Golf Empire

The teenager I’ve been talking about, Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland, moved on to the “Elite Eight”, soundly beating South African Tim Clark, the fellow the media hates for having dispatched Tiger yesterday. Rory had a 4-up lead after 6 holes and never gave Clark a chance, beating him 4 and 3. This is the third straight time a player who beat Tiger in this tournament lost in his next round. Rory’s ranked 17th in the world rankings.

As for Phil, after Stewart Cink had 3 straight birdies to go 3-up early in their match, he fought back, twice going all square but let it go both times and lost.

Tomorrow’s pairings are Rory McIlroy vs. Geoff Ogilvy; Ernie Els vs. Stewart Cink; Sean O’Hair vs. Paul Casey; and Ross Fisher vs. Justin Leonard. It would be fun to watch young gun Rory vs. the Big Easy in the final match. We’ll see how things develop tomorrow.

I’ve been watching the commercials for the new reality show due up next week on the Golf Channel, the one where Tiger’s swing coach gets to beat up on the Round Mound of Rebound, who has a swing that’s as ugly as his face. It looks like it’ll be fun to watch. I thought he was in jail for his latest escapade, a DUI I think. “The Haney Project”, I wonder who else they’ll have on. If they’re looking for ugly swings, I could certainly accommodate them!

Well Eric, it’s good to hear from you again. You misunderstand me, I’m a big fan of Tiger Woods, although I would not go so far as to characterize my level of fandom as unhealthy. My gripe is with the media who show a single-minded determination to grind us into the ground with their stupefying Tiger worship. Anyway, what will they talk about now? I hated to see it happen so soon but the great one is out, going down to South African Tim Clark 4 and 2. Also losing his match today was Anthony Kim, who I agree is a lot of fun to watch. He lost to Oliver Wilson 2 and 1. You really should keep your eye on 19 year old Rory McIlroy, who beat a really fine golfer, Hunter Mahan, 1 up. I really think Rory has the game to go a long way.

I hope you’ll still be watching, there’s a lot of really good golf left to be played in the desert, although we won’t be able to see Tiger make Phil cry this time around!

Despite your recent polemic against Tiger Woods, Epistrophy, I am still caught up in Tiger-mania. Who isn’t interested in seeing the best golfer ever (yes I said it) come back from an eight month injury to see if he can still perform like he did at Torrey Pines? Although I commiserate with Phil Mickelson, who’s exploits last week at the Northern Trust Open were overshadowed by Tiger’s bum knee, this is after all Tiger Woods. Most people watching golf today would much rather see Tiger being Tiger than any John Doe battling on the links with Joe Nobody (sorry Rocco). Tiger is the reason to flip on the TV on Sunday to see if he can continue dominating the field. That being said, today was a great, but sloppy showing by Tiger. He had three bogeys on the front nine, but made up for them with two amazing eagles. The way he is able to keep his composure in the media circus, while playing at the top of his game is incredible. Definitely a good start to his road to the Masters.

Even though my thoughts on Tiger border on unhealthy, I do enjoy watching golf besides the great TW. My own wunderkind to watch this weekend is Anthony Kim. This is his moment to shine. He knows he has the skills to beat the competition and now has a basic cake-walk to the round of eight. After Paddy Harrington and Henrick Stenson went down to the 16 and 15 seeds, respectively, Anthony Kim became the heavy favorite in the Sam Snead bracket. His only worry is after he reaches the final rounds, when he has to go up against the big dogs. Hopefully he will do well, I will be watching intently.

Well it’s Tiger Time, full time, all the time, and it’s starting to irritate me already. I mean Tiger’s story is compelling. His last victory was gripping, limping through Torrey Pines to beat Jersey favorite Rocco Mediate; his surgery, convalescence and baby were all very edge-of-the-seat. But c’mon, give us a break, there are other players here; let’s share the wealth, as Nancy Pelosi would say. And believe me, this is not a criticism of Tiger: as usual, my gripe is with the idiot media who think we all have one track minds. Anyway, Tiger blasted through Brendan Jones, winning 3 and 2. He looks good; nuff sed.

I thought the story about Rory McIlroy was great, kudos to the NY Times and Karen Crouse for the article yesterday which mentioned Tiger often, but tangentially. In case you’ve been Tiger-blinded, Rory is another teenage wunderkid who is making his US debut. He idolizes Tiger, memorizing the minutia of Tiger’s life story while becoming the youngest man to crack the world top-20, at age 19. He’s playing in Tiger’s bracket where, today, he beat Louis Oosthuizen (I looked him up on the Golf.com player profile and got nothing), 3 and 2. Rory won last month’s Dubai Desert Classic for his first European Tour title (he’s also had 2 seconds, a third, and four other top-10 finishes in his last 12 European Tour events. I’ll be rooting for this teenager and his caddie (Dad Gerry).

It appears that nobody has the advantage of “course knowledge” at the Ritz Carlton GC in Marana, Arizona: it just opened last month. Let’s see how things develop; and a word to the media: get a life beyond Tiger, will ya.

What an exciting finish at Riviera! After playing horribly for 14 holes and coughing up his lead to Steve Stricker, Phil found his mojo and ran off a couple of birdies, then held off charges by Andres Romero, KJ Choi, and Freddie Couples to win the Northern Trust Open. The story for me was Freddie, just shy of 50 years old, suffering for 15 years with back troubles, and almost winning against all these young guys! Makes a geezer proud! He almost had it, too, until an errant iron shot on his approach to the 18th green (he outdrove both Phil and Andres!) did him in. Like I said, a great finish to a great tournament!

A couple to words of explanation, an editorial if you will because you’re always going to get that from me! I say a lot of things that make my wife, and others, cringe. Please understand, dear readers, that it’s just my way of eliciting a response from you. The other day, when I said some things about people who yell out cliches after players’ shots, I really didn’t mean that I want them to be put to death, nor that I want some horrible fate to befall them. They just piss me off and I tend to vent, perhaps too vociferously, perhaps in too controversial a turn of phrase, but again, I don’t mean it, but again they do irritate me mightily. In the same vein, when I vented about large corporations forcing us to use their names in place of the venerable tournament names of the past, I’m just venting; I fully understand, and appreciate the fact that these sponsors allow us to continue to enjoy watching the best golfers in the world compete week after week. If it weren’t for their largess, there would be no purses large enough the attract the top talent. I truly hope that the current hard times don’t scare away too many sponsors, and that we’ll continue to be able to enjoy the vicarious thrill of a 72nd hole charge! You’ll notice that as a mea culpa, today’s post is properly entitled “Northern Trust Open Final Round”!

There, I’ve said enough to hopefully restore my Karma. Now, in my lonely hotel room, I’ll take great pleasure in turning off all mention of the Academy Awards, something that interests me not one bit and appears to me to be totally worthless and self-serving hype! I suppose you thought I’d say something nice to end this post didn’t you? Wrong.

See you in Arizona!