TYBttC I Recap: Better Luck Next Time

OK, so the response to the First-Evah Mostly Harmless Take Your Blog to the Course Carnival was, shall we say, underwhelming. None of the bloggers I was hoping would take a stab at golf blogging showed the slightest inclination to do so. So let me offer a few hints for our next one at the end of July to the "wouldn't blog about golf with a 10-foot pole" crowd. Did you know that even Townhall.com links to a lot of articles on the LPGA? Am I making that up? Sadly, No.

My sources inform me there are plants on golf courses (and lots of water use politics in the SW), not to mention lots of weird Americana/Canadiana golf-historical possibilities to be explored. I heard somewhere that Lovecraft had a 3 handicap.

What else could you write on? Read on! But don't feel limited to these possibilities--remember, you can always use "what we talk about when we talk about golf"-like blogocompositional strategies.

The LPGA Is the Best Reality TV Show Out There. And we know how into the reality tv some of Left Blogistan's biggest enemies are, so even if you're like me and you can't stand reality tv, you can at least mock the soap opera plots the media are trying to revv up: Will Michelle Wie apologize to Annika Sorenstam for withdrawing from her tournament? Will the Morgan Pressel-Michelle Wie rivalry break out into open feuding? Blah blah blah. Now if we can just get Ann Althouse hooked on this, all her hilarious critics will join in the fun. (Seriously, though, the different formats for some major non-major tournaments coming up this fall are pretty interesting--very high stakes, very high pressure--click on the link for more.)

Michelle Wie: If Only Our Political Journalists Were As Brave As Our Golfy Media. Take a look at this ESPN column on Michelle Wie and then take 10 minutes to read any of the golf blogs with actual readers, for the comment areas have become metaphorical battlegrounds. The facts are clear: Michelle Wie hasn't played even close to well for a year, her wrist injuries from the beginning of the season are more serious than her doctors led her to believe, her recovery is going to be a lot slower than she hoped, her confidence in her swing is shot, and her "power of positive thinking"-type statements in press conferences are taken about as seriously as Saddam Hussein's information minister's used to be. Now, anyone who knows golf knows she's just taking a page out of the Tiger Woods playbook (page 54, subsection xviii, under "swing changes--keep saying things are coming around until they do and you can then refrain from saying 'I told you so' and take the moral high ground"), but seriously, I wonder what percentage of the Wie-haters apply the same standards to the latest from the White House on Iraq and Iran? If a large percentage were already doing this, Bush and Cheney would both have been impeached by now! Hey, all, it's never too late.

Lorena Ochoa: The MexiDemocommiefascislamist Threat. Psst. She's Mexican! She's nice to groundskeepers. Is it any coincidence that just as she attains the world #1 ranking, nativist Republicans are holding out for an immigration "reform" bill that would deport her and the U.S. golfy media starts a whispering campaign that she needs to win a major to "validate" her status as the world's best woman golfer? I think not! Jesus' General, your patriotic mission for the 4th is to alert Michelle Malkin to this new threat from south of the border.

The Se Ri Pak Effect: "Yellow Peril" or "Model Minority"? Speaking of immigration politics, this question is an undercurrent in almost all the stories on the many successful South Korean and Korean diaspora golfers on the LPGA tour this year (since, it seems, their numbers have been increasing every year since Se Ri Pak won that U.S. Women's Open back in 1998). The parallels between debates over Asian immigration and Asian-American ethnicity in U.S. history and the ways in which the U.S. golfy media characterizes these players and attempts to account for their success are striking--and troubling. To understand the contrast between these media accounts and a great site like Seoul Sisters, check out the comments on the main Take Your Blog to the Course page. This isn't just ripe for immigration and ethnicity issues, but also religious ones, as Christianity plays a pretty big role in many of these young women's lives. So you could also get blogging about how the success of the Korean golf diaspora is not proof of God's existence (I'm sure someone somewhere in Fundie Blogistan has made that claim, right, norbizness?)

Cristie Kerr: Body Issues. Check out this ESPN column on Cristie Kerr's career makeover. Why all the focus on her weight and clothes? She's America's best female golfer and that's all you can come up with? Yeesh. Seriously, even within Left Blogistan, the Fat Wars (a series of battles over bodies and body images) have been going on for the bloggy equivalent of decades.

Natalie Gulbis: Will #1 Golf Babe Ever Shed Kournikova Label? Come on, people, the hotness/athleticism debates over female athletes and women's professional sports have been going on for decades and you all still haven't taken a stand on it with respect to Natalie Gulbis, Paula Creamer, Grace Park, Erica Blasberg, and the rest. It's never too late to take on beauty myths!

Money Money Money Money: Purse Issues. The quality of play and competition on the LPGA is certainly equal to the PGA and there are far more exciting young golfers on the women's tour than the men's. So why, when pro tennis has equalized men's and women's purses, is there still such a gap in pro golf?

Meta-Golf-Blogging: Of Course!. Check out Chicks with Sticks, Golfgal, Golf Girl's Diary, The Golf Chick, and The Fairway Flapper--you know, the golf blogs I don't link to on my blogroll. Why is that? Is there a Mars/Venus thing going on in golf blogging? You decide.