Weekend Wrap

The days are shorter and the golf less significant, but stick with me as we've got an excuse to revisit Sergio's proudest moment.

Bein' Inbee - With one minor exception, it doesn't suck to be Inbee Park.  Now this in what feels to most of us like an off-year:

Look out Lydia Ko: Inbee Park heads to the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship with a familiar taste of victory and tremendous momentum. A closing 8-under 64 at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational gave Park a three-shot victory over Carlota Ciganda and moved her within three points of Lydia Ko in the Rolex Player of the Year race. Park overtook Ko, who withdrew from the event after Japan, in the Vare Trophy race. Park’s 69.433 scoring average is 0.016 strokes ahead of the 18-year-old Kiwi. 

“It made it a lot more exciting, me winning this tournament,” Park said.

I'd urge caution in using the "E" word, as this is still the ladies tour in mid-November...I'm guessing they only got eyeballs yesterday during commercial breaks in the Patriots-Giants game.  At least that was the case in our dome, and your humble blogger is more favorably disposed towards the ladies than the average bear...  There's also this larger context:

She’s now within one point of the 27 required for the LPGA Hall of Fame. Putting her name on the Vare Trophy once more or winning another Player of the Year title would do it. Park wouldn’t be eligible for the honor, however, until she’s active for a 10th season on tour in 2016. 

“I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to get that one point,” she said.

Ummm...I'm gonna go with a week.  In bee is the best player in the ladies game, and I say that having given my heart to Lydia...  As for that exception referenced above, that would be this:

Inbee Park with the sombrero in the library....errr, never mind.

So, one more win or award and she'll be in the Hall, joining golf's immortals such as this torney's hostess.  Errr...not so fast as per Randall Mell in a piece appropriately titled What the Hall?:

Five-and-a-half years after announcing her retirement, nobody seems certain what her

Hall of Fame status is or whether she will actually be inducted.

Ochoa isn’t sure, either. 

“I have no idea,” Ochoa said when GolfChannel.com asked her in a telephone interview what she knew about induction plans. “I’ve heard no news. I did my best as a player, and it’s not in my hands. I have no idea how the rules work or about any new changes or the possibility for me to be inducted.” 

The LPGA Hall of Fame is separate from the World Golf Hall of Fame, and the LPGA’s may be the most difficult to get into in mainstream sports. In the 65-year history of the LPGA, only 24 players have been inducted into its Hall of Fame. Nobody has made it in eight years, since Se Ri Pak was inducted in 2007.

She blew past the points requirement, yet didn't play the mandated ten years on the LPGA.  Obviously that makes their criteria look silly...  then again it's only the LPGA's Hall, entirely different from the World Golf Hall of Fame, which has it's own membership issues... But lest you think it can't get any sillier, get a load of this:

Though Ochoa is three years short of the active membership requirement, she can still become eligible for induction via the LPGA Hall of Fame veterans category. A player must be retired or inactive five years to be eligible for nomination by the veterans committee. Ochoa met that requirement this year. If the veterans committee nominates Ochoa, her name will then be forwarded to the LPGA player membership for a vote. If 75 percent of the membership that responds to the ballot approves, Ochoa will win induction. 

There’s a big problem with that, though. 

The LPGA Hall of Fame veterans committee isn’t actively assembled and hasn’t been for a number of years. That’s why Ochoa’s in Hall of Fame limbo.

Sheesh!  Lorena is expecting her third child and hopefully laughing at it all...

Wild and Wacky - Can't imagine too many were watching, but the BMW Masters, the penultimate stop in the Race to Dubai had quite the finish:

SHANGHAI (AP) Kristoffer Broberg wasn't happy with his putting last week when he was practicing at home in Sweden, so he made an abrupt change. He looked in his coach's wife's bag and decided to give her putter a try. 

On Sunday, Broberg made the biggest putt of his career to beat Patrick Reed in a playoff to win the BMW Masters for his first European Tour title.

Broberg and Reed both finished regulation play at 17-under 271 after an afternoon of fine shot-making and dramatic momentum shifts that saw five players briefly share the lead on the back nine. In the playoff, the Swede hit his tee shot straight down the fairway for an easy approach to the pin and a 15-foot birdie putt for victory.

Mister Top Five careened from holing a bunker shot for eagle on No. 15, made bordie at No. 16 to missing a short par putt on No. 17...  It was that kind of day.

Sergio broke from the gate to a Thursday lead and had a share of the lead as late as the 13th hole yesterday, but, continuing with the horse racing analogies, spit the bit on the way home.  Earlier in the week he sat for a thumb-sucker interview with David DeNunzio to reflect on his career featuring soft-focus questions such as this:

You're embarking on your 16th season on the PGA Tour. How would you rate the

first 15?

I think of my career as being at its midpoint, and I feel really happy about it. I've won enough to be happy. Sure, I could've won more, but I could've lost more, too. I take a lot of pride in my consistency -- I think I've been ranked in the top 20 in the world 13 or 14 out of 15 years, and that's not easy to do. I know some people are always going to say, "Oh, Sergio? He underachieved," but those people don't realize how difficult it is to be out here, how tough the competition is, and how many players try to pass you by every year. I'm not disappointed, but that doesn't mean that I'm satisfied -- or that I'm done.

Fair enough, but can we agree that we won't have a repeat of this in Act II? 

And while the Euro Tour under its new boss Keith Pelley has been on a roll lately, this has got to hurt:

The European Tour’s Race to Dubai will conclude for a second time in three years without Sergio García after the Spaniard opted not to enter next week’s DP World Tour Championship.

In what represents an obvious blow to tournament organisers, García’s management has confirmed the player will not take his berth in the 60-man field in Dubai despite a current standing of 30th on the European Tour’s order of merit. That position will inevitably improve with García lying tied second at the BMW Masters in Shanghai with 18 holes to play.

García cited scheduling and tiredness issues when he was among a trio of players in 2013 who refused to meet the playing criteria required for the flagship Dubai tournament, in what was the inaugural year of the European Tour’s Final Series. The format for that has since been tweaked and will be again during an announcement by Keith Pelley, the European Tour’s chief executive, in Dubai on Tuesday. Pelley will also unveil new criteria for Tour membership, the template for which was revealed by the Observer last week.

In response, Shack had this micro-rant:

This latest in a never-ending list of player defections, WD's and overall mail-in jobs during playoff season got me thinking: have any of these golf "playoffs" on the major tours ever generated an onslaught of positive press? Or just mostly negative stories about player apathy, fatigue, boredom or nonchalance?

I'm gonna go with no on this one....

Excitement, Contained -  Speaking of player viewer apathy:

PLAYA DEL CARMEN, Mexico (AP) -- Russell Knox and Graeme McDowell each had 

six birdies and were tied for the lead before the final round was stopped Sunday in the rain-delayed OHL Classic at Mayakoba, setting up a sprint to the finish Monday in Mexico. 

The fourth round was delayed 3 1/2 hours by thunderstorms that left pools of water across El Camaleon Golf Club.

And in a bit of choreography reminiscent of Busby Berkley, Morning Drive just cut away to coverage of resumption of play in Mexico just in time to catch the horn blowing ti suspend play once again....Do we think the Commish will realize that this is God's way of telling him the season shouldn't start in November?  I know, foolish thought...

And Those Lessons Were? - I guess whoever the stenographer was, he or she wasn't allowed a follow-up question:

Tiger woods and decorated pro skier Lindsey Vonn ended their three-year relationship earlier this year, and on Friday, Vonn spoke with the New York Times about the trials and tribulations she has gone through recently. 

On her relationship with the 14-time major champion, Vonn told the Times: "I don't regret anything. I loved Tiger, and I had an amazing three years with him. But it was a learning experience as well. With every relationship, you learn what you need and what you want in a partner."

It was a learning experience for Elin as well...

Celebrating  -  Golf.com channeled their inner triskaidekaphobia with an enjoyable slideshow on the 13 Unluckiest Breaks in Golf History.  I recommend a quick scroll through the usual suspects to some of the older ones with which you might not be familiar.  For instance, Harry Bradshaw isn't exactly a household name, but this was, shall we say, unfortunate:

8. Harry Bradshaw, 1949 British Open

The Irishman led the Open with a first-round 68 at England’s Royal St. George’s and led off round 2 with four 4s. At the par-4 5th, he sliced his drive into the rough and his ball wound up lodged in a broken beer bottle. Unsure of how to proceed and unwilling to wait for an official, Bradshaw hacked away, shutting his eyes at impact. The ball advanced 25 yards. Clearly unnerved, he made double-bogey, on his way to a 77. He wound up tying Bobby Locke for the title, but lost in the playoff, thanks to a broken beer bottle.

Do scroll far enough through the slideshow to catch the Bobby Cruickshank item.  Not only is that one of my favorite names in golf, but it's the golf equivalent of that iconic Y.A. Tittle photo.  Unless, of course, Richard Boxall is...