Time for a Little Golf (Masters Preview)

Our very own golf expert, Grand Slam himself, has weighed in with his Masters preview.  As previously mentioned he's destroying everyone in our fantasy golf league this year, so whether you're in a fantasy league, like to make a wager from time to time, or just dig the Masters, it's worth your time to give 'er a read.

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“A tradition unlike any other”, “There it is—as grand as it gets”, “Is it his time?.....Yes!”  “A win for the ages.”  Yes boys and girls, it’s that time of the year when Jim Nantz will give us another memorable quote to end The Masters.  I used to think the NCAA Tournament was the single greatest sporting event, but after that garbage this year, it’s not….it’s that little golf tournament played in April down in Augusta, GA.  

This will be the 75^th edition of The Masters being played at Augusta National Golf Club.  I expect a finish that has been just as, if not more exciting than previous years.  In previous years coming into the tournament, there have been a small handful of real contenders, where I see this year’s addition a little different.  For most, Phil Mickelson, who is also the defending champion has to be the odds on favorite to repeat.  He played last week’s Shell Houston Open with the mindset that he wasn’t there to win, but merely to prepare for Augusta.  So what happened?  Lefty went on to shoot the lowest winning score on the 2011 PGA Tour season.  While lefty heads to The Masters with a lot of steam, I literally see a group of 25-30 players that are legitimate contenders this year.  For that reason, I see this year’s tournament possibly being the best ever.   

Look no further than the OWGR (official world golf rankings) to see the recent domination of the European players.  The contingent to head down Magnolia Lane may be the strongest field to ever assemble in Masters History.  It all starts with the #1 player in the world Martin Kaymer.  Kaymer comes into The Masters with a solid 2011 campaign thus far.  He won his first tournament of the year at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship against a very strong field, and recently finished 2^nd to Luke Donald at the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship.  Kaymer who won last year’s PGA Championship in a controversial finish will be looking for his 2^nd major victory in as many events.  I look for Kaymer to have a solid tournament, but his game doesn’t fit what’s needed to win at Augusta.  And of course there’s the former #1 player in the world, Tiger Woods.  We all know of Tiger’s struggles throughout the last year, but ladies and gentlemen…..this is The Masters.  Remember what happened last year after Tiger’s extensive layoff from the PGA Tour, he finished T4.  There is something about this tournament that brings out something special in Tiger.  Look at his record since turning pro, the results speak for themselves as his worst finish was 22^nd.  Although he’s not coming in on a real high note, come Sunday April 10^th, you will see Tiger’s name near, if not the top of the leaderboard. 

It’s obvious that with The Masters and the type of field invited year after year that you will get some outstanding pairings.  If you are a “rube” like myself and have access to watching specific groupings, I have picked out five that may be of interest:  

Group 6 features Dustin Johnson, Adam Scott, and Nick Watney.  Johnson may be the hottest golfer on the planet over the last year, while Scott has seemed to have found his swing of late as well as an improved putting game with his new long putter, and Nick Watney is coming off the biggest win of his career at the recent World Golf Championship.   

Group 10 features young guns Rory McIlroy, Rickie Fowler, and Jason Day.  Many people believe that both Fowler and McIlroy could win their first major this week.   

Group 16 features Tiger Woods who is a 4-time Masters champion, Graeme McDowell who is the recent U.S. Open Champion, and Robert Allenby who may be one of the top 5 ball strikers on tour and has the game to win at Augusta.   

Group 32 features defending champion Phil Mickelson, U.S. Open Champion Geoff Ogilvy, and maybe the next rising star Peter Uihlein who has remained an amateur for the chance to play here after his 2010 U.S. Amateur victory.    

Finally if you’re a fan of big tee shots, group 33 features 3 of the longest drivers of the golf ball in PGA tour rookie Jhonattan Vegas who notched his first career PGA tour win earlier in the year at the Bob Hope Classic, Gary Woodland who won a few weeks back at the Transitions Championship, and maybe the longest hitter on any tour in Alvaro Quiros.

Finally if you’re a betting man, don’t put money on Luke Donald to win The Masters.  He was the winner of today’s par 3 contest, and the winner of the par 3 contest has never gone on to win the tournament.  This really pisses me off as I have Donald in one of my Masters pools.  Ok, I’m going to shut up now, but as you can see I am extremely excited for The Masters.  It is hands down the greatest sporting event other than maybe the Lingerie Bowl.  Below you will find my 2011 Masters predictions, as if anyone cares.

What Jim Nantz quote will go into the history books this year?

Winner:  Tiger Woods

Contenders: Ian Poulter, Hunter Mahan, Nick Watney, and Bubba Watson

Sleeper:  Francesco Molinari 

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So there you have it folks, straight out of the expert's mouth (or ass?).  For the record, I'm rolling with Bill Haas at 100-1, Francesco Molinari 80-1, Hunter Mahan 25-1, Paul Casey 35-1, Justin Rose 35-1, Steve Stricker 40-1, David Toms 125-1, Jerry Kelly 250-1.  So avoid those players at all costs.  My actual pick, however, mirrors Grand Slam's because I've got a feeling about the Tiger.  You know it's coming at some point, he's been a little too quiet, and this just feels like the tournament where's it coming.  Hide your golfers and your women.

Time for Some Golf

Do you know what tomorrow is?  It's the start of the PGA Season, and I'm fired up.  But not nearly as fired up as our golf writer here at DWG, Grandslam, who voluntarily wrote up a season preview without even being asked.  How do I have a golf writer and not a hockey writer, you ask?  Because hockey is super gay!

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year again, and NO, I’m not talking about the holidays.  The start of the 2011 PGA Tour season is right around the corner.  

The 2010 season was a season that will soon not be forgotten due to the craziness of certain events.  There are certain things we can count on every year like bad weather at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Phil contending at Augusta, and John Daly having a mental breakdown on the golf course.  In 2010 there was as much shock value in certain events as there would be for a Minnesota Timberwolves victory.  Other than Phil’s victory at The Masters, who would have correctly picked the other three major winners in McDowell,  Oosthuizen, and Kaymer?  Who could forget the collapse of Dustin Johnson in the final round of the U.S. Open?  More importantly, who can forget what happened to Dustin Johnson on the 72^nd hole at the PGA Championship.  Matt Kuchar was this year’s leading money winner, really?  How about team USA’s near improbable comeback at the Ryder Cup?  

The 2010 PGA Tour season was full of headlines with maybe the story of the year being Tiger Woods.  No majors, not a single worldwide victory, MC’s and WD’s.  Nobody could have imagined that when Tiger announced he would return at Augusta that we would see the season we did from the once invisible, FORMER  #1 player in the world. 

We can only hope that the 2011 PGA Tour season will be as entertaining and unpredictable as the year before.  I am extremely excited for the majors this year if they are anything like last year.  Just a few years ago when the question of, who’s the best player to not win a major came up, the list of those players were short.  In 2011, with the year Tiger had in 2010 and the emergence of the “young guns”, that list may be as large as ever with the likes of….

·        Dustin Johnson

·        Rickie Fowler (0 PGA Tour wins)

·        Paul Casey

·        Ian Poulter

·        Nick Watney

·        Steve Stricker

·        Hunter Mahan

·        Luke Donald

This is just a few of the players that could be on the unofficial list, but let’s not forget about the #1 player in the world, Lee Westwood. 

Last year, we had a huge surprise with the season that Matt Kuchar had leading the PGA Tour in earnings as well as leading the tour in scoring average.  A story like this is extremely hard to ever project, however I am going to give you two guys that could be this year’s Matt Kuchar.  Jason Day and Jeff Overton are two guys that I could see having huge years.  Jason Day got his first career PGA Tour win last year and finished 8^th in the Fed Ex Cup, while Overton, although still without a victory had a hand full of runner-up finishes as well as being a key contributor for Team USA in the Ryder Cup.

Last year we had a guy in the name of Louis Oosthuizen who shocked nearly everyone in the golf world with his win at the British Open.  This year’s Louis Oosthuizen is another guy that many have not heard of, and that’s the up and coming South African Charl Schwartzel who will win his first major this year. 

I’m going to give you two guys to watch for in the 2011 season, one from the PGA Tour and the other from the European Tour.  The man on the PGA Tour you need to keep your eye out for is Jamie Lovemark.  Lovemark was a college standout at USC and dominated the Nationwide Tour last becoming the youngest player to ever finish #1 on that tour’s money list.  Lovemark nearly won in his first month as a pro, only to lose in a playoff.  I look for big things out of this rookie this year.  

The player to watch out for on the European Tour is player that almost no one has heard of and his name is Matteo Manassero.   Some may recognize the name as Manassero is the youngest player to even make the cut in The Masters.  However the reason you need to keep an eye out for this kid is the fact that he got his first career win at the age of 17 last fall, he won’t even turn 18 until later next spring.  We probably won’t see much of Manassero in the states next year, but in time we will see him in all the big events. 

Finally my predictions for the 2011 PGA Tour season are as follows….

·        Rookie of the Year, Jamie Lovemark

·        Comeback player of the year, Tiger Woods (how could it not be?)

·        Surprise player of the year, David Duval, he will be back in the winner’s circle in 2011

·        Player of the year, Rory McIlroy

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I I I can honestly say I've never heard of Jamie Lovemark.  But if Grandslam likes him, he's certain to suck.

Wednesday Wankings

- I'll start tonight's post with what I am supposed to be here for, and that's Gopher hoops talk. Scouts, Inc's Antonio Williams released yet another breakdown of the 2009 recruiting classes around the nation, and once again Tubby and the Gophers came out ranked very highly.

Williams gives the Gopher class a B+, second in the conference behind Indiana's A-, and has this to say, "With only two seniors on the roster last season, the Gophers continue to add talent to their already good team. Coach Tubby Smith has made it a priority to keep in-state talent at home, and he passed that test with flying colors thanks to this class" among other things. He also breaks down each of the four players signed (ignoring Allen), but it's pretty much the same old same old we've been hearing on these guys forever.

With this #2 ranking in the Big Ten, combined with the main ESPN ranking of #2 and a Rivals.com ranking of #3, I think it's safe to say this class is as good or better than last year, at least on paper. As long as they perform up to expectations and everyone continues to improve and Al Nolen sits on the bench a lot, this should be a fun year.

- Staying with the Gopher recruit theme, I wrote about Clumsy Heights guard Jacob Thomas before, mentioning how although he's a highly regarded recruit and considered one of the best shooters in the Midwest for 2010, he was still without a single offer and that made me nervous. An article from GopherIllustrated clears things up a bit, with this quote from his coach, "Right now the way it looks for Jake from an academic standpoint, Jake has a lot of work to do to qualify," Braziel explained. "The Gophers requested the transcripts and the like. We still talk to the Minnesota coaches a lot and we are all on the same page."

He's lighting up scoreboards en route to leading Howard Pulley to a win in the St. Louis Eagles Invitational, and it's clear he can score (he was box-and-one'd in the championship game) and can shoot to what sounds like a Devoe Joseph-level or better, but the academics are obviously in pretty rough shape if nobody has even extended an offer yet. I always get a little excited for high quality shooters, so hopefully Thomas can get it together in time to replace Westbrook in 2010.

- Staying within the college basketball theme, suddenly the predictions of Brandon Jennings' defection to Europe causing a trend have a little bit of ammo, with two big-time college players heading to Europe next year instead of remaining in college in Florida's Nick Calathes and Clemson's Terrence Oglesby.

Calathes will be heading to Greece to play next season, despite having two seasons remaining to be a Gator, and Oglesby is heading to either Spain or Italy.

Seriously though, although weird, these two situations are very different than that retard Jennings (who, if you remember, couldn't qualify so he went to play in Europe and then spent the whole season crying about how much it sucked). Both Calathes and Oglesby have citizenship elsewhere along with the U.S. (Calathes in Greece, Oglesby in Norway), both have family ties overseas (Calathes's bro plays in Greece, Oglesby's father played in Europe), both have overseas experience by playing in the FIBA under-20 championships, and neither expects to be a first round NBA pick. Calathes had a chance, but his contract in Greece will pay him over $1 million and Oglesby had no chance to make the NBA but will get a nice contract somewhere instead.

In summation: Calathes and Oglesby - a little weird but do what you got to do. Jennings - a complete and total moron. Also this is what the girls at Florida look like:


- So those two clowns are leaving their teams, but there have been a few transfers of note in the beloved Big Ten that will affect things. PG Anthony Crater is shipping out of Ohio State and will play for South Florida in 2010-2011. Jermain Davis has left Iowa and will go down a class to play for Mankato State. Kelvin Grady is out of Michigan, and has yet to pick a school to transfer to. Jake Kelly (Indiana State) and Jeff Peterson (Arkansas) are out of Iowa, and Indiana has lost Malik Story (Nevada) and Nick Williams (Ole Miss).

Iowa is in the worst shape as Lickliter continues to do everything he can to destroy that program, bringing in not only the possible worst class in the conference, but Kelly and Peterson were the Hawkeyes first and third leading scorers last season, accounting for over a third of the team's points (and Jermain Davis also chipped in with 20 minutes and a few points and boards per game). Good luck, corn humpers.

Indiana is also hit kind of hard, Williams and Story were big contributors, but they are bringing in what is being universally hailed as the conference's top recruiting class, so they probably aren't too concerned about two guys who were worse than Verdell Jones last year.

Michigan probably isn't thrilled with Grady leaving, he made a solid backup point and torched the Gophers in a game last season, but his playing time really dwindled towards the end of last season and it's probably best for him to move on. He was #107 on the Rivals150 when he came out two years ago and has played some pretty decent games in his time at Michigan. I'm predicting a landing place of Xavier, with one of the directional Michigan schools a good contender if he decides to go more after PT than winning.

Lastly, Crater couldn't even beat out the world's biggest douche P.J. Hill to play point for the Buckeyes, so I seriously doubt they're going to miss him or even notice that he left. Hell, Thad Matta probably typed up the transfer papers himself, forged Crater's signature and then drove him out of town himself.

- I know you desperately want a preview of the Crowne Plaza Invitational, but I don't feel like typing up anything overly formal and it's in Fort Worth which is a sucky town, but I'll give you something so here's a bit of a top five:
1. Zach Johnson. I'm kind of getting sick of this guy, but he keeps doing it and doing it and doing it well. Represent Drake but kickin' ass out in Texas. Jesus that was brutal. Replace that with something funny.
2. Jim Furyk. He's played well at Colonial before. He's not having the best year of his life, but I always believe he can win at any time.
3. Luke Donald. Pretty sure he's still one of the best golfers out there, and his wrist should have healed by now. It's kind of a weak field and it's the kind of course where Donald can thrive.
4. Rod Pampling. You probably won't see him on any other fancy pants expert lists on the web, but that's why you come here for true hard-hitting analysis. Pampling likes Colonial, and he made a run late at the Bryon Nelson last week. Don't be surprised.
5. Stephen Ames. Another guy who doesn't get much pub, but he plays well in Texas year after year despite looking like kind of a retard. Pulled down a top 10 at the Valero and likes this course as well. I kind of wanted to put Sean O'Hair in this spot, but then I remembered he has daddy issues.

- Baseballwise, last night Zack Greinke pitched nine innings and gave up just one run - and raised his ERA to 0.84. Good god. He is going to be a star for the Yankees or Red Sox soon.

- Lastly, you people need to wake up. The response from the two people I talked to about Mauer possibly being on steroids: "Now way, no way, no way." and "Oh, he'd never do that." Come one people, open your eyes. We've seen a boost in power, a little roid rage, and a little acne. I'm not saying I guarantee he is on HGH (although it's pretty likely), but at least admit, to yourself if to nobody else, that if this was some other hitter on some other team, you'd have your suspicions. You know you would. Just like you also know, deep down inside, that you hated Travis Busch.

Weekend Review

Well I'm stupid. I could put myself in the WHO SUCKED column, seeing as I'm pretty much in the bottom 10% of bracket guessers this year, but I'm not going to. Instead I'm going to tell you to be careful about overthinking when it comes to these stupid things, because in my original bracket I had UCONN, Villanova, and UNC (along with Louisville) all in the final four, and talked myself out of it. I hate myself so much sometimes I have to cut myself to feel. At least UND lost. Suck it car in front of me this morning with the customized Sioux license plate "GR8 SK8". And also Super Sioux Fan.


WHO WAS AWESOME

1. Villanova. It pains me, quite literally pains me to put them here, but it's hard to argue with a 3 seed heading to the final four, and they've done it in very impressive fashion too. They followed up a second round depantsing of UCLA last weekend with a stomping of Duke like Duke was that Kentucky guy and they were Christian Laettner on Thursday, and then a great win over Pitt to get into the final four. I don't really think they're a threat to win the whole thing, but stranger things have happened. They have a ton of weapons and just one major liability (Scottie Reynolds), but the man who really makes things happen for the Wildcats is Dante Cunningham. I only remembered him as a side note to the good Nova team of a couple of years ago with Allan Ray, Lowery, Foye, and that white guy, but it turns out he was Nova's leading scorer this year. And, after watching him for three rounds now, the guy is really, really good.

2. Goran Suton and Durrell Summers. On a night where the defense of the Spartans was the real star, these two clowns really stepped up when the usual offensive catalyst of the team, Kalin Lucas, had an off night to get Michigan State the win and the trip to the final four. I figured if Lucas was off and the Spartans still won, it would be the most feared man in the Big Ten, Chris Allen, who went off, but he sucked too (2pts on 1-5 shooting) as did the highly overrated Raymar Morgan (0 pts, 4 fouls). Luckily, Suton was there in the first half, scoring 17 of the teams 30 points, hitting from outside (3-3 on threes), mid-range, and in the paint and generally looking like the second coming of Jamie Feick. When Suton cooled off in the second half, Summers took over and did his Allen impersonation, scoring 10 second half points including 8 during a quick 17-7 run by Sparty that put them up 15 with just five minutes to play. I don't think they can get it done against UCONN, but I've been saying that for three rounds now and also I'm an idiiot.

3. North Carolina. I guess the Heels wanted to remind everybody why they were the consensus pick to win the championship at the beginning of the season. They made sure neither of their games were ever in doubt this weekend, destroying my sleeper who I swear I still think is good Gonzaga by 20 and then Oklahoma by 12 in a game that wasn't anywhere near that close. Ty Lawson is playing incredible ball right now, even making a jump shot here and there, and if he can keep playing at that level I don't know that anybody can beat the Heels. And wow, turned out his foot was miraculously just fine. Watch that turn into a big story line this week. Yawn.

4. UCONN. I suppose if I'm going to highlight three of the four final four teams I may as well hit the fourth, although for whatever reason the Huskies impressed me least this weeekend. I'm not exactly sure why, maybe it's because Purdue just looked so damn awful in their first game, but the win over Missouri is definitely impressive. Fun fact about that game - the Tigers missed a layup at the buzzer that would have cut the margin to 5, and the spread was 5.5. Would have been fun to be in a Vegas Sportsbook for that one.

5. Tiger Woods. What more is there to say about this dude? Yet another comeback victory, this time without the fake injury dramatics, and this time at Bay Hill at the Arnold Palmer invitational. He was down five strokes going into the final round yesterday to Sean O'Hair, and ended up winning on a 15-foot birdie putt on 18 to put him ahead by one, winning his first tournament since his "dramatic" win at the US Open last year and "real not faked" knee surgery. Woods put some serious pressure on O'Hair right out of the gate by birdying two of the first three holes, and O'Hair responded poorly (more on that later), but give credit where it's due. Woods saved several pars from the sand, and made a whole assload of long putts to first get him back in the game, and then take the lead, and then - after giving the lead away - taking it back for the win. I quite seriously think he has a shot at all four majors this year.



WHO SUCKED

1. Arizona. I suppose it's a little bit rough to pick on a twelve seed that managed to get to the sweet 16, but what about if they were a team that pretty much underachieved all year and then got a cherry path to the round of 16? Like Arizona, I mean. Getting Utah as their #5 was very fortunate for them, since the Utes are not a very athletic team and that's Arizona's strength, and then to get lucky enough to have Cleveland State beat Wake in the first round was a huge boost - Wake would have won by 20. Keep in mind that Zona didn't just lose to Louisville, they lost 103-64. So you know, that's a 39 point loss. For a team with Nic Wise, Jordan Hill, and Chase Budinger. Unfortunately, even with that kind of firepower you still have to play defense once you play a good team, and letting Louisville shoot 58% is not playing defense, except maybe in the Pac 10 - which sucks.

2. Duke. Holy crapoly did Duke ever suck against Villanova. We can even just go ahead and ignore the fact that they lost 77-54, and instead just concentrate on the fact that your precious little Blue Devils shot 26.7% for the game, including 18.5% from three. Gerald Henderson was 1-14. Jon Scheyer was 3-18. Kyle Singler was 5-13. When you only have three scorers, and those three dingleberries account for 60% of the teams scoring and are the only three averaging more than 9 per game, and those three happen to suck, you're pretty much screwed. Oh, and getting outrebounded 46-32 doesn't help. So freaking glad I picked these idiots to make the final four. God I suck. You know who else sucks? Duke. Fun fact: Duke hasn't beaten a team seeded better than fifth since 2001.

3. Terrence Williams. Williams played great for the Cardinals in their blowout 103-64 win over Arizona, but in the biggest game of the year for Louisville, he really didn't come to play, shooting just 1-7 for a total of five points, and finishing below his season average in both rebounds and assists as well. Louisville as a team didn't exactly play well anyway, shooting just 38% and getting out rebounded 35-26 against Michigan State. Interestingly, the Cardinals previous three opponents in the tournament were ranked 134th, 79th, and 145th in defensive efficiency, and then suddenly they get Michigan State who was ranked 10th, and you could see they had trouble handling a team defense that solid. Their only other matchup this year against a top 10 defensive team was against UCONN, and they dropped that one too.

4. Willie Warren. A lot of people, myself included, said Warren would be the real key to how far the Sooners would make it in the tournament. Blake Griffin is pretty clearly the best player in the country, but he's pretty much surrounded by idiots like Fro-Hawk and Long Sleeve T-Shirt Guy. Warren is the one other player on the team who can do some damage, and he clearly declined that option this weekend. He started out by scoring just six points in their sweet 16 round win over the Cuse, also turning it over five times (to go with five assists). The Sooners still managed to win that one because they have Blake Griffin, but Carolina was too much for him to do alone as Warren decided once again not to show up. He ended up with 18 points on 6-16 shooting, but at one point he was 1-9, and scored most of his points while the Sooners were well out of it already. He's going to be a good player down the road, but this was not Warren's finest weekend.

5. Sean O'Hair. He led pretty much the entire week at Bay Hill, and came into Sunday's final round with a five stroke lead over his closest competitor, El Tigre, but then proceeded to give a clinic on how not to play with a five stroke lead. He played tight, he played passively, he played weak, and generally tried to just play caretaker with his lead, and it most definitely didn't work out for him as Tiger won in the end thanks to O'Hair's round of +3 compared to Tigers -3. He came out completely passive, hitting irons to the middle of the green rather than going anywhere near the flag, giving him little chance for birdies, and hit several long putts well short, as if he was afraid to knock it too far passed the hole - even missing one of the four footers he left himself to end up with a bogie. He also had a nice easy 7-iron from the fairway on 16 that he somehow managed to knock in the water, giving Tiger his first lead of the tournament. Tiger made the shots he needed to and O'Hair didn't, but it was more his style of play than anything else that doomed him yesterday.

Golf is BACK!!

Alright bitches time to get back into golf mode. First off let me apologize for my absence, but there really hasn’t been much going on and I didn’t want to get in the way of all the great college hoop, football and drunken rant posts. So now that’s out of the way to move forward we need to look back.

Great in 2008…

See what I did there, I made a rhyme; studies show that 98% of all readers will stay with an article 23% longer when the headline rhymes. Alright so how did the year start well Danny Chopra won the opener and Camillo “100% Columbian Coffee” Villegas closed off the regular season and in between we saw Tiger win 4 times, once on a broken leg with no ligaments or cartilage, Veej/Perry won thrice and a hand full of the boys took two victories. No 2 time winner in 08’ was more memorable than the 2008 Player of the Year Paddy Harrington, I don’t care if Woods wasn’t there and I certainly don’t care that he won twice as many tournaments (one of which I must mention again was done on one leg) Harrington won two MAJORS, period. Tiger would trade his other three wins, sans US OPEN, for just one of those Majors. Harrington still stared down the best in the world including one of the hottest players in the planet at the time in Garcia at the PGA. He is just a great player and doesn’t seem to fear anyone.

Immelman, Woods, Harrington x 2 took down the Majors. The Masters took on a US Open feel. There is a new Chairman or President down in Augusta now, Billy Payne, I hope he can bring back some of the flare to what has always been my favorite Major. It is a tournament that should be won with birdies and eagles down the stretch, not bogeys and pars.

Sergio won the players; some consider that the 5th Major and I consider those people jackasses. He had a great quote though while accepting the trophy: “First I want to thank Tiger…for not being here”…classic. The Spaniard would have a good 2008 as a whole, but still needs to finish off a Major and if he keeps playing like he did in 08’ he will have many chances. Can you say the 2009 Masters, Tiger may still be out…

Ummm, the interweb says Steve Lowery won a tournament this year, hmmm great. What a debacle Els has turned into, he wins at the Honda and then fires his coach and starts changing everything. He has gotten too mechanical as most golfers do. Hopefully he gets comfortable in 09’ and has more success. He is a guy that won the US Open at 25, everyone is spoiled because Woods won Majors so early, and that is really good. He has been #1 in the world and I for one would like to see him getting more wins, especially majors. Philly took down the Crown Plaza Colonial, pretty nice since Crown Plaza also sponsors him, they probably liked that. The rest of the year was pretty disappointing, didn’t really contend in Majors, didn’t have a great Ryder Cup and spent the off-season fending off shots from Steve Williams (Tiger’s Caddy) and toying with the notion of joining the Euro tour to split his time.

Get it together Phil, win another Major, get up in Tiger’s Foreman and be that go for broke bitch titted watch wearing hair thinning but I am going to wear it long so no one notices champion everyone loves. Tiger wins the US Open, arguably one of the best tournaments I have seen in a while. I am not going to rehash it because if you missed it you should turn off the computer and go jump in front of a bus.

Stew Cink came out of the closet, what, oh well I guess he didn’t but he is a homo and hopefully this year he gets the strength to do it. Harrington then took over the next two Majors, but for 3.5 rounds across the pond Greg Norman was the story. The Shark rolled back the odometer and decided to bring some game, his putting didn’t hold out and neither did his iron play but hopefully he continues to play well and we can keep watching golf greatness for a while longer. Another oldie but a goodie reared his head at the British as well, David Duval made a splash with two impressive round, one he wanted to throw in the crapper and one that was just average none the less he is on track to playing better in the years to come.

Kenny Perry was crucified for not playing in the British and then WD at the PGA. He did however end up achieving his goal of playing in the Ryder Cup and did his home state proud. I just wish this guy wasn’t such a whiner.

Veej just kept keeping on and won a quick 10 million dollars for wrapping up the Fed Ex with two tournaments to spare. My favorite moment about Veej was when Sergio ran in like a 50 foot putt for what looked like the for sure tie maybe a win with Singh still 30-40 feet away himself and then he pours it in, pats Sergio on the belly and gives him a look as to say "you really thought you were going to win didn't you, stupid Spaniard go play with your Armada".

So DL3 posted a W this year showing the old guys can still win out there, hopefully his boy Freddie can take one down this year or just stay healthy enough to lead the boys to a Presidents Cup win. So you are all probably wondering if you looked at nothing but stats, who was the best player in 2008. Well that goes to Pat Perez, your best player overall based on stats, however just 12 top 25 finishes out of 27 tournaments played. #2 in that category was Anthony Kim, so it’s not worthless but sometimes it can be misleading.

Let’s see here, oh Annika retired. I give that retirement two years unless she pops out a kid. Michele Wie got her 09’ LPGA status by qualifying through tour school, great, stick with the chicks. The LPGA tried to enforce an English only rule, just awesome, you can’t make stuff like that up. Zinger led the US to a Ryder cup victory, Boo Weekley became a household name by doing the bull dance better than Happy Gilmore.

I am sure more happened, like all the retards that puked on themselves at PGA Q-School (closed circuit to Harrison Frazer, winner of the Q-School tournament and shot 59 in one the 6 rounds, you are really good please win a tournament this year), rundown of the Nationwide Grads but I need to get moving on to this year and since this is already going to be very very very long I will post this to keep interests up.




Doing fine in 2009…

Ok the season starts this week but it really doesn’t start until we get out of Hawaii and back to the mainland. First off the Mercedes Championship was set up to be a winner's only event, win a tournament and you are in. But something happen, the season started to get longer, guys chased money on other tours in different countries and all of a sudden this tournament doesn’t get Tiger (even when he’s healthy), no Phil and a lot of the other big names stay home to try and extend the off season. Who can blame them, Hawaii sucks with all that warmness and tropical greatness, idiots. Seriously I have no idea why you wouldn’t be drooling to play in this tournament; they pay your travel expenses, hotel, Mercedes courtesy car and free BJs at the turn. Well at least I think they get most of those things.

So, minus Tiger, Phil, Adam Scott (surfing accident led to knee injury) and Paddy we are left with 33 player field and one of those player is something called a Mark Turnesa. Need a player that can play in the wind and putt on Bermuda greens. I just found out Veej has a knee issue and will be out 5 weeks after the Benz so I won’t pick him out right. Oh I just can’t pick one, here is a trio, I will box in the trifecta: Kim, Choi and Els. Go boys and make me proud. See you here bout the same time next week.


NF

PS—If you made it this far…Here you go and thanks.

Get Bent Detroit!

Well it’s Wednesday night and you know what that means, time for some golf. Oh you don’t care about golf, well start caring losers it’s the week of the final major and there is lots to talk about.

First off last week was great golf, if you didn’t watch any you missed out on a great field that didn’t disappoint at the WGC Bridgestone. Well actually it was just a star studded field, minus Tiger, going head to head with no one really taking full charge until Vijay finally wished in his last 4 footer for the win. My guy Perry played like a dog but I did tell you that Vijay could win if he made putts. As it turns out he could have routed the field if he would have made anything. The guy was missing short putts left and right but his extraordinarily good ball striking was good enough to make him the winner.

What is up with Phil? He managed to choke away another tournament with just a horrible putting performance on Sunday. Personally I believe he is just thinking too much. Ever since his last big choke job at the 2007 US Open he just doesn’t seem the same, he will tell you that it is not bothering him but he has sucked in big events ever since. He has a poor putter to blame for it; in 06’ he ended the year 5th on tour in putting, in 07’ he was 15th and this year he is 48th. For a guy known for his short game he has certainly become all too average. He is a great player don’t get me wrong and he has a great rack but his putting is what is keeping him from winning more. Tiger is gone and Phil should be taking the lead and instead he is playing like a gay. By the way if you didn’t know Vijay and Phil hate each other, maybe even more than Phil and Tiger hate each other, I just wish they would have just went toe to toe on Saturday it would have been epic

OK, so when you think of a great golf course, a course good enough to hold a major, you probably think it would be held in a great town well not this week. Detroit, the Motor City, formally Hockeytown USA and as I like to call it “Detoilet” is the city that will host not only the best touring pros in the world but the best PGA Professionals from around the country. God hates Detroit more than abortionists and queers, that town is the crappiest piece of garbage in the lower 48. They really have nothing going for them other than poverty, crime and pollution. But all things aside Oakland Hills CC, The Monster, is still a tremendous course that should create fits for the players over the course of four days. At 7400 yards and again playing to a par 70 this week the emphasis will again be on driving accuracy, greens in regulation and of course putting. The greens are very undulated (lots of slope) and I believe the key will be hitting approach shots to the right section of the green in order to have a putt that doesn’t break six different ways. You are going to see guys playing shots off the banks of the greens to try and get the ball close to the hole and putts breaking 30 feet. Not to overshadow the greens but this course also has some of the longest par 3’s, 9th is 257yrds 17th is 238yrds, which is just another reason the guy who wins will need to hit greens, in the right spots, and can manage his putter.

So as an homage to WWWWW let’s look at who the stats would say wins this week. The best player overall in driving accuracy + distance, greens in regulation and putting is Ryan Palmer. He ranks 18th in ball striking which ranks players by combining Total Driving (distance and accuracy) and Greens in Regulation (hit the green with a putt at birdie or better) couple that stat with being 56th in Putts per Round (3rd in Putts per Green in Reg) and there you have it your statistical pick to click. Now is he even in the field…ummmm…NO he is not…DAMN IT. This stat shit is hurting my brain; well let’s look at another stat. All Around, ranks the average of all stats kept by the PGA tour that should tell us the winner. Stew Cink is your all around best ranked player by the numbers, but as I have explained before Stew is a homo so he is out, not because of his sexuality but just because I don’t like him. Campbell, Scott, Kim and Mickelson round out the top 5. Well Phil might win but I think there is a greater chance that he looses it on the final day. Chad Campbell, get real. Adam Scott is a fun pick but Aussies don’t win Majors in America just ask Norman…too soon…Nah. So there he is again the young, brash, best American player under 30, Anthony Kim. He wants the win and he has the stats to back it up 35th in Total Driving, 48th in Greens in Reg, 42nd in Putting and more importantly 29th in Putting when hitting the green in regulation. So there it is your winner Anthony Kim, not just by the stats but I really think he will win and if he doesn’t…well…well…well I will be very disappointed.


Watch These Guys Too:
Lee Westwood-He played too well last week not to consider him.
Vijay- Why not.
Hunter Mahan-This is his last shot to secure a spot on the Ryder Cup team.
Poulter/Garcia-Garcia played great here 4 years ago in the Ryder Cup, he hits his irons as well as anyone and if he gives himself good chances and makes some putts he will be there. Poulter is a wild card, he has the confidence but can he execute in America?

Sleeper of the Week:
Davis Love- In 96’ he three putted the 17th green and that cost him the title, look for him to be a surprise on the leader board

There it is my preview of the final major on the PGA Tour. Picks have been crappy but hopefully the content makes up for it and I have to get lucky here soon, but if not I will be back next week to tell you why Kim hosed me and breakdown how the winner got it done, until then enjoy the golf.

NF

PS-Michelle Wie sucks and will always suck, she is the suckiest suck that ever sucked. I was never so happy than to see her grind out that 80 in the 2nd round last week and then explain that she played her best, new flash, if that's your best then stay home!

Tiger wins again...Huh, oh he's not playing...

Well if you didn’t see it Bubba Watson played like a true champion and just fell a couple strokes shy of the win. Well actually he failed to make the weekend but what did you expect, I can’t just give you the winner every time, I have an 1-800 gambling line for that. Furyk, Weir, Kim and Calc were there so I did have some half way decent players in my folks to watch but Watson let me down and for that I will not pick him again this week. Chez Reavie won going away, played extremely well on Thursday and Friday and didn’t fade on the weekend when no one would have held it against him if he realized where he was on the leader board and simply puked all over himself. Realistically this guy hasn’t even been on the map since January when he turned in a T5 finish, he is a young kid in his first year on tour and he made the most of his best opportunity to win. Now he will enjoy the life of a tour winner, two year exemption, trip to the Masters, setting his own schedule and his pick of second tier PGA Tour groupies. Not bad kid…

The Tour moves south this week for the third WGC event of the year to be played at Firestone Country Club in Akron, OH. But really this is a huge week overall in golf, the Seniors tee it up in Colorado for the US Senior Open, chicks are in Europe for the Women’s British and the rest of the PGA Tour’s players who aren’t good enough to play with the best players in the world head to Tahoe for the Reno Tahoe Open. It is the event where whoever wins will most likely be overshadowed by a whiney little teenager named Michelle Wie. It won’t be because she becomes the first women to make the cut on the PGA Tour, for the love of all things holy if she makes the cut I am going call shenanigans and get the brooms, she will steal attention for being a non factor freak of nature. Seriously, she is six feet tall and Hawaiian (that’s like Asian mixed with short Americans), her parents are six feet tall combined can someone please test this girl for HGH and maybe run a battery of tests to find out why it seems like she is always on her period. I seriously can’t stand this side show and hopefully with a poor enough showing this week she will finally head back to the women’s circuit.

Ok getting back to the real show, the WGC at Firestone. This course is a bear, 7300 yards and plays to a par 70, what that means is that there are only going to be two par fives in play over the course of 18 holes each day. They also boast some of the longest and tightest par 4s on tour and almost every par three can be played over 200 yards. The player that wins will need to drive the ball long, hit a lot of greens and putt like he has a pair. Yes that is the combination to winning a lot of tournaments and no one has done it better than Tiger, he is long, hits a ton of greens and is arguably the best putter on tour especially on weekends so since he is being a sally and taking some time to bang his Swedish wife, take long swims in his money vault (think Scrooge McDuck), oh and rest his double stress fracture and newly constructed knee; who can take down the beast this week? I think these are the top five guys that have the makeup to win here: Kenny Perry, Anthony Kim, Adam Scott, Sergio Garcia and Geoff Ogilvy. Kim is drained, as I said last week, he looked tired coming down the stretch in Canada and this week will be no different top 20 for sure but he will not contend. Where has Ogilvy been lately? Well he hasn’t been playing much on Tour and yet he is back on the radar as a trendy pick, so I will shy away from him because he plays better when no one thinks he will. That leaves Scott nursing a bad wrist, but I think he will still contend, Garcia has been consistent this year and if the putter works this weekend he will finish no lower than the top 5 but I think the winner will be Kenny Perry. This guy has been a fireball lately and didn’t play last week and was not one of the guys that had to readjust himself after coming back from Europe so he should be rested after a week of sipping sweet tea and eating cornbread or whatever hicks from KY do in their free time. Hey Faldo what about Phil? Pound Sand Losers, he will not contend, this guy should be making hay while Tiger is gone but he is not, he is putting like crap and I just don’t think he will hit it straight enough to win.


Dark Horses:
Vijay-Just make a putt.
Rose-Just try to forget this is America.
Immelman-Just quit telling everyone you won the Masters and play golf.

Cink-I hate Stewart Cink, did you ever realize how big this guy is, well look next time he is big...and probably a closet homo.

News and Notes:
Senior Open-Watch for Norman, Kite, Sluman and Scott Simpson
W. British-God I just hope Paula Creamer and Gulbis contend so I can watch the highlights
Reno-Tahoe-Watch for Moore, Duval and Merrick

This is pretty long, get used to it, not like anyone else is posting.

NF

Goodbye Europe, hello Canada you F'in commies!

Well here we go the first real post, I did pen some words leading into the AT&T a couple weeks back but they were lost in the mail, for the record I picked Ryan Moore to win. Well I wasn’t even close with that one but I did say that Anthony Kim would be one to watch for, which he was. Since then a lot has happened Kenny Perry is showing he is hottest player in the world right now and something called Richard S. Johnson won the event played opposite the British (US Bank Championship) and unless you a golf geek, such as myself, you had no idea. One thing to note is that Perry skipped British to honor a commitment at the US Bank event, as he was not eligible for the British at the start of the season. Perry caught a lot of heat for this move but, as he has said, his one goal this year was to play in the Ryder Cup in his home state of Kentucky and by playing it safe and staying in the US he has probably solidified the spot on the team. Some have criticized this move but I for one think it was good; he made a plan and stuck to it. Everyone should be talking about Perry as the best player in the world right now but seemingly everyone is still stuck on the fact that Tiger is missing while Perry dating back to May 15th has played in 8 PGA tournaments, won 3 has a 2nd, two T6 finishes and 2 in the top 50. Anyway you look at it this southern bumpkin is playing some awesome golf.

So in case you missed the British it turns out it was not the year of the Sergio, but there were some seriously good story lines. Greg Norman, fresh off a divorce and remarriage to Chris Evert(she used to be hot when I was 12), contended in his first Major in eight years but alas his ever aggressive style did him in. The guy is 53 years old and yes contrary to popular belief, golf is a sport and over the course of four days of competition it takes a toll even for people like Norman. David Duval gave a preview to what I think is just the start of his comeback to golf’s main stage, a sloppy 83 in the 3rd round did him in but no one gave him a chance to be there anyway so just seeing him back on the map is a good thing. The story of course is that the bulldog Paddy Harrington defended his title as Open Champion. This guy was 50/50 to even play at the start of the week nursing a wrist injury, but when Norman faltered there was Paddy like that familiar leprechaun on the lucky charms box. His lucky charm was a 230 yard 5wd on the 17th that set him up for a kick in eagle, two putt par on the last sealed it and now Paddy has quietly risen to the #3 ranked golfer in the world. Few made any real charges at Harrington, Poulter looked like he was going to be the winner but didn’t make enough putts, no Americans really made any showing worth the price of the chartered flight they took to Europe other than Furyk and Kim but there was too much ground to make up and on a course where par was like birdie few were able to contend with the wind and severe dog legs that are Birkdale’s only defense.

So what does it all mean for this week at the RBC Canadian? Well it means that the most of the big names are not playing, we get to see real life Mounties and if anyone gets hurt there is free health care provided by the socialistic Canadian Government. I am going to be pretty boring here with the picks, Furyk is putting like a dog these days he will be there but will not complete the three-peat (try to charge me Riley), Kim will contend but he has never been in Europe and then played the next week he will be tired but could show up his critics by having a good showing, that horse tooth chump Ames will not be close on Sunday, Weir will probably lose in a playoff and the pick of the week is Bubba Watson, he hits it a mile and has been working on his short game, I think this is his time to shine.

Sleepers to watch for:
Calcavecchia (he has won before), Chad Collins (has won on the Canadian Tour) and Jeff Quinney (his mreasts rival Phil’s, seriously get the guy a manzier he needs the support).

News and Notes:
Did anyone catch Michelle Wie getting DQ’d for not signing her scorecard, this chick is probably the dumbest broad I have ever seen play the game. She tries to exude all this bravado yet she hasn’t won anything and deserves 10% of the attention she gets. She will be playing in another PGA Tour Event in two weeks, early prediction 80-77, slam the trunk kid and go back to the tour where most of the golfers look like men because you can’t hang with the real ones.

Colt Knost, he is the guy that won every conceivable high profile amateur tournament last year, won his 2nd Nationwide Tour event (think NBA Development League but the players are good) one more win and he gets promoted to the show. He is fat, has an ugly swing and has more confidence than a black man in the shower at an all white country club, he will be on the main stage soon and could get a win post completion of the Fed Ex cup.

That’s it, too much seems like too much, well F off its brilliant and you are obviously jealous. I want to thank WWWWW for allowing a complete stranger to post on his blog and Gayslam, wherever you are, for being a complete D’Bag.

NF

British Open Precap

The Pick: Sergio Garcia (just like everybody else, but I said it first)

The Secondary Pick: Geoff Ogilvy

Sleepers: Robert Karlsson, Robert Allenby, Bart Bryant, Rod Pampling

Super Sleeper: Soren Hansen

Big Names who will Disappoint: Phil Mickelson, Jim Furyk, Adam Scott, Ernie Els

Even Worse

I've reflected a bit further on the Wolves' draft, and I realized that everyone is paying so much attention to the Mayo/Love trade that the worst move of the draft is being ignored - the Chalmers trade.

With Mayo/Love, you can argue either side of the trade and make an intelligent argument. I think it was a bad move, but I can see why people would be in favor of it - especially racists - and respect that opinion, however wrong it may be. But there is absolutely no defense for trading Chalmers for two second round picks. None at all. Just plain stupid.

Chalmers is a point guard. The Wolves have a serious point guard deficiency. The only point guard on the roster is Sebastian Telfair, who, although he showed some improvement last season, will never be mistaken for a quality point guard. With Jaric shipped out, the only other guy on the roster with any kind of ball handling ability is Randy Foye, and if they're still trying to turn him into a PG they might as well give up right now.

And Chalmers played point for the national champions at Kansas, and is a solid player. Obviously he was a second round pick, but he was projected as a "late first early second" type, not a "second to undrafted type." One scouting group rated him the same as DJ Augustin (note: I don't agree quite with that, but still.) Essentially, he was a steal where they got him, and then they ship him off for two second round draft picks, which I can almost guarantee won't end up netting them one player of Chalmers caliber, much less two. Maybe he's figuring he can get two guys who are each 60% the player Chalmers is, and that will be like getting 120% return on the trade. I honestly have no idea what McHale was thinking on this one. Utterly brutal. Now they'll end up signing some broken down veteran point guard to back up Telfair. This team is a complete joke. Their one chance was to hold onto Mayo, hope he's a star, and hope they can get him to stay - although he'd probably end up going to Boston like everyone else - and the blew that too. Good thing I don't watch the NBA, or I'd be out of this world pissed.

- In case you missed it, I said Woody Austin was the pick at the Buick this week. He finished second, and should have been in a playoff with winner Kenny "Dan Akroyd" Perry, but somehow managed to blast a birdie putt about fifteen feet past the hole and couldn't make it on the way back. Still, pretty much proves I'm a genius. Eat it Faldo, wherever you are.

I'm so Popular

Based on the overwhelming response to my last post, I wasn't going to bother typing tonight, but I just can't resist. Hooray for Naperville!

- One thing I have to say about corporate business training is that it generally really sucks. I don't understand where they get these "trainers" from. It's pretty clearly almost always people who don't understand the underlying business concepts, and have just memorized everything about a particular technique or software package. I get so frustrated every time because it's like being back in junior high they move so slowly. And even worse, there are always a few people who don't understand these elementary concepts. And they are the type that ask question after question, so when the training is supposed to end at 4:30, you end up stuck there until five because they won't shut their whorish mouths. I hate people so much it hurts sometimes.

- You want a sleeper pick for this week's Buick Open? Nick Faldo is supposed to be submitting a full preview, so I won't get all into it and what not, but look for Woody Austin to be involved on Sunday.

- A little more NBA Draft chatter - Chad Ford has a dude from Italy by the name of Danilo Gallinari going at #6 overall. What I don't understand is why all this love for international players hasn't subsided. How many have worked out? Yao Ming when he's not hurt? Drazen Petrovic before he lost an argument with a car? Arvydas Sabonis after he turned fifty? Let's look, because I have nothing better to do and clearly, neither do you.

2007: It's a bit early to evaluate this draft - obviously since Corey Brewer kind of sucked this year but will end up being totally awesome. At #6 we have Yi Jianlian, who ended up playing 25 minutes a game this past season and put up 8.6 points and 5.2 rebounds, while shooting 42%. Yes, he's seven feet tall and shot 42%. That has to be some kind of record. Not the good kind. Other internationales from the year included Marco Belinelli at #18, Rudy Fernandez at #24, Tiago Splitter at 28, and Petteri Koppenen at 31. Belinelli averaged less than 3 points per game last year, and none of the other three have even joined their NBA team. Splitter recently signed a contract to keep him in Spain through at least the 2009-2010 season.

2006: The first pick this year was the Raptor's, and they took Italy's seven footer Andrea Bargnani. The girls name is a bad sign, obviously, and Bargnani has averaged double figures in points in both of his seasons, but just barely. He's also not managed to crack four rebounds per game. So basically a pretty good role player. At number 1 overall. Very Wolvesian. Others in round 1 were Senegal's Mouhamed Sene (10), Switzerland's Tabo Sefolosha (13), Ukraine's Oleksiy Pecherov (18), Spain's Sergio Rodriguez (27), and England's Joel Freeland (30). Sene never got out of the D-League before destroying his knee, Sefolosha has been a good bench guy, Pecherov is Rick Rickert, Rodriguez hasn't played much, but has at least shown flashes of being a good, streetball style point guard and has a sweet nickname in "Spanish Chocolate", and Freeland is still in Europe.

I'm not going to go year-by-year, because I'm already bored, but here are some names, stop me when you hear a quality player: Fran Vazquez, Yaroslav Korolev, Johan Petro, Ian Mahinmi, Andris Biedrins, Pavel Podkolzine, Viktor Khrypa, Sergei Monya, Beno Udrih, Sasha Vujacic, Darko Milicic, Mickael Pietrus, Zarko Cabarkapa, Sasha Pavlovic, Boris Diaw, Zoran Planinic, Carlos Delfino, and Leandro Barbosa since 2003.

Biedrins is a pretty solid center, Petro has shown some potential, Vujacic has found a niche by being annoying, Pietrus is athletic but can't shoot for crap, Diaw and Barbosa are good in the right system, and Delfino is a quality backup guard. Nice legacy. Seriously, if the Wolves go foreign with a first round pick ever, they're idiots. Although the second round is different, go ahead and take a shot at the next Ginobili.

US Open Preview

Grandslam is an ass, who is "too busy" even though he wanted to write a weekly golf preview. I haven't heard from him in like two months, but I can't very well let a US Open go by without at least a small preview, so here we go.

As far as a recap, Either Justin Leonard or Robert Allenby won the ST. Jude classic last week, I think. I don't remember for sure.

This week, the best golfers in the world head to California to play Torrey Pines for the U.S. Open. What makes this an especially interesting circumstance is that Torrey Pines hosts the Buick Invitational every year, and it's a rare thing for a course to show up twice in a season. Of course, this weekend will be very different, with the rough going from regular to swampland lenght, and the greens going at lightspeed. With the course being lengthened as well, there will be a lot of long irons coming in and trying to stop on those greens, and expect scores to be more like the +5 that has won the Open the last two years instead of the -19 Tiger won the Buick with earlier this year.

Speaking of Tiger, he's the clear favorite here yet again, despite the knee surgery. All he needs is some of Bud Kilmer's magic juice, and he's up and going. He hasn't played a competitive round in months, but it's awful hard to bet against him. He's won six times at Torrey Pines, including the last four Buicks, and is a Majors' horse. Still, he hasn't been able to really practice until this week, and the headlines are less than inspiring. I've seen "Tiger plays 9" from Monday and this morning "Tiger plays 17+ with a cart." I don't really get the 17+ thing. Did he just quit on 18? Hit one into the woods and decide not to track it down and pack it in? It's not smart to bet against Tiger, but I'm not going with him here.

The other favorite here is Mickelson, the #2 in the world, and who also has a handful of wins at Torrey. He's playing very well right now, with two wins on the season, and other than a missed cut at the Pebble Pro-Am, no worse finish than 23rd in a tournament. Mickelson has all kinds of struggles in US Opens, however, missing the cut last year (albeit with a wrist injury) and collapsing on the 72nd hole in 2006 to lose to Geoff Ogilvy. That being said, he's the best golfer in the world without injury concerns right now, and is playing well, so he's probably the smart bet.

That being said, my pick for the week is Sergio Garcia. If you've read the scroll bar above, I've called this the year of the Sergio after he won at the Players. He finished fourth at the St. Jude last week, and looks to be in good form. He's still having some struggles with the putter, his big weakness, and hasn't played well at the US Open in the past, missing the cut the last two years, but after getting to a playoff at the British last year and winning the Players, I think he's ready to make a big step forward and get his first Major victory.

A few quick sentences on some other guys:

Adam Scott: The number three player in the world. Even worse than Garcia in US Opens, and nursing a hand injury. Nope.

Ryuji Imada: Kind of a trendy pick right now, based on his win at the AT&T last month, his runner up finish at the Buick this year, and a 12th place finish at the US Open two years ago. It's a pretty strong case, but I really don't think previous play at the Buick will have much baring on play at the US Open here. The course is going to be vastly different. Still, he could surprise.

Jim Furyk: Runner-up at the Open the past two years, will this be the year he wins his second one? He's not playing all that great this year, but it's possible.

Justin Leonard: Is he back to his old form that lead to a 1997 win at the British Open? He just won the St. Jude last week, and is having a great year with five top 10s already. I think he's back and back strong. Should be in contention this week.

Stuart Appleby: My sleeper pick for the week. Appleby looks like a smaller, gayer version of Hulk Hogan, but he can play some golf. Hasn't had much success at the US Open, but may have started turning that around last year, finishing 26th after missing the cut seven of the previous eight times. Started the year off hot and has cooled down a bit, but is still playing well. If you put any stock in Buick Open statistics, Appleby finished 8th there this year.

Mike Weir: Another solid sleeper. Plays very well at the US Open (3-4-42-6-20 the past five times) and finished second at the Memorial his last time out.

Anyone I didn't mention won't win. Especially not Stewart Cink.

Back in the NJ

New Jersey. Dinner. Drinks. Beer. Sink. Go

- First off, I want to give props to the staff at the Marriott I was at last night. When I checked out this morning and headed to the office, I realized I had left my watch in the room. I called to let them know and tell them where it was, and said I'd pick it up later this evening. Since most hotel workers are foreigners, and all foreigners steal, I figured I'd never see it again. But sure enough, when I went by after work it was there waiting for me. Good on you Marriott.

- I'm flipping between the Celts/Pistons and Dodgers/Cubs games. For the record, I took Detroit +6, it just seems like the kind of game a team like the Celtics is going to drop, or at least squeak out at the end. I'm also rooting for Derek Lowe to suck, I hate that son of a bitch.

- Speaking of dudes I hate, it's nice to see Delmon Young pull a Torii Hunter, and not only that, but somehow make it a much worse decision. Let's see, we are up 3, and the guy at the plate is the tying run. Why would I just keep the ball in front of me? What a jackass. Still can't hit either. In all of baseball, only two guys hit the ball on the ground more than Delmon, Luis Castillo and Julio Lugo. At least he's among the league leaders in something. He also has the second worst SLG among american league outfielders. Meanwhile, Matt Garza pitched another good game today. I want to punch myself for being in favor of that trade at the time.

- I know you want to know, so yes, I was upgraded to first class on the way out here and am upgraded again tomorrow on my flight home. It hurts sometimes being so awesome.

- So the big news across the ticker is that Sammy Sosa is announcing his retirement after this year's World Baseball Classic. Hey Sammy, you haven't played all year. Nobody wants you. It's not called retiring, it's called forced retirement. Big difference. Ass. And who corks their bat AND takes steroids? Jesus, make up your mind.

- Speaking of forced retirement, why in the holy hell hasn't an american league team signed Barry Bonds? Is he just asking for ridiculous money or is everyone that stupid? Here is one of the top 2 hitters in history, sitting around doing nothing. Just as a reminder, even at 42 last season he OPS+ed 170 and pulled a .480 OBP. Is he being blackballed for the roids thing (stupid) or is everyone afraid of "chemistry issues" (monumentally stupid)? I'm going to tell you a secret: Chemistry is extremely overrated in all sports, but in baseball it is virtually non-existent. Chemistry really means teamwork, and when is their teamwork in baseball? Double plays, relay throws from the outfield, and probably fly ball issues in the outfield. You know what, you sign him in the AL and make him DH and all of this is irrelevant. Does the fact that Bonds is an ass really affect the next guy at the plate's at bat? I would hope not. God people are idiots. I would be thrilled, nay, ecstatic if the Twins found a way to pull him in. Yes, I know there's no chance in hell that happens.

- On the radio on the way to the hotel the NY radio dudes were excited for an upcoming matchup between Pedro Martinez and Barry Zito. THE MOST ANTICIPATED MATCHUP OF 2002!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- When I was having dinner in the hotel bar/restaurant thing, there were these dudes seated near me, and the one dude was just berating the other one. In a calm voice and everything, but I don't know if they were relatives or friends or coworkers or what, but it was brutal. Some quotes: "I don't understand what you've done with your life. Are you ineffectual? Timid? Not in control of your life at all? Whenever I've had an opportunity I've taken it, that's why I am where I am in my life." And "I was an air force pilot. While you were busy screwing around, I was doing something productive with my life." And "Ritalin? No way. My kids don't go near the stuff and don't need it. You need to take control of your kids and give them some discipline. Ritalin is just a drug for bad parents." And "You've never been to Europe? Wow, I go at least once a year. I have a stash at home of leftovers Euros from my last trip. I don't even bother cashing them in because I go so often." Classic.

- Jesus. I actually miss Bill Simmons.

- There is a sometimes commenter here by the handle of "Dharma Bum." If you've ever wondered what he looks like, check out Adam Wainwright. Even more of a twinner than The Todd/Spencer Tollackson.

- Since grandslam sucks now and nobody else will step to the plate, here's your golf preview, courtesy of yours truly:

Mickelson has to be the favorite, after winning last week due to a lucky shot on 18. He also plays well historically at the memorial. But nobody ever wins twice in a row on tour unless they are Tiger, and he's not, so he's out. Last year's winner, KJ Choi, is playing well this season, but he's asian and I don't trust him. Stewart Cink? Please. Yes, he's playing well this year and has a great record at the Memorial, but dude has proven he straight up can't win, so he's out. Ryan Moore? Yawn. The winner will be either Rod Pampling or Kenny Perry. Both are playing well and have good records here, and neither are winners from last week, asian, chokers, or boring. Mark it down.

- If you're a hotel, why would you sell beer in your giftshop that requires a bottle opener to open? Good thing I'm still a big enough loser to have a bottle opener on my keychain! Holla!

- I don't want to get into a whole Reusse thing here again, but two of his recent articles deserve mention. The first his how it is such a shame that the Rochester minor league club has been looted of players by the Twins due to injuries. Guess what Pat? The only people who give two shits about Rochester are the losers that live there and the manager of said club. Not even the players care, they are just hoping to get called up to the big team. The second is about how Tom Kelly tried to make David Ortiz use all fields and Ortiz didn't like it and now he's awesome and "a fair percentage of Ortiz's clutch its go to the opposite field" and how he's never thanked Kelly for that. First, let's just dismiss the whole thanking Kelly thing. Second, although I can't find the actual stats - which surprises me but then again I'm drunk so F off - I'm willing to wager that Ortiz hits almost exclusively to the right side, clutch or not. It would help if Youtube would let people put up actual replays of their games, instead every highlight is Zapruder quality and basically impossible to figure out what is going on. Someone find the data and prove me right. I do know that he once hit a game winning homerun off Johan Santana in the WBC, and that went to right.

- For some reason today I found myself thinking about this doofus who played on my amateur baseball team. You know how a lot of guys have little quirks about how they play? For example, one guy on our team used a lot of pine tar because he liked the sticky. I didn't wear batting gloves because I liked to feel the wood (hee hee). Snacks used eye black because it helped him see the ball. Another guy wore wristbands because his arms got really sweaty. Well, this dude did all of this. Pine tar, no batting gloves, eye black, sweatbands. Add in high socks, sunglasses, and a cocked hat, and he truly was the tool of all tools. It's like he took every kind of baseball schtick just to that guy. He reminded me of Jim Carrey playing basketball in The Cable Guy, but, you know, baseball.

- Jesus Christ! I thought some gangster rapping black man had broken into my hotel room to yell statistics and five year old catch phrases at me, but it turns out it was just Stew Scott on the halftime show. Or Carlton Banks.

- I just went down to refill the sink, so I should be good to go for a while. I think the gift shop guy is judging me.

- You know which team has a pretty good baseball future, other than the Rays and D-Backs? The Reds. Excellent young pitchers in Edinson Volquez and Johnny Cueto are already up. Super prospects Joey Votto (ROY candidate) and Jay Bruce (awesome debut) are there. Second baseman Brandon Phillips is young (27), good (OPS+ 121), and cheap (less than $3 mil this year). CF Norris Hopper and SS Jeff Keppinger are both very good, are under 30, and are making essentially the big league minimum (read: less than Bogart). Plus, future ace Homer Bailey is in AAA waiting for the call up. Consider me with a boner for the Reds.

- If I'm mentioning prospects, I must mention Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers. He gives me a bigger boner than the Reds, Andrew Miller, and Mila Kunis combined. A Zito-like curve (when he was good), a Randy Johnson fastball and a Johan Santana changeup. And you think I'm kidding. Multiple Cy Youngs, I'm calling it now.

- Don't forget to gaze upon the Scott Stahoviak page at baseball reference. By the by, Clayton Kershaw's page is already at $180 for a year, and he's pitched one game.

- As long as I'm on baseball and off your mom, I might as well mention the whole Jabba Chamberlain thing. I don't get what the Yanks are doing here. The guy is an absolute monster for one inning. Clearly the heir apparent to Mariano. Not that he needs it just yet, as he's in the midst of maybe his best season ever, but he's thirty-eight, and can't do it for ever. Jabba seems like a natural to take over, just like Rivera did from Wetteland, but they are moving him into the rotation (with a 50 pitch count limit). Actually, I get why they're doing it. Kennedy and Hughes aren't ready and/or are hurt, and Mussina/Pettitte are both old and craptastic. Wang is their only good pitcher this year, so they need a boost, I just don't think it's the right way to go. This will implode in a hurry. Plus, dude only throws two pitches. That usually doesn't work too well for a starter. Remember that thing about how the Yankees were going to suck that I said that one time? yeah. what up?

- Mariano Duncan pretty much sucked.

- Did I ever tell you I once saw Tom Skerritt at the Newark Airport? I went up to him and said, "You can be my wingman anytime." I'm pretty sure he wanted to punch me in the face, but the dude is like 5'4, I mean like, shorter than Theory. So he didn't.

- Fun with stats: Darnell McDonald in the Twins' system has the sixth best OPS in all of minor league ball. I have no idea who that is. Jason Pridie has the fifth worst.

- Major League fun with stats: ISO is a fun stat. It stands for isolated power. Essentially, it's a measure of extra bases (not singles) per at-bat, and takes singles out of slugging percentage, because batting average can skew slugging if you want to look at it as a power measure. The Twins have four guys in the bottom 25. Delmon (12th), Mauer (15th), Lamb (19th), and Harris (23rd). Sadly, they all rank below Jason Kendall, one of the most notorious non-power hitters in major league history. No other team has more than two in the bottom 25. So next time somebody tries to tell you the Twins aren't a bunch of single hitting fairies, you punch him in the face. In case you're curious, the top five are Dan Uggla, Lance Berkman, Chase Utley, Pat Burrell, and Adam Dunn.

- There's an article on yahoo right now about how baseball games are too long. This is the graphic they chose to run with it:

Yes, they're complaining about a 15+ inning game being "too long." The incompetence in the media continues to astound me.

- My current boss is dating a relative of a prominent Minnesota-based athlete. I haven't figured out how to use this to my advantage yet, but rest assured, I will.

- Since I know you want to know, the next two books on the list are Three Nights in August (about Tony LaRussa and the Cards - off Bears' reco) and Living on the Black by John Feinstein (one of my faves) about Mike Mussina and Tom Glavine.

- How long, exactly, is Rip Hamilton going to wear that mask for? Gotta be at least three years now, no?

- Arky Vaughn doesn't get enough play.

- You know's who's hot? Ryan Reynolds.

- So Detroit covered, which is awesome. Also, somehow the Twins won 9-8 by scoring five in the ninth. Since they don't really have the Twins on TV out here, I'm going to assume there were a lot of hit batters and singles. And no walks. Never any walks. FYI - Twins have taken more walks than only the Royals in all of MLB.

- As much as I would love to write SOMETHING about the Gophers here, there's just not much going on. I don't much care about the football team, and I'll leave that to the other guys, and nada is happening on the hoops team. The one thing I do want to touch on, is that it appears Tubby is recruiting Glen Rice, Jr. for the 2008 class. If it comes down to Rice v Williams for a scholarship, please choose Rice. Glen Rice Original was the best college basketball player I've ever seen, and based on Tony Gwynn Jr., Dale Berra, and Tim Raines Jr I can only assume he's awesome. Yes I'm fully aware those are all baseball sons, but go ahead and try to find a list for the NBA. Impossible.

- There's a link over on the side over there for a site called With Leather. It was, at one time, a very funny sports-related blog site, the sister site of WWTDD. If you don't know what that is go to hell. Anyway, it's not funny anymore.

- So I didn't touch on my first class flight earlier in this post because I didn't want you peons who fly coach to feel bad, but now I'm drunk enough and bored enough that I must mention it. I was on the window, unfortunate, as I prefer the aisle but who am I to protest when I get an upgrade? So the dude next to me, some dirty asian, goes ahead and makes the area into a permanent camp ground. First off, he puts his laptop in the seat pocket, which is a clear no-no and is announced as such. Then, four seconds after take off, he takes it out, clearly in violation of the "no electronic devices" edict. Obviously, rules will not hold our villain, and do not apply to him. When sky waitress comes by, he orders a water, a cranberry juice, and a beer. I wish I was kidding. Of course they serve him all three, which, along with his precious laptop, book, and file folder he uses to take up not only his seat, his tray table, and his extra fold out table thing, but also the little table in between us that we are supposed to share. Now, as weird as it may seem, I actually need to get out and get my properly stowed laptop at some point to do some work for my meeting. Once they announce it's cool to use electronic stuff, I want to grab it but dude has a full on campout going on. I figure, I'll wait, he'll finish his stuff (complimented by 6 bags of various nuts, chips, and pretzels they bring around) and I'll be good to go. Not so. Half hour goes by, and his fort is still in full magnitude. I finally say "Hey dude, I need to get my computer" and not only to I get the sigh (expected, though uncalled for) but it takes him a full three minutes - and multiple extraneous sighs - to get his little fort out of my way. Obviously on the rest of the flight I made sure to have to get up a few extra times to prove a point, but I don't feel good about it. And in summary that is why I don't trust asians. Especially Koreas. Although they are very good at ping pong.

- I kind of wish I was out of beer but I'm not so what are you going to do? Fully expect the rest of this post to be even worse than the previous, if possible. To make it up to you, here's some girl who is allegedly a Spartan fan:

I hope we can still be friends.

- God, I was going to bet on the French Open winner just to be a funny bit but I can't bring myself to do it. Tennis is so gay.

- Has anybody seen Idiocracy? I truly love Luke Wilson in a manly way, but I thought this was one of the worse movies of all time. It recently came up in conversation with a co-worker and he loved it. I don't think he's an idiot, but now I'm not sure. If you've seen it, please tell me what you thought.

- In case you're curious, out of the top 100 prospects, the Twins have three: Carlos Gomez, Deolis Guerra, and Ben Revere. For the other AL central teams, the Indians have two, White Sox have one, Royals two, and Tigers nada. So I guess that's something.

- bah