There have been some great pieces on Inbee Park out there in recent days, most notably from Happy Fan of Seoul Sisters.com, Emily Kay at SBNation, Bill Rand at Eye on the Tour, and Les Bailey at Fansided. What seems not to be common knowledge is how Inbee learned how to contend and how to win on the JLPGA (something I mentioned yesterday and went into more detail on back in December 2010 and March 2011). I questioned her strategy back in October 2010, but the 3 years she played more than 10 events in Japan (14 in 2010, 14 in 2011, 11 in 2012) garnered her 4 golds, 10 silvers, 16 top 5s, 21 top 10s, and 30 top 20s. It's true that she's taken it to an entirely new level in the last calendar year, but without the experience and confidence gained in Japan, I wonder if Inbee would be where she is today: looking to make it 3 wins and 3 majors in a row!
[Update 1 (9:16 pm): Add Neil Sagebiel at Armchair Golfer to the list!]
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Blazing Saddles and Transatlantic Postmodernism
[Note to my regular readers who come here for women's golf coverage: I'm airing Mel Brooks's 1974 film Blazing Saddles tonight as part of SUNY Fredonia's American Studies film series "Myths of the American West," so decided to share a draft of my opening comments here at Mostly Harmless (which is, after all, "for fun"). I'm aware of the 5-car collision that has lead to my favorite golfer Ai Miyazato withdrawing from this week's LPGA event (and onechan's favorite Paula Creamer being a likely WD candidate) and obviously wish them and everyone else involved in it a full and speedy recovery.]
[Note to my non-regular readers who are coming here after watching Blazing Saddles (or missing it): Hope you enjoy this post and are curious enough after reading it to browse around for other posts here that you may find interesting!]
I was four years old when Blazing Saddles was first released in American theaters and until Shannon McRae--the director of American Studies at SUNY Fredonia and organizer of the program's film series "Myths of the American West"--took seriously my half-joking suggestion to include it in the series and invited me to introduce it, I had never seen it in its entirety until this month. In a semester when I'm teaching American Identities, Introduction to African American Literature and Culture, and Critical Reading, I'm particularly pleased to take Shannon up on her kind offer, and offer a few comments as a new viewer of a movie that's been well-known (even to me) for decades, comments that will hopefully be as useful to students in my classes this semester as everyone else who braved the rains to make it out here tonight.
Growing up, I put Blazing Saddles in the mental category of comedies too raw for me to watch, a remarkably capacious category that in the '70s and too far into the '80s included everything from Monty Python to Mad magazine to Saturday Night Live to just about every famous stand-up comedian of the time. If this reference helps people place where I was at, probably Benny Hill was the rawest thing I got access to before graduate school. Yes, I grew up in a small town in central NY and failed to take advantage of 2nd grade in Palo Alto and 7th grade in Chapel Hill. Nevertheless, I was obsessed with everything comical and comics-al. In high school I started a cartoon series called The Gray Area that, despite its being far too derivative of The Far Side, was seen, nay loved, by regular readers of the Pennysaver and other fine local publications for far too many weeks. Me, I loved everything from Gilligan's Island to Scooby Doo, from Diff'rent Strokes to The Facts of Life, from Benson to Newhart, from Doctor Who to The Greatest American Hero, from Airplane! to Ghostbusters, from The Muppet Show to The Tracey Ullman Show, from Tom and Jerry to Rocky and Bullwinkle (in reruns, duh) to Calvin and Hobbes to Mork and Mindy, from any DC comic Ambush Bug appeared in (even though I was almost exclusively a Marvel fan) to the animated version of The Tick. Sure, I hated the Smurfs and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but otherwise I was pretty easy to please. And I was a fan of The Simpsons before The Simpsons was The Simpsons, man! (It goes without saying from the title of this blog what my favorite was, though!)
All of which is to say that when I go to grad school in the early 1990s I was perfectly primed to understand and appreciate what many still misunderstand and denigrate even today as a French theoretical import: postmodernism. As someone who saw The Simpsons parody of the end of The Graduate long before I ever saw The Graduate, who loved it when Beavis and Butt-head were watching a Johnny Cash video and decided it was gangsta rap, and who came of age in a hip hop culture rife with allusion and remixing and pastiche, I didn't have to think twice about Jean-Francois Lyotard's notion of "incredulity toward metanarratives" as a core characteristic of postmodernism.
So it's all too easy and obvious now for me to look back at Blazing Saddles and see it as yet another exemplar of American postmodernism. It's certainly not an original point to make, as a quick google search will show you (I recommend posts by Mark Bourne and Mike Sutton on this aspect of the movie). But what is originality, anyway? Just another stinkin' metanarrative--right, JFL? Perhaps it's slightly more original to claim that Mel Brooks and Monty Python were engaged in a transatlantic comedic one-ups-man-ship that was perfectly postmodern. In the same way that Brooks and his co-writers, including Richard Pryor, were playing with myths of the American west and poking fun at founding narratives of the modern United States, Monty Python was taking on English legends of the Holy Grail and western icons of Christianity--and at roughly the same time. Check me on this. And, as you watch Blazing Saddles tonight, consider some of the debates over postmodernism that occupied so many western intellectuals in the last third of the 20th century: is postmodernism all sound and fury, signifying nothing? is it, in the final analysis, the laugh track of late capitalism? are its politics of race and gender and sexuality and [fill in the blank] reactionary, liberatory, laughable, nostalgic, or what? is postmodernism a thing of the past, and if so, how do we react to it today (and what comes after that post-?) if not, if we are still living in and with postmodernism, what does Blazing Saddles compare to in contemporary and recent culture?
There's so much more to be said--about what light Blazing Saddles may shed on black-Jewish relations in the late civil rights era, for instance--but I think it ought to wait until after the movie. Don't you?
[Note to my non-regular readers who are coming here after watching Blazing Saddles (or missing it): Hope you enjoy this post and are curious enough after reading it to browse around for other posts here that you may find interesting!]
I was four years old when Blazing Saddles was first released in American theaters and until Shannon McRae--the director of American Studies at SUNY Fredonia and organizer of the program's film series "Myths of the American West"--took seriously my half-joking suggestion to include it in the series and invited me to introduce it, I had never seen it in its entirety until this month. In a semester when I'm teaching American Identities, Introduction to African American Literature and Culture, and Critical Reading, I'm particularly pleased to take Shannon up on her kind offer, and offer a few comments as a new viewer of a movie that's been well-known (even to me) for decades, comments that will hopefully be as useful to students in my classes this semester as everyone else who braved the rains to make it out here tonight.
Growing up, I put Blazing Saddles in the mental category of comedies too raw for me to watch, a remarkably capacious category that in the '70s and too far into the '80s included everything from Monty Python to Mad magazine to Saturday Night Live to just about every famous stand-up comedian of the time. If this reference helps people place where I was at, probably Benny Hill was the rawest thing I got access to before graduate school. Yes, I grew up in a small town in central NY and failed to take advantage of 2nd grade in Palo Alto and 7th grade in Chapel Hill. Nevertheless, I was obsessed with everything comical and comics-al. In high school I started a cartoon series called The Gray Area that, despite its being far too derivative of The Far Side, was seen, nay loved, by regular readers of the Pennysaver and other fine local publications for far too many weeks. Me, I loved everything from Gilligan's Island to Scooby Doo, from Diff'rent Strokes to The Facts of Life, from Benson to Newhart, from Doctor Who to The Greatest American Hero, from Airplane! to Ghostbusters, from The Muppet Show to The Tracey Ullman Show, from Tom and Jerry to Rocky and Bullwinkle (in reruns, duh) to Calvin and Hobbes to Mork and Mindy, from any DC comic Ambush Bug appeared in (even though I was almost exclusively a Marvel fan) to the animated version of The Tick. Sure, I hated the Smurfs and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but otherwise I was pretty easy to please. And I was a fan of The Simpsons before The Simpsons was The Simpsons, man! (It goes without saying from the title of this blog what my favorite was, though!)
All of which is to say that when I go to grad school in the early 1990s I was perfectly primed to understand and appreciate what many still misunderstand and denigrate even today as a French theoretical import: postmodernism. As someone who saw The Simpsons parody of the end of The Graduate long before I ever saw The Graduate, who loved it when Beavis and Butt-head were watching a Johnny Cash video and decided it was gangsta rap, and who came of age in a hip hop culture rife with allusion and remixing and pastiche, I didn't have to think twice about Jean-Francois Lyotard's notion of "incredulity toward metanarratives" as a core characteristic of postmodernism.
So it's all too easy and obvious now for me to look back at Blazing Saddles and see it as yet another exemplar of American postmodernism. It's certainly not an original point to make, as a quick google search will show you (I recommend posts by Mark Bourne and Mike Sutton on this aspect of the movie). But what is originality, anyway? Just another stinkin' metanarrative--right, JFL? Perhaps it's slightly more original to claim that Mel Brooks and Monty Python were engaged in a transatlantic comedic one-ups-man-ship that was perfectly postmodern. In the same way that Brooks and his co-writers, including Richard Pryor, were playing with myths of the American west and poking fun at founding narratives of the modern United States, Monty Python was taking on English legends of the Holy Grail and western icons of Christianity--and at roughly the same time. Check me on this. And, as you watch Blazing Saddles tonight, consider some of the debates over postmodernism that occupied so many western intellectuals in the last third of the 20th century: is postmodernism all sound and fury, signifying nothing? is it, in the final analysis, the laugh track of late capitalism? are its politics of race and gender and sexuality and [fill in the blank] reactionary, liberatory, laughable, nostalgic, or what? is postmodernism a thing of the past, and if so, how do we react to it today (and what comes after that post-?) if not, if we are still living in and with postmodernism, what does Blazing Saddles compare to in contemporary and recent culture?
There's so much more to be said--about what light Blazing Saddles may shed on black-Jewish relations in the late civil rights era, for instance--but I think it ought to wait until after the movie. Don't you?
Friday, August 17, 2012
Recommended Reading: HappyFan on Ryu, Ruthless Mike on Tseng
Just read 2 great--and very different--posts by 2 great bloggers on women's golf. HappyFan puts So Yeon Ryu's win in Toledo in context, while Ruthless Mike puts Ya Ni Tseng's swing under the microscope. Give them a read before you watch the coverage of the 1st round of the Safeway Classic tonight on Golf Channel, ok?
Monday, June 11, 2012
Wegmans LPGA Championship Sunday: Shanshan Feng Makes History
Shanshan Feng fired a bogey-free 67, the low round of the week, to take control of the Wegmans LPGA Championship at -6 and secure a 2-shot victory over Stacy Lewis, Suzann Pettersen, Mika Miyazato, and 3rd-round leader Eun-Hee Ji.
Feng had hit 16 of 17 greens on Sunday when she arrived at the 18th 2 shots ahead of Miyazato, the leader in the clubhouse, who birdied 3 of her last 5 holes to post a 69, but the 22-year-old Chinese phenom, who's already won this year on the LET and JLPGA, missed the green long on the toughest hole at Locust Hill. She calmly chipped to 2 feet and sank the par putt to force Pettersen, Lewis, and Ji to perform miracles to force a playoff. Pettersen, who had gotten to -5 for the week with a birdie on the par-3 5th and again on the par-5 8th (her 4th birdie in her 1st 8 holes), and had stayed there through the 12th, dug herself a hole when she bogeyed 13 and 14 and could only birdie 17 coming home. Lewis also had bogeyed consecutive holes on the back--the 10th and 11th--to drop to -1 for the week, and made a similar charge as Miyazato, with 3 birdies in her last 7 holes, but it was too little, too late. Ji had also fallen off the pace with 3 bogeys between the 9th and 11th and needed 3 birdies in her last 6 holes to join the big group at -4. Feng also benefited from the late struggles of a suddenly-incandescent Gerina Piller, who birdied 7 of her 1st 16 holes Sunday to leap to -5 for the week, but doubled the eagle-able par-5 17th (a hole she had eagled Saturday!) and had to settle for a tie for 6th at -3 with Ai Miyazato (who fired a bogey-free 68, matched only Hee Young Park, whose round included 7 birdies, just like Piller) and Karrie Webb (who had a roller-coaster 72, with 5 birdies and 5 bogeys scattered throughout her round).
This was a good week for dual LPGA-JLPGA members, as Feng won, Mikan was T2, Ai-sama was T6, Inbee Park was T9 (after a roller-coaster 72 that included an eagle, 2 birdies, 2 bogeys, and a double), and Harukyo Nomura was T36 and finished ahead of world #1 Ya Ni Tseng (who opened her final round with 2 birdies in her 1st 3 holes while onechan and I were watching her but fizzled to a 76 that left her 32 strokes off the pace she set last year). It was also a good week for Americans, as Lewis kept right on rolling along, Piller came out of nowhere to almost win, Paula Creamer hit the ball great (although she couldn't buy a putt on Sunday!), Cristie Kerr regained her putting touch (it's a good thing she scrambled her way to 107 putts for the week, as it seemed she hardly ever found the fairway yesterday!), Mina Harigae rode a Sunday 69 to T15, Nicole Castrale went 70-70 over the weekend to secure her 1st top 20 in ages, and Jennifer Johnson hung on in the intense heat and humidity to join her at T19 (Lexi Thompson would have joined the club but she finished double-double, as would Lizette Salas had she not gone +4 in her final 6 holes--in contrast to Mo Martin, who bounced back from 77s on Friday and Saturday with a bogey-free 69 Sunday).
It was also a good day for onechan and imoto! Onechan walked a few holes with Ya Ni Tseng in the morning and after lunch walked the entire course with Paula and Cristie. Not only did she get several waves, acknowledging looks, "hi"s, and "thank you"s from Paula sprinkled through the round, but Creamer also signed her hat after the round and gave her little sister a golf ball as she walked up to the 8th tee (imoto also was given a ball by Cristie's caddie as they approached Jefferson Road after finishing the 10th, prompting about a 45-minute quiet jealousy jag from onechan). The girls also got autographs and pictures with Ai Miyazato, golf balls and autographs from Mika Miyazato, and a little time (and a couple of balls) in the middle of the day from Hannah Yun (who was working hard on her game after missing the cut). To top it off, they ended up eating in the same restaurant at the end of the day as Mika Miyazato and what seemed like the entire Japanese media contingent in Rochester!
But back to the only other person who had a better day than the girls to close out this post. Feng's win makes her the 1st Chinese winner and the 1st Chinese major champion in LPGA history. She joins Hisako Higuchi, Se Ri Pak, and Ya Ni Tseng as the only Asian winners of the LPGA Championship in its long history. She and Ya Ni Tseng are the only 3-time winners in big-time professional women's golf in 2012. She's projected to move into the top 5 (at least) on the LPGA money list, Player of the Year race, and Rolex Rankings tomorrow. Impressive!
[Update 1 (12:59 am): Here's bangkokbobby on Feng's record-setting win!]
Feng had hit 16 of 17 greens on Sunday when she arrived at the 18th 2 shots ahead of Miyazato, the leader in the clubhouse, who birdied 3 of her last 5 holes to post a 69, but the 22-year-old Chinese phenom, who's already won this year on the LET and JLPGA, missed the green long on the toughest hole at Locust Hill. She calmly chipped to 2 feet and sank the par putt to force Pettersen, Lewis, and Ji to perform miracles to force a playoff. Pettersen, who had gotten to -5 for the week with a birdie on the par-3 5th and again on the par-5 8th (her 4th birdie in her 1st 8 holes), and had stayed there through the 12th, dug herself a hole when she bogeyed 13 and 14 and could only birdie 17 coming home. Lewis also had bogeyed consecutive holes on the back--the 10th and 11th--to drop to -1 for the week, and made a similar charge as Miyazato, with 3 birdies in her last 7 holes, but it was too little, too late. Ji had also fallen off the pace with 3 bogeys between the 9th and 11th and needed 3 birdies in her last 6 holes to join the big group at -4. Feng also benefited from the late struggles of a suddenly-incandescent Gerina Piller, who birdied 7 of her 1st 16 holes Sunday to leap to -5 for the week, but doubled the eagle-able par-5 17th (a hole she had eagled Saturday!) and had to settle for a tie for 6th at -3 with Ai Miyazato (who fired a bogey-free 68, matched only Hee Young Park, whose round included 7 birdies, just like Piller) and Karrie Webb (who had a roller-coaster 72, with 5 birdies and 5 bogeys scattered throughout her round).
This was a good week for dual LPGA-JLPGA members, as Feng won, Mikan was T2, Ai-sama was T6, Inbee Park was T9 (after a roller-coaster 72 that included an eagle, 2 birdies, 2 bogeys, and a double), and Harukyo Nomura was T36 and finished ahead of world #1 Ya Ni Tseng (who opened her final round with 2 birdies in her 1st 3 holes while onechan and I were watching her but fizzled to a 76 that left her 32 strokes off the pace she set last year). It was also a good week for Americans, as Lewis kept right on rolling along, Piller came out of nowhere to almost win, Paula Creamer hit the ball great (although she couldn't buy a putt on Sunday!), Cristie Kerr regained her putting touch (it's a good thing she scrambled her way to 107 putts for the week, as it seemed she hardly ever found the fairway yesterday!), Mina Harigae rode a Sunday 69 to T15, Nicole Castrale went 70-70 over the weekend to secure her 1st top 20 in ages, and Jennifer Johnson hung on in the intense heat and humidity to join her at T19 (Lexi Thompson would have joined the club but she finished double-double, as would Lizette Salas had she not gone +4 in her final 6 holes--in contrast to Mo Martin, who bounced back from 77s on Friday and Saturday with a bogey-free 69 Sunday).
It was also a good day for onechan and imoto! Onechan walked a few holes with Ya Ni Tseng in the morning and after lunch walked the entire course with Paula and Cristie. Not only did she get several waves, acknowledging looks, "hi"s, and "thank you"s from Paula sprinkled through the round, but Creamer also signed her hat after the round and gave her little sister a golf ball as she walked up to the 8th tee (imoto also was given a ball by Cristie's caddie as they approached Jefferson Road after finishing the 10th, prompting about a 45-minute quiet jealousy jag from onechan). The girls also got autographs and pictures with Ai Miyazato, golf balls and autographs from Mika Miyazato, and a little time (and a couple of balls) in the middle of the day from Hannah Yun (who was working hard on her game after missing the cut). To top it off, they ended up eating in the same restaurant at the end of the day as Mika Miyazato and what seemed like the entire Japanese media contingent in Rochester!
But back to the only other person who had a better day than the girls to close out this post. Feng's win makes her the 1st Chinese winner and the 1st Chinese major champion in LPGA history. She joins Hisako Higuchi, Se Ri Pak, and Ya Ni Tseng as the only Asian winners of the LPGA Championship in its long history. She and Ya Ni Tseng are the only 3-time winners in big-time professional women's golf in 2012. She's projected to move into the top 5 (at least) on the LPGA money list, Player of the Year race, and Rolex Rankings tomorrow. Impressive!
[Update 1 (12:59 am): Here's bangkokbobby on Feng's record-setting win!]
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Royal Birkdale and Taiwanese golfers
Yani Tseng from Taiwan leads the Women's British at Royal Birkdale by four shots with 36 holes to play. Should she win, Tseng would already have amassed three of the four major championships in Women's professional golf.
I won't be conceding the tournament to Tseng quite. Just two years ago, Lorena Ochoa was on a roll and was leading the LPGA Championship by one shot after 36 holes. One golf scribe at the time was all but ready to crown Ochoa at that point. Ochoa ultimately finished third, to Yani Tseng.
Royal Birkdale is an interesting place for Tseng to be going for her third major. Thirty-nine years ago, or 1971 to be precise, the Open Championship was played at Birkdale. It was won by Lee Trevino. The golfer who finished second by one shot that week was Lu Liang Huan. Lu, who is still alive today at age 75, is from Taiwan just like Yani Tseng.
Lu, or as Open Championship fans in 1971 nicknamed him Mr. Lu, was an obscure golfer to even knowledgeable golf people at the time. His three career wins were all in Asia before the 1971 Open Championship.
Mr. Lu's obscurity didn't prevent him from being a fan favorite that week in 1971. He didn't speak much English, but through tips of his straw cap and smiles to the gallery, he had many people in England and through television cheering for him that week.
A week after the 1971 Open Championship, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club issued an invitation to Mr. Lu. It said- "come back to this country as often as you like and we hope you'll bring more fine golfers from the Far East."
Many fine golfers have come to the United Kingdom and the United States since then. Unfortunately, the attitude of people has regressed since then. Asian golfers, even Asian American golfers, are seen as a threat by the media and or fans. No one was bothered by Mr. Lu's poor English in 1971, so I have trouble understanding the attitude of some people today.
I wasn't following pro golf in 1971. At the time I was ten-years-old and more interested in New York Mets baseball. What I learned about the 1971 Open Championship is through media accounts at the time. Even these are hard to find.
What I do know about that Open Championship is-
1 Trevino and Mr. Lu were paired together for the last 18 holes.
2 Lee Trevino made double bogey at 17
3 Mr. Lu and Trevino both made closing birdies on 18
4 As he played 18, an errant golf shot of Mr. Lu's struck a person in the gallery injuring the woman. After the Open Championship, Mr. Lu paid for the woman and her husband to visit Taiwan.
Mr. Lu never again seriously contended for a Major Championship. He did however win the French Open the following week and in 1972 partnered with Hsieh Min-Nan to win the World Cup. When his professional career was over, Mr. Lu had at least twenty professional wins to his credit but he is probably still best remembered for his runner-up finish at the 1971 Open Championship.
So far as I know, Mr. Lu is still alive today at age seventy-five.
I won't be conceding the tournament to Tseng quite. Just two years ago, Lorena Ochoa was on a roll and was leading the LPGA Championship by one shot after 36 holes. One golf scribe at the time was all but ready to crown Ochoa at that point. Ochoa ultimately finished third, to Yani Tseng.
Royal Birkdale is an interesting place for Tseng to be going for her third major. Thirty-nine years ago, or 1971 to be precise, the Open Championship was played at Birkdale. It was won by Lee Trevino. The golfer who finished second by one shot that week was Lu Liang Huan. Lu, who is still alive today at age 75, is from Taiwan just like Yani Tseng.
Lu, or as Open Championship fans in 1971 nicknamed him Mr. Lu, was an obscure golfer to even knowledgeable golf people at the time. His three career wins were all in Asia before the 1971 Open Championship.
Mr. Lu's obscurity didn't prevent him from being a fan favorite that week in 1971. He didn't speak much English, but through tips of his straw cap and smiles to the gallery, he had many people in England and through television cheering for him that week.
A week after the 1971 Open Championship, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club issued an invitation to Mr. Lu. It said- "come back to this country as often as you like and we hope you'll bring more fine golfers from the Far East."
Many fine golfers have come to the United Kingdom and the United States since then. Unfortunately, the attitude of people has regressed since then. Asian golfers, even Asian American golfers, are seen as a threat by the media and or fans. No one was bothered by Mr. Lu's poor English in 1971, so I have trouble understanding the attitude of some people today.
I wasn't following pro golf in 1971. At the time I was ten-years-old and more interested in New York Mets baseball. What I learned about the 1971 Open Championship is through media accounts at the time. Even these are hard to find.
What I do know about that Open Championship is-
1 Trevino and Mr. Lu were paired together for the last 18 holes.
2 Lee Trevino made double bogey at 17
3 Mr. Lu and Trevino both made closing birdies on 18
4 As he played 18, an errant golf shot of Mr. Lu's struck a person in the gallery injuring the woman. After the Open Championship, Mr. Lu paid for the woman and her husband to visit Taiwan.
Mr. Lu never again seriously contended for a Major Championship. He did however win the French Open the following week and in 1972 partnered with Hsieh Min-Nan to win the World Cup. When his professional career was over, Mr. Lu had at least twenty professional wins to his credit but he is probably still best remembered for his runner-up finish at the 1971 Open Championship.
So far as I know, Mr. Lu is still alive today at age seventy-five.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Sakaki Rides a Dolphin in the New Savanna
Hey kids! I've set up a new blog, just around the corner. It's called New Savanna. And it's got photos and writing AND, a longish piece about a dolphin ride that I couldn't post at That Other Place. It's got about 10 seconds or so in Azumanga Daioh, one of the cutest anime series ever (for tweeners, I suppose).
Friday, January 1, 2010
New Year's 1853: Ojamajo Doremi Style
Yup, Doremi, Onpu, Aiko, and Hazuki are taking care of Hana-chan in a period drama:
Have a not-so-very ojamajo 2010!
Have a not-so-very ojamajo 2010!
Monday, November 9, 2009
Sayonara, Aunt Sally
The funeral for my Aunt Sally is being held right now in Syracuse. Between work and H1N1, I'm not able to be there. No time to go all Speaker for the Dead on y'all, but you can be sure a lot of memories going through my head right now could make their way into stories to share in the coming months. For now, I'll just ask, what is it about golf and bridge that would attract a Polish immigrant who came to the States as a young girl in the WWI era, who was a career woman for most of her life, who had an independent streak a mile wide and never shied away from a good argument? And just how far back does this golf bug go in my family, anyway?
Sayonara, Aunt Sally. We'll miss you.
Sayonara, Aunt Sally. We'll miss you.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Golf History has taken a new turn
The world has changed, if only just a bit: Y E Yang wins the PGA championship, the first Asian to win a major golf championship.
Friday, August 14, 2009
NEC Karuizawa 72 Ladies Friday: What a Difference a Year Makes
Last year, Erina Hara put on a clinic at the NEC Karuizawa 72 Ladies, going 67-63-65 for a 7-shot victory over Ji-Hee Lee. This year, with every single one of the JLPGA's finest in the field, not to mention irregulars Ai Miyazato (fresh from her breakthrough win at Evian and T3 at the Women's British Open), Momoko Ueda (coming off last week's win on tour), and Mika Miyazato (in the midst of a fantastic rookie season on the LPGA), could a struggling Hara replicate last year's feat?
With bogeys on 3 of her 1st 5 holes and 2 of her last 4, and only 2 birdies all day as she closed out the front, the answer for Hara is a resounding "no," thanks to her opening 75. But seeing as how she beat Mika Miyazato by a shot, finished only 2 strokes behind the tour's #1 golfer, Sakura Yokomine, who shot a birdieless 38 on the back to open with a 73, and only did 3 shots worse than last year's co-leader after the 1st round and eventual leading money winner on tour Miho Koga, it's not like all is lost for Hara. Still, she did dig herself a 9-shot hole on leader Chie Arimura, who's coming off a win and a runner-up her last 2 events and hasn't finished outside the top 25 on tour since the 3rd event of the season. Arimura went 33-33 and was joined in shooting bogey-less rounds by Mi-Jeong Jeon (67), Yuko Mitsuka (69), and Yukari Baba (69). Yuki Sakurai had one going until her final hole, which she doubled for a 71. Among the other players with only 1 bad hole, Shinobu Moromizato (68), Rui Kitada (69), and Momoko Ueda (70) stand out. Like Ueda, Ai Miyazato birdied 2 of her last 5 holes, but she did it to salvage a 72 after a slow start.
Here's how the top 10 and notables fared:
1st/-6 Chie Arimura (66)
2nd/-5 Mi-Jeong Jeon (67)
T3/-4 Shinobu Moromizato, Hiroko Fukushima (68)
T5/-3 Yuko Mitsuka, Rui Kitada, Yukari Baba, Tomoko Kusakabe (69)
T9/-2 Momoko Ueda, Michie Ohba, Ikuyo Shiotani, Nozomi Sato (70)
T13/-1 Ji-Hee Lee, Yuri Fudoh, Eun-A Lim, Akiko Fukushima, Midori Yoneyama, Yuki Sakurai (71)
T23/E Ai Miyazato, Miho Koga, So-Hee Kim (72)
T31/+1 Sakura Yokomine, Hyun-Ju Shin, Ji-Woo Lee, Hiromi Mogi, Nikki Campbell, Saiki Fujita, Da-Ye Na, Yun-Jye Wei (73)
T46/+2 Yuko Saitoh, Rikako Morita, Tamie Durdin, Ah-Reum Hwang, Kumiko Kaneda, Yuki Ichinose (74)
T57/+3 Erina Hara, Li-Ying Ye, Miki Saiki, Akane Iijima (75)
T72/+4 Mika Miyazato, Ayako Uehara, Maiko Wakabayashi, Na-Ri Lee, Esther Lee, Mayu Hattori (76)
T85/+5 Bo-Bae Song (77)
T99/+7 Woo-Soon Ko (79)
With the #2 and #3 players on the money list looking to keep their leads on the #4 Arimura and make up ground on Yokomine, the #5 player only 3 off the lead, and Momoko Ueda, Ji-Hee Lee (who's coming off 2 straight runner-ups herself), and Ai Miyazato, among many others, lurking, it's shaping up to be a very special weekend on the JLPGA. Stay tuned!
[Update 1 (4:31 am): If Shiho Oyama's neck injury heals in time, she'll be playing next week on the JLPGA at the CAT Ladies. But it's looking like the Miyazatos and Ueda will be heading back to the States early to prepare for the Safeway Classic and Canadian Women's Open. I haven't seen a field list for the Konica Minolta Cup the following week, but there's a good chance the top 2 Japanese players will skip the NW Arkansas event for the JLPGA's 2nd major, where they both got top 10s last season. But they may well be back on the west coast for the Samsung Championship and the CVS/Pharmacy LPGA Challenge before playing in the Japan Women's Open (sorry, Navistar, their presence in the JLPGA's 3rd major is confirmed). If they decide to play in Korea and end up qualifying for Lorena's invitational (Ai-sama's probably a lock), they could play out the last 4 LPGA events (including the Mizuno Classic) and still make it to the JLPGA's last major, assuming Ai-sama qualifies for it (Ueda's win means she's in!). So it's looking like they'll be playing at most 8 of the last 10 LPGA events this season. Ai-sama will really have to do well in them to have a chance at Player of the Year! I'm disappointed they won't be playing next week's event, but jet lag is nothing to fool around with and they're going to be dealing with plenty of it in September. At least they have the option of playing up to 4 more JLPGA events in October--silver lining to the China event's at-best-postponed status--although playing in all of them would mean skipping Korea (as they have done historically).]
[Update 2 (5:05 pm): Lot of LPGA stars playing on the KLPGA this week. Happy Fan has all the key details. Kyeong Bae is 1 shot off the lead, shared by Ha Neul Kim, Sun Ju Ahn, and Bo Mee Lee.]
With bogeys on 3 of her 1st 5 holes and 2 of her last 4, and only 2 birdies all day as she closed out the front, the answer for Hara is a resounding "no," thanks to her opening 75. But seeing as how she beat Mika Miyazato by a shot, finished only 2 strokes behind the tour's #1 golfer, Sakura Yokomine, who shot a birdieless 38 on the back to open with a 73, and only did 3 shots worse than last year's co-leader after the 1st round and eventual leading money winner on tour Miho Koga, it's not like all is lost for Hara. Still, she did dig herself a 9-shot hole on leader Chie Arimura, who's coming off a win and a runner-up her last 2 events and hasn't finished outside the top 25 on tour since the 3rd event of the season. Arimura went 33-33 and was joined in shooting bogey-less rounds by Mi-Jeong Jeon (67), Yuko Mitsuka (69), and Yukari Baba (69). Yuki Sakurai had one going until her final hole, which she doubled for a 71. Among the other players with only 1 bad hole, Shinobu Moromizato (68), Rui Kitada (69), and Momoko Ueda (70) stand out. Like Ueda, Ai Miyazato birdied 2 of her last 5 holes, but she did it to salvage a 72 after a slow start.
Here's how the top 10 and notables fared:
1st/-6 Chie Arimura (66)
2nd/-5 Mi-Jeong Jeon (67)
T3/-4 Shinobu Moromizato, Hiroko Fukushima (68)
T5/-3 Yuko Mitsuka, Rui Kitada, Yukari Baba, Tomoko Kusakabe (69)
T9/-2 Momoko Ueda, Michie Ohba, Ikuyo Shiotani, Nozomi Sato (70)
T13/-1 Ji-Hee Lee, Yuri Fudoh, Eun-A Lim, Akiko Fukushima, Midori Yoneyama, Yuki Sakurai (71)
T23/E Ai Miyazato, Miho Koga, So-Hee Kim (72)
T31/+1 Sakura Yokomine, Hyun-Ju Shin, Ji-Woo Lee, Hiromi Mogi, Nikki Campbell, Saiki Fujita, Da-Ye Na, Yun-Jye Wei (73)
T46/+2 Yuko Saitoh, Rikako Morita, Tamie Durdin, Ah-Reum Hwang, Kumiko Kaneda, Yuki Ichinose (74)
T57/+3 Erina Hara, Li-Ying Ye, Miki Saiki, Akane Iijima (75)
T72/+4 Mika Miyazato, Ayako Uehara, Maiko Wakabayashi, Na-Ri Lee, Esther Lee, Mayu Hattori (76)
T85/+5 Bo-Bae Song (77)
T99/+7 Woo-Soon Ko (79)
With the #2 and #3 players on the money list looking to keep their leads on the #4 Arimura and make up ground on Yokomine, the #5 player only 3 off the lead, and Momoko Ueda, Ji-Hee Lee (who's coming off 2 straight runner-ups herself), and Ai Miyazato, among many others, lurking, it's shaping up to be a very special weekend on the JLPGA. Stay tuned!
[Update 1 (4:31 am): If Shiho Oyama's neck injury heals in time, she'll be playing next week on the JLPGA at the CAT Ladies. But it's looking like the Miyazatos and Ueda will be heading back to the States early to prepare for the Safeway Classic and Canadian Women's Open. I haven't seen a field list for the Konica Minolta Cup the following week, but there's a good chance the top 2 Japanese players will skip the NW Arkansas event for the JLPGA's 2nd major, where they both got top 10s last season. But they may well be back on the west coast for the Samsung Championship and the CVS/Pharmacy LPGA Challenge before playing in the Japan Women's Open (sorry, Navistar, their presence in the JLPGA's 3rd major is confirmed). If they decide to play in Korea and end up qualifying for Lorena's invitational (Ai-sama's probably a lock), they could play out the last 4 LPGA events (including the Mizuno Classic) and still make it to the JLPGA's last major, assuming Ai-sama qualifies for it (Ueda's win means she's in!). So it's looking like they'll be playing at most 8 of the last 10 LPGA events this season. Ai-sama will really have to do well in them to have a chance at Player of the Year! I'm disappointed they won't be playing next week's event, but jet lag is nothing to fool around with and they're going to be dealing with plenty of it in September. At least they have the option of playing up to 4 more JLPGA events in October--silver lining to the China event's at-best-postponed status--although playing in all of them would mean skipping Korea (as they have done historically).]
[Update 2 (5:05 pm): Lot of LPGA stars playing on the KLPGA this week. Happy Fan has all the key details. Kyeong Bae is 1 shot off the lead, shared by Ha Neul Kim, Sun Ju Ahn, and Bo Mee Lee.]
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
PGA Tour Update: Kevin Roman Makes PGA Championship
Kevin who? Well, you can find his name on the PGA Championship pairings sheet alongside Louis Oosthuizen's and the "Legends Reno-Tahoe WINNER" (that would be John Rollins, and yes, I had to look it up) going off the 10th at 9:15 am Thursday and the 1st at 2:25 pm Friday. Don't be fooled by the Tour's claim that he comes from Georgia's version of Area 51, though. Nope, he's a Utica, NY native, through and through (OK, New Hartford, which is basically an exurb of Utica--or is it New York Mills, where he went to high school?). And he's blogging his PGA Championship experience. He seems to think he's playing with Matt Kuchar instead of Rollins--and, lo and behold, he's right. (The Tour and the PGA of America ought to compare notes once in a while.) If you're interested in how he qualified, dear reader, click on (and on and on and on). Me, I'm going to dredge up what I remember about Kevin from our central NY days.
He seemed to be a few years older than me when I first started playing junior golf, which back then made a big difference (turns out he's less than a couple of years older!). He was always friendly and funny, but I was pretty shy back then and didn't get to know him well. I remember him being super-long--and that was back before the ball revolution I've written about here before. But he also struck me as more interested in having a good time--on and off the course--than in developing his talents. Turns out that practical joker persona of his masked an intense love for the game and dedication to practice. The course I associate most with him is Utica's Valley View, a hilly, tree-lined Robert Trent Jones, Jr. design across the street from a reservoir, where he was an assistant pro when I competed in Utica City Amateurs in 1991-1993 (that last year he qualified for the U.S. Open) and 1997-2004 (although he must have left for Area 51 sometime around 2002). Even after he turned pro, you could tell he would have teed it up in a heartbeat if he could--he loved competition that much.
Other than that, there's not much to add, except to wish him luck. He certainly has the talent to do more than just make the cut. Let's see if he can do better than fellow Utican Moira Dunn has in majors this year!
[Update 1 (8/13/09, 3:43 pm): Welcome, Devil Ballers and assorted yahoos! I always appreciate the links from Jay Busbee. I'm well aware of how Kevin played today. I'm rooting for a big comeback tomorrow.]
[Update 2 (5:13 pm): This is awesome. Jay Flemma did an excellent profile of Kevin, too! Wonder how I never knew he played against both Moira and Kevin? Blogoramaville is truly a small world.]
He seemed to be a few years older than me when I first started playing junior golf, which back then made a big difference (turns out he's less than a couple of years older!). He was always friendly and funny, but I was pretty shy back then and didn't get to know him well. I remember him being super-long--and that was back before the ball revolution I've written about here before. But he also struck me as more interested in having a good time--on and off the course--than in developing his talents. Turns out that practical joker persona of his masked an intense love for the game and dedication to practice. The course I associate most with him is Utica's Valley View, a hilly, tree-lined Robert Trent Jones, Jr. design across the street from a reservoir, where he was an assistant pro when I competed in Utica City Amateurs in 1991-1993 (that last year he qualified for the U.S. Open) and 1997-2004 (although he must have left for Area 51 sometime around 2002). Even after he turned pro, you could tell he would have teed it up in a heartbeat if he could--he loved competition that much.
Other than that, there's not much to add, except to wish him luck. He certainly has the talent to do more than just make the cut. Let's see if he can do better than fellow Utican Moira Dunn has in majors this year!
[Update 1 (8/13/09, 3:43 pm): Welcome, Devil Ballers and assorted yahoos! I always appreciate the links from Jay Busbee. I'm well aware of how Kevin played today. I'm rooting for a big comeback tomorrow.]
[Update 2 (5:13 pm): This is awesome. Jay Flemma did an excellent profile of Kevin, too! Wonder how I never knew he played against both Moira and Kevin? Blogoramaville is truly a small world.]
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Benzon-a-rama
Apparently Bill Benzon, who has all the privileges of the author function here at Mostly Harmless, was too embarrassed to post this himself:
Yes, it's Carson and Rickles at a Tonight Show studio onsen in 1968--I truly have no shame. And on the morning of the most sacred Sunday in the world of golf.
As penance, I'm linking to Uncle Bill's robo-subaltern post over at The Valve.
Yes, it's Carson and Rickles at a Tonight Show studio onsen in 1968--I truly have no shame. And on the morning of the most sacred Sunday in the world of golf.
As penance, I'm linking to Uncle Bill's robo-subaltern post over at The Valve.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
SBS Open Preview/Predictions
The SBS Open is finally here! The field has changed a bit since I last checked the list and even since Hound Dog's preview, but the course and the results from 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 remain the same.
Picking the top 12 in this week's Seoul Sisters.com Pakpicker competition is always tough, because it's difficult to predict who among the hottest players from the end of last season and early-season SunCoast Series, ALPG, and LET events will do well in the Hawaii winds. I'm using my preseason top 30 as a rough guide in generating this week's picks:
1. Tseng
2. Creamer
3. Shin
4. Lewis
5. Stanford
6. Kim In-Kyung
7. Mundy
8. Yang
9. Wie
10. Miyazato
11. Lang
12. Wright
Alts: Kerr, Han, Pressel
The LPGA's decision not to highlight Michelle Wie in their publicity campaigns during her rookie season has drawn some raised eyebrows from the golfy media, but take a look at the field list and tell me with a straight face that she deserves to get the front seat ahead of Juli Inkster, Se Ri Pak, Grace Park, Paula Creamer, Cristie Kerr, Suzanne Pettersen, Ya Ni Tseng, Ji-Yai Shin, Angela Stanford, or even Natalie Gulbis or Anna Rawson. In any case, you can count on the media to pick up the slack.
Once the pairings are out, I'll have a bit more to say on this topic, but I did want to comment on another big LPGA story that's made the news. With the spotlight on LPGA history shining brightly in the wake of the recent passing of Betty Jameson, I hope plans are in the works to name 13 LPGA tournaments after the tour's founders. Given Jameson's connections to Texas golf, why not name the season-ending event in Houston after her? What better way to make a statement that the LPGA is here to stay?
On a lighter note, maybe the LPGA can get the organizers of the annual ukulele festival to serenade SBS Open winners in coming years. It's just a 33-mile drive from Honolulu to Kahuku, after all!
[Update 1 (11:19 am): I don't think anyone could criticize the LPGA's Cliffs Notes version of a tournament preview, except to question the choice not to include a link to more information for those who want it....]
[Update 2 (11:35 am): Pretty good stuff in the news and notes this week: LPGAers remembering Betty Jameson, a season preview, the great news that David Higdon has been named the tour's chief communications officer, the last of the rookie profiles, the race for the Solheim Cup, and much more--including the return of the kids in free policy at all events this season.]
[Update 3 (2/11/09, 6:46 am): Ron Sirak reports that the LPGA will end its long-term relationship with SBS after this season, having chosen another Korean company, J Golf, to broadcast its events in Korea. This will be the last SBS Open.]
[Update 4 (4:45 pm): Check out the interesting responses to Sirak's news from Hound Dog, Ryan Ballengee, and Bill Jempty.]
Picking the top 12 in this week's Seoul Sisters.com Pakpicker competition is always tough, because it's difficult to predict who among the hottest players from the end of last season and early-season SunCoast Series, ALPG, and LET events will do well in the Hawaii winds. I'm using my preseason top 30 as a rough guide in generating this week's picks:
1. Tseng
2. Creamer
3. Shin
4. Lewis
5. Stanford
6. Kim In-Kyung
7. Mundy
8. Yang
9. Wie
10. Miyazato
11. Lang
12. Wright
Alts: Kerr, Han, Pressel
The LPGA's decision not to highlight Michelle Wie in their publicity campaigns during her rookie season has drawn some raised eyebrows from the golfy media, but take a look at the field list and tell me with a straight face that she deserves to get the front seat ahead of Juli Inkster, Se Ri Pak, Grace Park, Paula Creamer, Cristie Kerr, Suzanne Pettersen, Ya Ni Tseng, Ji-Yai Shin, Angela Stanford, or even Natalie Gulbis or Anna Rawson. In any case, you can count on the media to pick up the slack.
Once the pairings are out, I'll have a bit more to say on this topic, but I did want to comment on another big LPGA story that's made the news. With the spotlight on LPGA history shining brightly in the wake of the recent passing of Betty Jameson, I hope plans are in the works to name 13 LPGA tournaments after the tour's founders. Given Jameson's connections to Texas golf, why not name the season-ending event in Houston after her? What better way to make a statement that the LPGA is here to stay?
On a lighter note, maybe the LPGA can get the organizers of the annual ukulele festival to serenade SBS Open winners in coming years. It's just a 33-mile drive from Honolulu to Kahuku, after all!
[Update 1 (11:19 am): I don't think anyone could criticize the LPGA's Cliffs Notes version of a tournament preview, except to question the choice not to include a link to more information for those who want it....]
[Update 2 (11:35 am): Pretty good stuff in the news and notes this week: LPGAers remembering Betty Jameson, a season preview, the great news that David Higdon has been named the tour's chief communications officer, the last of the rookie profiles, the race for the Solheim Cup, and much more--including the return of the kids in free policy at all events this season.]
[Update 3 (2/11/09, 6:46 am): Ron Sirak reports that the LPGA will end its long-term relationship with SBS after this season, having chosen another Korean company, J Golf, to broadcast its events in Korea. This will be the last SBS Open.]
[Update 4 (4:45 pm): Check out the interesting responses to Sirak's news from Hound Dog, Ryan Ballengee, and Bill Jempty.]
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Before there was J-pop . . .
I remember this song from my youth:
It's the first (and only) Japanese-language song to be a hit in America.
It's the first (and only) Japanese-language song to be a hit in America.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
The Politics of Astro Boy
Just a quick link to Bill Benzon's reading of Osamu Tezuka's Mighty Atom (a.k.a. Astro Boy) as an indirect response to and working through of ambivalence about the U.S. occupation of Japan. Given my own research interests and past blogging on anime politics, I ought to have a good response for Bill, but unfortunately I grew up in a place that was never in range of any TV stations that were actually airing Astro Boy and have not had the opportunity to reduce my cultural illiteracy since leaving there. Sorry, Bill!
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
V-Day: On Clubs, Grooves, and Balls
Picking up where Geoff Shackelford left off a little while ago on this new rules change for grooves in irons and wedges, I've got a tangentially-related story to tell. It involves me shooting an even-par round of 34 on the back 9 of the Easiest Course in the World for only the 10th time in my life while playing 2 very different kinds of golf balls concurrently. But it's really a personal history of golf equipment. And a meditation on the difference between competitive golf and social golf. And a report on the mental side of the game. Yeah, it's that kind of tangentially-related story. Sorry.
There is a relation, nevertheless. The revolution in golf equipment that this rules change is a very partial response to came about midway through my playing career, as I finished playing college golf. As I've been keeping my key golf stats from 1984-2004, back when I was playing regularly and, at the beginning and end of the span, regularly playing tournament golf, I have some data to back up my memories. And, I think, to support the case that the rules change won't have a big impact on scoring for anyone but the most elite amateurs and professionals.
When I first started playing golf seriously in high school, my woods were made of wood, my irons were forged, and my ball was a Titleist DT. I was a short hitter, made shorter by the fact that I didn't like the driver in my set and instead used a 2-wood off the tee. So I relied on my fairway woods, wedges, and putter to keep my scores respectable. I was the classic kind of precision/finesse player, which served me well on Hamilton College's short, par-35 9-hole course that I played most often, but didn't travel all that well all that often to Colgate University's Seven Oaks, the Robert Trent Jones-designed gem in central NY that I played with my dad and brother on the weekends. I didn't begin to experiment with metal woods until college and eventually settled on one of the original TaylorMade Burners for my driver (which looked like today's 7-woods), but it still didn't change the kind of player I was all that much. In fact, when I played shorter courses, I switched to balata Titleists, which didn't fly as far as the DTs I was used to but which gave me greater touch around the greens, helped me stop my irons sooner on approach shots, and generally allowed me to better work the ball because of their softer covers and higher spin rates. I was still such a short and low-ball hitter that I vividly recall switching to a different metal driver (a hand-me-down from my younger brother, who had moved on to a newer model years before) the week before I was to play Bethpage Black from the back tees in the ECAC Championship, in hopes of carrying the ball further off the tee. (That didn't work out so well; I couldn't reach most of the fairways, had to hack out of the heavy rough usually still short of my playing partners, and usually faced a difficult fairway wood shot to the green that would more often than not find its way back into trouble. I went 102-98 and finished dead last.)
So although I dropped my scoring average at Hamilton from just under 50 in 1984 to just under 40 in 1990 (and my personal bests each year from 43 in '83 to 35 in '90) and at Seven Oaks from around 90 in 1987 to around 83 in 1990 (and my personal bests from 84 in '87 to 77 in '90), I remained the same kind of golfer throughout the 1980s. I never averaged more than 6 greens in regulation, never came close to averaging a birdie a round, and hardly ever shot 37 or below for 9 holes. In fact, I didn't shoot an even-par 9 until 1990, when I did it twice at Hamilton (one of them coming in the best 18 holes of my life on that course, a 71 with 26 putts, many of which I still remember today).
All that changed fairly dramatically when I switched to the new, larger-headed Titleist driver. I started hitting the ball higher and carrying it much further--and the results were striking. I went from averaging 5.83 greens in regulation in 1990, the previous best summer of my golfing life, to 7.45 in 1991, from .857 birdies per round to 1.062, and from a 39.7 scoring average at Hamilton to 38.5. Most important, I went from shooting 37 or better only 6.5% of the time to 14.8% of the time. The next season, although my GIR went down and my scoring averages levelled off, I averaged 1.32 birdies per round, shot even-par on 5 9-hole rounds, and went under par for the first time with a 34 in mid-July. Even though I would focus on my graduate studies year-round from fall 1992 to spring 1998, I still spent enough time in Clinton in 1993 to lower my Hamilton scoring average another stroke, to 37.43, and shoot my first 33 there; even afterwards, I was able to keep my game respectable while going from averaging over 40 rounds per summer down to less than 7 between 1994 and 1996.
During that time away from competitive golf, 2 major changes occurred, 1 physical and the other technical. I started using Nautilus equipment regularly. As my body changed, I was forced to change my swing, which had been very lower-body, hip-turn, and timing-oriented, to take advantage of my increased upper-body strength. More important, I needed to simplify my swing into something that would be easier to repeat with fewer repetitions. Particularly late in my grad school career, when Tiger was tearing up the amateur circuit and people were beginning to show that his big shoulder turn coupled with a less pronounced hip turn helped him hit the ball so far, I was putting the finishing touches on a set-up and swing that hasn't really changed all that much since. And as I started to play again more regularly in the summer of 1998 after I finished my dissertation--coming close to 30 rounds again for the 1st time since 1993--I moved to Fredonia and discovered the Easiest Course in the World.
Don't get me wrong, Hamilton is a pretty easy course. With 3 par 4s under 325 yards, 3 longer par 4s between 385 and 425 yards (2 of them downhill), 1 short and 1 long par 3 (both uphill), and a short par 5, it has a lot of birdie holes, despite being hilly and having its fair share of trees and water in play. By contrast, the Easiest Course in the World has no water in play, no sand traps, and tree trouble on only a few holes, plus it's very flat. Although it's a couple of hundred yards longer than Hamilton, and has just as tiny greens, it's significantly, well, easier. Only 4 of its 18 holes are really difficult pars (and 3 of them come on the front, which has more birdie holes than the back), its 3 par 5s are all reachable in 2 when the course isn't soaking wet (and for longer hitters than me, even then), and its fairways are wide, rough low, and greens slow. The second I saw it, late in the summer of 1998, I knew I could break 70 there. It took me 3 years to do it--a 68 in late August 2001--and I've only done it 5 times since then, with a low of 66 the following August. But it's definitely the kind of course where I expect to have a chance to go under par almost every time I tee it up--particularly during that stretch between 1999 and 2004 when I was averaging almost 60 rounds a year.
It's no coincidence that I broke 70 for the first time in 2001, for that's the summer that I switched to the Titleist Pro V1. Not only did it go further than the DT--much further--but it was almost as soft as the balata balls I had given up playing in the early '90s. Combined with a shift to a TaylorMade driver, my switch to the Pro V1 allowed me to really attack golf courses for the first time in my life. 2001 was the 1st year my scoring average went under 80, my birdies per round went over 1.37, my GIR average went over 7.5, and I shot 37 or better more than 20% of the time. My best season came the following year, when my scoring average reached its career low of 77.23, my birdies per round a career high of 1.542, my GIR a career high of 8.14, and I shot 37 or better 36.1% of the time. I think it's fair to say that I benefitted from changes to the ball more than any other advancement in golf technology. I went from carrying my drives 200-230 yards in high school to 225-240 yards in college to 240-260 yards in this next phase of my competitive golfing career. And it's not like the changes mattered only on easy, short courses. Playing in the Utica City Amateur at Valley View 7 years between 1991 and 2000, I shot 76 or better once in 14 tries. In the next 4 years I did it 5 times out of 10, with a low of 73 in 2001. I qualified for the New York State Mid-Amateur tournament for the 1st (and only) time in 2002, by which point I had lowered my handicap to a 2.
Admittedly, my putting also improved during this period, due in no small part to my switch to an Odyssey White Hot putter that really fit my eye--and loads of off-season practice during long western NY winters and frozen and muddy springs. My total putts and putts per green in regulation reached career lows during this period. But that could also be an effect of the switch to the Pro V1, not just because I was hitting my approach shots closer to the green and to the hole, but also because I was probably rolling that ball better than others. In 2003 I got married and in 2004 onechan put a dent in my sleep schedule, so my performance dropped off a bit before I basically gave golf up between 2005 and this summer, but I can say for sure that switching from forged irons to Callaway Steelheads in an effort to get more length and accuracy out of my iron play--as well as to specialized wedges (52-degree and 58-degree Vokeys)--as I did in the middle of this stretch, did not have the desired effect. My GIR actually went down and my putting average actually went up, while my birdies per round rate once again fell below 1.35. It was frustration with this step back that made it easier for me to step away first from competitive golf, then from all golf, until this summer.
Late this May was virtually the 1st time I touched my clubs since 2005, when I played all of 4 and a half rounds, so my expectations were very low. I was shocked to find myself making solid contact from my 1st time out. By my 3rd time, I was actually 1-over in my 1st 8 holes before utterly collapsing in the wind. Which brings me to my story. The par-34 back 9 on the Easiest Course in the World has 4 fairly tricky starting holes but 5 fairly easy closing holes. It's flat and wide open, with even fewer trees than on the front, but its greens are tiny and the wind is always up. It's the closest to links golf I've ever played and it's given me fits: I've only shot 1 34 there in 2000, 6 in 2002, and 2 in 2004.
The day I shot my 10th 34 there at the end of last month was the windiest of any of the rounds I've played this year and among the windier days I've played in my life. It was the first time I decided to play by myself and to challenge myself by pitting a 4-year-old Pro V1 against a newer Callaway ball. It was a brief experiment, as I switched to a Nike distance ball that I found near where I lost the Callaway on the 4th hole. But putting my normal ball up against a rock like the Nike ball taught me a lot about my swing and short game that day. The rock definitely went longer and straighter. I actually got over the 2nd par 5 on the front with a 5-wood on my 2nd shot--a hole I rarely reached in the past unless the course was dryer than it had been that day. But I also had a lot less feel around the greens with it. I blew my chip on that hole, a simple little downhill run shot of about 40 feet, a full 15 feet by the hole and missed the birdie putt. For awhile these factors cancelled each other out. I was 3-over with the Pro V1 between the 5th and 12th holes and 1-down to the rock after a 6-foot birdie putt with it on a long par 3 actually found the bottom of the cup. But my 5th 1-putt in a row with the Pro V1 on the next hole, a long par-4 that I tripled with the rock after being right near the green in 2, turned the tide. Even though I hit the remaining 5 greens in regulation with the rock, I was 1-over during that stretch, thanks to 3-putts on a par 5 I hit in 2 and also on the very next hole, a short par 3 with a sloping green. Even though I hit 8 of 14 greens with the rock, I had 27 putts. With the Pro V1, by contrast, I only hit 5 greens in that same stretch (thanks to the wind playing havoc with my approach shots), but I only had 21 putts. I hit 3 greens in a row on the middle of the back, finally making a birdie putt on the very same par 5 I 3-putted with the rock, so I was 1-under on the back heading into the final 2 holes. And I was well aware that I had never gone under par on the back in my life.
This summer I've actually been drawing the ball off the tee, something unheard of in my early-season high school and college days, when bad timing would lead to weak fades and slices as my arms would lag behind my hip turn. But my other early-season nemesis--wedge problems on pitches between 15 and 75 yards--reared its ugly head on the 17th hole. My previous rounds had been sabotaged by fluffed, chunked, even skulled partial-swing wedges and even that day my putter had bailed my pitches out quite often. On 17, I hit my best drive of the year, a nice little draw that started out over the right rough, which the wind helped bring back to the middle of the fairway about 50 yards short of the pin. So of course I fluffed my 3-quarter-swing 52 degree wedge--I decelerated out of fear I had taken too long a backswing. But my short game was so good that day with the Pro V1 that I easily got up and down (tying the rock when I missed a short birdie putt with it).
All I needed was a par on the long 18th, a slight dogleg right with a strong left-to-right helping wind that day, to go under par on the back for the 1st time in my life. So of course I popped up my drive and then missed the green with a 5-wood that the wind pushed further right than I expected (I thought I could draw it in against the prevailing wind), leaving myself a tough chip that I couldn't get within 10 feet of the back left pin. Just like the other 2 birdie chances I couldn't convert on that side, I missed the par save for my 1st bogey with the Pro V1 since the 8th hole. I had made putts of all kinds in that stretch, including an insane 30-foot downhill-sidehiller, but couldn't get any of those 3 in my last 5 holes to fall. The 8th 33 of my life was not meant to be, I guess.
But why didn't I collapse in the wind this time like I had earlier that month? How could I have shot 1 of the best 9-hole rounds of my life in only my 4th or 5th round of the season, a season in which I played every other week rather than every other day? I have to attribute it to getting a better feel for the characteristics of the Pro V1 while playing in a match against the Nike ball. The match itself helped me keep at bay just about all the nervousness that might usually be associated with a run at a 32 or a 33. But it was really the contrast between the 2 balls themselves that helped me the most. On my full swings, I had to choose different clubs on my approach shots (the Nike ball was a half-club to a club longer than the Pro V1), align myself very differently (in anticipation of the lesser wind effect with the Nike ball), and make subtle adjustments to my swing itself. On my pitches, chips, and putts, I felt so much more comfortable with the Pro V1 in the midst of my struggles with the rock. I can't go into any more detail without getting too technical or sounding too mystical, but the bottom line is that after I played through my 2nd foursome on the 9th, I could devote my concentration entirely to the contrasting playing characteristics of the 2 balls.
To pull this tangent back to something approaching a circle, if I had to rank the most significant technological innovations in my golfing career, my list would look like this:
1) Balls
2) Drivers
3) Putters
4) Irons and Wedges
I'd probably rank hybrids #3 if I had been playing any golf the last few years. I definitely want to get a 3-hybrid and retire the Callaway 3-iron, which has been a huge disappointment, but playing as little as I have I've had little inclination to do so. So if I'm playing competitive (or any) golf 6 years from now, I'll probably take the opportunity to upgrade my entire set: move on to Mizuno irons and wedges (the brand I ended up not going with when I made my big failed iron switch earlier this decade), try to find the right mix of woods and hybrids to go with the new irons, and probably try out the new putters while I'm at it to see if I like any better than my White Hot #2. Or maybe by then I'll just be playing virtual golf on the Wii. Who knows? All I know is that if the new rules hurt the longer, wilder players in any way, shape, or form, I'm for them, but I just don't see them having much of an impact on my game.
There is a relation, nevertheless. The revolution in golf equipment that this rules change is a very partial response to came about midway through my playing career, as I finished playing college golf. As I've been keeping my key golf stats from 1984-2004, back when I was playing regularly and, at the beginning and end of the span, regularly playing tournament golf, I have some data to back up my memories. And, I think, to support the case that the rules change won't have a big impact on scoring for anyone but the most elite amateurs and professionals.
When I first started playing golf seriously in high school, my woods were made of wood, my irons were forged, and my ball was a Titleist DT. I was a short hitter, made shorter by the fact that I didn't like the driver in my set and instead used a 2-wood off the tee. So I relied on my fairway woods, wedges, and putter to keep my scores respectable. I was the classic kind of precision/finesse player, which served me well on Hamilton College's short, par-35 9-hole course that I played most often, but didn't travel all that well all that often to Colgate University's Seven Oaks, the Robert Trent Jones-designed gem in central NY that I played with my dad and brother on the weekends. I didn't begin to experiment with metal woods until college and eventually settled on one of the original TaylorMade Burners for my driver (which looked like today's 7-woods), but it still didn't change the kind of player I was all that much. In fact, when I played shorter courses, I switched to balata Titleists, which didn't fly as far as the DTs I was used to but which gave me greater touch around the greens, helped me stop my irons sooner on approach shots, and generally allowed me to better work the ball because of their softer covers and higher spin rates. I was still such a short and low-ball hitter that I vividly recall switching to a different metal driver (a hand-me-down from my younger brother, who had moved on to a newer model years before) the week before I was to play Bethpage Black from the back tees in the ECAC Championship, in hopes of carrying the ball further off the tee. (That didn't work out so well; I couldn't reach most of the fairways, had to hack out of the heavy rough usually still short of my playing partners, and usually faced a difficult fairway wood shot to the green that would more often than not find its way back into trouble. I went 102-98 and finished dead last.)
So although I dropped my scoring average at Hamilton from just under 50 in 1984 to just under 40 in 1990 (and my personal bests each year from 43 in '83 to 35 in '90) and at Seven Oaks from around 90 in 1987 to around 83 in 1990 (and my personal bests from 84 in '87 to 77 in '90), I remained the same kind of golfer throughout the 1980s. I never averaged more than 6 greens in regulation, never came close to averaging a birdie a round, and hardly ever shot 37 or below for 9 holes. In fact, I didn't shoot an even-par 9 until 1990, when I did it twice at Hamilton (one of them coming in the best 18 holes of my life on that course, a 71 with 26 putts, many of which I still remember today).
All that changed fairly dramatically when I switched to the new, larger-headed Titleist driver. I started hitting the ball higher and carrying it much further--and the results were striking. I went from averaging 5.83 greens in regulation in 1990, the previous best summer of my golfing life, to 7.45 in 1991, from .857 birdies per round to 1.062, and from a 39.7 scoring average at Hamilton to 38.5. Most important, I went from shooting 37 or better only 6.5% of the time to 14.8% of the time. The next season, although my GIR went down and my scoring averages levelled off, I averaged 1.32 birdies per round, shot even-par on 5 9-hole rounds, and went under par for the first time with a 34 in mid-July. Even though I would focus on my graduate studies year-round from fall 1992 to spring 1998, I still spent enough time in Clinton in 1993 to lower my Hamilton scoring average another stroke, to 37.43, and shoot my first 33 there; even afterwards, I was able to keep my game respectable while going from averaging over 40 rounds per summer down to less than 7 between 1994 and 1996.
During that time away from competitive golf, 2 major changes occurred, 1 physical and the other technical. I started using Nautilus equipment regularly. As my body changed, I was forced to change my swing, which had been very lower-body, hip-turn, and timing-oriented, to take advantage of my increased upper-body strength. More important, I needed to simplify my swing into something that would be easier to repeat with fewer repetitions. Particularly late in my grad school career, when Tiger was tearing up the amateur circuit and people were beginning to show that his big shoulder turn coupled with a less pronounced hip turn helped him hit the ball so far, I was putting the finishing touches on a set-up and swing that hasn't really changed all that much since. And as I started to play again more regularly in the summer of 1998 after I finished my dissertation--coming close to 30 rounds again for the 1st time since 1993--I moved to Fredonia and discovered the Easiest Course in the World.
Don't get me wrong, Hamilton is a pretty easy course. With 3 par 4s under 325 yards, 3 longer par 4s between 385 and 425 yards (2 of them downhill), 1 short and 1 long par 3 (both uphill), and a short par 5, it has a lot of birdie holes, despite being hilly and having its fair share of trees and water in play. By contrast, the Easiest Course in the World has no water in play, no sand traps, and tree trouble on only a few holes, plus it's very flat. Although it's a couple of hundred yards longer than Hamilton, and has just as tiny greens, it's significantly, well, easier. Only 4 of its 18 holes are really difficult pars (and 3 of them come on the front, which has more birdie holes than the back), its 3 par 5s are all reachable in 2 when the course isn't soaking wet (and for longer hitters than me, even then), and its fairways are wide, rough low, and greens slow. The second I saw it, late in the summer of 1998, I knew I could break 70 there. It took me 3 years to do it--a 68 in late August 2001--and I've only done it 5 times since then, with a low of 66 the following August. But it's definitely the kind of course where I expect to have a chance to go under par almost every time I tee it up--particularly during that stretch between 1999 and 2004 when I was averaging almost 60 rounds a year.
It's no coincidence that I broke 70 for the first time in 2001, for that's the summer that I switched to the Titleist Pro V1. Not only did it go further than the DT--much further--but it was almost as soft as the balata balls I had given up playing in the early '90s. Combined with a shift to a TaylorMade driver, my switch to the Pro V1 allowed me to really attack golf courses for the first time in my life. 2001 was the 1st year my scoring average went under 80, my birdies per round went over 1.37, my GIR average went over 7.5, and I shot 37 or better more than 20% of the time. My best season came the following year, when my scoring average reached its career low of 77.23, my birdies per round a career high of 1.542, my GIR a career high of 8.14, and I shot 37 or better 36.1% of the time. I think it's fair to say that I benefitted from changes to the ball more than any other advancement in golf technology. I went from carrying my drives 200-230 yards in high school to 225-240 yards in college to 240-260 yards in this next phase of my competitive golfing career. And it's not like the changes mattered only on easy, short courses. Playing in the Utica City Amateur at Valley View 7 years between 1991 and 2000, I shot 76 or better once in 14 tries. In the next 4 years I did it 5 times out of 10, with a low of 73 in 2001. I qualified for the New York State Mid-Amateur tournament for the 1st (and only) time in 2002, by which point I had lowered my handicap to a 2.
Admittedly, my putting also improved during this period, due in no small part to my switch to an Odyssey White Hot putter that really fit my eye--and loads of off-season practice during long western NY winters and frozen and muddy springs. My total putts and putts per green in regulation reached career lows during this period. But that could also be an effect of the switch to the Pro V1, not just because I was hitting my approach shots closer to the green and to the hole, but also because I was probably rolling that ball better than others. In 2003 I got married and in 2004 onechan put a dent in my sleep schedule, so my performance dropped off a bit before I basically gave golf up between 2005 and this summer, but I can say for sure that switching from forged irons to Callaway Steelheads in an effort to get more length and accuracy out of my iron play--as well as to specialized wedges (52-degree and 58-degree Vokeys)--as I did in the middle of this stretch, did not have the desired effect. My GIR actually went down and my putting average actually went up, while my birdies per round rate once again fell below 1.35. It was frustration with this step back that made it easier for me to step away first from competitive golf, then from all golf, until this summer.
Late this May was virtually the 1st time I touched my clubs since 2005, when I played all of 4 and a half rounds, so my expectations were very low. I was shocked to find myself making solid contact from my 1st time out. By my 3rd time, I was actually 1-over in my 1st 8 holes before utterly collapsing in the wind. Which brings me to my story. The par-34 back 9 on the Easiest Course in the World has 4 fairly tricky starting holes but 5 fairly easy closing holes. It's flat and wide open, with even fewer trees than on the front, but its greens are tiny and the wind is always up. It's the closest to links golf I've ever played and it's given me fits: I've only shot 1 34 there in 2000, 6 in 2002, and 2 in 2004.
The day I shot my 10th 34 there at the end of last month was the windiest of any of the rounds I've played this year and among the windier days I've played in my life. It was the first time I decided to play by myself and to challenge myself by pitting a 4-year-old Pro V1 against a newer Callaway ball. It was a brief experiment, as I switched to a Nike distance ball that I found near where I lost the Callaway on the 4th hole. But putting my normal ball up against a rock like the Nike ball taught me a lot about my swing and short game that day. The rock definitely went longer and straighter. I actually got over the 2nd par 5 on the front with a 5-wood on my 2nd shot--a hole I rarely reached in the past unless the course was dryer than it had been that day. But I also had a lot less feel around the greens with it. I blew my chip on that hole, a simple little downhill run shot of about 40 feet, a full 15 feet by the hole and missed the birdie putt. For awhile these factors cancelled each other out. I was 3-over with the Pro V1 between the 5th and 12th holes and 1-down to the rock after a 6-foot birdie putt with it on a long par 3 actually found the bottom of the cup. But my 5th 1-putt in a row with the Pro V1 on the next hole, a long par-4 that I tripled with the rock after being right near the green in 2, turned the tide. Even though I hit the remaining 5 greens in regulation with the rock, I was 1-over during that stretch, thanks to 3-putts on a par 5 I hit in 2 and also on the very next hole, a short par 3 with a sloping green. Even though I hit 8 of 14 greens with the rock, I had 27 putts. With the Pro V1, by contrast, I only hit 5 greens in that same stretch (thanks to the wind playing havoc with my approach shots), but I only had 21 putts. I hit 3 greens in a row on the middle of the back, finally making a birdie putt on the very same par 5 I 3-putted with the rock, so I was 1-under on the back heading into the final 2 holes. And I was well aware that I had never gone under par on the back in my life.
This summer I've actually been drawing the ball off the tee, something unheard of in my early-season high school and college days, when bad timing would lead to weak fades and slices as my arms would lag behind my hip turn. But my other early-season nemesis--wedge problems on pitches between 15 and 75 yards--reared its ugly head on the 17th hole. My previous rounds had been sabotaged by fluffed, chunked, even skulled partial-swing wedges and even that day my putter had bailed my pitches out quite often. On 17, I hit my best drive of the year, a nice little draw that started out over the right rough, which the wind helped bring back to the middle of the fairway about 50 yards short of the pin. So of course I fluffed my 3-quarter-swing 52 degree wedge--I decelerated out of fear I had taken too long a backswing. But my short game was so good that day with the Pro V1 that I easily got up and down (tying the rock when I missed a short birdie putt with it).
All I needed was a par on the long 18th, a slight dogleg right with a strong left-to-right helping wind that day, to go under par on the back for the 1st time in my life. So of course I popped up my drive and then missed the green with a 5-wood that the wind pushed further right than I expected (I thought I could draw it in against the prevailing wind), leaving myself a tough chip that I couldn't get within 10 feet of the back left pin. Just like the other 2 birdie chances I couldn't convert on that side, I missed the par save for my 1st bogey with the Pro V1 since the 8th hole. I had made putts of all kinds in that stretch, including an insane 30-foot downhill-sidehiller, but couldn't get any of those 3 in my last 5 holes to fall. The 8th 33 of my life was not meant to be, I guess.
But why didn't I collapse in the wind this time like I had earlier that month? How could I have shot 1 of the best 9-hole rounds of my life in only my 4th or 5th round of the season, a season in which I played every other week rather than every other day? I have to attribute it to getting a better feel for the characteristics of the Pro V1 while playing in a match against the Nike ball. The match itself helped me keep at bay just about all the nervousness that might usually be associated with a run at a 32 or a 33. But it was really the contrast between the 2 balls themselves that helped me the most. On my full swings, I had to choose different clubs on my approach shots (the Nike ball was a half-club to a club longer than the Pro V1), align myself very differently (in anticipation of the lesser wind effect with the Nike ball), and make subtle adjustments to my swing itself. On my pitches, chips, and putts, I felt so much more comfortable with the Pro V1 in the midst of my struggles with the rock. I can't go into any more detail without getting too technical or sounding too mystical, but the bottom line is that after I played through my 2nd foursome on the 9th, I could devote my concentration entirely to the contrasting playing characteristics of the 2 balls.
To pull this tangent back to something approaching a circle, if I had to rank the most significant technological innovations in my golfing career, my list would look like this:
1) Balls
2) Drivers
3) Putters
4) Irons and Wedges
I'd probably rank hybrids #3 if I had been playing any golf the last few years. I definitely want to get a 3-hybrid and retire the Callaway 3-iron, which has been a huge disappointment, but playing as little as I have I've had little inclination to do so. So if I'm playing competitive (or any) golf 6 years from now, I'll probably take the opportunity to upgrade my entire set: move on to Mizuno irons and wedges (the brand I ended up not going with when I made my big failed iron switch earlier this decade), try to find the right mix of woods and hybrids to go with the new irons, and probably try out the new putters while I'm at it to see if I like any better than my White Hot #2. Or maybe by then I'll just be playing virtual golf on the Wii. Who knows? All I know is that if the new rules hurt the longer, wilder players in any way, shape, or form, I'm for them, but I just don't see them having much of an impact on my game.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
Infomercial for the New World Order
Don't worry! Be happy! Get civilized! Free introductory starter package. Financing available from selected customers.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Constructivist Family Sing-along: My Grandfather's Clock
Actually never heard of this until the Full Metal Archivist got curious about the English lyrics to the song she was teaching onechan in Japanese. Thought I'd include some things I found along the way, just to show that I can at times be more than a one-note blogger during the golf season! (But how about that Paula Creamer making 4 birdies on her last 5 holes to overtake Jeong Jang at the Fields Open? Wow!)
First the Johnny Cash version:
Interesting how the grandfather basically calls for...robots near the 1876 song's end, eh?
Then some Vanilla Mood:
Next, the daikon slide whistle:
And finally, the MTV generation learns Japanese:
No, wait--let's not forget the NHK generation!
In Japan, the song is all about the loyalty of the clock (kinda like that song about the dog), whereas in America the same general idea gets expressed more negatively. Any historians have a bead on the cultural politics of the song as a post-slavery lament? Or have a sense of its transmission lines to Meiji Japan and just how and when it got transformed in translation?
First the Johnny Cash version:
Interesting how the grandfather basically calls for...robots near the 1876 song's end, eh?
Then some Vanilla Mood:
Next, the daikon slide whistle:
And finally, the MTV generation learns Japanese:
No, wait--let's not forget the NHK generation!
In Japan, the song is all about the loyalty of the clock (kinda like that song about the dog), whereas in America the same general idea gets expressed more negatively. Any historians have a bead on the cultural politics of the song as a post-slavery lament? Or have a sense of its transmission lines to Meiji Japan and just how and when it got transformed in translation?
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