European Open

Christian CÉVAËR of France won this tournament with a final score of -7. Some other players of note: Alvaro Quiros finished T2 at -6. Stephen Dodd continues to see a return of form as he posted a -5 final score. Jose Manuel Lara who led or co-led during the final round finished the tournament at -4. Sergio Garcia moved up from T47 to T13 with a final round of -4.

Comeback Player of the Year

Steve Stricker last won on the PGA Tour back in 2007 at the Barclay's. He's been in a slump ever since (his Ryder Cup appearance must have been luck). Until today when he won the Crowne Plaza Colonial in a playoff with Tim Clark and Steve Marino. I think Stricker now qualifies for Comeback Player of the Year consideration. Yes, there's an inside joke there and I'm well aware of it :)

Tim Clark was very unlucky to have his approach on the second playoff hole bounce off the flagstick and roll far, far away from the pin. He led most of the final round and could have earned his first US PGA tour win if not for that unlucky break.

Steve Marino reminds me of Raymond Floyd. I know the announcers today said Mark Calcavecchia, but I think Floyd.

Jason Day finished in 4th and could have found his way into the playoff with just one more birdie. It's good to see him doing well.

Vijay Singh had a lesson in karma this week. He was absent from the Colonial for several years as he disagreed with the Annika Sorenstam invite some years ago and chose not to play the event until this year. Well, it looks like the course decided to show him what he's been missing. And apparently it had a lot to do with putting. He missed several putts that the announcers said were kick-ins and such. I personally thought this was pretty funny.

Paul Casey could have won this tournament and that would have been an impressive feat considering he won last week on the European Tour. Casey was within one or two shots of the lead with just two or three holes to play, but couldn't get any closer.

It was wonderful to have yet another weekend of non-Tiger talk. I haven't enjoyed golf this much since 1993-1994.

Dump Slump??

I just love these new relationship terms. Being blissfully single and child free, I am unfamiliar with such circumstances as the Dump Slump, the Honeymoon Factor and the Nappy Factor. However, I did get an education by reading This Article from the Telegraph.Co.Uk.

And a rare personal observation: She was all wrong for him. He needs to find some nice girl next door back home in Spain who has nothing to do with golf.

US Open Qualifying

On the Golf Channel website, they have the results of local qualifying for this year's US Open. I scrolled through 7 pages of results until I found some West Virginians. You all should check it out and see if you recognize anyone.

BMW PGA Championship

Paul Casey won the BMW PGA Championship with a birdie today. This win moves him up to #3 in the world and is his third win of the year. It's nice to see him do well, although I was hoping Ross Fisher would win. Fisher hasn't won as much as Casey has. Casey's interview after the win was entertaining as well. When he said his wife would probably expect him to buy her a car after this win, the BMW guy chimed in something about it being a BMW, as if he had just remembered that he sold cars for a living.

Miguel Angel Jimenez and Jose Maria Olazabal both had another bad day. Jimenez is apparently suffering from an injured shoulder, though no one on the broadcast knew how bad it was. And Olazabal is doing well for not playing in so long. His bad rounds aren't blowouts. He was +2, I believe, in those rounds. Not that bad all in all.

Round 3, BMW PGA Championship

I watched some of this today and was very happy to see the European guys. Paul Casey is leading after the third round at -13. He's three shots better than his nearest competitor, Soren Kjeldsen. Rory McIlroy is at -9, Ross Fisher -8, Stephen Dodd -7. Miguel Angel Jimenez had a bad day and is currently at -4. And Jose Maria Olazabal had the same kind of day and is currently at +2.

I do wonder why the Golf Channel aired this at 3pm when they knew CBS would be airing the Byron Nelson event. According to the Golf Channel website, the European tour coverage was supposed to be in the morning. And it says morning for tomorrow's coverage too even though the crawling thing on TV is saying it will air at 3pm again tomorrow. As a protest, I don't plan to watch the re-air of the CBS coverage that the Golf Channel will be showing later on tonight.

Strange

I just saw a commercial for Scientology on the Golf Channel.

BMW PGA Championship

Round 2 Notes from the Leaderboard:

Gonzalo Fernandez Castano experienced a 10 shot swing, shooting a 77 today to go with his 67 of yesterday. Bad day for him. Jose Maria Olazabal moved up from T81 to T35. Good day for him. Paul Casey is at -8, Miguel Angel Jimenez -6, Stephen Dodd -5, and Rory McIlroy -2.

Stephen Dodd has finally put together a couple of good rounds. He's been struggling for the last couple of years. I remember watching him at the 2006 Bridgestone Invitational - he was one of the hardest working golfers there - always practicing.

I'm very happy to be able to watch the last two rounds of this event this weekend. This one is always a good tournament to watch.

Jose Maria's Thoughts on the Hall of Fame

I found this article which includes some quotes from Jose Maria Olazabal as it was formally announced that he would be joining the Hall of Fame. He spends most of the article talking about how much Seve Ballesteros means to golf and to him. It's a good article and you all should read it.

Jose Maria is playing the BMW Championship this week. He didn't do well in his first round. Hopefully, he will do better in round 2.

BMW Championship

Gonzalo Fernandez Castano is tied for the lead after round one with David Horsey and Anthony Wall. Ben Curtis and Anthony Kang are tied at 3 under par as the low Americans so far.

I can't wait to watch some of this on Saturday and Sunday. It should be a very good event with a lot of great players to watch. Hopefully the weather will be good.

More on Mickelson

On the PGA Tour website, there's an opportunity to send Amy Mickelson get well messages via email. Hopefully, a lot of people will do that. Last year at the Bridgestone Invitational, I snapped a picture of Phil standing under the 'seek shelter immediately' sign as he signed several autographs for fans. In bad weather, he chose to take a few minutes to make the fans' day. It's only right that this kind of consideration is returned to his family at this time. And I'm sure there's a way to send them some supportive thoughts via Phil's own website - link in the previous post.

Click here to get to the PGA Tour article and link to the email address.

Best Wishes to the Mickelson Family

It was announced that Phil Mickelson's wife, Amy, has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Phil will be taking time off from the tour to be with the family while she undergoes treatment. You can read more on Phil's website.

Check out HomeofGolf.TV

I have a new Facebook Friend - Andy Brown of HomeofGolf.TV. You should check it out. Plenty of videos of stuff and it comes straight from St. Andrews, Scotland.

I can't really check it out since I'm on Dial-up. Video is a no-no with Dial-Up. But if I can remember to do it, I'll check it out this weekend on my parents' high speed internet. Yes, my parents have better internet than I do. But that's just because I don't want to go through the hassle of changing all of my email log-ins for all of my shopping websites and other websites I have subscribed to. I don't use my gmail address for everything, just fun stuff on the web.

Seve Trophy Renamed

I read this article from ESPN that explains that the Seve Trophy will have a new name: The Vivendi Trophy with Severiano Ballesteros. When I find a link to the event website, I'll update the sidebar.

Zach Johnson Wins the Valero Texas Open

It took a playoff with James Driscoll, but Johnson won this tournament for the second time in a row. Paul Goydos was in the lead until the last couple of holes when he suffered bogeys to take him out of contention.

This was an enjoyable tournament to watch. Tiger free for the most part and on the weekend, it was also Anthony Kim free. The networks should be careful, or else they might spoil me.

The one criticism I have is with birthday boy Jim Nantz. I don't know how many times he said "Johnson could win this tournament for the second time in just seven months." It was a lot.

3 Irish Open

Amateur Shane Lowry of Ireland won the 3 Irish Open today, beating Robert Rock in a playoff. Pablo Martin was the low spaniard in the field. Jose Maria Olazabal finished on Even par in a tie for 50th (possibly - I don't know if that changed once you exclude Lowry due to his amateur status). Jose Manuel Lara was the high spaniard with a final score of +2.

The weather sucked there. All rainy and dreary. At least it's sunny in Texas for the Valero Texas Open.

Golf Channel At It Again

Latest "Give me a break" moment: The Golf Channel's newest promotional spot featuring Mickelson. They call him "Phil the Thrill".

If Phil actually thrills anyone, please post a comment and let me know.

Gee, maybe "Phil the Thrill" will be the one "to stop Anthony Kim". That was the last give me a break moment - when they promoted Quail Hollow with the question "who will stop Anthony Kim?" I must have been napping earlier in the year when Kim made his thunderous charge and won a bunch of stuff. Oh, wait, he didn't do that. So, what exactly would they have been stopping him from?

3 Irish Open

I tried to watch this today but with all of the players covered up due to the bad weather, it was hard to figure out who they were. Except for Johan Edfors. You'd know him anywhere with his pink Puma knit boggin. I ended up taking a nap instead.

Finally

I finally got to see Jose Maria Olazabal play today. He did very well with a 67. Graeme McDowell, who was in Olazabal's group, shot a 61. I'll have to check the leaderboard later and see who all made the cut.

I also remembered that my new tracfone will do text messages. So, I will have to play with it to see if I can 'tweet'. It might be a good way for me to communicate if I go to the Bridgestone Invitational this year since I won't be taking my laptop with me.

Off Tomorrow

I have tomorrow off so I may be able to watch some of the 3 Irish Open. Jose Maria Olazabal is playing this week and is 8 shots off the lead at -1. He has some work to do to make the cut though. I think he's tied for 63rd.

Stenson Wins the Players

Henrik Stenson finished the tournament at -12, four shots ahead of Ian Poulter. Alex Cejka faded early in this final round.

Another good week for golf as someone out of the top two actually won.

New Observation

I'm beginning to think the problem I first blamed on the new version of Internet Explorer is really a Twitter programming problem. So far for about the last half hour, I have only had that problem with Twitter. No other websites seem affected.

As you know I don't watch golf when Tiger's playing so I have the tv on QVC. I personally don't find jewelry and Bose cd players 'extraordinary' but the host of the QVC programs seems to think they are. Extraordinary would be some blind golfer making the cut at a PGA tour event.

Feherty's Foot in Mouth Disease

According to this article I found on the Golf Channel website, David Feherty apparently made some inappropriate remarks regarding his perception of the troops' opinion of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid in a Dallas magazine opinion piece he wrote.

I just have a few comments:

1. The Golf Channel article actually says "Feherty, a recovering alcoholic..." As if that had anything to do with his comments. The writer of this article was clearly trying to insert a little gossip. That seems a bit inappropriate in itself. Ten years from now are they going to refer to Kelly Tilghman as "Tilghman, who joked about lynching Tiger Woods..." Probably not.

2. The Dallas magazine should have read Feherty's piece before printing it and should have pointed out to him that he might not want to phrase his opinion in such a manner. It isn't censorship if you point out that you're calling US military personnel treasonists for suggesting they might want to kill Pelosi and Reid.

3. CBS got rid of Ben Wright for his comments about women. Wonder what they will do to Feherty. At least Feherty was smart enough to not include Obama in the elevator he wrote about. He'd definitely get fired over that. Obama's untouchable.

Tweet, Tweet

Thanks to the Armchair Golfer, I have now signed up on Twitter. Armchair Golfer posted a very informative piece about pro golfers who have Twitter accounts and I thought I would check it out. Then I ended up creating an account. Find me on Twitter HERE.

I displayed a lot of patience because this new Internet Explorer program that my laptop tricked me into downloading really sucks. Every other page I try to go to, it says it can't connect. Bill Gates needs to forget his charity crap and get back to the office and fix this program.

Players Championship

I didn't watch this today. I figured it would be all about Tiger and Sergio and not in a good way. So, I just checked the leaderboard. Ben Crane is leading and there are no sensationally famous people near the top. What will the network do? They have no Tiger leading. No Phil leading. No Sergio leading. Well, if it's NBC covering it, they will probably cover the players who are leading. Of course we would have to suffer with just Golf Channel coverage until the weekend.

And just for the record, I didn't vote for the orange outfit that Sergio will apparently be wearing as a result of the contest. I think I voted for the blue outfit.

June Issue of Golf Magazine

I got the June issue today in the mail. Here are some highlights:

It's their US Open Preview Issue so they spotlight Bethpage Black and they have an interview with Rocco Mediate. Forrest Fezler, by the way, was also a runner up at the 1974 US Open to Hale Irwin. I just had to post the name Forrest Fezler.

David Feherty's column is very entertaining - it's about having a house built and his adventures with the contractor.

There's also an interview with Steve Stricker, I think part of the US Open preview. And an article about Ernie Els.

And my favorite part - a little where are they now tidbit with Ken Venturi. The final two lines of the piece: "Venturi often watches golf on tv - with the sound muted. 'Too much talking,' he says."

Gee, I have actually muted the tv during golf coverage. But this week, I just don't have the golf on my tv.

Seve Out and About

I found this article on the Daily Mail UK website about Seve Ballesteros. Seve attended a football match the other night. Unfortunately, his team didn't win, but he was looking pretty well. There are a few pictures. Caution, however, is advised when reading the article. The website occasionally puts a negative spin on news. If you check out the rest of the news on that site, you'll get very depressed as you'll see things like 'government takes child away from parents because father's in the military and could be prone to aggression.' That's pretty absurd.

I Guess It's Sean O'Hair

Last week I posted a comment about a Golf Channel commercial which asked "Who can stop Anthony Kim" at the Quail Hollow tournament. So, who had Sean O'Hair on the short list to answer that question? I didn't watch any of this tournament because Tiger was playing and I didn't want to hear "Tiger this" and "Tiger that" all weekend long. But I am glad that Sean O'Hair won the tournament. I checked out the leaderboard and saw that Lucas Glover was also in the hunt. That's great for him. He's been pretty quiet lately.

Open de Espana

Thomas Levet won the tournament with a score of-18. Two spaniards made the top 10: Rafael Cabrera-Bello and Jose Manuel Lara.

I watched a bit of this this morning, but missed most of it yesterday.