Loose Ends

Time is the ultimate scarce resource this morning, but I'll try to post a few items for you nice folks.  Not only do my family obligations continue unabated, but I'm dealing with a hard drive problem on my laptop.  And yes, that would be the very same laptop on which I intended to blog our forthcoming trip, so all of yesterday afternoon was spent on the phone with various tech support organizations, thus far to no discernible benefit.

But let's get to the golf, shall we:

Ayr We Go Again -  The ladies are playing their British Open at beautiful Turnberry, which will go under the knife just as soon as the last putt drops.  The place looked spectacular  yesterday, though bad weather is expected today.  But I'm pleased t report that my girl got off to a good start:

Such a strange thing to be vying for the youngest-player-to-win-a-major record while at

the same time be considered the LPGA’s “best player to never win a major.” But that’s Lydia Ko, an uncommon player who doesn’t really care much for records and titles anyway. 

“I guess you guys will let me know when there is a record,” Ko told the media, “or that I might be getting close to one.” 

Ko will be 18 years, 3 months and 9 days old on Sunday, which means a victory at the Ricoh Women’s British Open would break Morgan Pressel’s record of 18 years, 10 months and 9 days, set at the 2007 Kraft Nabisco Championship.

Lydia had a 6:41 tee time, which might be a problem for a normal 18-year old, but our Lydia shot 66 (-6), helped by a snake that dropped for an eagle on No. 17.

I've been skeptical of Lydia's chances at the previous majors due to the length and difficulty of the golf courses, but this is very much a track on which she can be competitive.  Not for nothing that this is the place that Tom Watson almost grabbed a sixth Open at age 59.

Joel Beall has a post on the six ridiculous things Trump said at his Wednesday presser, and I'm just glad that I went with the under.  Probably the best was this:

"Everybody has asked me to be here. The world has asked me to be here."

Errr...I've got a follow-up question.... eh, never mind.  He's also No.1 with Hispanics, whereas I've always likened him more to No. 2....  LPGA player Lizette Salas is the daughter of Mexican immigrants and handled the inevitable question with the grace of a....skilled politician.  Whereas The Donald, putative Republican front-runner for President, went with this in response to a question about Salas' comments:

"Don't know who she is."

Alert the media, he's probably telling us the truth here, though he had just told us that he's a big fan of the women's game.

Aces Wild - The Quicken Loans thingamajiggee got under way at the Robert Trent Jones Club, and it's costing Quicken a pretty penny.  First we had Ryo Ishikawa's time lapse photography ace at the fourth:

Then we had Rickie Fowler with a walk-off ace on No. 9, his last hole of the day:

Good stuff...Rickie made some friends in the press tent with this gift:

You'd think a guy like that would have hole-in-one insurance....

The event's host actually had an all-right kind of day, after his typically dreadful start:

Through four holes of his opening round at the Quicken Loans National, Tiger Woods'

game didn't appear to be too sharp. Not looking much better than he did two weeks ago at St. Andrews, Woods bogeyed three of his first four holes at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club. 

However, a birdie at the par-5 fifth jump-started Woods' round. He played his final 14 holes without a bogey and threw in six birdies, including four straight to begin his back nine. 

"That's what scoring is all about," Woods said. "You got to score and I made a lot of key putts today. I ran them by the hole but I made all the comebacks and overall I felt like I hit the ball well enough to turn it around. It was nice to actually turn it around."

A 3-under 68 left him five shots back of the lead set by Reteif Goosen and Ryo Ishikawa.

It's a start, but he'll need to do it for more than fourteen holes.

No Rors -  At Firestone, that is:

Rory McIlroy announced Wednesday through the World Golf Championships website that he would not be defending his title at Firestone Country Club next weekend. The 26-year-old injured his ankle in early Julyand has yet to return to competitive golf. 

“Unfortunately, I will not be defending my World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational title,” McIlroy said. “Best of luck to all the competitors, and I look forward to returning to Firestone in 2016.”

No word on the PGA, but just reminder that that's a notoriously difficult walking course....and also a reminder that Darren Clarke, back during Open Championship week, suggested that Rory might be done for 2015.   

I must leave you now to go back into tech support hell.