Geoff Ogilvy Wins

For all the Ryder Cup talk that went on during this event, the winner is a man who won't even get to play in the Ryder Cup. Maybe he'll make the Presidents Cup team next year.

They really need to stop talking about the WGC as a world wide competition. Next year, they become just any other event on tour because America has to be selfish and hog all the action.

The Golf Channel needs to offer Nick Faldo and Paul Azinger their own show once their ABC contracts are up. I have a feeling they could be a lot more entertaining than Peter Jacobson and whatshisname.

The Olympics are Over

Now I can get back to golf. I watched the semifinals yesterday for the matchplay thing. I thought Davis Love and Geoff Ogilvy would advance to the finals. But between the two of them, I don't know who will win. Davis obviously loves matchplay, but Ogilvy is younger and you would think in better shape. But, Ogilvy has gone to extra holes in all but one of his matches this week, while Davis has managed to finish most of his matches early. I think it will be a good 36 hole final.

SBS Fields Open: I'm glad Michelle Wie finished well, and ahead of Morgan Pressel after the comments Pressel has made about Wie. I can't wait to see what the rankings and money list will look like now. I wonder if Wie had won the tournament, would the LPGA let her play full time then?

Off Topic: I now have the Tennis Channel on my satellite dish. I didn't know there was a Tennis Channel. I may have to watch that a bit more to see what it's like. I watched a little of it this morning waiting for the paid programming to end on the Golf Channel.

Nissan Open

Sabbatini won. Adam Scott and Craig Barlow did really well. Fred Couples did well for about three and a half rounds. The biggest news coming from the Nissan Open is that allegedly Adam Scott and Tim Clark kicked Sergio Garcia out of the hair bet because it was suspected that he was getting a trim here and there. A while back I commented that it looked like Sergio's hair wasn't growing as fast as the other two's. So, maybe he was getting his hair cut. Anyway, I think he should keep his hair at least a little long. Scott and Clark should cut theirs immediately. At least we know their hair is a result of a bet and not just back fashion sense :)

Nissan Open

Way to go Fred Couples! It's shaping up to be a good final round tomorrow. And I sure am going to miss the ABC announce crew next year. One thing concerns me though. Apparently all the players are getting sick. I hope they didn't pick up that deadly bird flu when they were overseas. And was it really the flu that sent Tiger packing, or was it the idea of seeing J. B. Holmes outdrive him the whole day since they were paired up for the third round? Heeheehee...

There's Golf on This Week?

I've been watching the Olympics all week and haven't watched any of the Golf Channel until tonight. I saw a little of the LPGA event. Checking out the scores running across the bottom of the tv screen, I saw that Justin Rose had a good round at the Nissan Open. I hope that continues. And I've noticed that Rory Sabbatini's name keeps popping up at these tournaments - he's been having a pretty good run.

I wonder if I lived in California, if I would think WV would be as beautiful as the pictures on this website: Central Coast Golf & Wine Concierge

Luck or Foresight??

As you might have noticed, Arron Oberholser has been featured in the Spotlight section of the sidebar for a couple of months now. And today he wins the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Did I have some incredible foresight in picking him for the spotlight, or was it just blind luck?

I'm going with blind luck. If I can't even get one number on the lottery, then I have no chance of actually predicting a winner of a golf tournament. But I'm happy that Arron has won such a high-profile tournament. When I watched him during the Tommy Bahama Challenge coverage, I thought he was a nice, personable guy who deserved some good fortune.

It's just too bad I didn't get a chance to watch his play. But it is Olympics time. Although today, it was a bit boring. I actually took about a 20 minute nap today.

New Footjoy Commercial

I just saw a Footjoy commercial allegedly with the sign guy and Ernie Els in a sauna/steam room. We could only see their legs and feet, and the footjoys of course. Personally, if they are going to show half naked men in a commercial, I think they should pick guys like Adam Scott, Sergio Garcia, Camillo Villegas, older guys like Faldo and Couples.

This leads me to a question I've had for a while: Why isn't there a 16 month calendar of golfers out there to buy? There are all kinds of 16 month calendars of golf courses, but courses would just be well manicured dog parks if it wasn't for the players who play them. Personally, I would prefer the golfers clothed if they were featured in a calendar, but they should have calendars available for purchase at Walmart and the like. If I can buy a whole 16 months of Orlando Bloom, I should be able to get 16 months of Fred Couples, Davis Love etc.

Slacker

Okay, so I haven't been watching golf much this week. I watched a little of the European Tour event this morning and saw Kevin Stadler take a two shot lead heading into the final round. And I saw some highlights from the Pebble Beach thing. I have a feeling the Australian event is probably better golf. With the Olympics on tv for the next couple of weeks I don't know if I'll be watching much golf. The Olympics is the only time you'll ever catch me watching things like luge and curling. But then, we are getting snow right now here in WV so, I might ditch the winter events and opt for nice sunny Australia tomorrow morning on the Golf Channel.

A Blurb About the Hair Bet And......

Some info on Robert Allenby

Not Golf Related

I had the tv on the Superbowl for a second and I heard one of the announcers say "What do you think they were looking at that they made him take his pants off?" That sounds pretty provocative for football. I'm glad they have a 5 second broadcast delay in place.

Tiger Can't Turn His Back For a Second

Tiger leaves the country for a week and Jim Nantz and crew give his Greatest Golfer in All the World title to J.B. Holmes. My favorite part was when Jim Nantz said something to the effect of "I don't want to get too swept away by all the hyperbole..." This was after they had already said they hadn't seen anything like J. B. Holmes since Tiger's debut in 1996. Give me a break! They saw spectacular things last year from Sean O'Hair and Jason Gore. There are spectacular events every year in whatever sport you watch. I think it's a little premature to try to equate what Tiger's done in the last 10 years with what J. B. Holmes' future could be. And this from a Non-Tiger fan. J. B Holmes did have a spectacular tournament and I could very easily become a big fan of his. He's a good ole boy type like the guys here at home. But after watching O'Hair and Gore struggle this year after having great years last year, I'm going to wait and see what happens this year.

Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes

No, I'm not singing the George Jones classic song. Yesterday during the 3rd round coverage of the FBR Open, Lanny Wadkins and Jim Nantz were lamenting that there were so few young players out there to take the place of the aging players (you know, like David Toms who's already won this year). Well, here's a quick list of some that I found who are under 30 or who are turning 30 this year:

Rory Sabbatini
Lucas Glover
Vaughn Taylor
Bubba Watson
Carl Petterson
J.B. Holmes
Geoff Ogilvy
Justin Rose
Sergio Garcia
Sean O'Hair
Adam Scott

Oh what are we to do with no young players on the tour??? Someone needs to tell Fred Funk that he can't win any more tournaments because he's too old. And let's talk about Olin Browne who won last year in the tournament that Tiger sucked at. And Mark Calcavecchia also won last year and he's no spring chicken.

FBR Round 2

JJ Henry shot a 61 today. Unfortunately, most of the time when someone shoots a really low score, the next day's round sucks. Hopefully, it won't happen to him. J.B Holmes is again doing really well. It's great to see the new guys do so well. Lucas Glover isn't brand new, but he isn't a veteran yet and I like him. I wish they would interview him more - he has a great voice. Arron Oberholser, Justin Rose made the cut and it looks like Nathan Green and Paul Azinger may also make the cut - they are still on the course as I'm writing this. Unfortunately, it looks like Jason Gore may miss the cut. He has had a really bad year so far. Maybe he shouldn't have had such a good one last year. It made the expectations all that much higher and the disappointment that much greater.

Again, I didn't get to see much of it today on tv. I did tape the whole 2 hours and with luck I'll be able to watch it tomorrow. I attempted to tape the CBS Late Nite show last night but got the pm and am thing mixed up.

FBR Open

I missed pretty much the first hour of USA's coverage but what I did see was decent. They showed several different players: James Driscoll, Joe Ogilvie, Mark Calcavecchia, J.B. Holmes, Davis Love, Jonathan Byrd, Sergio Garcia, John Daly, D.J. Trajan, Steve Flesch and Bubba Watson to name just a few. Apparently Jim Gallagher and the second string announce team aren't as concerned about manufacturing a feel-good story of the tournament as the weekend announce team seems to be.