Late-Week Loghorrea

This was the view from Unplayable Lies Western HQ this morning:

#things that don't suck

The WD Blues - The great Mark Steyn once noted about Obama's famed 2009 Cairo speech that it was curious to fly halfway around the world just to phone it in....Sigh!

My afternoon e-mail from the nice folks at Twitter included this tweet:

Nah.....C'mon, he flew 17 hours just to spend some quality time with his buddy Sergio....  He's hoping the wind blows and that he can pick up some ground.  He's grinding really hard....

Though there was this from another good friend:

"I look at Tiger, and I can't help but think he looks like an old man," Chamblee said. "He looks like the oldest ... 41-year-old man in the history of the game. I saw him getting out 

Haven't I seen this movie before?

of the bunker on the first hole and he was standing very stiff and upright as he was getting out of the bunker, and he looked like he was walking around protecting an issue that he wasn't speaking to. That's very much what it looked like to me. 

After commenting that Woods' swing looks a lot "slower" and that it lacks "vitality," Chamblee went on to question whether such a swing really is good for Tiger's body.

 He'll fight through it just to show Brandel up....  What?

Hey, great picture, guys.  here's what passes for good news:

So, remind me again what medical school Steiny's degree is from.... Seriously, nothing to do with Tiger's back is good news...

And you know what can't be good for back spasms?  A 17-hour flight home, commercial no less....

Shack had a good round up (too late for my press time yesterday) of Tiger's assurances that he was healthy after his dispiriting opening round.  There was this:

Q. Tiger, just following on that, how are you physically? How have you handled the cold weather and what do you have to do to prepare for days like this? I'm sure it's a process that's more involved than it's ever been. 

TIGER WOODS: It is, it's a long process in the mornings trying to get ready and trying 

No club head speed visible...

to get warmed up. You know, the task and the tall order is to stay warm and stay loose. That's one of the things that I hadn't dealt with. I haven't dealt with at home and we're basically in a dome down there in south Florida. We haven't had to deal with cold, damp conditions like this. It was different. 

But, you know, it's something we had already ‑‑ we had been planning about and thinking about what we needed to do; how to layer up properly, how to stay warm, move around, exercises I may have to do on course while playing, different things how to stay loose and I did.

And this from Alistair Tait:

In seven previous appearances around the Emirates course, Woods’s worst score was a 75 in the final round in 2011. He held a 68.17 stroke average through 28 rounds, and was 92 under. So 77 is actually nine shots above his personal par.

“I wasn’t in pain at all,” said Woods, dismissing suggestions he looked to be walking gingerly. “I was just trying to hit shots and I wasn’t doing a very good job.”

I just want to make a couple of simple points here... obviously I have no idea what's going on with the man medically, but back spasms doesn't seem like a particularly encouraging diagnosis.  That noted, it's clear that can't put much stock in anything Tiger or his mouthpiece tell us....

I can believe that the cold weather at Torrey wasn't helpful last week, and it isn't hard to see that early tee times are an issue, none of which is surprising for one with back issues,  But which mental midget thought a 17-hour flight to chase an appearance fee was a good idea?  It's also warm in Phoenix this time of year....

Lastly, how would you feel if it was your signature on the appearance fee check?  I'd feel that I had gotten taken, and I'd be screaming pretty loud....

 But wait, it gets better.....

Dubai Round 2 suspended due to severe wind, sandstorms

What, no plague, pestilence and slaying of the first born?

Phoenix Phrolics -  Good times from the Valley of the Sun....Mostly for Kooch:

Matt Kuchar eagled the par-5 13th and added two late birdies and a big par save on the

rowdy par-3 16th hole Thursday to take the first-round lead in the Waste Management Phoenix Open. 

Coming off a seven-week break, Kuchar shot a 7-under 64 in perfect afternoon conditions at TPC Scottsdale for a one-stroke lead over defending champion Hideki Matsuyama and Brendan Steele. 

"I was able to be home, able to be dad," Kuchar said about the layoff. "The boys got to play basketball. ... Got to go to the games and it was great fun for me. My boys are 9 and 7. Getting into golf. In the afternoon, we'd sneak out and play a few holes." 

The crowd was estimated at 103,420 on the stadium layout.

Kooch is allegedly boo-proof, though he certainly got booed on No. 16, as did local hero Phil.  'Dems the rules....

 Last week's didn't have the best of days, but glad to see he sill has the Rahmbo jersey....

As for that other ASU alum, Alex Myers has a summary of Phil Being Phil, Today's Version.  All I know is that he shot 68 (3-under) seemingly without visiting a fairway.  And he had this oh-so-very-Phil response to a query about his pairing:

Q. Speaking of the 59s, you're playing with the last 59 shooters. What do you make of that grouping? 

PHIL MICKELSON: I'm playing with Justin Thomas, Adam Hadwin. Yeah, they've both shot 59. I'm envious of that. I really am. But I have won this tournament three times and they haven't. We both have something to be jealous about.

Fair enough.  But what have you done lately?

A pretty decent leaderboard, though of course it's early days...  But we need something to amuse us until Sunday evening.

Today in POTUS Golf News -  A setback in one piece of litigation:

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra ruled Wednesday in favor of former members who filed suit against Trump National Golf Club Jupiter, ordering the club to pay the former

members $5.77 million. 

The class action suit was filed, alleging Trump in breach of contract for illegally changing these club rules. 

The former members were seeking some $4.85 million in deposits. Marra ordered that amount plus some $925,000 in interest be awarded to the former members.

I am shocked...Shocked I tell you, that our hero would take advantage of club members.  Though this was no doubt the most amusing bit in the decision:

"At all times relevant to this lawsuit, Donald J. Trump was a private citizen. As a result, the Court will refer to him as such in this decision. In doing so, the Court means no disrespect to him or to the esteemed position he now holds," Marra wrote.

That last bit is a microaggression, Your Honor.  On the other hand, is you're expecting tis blog to be a safe space, you've not been paying attention.

But our second item is the truly shocking one, as Alan Shipnuck checked out Trump's new Dubai golf course:

DUBAI—In these contentious times, we finally found one thing that can be agreed upon 

The Par-3 17th.

by Muslims and Christians, Democrats and Republicans, Phil fans and Tiger fans: Trump International Golf Club Dubai is one helluva course. The grand opening of the club is still two weeks away, but a nonpartisan visit on Wednesday revealed a course that traverses highly imaginative (man-made) terrain, boasting a thrilling variety of risk-reward holes, interesting greens and gloriously firm turf that promotes the ground game and accentuates the many challenging runoffs around the putting surfaces. There is nary a waterfall, Roman statuary or other hokum that blights lesser properties in the Trump golf empire. No, the President has created something that is – dare we say it? —understated.

 It's a Gil Hanse design, so it was never going to suck...  I'll give you one more sort excerpt:

Of course, most of the credit goes to course architect Gil Hanse. Rather than the flat, boring target golf that is typical of Middle Eastern courses, Trump Dubai evokes the style and substance Hanse's Olympic Course in Rio. Both tracks were built on featureless sites, bringing to mind the old Robert Trent Jones maxim, "Minimum land requires maximum architecture."

True that, though I always thought that quote was attributed to Pete Dye....

We Know How This Ends -  We're back on the 2020 Olympic golf course, and well, you know the first rule of holes:

Last month we told you that Kasumigaseki Country Club, site of the 2020 Olympic golf

competition, was under fire for its policy towards women. Though Kasumigaseki does have females in its membership, women are prevented from full rights, and are prohibited from playing on Sundays. But with pressure from the international golf community and local politicians -- "I feel very uncomfortable about women not being able to become a regular member in this era," said Toyko governor Yuriko Koike -- to change the guidelines, many believed the matter would be handled before the arrival of the Summer Games. 

However, according to the Japan Times, after Tokyo organizers received a request from the International Olympic Committee to resolve the problem, the Japan Golf Association responded it had "no issues to address" with Kasumigaseki. 

“There’re 212 female members and there’ve been no complaints about the way they are treated or the rights they have. The door is wide open for female players,” read a JGC statement.

Cynics will say that it's difficult to man (relax, it's just a fixure of speech)  the barricades when your feet are bound.  I say this is just a local culture that's as valid as our own.... actually I don't care much, but Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has taken up the issue, and we know they will have to relent or the event will be moved.

A Small Price To Pay - Be still my foolish heart:

It might largely have gone unnoticed the other day, but a group advocating that California secede from the United States got the go-ahead to begin collecting signatures for a ballot measure.

But humoring the secessionists for a moment, let’s just stipulate that they do succeed. It would not be good for golf. 

It would not come to a vote until 2019, not soon enough to force the U.S. Open to move from Pebble Beach that year. But, assuming the USGA wants to keep its national championships in the United States, at least two other U.S. Opens would have to relocate, the 2021 Open scheduled to be played at Torrey Pines in San Diego and the 2023 Open at the Los Angeles Country Club. 

The 2021 U.S. Women’s Open, meanwhile, would have to move from the Olympic Club in San Francisco and the 2020 PGA Championship would have to be yanked from the TPC Harding Park, also in San Francisco, unless the PGA of America finally accedes to requests that it occasionally take its showcase event to a foreign country.

 So, you're saying that there's a chance?  Actually not....

There is zero chance that California and its advocates at Yes California, as the group is known, will secede, notwithstanding that a large swath of the country no doubt would be in favor of it.

Man, you're a downer....  Though the only one of those events I'd truly mourn is at LACC.