Tonight in Toronto, the playoff-bound Sixers dropped their fifth in a row, this one to the going nowhere Raptors. Toronto led for most of this one, despite playing people like Quincy Douby (he wasn't good enough to stay with Sacramento), Patrick O'Bryant (wasn't good enough for the, um, Warriors) Joey Graham and Anthony Parker. And it's not like the Sixers had nothing to play for, either, as the entire second tier of the Eastern Conference has been stumbling to the finish, and more than giving everyone repeated opportunities to avoid the Big Three of Cleveland, Orlando and Boston in the first round. The loss cements the 5 spot for the Heat, who will enjoy the Hawks like nobody's business.
I get that teams get tired in April, and that guys on 10-day contracts (like, well, Douby) can seem like world beaters. However, this Sixers team is a flat-out terrible matchup for the Cavs, don't fare much better against the Magic, and won't show up on the road in Boston, either. Their best and only chance to get to the Final 8, which matters on some level, just because plane crashes do happen, was to draw the Hawks in Round 1, and have Andre Miller wear Mike Bibby like a cheap suit.
Instead, Miller threw enough bricks to open a warehouse (he started 2 for 14), the team continued to look like it had no clue what to do without Thaddeus Young on the floor, and the age-old bugaboos -- three point shooting and from the line -- overwhelmed one of those periodic Samuel Dalembert Cares games. I love Lou Williams, and he might be the best bench guard in the league this year, but when he's your best guard, it's not going to end well. For a team that gets to the free throw line with strong penetration, you just wish they'd, well, make more of them. They made a late run, as they almost always do because they do have heart, to cut a 14-point fourth quarter lead to 4, but didn't make the plays in the last two minutes to avoid their fifth straight loss.
I'm not really all that bent out of shape, though. Without Elton Brand doing much of anything this year, and after a coach firing, the home town team will still make the playoffs and presumably care enough to make someone break a sweat. With Young back next year, and Marrese Speights a year older, they should be better again. Coach Tom DiLeo might be more effective with a training camp. Of the principals, only Miller appears to be in any danger of being on the downside of his career.
And yet, well, there's just no excuse for losing to a kitten-soft team like the Raps, even on the road, when you need the game and they don't. When they find themselves losing in the first round when this could have easily been the year when they made a small step forward... well, it matters. If, for no other reason, than what it says about their prospects in 2010 and beyond. Losing five in a row to equal your worst stretch of the season in April... well, don't give Philly Fan much grief for not selling out the building in Game Three of their playoff series, OK?
For fifteen years now, Tiger Woods has been going to Augusta, GA and mostly treating the course and field as if it were his own personal bank. Given that his knee seems fine now (hey, there was something about him that wasn't perfect after all!), the only bet before this tournament is Robo Beast against the Field, and as usual, you're better off with the beast.
Now, the actually interesting thing about this is that we've had more than enough time and money to actually develop some actual competition for him by now. At this point, you'd think that some other golfer (or, well, many other golfers) would have picked up the pace and actually hit some weights, since part of the advantage of being Tiger is that he's actually very athletic, at least in comparison with the usual collection of bloated sacs that make up a tourney field. You'd also think that, given that The Feline One has made enough money to fund his own Buick Bailout, that some other elite athletes would have taken up the sport, in say, high school and college, and started to bubble their way up from the Q-School.
But what has happened instead is that Tiger has competed against the same old tired hands of his generation, with no clear rival stepping up to the plate, or young gun making him sweat it out by outdriving him by a couple of clubs, the way he used to do to people when he was just coming up.
What are left with is the following.
1) Woods is just that singular and unique a talent, that like Jordan before him, his very presence and competitive intimidation just makes the existence of rivals laughable.
2) Woods hasn't really inspired new people to play golf, so much as to just watch it.
Personally, I'd go for option 3, which is to say some of both. Besides, even if you are inspired to take up the game to be more like Tiger, you still need clubs and a place to play. But your mileage may vary...
Probably the most EXTREME! par 3 on the planet. It requires the use of a helicopter, and I don't like their chances of keeping that green clear of divots.
This is how bad it's gotten for the Pittsburgh Pirates: they lost a game to a community college. And not a very big one.But give the Buccos credit -- they won the first ten times they played!
Are you ready to interact with the Web on a near constant level, for just $350 in computer components from Radio Shack? I know I am, particularly when I can display word clouds on random people, hopefully to tie in with their medical records, so that I can know their STDs. Seriously, do not miss this: it's the freaky / cool / scary future, in all of its glory and ignominy.
Joe Carter is angry that his 1993 World Series-ending home run doesn't get more love from the historians. Joe, it's not that the national media doesn't care about a Toronto win; it's that they don't want to deal with Angry Philly Fan setting fire to their cars. (Though I still contend that what I felt that evening was relief, in that it meant that I never had to watch Mitch Williams pitch again.) Major League Jerk with a list and some good homework on this one.
Oh, and just because it doesn't deserve a post of its own, because New York Fan will drown the Web with words... the Mets didn't help themselves with Gary Sheffield, and the Giants did help themselves to get past Plax Burress. The older I get, the more I think character matters. Oh, and in the case of Shef, having a defensive position. That helps too.
Do you have a weakness for golfer on golfer violence, especially when it involves the cart? I know I do, especially when it involves the use of a cart, dragging a body, and cursing. Ask any of my old golfing buddies, and they'll tell you that's *my* move...
Do you have a weakness for A-Rod's hookers? I know I do. Plus, his madam dated him for free. Aw, that's sweet. True love!
(And in another small moment, consider the name of the skank du jour -- Kristin Davis. Here I was thinking that she played the prude on "Sex and the City", but it turns out that she's 20 years younger and blonde. What an actress!)
Oh, and one last thing... isn't using the services of a prostitute illegal? Someone needs to arrest that troublesome A-Rod. He broke the law.
The NFL considers moving the draft up to late February. The idea is to put the draft in front of free agency, to further kneecap the free agents. Makes sense to me, though not nearly as much sense as, say, providing a freaking spring league so that the most popular sport in the country doesn't have an 8-month off-season.
Oh noes! Shaq is doing online shenanigans during the halftime break, rather than, say, paying attention to what the coach is saying.
In other news, he just became the fifth leading all-time scorer in NBA history, mainly because he's an unstoppable combination of soft hands and utter power. Anything that makes him less focused on playing the game is, in my opinion, something to be applauded, since an angry focused Shaq is a danger to himself and others. Sports By Brooks does the math to show that the average seat at the new Yankee Stadium is $237. That sound you heard was jaws dropping from coast to coast, but to be honest, I'm just not seeing the Yanks getting it in the long term. Yes, people make serious and ridiculous bank in the City, but at some point (especially when that New Stadium Smell wears off), paying more per hour for baseball than hookers is a losing proposition.
Sergio Garcia gagged another major yesterday, and no one noticed. Padraig Harrington picks up his second straight major, though he probably still has no worries about being stopped at the airport for autographs. It just goes to show you what an Irishman can do when he stops drinking for a few months.
Oh, and a small point, really... why is it that every athlete feels compelled to give the big gaudy trophy a light smooch on the side for the photographers? Tongue that baby, Padraig. She's something you had to fight hundreds of men for over four days and a lifetime of back-breaking labor. Chaste ain't cutting it; drop some trou already. Why let hockey guys have all of the hot man-on-artifact action?
But getting back to Garcia... of course, when you go around in public wearing clothes that Al Czervik would find distasteful, it does tend to distract people from actually noticing the quality of your game. The late great Rodney Dangerfield really was only a waggle away from totally predicting this clown.
Finally, this... what's your nightmare foursome? Mine's Garcia, Colin Montgomerie, and Hitler. Though I'm pretty sure that The Truth might go for Jean Van der Velde instead...
Consider me shocked, shocked, to see Greg Norman fail in the stretch of a major. (Hey, just wondering, why is this guy an endorsement winner? Does golf's demographic identify with old guys who are most famous for falling apart when it matters, or is it just we like Australian accents?)
You know it's a slow week in the sports blogosphere when a half dozen writers feel compelled to tell us what it's like to watch the Round Mound of Renown play bad golf.
Look, I loves me some Chuck more than anyone, and have done so since he was a pogo-stick action figure for the late model Erving Sixers. You won't find a bigger fan, or a defender of the fact that while he's a motormouth, 90 to 95% of what he says is true, and the rest is mostly said to just get a rise out of people. I even forgive him for doing everything short of painting Trade Me on himself to get away from the piss-poor Sixers, and for never failing to abuse his "replacements" on that team like they owed him money.
But here's the thing... why aren't there *more* celeb-athletes like the Chuckster?
It's not like many of them don't have FU Money, which is really the biggest thing that has made Chuck what he is. It's not that there isn't a wide number of folks who haven't found Jebus, and hence, feel fine about picking up the tab for bar-wide rounds of Patron. It's not as if they all don't, to a man, envy him for the product endorsements and award-winning television show gig.
I'm not expecting everyone to become telegenic and comfortable enough in their own skin to play the fool for fun and profit from time to time. I'm just wondering why more of this favored class doesn't seem to get the essential reason why people love Chuck -- which is that Chuck loves life, and especially his. And why wouldn't you?
Chris Webber, if he had half the sense that Chuck does, would be doing a commercial series for a timepiece company making fun of his misstep in the NCAA championship. Dikembe Mutumbo would get on a rap album and speak in a finely clipped British accent. Michael Jordan would get himself back on Saturday Night Live and let them have at it. Etc., etc. But no one does, because unlike Chuck, they've made the terrible mistake of taking life seriously, even though they are rich beyond the dreams of men. And for the life of me, I can't understand why. Don't they realize that Chuck's beating them in this, well, living thing?
We all want to win our weekend hackfest, but who wants -- or even can -- actually get better at golf? In terms of pure competition, let presidential politics be your guide. The first person to go negative has an exceptional advantage, along with the abiding, potentially life-long hatred of his victim(s). Use the following tactics at your body and soul's peril.
Cart Work
The driving of the cart is really an art form all to itself. From the subtle parking issue (do you put it right on top of the guy and mess up his light and maybe even his back swing, or drive it a quarter of a mile off to kill his legs?) to the surreptitious passenger seat spill ("How did that get there? Jeez, you smell like a homeless guy now"), there are any number of possible effective gambits.
Personally, I'm blessed -- yes, blessed, I tell you -- with a lack of depth perception, due to non-binocular vision. Which means that I'm very likely to get a little too close to that line of bushes that's just on the passenger's shin or (even better) face level. I believe we have a clip as to the final effect. Skip to the 1:05 mark.
This medical condition is totally legitimate and a Darn Shame. As far as you know. Or your opponents.
Swing Buddy
Who doesn't appreciate a little advice?
Wow, you're really getting some distance off the tee there. That's nice. But I just thought I should mention that you are really not clearing the hips -- see, like this, where you are more like this -- on the follow-through.
You know what's good for that? Changing the speed of your back swing. Yeah, you're going too fast/slow. Don't go crazy with it -- as I said, you really don't want to lose that distance -- but if you can change it just a hair, I think it will help.
Oh, and you are teeing the ball way up / down. That's an easy fix. Now, try not to think, and just swing easy. Yeah, you know, that looked worse, but it felt better, didn't it? No? Well, I'll be damned.
Lost ball help
It's the only neighborly thing to do.
Shame about your swing going so off -- you were hitting it so well earlier! You should definitely go back to what you were doing. Oh, right, we're trying to find your ball. Is that it, way the hell over there, beyond the out of bounds marker? I really do think you were hitting a... Slazinger 5. Yup, this is your ball -- the ground is really uneven here, it'll carry a long way. You sure? Oh, OK. Um, I hate to rush you, but those guys are right behind us. Better take a drop and pick up the pace.
A little lubricant
This one works even better if you have a higher alcohol tolerance, or the sleight-of-hand skills to be drinking something with a whole lot less proof. Remember, winners have a game plan.
Damn, you need to relax -- you're just all over the place now. Come on, you're drinking a light beer? I've got some 40s here. Don't wuss out on me now -- we've got hours to sober up before we have to drive. Are you some kind of pussy?
Pace Setting
Pitchers work the rosin bag. Hitters step out of the box. Basketball and football teams call timeout. It's all done to break the rhythm, and it all works.
Can you believer how fast / slow these guys are going? It's like they've got dinner plans / all day. You should definitely slow down / hit up on them and show them who's boss. Hey, is that guy flipping you off? He is totally flipping you off. You going to take that?
Try my club
But only if it is dramatically different.
Hey, I just got these -- yeah, I know they look old, but they just need a little polish. Why don't you take a shot with my 1 iron? It won't mess up your own swing or nothing, and it's really not a club you should miss.
Wow, that didn't go well. No big thing. Oh, I know -- these have been custom-sized to my swing and height. You should totally look into doing that. It'll take strokes off your game.
(And add them to someone else's.)
Mooch
Why are you out here if you aren't spending time with friends? And what kind of friends don't help each other out -- especially when they are a little light in the wallet right now. We're all good for it!
And the seething resentment and/or worry that the unwilling borrower will feel, especially if they then blame themselves for being so cheap as to worry about it... why, that won't distract them from their game at all. Nope. Not a whit.
Too Much Information
If you're this deep in for the pot, the betting minimums just do not apply. Go for the gusto.
I had to change my swing after the hernia, and again after the vasectomy. Here, come take a look at this scar -- it's a nasty one. Now, if I don't clear my hips the way I was telling you before, I'm bleeding. And not from a good place. It's like a fricking menstrual flow, and I pretty much have to drop trou then and there to apply direct pressure. Boy, you try explaining that to the Ranger. But that's golf. You going to hit?
Pay the Homeless
This one actually happened to me. (Or at least, I'm pretty sure it did.)
I was playing at a once-great, now tragic, course for hackers in the Philly area called Cobbs Creek. It's on the edge of a rundown neighborhood and run by the city's Park Department, so the price is right but nothing else is. My buddy and I played there a lot, since it was close to his house, cheap and long (7000 yards from the blacks). If you caught it on a good day, in good condition, with low crowds, it was great. If you didn't, Magic Happened. This one of those moments.
I'm in the fairway on the 18th, down a couple of shots. My guy is on the green but has putted like a blind man with a nervous condition all day, so there's hope. If I can get up and down from 80 yards, I'm going to make him sweat hard. So I need the wedge shot badly.
Cobbs, being on the edge of a bad neighborhood, frequently had kids, people with dogs, just dogs, or worse wandering the course or the road that bisects it. And as I'm over the ball for my shot, one of their number pipes up with a collection of fearsome animal noises and grunts that would startle cattle a mile away.
I look up, and it's some random homeless guy, just babbling into the air, waving his arms around like there were bees in his head. My opponent is shaking with laughter, and I pretty much know right then that I can pick up the ball and go home now. But Homeless Guy eventually quiets down to a low geeble, so I get over the ball again... and it starts anew, in mid-back swing.
Eventually, I just put the ball in a bunker and take my double bogey like a man, but not before asking my friend, "How much did you pay him?" "Twenty bucks," is the answer, which if true is both sad (our stakes were not that high) and savvy (in that, well, he won -- and showed true imagination in doing so).
As we say in the business, golf clap, sir. Golf clap.
Add your own tips in the comments, and further the disease...
Yes kids, another group blog wants l'il ol' me to help fill their bloghole. Your link is here.
In The Weeds is a golf-only blog, and having just ran into my best friend and golfing partner from back in the day when I had time to do such things... well, let's just say the memory has been tapped. Along with the open question of where the nearest driving range is, because I do know where my clubs are. And there we are, right back on the junk, howling at the moon, face down in the gutter...
Your link is here, and yes, I know, you all don't care about golf, I don't really care about golf, and yet... if you put a sport on and show 56 minutes of meat for every 60 minutes of telecast, well, damn.
That's so remarkable in the current super-whore climate of television telecasts, especially for all of us who have to suffer through touchdown commercials kick off commercials... or the last few minutes of a close basketball game... well, damn. Can other major sports start discriminating against women?
Your list is here, and he does know that he's allowed to lose every once in a while, right? Seriously, the guy towers over his sport more than any athlete ever has. It's a surprise now when he loses, which has never been the case in golf for the proceeding 100 years. It's absolutely absurd.
A story in the New York Times last week has been slowly making the rounds in the blogosphere, and I thought I'd add in my two cents. It concerns how the rate of people playing golf has been dropping steadily since the turn of the century, and efforts on the part of course owners and the like to reverse that tide.
The trend, of course, goes a bit against the grain of The Greatness of the Tiger... but I'm wondering if golf is going to see the same thing with Woods as the NBA did with Jordan, which is to say that the public's fascination with the individual is going to wind up making the sport seem anti-climactic once He is gone.
(The NBA is, pound for pound, the most competitive professional league in the world, with a global talent base, relentless competitiveness, spectacular talents, and yet, the public seems to just be blase about it. Maybe it's just that people don't want to watch hoop in the wake of 24/7/365 football, or the Unlikeable Stars Era did long-term damage that the general public isn't coming back from, but hell... it's not like MLB or NFL have a bunch of people you want to drink beers with. Anyway, golf.)
Here's my individual take on it. For a 3 to 4 year period in the late '90s, I was the target consumer that the golf industry dreams of -- low 30s, a weekend hacker who also got in some rounds for work. I'd play alone or with friends, and got good enough to enjoy myself, but not much more than that.
Once the Shooter Wife produced the Shooter Kid, golf took a back seat... and shortly after that, there was a lot of job movement, because I'm in online advertising and it was the dot-com bust. When you're not entirely sure how certain your paychecks are going to be, greens fees are not high on the priority list against groceries. I had also moved to a part of the world (Northern California) that routinely charged 2x what I was used to paying in other parts of the world.
Eighteen months ago, we moved back to the East Coast and bought our first home. We've since spent our money on home improvements. Between commute and office hours, my Monday to Friday is spent, which means that any time for golf would come on the weekend, and
So I've gone from playing 15 to 20 times a year to not playing at all in the past... five years. And the next time I pick them up is going to be ugly. The dirty little secret of golf is the same as any other recreational sport: if you go away from it long enough, you don't really want to start from near zero to shake all the rust off. It took me years to shave those first 20 to 30 strokes off my game; going out and having them all be back would be like playing a video game without saving your progress.
My clubs are in the garage, in a travel case. I've resisted the urge to sell or give them away, because they don't take up that much room, and who knows -- I might need them someday. Who knows, once the kids are bigger and convinced that time spent with Dad is time spent losing any sense of style.
So it's not a matter of four hours for a round being too much time spent away from my family (heck, I'm a writer -- hours spent away from my family is an occupational hazard), or not wanting to do things outside, which are the two points the golf industry keeps bringing up.
(And I am sure that, like any other addict, I'm one good hit away from being right back in it.)
Oh, and a quick little aside to everyone out there who wants to get their politics in by hating on golf and golfers... yes, yes, by all means, what a horrible thing for people to do, to actually devote some space to a fairly earth-friendly endeavor, to dress in a goofy way, and to take their essentially meaningless pastime seriously. I can see how this causes immense problems in your life, as they go to some place that you never go, and perform some activity that you don't.
Now that you've established your bona fides as a politically aware person, please go back to your television and computer that's almost certainly constructed by Chinese slave labor, and put on the game that's played by people who will make more in a year than most of us will in a lifetime. Oh, and the games and the stadia are also being supported by corporate welfare, and many of the top players have political stances that start at glibertarian or worse, and the owners make them look like tree huggers.
In other words, he who is without sin can go find my ball in the woods. The rest of us will play golf, or increasingly, not. (For now.) Or just go for something that's really more fun, and also just Wrong Wrong Wrong...
After the clip was over, The Two Year Old Tiger talked about how he liked the course, how he liked his swing, and how if he brings his A game, he was pretty sure he'd get cookies and juice before his nap. Then, he took some adult's money in a skins game.
(AP) "To tell you the truth, I don't feel like I did anything wrong," said Garcia, who closed with a 73 and was 1 over in the (British Open) playoff (that he gagged up like a 14-year-old girl with low self-esteem, braces, and an overbite).
"I really didn't miss a shot in the playoff. I hit unbelievable putts. They just didn't go in . . . I should write a book on how not to miss a shot and not win a playoff."
10. Woe Is Me: L'il Sergio's Battle With Mean Old Reality
9. Belly Putting For Dummies
8. NOONAN!: What Happens When Tens Of Millions Of Americans Concentrate Their Hate
7. Sergio Garcia And The Deadly Waggles
6. Garcionomics: How Much Choking Cost Me In Endorsements
(Ed. Note for non-golf fans: Unheralded PGA pro Zach Johnson won the Masters this weekend, holding off Tiger Woods and Retief Goosen for his first win in a major. Afterwards, a very emotional Johnson gave the credit to Jesus, seeing how it was Easter and all, and the Son of God clearly had nothing better to concern Himself with than who would win a golf tournament. Later on, he compared Woods to a giant, which would have to be Goliath, one would think.)
10. Earl Woods is constantly dropping by his cloud, unannounced
9. Starting to get a little bit jealous of all the attention
8. Knows that Tiger doesn't really drive a Buick, and lies make Him cry, especially in late December
7. Feels Tiger is getting a little too comfortable in Dubai
6. Two words: Nicklaus Praying
5. Little-known fact: Zach Johnson has leprosy, and He could never say no to a leper
4. Just didn't have his "A" Blessing today
3. Wanted Tiger to win, but as anyone who has ever played golf knows, the putter is Satan's club
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A quick list of why golf can actually be fun to watch, if only when spring is in the air and we haven't seen so much of this as to be bored (yet)...
