Late Week Lamentations

I received some superlatives, but no photos or specifics to blog from Employee No. 2's round at Teeth of the Dog.  That girl hasn't been pulling her weight for some time now, but what's to be done?  

Jordan Being Jordan - Just yesterday he assured us that he knows what needs to be done, then does this:

Hoping to turn the page on a disappointing 2018 and find out where his game was at to begin the new year, Jordan Spieth might have more questions than answers after a rough opening round at the Sony Open in Hawaii. 

Spieth shot 3-over 73 in Round 1 at Waialae Country Club and sat T-125 while the afternoon wave was on course. 

It was Spieth’s worst score in 11 career rounds at the Sony Open and the first time he failed to break 70 since his 2014 debut, when he shot 70-71 to miss the cut. 

Spieth spoke Wednesday about his offseason work and said he was in a good place mentally.

He's happily married to his longtime sweetheart, so I would hope that he's in a good place mentally.  

Hank Haney takes time out from annoying Tiger to opine on Jordan, using that dreaded Y-word:

But one high-profile coach has his doubts. Hank Haney told ESPN.com that he has been studying Spieth’s putting stroke and can only come to one conclusion — and it involves

golf’s dreaded Y-word.

“He’s got to get his putting figured out,” Haney said. “I think he will. But he has to. And I think that spilled into the rest of his game. When I watch him putt, he visibly has the yips. You watch his hands on short putts and there is a tremor in there. I don’t care if the putt goes in or doesn’t. He was center cut on his first putt at the Ryder Cup. But his hands were shaking. He had to miss more short putts than anybody on Tour.” 

The ESPN.com report cited another player, who wished to remain anonymous, referring to Spieth’s stroke as “yippy” and described his discomfort around putts.

If you think he has the yips, then how can you be so sure he'll work it out?  It's only one round, of course, but little to build on yesterday:

He teed off on the back nine Thursday morning and made his first and only birdie of the day on his 16th hole to go along with four bogeys. Performance on the greens was a problem again and he was -2.888 in strokes gained putting in the later afternoon.

Hmmm... Even if you fly private, it's a long trip for a mere 36 holes.

Could it be that our hero suffers from ADD?  Because he was talking about this just the other day:

Jordan Spieth, after airing grievance about new drop rule, had to be reminded by Slugger White about new drop rule on Thursday

Ironically, it's just fortunate that his name happens to be Jordan Spieth....  I guess Patrick nailed it after all.

Duf Being Duf -  OK, anyone that hasn't yet eaten breakfast should just skip this item..... Come to think of it, anyone planning to sit down to a meal later today might consider doing the same.

So, you've been forewarned.... Remember the fun last year with Duf offering the valuable real estate on his baseball cap to the highest bidder each week?  Good times, for sure....  Well, the Dude has landed a long-term sponsor....  I know, I'm happy for him, and yet....

Jason Dufner’s hat sponsorship carousel last season drew a lot of attention, but now that carousel is screeching to a halt, at least for a while. Dufner recently signed a new, let’s say “untraditional,” sponsorship deal with a brand called Dude Wipes. But Duf’s new

deal is getting a lot of attention in its own right.

So what the heck is Dude Wipes, anyway? It’s pretty much exactly what you would guess it is. The company’s primary products are flushable wipes for adults. If you’re still not getting picture, I’ll let the company describe the origin and purpose of the wipes for me: 

“Back in the day, we always hated using toilet paper, the stuff stinks. We believed life should be better—something had to be done. So we went to work, creating DUDE Wipes out of our apartment. Soon the DUDE movement was born, with flushable wipes for on-the-go and at home sh–uations.”

I understand that they're highly recommended for guys like Jordan that are getting a little yippy....

Duf, I don't how much you're getting, but is it really worth it?

Playing Against Type -  One of our favorite pinatas makes a return appearance, though the white hat doesn't seem to fit:

How noted "caddie killer" Robert Allenby ended up officiating the wedding of his new caddie

 I love a redemption story....

Robert Allenby sounds at peace, his mind finally clear. He’s standing at 11,000 feet,

presiding over the marriage of his caddie, Danny Stout, and Sam Troyanovich, an LPGA tour pro who just finished her rookie season. They are in front of a small group of family and friends, all of whom are dressed in ski clothes, Sam included, on top of a mountain in Aspen, Colo. At Stout’s request, Allenby knows to keep things short and sweet, even though there is no rush on a clear 35-degree day in the Rocky Mountains. 

You may be wondering how this is possible. A simple Google search will yield, among other things, horror stories of Allenby’s reputation with caddies. Now, he’s officiating his new caddie’s wedding. Troyanovich is fully aware of the absurdity. 

“People say, ‘Wait, what? [Danny] caddies for Robert Allenby? Isn’t he awful? Isn’t he such a jerk?’” she says. “And we’re like, ‘No, he’s amazing. We love him.’”

OK, if he's found some kind of peace and can act like a human being, that's great.  On the other hand, leopards allegedly can't change their spots, and I have a sense that the key word in that header is "new".

Jesus Saves -  Of course, the old joke went on to credit Esposito with the rebound....  This guy opened with a strong -4 round yesterday, but it's Shippy with the wonderful profile:

Salvation beckoned on the other side of the river. It was only a couple hundred yards away, but the churning water of the Rio Grande was the fiercest challenge yet in José de Jesús Rodríguez’s short, hard life. Late at night, when he made his forays for freedom,

the river was as black as ink. Underfoot were treacherously slippery rocks and other unseen hazards. Growing up in land-locked Irapuato, Mexico, José de Jesús never learned to swim. Now the chilly water lapped against the teenager’s chin, inviting the darkest fear: “If I slip, I die,” he remembers thinking. 

Day after day, for three agonizing months, José de Jesús tried to steal across the Rio Grande, only to be thwarted by its currents and the United States Border Patrol. So many times he wanted to give up and return home, but what kept him going were the people he’d left behind: seven siblings who slept shoulder-to-shoulder on the dirt floor of their one-room, bathroom-less adobe home; a mother who endured seven stillbirths but still found a way to hand-make tortillas seemingly every day; a father he revered but whose body was breaking under the strain of so many years of toil as a laborer on construction sites.

I'm deliberately ignoring the topical nature of the story, as it's better just to enjoy it as a heartwarming story of grit and endurance, and you'll inevitably want to root for the not-so-young man.

We're All Gonna Die -  Shack is enjoying the contradiction between this and Jay Monahan's recent upbeat take on our game:

“There are hundreds of other communities in this situation, and they’re trapped and they

don’t know what to do,” says Peter Nanula, chief executive of Concert Golf Partners, a golf club owner-operator that owns about 20 private clubs across the U.S. One of his current projects is the rehabilitation of a recently acquired club in Florida that had shut one of its three golf courses and sued residents who had stopped paying membership fees. 

More than 200 golf courses closed in 2017 across the country, while only about 15 new ones opened, according to the National Golf Foundation, a golf market-research provider. Florida-based development consultant Blake Plumley said he gets about seven phone calls every week seeking advice about struggling courses, from course owners or homeowners’ associations. He said most of those matters end up in court, and predicted that the U.S. is only about halfway through the number of golf-course closures that will eventually occur.

 I don't think our game is dying, but there's also little doubt that too many golf courses were built for the purpose of selling real estate.  And if you own one of those home on an abandoned golf course, you're in a world of hurt.

Bullet, Dodged - I think we can all agree that this would have been a mistake:

Brandel Chamblee in the booth? It wasn’t much of a long shot. 

Chamblee was recently profiled by Ron Green Jr. in the Global Golf Post, and it’s an

entertaining read that covers Chamblee’s thorough show prep, hobbies off the course and return to pro golf at last year’s Senior British Open, among other things, but there was also an interesting nugget toward the end of the piece. 

The outspoken Johnny Miller announced his retirement from the booth in October of last year, and although a replacement wasn’t named right away, there was plenty of speculation regarding who would take over. Paul Azinger eventually landed the job, but Chamblee said he would have taken it if it was offered. (Chamblee told Green he did not seek out the job, though.)

I actually like Brandel where he is now....  I know he's a honey trap for the haters, but every couple of weeks he throws out something that's fun to blog.  Some of it's way off the mark, for sure, but that's pretty much the job description.

I'll let you get on with your weekend.  See you Monday?