'Dis and 'Dat

My apologies to my vast readership for the absence of my usual morning post(s).  Work beckoned, and I really hate when that happens...

We have a wide-ranging combination of items for your perusal.  You'll laugh, you'll cry and you'll probably hit CTRL-ALT-DEL just to end the pain.

As we're running a classy blog here, we'll start with the highbrow items:

• At Least He Didn't, err... Shank It - Alex Myers, collecting a chit from the Local Knowledge Assignment Desk, is on the litigation beat:

From the "don't try this at home" category, a model suffered injuries when a golf trick went wrong. Liz Dickson is suing Playboy and Playboy Radio host Kevin Klein for suffering injuries when she was struck by a golf club.

Playboy Radio?  Really?  The reader can insert his or her own "Body made for radio" joke here.  Back to Alex:

The incident occurred during the Playboy Golf Finals on March 30, 2012, and Dickson is suing for $500,000 and punitive damages. Wait, there's a Playboy Golf Finals? This is an actual thing? That happens every year? 

Back to Dickson, CBS Los Angeles says Dickson willingly participated in the trick, but Klein missed his target and "struck plaintiff on the buttocks, causing her injuries and damages." According to that report, Dickson was the Playboy Girl of Golf in 2011. Again, this is a real thing?

Alex, why no pictures?  While I only read Local Knowledge for the articles, throw a poor blogger a bone, if only for Maggot.

• When Bloggers Make Bad Calls - Amidst the Monday morning post-Doral blogging maelstrom, Shackelford posted this minor Tiger-related item on which I took a pass.  The essence was as follows:

Bruce Matthews, a South Miami resident, and his company (Gotta Have It Golf Inc.) allege that Woods breached a 2001 licensing agreement by not providing a specified number of autographs and photographs.

“Our client is very frustrated that ETW has not lived up to its agreements and that it has taken this long for the matter to be heard in court,” said Eric Isicoff, one of Matthews’ attorneys. 

Matthews’ company is seeking $1.75 million plus another $1 million or so in attorneys' fees. 

There was cruel irony in play as Tiger, his back obviously in distress, would have to sit and answer stupid lawyer (but I repeat myself) questions about something from back in 2001.  Plus, Shack added the following update, leading one to conclude that it was a frivolous matter:

**It appears the same man sued Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods in 2000.

 Imagine my surprise at this John Strege item:

An all-female jury of six awarded Gotta Have it Golf $668,000, the Miami Herald reported today, though interest could push the sum to $1.3 million. Bruce Mathews, the owner of Gotta Have it Golf, also is attempting to recoup $1 million in attorneys' fees. ETW Corp. is expected to appeal the decision.

An all-female jury?  Ummmm I think I know where this went wrong for Team Tiger.  By chance any Swedish women on that jury?

• Quadzilla - I loathe anyone funnier than I, and that obviously includes Sam Weinman who coined that term in the title of this post.  The subject is Jack Nicklaus, as per this excerpt:

As you might imagine, there's no shortage of photos of Jack Nicklaus, whether it's in his cherubic early pro days winning the U.S. Open at Oakmont, or after holing his iconic "Yes, sir!" birdie putt at 17 in 1986 at Augusta.

Until recently, though, what we had never seen was this: the Golden Bear, in the prime of his career, hitting balls in shorts.

As a skier, I can't help but be envious.

 The pictures date from the summer of 1970, when Nicklaus was 30 years old.

That's quite the chicken wing for the best ever.

• Those Were My Next Two Choices - My readership is second to none in their depth of knowledge of our great game. So, before my nose gets any longer, can anyone guess what two PGA Tour players have the longest streaks without a three-putt? I'll put the answer at the end of this post.

• The Life of Reilly - Shackelford posts an homage to Rick Reilly upon his retirement from ESPN.com.  Reilly's recent work has engendered a fair amount of ridicule, but in his Sports Illustrated days he was a first class writer.  Josh Levin, writing in Slate, is just brutal about the latter stages of Reilly's career, this for instance:

Reilly at the Super Bowl in February.

Reilly probably should have quit in 2009, when Deadspin caught him copying riffs from one of his old SI pieces. If not then, he should have quit that other time in 2009 when Deadspin caught him copying riffs from one of his old SI pieces. If not then, he should have quit in 2011 when Deadspin caught him copying riffs from one of his old SI pieces. And if not then, he should have quit this February when Deadspin caught him copying riffs from one of his old ESPN pieces.

What's your point, Josh?  Or this:

When I counted all of Reilly’s tooth jokes back in 2008—at that point, he’d made at least 116—I noted that his work was showing “signs of complacency.” Now, a little more than five years later, those look like the toothsome glory days.

Levin is actually a bit more even-handed than these excerpts, as I've opted for max-snark.  But he gives Reilly his due, as in this graph:

If you’ve been reading Reilly since his days as a Sports Illustrated feature writer, you know there were few better back when he used to give a damn. At his best, Reilly’s columns were funny, incisive, and agenda-setting. His features were beautifully wrought. His SI story on Greg Norman’s collapse at the 1996 Masters is a masterpiece of deadline writing, witty and sad and true.

Do give the Norman piece a read (or reread), as I agree wholeheartedly with Levin's assessment of the piece, reemphasizing that it was written on deadline.  I'll add this 1987 piece on Dornoch (or, more accurately, The Dornoch Castle), because of which I stayed in the old section of the Castle.

• Disgraceful, Trending Disgracefuller -  I'm sorry, but John Daly is a disgrace and shame on any sponsors (I'm speaking to you, Valspar) who give him exemptions.  This rant is triggered by this Luke Kerr-Dineen item informing us that Long John posted a 90 today at the Valspar Championship at Innisbrook.  

It's Daly's worst round ever on Tour, but the fifth time he has shot 87 or worse.  Of course he's a great guy, though there is the 456-page rap sheet maintained by the Tour, including five suspensions and 21 fines for failure to give maximum effort.  

By all means give this clown more sponsor's exemptions.

The reason I'm so worked up about the sponsor's exemptions is that every one given to this buffoon is one that can't be given to a player serious about the game.  The PGA Tour is too much of a closed shop, but sponsor's exemptions are one of the few ways in which new talent can find opportunities to break in.

Listening to the Golf Channel coverage as I type, they touched on the Daly story and Frank Nobilo, whose work I like, called it "A shame."  Frank, it might have been a shame in the late 1990's, but by now it's a disgraceful farce.

• While We're on Buffoons - Sports-talk radio host Mike Francesa is as big a buffoon as John Daly, and shops from the same end of the clothing rack as well.  Proving that he can make a fool of himself at higher volume than the average bear, he had this pearl of wisdom about Patrick Reed:

Then Francesa said that other Tour pros would be making fun of Reed for his tee shot on 18, which traveled 218 yards and didn’t reach the fairway. In Francesa’s eyes, it was unworthy of a player of Reed’s stated ability.

“If you’re one of the five best players in the world, why can’t you hit it properly on that hole?” said Francesa. “You think Tiger Woods would hit a five-iron there? I didn’t say it was dumb, but guys made fun of him.”

Not only is he dead-ass wrong in every respect about Reed's decision, but I remember that Tiger did exactly the same thing to protect a two-shot lead on the same golf hole a few years ago.  

• Ahead of the Curve -  I can only conclude that Jim McCabe read this old post of mine, because suddenly the 2014 major venues aren't such a perfect fit for Eldrick.   Per McCabe:

Pinehurst, thanks to Ben Crenshaw and Bill Coore, is far different (and far better). It’s unlikely that Liverpool will be the cement-like surface it was eight summers ago. And Valhalla? We’ve lost track of how many changes they’ve made since Woods saw it last, in 2000.

Good thing we saved you a seat on the bus, Jim, but you might have thrown me a link.  Does a fellow have to beg?

• Quiz Answer - That would be two gents known for bombing it, but not so much for their prowess with the flat stick:

We were surprised to discover these two bombers off the tee currently have the two longest streaks of avoiding a three-putt on the PGA Tour (through the WGC-Cadillac Championship). Bubba's streak has lasted 237 holes over seven tournaments, while Johnson's has spanned 217 holes over six events. Ben Martin is No. 3 and well back at 129.

Now I suspect that three-putt avoidance is an overrated stat, as the easiest way to avoid three-putts is to miss a lot of greens.  But still impressive for guys that have other impressive skill sets.