Casey and Ogilvy in the Finals

It says a lot about the International/European teams to see Paul Casey and Geoff Ogilvy in the final of the Accenture Match Play. It also says a lot about the Americans. So, I can finally watch some of this now.

Let's hear it for Ross Fisher who made it to the semi finals. And to Rory McIlroy who made it to the quarters.

And, not to leave the Americans out, a special mention should be made for Sean O'Hair who also made it to the quarter finals. I think he was the standout American, regardless of what Stewart Cink did.

Seve Update

Good News: Recent reports indicate Seve Ballesteros is doing very well after a check-up earlier in the week. He will undergo another round of chemotherapy soon. You can check out more by reading his comments on his website - the link is in the sidebar.

Round Up

Rory McIlroy and Ross Fisher have advanced at the Accenture Match Play. The one bit of bad news: The Golf Channel reported that Luke Donald's wrist acted up and he had to concede his match against Ernie Els. I hope Donald's wrist heals up and doesn't give him any more trouble.

Mayakoba: Pablo Larrazabal somehow managed to shoot a huge number in his second round and missed the cut. It looks kind of windy from what I'm seeing currently on the Golf Channel so maybe that was a problem. Yesterday on the golf channel coverage, they said Larrazabal almost stepped on a snake as he approached a green. That would make me want to think twice about sticking around. But I am not Spaniard-less this weekend. Jose Manuel Lara made the cut at Mayakoba.

European Tour: Enjoy Jakarta Indonesian Open - England's Steve Webster has the lead currently and yes, there's a Spaniard to watch there as well: Ignacio Garrido. As well as Rafael Cabrera Bello.

Mayakoba Classic

Pablo Larrazabal is playing the Mayakoba this week. Whoohoo. I can watch a Spaniard after all.

I haven't checked in on the European Tour yet to see what's going on there.

Some Observations

I haven't been watching the Match Play event because it's 'All Tiger, All the Time: Part Deux or part 2400 if I knew what 2400 was in French" but I did check out the scores and here are some results that I noticed:

Obviously: Clark beats Woods
McIlroy beats Mahan
Donald beats Curtis
Els beats Stricker
O'Hair beats Weekley
Goggin beats Kenny Perry
Ross Fisher -I just like him and it's good to see him doing well
Oliver Wilson beats Anthony Kim

What do you notice about these observations? Except for the O'Hair and Fisher results, all of them are Euros/Internationals vs Americans. Yep. I'm still thinking Ryder Cup. And the O'Hair win? Well, it's good that someone beat Weekley after all of his showboating at the Ryder Cup last fall. And I've been a fan of Sean O'Hair's for a while.

Go Tim Clark!!!!

So much for better than ever and the great comeback. Hahaha. Go Tim Clark! Just don't go too far. He's up against Rory McIlroy next at the Accenture Matchplay and Rory is my spotlight player.

Amateur Danny Lee Wins the Johnnie Walker Classic

That title says it all. But here's a few more tidbits: he's the youngest ever winner on the European Tour and only the second Amateur to win on the European Tour. He's from New Zealand and as I said yesterday, is planning to turn pro after the Masters. And according to this news article from the European Tour website, his goal is to try to break all of Tiger's records on the PGA Tour.

Cue the media's chant "the next Tiger Woods".

Sirius XM Radio News

About a week ago, GolfBlogger posted some thoughts regarding Sirius XM's serious financial troubles. This concerned me on two levels: one, I subscribe to XM Radio and two, I subscribe to Dish Network. Why is Dish Network in the picture? Well, Sirius XM had apparently held talks with Dish Network/Echostar/Charlie Ergen as a possible way to bail themselves out of some of the debt they are in. In fact, I think some of the loans Sirius XM had to pay could be traced back to Echostar/Charlie Ergen - I think, I'm not up on all the financial stuff. Anyway, Sirius XM did find funding from Liberty Media (Discovery Channel and Direct TV) and they now have a chance to save their company (they need to get rid of overpriced talk radio personalities though).

So, great news for me: I still get my XM Radio and Dish Network isn't buying into the company which would no doubt have increased my subscription price there.

Bad News for me: Dish Network just raised my subscription rate by $5.00 a month. Wonder how much they would have raised it if they had become even more entangled with XM Radio. You'd think I could get a price break since Sirius XM is now able to pay those loans. That's cash back into Dish Network's pocket. Or maybe just Charlie Ergen's. Again, I have no idea who owes who what, except that I now have to pay more.

Any Direct TV customers out there reading this? Will your subscription prices go up?

Johnnie Walker Classic

I had some time to check out the leaderboard and watch a little bit of this today. Apparently it's really hot down there - gee I feel bad for them. They can have the cold teens I experienced this morning when I went to the store. As for the leaderboard, John Bickerton and Ross McGowan (Not actress Rose McGowan) are in the lead at -14. Amateur Danny Lee is only 2 off the lead - for me this is not as exciting as it could be because he already plans to turn pro after he plays in the Masters (according to the announcers), so there isn't the excitement of what would he do if he won the tournament. Ignacio Garrido is the leading spaniard at -11. And the two Anthonys (Kang and Kim) had bad third rounds and are at -5. I feel bad for Kang, not so much for Kim.

And I heard that Camilo Villegas and Greg Norman missed the cut. Not a good start for Norman as he prepares for his return to the Masters. But then, I don't expect Norman to do well any way.

A Good Win

Over on the Champions Tour, Mike Goodes won the Allianz Championships. This has to be a popular win as Goodes is probably living the dream of every weekend golfer out there. Last year, he Monday qualified several times just to be able to play on the Champions Tour and secured his 2009 card through a lot of hard work and determination. And now he's won a big event, beating guys like Bernhard Langer, Gil Morgan etc. You can read about his win by clicking HERE.

Catching Up

Okay, so I haven't yet blogged about the Maybank Malaysian Open or the postponed final round of the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Yesterday I was in book heaven, sorting out all of my many, many romance novels and packing them away in plastic storage containers.

As for the MMO - American AK won! Hahaha. I just had to do that. I mean Anthony Kang, not Anthony Kim. I know, I know, everyone is cashing in on that too. Louis Oosthuizen came on strong in the final two rounds to finish really well. And at the end, there were about 5 or 6 guys who could have won. Too bad Gareth Maybin did win. It would have been a good headline "Maybin wins Maybank". Kang said after the win that he doesn't like the wind or the cold so he doesn't know where he might be playing in the future. I have to agree with him that I don't like the cold either. And I think he should play where he wants to and not where the money is. He will be a lot happier that way.

AT&T - Bad weather forced CBS to play old footage from a prior year yesterday. What did they choose? Why, Phil Mickelson, of course. Because as you know, the media is in the business of making news, not covering it. Why show last year's event with Dudley Hart's great underdog story (which they didn't create but only reported on) when they could try to recreate Phil as the #1 in absence of Tiger? Phil's play has sucked so far this year, but that didn't stop CBS from trying to build him up by showing his win from two years ago. I can only imagine if Sergio does manage to take the #1 spot for a week (which I don't think is likely if he doesn't get off his butt and start playing), the media will be showing video of every missed putt he's had in the last three years in an effort to create a new reality more to their liking.

The Answer is No

Michelle Wie ended up coming in second to Angela Stanford at the SBS Open at Turtle Bay. I didn't watch much of the final round but I did see Wie miss another short putt. And I haven't checked the news yet to see if there were any score card issues or other penalties assessed after the fact.

Will She Do It?

According to the golf channel website, Michelle Wie had a 2 shot lead after 9 holes in the final round of the SBS Open. Will she win? If she does, she will shoot down one of my predictions I made earlier about what would happen this year. I won't be too upset about that if it happens. There's just too much pressure that comes with being really good at something. At work, my boss always tells people that I'm right all the time and that my work is perfect. So do my co-workers. I hate that.

I might check out the final round after Top Gear goes off at 8pm. I can't miss Top Gear. It's my favorite show.

Shankopotamus

Have you all seen the new E-Trade commercial with the talking baby? Apparently the baby now plays golf and won a skins game against some old guy who's 401K was needing E-Trade's help. If you haven't seen it yet, I'm sure you can find it on Youtube. The baby apparently plays Taylormade clubs. He was wearing one of their visors.

Updates

Maybank Malaysian Open: Danny Chia is leading the tournament at -13. And yes, I've had the Chia-Pet song in my head for most of the day. Nick Dougherty is at -8, Simon Dyson is at -7 - he always plays well in Asia, Oliver Fisher is at -5, Johan Edfors -4, and Louis Oosthuizen has finally had an off-week and is at -3 through two rounds.

SBS Open - Michelle Wie was tied for the lead at -8 when I last saw a scoreboard (prior to 7:30pm Est). With the winds blowing like they are over there, she might still be in the lead or tied for the lead at the end of the round today. But according to the announcers, the winds could be even stronger tomorrow so it might not be a good day for any of the ladies. Wie did miss a few really short putts today so I don't think she's got this sewn up. She's got some work to do.

AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am - I think Retief Goosen was leading when I last saw a scoreboard. I wasn't really paying attention to the scores since there are tons of players and the coverage was bouncing all over the place. And it's hard to look ahead to see who might challenge on Sunday when there's a course rotation going on. With the players playing different courses the first three days, you can't really look at the scoreboard and say "so and so might make a move". You can't really know.

Allianz Championship - Bernhard Langer appears to be picking up where he left off last year. When I last saw the scores scrolling along the bottom of the screen, he was in the lead.

My Mom said to me that I was going to think that tomorrow was Sunday since I had today off. And I think she's right, especially since I think the SBS tournament concludes tomorrow. A rare Saturday finish on the LPGA Tour. I thought this might be for travel issues, but I think I remember that someone once said it might be because of when the coverage would air in Korea since SBS is the title sponsor? I'm not sure about that.

As for me and the sparse posting lately, I've been pretty exhausted for no apparent reason. I've diagnosed myself with a thyroid issue and I've started taking some herbal supplements to see if they help me out.

Random Quote of the Day

This quote showed up on my homepage today and I thought it was pretty funny. And probably pretty true.

Writing well means never having to say, 'I guess you had to be there.' - Jef Mallett

SBS Open at Turtle Bay

Another week of fun and sun in Hawaii! I love watching the Hawaii tournaments. Mainly because they take place when it's cold and dreary here in WV.

I guess the big news is Michelle Wie's first tournament as a card-holding member of the Tour. She isn't making a big splash right now, but that's good. If she came out with a low round today, she would only set herself up for disaster tomorrow.

I don't know about everyone else, but I find it a little difficult to watch the LPGA with all of the Asian players who are doing so well on the Tour. It's hard for me to differentiate between them. They all play well, and I don't know enough about the Asian culture and language to be able to attach some individuality to all of the names. I'm sure to them the names Betty and Mary are just as alike to them as Song-Hee Kim and Hee-Won Han are to me. And just to be fair, I'm not sure I could tell the difference between Jonathan Kaye and Jonathan Byrd on the PGA Tour either.

Is It Just My TV?

I'm watching the Golf Channel and they are scrolling through the LPGA scores. They have the scores at the top of the screen, but on my TV, I can't see any of it. All I see is just the very bottom of that score bar and, of course, the entire Titleist logo. Is this what it looks like to everyone else? With my TV being new and barely touched, settings-wise, I don't know if this is something I can fix or some problem with the Golf Channel.

Hall of Fame

I just read that Mike Weir has been nominated for the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame. Yes, they have one. Click here to read the news article. Then go and google the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame and see who else has been honored with membership.

Off Topic: Australian Open Final

I watched part of the Australian Open final between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer this morning. It was another classic final and if you have a chance to see it, you should definitely watch. Nadal won it in five sets, over 4 hours of playing time. That's after playing a 5 hour match just a couple of days ago. Roger was very emotional for coming up second this time, breaking down in tears when he tried to speak after accepting the runner up platter.

I have always said that Roger couldn't be considered the greatest ever until he wins the French Open - he has to win majors on all three surfaces in my book (like Andre Agassi). Well, Rafael Nadal has done that with wins at the Australian, French and Wimbledon. I still don't know if I would class Rafael as one of the best ever. I think he may have to win a few more majors on grass and hard courts.

Again I have to mention the announcing. Yes, my critique of the media doesn't only apply just to golf. Dick Enberg, the 'well respected' announcer tried to create more drama than necessary this morning. The announcers kept trying to make Rafael Nadal into an exhausted player because of his 5 hour semi final match the other day. But Rafa kept fighting and went the distance - five sets. At one point, Enberg even said Rafael was 'staggering' around the court. Not so. Not by a long shot. He was no Victoria Azarenka (who had to retire after the heat and a virus caused her to be dazed and stagger around during her match with Serena Williams). Sure, Nadal moved slower than usual. But he was not staggering. He was not dazed. He was not at any point down and out. And as for the announcers' claims that Federer now believes he can't beat Rafael Nadal - only Federer knows if that's true. And we'll see in the coming months how Federer does respond to this latest result.

Just to tie this into golf - No one can dare say that having one Tiger Woods winning everything is better than having a Rafael Nadal and a Roger Federer competing at every event for the win. If you're looking for competition and excitement - watch tennis. Or the European PGA Tour.

Rory McIlroy Wins the Dubai Desert Classic

I guess I had a good idea when I chose McIlroy as my Spotlight Player to watch this year (over in the side bar). At one time, McIlroy had about a 6 shot lead in this final round, only to make it really interesting in the last four holes with a bogey on the 15th, 16th and 17th holes to finish up with just a one shot margin over Justin Rose. If I hadn't read the results on the web ahead of time, I would have been cussing McIlroy in those closing holes because he's had a habit of letting tournaments get away from him. But he pulled through today with a win, and in the end that's what matters.

Here's a list of the top ten finishers:
McIlroy
Justin Rose
Henrik Stenson
Paul Casey
Robert Karlsson
Martin Kaymer
Miguel Angel Jimenez
Louis Oosthuizen
Scott Strange
Anthony Wall

Sergio finished T11.