Tag Archives: PGA Tour

Good Days and Bad.

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Had a nice conversation with Fehlandt Lentini on Tuesday. Fehlandt had a good day.

The former Goldeye fan-favorite is now a current Goldeye fan-favorite. After getting his release from the Amarillo Sox of the American Association, he was signed by Winnipeg manager Rick Forney and hit out of the six hole on Tuesday night. He was absolutely thrilled.

Lentini was  released from a team that was 38-43 and right out of the post-season hunt and signed by a team that was 47-33 and first in the North Division. Sometimes being released isn’t the end of the road, even for a veteran player. Sometimes, a release is a ticket to a better situation.

In Lentini’s case, the situation couldn’t be better. He, indeed, had a good week.

So far, it’s been a very interesting week for a lot of people. Some good, some bad. Here’s a guy who could have had a great week, but ended up having a bad one:

steve williams interview 300x189 Good Days and Bad.

The Mouth That Spewed

Professional golf bag carrier, Steve Williams, was able to serve Adam Scott as Scott hit all the shots and won the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational. It was a great Sunday for Williams who, of course, had recently been fired by Tiger Woods.

But because Williams is such a narcissistic bloviator, he went on television, dumped all over Woods and praised — no, not Scott — but himself for winning the Bridgestone. It was a dreadful and somewhat embarrassing outburst by a person who was described as “delusional” by Golf Digest.

It’s nice to work for a winner. It’s bat-$#it crazy to take credit for winning when you don’t hit a shot.

Williams had a great Sunday, but his mouth turned it into a horrible Monday.

On the upside, it’s painfully obvious why Woods got rid of Williams and, in fact, I’m surprised Woods didn’t fire Williams the day he ripped Phil Mickelson. If you really want to change your life, as Woods obviously does, getting rid of some old baggage never hurts.

By the way, after Williams shot off his mouth, here is what Paul Azinger said about Tiger in an interview with Steve Deuming at WDAE in Tampa: “I have always pulled for Tiger to do well, he’s the most exciting player whether you like him or hate him now, and for me personally it’s hard to watch the product unless he is in it.”

That’s the most honest assessment of the PGA Tour I’ve ever read.

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Nice Work PGA Tour. Allow Your Fans to Walk Through the Bunkers. Idiots.

Posted on August 15, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

The PGA Tour hit a new low on Sunday afternoon. The knuckleheads who run golf’s biggest tournaments have now decided that having ropes doesn’t make any sense anymore and they’ll just let the fans trample through bunkers now.

On the 18th hole on the final day of the 2010 PGA championship, leader Dustin Johnson hit a tee-shot straight right. It was a lousy shot, right into the gallery.

Little did Johnson know, however, that the PGA Tour decided that all bunkers are no longer part of the playing area of the golf course and allowed the fans to trample through them. That’s right. “We’ll hide a bunker under the gallery just so some unknowing bastard who hits it right will be ripe for a two-shot penalty.”

So when Johnson hit it into what he thought was a gallery, a gallery that for a week had trampled down everything in its wake, it turned out that the Tour had allowed the galleries to trample through an actual sand trap. What a collection of idiots.

Johnson didn’t know it was a bunker and grounded his club. Automatic two-shot penalty. Sadly, nobody but the Tour rules nazis knew it was a bunker. CBS even had to explain to viewers that in this shit-hole of trampled dirt and rough their could have been a bunker there. “Maybe. Like, maybe a week ago, OK?” CBS even sent out Feherty to explain that “maybe that was a lip.”

Meanwhile TVs two biggest PGA Tour sycophants, Jim Nantz and Nick Faldo, went on about how Johnson shouldn’t have grounded his club anyway because it was kind of sandy. Hey boys, you protect idiots, you sound like idiots.

Johnson paid the price, finished nine under and was kicked out of a playoff. The PGA Tour looked stupid and lazy because they didn’t rope off their hazards and bunkers.

A shaky Tiger Woods hasn’t been the entire cause of the PGA’s TV ratings demise. Idiots have played a part in it, too.

*   *   *

Monday morning:

Watched the PGA Tour rules official defend allowing galleries to trample through bunkers by saying players were given one-page sheets saying all bunkers would be treated as bunkers.

Now there’s a comment that makes you go “Hmmmm.”

There was never a greater ass-covering comment in the history of golf. This doofus essentially said, “We’ve decided to allow the galleries to trample down the bunkers – even bunkers that are 20-30 yards or so off the fairways – and we expect you, as players, to suddenly become golf course architects and memorize where Pete Dye placed every bunker on this golf course. Even the ones we’ll hide under the sneakers of the fans.

Hope that guy’s running for office. He’s not only full of crap, he’s good at covering his worthless butt. He’s a dream politician.

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It’s Week 15 in the NFL and it’s Already Crazy.

Posted on December 20, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

It was quite a Saturday night in the NFL.

After three quarters, the Dallas Cowboys held a 24-3 lead over the unbeaten New Orleans Saints, but when you’re trying to get to 14-0, there is usually no give-up in you.

So the Saints put up 14 unanswered in the fourth quarter and were driving for the tying touchdown when the Cowboys brilliant outside linebacker DeMarcus Ware stripped Drew Brees of the football, ending the Saints dream of 16-0.

It was a pretty good football game other than the NFL Network’s coverage of it. Technically, the telecast was weak (the Superdome P.A. announcer was louder than NFL Network play-by-play man Bob Papa) and the commentating was just annoying. In fact, it was another night of football with the mute button on.

It’s great that every NFL game is on television. It’s unfortunate that there aren’t enough quality broadcasters to go around. Matt Millen? Simply grating. Like fingernails on a chalkboard. Why doesn’t the NFL just showcase the home radio crews. I’ll guarantee most of them are easier to listen to than the alleged “national” broadcasters.

More thoughts from a wild and woolly week:

1) On the afternoon that Lyle Bauer announced his resignation as CEO of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, CJOB radio’s Geoff Currier made the most insightful comment of the day.

“If you look at the record, the most successful Blue Bombers coach during the Lyle Bauer Era was Dave Ritchie,” Currier said. “And Dave Ritchie was the only coach Lyle didn’t hire.”

It’s true. Bauer inherited Ritchie and never much liked him. Bauer did hire Jim Daley, Doug Berry and Mike Kelly, all, in the end failures. Although Kelly has left the Bombers with the best team they’ve had since 2000.

2) CBS Sports is promoting its 2010 PGA Tour golf coverage without using any images of Tiger Woods. Wow! Can’t wait for that showdown in the final round of the FedEx-Accenture-Buick-Ford-Disney Invitational Open World Golf Classic between Jerry Kelly and Zach Johnson.

Thrilling? No, sleep inducing. Pass the remote.

3) Although Mike Babcock has done a terrific job as head coach of the beaten-to-a-pulp Detroit Red Wings this season, there is very little doubt that the coach of the year in the NHL right now, is Nashville Predators boss, Barry Trotz.

Trotz, who came out of Dauphin, Man., to start his coaching career as an assistant at the University of Manitoba, has made the no-name Predators one of the top teams in the NHL this season, In fact, after Saturday night’s 5-3 win over Calgary, the Preds are now 22-11-3, tied with power-house Chicago for first in the Central Division.

While Babcock, who will do a tremendous job as head coach of Canada’s 2010 Olympic team, has kept Detroit in the playoff hunt despite the fact the Wings are currently without top line players’ Dan Cleary, Johan Franzen, Valterri Flippula, Niklas Kronwall, Jason Williams, Jonathan Ericsson, Darren Helm, and now Henrik Zetterberg, what Trotz has done is nothing short of remarkable.

He’s taken a low-budget team of has-beens, never-weres and not-likelys and turned them into one of only six NHL teams with at least 22 wins. He is a brilliant coach and the man Winnipeg would need if the NHL ever returned.

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Tiger’s return makes golf on TV fun again.

Posted on February 26, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Must admit, I have been watching a lot of golf on television during the past couple of months. However, it’s not because I’m terribly interested in whether or not Trevor Immelman can hold off Kevin Na, Andres Romero and John Rollins to win the justdroppedafart.com Open at East Airport View Golf and Billiards Club in Redneck, Ga.

I’ve been watching a lot of golf because I bought a big, widescreen HD TV and nothing on the planet looks better than Riviera or Pebble Beach in HD. It’s too bad the golfers get in the way of the scenery. When you live in Winnipeg and it’s February and you just shoveled the driveway — again — even watching  the PGA Tour without Tiger is better than looking at the white stuff out the front window.

 

Now, however, the world is as it should be. Tiger is back and whether or not he plays well is irrelevant. Golf has personality again. It’s not just a bunch of wealthy, white, American males in billboard shirts. There is, once again, a player who matters and nothing beats great scenery and a great player going head-to-head on HD TV when it’s minus-20 and snowing outside.

 

On Wednesday, after 253 days on the shelf,Tiger Woods finally made his return to the PGA Tour and despite all that serious knee surgery last year, he looked pretty darn good. Woods took out Aussie Brendan Jones 3-and-2 in the first round of the Accenture World Match Play championship in Tucson and moved on to face South African Tim Clark in Round 2 today. 

 

Brendan Jones? Tim Clark? Who cares? They’re both great players. I’d give anything to swing a club as well as Tim Clark on his worst day, but goodness, gracious, their own families couldn’t pick them out of a lineup. 

 

Tiger is, well, Tiger. The greatest player of his generation. Maybe any generation. My good friend, Ford Gardner, the program director at 92-CITI-FM radio said it best, “I don’t watch golf all that much, but I’ll watch Tiger. If Tiger is winning, I’ll watch. If Tiger is losing, I’ll watch. He is one of the only compelling athletes in the world today. Watching golf without Tiger is pretty boring. Watching golf with Tiger is great, no matter how he’s playing.”

 

I’d like to write more about Tiger and how interesting he is on the golf course — good or bad — but he’s about to tee it up against Clark and I don’t want to miss a shot. I’m sure Davis Love will be good today, but really? Davis Love?

 

Tiger’s back. My TV looks great. Golf is a spectator sport again.

 

 

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Tiger’s out for the season. And that’s the end of the PGA Tour?

Posted on June 19, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

Sometimes you just have to wait long enough in order to read and listen to all the nonsense before you come to the conclusion, “Do not believe what you read in the papers or hear on talk radio or on cable television.”

 

After all, if you’d actually paid attention to everything that was written about Tiger Woods’ season-ending knee injury, you’d honestly believe that the PGA Tour was going to fold its operation and that Woods’ career is probably over. The response to Woods quiet website posting earlier this week was downright goofy.

 

Examples (with appropriate questions and comments)

 

Rick Morrissey, Chicago Tribune: “He is done for the season, and in a very real way, so is the PGA Tour. It is a victim of Woods’ dominance, but every victim should be so lucky. Tiger and the Tour are the same thing. They are indistinguishable. They share the same blood source. It works when he’s around. It won’t work so well when he’s not.”

Excuse me? The PGA Tour worked fine before Tiger arrived and it will work just fine after he leaves. Sure, he’s made it greater than it’s ever been, but when he leaves it will still be the goal to which the world’s best players will aspire. Will ratings go down? Sure. But all of this doomsday talk is just plain silly.

Thomas Boswell, Washington Post: “The lesson Woods should, perhaps, take from this episode is that, while his U.S. Open courage was magnificent, his attitude toward preserving and protecting his body must change or the rest of his career may be half of what it should be.”

Oh, right. I’m Tiger Woods, the greatest golfer in history and one of the greatest, most dedicated professional athletes of all time, and I’m going to take fitness advice from a sportswriter. Too bad Hunter S. Thompson killed himself. He knew, first hand, that almost all sportswriters are physical and mental wrecks. He’d have kicked Boswell in the cojones for that pompous remark.

There are plenty more examples of idiot writing, but the real embarrassment during Tiger’s recent 91-hole victory in the U.S. Open were the reactions and the remarks of other players, the guys Tiger made wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.

According to the Independent, Retief Goosen stated on Tuesday that Woods was “hamming up,” the pain and discomfort he felt during the Open. The Independent reported that “a number of other players felt the same way.” Wonder how Goosen and his buddies feel about their idiot comments now?

Through all the idiocy that came along as part of Woods’ injury, his close personal friend, Mark O’Meara, probably put it best. If nothing else, he put the injury in perspective.

“As big as he is, the game is even bigger,” O’Meara told the Orlando Sentinel. “The Tour will survive. I think it will be good for the game.”   

I won’t go so far as to suggest it will “be good” for the game, but I will say, it’s not going to kill it. Not by a long shot.

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