As promised, some more of those random musings you so crave...
She's Peaked - I've consistently maintained that my beloved Lydia is not yet the best player in the world, though she seems to be determined to prove me wrong (and safely below that Mendoza Line in predictions we spoke of). She came up short in Thailand, but just:
SINGAPORE (AP) Inbee Park claimed her 13th career LPGA title by winning the HSBCWomen's Champions on Sunday, shooting a 2-under 70 in the final round to win by two strokes.
Park, who started the day with the same two-stroke lead, had birdies on Nos. 7 and 11 at Sentosa Golf Club to finish the tournament at 15-under 273, clear of 17-year-old Lydia Ko, who also shot a 70.
Most amazing was the fact that Inbee didn't make a bogey all week, in fact she's now bogey-free for 92 holes. The ladies' majors should be good fun this year, with all three of the best players (Stacey Lewis filling out the troika) on form.
Sam I Am - Sometimes the losers are the news, as in the off-field Tour event this week:
RIO GRANDE, Puerto Rico (AP) -- Alex Cejka won the Puerto Rico Open on Sunday for his first PGA Tour title, making a 15-foot birdie putt on the first hole of a five-man playoff.
The 44-year-old Czech-born German won in his 287th start on the PGA Tour. A four-time European Tour winner, he birdied four of the first six holes and finished with a 3-under 69 in rainy, windy conditions at Trump International-Puerto Rico.
I say that because one of the four unluckies was Sam Saunders, heretofore most famous for being Arnie's grandson. But he's clawed his way to Web.com Tour status and just posted the low number in a PGA Tour event (albeit off-field), so we'll give him credit for staying with it. It's never crossed my mind that he has enough talent to stick out there, but admittedly some doubt about that has crept in.
Tiger Woods, Restaurateur - Mike Bamberger spends some time on Tiger's career change:
JUPITER, Fla. – Harbourside Place is a gilded and shiny new development here, built by
a transplanted New Yorker named Nicholas A. Mastroianni II. It is a testament to the good life. There’s a marina, a Tommy Bahama shop, a Wyndham Grand Hotel. Under construction is an 8,000-square-foot restaurant called The Woods Jupiter: Sports and Dining Club.
The Tiger Woods you know and love might not be at Doral this week, but do not fear: He has other things to keep him busy, like his new restaurant, his first major and public entrepreneurial investment. Unlike his role in the energy-drink start-up Fuse Science, where he had a stake in a company that crashed, this is a business he can control.
Yanno, control is a funny concept... but I would argue that he can control only part of it. Most folks have been focused on the Michael Jordan appearance in the piece, but I've got other fish to fry.
So, Tiger has long been hankering to become a foodie? Errrr, as is often the case with The Striped One, his interests turn out to be more commercial:
Part of the reason Woods wanted to build a restaurant and bar, people who know Woods have said, is because when he goes to the Blue Martini in Palm Beach Gardens, word spreads quickly by cellphone, the place gets packed and Woods feels like he is creating business for other owners. Mastroianni, who did not comment on that theory, said, “Tiger’s place will be way better, way more upscale, than the Blue Martini.”
Maybe that will work out, especially since we know how Tiger loves fine food. I mean as long as there are no cocktail waitresses... As for upscale, this won't exactly shock you:
Mastroianni said he has worked directly with Woods, with the CFO of ETW, Chris Hubman, and not at all with Mark Steinberg, Woods’s agent. He said Woods is spending $1,000 per square foot in the construction of the restaurant, about 30 percent more than most upscale restaurant owners spend. “He’s got marble from Italy, granite from another country,” he said. Mastroianni said he expected cocktails to cost about $15 each.
My rule of thumb has always been that guys with the chipping yips shouldn't spend more than $500/sf, as it's not likely to be long before you're looking for the value-oriented patron. And there was this amusing nugget:
The developer was asked about the cumbersome name, The Woods Jupiter: Sports and Dining Club. He referred to it as Woods Jupiter and expects that’s what most people will call it. Mastroianni said he was told that Nike “has the rights to the name Tiger Woods,” which prevented Woods using his first and last name in the restaurant name. (Nike and Greenspan, Woods's spokesman, did not immediately respond to inquiries about the rights to use Woods's name in commercial ventures.)
That's a mouthful for sure... but it's hard to imagine that Nike really "owns" Tiger's name. More typically Nike would control the name for use in the businesses in which they compete or would likely compete. But the bigger issue is to figure out a way to short this venture. Tiger has never struck me as the glad-handing former athlete, and the novelty will wear off in about an hour and a half. Of course we've recently been over my record in such predictions...
Rachel Uchitel could not be reached for comment.
Top Five Update - We previously reported on the unflattering stories that surfaced about Patrick Reed during his short, unhappy tenure at Georgia. Our young hero later decamped for Augusta State, which two national championships later we can agree worked out well.
The allegations come from an unlikely source, unlikely in the sense that it wouldn't seem to be integral to the underlying project:
The book, entitled “Slaying the Tiger: A year inside the ropes on the new PGA Tour,” was authored by Shane Ryan who wrote in an excerpt published on Jan. 30 on the website tobaccoroadblues.com that, according to anonymous sources, Reed stole a Scotty Cameron putter and $400 cash, and that he cheated during a qualifying round while he played for the Bulldogs.
Reed told Lewis his lawyers intend to send a letter to Ballantine Books, which is part of Random House Publishing Group, and Ryan requesting that portion of the book be retracted.
“I was shocked. That was the first time I heard about it. To read something like and see how degrading and false it is, to have someone say something like that without coming to me first and asking me, it’s shocking,” Reed said.
The story just got a whole lot more interesting, but for all the wrong reasons. It sounds like quite the dreadful book project, an utterly forgettable campaign with a gratuitous use of the non-factor Tiger's name to give it some kind of hook. I certainly couldn't imagine that an author would stoop to floating an unproveable allegation against a controversial subject of his book, could you?
At the link above is video of Patrick's interview with Todd Lewis, in which he hits all the right notes. He's so good you can only hope that DJ's people are taking notes... but I could also envision untoward motives on the other side. It's one of those stories where we know we're being played, we're just not of by whom. Though if I had the lottery ticket that said both, I'd be sure to keep it in a safe place.
Elk, Unplugged - When last we checked in with the unfiltered Aussie, he was regaling folks with the finest in Michael Sam humor to not-so-great critical acclaim. So color me surprised at this:
On Saturday, May 9, “Secret Golf with Steve Elkington” will begin a 15-week run on CBS Sports Network for its second season, following the first season on RFD-TV that garnered “surprisingly good ratings for a small network,” according to Elkington. Originally called “The Rural Golfer,” the show in its second season will be “quite a bit less rural.” RFD-TV is owned by Rural Media Group, a Nashville-based conglomerate.
Now the gay-bashing made Elk a seemingly good fit for a rural audience, but pace Rick Blaine, I'd advise him to avoide certain sections of New York. The premise actually sounds quite good:
“We’re trying to find the reasons why people like golf,” said Elkington, the 1995 PGA Champion. “We try to find these off-the-beaten-track courses and serve up as many characters as we can find, throwing in some human interest about why this might be a good place to visit.“I don’t want to say I’m a dive bar connoisseur, but I’m a connoisseur of weird things. I’ve played Augusta and Pebble Beach and I love them all, but I also quite enjoy myself on some of these different types of places.”A set time has not yet been established for the show’s debut, but what’s certain is that the May 9th premiere will include back-to-back 30-minute episodes, followed by one episode per week into August. Elkington also noted the second season will feature appearances from PGA Tour legend Jackie Burke Jr., Jason Dufner, Pat Perez and other pros, and that Dufner has come on board as a “content creator” for the show.
How this didn't end up on Back9 before they folded is one of life's mysteries.... Here's epsisode 1 for someone that's not me to watch. The drunk gay-bashing I just find to be a turn-off...maybe it's me.
End Times - The anchoring ban was going to end careers we heard ad nauseum,though it's not playing out like that, is it? James Corrigan, for some reason writing in the Vancouver Sun (oxymoron alert), had this over the weekend:
The anchoring ban does not come into effect until next January, but if the WGC Cadillac Championship here has proved anything, it is the belly and broomhandle brigades have already all but disbanded.
None from the 73-man field is employing what will soon be the illegal method of putting. The four players who between them used the long implements to collect all four majors in the space of 18 months from 2011 have converted to the regulation blade. Ernie Els did not qualify for this event, but Adam Scott, Webb Simpson and Keegan Bradley did and they have all looked comfortable crouching over this week.
.For those of a more statistical bent, here's Adam's putting line for the week:
STROKES GAINED PUTTING 2.993 2.738 -3.271 0.638 3.098 12th
That's for each of the four days, total and his rank in the field. Not too shabby for his first week out with the claw... he did look shaky on Saturday, but the thing to remember is that he's never been a good putter, even avec broomstick. The numbers will likely continue to bounce around wildly, but that's no different than before. Adam should be expected to continue to be a bad putter, on average, but when he has a good week with the flat stick he's likely to contend.
Miss Finchem Regrets - No, she's able to lunch for sure, but it appears that Grandmaster Phil got the better of him
PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said Sunday he "whiffed" when the PGA of America told him about changes to Ryder Cup qualifying by not protesting that the fall start to the season would not count toward the standings.
The Ryder Cup Task Force, which included five active players among 11 members, decided to only count PGA Tour events that begin next January. It leaves out five tournaments in October and November that kick off the 2015-16 season.
"When we had a communication by way of a conference call on the proposed changes, I thought they were all good. And I think most of them are," Finchem said. "But I kind of whiffed on that one, to be honest with you. I didn't really think through that particular change as it relates to those events."
Yeah, I'm betting that those sponsors are real happy right about now, but that'll happen when you're playing Freecell to relieve the tedium of a long conference call. If you think that perhaps these two are reading from a different script, here's the Commish:
"We would like to see them included ... because I think it's good for those tournaments.
And here's our Phil:
"The Ryder Cup isn't about accommodating everybody," Mickelson said Sunday after his final round at Doral. "The Ryder Cup is trying to be competitive and get the best players in the field, and so when you're trying to identify the best, you can't really accommodate everybody, make everybody happy."
I know, it's very subtle... Probably the Commish is just posturing for those sponsors, knowing full well that the PGA of America couldn't give a rat's ass about Tim's issues. And it's amusing because in this case, his own players were only to happy to sell him down the river. Phil even piled on with this:
"And from the Ryder standpoint, it doesn't make sense to have points assessed on those events when none of the top players are playing or very few," he said. "And maybe the FedEx Cup ought to start looking at that, as well, as maybe that's not the best place to start it out. Maybe we should start it in January like we used to."
The Fall schedule was actually far more interesting as a stand alone series for guys to earn their way onto Tour. Oh sure, the occasional regular showed up when it made sense for them, but a tourney of youngsters and old guys looking for another bite of the apple had great urgency... yeah, nobody watched, but nobody is watching now either.
That's it for now, dear readers. I'd expect that you'll next hear from me Wednesday morning. A snow dance would be a nice gesture...
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