this Tad Friend post at the New Yorker's Culture Blog and Frined's profile of Ramis for the magazine in 2003.  He also provides this short video of Ramis speaking about how the Marx Brothers influenced Caddyshack...



and this longer piece, which I've not yet had time to view, on the making of the movie:



Of course, everyone's favorite character from the movie deserves its own video tribute:



I'll give Eric Malinnowski at Fox Sports the last word:

As a genre, sports comedies were still a cagey proposition by 1980, more often prone to the over-Hollywoodized productions of the 1950s than the gritty realism of the post-Vietnam '70s. This trend, as it applies to sports films, really only started to be reflected in 1977, with George Roy Hill’s hockey classic "Slap Shot" being the de facto progenitor of this emerging trend. But if "Slap Shot" laid the table for the new subversive sports comedy, "Caddyshack" pulled the cloth out from under everything. 

"Bull Durham," "Major League," "White Men Can’t Jump" — you could argue that every one of these films and others that followed ("Happy Gilmore," duh) owe a debt to Ramis, showing that there was indeed an audience to be gained from the sports movie that dared to repel the heartstrings being pulled by others. When "Raging Bull" premiered four months later, this new wave was officially underway, but "Caddyshack" got there first. When "Rudy," "Hoosiers," "The Natural" and "Field of Dreams," among others, all followed in due time, they now had fair competition. The idea of the “sports movie” was a fully formed identity rather than a mere caricature. "Caddyshack" and its spiritual successors became constant refreshers that sports are, and should be, fun. 

None of this happens without Ramis, who kickstarted a monumental career in Hollywood by putting all his initial energies and creativity into "Caddyshack," a truly original film that has not seen its equal since. Ramis may now be gone, but he left his mark on an industry and countless millions of sports fans who will be quoting lines from his movies for as long as we even have movies. 

So he’s got that going for him, which is nice.

Flotsam and Jetsam™, Non-Golf Ediition

As I enjoy myself out here in Paradise, I've run across some non-golf items to share with you.  Why?  Just because I can....

• Ski-Blogging:  It hasn't been a particularly bounteous ski season at Canyons, and the natives are a tad on the restless side.   One of the major culprits has been consistently warm temperatures, which will generate a sarcastic boo-hoo from East Coasters hunkering down for Polar Vortex - The Sequel.  Thus we're forced to suffer through beautiful blue-bird days and Spring-like conditions for the time being.

The view from my living room window at dawn Friday. 

Lunch break in the sun.  From l-to-r, FNBF* Bob, Sofia and the author.

Sofia kicks back to soak up some rays.

Just though you might want to see how I suffer.  Heavy storms are forecast for right after I leave, natch.

• Olympic Yawn - Quite the snooze-fest, even for a winter sport enthusiast such as your humble blogger.  And the NBC coverage was especially dreadful, the couple of events that I genuinely enjoyed were those I watched on demand.  And don't get me started about the Communist apologia, a pivotal experiment indeed.  But a couple of notes therefrom:

First, this is a great picture from the top of the Olympic ski jump:

In my skiing we joke about pointing our skis straight down the hill.  They do that for real.

sadanduseless.com, a humor website, has a feature on the creepy faces of Olympic ice skaters and they're, what's the word, creepy.  Here's a couple of samples:

The plot eludes me here, though I'm guessing this is as much fun as the guy in the sweater vest has ever had.

Is she trying to wink?  Not working for me, but your mileage might vary.

• I have my fingers crossed about the situation in Ukraine, hoping for the best for a people that suffered more than most from that pivotal experiment called Communism.  I spent three days in Kiev during my term as an exchange student, but it was in the dead of winter and we had just come from Tbilisi, the Garden of Eden by comparison.  Just a couple of images to share:

Next stop, ash heap of history.

I know nothing of the background of this photo, but that's the most bad-ass priest I've ever seen.  Hope he's on the side of the good guys.

• Harvard Business School Material - I yield to no one in my respect for a well conceived business model, but this girl is going places:  

Looking to drum up some new business, 13-year-old Girl Scout Danielle Lei and her mom set out for a San Francisco medical marijuana clinic on Monday, armed with boxes of Tagalongs, Dulce de Leches and other cookie varieties she and other scouts sell annually. 

Any patients at The Green Cross with the munchies didn't stand a chance. In two hours on President's Day, Danielle sold 117 boxes outside the clinic — people gobbled up all her Dulce de Leches and blazed through the Tagalongs. According to her mother, Carol, that's 37 more boxes than what she sold during the same two-hour period outside a small Safeway the next day.

I'm a tad surprised that it worked THAT well, since presumably the patients were just acquiring their medical ganja, not, you know, taking their first dose.

• Harold Ramis, RIP -  Saddened by the death of Harold Ramis, one of the truly funny people in the business.  Best known for directing comedy gems such as Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day and, this is a golf blog after all, Caddyshack.  Ramis came to notice as one of the players in the great, albeit unwatched, Second City TV.  Here are a couple of his bits from the SCTV days:

A Blogger's Remorse

Picking Zach Johnson to win the Match-Play has fallen to second place in the highly-competitive race for the stupidest move by your humble blogger this weekend.  I came home from a delightful day of skiing to find Jason Day 3-up on Victor Dubuisson in their finals match.  I quickly concluded that they had, in fact, won their morning semi-finals match and that I had a great chance of actually getting on right.

As I checked in with the bride and threw in a load of laundry, Victor picked up a hole, but failed to convert slight advantages on the next two holes.  When Day made his testy four-footer on No. 16 to maintain his two-up lead with two to play, it was over.  So I decided that the only rationale strategy was to succumb to Morpheus for a desperately needed nap.  Good thing I didn't miss anything...

CBS certainly didn't get the players they wanted for their weekend coverage, but they did get riveting drama and great shot-making.  And save one blogger worn out from skiing, I can't imagine too many folks turned off the telly as the events were unfolding.  Shall we go to the videotape?  Here's the Tours highlight package:

The highlight package above captures Victor's amazing back-to-back saves from the desert scrub, but do watch the video below of the second one from their 20th hole just for Jason's reaction... that smile will endear him to many golf fans.

Day had this to say about his opponent after the dust had settled:

"Vic, man, he has a lot of guts," Day said. "He has a great short game - straight out of the cactus twice. For a 23-year-old kid, he's got a lot of game. We're going to see a lot of him for years to come."Just remember, you heard it here first as I've been touting Dubuisson since early February.  

And of the victor (intentional lower case?  Day is one of those players that we've always had difficulty assessing.  He burst onto the scene and didn't exactly make the best first impression.  As a brash 20-year old he had this to share with us:

"My goal is to be the No. 1 golfer in the world and I want to chase Tiger," he said in 2007. "All I want to do is work hard, win tournaments and catch up with Tiger. ... I just want to work really hard and take him down."

Obviously he hadn't done enough at that point to personally call out the Striped One.  And when you challenge the Gods, they'll make you pay (especially in this fickle game).  Since then he's shown us great flashes of talent, with 6 top-ten finishes in his 13 starts in majors, most notably a second place finish to Charl Schwartzel at the dramatic 2011 Masters.  And I'll note for the record that not only did I pick him amongst the four semi-finalists yesterday morning, but my Golfweek bracket had him as the losing finalist.  Since you'll ask, I finished No. 247 in the Golfweek contest.  pretty respectable considering on Thursday afternoon I was in 1,680th place (I couldn't find anything that would tell me how many entries they had).  

But, as Bob Harig reminds us in this item,  for all that, this is only his second PGA Tour victory, the first being the 2010 Colnial.  The win has catapulted Day up the world rankings, leading to this question from Harig:

But the bottom line is: Has anyone risen to No. 4 in the world with as few victories?

Awfully good question.  But Day will be a popular pick when it comes time to embarrass ourselves with Masters picks.  

Commissioner Ratched Lepetomane Dolce Gabana didn't add anything meaningful to our understanding of the future of this event at his presser, though Shackelford was quite taken with the stylish new readers.  

The Commish yucking it up.  He'll be here all week, folks.

Per Rex Hoggard's account, this is about all the new data he shared:

Finchem said that among those potential sponsors is Accenture, whose sponsorship deal with the Tour ends this year.

He did briefly note that other formats were under consideration, including 36 holes of medal play to winnow the field.  I'll keep my powder dry until our weekly Q&A, as that's an inevitable discussion topic.

Soporific Sunday

Nobody seems to have much of anything to say on Planet Golf this morning, so what's a poor blogger without a single original  thought of his own to do?  At times like these one can only revert to the advice of the great sage Ton Lehrer, who urged us in such circumstances to, "Plagiarize...remember why the good Lord gave you eyes."

• Match-Play Humility - No one knows anything, William Goldman famously said about the movies, but he might as well have been a golf fan.  Though I will note that after starting the week in 1,680th place, I am currently in 134th place in the Golfweek bracket challenge.  Which simply means that everyone else's brackets are as red as my own.

I saw nothing of the Jason Day or Rickie Fowler wins, though I gather that Furyk gave Rickie the match on No. 18 (in a different sense than Sergio gave him the prior match).  I did see GMac's magic fail him, as it inevitably must, and saw the very end of the Els-Spieth match.  Shackelford pokes fun at himself for his Local Knowledge piece declaring Spieth a match-play wizard, only to see Jordan self-identify as a mental midget after his strangely desultory effort in the quarters.  The stream of exultant e-mails from Ulster has died down as the Portrush hometown boy heads back to Lake Nona.  

John Strege has a short item at Local Knowledge to the effec t that if Spieth ever solves his Saturday problems he'll be a force to reckon with.  That thought occurred to me as well, though he's also gone the wrong way on some Sundays.  As I've noted previously, he's done a great job of getting himself in the hunt seemingly every week, now he's got to start finishing some of these opportunities.  But if there were a futures market for golfers, his would be one pricey contract.

Reader and friend Mark Williams writes from sunny Florida to jump on the Victor Dubuisson wagon, picking him to go all the way.....at Augusta.  Now I'm not even sure he's in the field at the Masters, yet.  Obviously a win this week would take care of that little detail.

Here's the Tour's Saturday highlight package: 

I'm liking Jason Day at this point, just because...CBS can't be terribly happy, but as we've discussed extensively, this event generates it's excitement in the first few days, and the most we can hope for is good skiing on the weekend.  Well, at least that's what I hope for... your mileage may vary.

• Ladies Day -  If the LPGA holds an event in the woods, does it make any noise?  I've confessed previously to an affection for the ladies' tour, but admittedly they don't make it easy.  They actually held an event this weekend in Thailand, though you'd have to expend some effort to know that.  The event was won by Anna Nordqvist, the Swede who burst on the scene by winning the 2009 LPGA Championship and virtually nothing since.  

Nordqvist is a strabgely short hitter for such a, how shall we phrase this, big-boned girl.  But this event may be more notable for the names that came after hers on the leaderboard, which include Inbee Park, Yani Tseng and Michelle Wie.  I should admit at this juncture that if I had completed my 2014 outlook post, it would have included my sense that Inbee was headed to Yani Tseng-land.  The LPGA would be helped if those three ladies could show up on leaderboards and television a bit more often.

•  SIG+D - Seriously guys, you have to give us something better to call you.  Another middling effort this week in my humble opinion.  The cover story was by Mike Bamberger questioning whether golf has a Michael Sam, i.e., have there been gay golfers on Tour?  The answer is likely yes, but why do you think we care about enough to put it on your cover?  Having established that this is beneath me, I will admit that in the good old days there was some idle speculation amongst the boys as to who on Tour might be gay, and that Davis Love's name was thrown around as much as any.  But we wre young and had no pretensions of being serious journalists...

Even the photography failed to inspire: 

Lee Westwood seeing the lights at Riviera.

This is a great photo, but it's from last year.  And only serves to remind us of who decided to give it a miss this year. 

Concession Blues

What's a poor blogger to do?  A crack team of forensic psychiatrists left Vienna airspace moments after the conclusion of the Sergio Garcia - Rickie Fowler match, and we'll have to await their expert analysis before knowing what the heck happened on the 7th green in Marana, AZ yesterday.  My sources do tell me that there is absolutely no truth to the rumor that Sergio ordered the Charles Bronson  classic Death Wish on the Dove Mountain Resort's pay-per-view service last night, but that's all we know at this point.

But it's a rule of nature that a blogger must blog, so for anyone who missed it, here's the video of the exchange on the 7th green:

As Sergio explained later, he thought he had taken an inordinate time in making a drop on the prior hole when his ball ended near a swarm of bees.  I didn't tune in until later in the match and haven't as of yet found any video of the sequence on No. 6.  It seems to be a general consensus amongst the chattering class that Sergio did exactly nothing wrong on No. 6, making the concession on No. 7 way curious.

As you'll see below, Sergio had Rickie literally on his knees:

Sergio did extend his front-nine lead to 3-up after the events on the seventh hole, and the whole shebang looked to be an afterthought.  Then Sergio looked victory in the eye, and apparently didn't like what he saw.  He badly missed several putts coming down the stretch, 5-footers that never threatened the hole.  Rickie deserves credit for hanging close enough, as well as for stuffing it on No. 18, but this match was all about the dark recesses of Sergio's mind.

While Sergio has sucked up most of the available oxygen, seven other matches were played and for  the most part the match-ups didn't disappoint.  Good friend Lowell Courtney continues his flood of cryptic Blackberry notes regarding fellow Portrush native GMac.  And well he should, as his favorite son has now won three matches in which he had no right to make it to the 18th hole, much less survive.  Quite the feat, winning three consecutive matches in which you never led until the final hole, in two of which the final hole wasn't, you know, the final hole.  Good stuff and, as I responded to Herr Doktor Courtney, might have already secured his reservation at Gleneagles.

John Strege review golf history to share other strange concessions, and comes up with some interesting anecdotes but nothing really comparable.  He leads with the Nicklaus concession to Tony Jacklin at the 1969 Ryder Cup.  But that was a show of grace in what jack considered an exhibition, and he was acutely aware that the Ryder Cup was on life support for a lack of competitiveness at that point.

Strege also cites Phil, and I'm guessing the reader isn't shocked that Phil would be a tad reckless:

In a second-round match at the U.S. Amateur at Cherry Hills in 1990, Phil Mickelson, facing a four-foot birdie putt, inexplicably conceded a 25-foot par putt to Jeff Thomas. Mickelson said he did so to "put pressure on myself."

However, years later, he confessed to Golf World's Dave Shedloski. "I'll never forget the look that he gave me," Mickelson said. "It was just funny. I ended up making a three- or four-foot birdie putt to win the hole. Why did I do that?   Well, he took like two minutes to hit the chip shot, and he hit it 40 feet by the hole. Then he started the process again, and I just thought, 'just pick it up.' So he did, and I made it, and we went on."

Nicklaus conceding Tony Jacklin's short putt to ensure a tie in the 1969 Ryder Cup at, from memory, Royal Birkdale.  

There were a few interesting aspects to the concession, though none related to the events of yesterday.  Despite the fact that Jack had been a force since 1962, this was actually his first Ryder Cup, as arcane rules mad him ineligible in the '63, '65 and '67 matches.  Talk about fighting with one hand tied behind your back... Secondly, this act resulted in a lifetime friendship between the tow men, and they later co-designed a golf course near Sarasota, Florida that was named Concession Golf Club in honor of this bit of sportsmanship.  Lastly, it's been widely reported that a number of members of the U.S. team, including Captain Sam Snead, were furious with Nicklaus.

He also cites Tiger in the chaotic final of the 2012 Ryder Cup:

In the 2012 Ryder Cup, Tiger Woods conceded a three-foot putt to Francesco Molinari on the last hole that enabled them to halve their match, which gave the Europeans an outright victory, 14 1/2 to 13 1/2. Had Woods not conceded the putt and Molinari missed, Tiger would have won the match and the Ryder Cup would have been halved, though the Europeans still would have retained the cup. 

Why is this important? It was only to bettors. "Industry experts said the late drama cost UK betting companies around 10 million pounds [in excess of $16 million] in total," the Daily Mail wrote. "A Ladbrokes spokesman told MailOnline today: 'No-one bets on a tie. It cost us just over 650,000 pounds last night on Tiger's miss. Tiger is not a bookie's friend this morning."

I was not aware of the gambling implications, but it was mayhem, Tiger was trying to be gracious and in my humble opinion, should have been reciprocated by the Euros.  Plus, he should have made his own three-footer.  But one wonders if there isn't something more comparable in the long history of match-play events.  Or perhaps our Sergio is truly a one-off?

Elsewhere, Shackelford posts this item at Local Knowledge on Jordan Spieth's match-play prowess.  Now it's no secret that I link to Shack more than all other sources combined, but the gist of this piece is that Spieth is a match-play savant because he can make more 12-foot par putts than the average bear, despite thoroughly middling putting stats.  Mark Broadie, call your office!  Now, there's not a golf fan on the planet that doesn't see Jordan Spieth as a monster talent, but I'd be more interested if there were evidence or even a supposition that this is anything more than a great player with a warm putter.  On the other hand, the recitation of Spieth's putting stats does tell us where he needs to improve.

For the unfamiliar, Stephen Hennessy provide this introduction to Frenchman Victor Dubuisson, and there was also this one by Jim McCabe.  A simple man seems the be the theme, though one who has moved up 100 places in the world ranking in the last year and one who could stand a change in personal shoppers (sorry, not digger the wardrobe).  But he can play, and loyal readers have heard me tout him previously.  

Lastly, there's been quite a bit of fun had at the Duf's expense.  Taking his hat off the congratulate Ernie after the conclusion of their match, provided this gem:

There, there Jason, I know a good barber that can make this right.  

However, we here at Unplayable Lies have higher standards for bad hair days:
.

File this under Things That Don't Get Old.  

Having Fun Yet?

Safely on the ground in Park City, I'm regretful only that I couldn't keep my eyes open long enough to make it to the conclusion of the Golf Channel rebroadcast of the second round matches.  Upsets were to order of the day, with every bracket a sea of red.  Or at least so I imagine, as at Golfweek's website all content is unavailable, including the status of my crimson-hued bracket.

No worries, all four No. 1 seeds are history but the matches continue to be great theater, which is as I recall the reason why saving this event matters.  And the only thing that compares with the glow of yesterday's win-or-go-home drama is the anticipation of today's match-ups.

Alex Myers has the best game story at Local Knowledge, including these highlights:

Biggest "upset of the day" -- Harris English vs. Rory McIlroy:

McIlroy became the latest No. 1 seed to go down (in fact, the remaining three top seeds all lost Thursday), falling to English in 19 holes in a matchup of two of the three active golfers 25 and younger to have multiple PGA Tour titles. In other words, don't count on English being a No. 9 seed in this event next year. The University of Georgia product already has five top 10s in the young season, including a victory.

Match of the day -- Jason Day vs. Billy Horschel:

Horschel went 3 up through four holes and maintained that advantage until Day started chipping away on the back nine. He tied it on No. 16, and then the two matched pars for the next five holes before Day birdied the 22nd hole to move on. The No. 2 seed will face No. 14 George Coetzee, who beat Patrick Reed in 21 holes.

Yes, no Tiger, Phil or Adam, but isn't it kind of their loss?  Just askin'?  I knew that Horschel-Day watch was going to be wild...

But wait, there's more:

"That's soooo match play" moment of the day -- Jimmy Walker's wife, Erin, on Twitter:

"-8 for two days and headed home. Darn it! But man! Match Play is fun though!! Really hope it sticks around!" Yep. More than anything, this format is about timing. You can play great, like you have all season, but if you run into a guy who makes five birdies, an eagle and every clutch par putt he looks at, you're going to be hitting the road regardless.

"That's soooo Bubba Watson" moment of the day:

Only Bubba could play a huge cut on No. 15 that landed just short and left of the green and then funnel off a slope all the way to the back where the Thursday's pin position was. The remarkable drive traveled about 350 yards total and set up an easy two-putt birdie. Watson would win his match against Jonas Blixt, 2 up.

Jonas Blixt "going down" against Bubba.  I'll have to concede that the desert has its moments, but at least they caught his good side.

"That's soooo Jordan Spieth" moment of the day/shot of the day:

In his brief time as a pro, we've learned one thing when it comes to Spieth when he's faced with bunker shots he needs to make: He likes to make them. Granted, Spieth left his first attempt in the trap on No. 3 in his second-round match against Thomas Bjorn, but this was still impressive. With Bjorn in with par, Spieth needed to hole out to halve the hole. He took the flagstick out and boom:

I'll no doubt be receiving a Cease and Desist letter from the nice folks at Golf Digest for my wanton disregard for the doctrine of Fair Use, but I'm happy to fight the suits on behalf of my bast readership.

For those that missed the coverage, here' the Tour's YouTube highlight package:

It shows the great shots, but can't possibly convey the intense drama in the best of the matches.

Shackelford tees up today's matches in order of interest to him:

M Kuchar (2) vs. J Spieth (3) - Young gun vs. defending champ

H Mahan (8) vs. G McDowell (4) - Ryder Cup re-match

S Garcia (2) vs. R Fowler (14) - Mr. Jovial vs. Mr. Bracketbuster

V Dubuisson (7) vs. B Watson (3) - The Frenchman vs. His Bubbaness

E Els (8) vs. J Dufner (4) - Stars aligning

L Oosthuizen (8) vs. W Simpson (5) - Opposites attract

H English (9) vs. J Furyk (5) - Pretty boy swing v. Old geezer swing that still works

J Day (2) vs. G Coetzee (14) - Okay, I'll concede this one does not move the needle

First, after missing the cut in his three previous events, is there a human being alive that thought  Fowler would get through the greatest match-play practitioner alive (Poults) and the hottest player (Walker)?  How is this not great drama?

Secondly, the only three guys that move the needle (and that's being generous to the Aussie don't show), we lose the four No. 1's in the first two days and yet who doesn't want to see what happens in the Mahan-GMac rematch?  

At the risk of backtracking on some prior thoughts, maybe there's nothing (besides the course, of course) that really needs fixing here.  I would posit that we've had more genuine drama and golf excitement (oxymoron alert) in the last two days than in a month of normal tour events.  The problem is that the excitement peaks on Wednesday and Thursday, which creates obvious issues with the television coverage.

And lest we forget, Alex Myers reminds us in another post of how dreary Sunday's at the Match Play final can get.  I make repeated fun of the 2001 Steve Strricker/ Pierre Fulke final (and I need to add that Stricker had fallen of the face of the golf Earth at that point), but that was the result of a depleted field willing to trundle Down Under for 18 holes of golf.  Myer's piece is about a more relevant example, the following year at La Costa and the epic Kevin Sutherland/Scott MCCarron final.  Who won, I hear you ask?  Who ccares, but it was Sutherland's lone PGA Tour victory.

I took that detour to remind all that the issue of soporific Sundays (a term used by one wag that I wish I'd gotten to first) is very real.  In fact it's somewhat surprising that the event survived its first year, which gave us the riveting Jeff Maggert/Andrew Magee final.  the jokes write themselves.... what could be worse than a Maggert/Magee 36 hole final, that being if they went extra holes (38, as it happens).

So here's the reality.  The amazing drama (I know, there's that word again) of the early days of the event is directly a result of the win or go home format.  All discussions of format tweaks, whether round-robin or stroke play qualifying, will inevitably rob the event of its unique intensity (OK, found another word).  Would that be worth it?

Certainly not all Wednesdays and Thursdays will be this exciting, but the worst will be far more interesting than more of the same-old, same-old.  So, flip-flop alert, keep the format as is, find a better venue, keep the date (golfers are for better situated to spend the hours necessary in front of the telly in February than June) and if Tiger doesn't get it, that's a darn shame.