Western Iowa USA
Last Seen: July 1, 2008
What a shame the way the US Open turned out., with the news today that Woods will have to undergo knee surgery again and is out of action for the rest of this season. I find it a particular shame because Rocco Mediate lost what was probably his last chance at winning a major, and Woods gained virtually nothing as far as his career goes…one more major at this point is almost nothing in the overall scheme of things in Woods golfing life.
Rocco made history, even in defeat. In any other PGA tournament, Mediate would have won either a sudden death or 3 hole play off, so Woods really did get lucky on this one. Rocco will be remembered as the under dog who stepped up toe-to-toe with the best in the world and played him to a tie after 90 holes of golf on one of the toughest courses in the world.
I’m a huge Tiger Woods fan but I hated to see him win this one, even more so, now that the immediate cost of the victory is apparent. Hopefully, it will only be one season out of Woods’ life.
I’ve been a fan of Fred Couples since he came on tour. Since then, he has remained one of my favorite players to watch. He’s had his ups and downs over the years and while not always at the top of the leader board, he has had many, many exceptional moments of sheer brilliance, especially around the green. Along with Phil Mickelson in particular, there are few I enjoy watching strike a finesse chip more than Fred. I’ve always admired the ease with which he seems to execute the shot, whether it‘s from sand or grass. Tiger isn’t too shabby from just off the green either, as Chris DiMarco (and the world) found out on #16 at the 2005 Masters.
Couples has always appeared to be one of the nice guys on the PGA to me. Oh, I saw him come apart once on camera after a very nasty break in a tight match. He was 50 yards from the fans, in a patch of desert with just his caddy and the camera/sound people and the camera picked up his displeasure with an unlucky bounce. However, I don’t think he is known as one who provides full time work for a network language censor. He seems popular with the fans lucky enough to be on the course, and I’ve never heard an announcer express anything other than respect for his as a person.
It was nice to watch Fred finish so high this week end and hopefully get a momentum kick going into Augusta.
Cuff, as in rotor cuff. I can think of a few more 4 letter words to go with it. Mine. Torn. Pain. None...as in how much golf I will be playing during the summer of 2008.
An hour ago, the surgeon confirmed what I strongly suspected. At the point where I was almost ready to get back to golfing after surgery last fall, I re-tore the Supraspinatus muscle in my rotor cuff and will have to have surgery again. His best case scenario was that I might be able to golf again in late August or early September.
This uplifting news comes after almost 6 months of restraints and physical therapy, cleaning clubs, watching videos to improve my game, being snowed in since November, anticipating my most active season ever after retiring at the first of this year, and getting a new set of woods for Christmas.
On the bright side, I do still have a right arm, and it may heal completely by the summer of 2009. In the mean time, I'll have to be content to ride along with my buddies and enjoy just being on the course with them when the weather is nice. I'll be working on my David Feharty impression, so I can comment on their shots, and maybe do some putting by June.
The rest of today will be spent getting my clubs rounded up and back in the closet. :-(
Hoth, the fictional 6th planet of a remote system from Star Wars. A world of ice and snow where just being outside can kill you within minutes. Hummmmm, sounds like Iowa, except not as remote. (See new picture "Me and my caddy", in my photo album "The off season in Iowa".)
Forecast for today, "chance of a light dusting of snow with highs in the mid 30s." Reality for today, 6" of new snow on top of what we already had, 30 mph winds causing huge drifts and a chill factor of -10F. Even the snow plow got stuck this morning. Right now, "Global Warming" doesn't seem to be very global or very warming.
I've come to the conclusion that Heaven and Hell are not opposites. Hell is hot, Heaven is mild, so there must be a place that is as cold as Hell is hot. I will call this cold place Lleh, and that is where I'll probably end up if this winter is any indication. :-(
Stay tuned for your next 4 letter word, which will be "Cuff". I will explain that in about 10 days.
In the late 1980s and early 1990, Jean M. Auel wrote four books that I found entertaining to read because of their historical accuracy about the tools, traditions, and lives of prehistoric people. The books were The Clan of the Cave Bear, The Valley of Horses, The Mammoth Hunters, and The Plains of Passage. The setting for the books was during the height of the last ice age 35,000 years ago, and involved the lives of fictional characters woven around historically correct settings, conditions, and environments.
One quote in particular from the final book has stuck in my mind and it applies to me more than ever this year. Without boring you with details, the heroine and her boyfriend must make a treacherous crossing of a glacier in order to return to his home clan. People living at the edge of the glacier warned them that it would be a long, hard journey because the glacier is vast and there was a danger of getting stranded if they didn’t complete the crossing before the warm winds of spring began to blow.
To paraphrase their final admonishment by the locals, “You will know that the time is close when you feel yourself starting to go crazy.”
Well, the edge of the glacier and the spring winds had better be right around the corner because I feel myself going crazy. Picture me as Jack Nicholson in The Shining , only substitute a 7 iron for the axe. My reaction to one more snow flake will cause Freddie Kruger to cringe in the corner, whimper like a baby, and beg for mercy.
Needless to say, the heroine and her boyfriend narrowly escaped death (and lunacy) on the glacier and I imagine I will do the same with this winter. The big advantage they had was that they didn’t have a golf course waiting for them on the other side of the ice.
But I certainly love to watch him play when he is playing well. He was my inspiration a few years ago when I decided to either learn to play short wedge shots or give up golf, and I still get chills when he takes his swing on a 40 yard downhill chip, over a bunker, to a short side pin cut, on a cement hard green that stimps at about 12 and slopes away from him towards water. You know...the shot we all would love to have to get up and down to halve the hole for a skin with one of our buddies. At least we would love for our buddy to have that shot. LMAO
His work with the wedges has always impressed me more than any long drive he or anyone else has ever hit. Even with the grass at Riviera last week, he still had a pretty consistant touch around the greens that I can only hope to match for a single shot, periodically. Actually, not many of the world's top golfers matched it last week.
With Tiger #1 and Phil #2 for the upcoming World Match Play this week, I would love to sit down next Sunday and watch them go head to head for the title. I believe that Woods has a better overall game when both are playing their best, but think it would be a fantastic match, and I would have to root for Phil. It was good to see him win last week and I hope that 2008 is his year to make it a genuine battle from week to week for the #1 spot.
My very first round of golf was played on a course in Monterey California back when woods were really made of wood and a thinly hit wedge would slice the cover off of the best balls available.
As I watch the play at Pebble Beach this week, I am painfully reminded that I had a chance to play that course for $40 (military discount) and passed it up. As a beginner, I could not have possible appreciated the course, but I still consider it a DUMB mistake on my part.
Of course, that probably wasn't as dumb as watching the tournament on CBS today and expecting to see any kind of real golf. Their telecast of the third round was akin to having red hot sand grains dropped, one at a time, into your eyes for three hours.
Spare me the the slow motion replays of 'celebrities" jumping into the crowd of adoring fans,and show me the move that Vijay is making. Dispense with the promotional clip of some actors latest film and let me watch Phil fall apart with an 11 on one hole. If I want to watch someone named Lopez playing golf, I'd prefer that it be Nancy, and not George, thank you very much. I actually improved my game with a Golf Digest chipping tip from Nancy Lopez a few years back, and had never even heard of George Lopez before the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic a couple weeks ago.
We can be eternally thankful that neither Britney nor Paris play golf.
It was too bad that Tommy Gainey didn't make the cut though. I had to get that information here at Golf Link.com from their leader board. Thank you Golf Link.com.
Those fluffy little six sided crystals are so pretty when they first start in November. Harbengers of season change that brings back fond childhood memories of building snowmen and sled rides. I'm sure the German army felt the same in Nov of 1942 at the siege of Stalingrad.
General Paulus surrendered after three months on Feb 3. It is now Feb 4 and I refuse to surrender to these little hexagons from hell because there is a good chance I will live long enough to see green grass again.
Paulus had the entire Russian army trying to kill him. I have a more serious problem. For Christmas/retirement, I received a set of r7 woods, 1-3-5-7, and there is no place I can even take a practice swing without the fear of breaking something or damaging a club.
I've heard rumors that there are places (probably not on THIS planet) where people can play golf 12 months a year. There has to be a special place in hell for people like that because they have certainly had more than their fair share of heaven while they were alive. :-)
