Friday Round-up

Bernhard Langer debuted on the Champions Tour today. He bailed on the Fed Ex cup. Can't blame him.

Thomas Levet is leading over in Europe - at least the crawl at the bottom of the screen says he is.

Sergio had a -4 first round today.

I really, really hope that Jose Maria Olazabal gets healthy. I hate to think of him not being able to play.

What Do You Think????

I'm watching the Tennis Channel and there was a clip of Ivan Lendl talking about coaches and players. The women's tennis federation allows coaches to come on court during changeovers and talk to their players. Lendl says all tennis players should be allowed this option. He says that Golfers Have Caddies so why can't tennis players have their coaches.

So, what do you think?? Are golf caddies on the same level as tennis coaches?? Let's see - Jimmy Conners won majors but I don't think Steve Williams has. Maybe caddies are closer to coaches on the women's tour when they line up the women on the tee but I have a hard time thinking of caddies as coaches. I don't see Maria Sharipova taking advice from some ticket holder in the crowd, but yet golfers can actually pull ticket holders out of the crowd to carry their bags if they find themselves without a caddie.

When Incredibly Handsome Worlds Collide

The USA Network is covering the US Open tennis tournament. Tonight they showed........ Sergio Garcia AND Rafael Nadal in the SAME camera frame!

Women everywhere have to be swooning!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stricker Wins

Good for Steve Stricker! He won the Barclay's Classic and he cried during his interview at the end of the coverage on CBS. Bless his heart. Can't wait to see him at the Presidents Cup.

:(

Well, I read that Jose Maria Olazabal won't be playing this week. Apparently his knee injury is still an issue. I hope he gets better soon.

I haven't been following golf much this week. I'm working on another manuscript. I'm about 40 pages short of a decent word count so I'm having to add stuff. Not good for a girl who only reads dialogue and therefore has trouble writing those long, long pages of nothing but exposition. And I've been watching the Military Channel lately. Weird. But, it's Samantha Brown night on the Travel Channel, so I'll have something good to watch.

Learn Something New Every Day

As there's nothing else on tv, I'm currently watching world team tennis on the tennis channel. Anna Kournikova is playing. What did I learn today? That's she's won 16 WTA titles in her career (according to the Tennis Channel stat department). Everyone on the internet acts like she hasn't won anything.

Playoffs

Watching the CBS coverage of the Wyndham Championship this afternoon, I kept hearing the announcers say that the top 86 are guaranteed entry into the first two playoff events. Well, if they are guaranteed for the second one, why have a first playoff tournament? I didn't pay much attention to the playoff system when it was first introduced at the beginning of the year, but now that we are a few days away I have to say it's looking kind of stupid. They start out with Tiger having 100,000 points and those following him having something like 500 points less as they go down the line. What's the theory of awarding 100,000 points??? Do they get points taken away? There's an idea, for every cuss word uttered on TV, take some points away. For every member of the gallery Tiger, uh, I mean a player, hits with a golf ball, take some points away. Then I could see giving so many points to start out with. If there are 144 players in the first event, then why not give Tiger 144 and the next guy 143 and so on? In the end, the top 30 will be in the last tournament, whether they have amassed 1 Million points, or 1000. Is the plethora of points just a psych-out? Gee, they have so many points, they did really great. It looks to me like there are a lot of useless points just out there for looks and not for any real purpose.

I think a true playoff system would be if no one started out with points and they earned them as they went during the four playoff events. I don't believe they spot basketball teams and football teams points during their playoffs.

And this whole bye thing has got to go too. It happens in many sports, such as tennis, and they've created a bye system in this playoff system in golf. In tennis, the top seeds get a bye in the first round of some tournaments because they play every week and it's just so tough on the players (boohoo - the men already play best two out of three instead of 3 of 5 and they still want that extra break). This playoff system for the fed ex cup has created the same kind of thing where the top players (Tiger for instance) could skip one or more of the events and still win the thing. That has got to go. If they are going to award $10 Million, then the winner had darn well earn it. If not, then I could use a couple million, they can just give me some money while they're at it.

Avoiding

Well, I haven't had much interest in golf this week. I checked out the leaderboards for this week's pga and european pga events to see who was playing and that was about it. Still sick of Tiger Woods and he isn't even playing this week. Why doesn't he just quit playing altogether? He only sucks the fun out of the sport.

Anyway, I couldn't let Friday slip away without checking GolfBlogger's website - he has the ridiculous item of the week on Fridays. You should check them out.

A Brief Respite

If you're looking for news folks that don't suck up to Tiger Woods, try BBC World News. This morning they aired comments from John Sendon. Yes, there are apparently other golfers playing in the PGA Championship this week. It surprised me too.

Doing Their Best

Well, everywhere I turn, I have to hear or see people talking about Tiger Woods. The Golf Channel has an All-Tiger Love Fest going on, only briefly interrupted by the Women's Amateur (I bet that niece, cousin, whatever she is is playing in that). CNN's crawl across the bottom of the screen's talking about him as is MSNBC and FOXNews. He's on the internet too. So, it would seem the media is doing their best to drive me to another Golf Boycot.

Today I've watched Futureweapons on the Military Channel, and the series premiere of the new Flash Gordon show on the SciFi channel, and Rick Steves on PBS. And for some reason they aren't showing the Montreal Tennis Tournament on tv today. I guess because Andy Roddick isn't playing today??? For the last two days, ESPN has only shown Roddick matches at that tournament.

Somewhere I predict there may have to be a media-backed cage match between Roddick and Woods.

I'm currently watching Bindi the Jungle Girl on Discovery Kids.

Shame, shame on the PGA of America

Let those poor golfers wear shorts!!!!!!!! It's way too hot for them to be out in the sun for 4 hours.

How about another blog?

Check out IBGS Business Golf.

Check out Mike Ferry's Music

I got this nice email from Mike Ferry. He's a songwriter who writes 'geek rock for people who laugh' (his words). He's written a golf song and you can find it on itunes or here on his website. Someone will have to let me know how good it is. I have a dial up connection and pretty much can't listen to music or watch video online. But I only pay $16.95/month for what I do have so I'm not complaining too much.

One and Only

My one and only golf observation this weekend is this:

Not a lot of Russians turned out to watch the Russian Open.


I haven't watched golf much at all this weekend. Yesterday, I meant to nap for an hour but slept for 3 and pretty much missed all the golf. Today, I was busy writing a love scene for a book I'm writing. Not the golf themed romance novel - I finished that one. This one is a new one about spies and newspaper reporters.

Another Blog Added

Thanks to another friendly email I received, I've added the Bogey Killer Golf blog to the side bar as well. He even sent me a book about how to play golf. Since I don't play golf, I don't know how effective the book will be, but we'll see.

Adding a Blog

Thanks to a very nice email sent to me from the folks at In Golf We Trust, I will be adding their blog to the Blogs of Note section in the Side bar. Check them out.

Hmmm.... Has he been whining this week?

I just heard that Shaun Micheel is playing the Reno-Tahoe Open. Is he whining yet about not being at the WGC event? Yep. I just heard an interview with him and he's criticizing the Reno-Tahoe Open by saying he doesn't know if it's a good warmup for the PGA Championship. What is it with this guy that makes him think he's entitled to be in certain events? Sheesh. If you want to be there, then play well enough to qualify or earn the invitation. Simple as that. He's ranked 107th this week on the PGA Tour money list and the Fed Ex Cup points list.

Hey You Men Out There

I have a question for you. I've been watching those really annoying commercials for the D2 golf ball and that annoying guy who's doing all the commercials these days. I'm asking you men this: Do you feel inclined to buy the D2 golf ball after that really annoying guy tells you to 'man up'? It would seem pretty insulting if I was the guy they were trying to sell those golf balls to.

And I guess the makers of the D2 don't want women playing golf? What's the deal with that? Women really aren't going to buy the D2 after watching those commercials. To some women the phrase "man up" would mean something completely different.

Thursday Golf Roundup

Lorena Ochoa leads at the Women's British Open at the *yawn* old course at St. Andrews. So much for Annika have special help in the way of Tiger's yardage book. Michelle Wie is EVEN par. Take that all you Wie haters.

Bridgestone Invitational: Hunter Mahan, Paul Casey and Rory "Tiger's Beatable" Sabbatini are leading at -3. Sergio had 29 putts and is +1. Jose Maria Olazabal is +7, almost last. I hope his knee is better and he's not in any pain. Jose Manuel Lara is playing in this event thanks to his first career win this year. He's +1 too.

Some other scores:

Andres Romero +1
Darren Clarke E
Justin Rose -1
Angel Cabrera +3
Anton Haig +7

Reno-Tahoe Open

Round 1 isn't complete yet, but Tadd Fujikawa is having a bad day. He's got a lot to learn but he was never going to learn it stuck in Hawaii. He needed to get out and play in these events. It isn't like his family could afford to come over here and play amateur events enough times a year for Tadd to get experienced.

Time Again for the Bridgestone Invitational

Well, it's that time again for the Bridgestone Invitational. I would have liked to have been there again this year, but will just have to make due with memories from last year. Well, memories from Tuesday thru Friday until just before Tiger got the favorable, corrupt ruling from the officials.

In honor of this week, take a look at the Even Par Round Archive from last year's tournament. There are pictures and my diary of the four days of the tournament I attended.

Other news: Boycott Tiger Fest and check out Tadd Fujikawa as he makes his pro debut at the Reno Tahoe Open. And the women are playing at St. Andrews this week. Is anyone sick of St. Andrews yet? I really think they are overplaying that course.