Not Golf

But it could be, because there's an over the water driving range just to the right of where we're looking.

We Interrupt This U.S. Women's Open Week with...

...a boring update on my own game. Skip this if you want, but maybe checking my patterns will help you notice and analyze yours.

With onechan finally old enough to start playing a few holes with me several times this summer already (and more when she gets back from Japan), I'm trying to make a comeback to competitive golf. I'm playing the Utica City Amateur next week and trying to qualify for the New York State Men's Mid-Amateur in late August, both for the 1st time since 2004. So it'll be the 1st time I'm playing Utica's Valley View and Colgate University's Seven Oaks in the last 6 years, 2 courses I like a whole lot. Plus I'll be playing a Western NY NYSGA eClub event at Cornell University's course in mid-August (like Colgate's, a great Robert Trent Jones track!), which I haven't played since my college (DIII) golfing days.

In about a week, I'll have played more rounds this year than the previous 5 combined. I haven't been playing regularly enough to develop any consistency in any part of my game--I'm making fairly solid contact on most swings, but there are still more terrible ones than there oughtta be; I'm either on or off with my pitches and chips; and my putting still isn't where I want it to be--but I have played just often enough to spot some trends and compare my stats this season to those from the last decade and over my adult career.

Before I go further, though, I should mention that I'm a pretty small guy--5'6" and getting back under 150 this summer or bust!--so I don't hit the ball very far. With a lot of roll and the wind behind me, my longest drive this season has been maybe 275 and I've more typically been in the 245-260 range off the tee. I used to go to a 6-iron when I needed to carry the ball 150 yards and a pitching wedge for a 100-yard carry, but with the temperature changes and getting used to playing regularly again, I'm not as sure of my distances as I need to be. It doesn't really matter right now, as the course I play regularly--the Easiest Course in the World (tECitW)--is so hard (the ground, that is) and the wind is usually so up that it's like Oakmont or British Open conditions, where you're usually picking a landing spot well short of the green and trying to bounce/run it ionto the right half of the green with some kind of punch shot. But maybe I hit my 6-iron 155 now and my wedge 110. I think.

Anyway, with that brief background on what kind of player I am--a wannabe precision player, in my taxonomy--let me walk you through some of my key performance stats.

Greens in Regulation (GIR)
Last decade, I averaged 7.67 greens in regulation per round, which raised my career average (since 1994, when I started keeping this stat) to 7.36. This season I'm already averaging 8.35 GIR; I've already had several rounds with my GIR in the double digits. Turn those into percentages and compare them to the LPGA stats page for GIR rate, and you'll see why they're pros and I'm a barely-mediocre amateur, but that's still a big improvement for me and one I intend to focus on this season. That's partly because I can't count on my short game to save me yet when I miss greens, but mostly because I'm putting so well this season.

Putts per Green in Regulation (PPGIR)
Last decade, I averaged 1.936 putts per green in regulation, which actually brought my career average (since 1994, when I started keeping this stat) down to 1.946 PPGIR. Translation: I've been 1-putting barely more often than I've been 3-putting when I've hit greens in regulation in my last 13 seasons. Well, I'm happy to report that my PPGIR rate has already gone down to around 1.83 already this season. That's by far the lowest rate of my career, although in my 3 rounds last season I averaged 1.86 PPGIR and in my 9.5 in 1994 I averaged around 1.89. Looking back, I'm amazed at how bad this stat is, particularly because I consider myself to be a very good putter. My goal this season is to get my PPGIR rate down where the good LPGA touring pros are--somewhere below 1.80 (the great ones are trying to stay under 1.75 over the course of a season). Heck, all I need to do is avoid 3-putts and make my share of birdies, right?

Birdies per Round (BPR)
Well, there's the rub. My birdies per round rate has been simply horrible over my career (1.31) and last decade wasn't much better (1.39). My BPR rate is up to around 1.65 so far this season, but that's still ridiculously low for how many chances I've been giving myself. The Easiest Course in the World has very small greens, so you can pretty much hit them anywhere and have a good birdie chance--plus if you miss them in the right places, chip-ins or putts from the fringe aren't that hard to sink (or rather, they shouldn't be). This is the 1st week I've been something other than a once-a-week golfer, and I've been averaging 2 birdies per round in it (along with my 1st eagle since 2004!). That's still not so hot, as tECitW now has 3 very short par 5s (reachable in 2 shots even for me most days), 3 birdieable par 4s, and 1 short par 3 (of course my only hole in 1 in my life came with a 3-wood on the long 1!). Sure, it's a par-37 from the back tees that plays around 3325 yards, the fairways have been narrowed, the rough is actually a bit of a penalty for the 1st time since I've been playing there, and there's actually a pond now to the right of the 2nd reachable par 5's green. But let's face it: it's still super-easy, except when the wind gets strong (which is about half the time; we're not quite on Lake Erie, but we're still close). Bottom line: I should be able to put up respectable LPGA #s--approaching 3.00 BPR--on a course like that. And since I can't afford to play much away from tECitW, my overall BPR should still be well above 2.50 by the end of the season.

Scoring Average
Surprisingly, even with pretty much the best performance stats of my career in all these categories, my scoring average is significantly up this season (81.06 compared to 78.59 last decade and 79.68 over my career). The culprit is the usual gremlin that dogs weekend golfers: too many big numbers! The long par-4 7th--which doglegs gently left, tilting left to right a bit after the corner, with an elevated green surrounded by trees and protected by a monster that overhangs its entire left-front quadrant--is a typical trouble spot. The long par-3 9th is also traditionally a difficult par, as I'm hitting a 3-wood virtually all the time into a relatively small green that's exposed to the wind.

But the biggest difference this season has been on the 1st hole, which went from being a tough, long par 4 to a frustratingly difficult short par 5 from the blues because it narrows so tightly in the last 100 yards, with overhanging trees on the right and a new creek extension that gets in your head on the left. In the mid-summer in most seasons, I'd usually have a mid- or short-iron in my hands, and would even birdie the hole once in a while. Now, it's just long enough to make me have to go after my 1st drive of the day to have a chance of reaching it in 2 and just tight enough to give my normally-reliable fairway woods the hiccups when I do actually hit a good drive. When I don't, I haven't yet figured out what distance I like to lay up to, because the green has been getting harder and harder as the summer gets hotter and drier, so it's hard to keep the ball anywhere near a front pin (and it's always been a front pin this season!), no matter what club you have in your hands, particularly from bad lies in burned-out fairways. What I need to do is just play the 1st safe and hit all my approach shots to the middle of the green, but that's easier said than done on your 1st full swings of the day on a course without a driving range!

Still, it's not my long game that's caused most of my big numbers this season. It's my wedges. I've either been hitting them just as I envisioned them (about a third of the time) or I've been skulling them, hitting them thin, fluffing them, chunking them, misjudging them, and so on (for what feels like much more than 2/3 of the time!). This is a common problem for me early in the season, but it's only this week that I've had time to practice them. No real progress to report on that front, but I'm bound to improve. In mid-season form, my wedges are one of the real strengths of my game.

The other area I really need to improve on is to bring my practice-green run shots to actual course conditions. The only thing that kept me from breaking 80 today was a mental block on my chipping (combined with several awful lies from hardpan and such, greens that were like rocks and so burned out in places they were more like cement, and several approach shots that left me short-sided or in some other kind of compromised position). I'm pretty disappointed with my inability to hit any kind of recovery shot with any kind of consistency. If I miss the green in regulation, I'm feeling like anything can happen, rather than confident that I'll give myself a good chance to save par most of the time.

Putts per 9 Holes (PP9H)
And yet, what gives me some hope for the rest of the season is that even with all these short game woes, my putts per round rate is the best in my career (down to around 15.59 putts per 9 holes, .03 better than my best season, 2002, when I played 82 rounds!). My overall PP9H rates aren't at all representative of how good a putter I am--15.81 for the last decade and 15.87 for my career--which leads me to believe that the other parts of my short game have never been as good as I've believed them to be. Again, the comparison to the LPGA is telling: those with average short games or who hit a heck of a lot of greens in regulation there average around 15 PP9H; the really good ones (often those who are having trouble hitting greens by tour standards, but not always) get it down close to 14 PP9H.

The long and the short of it is that my short game is letting me down, my approach shots are nowhere near as accurate as they need to be, and my driver is too inconsistent to allow me to attack the holes that need attacking on any kind of regular basis. The end result is that I can play great for a stretch--like when I went eagle-birdie-par-par-birdie midway through my first 9 yesterday--or play truly awful golf--like the +5 I was on the surrounding 4 holes that side.

So that's where my game stands in week 1 of my 6-week experiment as to how good a golfer I can make myself into while my wife and girls are in Japan. I'd love to hear if you're going through anything similar to what I'm going through--and what you're doing to address your own issues on the course!

Make It Star Blazers in 2010!

Check it out: there's a new animated Star Blazers movie that's been out in Japan for almost a month!



It goes by Star Blazers: Rebirth in English and Space Battleship Yamato in Japanese.



I encourage you to check out parts 2 and 3 of this promo. Go for the clips from the new movie and original show, stay for the evolving conversation between the cartoony comic relief dad and son--no Japanese needed. Now all I need is the movie to come to the States--with subtitles!

Oh, and there's also a live-action movie starring SMAP's Kimutaku coming out late this year:



The last 5 minutes of that teaser put me in the mood for the theme song of the show my brother, father, and I used to get up at 6 am to watch when I was a kid!



Here it is in Japanese:



Here's are 2 earlier Japanese versions:





Once more, with subs:



There's even a "nose flute" version out on teh intertubes. Now if only I could find a veggie instrument version!

QSMS Has Come Early in Japan...

...at least for fans of the Pretty Cure franchise. Behold the trailer for the March 20, 2009, release of Precure All Stars DX, a movie that brings together the casts of every season of onechan's formerly favorite anime...if you dare!



Hat tip: moetron, which is breaking teh intertubes today, apparently.

Oh, and onechan can't take the fighting in Pretty Cure any more--runs out of the room screaming, usually. It seems the magical girl genre has become a lot more Dragonball in recent years. Speaking of which:



Why even try turning anime into live action? Meh.

Mostly Harmless Milestones

Amazing how time flies when you're having fun! Yesterday's post was our 700th and late that evening we got our 25,000th visit to the site. This is also our first month we broke 2500 visits and 4500 page views. I guess it helps having 2 LPGA majors in a month, eh?

A Mostly Harmless Guide to Navigating the JLPGA Web Site (for Functional Illiterates Like Me)

The LPGA of Japan's web site is almost unnavigable to anyone without an elementary-school literacy level in Japanese--that is, to anyone who hasn't memorized a couple thousand kanji characters and is already a fluent reader of hiragana and katakana--because the JLPGA's leaders, in their infinite wisdom, provide barely any English translations on their site (unlike, say, the KLPGA's). On top of the language difficulty, though, is the JLPGA site's annoying tendency not to allow your browser to display (and hence copy/paste) internal URLs in the usual window in your navigation bar, such as to their 2008 schedule, their official money list, and so on. The best you can get is a quick glance at the URL when you scroll over it, but then only if your browser displays such information near the bottom of the page. (This method, by the way, will give you access to about 90% of the English on the entire site.) It's like they tried to take the LPGA.com stats database as their model for their entire site, but failed to hide the URLs of individual pages as well as the LPGA has.

So what someone functionally illiterate in Japanese needs is not only translations of players' names and key terms from Japanese into English, but links to the most basic information about them. That's where this post comes in.

LINK INDEX
2008 Schedule: This is the key link, as it lists winners of events played and defending champions of ones as-yet-unplayed, links to the generally nice-looking but information-poor tournament sites, and, most important, links to the results page for each event that is being or has been played. For the statistically-minded, the most interesting thing about each results page is in the right margin of the page, where the final results (最終成績) and round (日目) by round results (試合結果) and pairings (ペアリング) can be found. (Such results are available on the right margin of the main page, as well, but it only displays the most recent tournament's--a slight improvement on their "Realtime Scoring" link, which works only while the current tournament is being played.)

If you're interested in previous years' schedules going back to 1967, click here. You can turn any year's schedule page into a permalink by taking the basic link format (replace the "11_year_selector.asp" ending on the URL with "12_tour_list_ofayear.asp?yyyy=") and plugging in a year, like so. (Not much going on the year I was born, eh?)

Official Money List: I've linked to the 2008 list, but by changing the last 4 digits in the URL, you can produce a permalink to any year's list, going all the way back to 1968. If you don't need the permalink, using the in-page drop-down menu is quicker and easier, though. [Update 3/23/08: One nice feature of this money list is that a click on the player's name takes you to her profile page; if they did more than give her name in English, this would be the most useful page on the site.]

Career Money List: This link gives better information than most career money lists--it tells you, for instance, how many events the person has played in, not just how much money they have made, but like all career money lists I've ever seen, it fails to list the person's rookie year, which would allow you to compare classes and cohorts without doing a bunch of extra work.

Now, all this information is useless if you don't know who's who. So here's an alphabetical (in English) list of Japanese players' names (with links to their profiles), in kanji and katakana, along with their Rolex Ranking and position on the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index as of the first week of March 2008 (I'm stopping with the top 150 in each). I'll update this list as more people do well in tournaments this season.

NAME INDEX
Kaori Aoyama 青山 加織 （アオヤマ カオリ） #161 RR/#126 GSPI
Chie Arimura 有村 智恵 （アリムラ チエ） #60 RR/#84 GSPI
Yukari Baba 馬場ゆかり （ババ ユカリ） #101 RR/#83 GSPI
Tamie Durdin タミー ダーディン #110 RR/#125 GSPI
Yuri Fudoh 不動 裕理 （フドウ ユウリ） #17 RR/#9 GSPI
Saiki Fujita 藤田 幸希 （フジタ サイキ） #100 RR/#131 GSPI
Akiko Fukushima 福嶋 晃子 （フクシマ アキコ） #41 RR/#56 GSPI
Erina Hara 原 江里菜（ハラ エリナ） #55 RR/#120 GSPI
Mayu Hattori 服部 真夕 （ハットリ マユ） #163 RR/#79 GSPI
Michiko Hattori 服部 道子 （ハットリ ミチコ） #99 RR/#116 GSPI
Kaori Higo 肥後かおり （ヒゴ カオリ） #105 RR/#143 GSPI
Akane Iijima 飯島 茜　（イイジマ アカネ） #51 RR/#65 GSPI
Mi-Jeong Jeon 全 美 貞 (ｼﾞｮﾝ ﾐ ｼﾞｮﾝ) #22 RR/#36 GSPI
Yui Kawahara 川原 由維 （カワハラ ユイ） #77 RR/#63 GSPI
Toshimi Kimura 木村 敏美 （キムラ トシミ） #149 RR/#192 GSPI
Rui Kitada 北田 瑠衣 （キタダ ルイ） #95 RR/#213 GSPI
Nobuko Kizawa 鬼沢 信子 （キザワ ノブコ） #146 RR/#139 GSPI
Miho Koga 古閑 美保 （コガ ミホ） #43 RR/#45 GSPI
Ji-Hee Lee 李 知 姫 (ｲ ﾁ ﾋ) #61 RR/#87 GSPI
Eun-A Lim イム ウナ #87 RR/n.r. GSPI
Kuniko Maeda 前田久仁子 （マエダ クニコ） #103 RR/#92 GSPI
Yuko Mitsuka 三塚 優子 （ミツカ ユウコ） #54 RR/#115 GSPI
Ai Miyazato 宮里 藍 （ミヤザト アイ）#18 RR/#69 GSPI
Hiromi Mogi 茂木 宏美 （モギ ヒロミ） #70 RR/#74 GSPI
Shinobu Moromizato 諸見里しのぶ （モロミザト シノブ） #44 RR/#40 GSPI
Mie Nakata 中田 美枝 （ナカタ ミエ） #63 RR/#76 GSPI
Mikiyo Nishizuka 西塚美希世 （ニシヅカ ミキヨ） #94 RR/#105 GSPI
Michie Ohba 大場美智恵 （オオバ ミチエ） #135 RR/#163 GSPI
Namika Omata 小俣奈三香 （オマタ ナミカ） #90 RR/#88 GSPI
Shiho Oyama 大山 志保 （オオヤマ シホ） #24 RR/#33 GSPI
Miki Saiki 佐伯 三貴 （サイキ ミキ） #34 RR/#34 GSPI
Yasuko Satoh 佐藤 靖子 （サトウ ヤスコ） #182 RR/#122 GSPI
Yuko Saitoh 斉藤 裕子 （サイトウ ユウコ） #139 RR/#155 GSPI
Hyun-Ju Shin 辛 炫 周 (ｼﾝ ﾋｮﾝ ｼﾞｭ) #42 RR/#46 GSPI
[Update 3/21/08: Ji-Yai Shin 申　智　愛 (ｼﾝ ﾁ ｴ)]
Bo-Bae Song 宋 ボベ （ソン ボ ベ） #73 RR/#82 GSPI
Mihoko Takahashi 高橋美保子 （タカハシ ミホコ） #134 RR/#109 GSPI
Momoko Ueda 上田 桃子 （ウエダ モモコ） #12 RR/#7 GSPI
Ayako Uehara 上原 彩子 （ウエハラ アヤコ） #107 RR/#130 GSPI
Yun-Jye Wei ウェイ ユンジェ #65 RR/#132 GSPI
Hiroko Yamaguchi 山口 裕子 （ヤマグチ ヒロコ） #112 RR/#106 GSPI
Sakura Yokomine 横峯さくら （ヨコミネ サクラ） #20 RR/#29 GSPI
Midori Yoneyama 米山みどり （ヨネヤマ ミドリ） #83 RR/#137 GSPI
Na Zhang 張 娜 (ﾁｬﾝ ﾅ]) #21 RR/#55 GSPI

This One's for JP Stormcrow

Hey, JP, did you make the second parody poster referenced in this recent Verbal Privilege post? Just asking....

It's Come to This, Bacteria

This will hurt me a whole lot more than you. Really. But you've forced me to deploy the infamous Oshiri Kajiri Mushi:



James at Japan Probe alerted the English-speaking world to this butt-biting bug's popularity in Japan last June, and about a month ago he linked to a clip of OKM dancing with a bunch of cute kids. So, bacteria, go study your trivia and dance moves and boogie on away from onechan's and imoto's bodies for once and for all!

Mostly Harmless

No this is not yet another pointlessly self-referential post. Rather, "mostly harmless" is my gloss of Associate Justice Scalia's position on the pointless (unless you're a Republican-controlled legislature trying to restrict the franchise) Indiana voter-id law which was recently argued before the supreme court. I was perusing the transcript of the oral arguments and did a search for something that Scalia said. This led me to perversely read all of Scalia's comments in sequential order, and what a read it makes. Basically he just cannot seem to get too excited about what will be an "inconvenience to a small number of people" when it comes to voting rights. (Because elections are large-scale statistical things, small numbers of votes, much less individual ones, never really count in actual practice.) It is just too bad that the kinder, gentler Antonin Scalia of the past is no longer with us. You know, the one who used to care about the rights of individual petitioners, who was willing to act quickly to correct any hint of perceived harm in an election.

So in the spirit of that kinder, gentler Antonin Scalia, I propose that the Supreme Court should make itself more accessible to every one, because I know that in their heart of hearts they want every vote to count and for no one to be deprived of their rights as citizens. I offer the following modest example of a streamlined application for justice.

****************************************************************************

JUSTICE 'R' US

FORM 531:1046-EZ: APPLICATION FOR KWIK-STAY®
GUARANTEED ONE-DAY TURN AROUND!!

[insert your perceived harm here] does in my view threaten
irreparable harm to me, and to the country, by casting a cloud upon what
I claim to be the legitimacy of [insert your desired outcome
here].
[insert your name here]

Signature: __________________ Date:_______
Have a nice day!

Special two-for-one Bonus offer: Get a free Writ of Certiorari if you are the Republican Presidential Candidate!
****************************************************************************

Happy Blogiversary, Mostly Harmless

If I was really together, I'd put together a Hitchhiker's Guide to Mostly Harmless, but since I'm in full-blown pre-semester panic mode, I'll just have to note that our first post was a year ago today, Fukuoka time. The most I can do to honor this historic day is to pass along this public service message from Home Movies:

1000 Buddhas

Well, not yet a thousand, but they're working on it. Go here to see a bunch of interesting photos:

http://www.lensculture.com/buddha.html#

And yes...

...that was our 400th post. Let the celebrations begin! Release the hounds! Repeat this post in a Montgomery Burns voice! Again! Faster!

Congratulations 10,000th Visitor!

If you came from CA to Mostly Harmless via the Seoul Sisters golf forum yesterday mid-afternoon, you are our lucky 10,000 visitor. Contact me for your prize....

pre-historic golf

For all you golfers and WAAGNFNP loyalists here's proof that prehistoric man played golf long before he watched TV:



And here he is, doin' the Tiger under the watchful eye of the ultimate ur-golfer:

Where's Onechan?

"Onechan, oh Onechan, where are you Onechan?'

"I'm in here."

"In the hole?"

"Yes, I'm looking for the little worm."

"Little worm?"

"Yeah, the one in Daddy's computer."

"Oh. What about your umbrella?"

"I'm looking for it too. The worm took it."

"The worm took it? Where?"

"To Kansas."

"Does the hole go to Kansas?'

"ALL holes go to Kansas, Gojira. Didn't you know that?"

"No I didn't. Thanks for telling me that."

"Because that's where Prof. Utonium comes from."

"Oh."

Onechan's Adventure

"And then Onechan dashed out into the street to save her umbrella and the SS guys jumped out of the black helicopter to scoop her up. It was very scary."

"I can imagine. What did Onechan do?"

"She twirled around five times saying the magic word, GNF, and then kicked those SS meanies in the nose. She was awesome, just like the Powerpuff grrlz."

"Wow, I wish I could have seen it. Would you like some tea?"

"Don't mind if I do, thank you."

"Here you are. What happened to Onechan's umbrella?"

"It's in Kansas."

"Oh."

Calling All Slouchos!

That would be the title of this post if blogger let me put something in the title box. Weird, I know. Whatever.

My hypothetical title's point--and indeed the only reason for this post's existence--is simply to call Sloucho's attention to this brilliant post on issues involved in teaching history using computer simulations (and on Civilization, among other things) by Rob MacDougall over at his reliably-fascinating blog Old Is the New New.

And maybe this one--unlike my previous attempts--will even get Sloucho to write more than a four-word sentence here! Or at least leave a comment at Rob's blog.

You Hate It! You Really Hate It!

It doesn't take much to generate some guesses as to the reasons for the deafening silence meeting this inaugural Take Your Blog to the Course carnival--besides the fact that no one reads this blog and I haven't had time to drop many bread crumbs at blogs people do read. While the purpose of TYBttC is no doubt laudable--to draw attention to women's professional golf by encouraging those who don't normally golf blog to try blogging the U.S. Women's Open between 6/25 and 7/1--I can see why people may have political, aesthetic, and personal reasons for not taking part in it. I'll run these down in hopes of inspiring at least one "Why I Hate/Don't Care About Golf" post from someone.

Political: Let's face it, golf's image--and far too often, its reality--sucks. The sport seems to be associated in most people's minds with the worst kinds of privileges/exclusions--by class/race/gender/religion, for a start. When most people think "golf," they think country clubs and corporate outings. They think of the backlash against Martha Burk's quixotic quest to put pressure on Augusta to admit a female member. They think of all the jokes about how the LPGA was the lesbian's professional golf association and of all the efforts since those jokes started to promote women's golf through pinup girls and moms. They remember how difficult it was for Karrie Webb when she was outed. Or how the "yellow peril" never seems to be far from people's minds when they talk about how many South Korean golfers there are on the LPGA.

Aesthetic: "Golf's not a sport," people who never tried to play it say. "It's less interesting to watch than wet paint," others add. "And the clothes--don't get me started!" chime in the fashionistas. "Ojin ksai!" the tsuma agrees. "I just can't understand why you're into golf," even my most sympathetic friends confess, "much less blog about it so often."

Personal: Maybe there's a trauma in your past--an accident with a golf cart, getting hit by a golf ball, or, as in the tsuma's case, damaging your front teeth as a six-year-old when trying to hit a golf ball with an iron too big for you. Or maybe someone in your life--a dad, a boyfriend--got obsessed/addicted and you feel it poisoned your relationship or stressed your mom out.

So what's your excuse for not taking your blog to the course this week? Even if you don't have a blog, feel free to leave a comment here or email me at the[underscore]constructivist18[at]yahoo[dot]com!

Last LPGA Post for Awhile: Mid-Season Assessment

I'm going to be laying low at Mostly Harmless over the next couple of weeks, just posting drafts of my upcoming talks on American representations of Japan that may be of interest here (I'll do some at CitizenSE that seem to fit better there, too) and doing the occasional quick hit. The LPGA is off for a week and starts up again with the Wegman's in Rochester--which I'd attend in person if I were already back in the States--followed by the U.S. Women's Open at the end of June (which is the subject of the first "Take Your Blog to the Course" week here). If anything compelling happens in the men's U.S. Open, I may put my two cents in, but besides ranking the Super Sophs next week, I'll be taking a break from golf blogging during this span.

So of course I have to post some thoughts on this quasi-halfway point of the LPGA season. If you look at the money list, you'll think that Lorena Ochoa and Suzann Pettersen are in a league of their own (both have won twice and passed the $1M mark already this season), that the next tier--#3 (Paula Creamer) to #10 (Jee Young Lee)--all between $680K and $480K, are relatively far behind them, and that the next tier--#11 (Karrie Webb) to #20 (Cristie Kerr)--all between $402K and $302K, are closer to the previous tier, that the next tier--#21 (Catriona Matthew) to #52 (Wendy Doolan)--between $270K and $100K, are lagging behind, and that the next tier--#53 (Michelle Redman) to #68 (Liselotte Neumann), all between $99K and $75K are far behind. And you wouldn't be far off, so far as finishes and money goes. But as we've seen from the big jumps of Pettersen, Castrale, Webb, and Kerr in recent weeks, a few top 10 finishes or a first-through-third place finish or two can change your standing very quickly.

So maybe you'll then look at the Rolex Rankings. It's based on the last two years of finishes, and there Lorena Ochoa has a huge lead on the next tier, made up of Karrie Webb and Annika Sorenstam (14.09 to 11.86 to 11.57), an even bigger lead on #4 (Suzann Pettersen) to #8 (Juli Inkster), who have between 7.45 and 6.71 points, a commanding lead on #9 (Ai Miyazato) to #17 (Yuri Fudoh), who have between 5.93 and 4.85 points, are light-years ahead of #18 (Mi-Jeong Jeon) to #29 (Sarah Lee), who have between 4.58 and 3.55 points, and that even people as good as #30 (Hyun-Ju Shin) through #54 (Joo Mi Kim) basically don't have a chance, with only 3.27 to 2.01 points. But then you'd have to consider how big a move this year's major winners, Morgan Pressel and Suzann Pettersen, have made, or that Na On Min, with only 8 events under her belt, just jumped 201 spots to #80 with her third-place finish last week, or that Meaghan Francella and Angela Park have leaped into the top 50 from nowhere this year, to see that the really tough thing to do is to get into, and move up in, the top 30.

Maybe then you'll decide the Rolex Rankings place too much weight on last year's performances and on the JLPGA, so you decide to take a look at the Golfweek/Sagarin Performance Index, which admittedly sells Korean golfers short because it doesn't yet include KLPGA results, but does focus on all events in the past year. There, you'll see that Lorena Ochoa (67.91) is in a league of her own, as is Annika Sorenstam (68.70). Then a group in the 69s, from #3 Paula Creamer to #8 Shi Hyun Ahn, is trying to catch the two leaders. The group in the 70s (#9 Se Ri Pak through #23 Sophie Gustafson) and the group in the 71s (#24 Pat Hurst through #53 Momoko Ueda) seem fairly far behind the three elite tiers.

So who is in the top tier in each ranking? Only Lorena Ochoa.

Pettersen (#2 on the money list and #4 in the Rolex Rankings) is still relatively low in the GSPI (#17, 70.59), while Sorenstam (#2 in the GSPI and #3 in the RR) is only at #30 in the 2007 money list due to her injury-induced absence, Webb (#2 RR, #4 GSPI) is only at #11 in the 2007 money list due to inconsistent play, and Creamer (#3 GSPI, #3 money list) is still only #6 in the Rolex Rankings. So they're clearly in the next tier.

Perhaps Juli Inkster (#5 GSPI, #8 RR, #12 money list), Morgan Pressel (#5 RR, #7 money list, #10 GSPI), and Mi Hyun Kim (#7 GSPI, #9 money list, #11 RR) belong in a group of their own, rather than with the group ahead of them or behind them. What do you all think?

Next up are steady performers like Cristie Kerr (#6 GSPI, #7 RR, #20 money list), Stacy Prammanasudh (#8 money list, #11 GSPI, #15 RR), Se Ri Pak (#9 GSPI, #10 RR, #19 money list), Brittany Lincicome (#5 money list, #12 RR, #18 GSPI), Ai Miyazato (#9 RR, #15 GSPI, #16 money list), Jee Young Lee (#10 money list, #12 GSPI, #16 RR), and Nicole Castrale (#4 money list, #13 GSPI, #22 RR).

After that we have a group who aren't as consistently rated across these three measures or who are consistently rated lower in them all: Jeong Jang (#13 RR, #16 GSPI, #28 money list), Shi Hyun Ahn (#8 GSPI, #26 money list, #35 RR), Sherri Steinhauer (#14 GSPI, #23 RR, #23 money list), Sarah Lee (#6 money list, #29 RR, #37 GSPI), Pat Hurst (#20 RR, #24 GSPI, #29 money list), Seon Hwa Lee (#20 GSPI, #24 money list, #27 RR), Julieta Granada (#22 money list, #24 RR, #34 GSPI), Laura Davies (#17 money list, #21 GSPI, #39 RR), Catriona Matthew (#21 money list, #32 RR, #36 GSPI), Sophie Gustafson (#23 GSPI, #28 RR, #37 money list), and Hee-Won Han (#19 GSPI, #21 RR, #69 money list [due to maternity leave]).

It's hard to tell how this last group measures up against highly-rated RR/GSPI people who don't play on the LPGA regularly like Shiho Oyama, Yuri Fudoh, Mi-Jeong Jeon, Momoko Ueda, Sakura Yokomine, and Hyun-Ju Shin--one can only hope the Asian swing of the LPGA Tour and the World Match Play Championship late in the season are revealing in this respect and that some of them choose to follow Ai Miyazato to the LPGA in the near future.

You'll notice that some very good players--like Natalie Gulbis, Meena Lee, Kyeong Bae, Young Kim, Angela Park, Angela Stanford, Laura Diaz, Brittany Lang, Christina Kim, and of course Michelle Wie--don't even enter into this top 30 (actually 31 if I counted right) club. Someone oughtta generate a formula for weighting and combining the results of these rating systems! Personally I would like to see people incorporate scoring average and birdies per round into the mix, as I think together these are the best measure of who's playing well and due for higher finishes in the future.

I'm not going to do that for everyone, just for the Super Sophs...later! In the meantime, let's hope the lazy golf media actually figures out how to interest the American public in learning more about a few dozen rather than a few of the world's best women golfers.

5000th Mostly Harmless Visit

This is just to say that our 5,000th visit was from Pittsburgh, PA. I know this is like daily traffic for certain group blogs, but I thought it was worth commemorating. The curious may check our sitemeter for the details of the visit. Anyone in for a pool on date, time, and location of our 10,000th visit?