Absence Explained

Forgive the unexplained absence, as I've been on assignment the last two day.... Golf is involved, just not the playing thereof.

The KPMG Women's LPGA - As the astute reader is aware, and I'll tolerate no other kind, the ladies are next door at Westchester Country Club.  Their LPGA Championship, the second oldest of their majors, is now held in conjunction with the PGA of America and sponsored by accounting and consulting behemoth KPMG.

The event has that new car smell, moved to a first-class venue abandoned by the men-folk, broadcast on network television and with an impressive-for-the-ladies $3.5 million purse.  We can only hope that the re-purposed event gets off to a good start with good weather and a competitive finish.

The entire Unplayable Lies staff spent yesterday and today on the grounds of Westchester CC, walking the course and looking for our favorites.  Tuesday was Pro-Am Day, and we found Lydia Ko on the back nine with her amateur partners, which just coincidentally include the Westchester Club President.  I know this because his buddies were informing Lydia of their distress in playing with him every weekend.  Lydia joined in the fun and told them she considered herself lucky to just have the one loop.

Lydia's parents were walking outside the ropes, though readily identifiable with the name Ko on tha back of their Callaway baseball caps.  There was a nice moment where Lydia grabbed a couple of Gatorades from the cooler on the tee box for some young girls following her.  One of the girls was far too shy to accept, but a sweet gesture from a superstar not all that much older than they.

We also passed by colorful Pornanong Phatlum, and my Willow Ridge readers will understand when I characterize her as the Ken Ketover of the LPGA:

Although it was more of a spectacle when her brother looped for her in matching shorts.  Paula showed up as well:

The skies were darkening as Lydia's group teed off on No.1, so we watched them play out and headed for the courtesy buses before the heavens opened up.

We were back early today, and spent some time sitting in the shade next to the first green.  For those unfamiliar with Westchester's West Course, the nines are reversed to accommodate grandstands around the 18th green.  Therefore the first hole in tournament play is a Par-3, still a relatively rare occurrence this side of Royal Lytham & t. Anne.

The scorecard has it at 180 yards, but the preponderance of the girls didn't reach the green, and some of those were well short.  I don't know what that means for play after the bell rings, but I'd look for a three to be a good start for any player.

As we arrived, last week's first round leader and the most famous niece in golf played through:

She seemed to be enjoying herself immensely, though she also put her work in on and around the green.  The girls and their caddies were placing cup markers (sometimes round discs, sometimes tees or head covers) and putting and chipping to such likely pin locations.

There were also caddies or other service providers out alone rolling balls on the greens and making copious notes.  We saw one such gent rolling orange balls on the 11th green for quite some time, as 3-4 groups played through.

Next we went to watch the gals on the range.  Former World No. 1 Stacey Lewis was there working on her short game under watchful eyes:

We also saw Stacey on the range from the courtesy bus hours later as we left...I'll leave the reader to draw his or her own conclusions.

And at the far end of the range was the LPGA's ode to opportunistic marketing:

That's of course the hunger-inducing Brooke Pancake and her Waffle House staff bag.  

Next up was the chipping green, for which they grabbed a green from their South course.  Anna Nordqvist works on those delicate soft chips:

And Beatriz Recari makes some young fans' day...

Cause yanno, it's different out here.

I was hoping for a picture with Lydia, but didn't want to intrude on her interaction with Pro-Am partners and young fans yesterday, and didn't find her this morning.  So this is the best we could do:

On the bright side, it was Lydia with those glasses that I desperately mourn... I know, I should move on.

Met. Golf Writers - Last night was the 64th annual Metropolitan Golf Writers Award Dinner was held last night in Tarrytown, and again we showed our commitment to our game by turning out the entire staff.

Major recipients included Nick Price receiving the Associations highest award, The Golden Tee, as well as additional honors to Morgan Pressel for her work in fighting breast cancer, Gary Player's Foundation (receiving the Winnie Palmer Award) and Ron Sirak of Golf Digest/Golf World receiving the journalism award.  Coincidentally, when we arrived at Westchester yesterday Ron was the first person I saw, and I was able to introduce myself and congratulate him.

Bruce Beck does the emcee honors and it's always a delightful evening.  This one was perhaps even more so, as typically the presenters know how to give a short speech but the recipients flounder somewhat... not this year, as they each made a great impression in their own unique manner.

Pressel didn't quite succeed in getting through her talk without tears, but that of course was all too appropriate to her fight against the disease that took her mother at a tragically young age.  Price took the easy way out and merely told Simon Hobday stories....Hobday was a notorious character back in the day when characters ruled the game, and the stories were quite good.  He also let us know that he knew David Feherty back before he was, you know, David Feherty, and he was probably funnier then. 

But as always at these events the night was stolen by Rabbi Marc Gellman, the funniest man of the cloth you'll ever find... amongst his schtick was a description of the legal precedent for why the food is better than the golf at Jewish clubs and the fact that there are no blonde Jews (though we do marry blondes).  Good stuff though I can't do it justice...

But the best part of the evening was being seated at the same table as Mark Broadie, stat savant to the golf world.  We've discussed Mark's work at length, as he developed the Strokes Gained - Putting and other similar metrics increasingly used by Tour pros and analysts alike.  I think he was a bit surprised that I knew and had blogged his work extensively (see here, for instance), though it's hard to describe the look on his face when I told him I had a post titled Sunday, Broadie Sunday.

Oh, and I had a raffle ticket pulled, never a bad thing.  Though as of this point I'm not exactly clear about the prize...but all for a good cause.

Regularly scheduled blogging is expected to resume tomorrow.