This site was created to have a conversation about golf.
Please comment, write to chris@cdbradfield.com or tweet @cdbradfield.
-Chris Bradfield
Email from Laine Rinker on Tiger's putting this week at Doral:
Very very slightly he will open his hands and close his hands and the face of the putter opens and closes just a very little.
I tried it on my putting green and I could not believe how straight that I could roll the ball.
Featured pairings are one of the best improvements the Tour has made, and man have they taken advantage of the WGC field this week.
Love the golfWRX coverage of what is being played on tour each week
Seems like he threw in the towel and then thought, I better have a medical reason to avoid PGA Tour suspension. He was 7 over through 8, but wasn't mathematically out of making the cut, doubt you are going 7 under on the front at PGA National, but you have to try. He shouldn't have quit, even if you can't think straight you have to post your number.
I just feel I have a responsibility to the tournament and the fans to post my score. My mentality.
— David Duval (@david59duval) March 1, 2013
And this is from a guy who has had his share of large numbers in the last decade.
In the fist 5 matches the 4 point lead had vanished. Europe going out with 5 straight victories, on this late September Sunday in Chicago, was a buzz saw, but with 3 middle round wins for the USA it still came down to the final two matches. Stricker vs Kaymer and Woods vs Molinari, and Stricker couldn’t get it done.
Tiger has won lots, 101 times in fact, with a mismatched putter. But now with Stricker joining him with a putter with a different manufacture’s name on the grip than the putter brand it has gone cold, very cold. Stricker has always used a golf pride cord with his Odyssey White Hot #2 so I can see what he liked in the new golf pride cord they are putting on the Pings, but I have never liked the Ping grip on Tiger’s prototype Scotty Cameron nor now on his prototype Nike Method 001. I always try to find a brand matched or grip manufacture branded for my flat sticks. Stricker and Woods’ contradicting putters combined for a 1/2 and 7 1/2 record. The mismatched putters may only bother me, but they did not shine this week.
Davis Love III’s picks had more to do with the defeat. Furyk added experience to a young team, but he also added a since of doubt and negativity, if he was replaced with Fowler the optimism and positiveness would’ve added to the team. And Stricker coming off an awful year, by his recent standards, was a pick to make Tiger comfortable in team play. He was awful, losing 4 points on his own. Tiger couldn’t beat two world class players at a time. And then for Love to put the Stricker, the player clearly playing the worst golf, in the next to last match was questionable, he would have gone out 6th for my roster.
This is to take nothing away from the Europeans they were amazing in their steadfastness even in great difficulty. Jose Maria Olazabal never lost hope and they kept Seve Ballesteros’s spirit with them all the way. Ian Poulter was simply unconscious all week and their horses went out and did what they needed on Sunday morning giving the later matches a chance to win the cup.
Bang - Tiger jumps from his sleep - it is 2am, Fathers Day, and he is alone in his San Francisco pent house. The regret, the humiliation, how his life has unravelled. His kids are not with him, would not be on 18 to hug him when he finishes, won’t watch him collect his next major trophy. He won’t get to celebrate his latest major and his daughter’s 5th birthday on Monday. His son won’t join him on the practice green before his round and tell him happy Father’s Day go get me a trophy.
What would Tiger do different? Would he still have the affairs, live recklessly with no conscious, and decieve his family? What would he change if he could, what would be different? Surely these questions fill his inner soul and haunt Tiger daily, but especially on days like these which should be so special, the loneliness must be overbearing.
Tiger, a super human golfer, is still human and can not block thoughts of his ex and kids and what he could have done different from his psyche on this Father’s Day. A wandering mind Sunday at Olympic is dangerous. Yesterday’s 75 which dropped him from T1 to T14 could look like a small drop to the cliff he falls from this Father’s Day.
Bubba Did It!
With a final round 68 to get into a playoff with his Sunday playing partner, Louis Oosthuizen. They were both playing such solid golf, making the unimaginably difficult final round Augusta National look easily playable. Each sticking follow through after follow through as they pured their balls to fairways and greens and then rolled their balls, if not in, right along the edges of the razor cut Augusta National Sunday pins.
Bubba missed a similar put to Mark O’meara’s championship winning putt of 1998 on the 72nd green, and after getting into the playoff with Louis missed another shorter putt on 18 to win the first playoff hole. But then on number 10, the 2nd playoff hole, Bubba pulled off a 40 yard hook, off the pine needles, through a gap, from 155 yards with a pitching wedge to 12 feet. This shot lead to a tap in par and beat Louis’ bogey to take the 2012 Masters Tournament.
It was fitting for the winning shot to be a snapping hook from Watson who moves every shot with a feel and imagination never known. For Ping the 2012 Masters could have not gone better. The premiere Sunday pairing featured @PingTour staff players and Lee Westwood finished 3rd alone. I would like to know what material and finish Bubba’s Anser is, it looks different shades of copper in varying light and has a rainbow hue to it at times.
The ever emotional Bubba Watson was overcome with emotion as his caddie, then mother, then tour friends Ben Crane and Rickie Fowler embraced him on the 10th green. It was an amazing Easter Sunday that his newborn baby boy will be able to relive forever and know his Dad as a Masters Champion.
Derek Fathauer made his first cut on the PGA Tour at the rain shortened AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am and finished T22. In this tournament he carded an ace in the third round on Spy Glass Golf Course’s 130 yard #15.
