My Favorite Shots from The Blizzard of 2014

I've been tweeting some blizzard photos over @mlyhlssgolf (featuring such immortal hashtags as #futilitymeetexercise, #moveoverSisyphus, and #blizzardhacks), but that doesn't allow me to arrange related shots.  So here's a little tour of The Constructivist Family's neighborhood from Tuesday to Friday.

Let's start with the view from right near the end of my driveway on Wednesday morning.

Compare it to the view from my neighbor's flat roof looking in the opposite direction from a few houses to the right of mine relative to the previous picture.  This one was taken Friday morning.

Next up are a couple of shots of our front entryway (which fortunately we never use anyway), first from Wednesday morning (in the aftermath of round 1) and next from Thursday night (in the midst of round 2):

The snow and ice formations on our back roof were strange and beautiful.  The first 2 are from Wednesday morning:

This one's from just about 25 hours later:

Let's go back to some street views, these ones featuring my trusty shovel (which for maybe the 2nd time since we moved to Hamburg actually needed an assist from a neighbor's snowblower)!  First from Thursday morning (this one I did by myself); you can see half of the neighbor's house across the street that kicked off this photoessay:

Next is the same time, opposite point-of-view:

Here's a close-up from Friday morning:

I was excited because I had just reached the edge of my driveway.  Yup, I probably spent about 5 hours just shovelling off the road this week.  The plows just couldn't keep the streets their normal width.

So here are my 3 favorite shots of the week.  The first is from about lunchtime on Wednesday, when I had cleared my flat roof off for the 2nd time of the week and all seemed well with the world:

Next up is an action shot from Tuesday (while onechan and imoto were still excited about playing outside!):

I'm nostalgic for how low those mounds at the end of my driveway were back then!  Didn't realize my shovel photobombed that shot until just now, either!

Here's the Full Metal Archivist wishing everyone a good night yesterday evening:

Here's hoping this turns out to be the worst one we have to deal with in our entire time in Hamburg!

[Update (2:58 pm):  Onechan has other ideas.  After the Full Metal Archivist and I cleared enough snow off our garage roof that the girls could climb up onto and slide down it safely, she exclaimed, "This is the best day ever!!  I can't wait for the next huge storm!"  Here are some photos from this morning:

And to top it off:

Yup, hot chocolate and the FMA's own twist on kimchi jigae!]

Farewell, Dai-chan: Daisuke Takahashi Retires from Competitive Figure Skating

The Constructivist household is in mourning for the retirement of Daisuke Takahashi from competitive figure skating.  Ever since we found out, I've been asking the Full Metal Archivist to write something celebrating his career, but she's still dealing with the shock of the news and is just too sad to put her feelings into words.  What she has told me has been poetic:  "he flirted with the music, seduced audiences, and challenged judges...he was a shaman on the ice."  So I'll just point you too her April 2010 "Luv Letter" for now.  More on his legacy later!

Evian Championship Sunday: Hyo Joo Kim Beats Karrie Webb on 72nd Hole on Network TV...and I Miss It!

Hyo Joo Kim looked to be in control of the Evian Championship for much of the final round, despite charges by Na Yeon Choi and Ha Na Jang, and an eagle-par-birdie run by Mi Jung Hur, but right about the time Golf Channel coverage switched over to NBC, things changed dramatically.  Even as Karrie Webb's birdie barrage in the middle of her round--5 birdies between the 9th and 15th holes that got the LPGA legend to -11--put the pressure on the 19-year-old KLPGA superstar, Kim bogeyed both par 3s on the back to drop from -12 to -10.  And even as Choi, Jang, and Hur faltered down the stretch, the tournament came down to the 72nd hole.

Not that I got to see any of it.  I was behind on my DVRed Golf Channel coverage and only found out about the switch to network tv a half-hour after its coverage had ended.  So I didn't get to see how Kim stuck her approach on the final hole and sank her 12-foot birdie attempt while Webb's approach failed to fade and she failed to get up and down from the fringe to force a playoff.  I didn't get to see the look on Webb's face down the home stretch as she was trying to become the 1st golfer to ever win 6 different major championships.  I didn't get to see Kim's body language as she was trying to become the 3rd youngest winner of an LPGA major.  At least I'll have highlights--some time.

But on a day the Buffalo Bills went 2-0 and my entire neighborhood was cheerful, I spent most of the afternoon annoyed at myself that I never double-checked LPGA.com or my tv listings.  That's what I get for purposely staying off the web (after posting on 20-year-old Ai Suzuki's record-breaking major victory on the JLPGA, that is!) so that I could savor the final-round drama!

My Picks for the Canadian Pacific Women's Open

Between the imminent start of the semester and the return to Western NY of my lovely ladies after nearly 2 months in Japan--not to mention needing to finish N.K. Jemisin's Inheritance trilogy and Guy Gavriel Kay's 2 amazing historical fantasy novels set in China (Under Heaven and River of Stars), as well as finish binge-watching Parks and Recreation before my students, colleagues, and family take up most of my time and attention--my post-Wegmans week has been packed already, so I'm rushing out my picks for the Canadian Pacific Women's Open tonight:

1. Ko
2. Park Inbee
3. Pettersen
4. Lewis, Stacy
5. Feng Shanshan
6. Kerr
7. Ryu
8. Thompson
9. Munoz
10. Nordqvist
11. Lincicome
12. Lee Mirim

Alts: Choi Chella; Stanford; Yang

So go with Tony Jesselli's this week rather than mine!  Would love to sneak up to London, Ontario, on Sunday, but going to have to get a lot done the next 3 days for that to happen....

What a Week!

Anyone following me on twitter knows that I happened to be at my favorite Korean restaurant in Western New York last night when the repeat winner of the Wegmans LPGA Championship happened to drop by.  Smooth as always in the presence of greatness, I stammered out a quiet "Congratulations, Inbee," as she walked by.  She took the time to thank me.  And that was that.

It's sad to think that nobody knows when the LPGA will return to Rochester.  I was so busy chasing golfers yesterday that the only player I got to interview was Mina Harigae, and then only for a couple of minutes after her most frustrating round of the week.  So to all the players I've followed, or interviewed, and sometimes even gotten to know a bit over the last several years in Pittsford--particularly Ai Miyazato, Mika Miyazato, Moira Dunn, Paula Creamer, Morgan Pressel, Tiffany Joh, Danielle Kang, Lizette Salas, Jane Park, Jennifer Song, Na Yeon Choi, In-Kyung Kim, Amy Yang, Momoko Ueda, Chie Arimura, Ayako Uehara, and Harukyo Nomura--thanks for everything you do!  And hope to see you competing in Rochester again soon!

Wegmans LPGA Championship Friday: Lydia Ko Gets to -5; Will Anyone Else Be There at the End of the Day?

Well, I'm back in Pittsford after failing to qualify for the New York State Mid-Amateur--and failing miserably.  Feel free to skip the next 2 paragraphs if you don't come here to hear me moan about my game.  And count yourself lucky it's as short as it is--I entertained myself on the ride here from Tuscarora by composing much longer and meaner posts in my head.  Obviously doing so didn't completely get the round out of my system....  Maybe the next paragraph will...or the one after that.

I was -3 after 3 holes and just missed a 30-foot birdie try on the 618-yard par-5 4th, then managed to miss the 4-foot comebacker and the 18-incher right after that for my 1st 4-putt of the year and 1st of 4 doubles on the day.  Even after double #2 on the next hole, a shorter par 5--from 12 feet away from the hole in 3, just off the green, no less--I hung in there and managed to shoot a 40 on the front when I avoided my 3rd double of the side on the 9th hole thanks to my 6th 1-putt of the side.  But I fell apart on the back, hitting only 1 fairway (and doubling that par 5, too, to add insult to injury) and ending up at the bottom of the pack.

It was a true Jekyll and Hyde round.  I was E for 9 holes and +15 for 9 holes.  In addition to my 4-putt, I had 3 3-putts (all on the back, and all due to badly-judged and/or -executed approach shots that left me facing monster putts with mega-undulations or hills to deal with), but I also had 7 1-putts and made all kinds of pressure putts to save 2-putts.  Tuscarora easily had the fastest greens of any I've played all year--and unlike last year I made a point to regularly play courses with fast greens this year, so I can't say I wasn't used to it.  But it was really my inability to handle the pressure of needing to put together a solid back 9 and absolutely butchering 3 short par 4s in a row to start it that killed me today.  For some reason I couldn't figure out how to avoid pull-hooks all day and I didn't do a great job clubbing myself, either.  Oh well, for what will probably be my last round of 2014, it was pretty representative of the good and the bad in my game this season.  Glad to put it out of its misery.

Given my mood, let's start my focus on the 2nd round of the Wegmans LPGA Championship with more bad news.  2 of my favorite golfers, Ai Miyazato and Mika Miyazato, will be missing the cut.  They battled all day, but a couple of late bogeys for each of them did them both in.  I'm also sad to see Amy Yang and Jeong Jang missing the cut.  It's not looking good for other faves like Moira Dunn, Paula Creamer, or Morgan Pressel, and rookies like Yueer Cindy Feng and Amy Anderson are on the wrong side of it at +3 right now.

On the bright side, Lydia Ko fired a 6-birdie 69 to move to -5 for the week, Tiffany Joh a 4-birdie 70 to get to -2, and Danielle Kang a 5-birdie 73 to hang in there at -1.  Plus Ya Ni Tseng, Jennifer Song, and Ayako Uehara will make the cut.  There are others golfers I particularly root for out on the course right now whom I don't want to jinx, so enough said about them for now.  The big question obviously is whether the bomb squad of Brittany Lincicome and Lexi Thompson will be able to continue threading the needle at Monroe Golf Club and finish the halfway point of the tournament ahead of Ko.  And whether the fighting Lees (Meena and Ilhee) will be able to finish their rounds ahead of last week's winner Mirim when all is said and done today.  And whether Inbee Park will be able to bounce back from losing to Lee as well as Suzann Pettersen did today.  Actually, there are a whole lot more questions than that, but I have to burn off this negative energy by following Chie Arimura as she finishes her round.  More later!

[Update 1 (7:41 pm):  Well, Lincicome played fantastic golf today, eagling the par-5 14th to get to -9 and staying there over her last 4 holes.  Lexi didn't play quite as well, but she did birdie the par-5 3rd to get back to -7 after finishing the back (her front) bogey-bogey.  Unfortunately, she bogeyed the par-3 6th and couldn't birdie 8 or 9, so she's tied with freakin' Inbee Park, who birdied 3 of her 1st 4 holes on the front and parred in to match Lexi and Meena Lee's 66s from yesterday.  But it's Julieta Granada who holds the 18-hole record at Monroe GC for this tournament, as she fired a bogey-free 65 today!!  She's tied with Pettersen, Shanshan Feng, Mirim Lee, Beatriz Recari, and Jennifer Johnson at -4.  And how about her fellow Park, Jane, who birdied 3 of her last 7 holes (on the front) to catch Ko at -5?!]

[Update 2 (7:54 pm):  I'm pleased and saddened to report the Mostly Harmless jinx is only at half strength today.  Pleased for Chie Arimura, who bounced back from a devastating double on the tough par-3 13th with 5-straight pars to make the cut on the number.  And saddened for Reilley Rankin, who scrambled her butt off after making a tap-in birdie on 10 to get to +2, but couldn't get the last up-and-down she needed on 18 and missed it by a shot.

I hate to say it, but that was among the easier attempts Rankin had coming home.  On 14, she swiped her 2nd shot right and it ended up in dirt near a green-side tree.  After maybe-purposely exploding it from the dirt (she looked concerned about a root and conferred with her caddie to be sure how she wanted to play the shot) and coming up short of the green, she punched a nice wedge to 4 feet and made the tester.  Then she left what looked like a 25-footer on 15 3 feet short and sank another key par save.  Then she was between clubs--3-hybrid or 4-hybrid--and chose the longer one while the wind was gusting.  But it died during her swing and she powered it through what was left and almost bounced it onto the 17th tee.  She played a classic Texas wedge to 3 feet and made it to stay on track.  Then on 17 she pulled her approach badly but was lucky enough to fly it a foot past Death Valley (that really deep trap left of the green that must be 20 feet below its surface).  She made another good chip, but it ran about 8 feet by and she made the putt to stay alive.  Then on 18 she left it in the front-right fringe and misjudged her putt up the gully or swale or ditch or whatever you want to call it that runs diagonally up the green, leaving it barely halfway to the pin tucked in the back-left corner of the lower tier.  That left her at least 18 feet, but the putt died left and low in the last foot or so.  And just like that, she was done for the week.

Of course the club pro Alison Curdt had a tough time out there, but she hit a lot of good shots and made several good chips and putts.  I got to see her make 2 of her 3 birdies on the day (on 10 and 14), plus she parred 13, so she shouldn't feel bad about her 79.

I'm devoting a separate post to Arimura's game, but 1st I have to grab something to eat you-know-where!]

[Update 3 (11:31 pm):  Home sweet home!  Finally!  Entertained myself on the ride home thinking of tweets I could do with #thisisyourbrainongolf as the hashtag.  As in:

• disaster flashback and/or premonition in middle of downswing #thisisyourbrainongolf
• Someone screamed "boo!" in the middle of my downswing. Oh. It was my brain. #thisisyourbrainongolf
• Never point to the sand trap that would have cost you your 3rd double of the 9 after saving bogey with a 15-footer and mouth "FU" to it. #47onback9 #thisisyourbrainongolf
• "Dear God, why do I have to suck so hard at a game I love so much?" #thisisyourbrainongolf

Don't know if all would stay at or under 140 characters, but you get the picture!  Why don't you tweet your own?  Let's vent together!]

[Update 4 (8/16/14, 12:36 pm):  Yes!  Mina Harigae made the cut!  Xi Yu Lin gets to play with Laura Davies later today!  Mo Martin and Kristy McPherson get to show the world how precision players handle moving day!  And the Jane Park is paired with Lexi.  So many good pairings to follow tomorrow.  I think I'll spread the Mostly Harmless jinx around by only following folks for 3 or 6 holes at a time.  First victims (if I wake up in time):  Salas, Arimura, Uehara.]

Wegmans LPGA Championship Day 2: Rain, Rain Go Away!

It rained pretty hard overnight here in the Rochester area and we've got a hurricane-like cell slowly rotating around us, so the media center here at Monroe Golf Club is still pretty quiet.  My plan is to survey the back 9 and write up my scouting reports before I head out around 5.  Let's see if I can stick to it!

Wegmans LPGA Championship Day 1: Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

The best-laid plans of mice and golf bloggers....  As you can see by the time stamp on this post, I'm about an hour later to the media tent than I expected to be.  I have about 2 hours to orient myself on Monroe Golf Club and maybe scout out the front nine.  I'm off!

[Update 1 (8/12/14, 9:07 am):  Well, I did get to check out the putting green and driving range (right next to each other, an improvement on Locust Hill although there could be crowding issues on the range, which seems a lot smaller than Locust Hill's), where I saw Inbee Park, among others, putting, and Ya Ni Tseng and Ryann O'Toole, among others, hitting balls.  Then I had just enough time to scout the entire front 9 (on which more in a separate post), catching glimpses of Jessica Korda, Marina Alex, Pernilla Lindberg, and Joanna Klatten as I made my way.  Finally, I took my friend who's putting me up out to our favorite Korean restaurant in Rochester and, in addition to great food, we also got to wish Ya Ni Tseng luck this week!  Just a typical day in Rochester when the LPGA's in town!  Hard to believe this could be the last year it happens for quite some time.]

Holding My Breath...

...on the latest handicap revision from GHIN!  For the first time in my adult life, my handicap index may rise high enough to disqualify me from even entering a qualifier for the New York State Golf Association's Mid-Amateur Championship.  Long story short, I hurt my lower back working out late last fall and even though I've worked really hard at healing and rehabbing it, it's still not quite right.  So I've been fiddling around with my swing and haven't been able to get everything synchronized.  My touch from 60 yards and in is finally starting to come back, so I've been scoring better of late, but my putting has ranged from horrific to mediocre for most of the season.

As you can see, I've been saving up excuses.  Will let you know in a few hours if I'm in or out!

[Update 1 (7/30/14, 10:50 am):  Wait, the next revision isn't till August 1st.  So I guess the question is should I play before I fly out to Austin?]

In Which I Complain About My Game

Failed to qualify for the New York State Men's Amateur Championship today at Drumlins East.  Finished near the bottom of the pack thanks to inaccurate approach shots, terrible lag putting, and way too many missed comebackers.  At least I was only +2 my last 7 holes, but even then I missed the 2 easiest short putts of the 7 makeable ones that I missed all day.  'Nuff said!

So Who Won the Super Bowl?

So I'm here in Albany for my union's delegate assembly and had to go to bed early because I'm driving across the state this morning to make it back for my university's senate meeting.  Got up early to finish writing a letter of recommendation for an awesome student for a system-wide award and just realized I don't even know who won the Super Bowl.  How awful is that?

Merry QSMS from Mostly Harmless!

QSMS is of course how onechan first tried to spell Christmas.  Speaking of which, we don't celebrate it in this Jewish-Buddhist-not-very-religious Constructivist household--and imoto doesn't like it.  So she hung up one of her socks by the fireplace and tried to stay up for Santa as long as she could.  I was glad for the company while I was up grading (she was paging through some Simpsons comic books I took out from the local library until they put her right to sleep, but before that we had a fun discussion on whether Santa is real).

Ah, I should call it a night so I'm fresh for Mongolian buffet for dinner tonight!  Hope your Christmas is going to be as awesome as ours....

Fortunately, the Defrost

So we got over 8" of snow here in Hamburg in what feels like the 1st winter storm since 2010 not to suddenly weaken, veer off, or blow through too fast to do much damage.  And more may be coming.  Yada yada yada.  That's life in western NY.  Or at least life like it oughtta be this time of year.  That's not the weird thing.

The weird thing is that my Versa's defrost went haywire on my way to work this morning and it turned out to be serious enough that I had to get the car towed and will have to pay a boatload of money to get it fixed.  Bad luck, right?  Well, yeah, but at least I was lucky enough to semi-glide my way to a place to park the car until I could sort things out--lucky not to slide off the road or into the oncoming lane when I was navigating via peering out my driver's side window, that is.  But that's not the weirder thing.

The weirder thing is that my Versa's defrost went haywire about a mile before I hit the Thruway entrance on my way to work this morning, at a time that prevented me from renting a car to get down to Fredonia.  Snow day!  And a pretty good day for it, as there were so many accidents between Hamburg and Dunkirk on the Thruway that they shut down that section of it.

The odds were pretty decent that I might have been involved in one of those accidents.  And even better that I would have been stranded in Fredonia overnight--the same night Onechan and Imoto's cousin from Okinawa (whom I'll call Onichan) arrived (safely, if an hour late) for a month-long stay with us.

As it was, I got to experience the utter weirdness of having shovelled the snow out of my driveway into piles up to my chest in places and an hour later driving completely dry roads just 20 miles north on the way to the Buffalo airport.  In fact, there was barely any snow at the Wegmans at which we do most of our grocery shopping just 5 miles north of us.  Even the Erie County Fairgrounds about a mile north of us got a lot less snow than we did in the village.

That was the weirdest thing.  Too bad Onichan was too jet-lagged to really appreciate it.

Detroit 2, Constructivist Family 2

I've gotta admit I can't tell a quad from a triple unless Skate America, NBC Sports, or every freakin' skate blogger/tweeter on the planet points it out to me (just search #SA2013), but I can tell you a little bit about what the Constructivist family's Detroit road trip has been like so far.

Like how we avoided another traffic jam on the 75 and got to the men's practice session just about on time by freelancing it through some pretty scary neighborhoods on the way to the Joe Louis Arena (score 1 for Team Constructivist).  Or how we again enjoyed the Detroit People Mover and had another great dinner, but this one gave The Full Metal Archivist stomach trouble (score 1 for Detroit).  Or how cool it was to watch Adam Rippon and Jason Brown rock their short programs, then get smoked by Tatsuki Machida (whose name has been pronounced seemingly every way but right by the rink announcers), but how disappointing it was when our fave Daisuke Takahashi couldn't bring his jumping to the level of his artistry on the ice right after Machida's brilliant performance (score another for Detroit).  Or how much the girls enjoyed dancing around after the practice skates, riding the People Mover, and getting make-up done and pictures taken at the fake Puffs kiss and cry area between the men's skate and the dance competition (score 1 more for the Constructivist family).

Instead, though, let me focus on how amazing Meryl Davis and Charlie White are.  So many couples skated so awesomely.  The Reeds got a season best and still ended up in 6th, while the Shibutanis did the same and looked to be in great position at 61.26 and 1st of 6 teams.  Until the Italians beat them by 8 points, that is.  Facing the same kind of pressure that Takahashi did, Davis and White made it look effortless, elegant, charming, sophisticated, romantic, and athletic.  Like Takahashi, they have a level of artistry and body control and musical interpretation that is truly their own.  Unlike Takahashi, their biggest rivals (Moir/Virtue) weren't competing against them.  But sometimes it's as tough being the favorite--especially in front of a home crowd--as it is being the most popular skater in the world who's fighting for a spot in his 3rd Olympics against 5 other world-class Japanese skaters.

I'll close with some video and some notes, first on Machida:



I was repeatedly impressed by how much air this guy gets.  I wonder if he can dunk...

Rippon:



Loved his reaction at the end! Maybe he can take a page from Adam Scott's book and get a big win today!

Aaron:



Man, he practices hard. He was the only one going full-bore in the morning practice session. Hey, he's young, he can handle it.  (Me, I'm officially in my mid-40s and walking like someone in his mid-80s.  I'm beginning to think my back won't be better by the time we leave Detroit.)

Shibutanis:


I hope onechan and imoto learn from these siblings how to appreciate each other and work together!  Have I mentioned that imoto's discovered moodiness and loves to needle onechan into overreacting and getting in trouble?  Seriously, I don't usually like brother-sister pairs on ice, but these two picked some great music and skated their hearts out!

In closing, Jason Brown has it all:  flexibility, jumping ability, artistry, personality.  Don't be surprised if he wins this thing.

Detroit 1, Constructivist Family 1

The Constructivist Family loves Detroit!

Sure, Detroit scored first against us when construction and a pair of accidents that slowed traffic to a crawl on the way to our hotel just north of the city added about a half hour to our road trip, but we did get to the Joe Louis Arena in time to catch the tail end of Daisuke Takahashi, Takahiko Kozuka, and Tatsuke Machida's practice session and then got to see the rest of the men (we were most excited about Jason Brown, Adam Rippon, and Max Aaron) and all the ice dancers (most notably, from our perspective, Davis and White, the Reeds, and the Shibutanis).  We got our pick of awesome seats and imoto and I got to explore almost every nook and cranny of the arena.  Plus, following her around actually helped loosen up my back!

Afterwards, we explored downtown via the Detroit People Mover, a cute little monorail that took us straight to a restaurant named after one of my favorite bands (not Tool, not Radiohead, think New Orleans-style food...).  I'm not naming them directly because although we loved the place and had a great meal, imoto got a burger with some mold on the bun.  This is where we scored against Detroit because the manager made imoto's meal and ice cream sundaes for the girls all free.  So you can see why we're looking forward to exploring more of downtown tomorrow.  There's a gap between the last of the practices tomorrow and the start of the competition at 7 pm, and the weather for my birthday looks like it'll be much better than today.  Maybe we'll do the River Walk, maybe we'll find another restaurant to check out.

We'll get our first look at the ladies and the pairs tomorrow afternoon and we'll see more of the men and dancers before them.  I'm curious to see whether and how their practices are different from today's, what with the start of the competition for them coming in the evening....

The Golf Gods, They Are Jealous Gods

I'm telling you, it seems like every time The Constructivist Family is about to take one of our patented road trips/pilgrimages to the site of a major international skating competition lately, my body betrays me.  This past spring, an awful stomach bug had me doubled over in pain and dazed for most of the World Figure Skating Championships.  And now this morning, I tweaked my back at the gym so bad that I had to shamble/shuffle/limp/grimace my way through the last day of work before the start of our fall break, which The Full Metal Archivist, onechan, imoto and I will be enjoying in scenic Detroit while we occupy Skate America.

All I can say is, thank you very much, golf gods.  It's not enough that you torment me on the course and deploy the Mostly Harmless jinx against my favorite golfers--no, now you also have to go and punish me for following Daisuke Takahashi and Mao Asada and the rest of the skaters there for a few days!  I get it:  the way the Skate America schedule works out, I'll probably be able to watch only the final round of this week's LPGA/KLPGA tournament, and probably only part of it at that--and that's only if the hotel we switch to on Sunday has Golf Channel.  So I guess I deserve this lower back pain and stiffness by some sick, twisted logic--you know, the kind you golf gods specialize in.

But hear this, o ye golf gods:  we splurged for all-access tickets and, by gum, we shall use them!  We're cutting through Canada early tomorrow morning and plan to be in the Joe Louis Arena by noon!  It's not like I've broken my back like American skater Max Aaron did a few years ago....

How Do You Make 4 Birdies and End Up with an 82?

Hey kids, here's a little golf tip from the Constructivist!  If you ever go a month without touching your clubs, head out to the course on a nice fall morning with no expectations, snag 3 birdies in 4 holes as you make the turn to fight back to +1 through 10 holes (one of your best starts of the year), face the toughest hole on the course (a 230-yard uphill par 3 with an elevated tee that's surrounded by trees with a creek and a mini-gorge all the way up the left), and happen to hit your 1st really bad shot of the day (yanking a 3-wood dead left off the tee), try to keep your temper.  Whatever you do, don't try to bang the ground with your club and miss, hitting your left leg a few inches above the ankle instead!  That's called adding injury to insult.

Somehow, I ended up salvaging a double, but it turned out to be the 1st of 4 on the back.  The weird thing is, I had just managed to play through my 2nd group of the day, I had the rest of the back open ahead of me, with scoring opportunities galore to boot, and the double on 11 with my Callaway ball actually brought the Titleist ball I was also playing back into the match, so I should have been able to shrug it off and enjoy the rest of the round.  But between the pain, the heat, my soreness from basketball the day before, my being out of golf shape (physically and mentally), and my lack of a snack, I lost my tempo and my temper quite a bit on the back 9.  It wasn't long before I went from limping along to stumbling home.  I was in such a fog by the end of the day that I couldn't even enjoy my birdie on the short par 5 17th, despite the fact that it's a very rare thing for me to make 4 of 'em in an 11-hole stretch.

Good news is, my leg is going to be fine and so is my game next year.  I've already gained some length from a month at the new gym and some tips from a trainer there who also works at a private club in the area, even though I was only sometimes able to swing like I was supposed to with the move from my 1st lessons in a decade that I thought I had grooved over the summer.  Despite the sorry shape of South Shore's greens, they were actually much improved from a month ago and I took only 28 putts, a rare departure from what's been my Achilles heel this summer.  If I can keep to my workout schedule and do a lot of indoor putting with onechan and imoto this winter, I'll be ready to make 2014 my best season ever.  At least, that's what I'm telling myself if this turns out to be my last round of 2013!

We're--gulp--Leaving for Oak Hill at 4:45 am Friday

Put this one in the "I can't believe we're doing this" file.  Onechan and imoto just told the Full Metal Archivist and me that they want to see Ryo Ishikawa tee off at Oak Hill's 10th hole at 7:15 tomorrow morning.  The plan is to catch one of the first shuttles and follow him as long as the girls can stand it, then wait to watch some of the big names behind him, get to the 18th to see him finish, and then catch up with my parents, my brother, and the girls' cousins at lunchtime.  We'll play it by ear after that, although I really want to watch Hideki Matsuyama.  So it's an early night for us.  More when we get back home late tomorrow!

Fortunately, Unfortunately

So I failed to qualify for the New York State Golf Association's Men Amateur Championship yesterday at Wayne Hills in Lyons, NY.  Let's do the rundown in the form of "fortunately, unfortunately" to make it at least mildly entertaining for some people.

Fortunately, I didn't embarrass myself this time (as I did in pretty much all my tournaments last year).  I actually beat the two members of the St. John Fisher's golf team I was paired with (they had bad days for them, while I actually had a pretty good day for me).  I shot a respectable 81 and it was about the highest I could have scored given how well I struck the ball.

Unfortunately, I missed the cut by 8 shots.  This qualifier had the lowest medalist scores (3-under 69s) and lowest qualifying scores (1-over 73s).  There was about a 1% probability I could have scored that low that day, given that I was 5-over after 4 holes!

Fortunately, I bounced back from a bad start (caused mostly by a hacking triple on a long par 3 and some shaky putting and ball-striking over the previous 3 holes), going only 4-over over my final 14 holes.  In fact, except for the 2 holes on which I had sand-related disasters (1 early on each side), I was 4-over for my other 16 holes.

Unfortunately, my putter let me down repeatedly on the front and at key times on the back, as well.

Fortunately, I did putt well enough to make a couple of nice par saves and a birdie on the 2nd-toughest hole on the course.

Unfortunately, despite all 4 of Wayne Hills's par 5s being short, I failed to birdie any of them and actually 3-putted the 9th for a bogey when I flared a 3/4 wedge way right on an easy approach that should have resulted in a birdie opportunity.

Fortunately, my overall ball-striking, especially off the tee and with my long irons and hybrids, was the best it's been all season and maybe better than anything I was doing last year, too.  I hit 12 of 14 fairways and just missed the two I did miss.  I hit 8 greens, was on the fringe of a good number of others, and gave myself a handful of really good looks at birdie.

Unfortunately, those two fairways I missed forced me to play defensively on my approach shots on the 1st and last holes, leading to bogeys when I failed to get up and down on both holes from near the green.  In fact, my overall chipping and pitching was pretty sub-par (and not in a good way) all day.  And how many birdie putts did I misread or leave dead center and short?  All of the good looks!

Fortunately, I was clubbing myself really well all day, so at least I didn't have to chip or pitch all that often and had a lot of chances for birdie.

Unfortunately, I had a key mis-club late in the round when I needed to keep giving myself birdie chances and went over the green by 10 yards.  No caddie to blame for that one, either!

Fortunately, despite a bad pitch, that was one of the 2 holes when I made a putt I normally shouldn't and wouldn't have made.  That was on top of a playing partner making a miracle birdie from near-OB in the mud under a tree after duck hooking a drive and a provisional that both looked OB from the tee.  So it was a pretty cool moment for both of us.

Unfortunately, we didn't have enough of those cool moments to finish in the top 2/3 of the field.

Fortunately, given that I hadn't even broken 40 for 9 holes until a few days before the tournament (two of them coming when I took onechan out for her 1st-ever complete 9 hole-round and I played two balls while she shot a 107 with 39 putts, not counting whiffs!), given that it rained so much the two days before it I couldn't even practice or play either day, and given how wet the course was and how little roll I was getting, I was actually pretty happy to have given myself a good chance not only to break 80 but to get into the mid-70s.

Unfortunately, I wasn't sharp enough or able to handle tournament pressure well enough to actually shoot a number that would have put me close to contending for qualifying.  My putting was no better than C+ that day; if it had been even close to my A- in ball-striking, I might have had a shot.

Fortunately, I know what I need to work on and what I need to get used to doing.  Shifting to South Shore as my home course has definitely made me more comfortable on the kinds of courses I'll be playing in tournaments in July and August.  And it made a ~6600-yard, soaking wet, tree-lined, and narrow course like Wayne Hills something I could handle on less than 10 rounds in 2013 thus far (and most of those made up of cobbled-together 9-hole rounds on different days).

So overall, I'm going to focus on the positives, hope western and central NY courses dry out in July and August, and get ready for my next tournaments!

Constructivist Family Highs and Lows on Wegmans LPGA Championship Sunday

I saw Ai Miyazato hit 1 shot at the 2013 Wegmans LPGA Championship, a beautiful fairway wood on the 11th hole at Locust Hill, her 2nd hole of the final round and 20th of her day.  At the time, I had no idea she had just doubled the difficult downhill 10th, or would fail to birdie the par 5 but would go on to make her 8th, 9th, and 10th birdies of the day over the course of the back 9 to move from +5 to -2 and into contention yet again in Pittsford, or would falter over her final 9 with 3 bogeys and only 1 birdie to extend her streak of non-wins at LPGA majors to 34 starts.

Nope, I was with onechan at the time, following Paula Creamer, Lydia Ko, and Jennifer Rosales.  We had wandered over from the 17th fairway to the 11th against onechan's wishes because I had figured out that Ai-sama's group had just hit their drives, but she made the best of the situation by calling out "Gambatte-ne!" to Ai-sama before she started sizing up her 2nd shot.  The wave we got from my favorite golfer was one of my high points of the day, but for onechan it was just one of many cool moments, like the chances she and imoto got to ride a shuttle bus, the smiles she got from Paula Creamer (whom she had followed for 15+ holes during last year's final round) at different times while she and I followed her for most of the back 9 of the final round, the golf ball Mika Miyazato rolled to her on the 1st tee a little while later after onechan had seized the opportunity to send a "Gambatte-ne!" her way, the signatures she got from Kristy McPherson, Moira Dunn, Ya Ni Tseng, and others on her floppy pink hat towards the end of the day, the chance to see Ai-sama again at our favorite Korean restaurant in Rochester early that evening, or, her favorite moment, when Paula stopped to ask her her name, age, and favorite color.

Sure, I could have gone straight to find Ai-sama on the front 9 when we first arrived at Locust Hill and the girls were having fun at the play area and Wegmans loot tent with their mom, but by the time I realized what a great 3rd round she was having, I had already committed to following Chie Arimura (who got it to -2 with 19 holes left to play, but doubled 18, tripled 4, and sprinkled 3 other bogeys into her final round to plummet out of contention), Michelle Wie, and Shanshan Feng on the back.  I had thought the Full Metal Archivist would take both girls to follow imoto's favorite player, Ji-Yai Shin, when she and Amy Yang and Sarah Jane Smith had hit the 11th tee, so that I would get more time with the Arimura threesome, but the FMA wasn't handling the heat well and understood the flow of play worse, so had ended up tiring the girls out walking up and down the 10th and 18th hills after they had gotten bored with the free shopping and eating.  As a result, I had to backtrack back to the loot tent sooner than I expected go meet up with them and decide what to do next, which was for imoto and the FMA to camp out in the shade by the 17th green while onechan and I caught up with Paula's group.  By the time onechan and I returned to 17 from doing just that, the FMA and imoto had taken the opportunity to follow Shin's group up 18, gotten Shin's autograph and a ball from Yang, and booked down the hill again and crossed Jefferson Road to rendezvous with us.

Again, I could have had us all wait for Ai-sama's group to reach us there at 17, but Mika Miyazato, Caroline Hedwall, and Belen Mozo rolled in just as we got settled in and onechan and I decided to follow them on 18 and 1, before peeling away back up the #2 and #3 hill to get back to the FMA and imoto, who was getting stir-crazy at the 17th green (but had gotten a chance to see Ai-sama, which is more than I could say!).  Given that Mika was -2 on her final round, had just missed a short birdie putt on 17 (I just realized it would have been her 9th in her previous 21 holes!) and made a great up-and-down from about 100 yards out on 18, it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.  I could always get the ladies situated by the putting green to collect as many autographs and balls as they could while I caught back up with Mika and then followed Ai-sama for her closing holes on the front.  But even that plan didn't work out all that well, as the FMA was feeling exhausted by the time onechan and I got back to the 17th green and needed to get out of the sun, so we wasted almost an hour trying to figure out where to pick up the shuttle to take us back to the back-up media lot before realizing we were better off hitting the loot tent and just staying on the course as long as the FMA and girls could hold up.  By the time we made it back to the putting green area, and I could look for Mika's group, they were finishing up #6, so all I got to see was Mika missing 2 short birdie putts in a row on 7 and 8 and making a great par save on 9 to preserve her 72 (she had been done in by a bogey on 1, a double on 4, and those 3 missed short birdie putts I saw).  After taping the Japanese media's interviews with Mika, I was all set to finally backtrack to Ai-sama's group, when I thought I'd better drop by the putting green on the way to see how everyone was doing.

And that's when my plans went out the window.  Turns out while I was awkwardly interviewing Mika in English, onechan had incited imoto to make a dash across the empty putting green, so by the time I got there, the FMA was furious, onechan was crying, and imoto was trying to blend into the background to minimize the trouble she was in with her mom.  A volunteer graciously brought ice cream bars for the girls and we got them away from Golf Channel's interview booth, but the damage had been done.  One look at the FMA's face was enough to convince me I wasn't going back out on the course.  No way I would get a chance to see Tiffany Joh or Ayako Uehara or Mina Harigae hit a shot or 2 as I made my way back to Ai-sama's group.  No way the family could even hang out together in the 9th- or 18th-green grandstands and watch the rest of the groups come in.  Nope, it was time to back up my wife's disciplinary strategy, get everyone back to the car and into a restaurant, and get us all fueled up, cooled off, and calmed down.

So, yeah, not only did I miss Ai-sama, but I didn't even know there was a playoff going on until the end of our meal (and I didn't even find out its results until after we got home, woke the girls up for a quick bath and teeth-brushing, and got them to bed).  But what a meal it was!  It started with us getting seated right behind Se Ri Pak, waving hi to Ai-sama midway through our meal as she and her manager Takumi Zaoya walked into the restaurant, trying hard not to react as Ji-Yai Shin joined Se Ri a few minutes later and Amy Yang walked right by us, and it ended with us convincing the girls not to bother the Hall of Famer or the former world #1s, or the sure-to-break-through-soon star.  Sure, imoto made more visits than strictly necessary to look at the fish in the ornamental display at the front of the restaurant (and try to catch Ji-Yai's eye!), and onechan decided as we were leaving to bring me with her to the bathroom area at the back of the restaurant (passing by Ai-sama's table in the process), but we didn't initiate contact with any of the players.  It was actually Zaoya-san who started talking to onechan and I as we were passing by them on the way to leaving the restaurant.  Ai-sama was relaxed and friendly, but I was embarrassed and incoherent and onechan had lost her voice, so I missed a chance to have a real conversation with them, although I did accidentally find out that she wouldn't be playing the Manulife in Waterloo.

So it was all worth it, right?  Well, of course!  Not to say I won't do things differently in the future, like maybe bring the ladies on a Saturday afternoon after Japanese school and come alone on Sunday, or stay overnight Saturday so the girls could get their fixes with their favorite players on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning and plan to split up so I could focus on covering the closing hours of the tournament.  But this year was different, and not just because of the washed-out Thursday round or the 36 holes on Sunday.  We needed to be together, for reasons I won't go into here.  And except for one big mistake and blow-up at the end of the day, the girls had a great time and the family had another memorable vacation in Rochester.  They got to see a decent proportion of the 76 women trying to be the best on the planet that day, focus on a couple of players they both really admire, and spend some quality time with their parents and each other.  Sure, the FMA suffered and I sacrificed, but it was definitely worth it.  We even got to visit an Asian market before we hit the Thruway, although not the Korean market we usually love to raid when we're in Rochester.

Maybe someday I'll break down and get a smartphone, so I won't have to rely on walking by the many electronic scoreboards or hiking back to the media center to fire up my Chromebook to find out what's going on outside my immediate vicinity.  Maybe someday onechan and imoto will be more interested in the actual golf than in being fangirls, so they'll learn something they can apply to their own games.  Maybe someday the FMA will enjoy walking the golf course more, so she can appreciate the sport more.  But given what we had and where we were and how young the girls still were, last Sunday may not have gone according to plan or supplied me with all the golfy and bloggy material I was hoping for, but it was still a great day!