Tuesday, June 2, 2015

'Dis and 'Dat

We've got quite the smorgasbord for you this morning...you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll spit coffee at your computer monitor...

The Young and the Reckless - Golf Channel continued its coverage of the NCAA Championships yesterday, this time with the men's singles finals, which does double-duty as the qualifier for team match play:
BRADENTON, Fla. – Bryson DeChambeau didn’t see the dramatic ending here at
Concession. Didn’t need to, because the roar at 18 told him all he needed to know. 
After making birdie on his 71st hole, after wandering around the clubhouse for more than an hour to see if his 8-under total would stand up, after bolting for the practice area because couldn’t bear to watch another second as Washington's Cheng-Tsung Pan charged up the NCAA leaderboard, DeChambeau took his cue from the crowd. 
OoooooooOOOOOOOohhhhhhhhhh … 
About 300 yards away, Pan’s pin-seeking bunker shot scared the hole and gave the crowd a thrill, but his rally ultimately fell one shot shy.

“That did it,” DeChambeau, 21, said on the range, listening to the polite applause.
Oh, so that's how OoooooooOOOOOOOohhhhhhhhhh is spelled....noted.  It turns out that the winner is rather quirky:
He majors in physics. 
He wears a Ben Hogan-style hat. 
He uses a push cart. 
He employs something called Vector Putting, which takes into account length of putt, percentage of slope and speed of the green.
OK, but to me that buries the lede...the weirdest aspect of Dechambeau (they seem to go both ways on whether to capitalize the C) is that his irons all have the length shaft, that of a seven iron in a traditional iron set.  This Global Golf Post item will give you the background, as it's something he worked out with coach Mike (Vanna, I'd like to buy a vowel) Schy and has used ever since.  It seems quite weird to me, and I can't imagine how he doesn't heel every 60 degree wedge, but the last thing we need is another cookie-cutter swing, so I'll be rooting for him.

As I noticed with the ladies last week, the NCAA does not seed the field based upon their standings before the final round, so in both cases we had the winner off the course long before their challengers.  It at first seems to be a missed opportunity, though perhaps like the winners hat, it should be thought of as an homage to an earlier time...

In any event, the real fun begins at 9:30 with team match play...

Cabot Kudos - No surprise here, but another review, this one in the Global Golf Post, It's one of
those dreaded e-mags, so no excerpts unfortunately.  But one new factoid for me is the eccentric routing, with six Par-3's and, six Par-4's and...well, I'll let the reader do the math from there...

The second nine runs along the cliffs, though the writer finds the outbound nine through the dunes equally compelling.... This might have to go on the 2016 schedule somehow.  That's the 17th green picture at left...

This Week in Cross Marketing Platforms - We know he's an avid golfer, so this isn't a huge surprise:
After teasing many golf fans by fitting Keegan Bradley with Jordan Brand golf shoes
throughout the past few seasons, Michael Jordan and Nike are finally rolling out a golf shoe for amateurs. 
The new footwear will be an adaptation of the popular Jordan Flight Runner 2 trainer shoe, according to a press release from Nike. 
This shoe, which will not look much like the Jordan Brand shoes Bradley has sported around Tour, will incorporate “mesh and synthetic materials with Nike Flywire on the upper" and will look similar to other variations of Nike golf footwear seen within the TW franchise.
Interesting choice in using Keegan, as conventional wisdom would have suggested an actual professional golfer....Hey, we kid because we love.  Just a little weird seeing a basketball player on golf shoes.

But a far less successful cross-actualization of revenue platforms can be found seen when Fox decided to unleash a bespectacled USGA official on their....baseball audience.  Memo to Fox:  Baseball fans may or may not be golf fans, but they've tuned in to watch baseball, and I'm told that the profanities go on for some time.....
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And these folks didn't even endure Natalie Gulbis' interviewing skills....

 This Week in Cross-Something Else - It turns out that Vanity Fair's cover girl has game....
She then jokes, “I’m not doing this so I can hit it off the women’s tee,” but she does tell Bissinger that on her E! show she plans to do a segment in which she sees if she can still hit a golf ball 300 yards off the tee, even with her very ample breasts.
Jenner, an Olympic gold medalist (she won the 1976 gold for decathlon in Montreal), is obviously athletically inclined. She is a member at California's Sherwood Oaks Country Club and has been an avid player for the last 15 years. Jenner has reportedly been subjected to taunts on the golf course recently.
I'm not sure that the use of the feminine pronoun is entirely appropriate in that second paragraph parenthetical, as it was, of course, a men's event.  But I'm also reliably informed by the Bride of Maggot that Sherwood has no women's golf program.  Additionally, the grill room is reported to be men only, so awkward much?

Rut Roh -  I found Michelle Wie's win at last year's U.S. Open one of the feel-good stories of the year, but the fact of the matter is that her body seems to breaking down at an alarming rate:
Michelle Wie said early in the year that one of her biggest goals for 2015 was to stay
healthy. So far it has been nothing but a struggle for the 2014 U.S. Women’s Open champ. 
Wie withdrew Saturday from this week’s Manulife Classic in Cambridge, Ontario, the LPGA confirmed, citing a left hip injury that caused her to quit after one round at the Kingsmill Championship. She missed the cut at last week’s ShopRite LPGA Classic.
Early in the season, Wie came down with Strep throat in the Bahamas, which turned into a sinus infection in Asia. 
Wie, who has slipped to No. 13 in the Rolex Rankings, has yet to record a top-10 finish in 2015.
Last year, Wie’s major momentum came to a grinding halt when she suffered a stress reaction in a bone of the index finger on her right hand. The injury caused Wie to miss two majors, the Wegmans LPGA Championship and The Evian Championship. From early August to mid-October, Wie failed to complete a tournament. 
The LPGA’s second major of the year, the new KPMG Women’s PGA Championship, will be held June 11-14. Let’s hope a week’s worth of rest is enough.
Apologies for the overly-lengthy excerpt, but I thought it worthwhile to cover all of the issues just in the last few months.  The only thing missing seems to be back trouble, inevitable given her putting stance.

Shack Unplugged - I'm watching it as I blog it, but Callaway Live's third installment features our Shack in sports jacket and tie above jeans.... I know, but it's the law in L.A.  and the pocket-hankie is a nice touch.

The full HD video can be found here, and here's a short tease:



Good stuff indeed, and bonus points to host Harry Arnett for his Shack Golf dig...not too soon at all.  And don't miss the Mack Daddy rap commercial after the 16:00 mark...
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