This and That

Some lose threads over the last few days to catch up on, as we count down the hours to when Jack, Arnie and Gary kick off the Masters on the 10th of April.

• Valero Ugly - I watched a good bit of the final round of the Texas Open, and will be kind and say that the tournament is a good dancer and makes all its own clothes.  Wow, I thought these guys were supposed to be good...

Ryan Lavner tells us that Steven Bowditch's 76 was the highest final round score by a winner since Freddie Couples won the Kemper Open in a playoff in 1983 after shooting 77.  Others who won with high final round scores included Lon Hinckle at Pebble.. no reason to mention that but I just love saying Lon Hinckle (and remembering that in the first PGA Tour computer golf game they humiliatingly included him  as Lou Hinckle).  And yes, his tree still thrives in Toledo...

But again the major issue is slow play, as it took the lads a good three hours to play the front nine.  Zach Johnson has an interesting take on here in a Golf Channel video, followed by a spirited back and forth amongst the GC crew.  Zach mentions field sizes, which is a factor on Thursday and Friday, but as Shack astutely notes there were all of 71 players on the course on Sunday.

But Commissioner Ratched has made it clear that while slow play is a problem, it's not a problem about which it's necessary to, you know, do anything. 

• Kia Rekap - Big-boned swede Anna Nordqvist shot a final round 67 to win the LPGA's Kia

  

  Vanna, I'd like to buy a vowel.

  Classic, her second win this season.  It's something of a career resurgence for Nordqvist, who is a notoriously short hitter for such a big girl, but should provide sufficient prize money that she can purchase the "u" that's missing from her last name.

But the bigger news from the event was furnished by 38-year old Laura Diaz, who had aces on both Saturday and Sunday:

Diaz aced the par-3 third hole Saturday in the third round, then holed out on the par-3 sixth on Sunday -- a shot she followed with an eagle on the par-4 seventh. She also had an eagle Saturday on the par-5 fifth.

That's just greedy...

The ladies now head to the desert for their first major of the year at Mission Hills.  And it'll be better viewing than whatever goes down in Houston.

• Punk'd Again -  I just got punk'd by golf.com, about the last place you'd expect to have that kind of sense of humor.  They sucked me in with a simple test to determine which golf legend I most resemble, flattering me with pics of Hogan, Tiger, Arnie Jack and Norman.  After several questions touching on such threshold issues of the day such as cart girls, the vast army of data crunchers analyzed my answers and concluded that the golf legend I most resembled was.....Jean Van de Velde.

OK, that did have me laughing and I can take a joke as well as the next guy.  But at the risk of giving way too much credence to the silliness, this is one of the questions:

You are playing in your club match play championship. You've got a lead and are about to tee off on No. 18, a tough par 4 that requires a precise tee shot. What do you do?

A.  I hit driver. I don't care where it goes. If it's in the woods, I'll invent a shot to escape.

B.  I choose a driver and try to hit a fade. 

C.  Driver, of course. I'll hit it far enough to give myself an advantage.

D.  I won't lie, I'm nervous. I choose an iron and hope to find the fairway so I don't blow the match.

I answered "D" to this one, which would seem to be the antithesis of Van de Velde.  Chip Beck  I could see, but Van de Velde?

• Trash Talking Anonymously - You're all familiar with the Tour Confidential feature of Sports Illustrated/Golf Magazine, as that's the basis for our weekly Q&A feature.  An occasional participant is an Anonymous Pro, who is featured in this slideshow of young tour talent, separating them into Contenders and Pretenders.  Most are predictable, though it's worth scanning through for his take down of Patrick Reed.

• Slow Play, legal Edition - I was a tad excited about the headline of the Rex Hoggard piece, "Judge puts PGA Tour on the clock in Singh lawsuit," but I'm not sure it really delivers the goods.  See if you agree:

Judge Eileen Bransten issued an order on Wednesday that her original “case management” schedule in the lawsuit between Vijay Singh and the Tour had not been complied with, and set a schedule for the case that seemed to leave little room for further delays although a conclusion doesn’t seem forthcoming. 

“All dates with the exception of the final conference date are final and may not be adjourned without a court order,” Bransten wrote.

OK, seems the judge is trying to move the process and manage her calendar, so we'll see them in court soon.  Errr, not so much:

The “note of issue,” which is used to have the court’s clerk enter a case into the calendar for trial, is due by Aug. 31, 2015. That means the lawsuit, which stemmed from Singh’s run in with the Tour’s anti-doping program last year, will not likely go to trail until the end of next year or the beginning of 2016.

 It's just cruel to make me wait that long.

• Money Putts -  A website called therichest.com has a silly slideshow on the most expensive missed putts in PGA Tour history.  Now there's everything in the world wrong with it, including the fact that they don't know the difference between the PGA Tour and the majors, nor have they adjusted for the dramatic increase in prize money.  The list goes from Monty missing his putt in the playoff against Elkington at Riviera ($144,000) to an unsatisfying tie between King Louis and Angel Cabrera, losers of playoffs at the last two Masters, worth $576,000.  They also don't seem to understand the difference between a win and a tie.

But that got me thinking about the worst missed putts in golf history... and a little googling led me to this slideshow of the Ten Most Humiliating Missed Putts in Golf History.  Ah humiliation, that's really more my style...

They're all there...Scott Hoch (as in Choke) at the 1989 Masters, Doug Sanders at the 1970 Open Championship (I still can't watch that video...might be contagious) and I.K. Kim at the Kraft Nabisco.  Surprisingly, legends such as Hogan and Snead also make appearances.

But I'll leave you with this little gem that is less humiliating than just cruel.  Joe Daley in 2000 needs this wee two-footer to secure his Tour card, hits what seems to be a perfect putt and....

So, why are we so anxious for the golf season to begin, when things like this await us?