NEC Karuizawa 72 Ladies Setup: More Rebel Alliance/Empire Action

I had some fun with my title's Star Wars analogy in my post on the Jamie Farr Toledo Classic on the LPGA, so I was surprised to see the same Rebel Alliance/Empire shootout theme holding true at the NEC Karuizawa 72 Ladies on the JLPGA.  32-year-old journeywoman Tomoko Kusakabe (-8), who's never broken into the top 40 on the year-end money list in her 1st 8 years on tour, leads a rebel alliance of young guns looking to deny the tour's biggest names a victory tomorrow, including 23-year-old Eun-Bi Jang (-7), 21-year-old Miki Sakai (-6), 22-year-old Kaori Ohe (-6), 24-year-old Teresa Lu (-6), 24-year-old Erika Kikuchi (-6), 25-year-old Yumiko Yoshida (-6), 19-year-old Harukyo Nomura (-5), 26-year-old Esther Lee (-5), and 26-year-old Na-Ri Kim (-4).  It's a tall order, as the empire is lead by living legend Yuri Fudoh at -7, flanked by Sun-Ju Ahn and Mi-Jeong Jeon at -5, and Sakura Yokomine, Chie Arimura, and Bo-Mee Lee at -4.  But Kusakabe's best career finish was a T6 here in 2009, so maybe she'll be up to the challenge!

Jamie Farr Toledo Classic Thursday and Friday: Rebel Alliance/Empire Shootout in Process

Scoring has always been low at Highland Meadows in the Jamie Farr Toledo Classic, which may as well be called the Se Ri Pak Shootout, what with her 5 wins at this event.  Paula Creamer hung on in 2008 after opening with a 60.  Eunjung Yi shocked the field with a moving-day 61 in 2009 and beat Morgan Pressel in a playoff.  In fact, the last player to win without breaking 65 was Mi Hyun Kim in 2006.

Given that history, everyone playing this week knew they'd have to go low or go home.  With the cut line at E, big names like Ya Ni Tseng, Ai Miyazato, Azahara Munoz, Anna Nordqvist, Michelle Wie, and Pressel have had to settle for the latter option, not to mention players of the caliber of Eun-Hee Ji, Mina Harigae, Jennifer Song, Mariajo Uribe, Lizette Salas, Nicole Castrale, Vicky Hurst, and Ryann O'Toole.  But plenty of other golfers have gone the former route, including many names we haven't seen in a long time near the top of the leaderboard. 

On Thursday, Pernilla Lindberg fired an 8-birdie, 7-under-par 64 to take a 2-shot lead on fellow members of the rebel alliance Meredith Duncan, Numa Gulyanamitta, Chella Choi, and Karine Icher (not to mention Mika Miyazato and Angela Stanford).  Joining them in the 60s were the likes of Ayaka Kaneko, Gerina Piller, Ilhee Lee, and Jenny Shin (and, oh yeah, Amy Yang and So Yeon Ryu) at -4, Jane Park, Jee Young Lee, Lizette Salas, Danielle Kang, Dewi Claire Schreefel, Danah Bordner, Jane Rah, Jacqui Concolino, Brooke Pancake, and Rachel Rohanna (whoops, also, Laura Davies, Stacy Lewis, Paula Creamer, Hee-Kyung Seo, Hee-Won Han, Jeong Jang, and Janice Moodie) at -3, and a huge group at -2 that included P.K. Kongkrapham, Valentine Derrey, Cindy LaCrosse, Mo Martin, Kathleen Ekey, Sydnee Michaels, Christine Song, Samantha Richdale, Jennie Lee, Nicole Hage, and Moira Dunn (oops, forgot Ji-Yai Shin, In-Kyung Kim, Inbee Park, Brittany Lincicome, Sandra Gal, Momoko Ueda, Natalie Gulbis, Katherine Hull, Lindsey Wright, and Candie Kung).

On Friday, the empire struck back to some extent, with Mika Miyazato, Inbee Park, and Hee Kyung Seo only 1 shot behind new rebel alliance leader Chella Choi, followed by So Yeon Ryu, Hee-Won Han, Karine Icher, and Pernilla Lindberg at -7, Ji-Yai Shin, In-Kyung Kim, Angela Stanford, Beatriz Recari, and Jacqui Concolino at -6, and Stacy Lewis, Mi Jung Hur, Lindsey Wright, Dewi Claire Schreefel, Sydnee Michaels, and Kathleen Ekey at -5. 

So as moving day beckons, will we see another Eunjung Yi-like performance by a rebel alliance leader, or will a big name bring a Se Ri Pak-like Death Star blast to the hopes of the rest of the field?  I'd say "stay tuned," but between the London Olympics and Tiger in contention at the PGA Championship, the decision by the tournament organizerts to save money and not pay for Golf Channel coverage is looking pretty smart (although maddening to LPGA junkies like me!).  I'm hoping for big moves by Momoko Ueda (E), 2010 champion Na Yeon Choi (-1), Amy Yang (-2), Tiffany Joh (-2), Ayaka Kaneko (-2), Paula Creamer (-3), and Jane Park (-3), rooting for Mika Miyazato to break through for her 1st LPGA win, and expecting at least a couple of golfers to go lower than Lindberg's opening 64 on the weekend.  How about you?

My Solution

There has been an uproar caused by Ai Miyazato winning the LET money title this year despite playing only two events.  I have a solution I'd like to propose.

Since it's football season here in the US, I'll take an example from that sport to make my point.  Let's say Tom Brady needs to leave the field to repair an equipment malfunction, so the backup replaces him for a few plays.  During that time the backup throws two passes, completing both.  The backup's completion percentage is 100, but he's not eligible for post-season awards based on that because he has not met minimum number of attempts that has been established by the league to be eligible for awards.  To repeat, even though the backup is a league member, he's not eligible because he did not meet the minimum number of attempts.

Now to the LET:  Women's golf is in a unique position at the present time.  There are three viable Tours (LPGA, LET, JLPGA) that attract the best players in the game at one time or another.  Wouldn't it make sense for the LET to establish a relatively low base number of tournaments so that Europeans (or Americans, or Asians) who normally play the LPGA could maintain LET membership, but establish a much higher number to qualify for post-season awards?

Could the LET establish three tournaments per year (one more than Evian and WBO, for example) as a minimum to maintain membership, but require 10 tournaments to qualify for awards?  The best players in the world will make an effort to play a few times a year, especially when there are holes in the LPGA schedule, but doing so wouldn't skew post-season awards.

Solheim Madness

I'm hoping the Solheim Cup acts as a kind of gateway drug this week for people who aren't already fans of the LPGA, but the title of this post doesn't just allude to Reefer Madness; it also refers to a little experiment I'm going to be conducting over the next few days, as well. 

You see, contrary to Steve Elling 's view that the NFL and Fed Ex Cup finale will trump the Solheim Cup for most Americans, it's actually my union's delegate assembly in Albany tomorrow and Saturday that's going to be forcing me to utilize the newfangled technology of the DVR to catch up on the live action that I'll be missing.  So what's the experiment?  Without actively seeking to find out what happened before I fire up the DVR Saturday night--that is, no web surfing or newspaper scanning, no Golf Channel peeking, no highlights-seeking--I'm going to wait and see how much information about it comes to me "on its own," so to speak.  Who, in other words, is not only watching the extensive coverage of the Solheim Cup that Bill Jempty and Ruthless Mike are so excited about, and is not only more passionate about it than other options like Jeff Skinner, but is also willing to talk about it to other people?  What kind and quality of information can I get about the Solheim Cup simply by waiting for word of mouth to make its way to me?

So, farewell, gentle readers, until after I catch up with all the Cup coverage (probably sometime in the wee hours of Monday morning if I'm lucky).  I'll leave you with the links to my own preview as well as those by others such as Hound Dog, Brent Kelley, Ron Sirak, Beth Ann Baldry, Ryan Ballengee, Emily Kay, Shane Bacon.

Oh, and even if I still favor my own idea of getting all 4 major women's golf tours together to play the Solheim (U.S. and Europe) and Pinx/Kyoraku Cups (Japan vs. Korea) in odd-numbered years and have the winners and losers face off in even-numbered years, I wouldn't mind seeing just about any kind of showcasing of a wider range of the best women's players on the planet in a team-golf match-play format, such as:

• the return of the Lexus Cup, which was modelled after the President's Cup format of the US vs. the world;
• the addition to the Solheim Cup of a Team Asia that would play this year's loser next year for the privilege of facing this year's winner in 2013;
• the addition to the Solheim Cup of a Team Asia (Korea, China, Thailand, India, and probably Taiwan for political reasons) and a Team Pacific (Japan, Australia, Mexico, Colombia, Philippines, etc.) that would compete in 2012 to decide who faces this year's Solheim Cup winner and loser in 2013;
• the creation of a totally new international competition modelled after soccer's World Cup, where every nation that can field a 6-member team gets to attempt qualifying in their own region for the privilege of competing in the cup itself.

Feel free to discuss while I'm away from golfoblogaramaville!

Stacy comes alive in tournament number 5.

Now that the first LPGA Major Championship is in the books, let us take a look at the overachievers and underperformers so far this season. With 5 of the 24 tournaments completed there certainly have been many surprises.

Biggest disappointments:

1- Song Hee Kim – Is she the worst player on tour this year? No, she is not. Is she the biggest disappointment based on expectations? Yes, by a wide margin. Ranked #7 in the world at the beginning of the season, and picked by me at #7 in my player of the year predictions, she has not played anywhere near that level. Last year she seemed to contend every week and had an amazing 15 top 10 finishes. The only question was when she would win. This year the question is, when will we see her contend?

2- Inbee Park – Ranked just outside the top 10 in the world all year, her best finish on the LPGA to date is tied for 18th. [Note: She did win the JLPGA's 1st--and so far only--event of 2011! --TC]

3- Azuhara Munoz – The Rookie of the Year last year, she is looking like anything but. Her finishes this year (T51, T24, MC, T46, and T52) have me wondering if she has that bright future we thought she had.

4- Jee Young Lee – Started the year #38 in the Rolex Ranking but so far has failed to make a single cut.

5- Hee Young Park – Ranked #43 at the start of the year, her best finish in 5 starts has been a T37. The year's first major saw her finish T70.

6- Lee-Anne Pace - The LET Player of the Year last year seems to be completely overmatched in LPGA events. A 46th-place tie has been her best finish in 3 events.

7- Gwladys Nocera – She finished 3rd in the Rookie of the Year standings last year. Her performance in 2011 has been just plain embarrassing. In 5 tournaments this year her best finish is T57 with 2 missed cuts. She shot under par in only 1 of 16 rounds this year for a combined total of 58 over par.

8- Nicole Castrale – Was given a pass last year because of health problems. Not sure what the problem is this year. With finishes of T57, T60, MC and T66 she has played herself off the Solheim Cup team.

9- Ai Miyazato – I have to put her on this list because she is an elite player. She has not been playing like one. A T14 at the HSBC does not hide the fact that she has not been in contention thus far this year.

10- Christina Kim – Her Solheim Cup spot could soon be in jeopardy if she doesn't right the ship very soon. Finishes of T53, T16, T72, T56 and a missed cut in the year's first major aren't going to get her many points.

Not very honorable mentions include Hee-Won Han, Na On Min, Haeji Kang and Jessica Korda.

Biggest Surprises:

1- Sandra Gal – The #128 ranked player in the Rolex Rankings at the start of the season shocked the world with a stunning victory at the Kia Classic. She had a top 10 finish the week before at the Founders cup and a very respectable T15 at the year's first major championship. She has made the jump all the way to #37 in the current Rankings.

2- Stacy Lewis – Starting the year as the #37 ranked player in the world, she took down the world's #1 this week at the Kraft Nabisco Championship. Top 10 players in the world beware, Stacy is on her way.

3- Karrie Webb – Yes, she is still one of the better players on tour, but nobody expected 2 wins this early in the season. An early Player of the Year candidate.

4- Chie Arimura – I know she isn’t an LPGA member and probably shouldn’t be on this list. Too bad, it’s my list. A member of the JLPGA, she might be the tiniest golfer that I ever had the pleasure to meet. Her 2 appearances on the LPGA tour this year have resulted in a second-place finish at the HSBC and a T7 at the year's first Major. This woman can flat-out play.

5- Juli Inkster - Will someone please tell this lady that she is 50? She has moved up 10 places in the Rolex Rankings this year and into the top 40. She has two top-10 finishes and a T15 at the Kraft Nabisco Championship this week. You have to admire this lady.

Honorable Mentions include Mindy Kim, Pornanong Phatlum and Sun Young Yoo.

My 2011 Player of the Year Rankings so far this year look like this:

1. Yani Tseng - 83.68


2. Stacy Lewis - 77.08


3. Karrie Webb - 72.10


4. I.K. Kim - 54.66


5. Michelle Wie - 49.64


6. Morgan Pressel - 49.32


7. Sandra Gal - 43.96


8. Mika Miyazato - 38.70


9. Angela Stanford - 38.64


10. Chie Arimura - 38.20


11. Katie Futcher - 33.88


12. Cristie Kerr - 33.32


13. Brittany Lincicome - 31.64


14. Sun Young Yoo - 30.26


15. Juli Inkster - 30.20


16. Na Yeon Choi - 27.06


17. Suzann Pettersen - 25.40


18. Paula Creamer - 24.94


19. Julieta Granada - 24.60


20. Anna Nordqvist - 23.76

My hard to believe fact of the week:

I.K. Kim is the only LPGA player to finish in the top 10 in all of her tournaments this year.

Dai-chan Did It! Your Turn Now, Ai-sama!!

Despite flying across the country to Portland, OR, The Full Metal Archivist didn't turn out to be all that much in the inspiration department for Daisuke Takahashi at Skate America, as he got outskated in the short program by rival Nobunari Oda--



--and just, as she put it, "choked 3 jumps" in the free skate, but she was one heck of a good luck charm, after all, as he still got the gold--by less than a point! Guess it makes up for him getting jobbed by the judges at Skate Canada outside Toronto last year when the entire Constructivist family could afford to make the trip together.

No way I'm headed to Guadalajara to support Ai Miyazato in person today at the Lorena Ochoa Invitational, but I'm hoping she realizes she still has a great shot at winning, even if she isn't playing at her absolute best! Gambatte, Ai-sama. How about you show Dai-chan how to finish off a win with style?

[Update 1 (1:20 am): Here's Oda's short program:



Cleaner program and great music, but just not as interesting or expressive a skater as Dai-chan, no? You be the judge!]

[Update 2 (1:36 am): That was quick:



Way to go, Russian TV!]

[Update 3 (2:50 am): The FMA just texted me: "Got 2 autog. of daisuke. Such nice guy. took extra time 4 fans." Mama's bringing home some cool gifts for onechan and imoto. Too bad she'll miss seeing them skate tomorrow at the Fredonia rink!]

[Update 4 (6:44 am): From reading Backstage Barbie's post, it seems like Oda screwed up worse than Dai-chan.]

Been There, Done That

I've come in DFL in the 2 biggest tournaments I've ever played--the ECAC Championship during college golf and the New York State Mid-Amateur at the height (so to speak) of my competitive career--and I'm not just talking by a shot or 2. The fairways at Bethpage Black started too far out for the kind of player I was then and I was beaten down by the Western NY weather and the course conditions after my previous round had been erased.

So I know a little teeny tiny bit of what Kevin Roman must be going through right now. He had the kind of nightmarish start on the back at Hazeltine you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy: 5 bogeys in his 1st 6 holes. But after parring out he went and hit for the cycle on the front: 1 birdie, 2 pars, 2 bogeys, 3 doubles, and a triple. Right now he's alone at +15, the worst of the 5 players so far to fail to break 80 today at the PGA Championship.

But he still has a chance to avoid DFL tomorrow. Show them what you're made of tomorrow, Kevin!

[Update 1 (5:07 pm): Kevin doesn't start till late afternoon tomorrow, so if anyone wants to share their stories of golf trauma/humiliation or bouncebacks/comebacks in comments, have at it!]

[Update 2 (8/16/09, 6:12 am): Jay Flemma gives it a try. By the way, Kevin eagled the par-5 7th to get back to +2 early in his round Friday, then struggled the rest of the way for an 81. He ended up tied for last, but within 7 shots of Adam Scott. Guess that's not saying that much, these days.]

Futures Tour Heartbreak

No, I'm not talking about my Futures Tour faves Mina Harigae, Tiffany Joh, and Hannah Yun making like Ryo Ishikawa at the Open this week in New England. Nor am I talking about my #6 preseason pick Song-Yi Choi making like Steve Marino on a Turnberry weekend by following up an opening 64 with a 73 and a 74 and dropping completely out of the top 20. No, I'm talking about '08 Curtis Cupper and Q-School disappointment Alison Walshe getting to -12 for the tournament after a flawless 33 on the front, only to follow it up with a triple and 5 bogeys on the back for a 42 that allowed Australian Kristie Smith to pass her with her 2nd 66 of the week, along with South Korean Aimee Cho and American Hannah Jun, and take even runner-up honors away from her. And I'm talking about Sofie Andersson finding herself suddenly in the hunt down the stretch and responding with 2 bogeys and a walkoff triple in her last 4 holes to plummet out of the top 10. Not quite Tom Watson level, but for someone at the start of her pro career, pretty tough to deal with nonetheless.

Amid all that heartbreak, a gleam of hope emerged for winner Dewi Claire Schreefel, who played steady golf after an opening bogey--15 pars and 2 birdies the rest of the way. Like Walshe, she disappointed at last season's LPGA Q-School, but wasn't setting the FT on fire, unlike Walshe, who had been a top 10er on their money list for most of the season. But now, Walshe and Schreefel are in the #6 and #7 spots. Sometimes slow and steady does win the race. We'll see how this one turns out.

[Update 1 (6:25 pm): Here are the official results. Note that U.S. Women's Open low amateur Jennifer Song helped sweeten the pot for #1-on-the-FT Jean Reynolds and others at T8, but that you really only make serious money with a win or runner-up on this tour.]

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Yes, I just compared ex-LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens to the dolphins in the 4th novel of Douglas Adams's classic Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy.

And yes, the analogy doesn't precisely hold, for as the 2nd-most-intelligent species on Earth, the dolphins in Adams's novel saved the planet after it had been unexpectedly demolished to make way for a new hyperspace bypass, or rather saved the 3rd-most intelligent species (us) by pulling a parallel Earth to replace the demolished one (it's all there in Chapter 32), so if you take the Earth as a metaphor for the LPGA, this seems to me to better fit the new-Commissioner-to-be-named-later than Bivens herself, whose grasp of English and social interactions was never quite as Vogon-reciting-poetry-bad as critics like Geoff Shackelford made out but who really did take a huge gamble with the tour's future and has paid the price for it, although her consolation prize--a buyout of the remaining years on her contract--will pay for a lot of fish, so maybe the metaphor does work, after all. Speaking of fish, Adams has lots of passages that can help a blog named Mostly Harmless commemorate the end of the Bivens era.

Take last year's language controversy. All the LPGA needs is the Babel fish, right? Hmmm...what does the Hitchhiker's Guide say to that?

the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

Of course that one's from page 42 of The More Than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide. Here's one for the golfy media, courtesy of Wonko the Sane:

I'm not trying to prove anything, by the way. I'm a scientist and I know what constitutes proof. But the reason I call myself by my childhood name is to remind myself that a scientist must also be absolutely like a child. If he sees a thing, he must say that he sees it, whether it was what he thought he was going to see or not. See first, think later, then test. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting.

Anyway, to return to my nautical theme, Marsha Evans, a retired Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy and former President/CEO of the American Red Cross, will be the tour's interim commissioner, and Annika Sorenstam will be helping the Board of Directors find its bearings and chart a new course. Apparently the idea was that having been ousted in a ARC board mutiny back in 2005 and participating in the LPGA Board's own in 2009, Evans will have learned from her own and her predecessor's mistakes. In which case, let's hope she wasn't in charge of the announcement process.

Sometimes life imitates Adams. And sometimes bloggers do, too.

[Update 1 (4:11 pm): Here's Ryan Ballengee with the news and background on Evans, Stephanie Wei on Bivens's legacy and Sorenstam's role, Jay Busbee on what next, and The Golf Chick with some answers.]

[Update 2 (4:14 pm): And here's Brent Kelley's thoughtful analysis.]

[Update 3 (4:21 pm): And here are the LPGA's press releases announcing Bivens's replacement with Evans and explaining Sorenstam's role.]

[Update 4 (11:11 pm): Bill Jempty, one of Bivens's longest-standing and harshest critics in blogaramaville, weighs in with his thoughts on Bivens's ouster and replacement.]

[Update 5 (11:18 pm): Here's Randall Mell.]

[Update 6 (11:24 pm): Here's the Golf Channel video of the announcement.]

[Update 7 (11:49 pm): Here's Hound Dog's reaction to the news and the press conference.]

[Update 8 (7/14/09, 9:54 am): Here's Daniel Wexler's reaction and Stephanie Wei's overview at the Huffington Post.]

[Update 9 (10:00 am): Geoff Shackelford links to and comments on various journalists' reactions.]

[Update 10 (10:09 am): Here's Dave Seanor's reaction.]

[Update 11 (11:18 am): Here's Christina Kim on why she's optimistic about the LPGA's future.]

[Update 12 (11:33 am): Here's Gene Yasuda's piece for Golfweek.]

[Update 13 (11:44 am): And here's one of the guys from Nice Ballz.]

[Update 14 (4:21 pm): William Rhoden of the NYT got Bivens to talk in a phone interview, so his piece is definitely worth reading.]

[Update 15 (7/15/09, 10:54 pm): John Strege shares the views of a former tournament organizer of Bivens's 1st ex-tournament, the Shoprite.]

[Update 16 (7/16/09, 12:37 am): Brent Kelley has done some reading--and linking--of his own.]

Dear Media: This Ain't Reality TV

In one of my last updates to my not-quite-live-blogging the final round of the U.S. Women's Open, I had occasion to ask,

When is the national media going to realize that sports are different than a reality tv show and that their job isn't to script an event but to report on it?

Whether it was Leonard Shapiro hoping for a Cristie Kerr win or Michael Arkush bemoaning a Paula Creamer moving day implosion, something fishy was in the air this week, and it wasn't just those doing the color commentary who were the source of it. Consider who among the following 3 pairs of golfers captured the imagination and attention of the national media in the Sunday game stories you read today.

• Cristie Kerr and Candie Kung: the last leader in the clubhouse--and her disappointing bogey on the 71st hole of the tournament--were almost completely eclipsed by the focus on Kerr's struggles with her game.
  
• Brittany Lincicome and In-Kyung Kim: the player who was actually tied for the lead late on the back 9--and who bogeyed the final hole to fall out of a tie with Kung--gets eclipsed by a player who made a charge early on the back but fizzled from 15 on.
  
• Paula Creamer and Ai Miyazato: both players made late birdies to become the 1st leaders in the clubhouse (at +4) to actually put a little pressure on those in the final pairings, but you'll only find out about 1 of them if you rely on the national media.
  

Yeah, yeah, beyond the fact that it's always the blonde American LPGAers who get the word count from the U.S. media, I get it that Kerr and Lincicome have each won a major recently and that Creamer may well be the best player on tour without one. Yes, Suzann Pettersen also made a late birdie to join Creamer and Miyazato as co-leaders in the clubhouse until Lincicome, Kim, and Kung surpassed them, so it's not just the Taiwan-born, Korean, or Japanese players who fall outside the media spotlight. And yes, I'll even confess to feeling the same things that lead to these kinds of oversights: I was disappointed 2 Sundays ago when Morgan Pressel's dramatic comeback on Eunjung Yi at the Farr came just short.

But a 1st LPGA win for my #11-ranked Super Soph is less of a story than my #2-ranked Junior Mint coming back from a mini-slump this season to get her 2nd career win and 1st major with a walkoff birdie on women's golf's biggest stage. And the fact that she beat Kung, Kim, Miyazato, and Pettersen is just as significant as the fact that she beat Kerr, Lincicome, and Creamer.

I'm off to take out my frustrations on the course--for the 1st time since last August, so I'm pretty excited. Maybe in the meantime someone in the national media will prove me wrong and find a compelling way to frame what really happened at Saucon Valley rather than focusing only on the news that's "fit to print" in their eyes. And maybe everyone will realize that the LPGA's future doesn't rest on one individual or nationality, that the point of sports is the thrilling competition itself.

Yeah, and maybe I'll break 75 on The Easiest Course in the World today.

[Update 1 (12:09 pm): Well, I couldn't even break 80 today (the rust on my 30-to-90 yard game was something fierce!), but I got to catch up with one of my golfing buddies from years ago and we had a fun 3 and a half hours. Nice to come back to find that Jay Busbee's got my back (and a link to a very good Brian Murphy piece)!]

[Update 2 (12:18 pm): Also a nice overview from Amy Ellis Nutt out of the Newark Star-Ledger. Have I misunderestimated the national media?]

[Update 3 (12:30 pm): But the basic question remains: will the national media be able to get the story right? My benchmark is whether they understand the tournament and final round as well as long-time LPGA bloggers Hound Dog and Bill Jempty.]

[Update 4 (1:15 pm): The smaller-market golf writers are doing a good job. Here's Mark Wogenrich out of PA's Lehigh Valley, Andrew Shay out of Bethlehem, and Gerry Dulac out of Pittsburgh. But Mike Kirn of the Philadelphia Daily News, Joe Juliano of the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Michael Whitmer of the Boston Globe did just fine. Still, the SI guys only focus on Creamer's and Kerr's collapses--the rest is on who will replace Bivens. (More on that in another post.)]

[Update 5 (7/14/09, 12:30 pm): John Strege gets it right, as usual.]

Berube's Back and There's Gonna Be Some Trouble (Hey La, Hey La)

Was it only 21 months ago (or so) that Michael Berube retired from blogging? That I wrote this tribute to his unauthorized mock-political party? That I instituted BerubeWatch to track his inevitable return?

Well, hang onto your hats, true believers. Berube's back!

For those who might be tempted to dig through the Mostly Harmless archives and figure out when this pop culture blog became a golf blog, I'll save you some time. You see, the seeds of MH's golfaramamania were, uh, seeded in comments over at Berube's old place. Whenever he'd take a break from his hockey blogging and golf blog, I'd always ask him, "what about the LPGA?" Eventually I figured I'd better fill that void myself. Might have been that time my prediction turned out to be right--and his? Well, not so much.

So, yeah, Michael Berube is to blame for the golf blogging I inflict on less than a hundred people a day. Putting aside the fact that that's a bigger and more regular readership than I ever got for obscure in-jokes and political satires, the only fitting punishment for him is for you to become a regular at his blog and leave him many many comments.

[Update 1 (10/3/08, 12:12 am): Yeesh, not only am I way late with this "news," now I find out I'm not even original with my title.]

[Update 2 (4:24 am): Aaargh, and I forgot to mention that Berube's bloggy return means that Annika Sorenstam will be back on the LPGA in 2011.]

eye c u

Home Movies Meets WAAGNFNP?

You decide!



In honor of Oaktown Girl's second Mostly Harmless post!

Garuda: A Guardian Spirit

This carving is, say, 4 feet wide and 3 feet high. It's from Bali, but hangs on an outside wall a couple of blocks from me. It's a guardian spirit. That's why it looks so fierce, to scare evil away:



There are situations where this is good advice:



In my experience such experiences rarely happen in cyberspace. But who knows what'll become of cyberspace when the Glorious GNF goes off. Gotta' be prepared.

Whoops:



Looks like they didn't have a garuda and someone failed to lift the plow.

Heeeee's Baaaaaa-ack! (Or Should that Be, "Heeee-ere's JP!"?)

A warm welcome back to JP Stormcrow! Last I saw him, he was brightening another recent installation of Berube golf course architecture with the following diamond in the rough:

[D’Souza’s] most recent book*, however, seems to have given some of his comrades second thoughts.

Don’t go fucking with my Grand Unifying Theory of Wingnut Mixed Political Metaphors dude! It requires Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism, D’Souza’s Enemy at Home and your BFF’s “Discover the Network” to retain sufficient nutter street cred to support the emerging understanding of 9/11 as collateral damage from a doctrinal squabble between the Liberal Fascist Mensheviks and the Islamofascist Bolsheviks over how to best achieve the Fascist Internationale.

So don’t start. I swear I’ll go over to that uppity little blog of yours and retroactively shut it down like a year ago and make comment threads begin to disappear one at a time.

*As Dave Meier points out, MB is actually referring to his book before last. His latest is might as well be titled Atheistic Creedism.

JP Stormcrow: the gift that keeps on giving. Don't be a stranger, dude!

LPGA Q-School Week

Just like college students around the country (and their professors) are returning to classes after Thanksgiving Break, hopefuls who want to play on the most competitive tour in the world are going to the LPGA's Q-School this week. I'm rooting for Super Sophs Na Ri Kim, Virada Nirapathpongporn, and Nina Reis, KLPGA stars Na-Yeon Choi and Hee Young Park, LET sensations Nikki Garrett, Kiran Matharu, Ashleigh Simon, and Amy Yang, struggling 2007 rookies Song Hee Kim, Paige Mackenzie, Maru Martinez, and Jane Park, former NCAA and current Futures Tour standout Taylor Leon, Ladies Asian Golf Tour teenage star Ya Ni Tseng, and struggling LPGA veterans Beth Bauer and Kelli Kuehne to snag the 17 exempt cards for 2008 that are up for grabs from November 28th through December 2nd. But good luck to all!

And by "Bamboo," I Meant...

Not for your scores to soar like the heroes and villains of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. More like your spirits, or something like that.

Minea Blomqvist got it--her 31 on the back vaulted her into the top 40 heading into the weekend of the Longs Drugs Challenge and gives her a great shot to keep her card for 2008. Paula Creamer got it--she was +5 with 5 holes to go, but birdied three of them to get into the top 50. And Maria Hjorth certainly got it--despite taking a quadruple bogey late in her first round, she bounced back into the top 15 with a 69 on Friday. Even Morgan Pressel's two bogeys down the home stretch to drop her to +5 minimized the damage enough that she squeaked past her second consecutive cut line.

But two of my favorites just didn't get it. Mi Hyun Kim got the doubles early on and WDed. And Ai Miyazato was done in by an early double and two late ones. She started off with birdies on 2 of her first 3 holes, but then a double and two bogeys put her at +7 with the tougher front 9 left to play. After gutting out a bunch of pars and a birdie, she was right at the cut line with 3 holes to play when disaster struck. The dreaded double double.

At least they get to rest for the Samsung World Championship. Unlike Annika Sorenstam, who just declined the sponsor's invitation to join the 20-player elite field. There are various ways of interpreting Sorenstam's decision--doing the right thing (by taking a stand against last-second entrance criteria changes), showing up Michelle Wie (who WDed from Annika's tournament under strange, and to many suspicious, circumstances earlier this year and who has come under loads of criticism for accepting the sponsor's invitation that was given out in the spring), setting an example for Wie--but my read is that she just doesn't feel that her body and her game are up to beating Lorena Ochoa. She wants to take her on on her own schedule, not Samsung's.

And given that Ochoa is sitting pretty at the Longs Drugs--1 shot behind leaders Lorie Kane and Karrie Webb and 1 shot ahead of Se Ri Pak, Juli Inkster, and Suzann Pettersen, not to mention the 22 other players within 5 shots of her on a course where anything can happen--maybe Sorenstam is right to defer such a challenge until the 2008 season.

At least she has that option. Virada Nirapathpongporn needed a great round on Friday just to make the cut and couldn't produce one. Katie Futcher lucked in on the cut line but needs to move in the opposite direction on the weekend if she wants to avoid joining her fellow Super Soph at the final stage of Q-School. We'll see if Shigeki Maruyama can do the same in Texas. He's fallen back to 6th place and although he has a little more time to claw his way back into the top 125 on the PGA money list and secure his card for 2008, playing more like he did on the front than the back Friday over the weekend would do him a world of good.

Yes, Bamboo

You can learn a lot from bamboo, especially if you're playing at the Longs Drugs Challenge this week (unlike Moira Dunn). How to let a slump blow right through you and spring back upright, better than ever. How to bounce back from a bad round and play well enough today to make the cut and keep your card.* How to bend without breaking.

*Speaking of playing for your card, Shigeki Maruyama had one of his best rounds of the season yesterday and is tied for 2nd at the Valero Texas Open. Here's hoping this is the start of his return to form rather than another opportunity for the Mostly Harmless jinx to strike.

Notes Toward a Prolegomenon To All Future Golf/Academia Analogies

Yeah, I'm kind of proud of that title.

Family Friday with the Ducks and Drakes