Guccifer 2.0 Google Search Result Weirdnesses

How is it possible that a few posts scattered here at Mostly Harmless and on some of my other blogs last night led to their being more easily findable on google than anything Studio Dongo has posted on Guccifer 2.0 over the last several weeks?  Anyone who understands google search algorithms better than me, please feel free to respond!

This Is about Guccifer 2.0, not Golf

Quick questions to my remaining readers:

• are you aware of the Guccifer 2.0 story?
• have you been trying to follow it?
• have you been able to find any good sources on it through google searches?

Just to be clear, I had not been aware of or following the story until one of my best friends started blogging about it in mid-June.  As he's been writing about his experiences going down that particular rabbit hole, I've started looking for other sources.  Not very hard, to be sure.  And I know that I've been on leave from blogging for awhile, but what ever happened to google's blog search?  Back in the bad old days, I was at least able to find a wide range of voices on almost any topic, no matter how obscure.  But when I search "Guccifer 2.0" on google, I get nothing interesting or new.  If I didn't know about posts like this, I would never be able to find them.

There's got to be more out there, right?  Are you there, google?  It's me, The Constructivist.

This will have been a test of the google search system.  This will have been only a test.

Will the U.S. Women's Open Jinx Cost Inbee Park Player of the Year?

That the U.S. Women's Open jinx exists--and that it's many orders of magnitude worse than the Mostly Harmless jinx--is beyond question.  Just ask Hilary Lunke or Birdie Kim.  Even better, ask Eun-Hee Ji and Paula Creamer.  Ji won in 2009 for her 2nd LPGA career victory--and is still waiting for #3.  Creamer won it the very next year at Oakmont very soon after returning to action after surgery--and hasn't won since on the LPGA.  Even So Yeon Ryu and Na Yeon Choi, USWO winners in the next 2 years, went through little dry spells before returning to the winner's circle (although Choi's was probably the shortest on record!).  Heck, even Annika took 10 years to win her third USWO after winning it twice in a row in the mid-'90s.

Inbee Park understands the USWO jinx very well, having fallen victim to it very early in her LPGA career.  She made the USWO her 1st LPGA victory in 2008, went through a drought that lasted until the Evian in 2012, and most recently won it again for her 9th career win on the LPGA, her 3rd major and 3rd win in a row, and her 6th in 2013.  And she's been stuck on those numbers ever since.  It's not just that she's been a little bit off.  Nor has she been uniformly terrible.  She's been all over the place.  But her only good finishes since then have been a top 10 on the KLPGA, a top 3 in China, and a runner-up finish last Sunday again on the KLPGA.  In other words, only 1 of her 3 good finishes since winning the 2013 USWO have netted her any serious points in the LPGA's Player of the Year race.  That's a 1 for 8 top-10 rate since the USWO win, as opposed to an 8 for 13 rate up to it in 2013 (12.5% vs. 61.5%).  In short, those 4 top 10s that Inbee didn't get since the USWO could have virtually locked up the POY race for her (depending on how high she would have finished).

But that's in the past.  The issue now is how to break the USWO jinx.  Given that NYC beat the jinx by winning the CME Titleholders in the same year she won the USWO, my advice for Inbee is to shadow her for a couple of weeks and really pick her brain.  Either that, or hang out with Eun-Hee Ji and Paula Creamer a lot and hope her jinx is swallowed up by theirs.  The good news is, Inbee has overcome the jinx before, so maybe she's developed a resistance to it.  All I know is, she doesn't have 4 years to get out from under it.  More like less than 4 weeks!

U.S. Women's Open Saturday: Moving Backwards Day?

The scoring average for the 3rd round of Blackwolf Run is the highest yet this week at the U.S. Women's Open.  Admittedly, that's partly because those who barely made the cut have been the first ones to finish and the best players in the field (so far at least) haven't yet made it to the back 9, which is open to a little better scoring than the front today, it seems.  But when players of the caliber of Karrie Webb, Sun Young Yoo, and Ji-Hee Lee didn't break 80, when Angela Stanford and Ya Ni Tseng are in serious danger of joining them, and when some of the hottest golfers on the LPGA barely did it or are struggling to--Stacy Lewis is +7 through 13, Hee Kyung Seo is +7 through 10, Anna Nordqvist shot a 79, and Brittany Lang a 77--you know that no lead is safe today!

[Update 1 (3:18 pm):  81s for Stanford and Katherine Hull; 77 for LET standout Carlota Ciganda!]

[Update 2 (3:48 pm):  Inbee Park is +5 through 8 today to fall all the way back to +2 overall.   Lizette Salas is +4 through that same stretch to join her.  Michelle Wie and Vicky Hurst are already +3 today....  Blackwolf Run is showing its teeth!]

[Update 3 (5:19 pm):   How hard is it out there?  So Yeon Ryu, the defending champion, needed to birdie 3 of her last 4 holes just to salvage a 74.  +3 is now T15 and Ai Miyazato joined the big group there with a 75.]

[Update 4 (5:43 pm):   Wow, with Michelle Wie +6, Inbee Park and Cristie Kerr +5, and Suzann Pettersen +4, how tough is this course and how great is Na Yeon Choi's round?]

[Update 5 (6:38 pm):  More big numbers I haven't mentioned:  Hee Kyung Seo shot an 80, Ya Ni Tseng fought back for a 78, Cristie Kerr shot a 77, and Inbee Park a 76.  Suzann Pettersen and Michelle Wie will have to work hard on 18 to save 77s!]