OS moans and groans. A lot.
However, there are good moments.
A country in meltdown and chaos doesn't get much golf in. Think about it. When's the last time we heard of a tournament held in Niger or Yemen?
Golf requires peace and quiet, and a level of order and prosperity that allows for leisure time. That's why it was gratifying to make the morning coffee, tune to the Golf Channel, and watch European PGA Golf live from the Czech Republic.
OS remembers where he was when he heard the news of the Russian tanks rolling into Prague in 1968, bringing the Prague Spring to an abrupt end. The Socialists in charge in Moscow weren't about to let freedom break out on their borders, by golly. The other serfs might get uppity.
It was an awful moment, even for a kid from Tennessee, a heart-in-the-throat/kick-in-the-stomach moment. The worst sort of people had run over the best sort of people. The US was not going to start a war in Europe over it, and everybody knew it.
So, it was sweet this morning to watch Miguel Angel Jimenez line up his putts in a free and prosperous Czech Republic.
Another good moment happened this week in Nashville.
Belmont University will be renovating one of the grand church buildings of the South for use as a classical concert hall, bringing its great Aeolian-Skinner organ back to its former glories in the process, and will allow the congregation to continue to use it as a house of worship.
It gives Nashville another world-class music venue, and will help Belmont (a non-denominational Christian institution) serve as a cultural counterweight against the relentless self-impressed secularism of both Vanderbilt University and the Nashville Symphony. It's located in a neighborhood, where people live and raise kids, not downtown amidst the hotels and clubs, or on a campus noted for its isolation from the city that surrounds it.
OS's parents were members of Belmont Heights Baptist as young marrieds, and OS was in and out of the place often in his youth. The sanctuary is a grand piece of architecture, a horseshoe design, and in its glory days the congregation sang the roof off the place. As the culture declined, the glory days departed, and it became painful to walk in the place, knowing what it had been and seeing what it had become.
It's inspiring to see this happen. This sort of thing is why we should all seek to build wealth, so we can do good things with the proceeds. It's why we need a culture that allows wealth to be built and encourages this sort of vision and generosity.
Showing posts with label European Tour PGA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label European Tour PGA. Show all posts
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
The PGA Covers Itself In Mud: The 2010 PGA Championship
The Damage Control has begun already.
The PGA will have to get out ahead of this massive, public screwup before Monday morning, but they will fail. The world saw the ball fall into the deep part of the crowd, on ground that had been trampled over again and again and again. Young Mr. Johnson was crowded in on every side by that crowd, with his ball lying on a flat sandy patch of soil, replete with grass and weeds. He was on the 18th hole on Sunday at the PGA Championship, with a one-stroke lead. He hits his shot, and scrambles to -11 for a three-way playoff. As he walks off the green, the rules official intercepts him to tell him that was a bunker he played from, after all.
David Feherty of CBS was with him when he played the shot. Feherty is an experienced professional player and journalist, someone who knows the game inside and out. Feherty didn't perceive it to be a bunker. He even went back to the spot, and said it again. The crowd that had witnessed the shot was with him, and they concurred. They were there. Where was the rules official? From what vantage did he see the event?
One rules official, somewhere, decided to play God, to claim his fifteen minutes of fame. Two-stroke penalty for young Mr. Johnson, or DQ for refusing to sign the card, and one of the strictest codes of silence in the world: Even breathe a word that we screwed up, my boy, and your career ends. Just try it.
Thus, let us take note: On 15 August, 2010, the PGA joined the ranks of the NBA, NFL, NHL, World-Cup Soccer, NCAA, and Major (and minor) League Baseball, where the umpires have decided that they deserve to intervene and direct the outcomes of games. Because they can.
They can take away a perfect game from a pitcher on the final out of the baseball game, and get away with it. Because they can.
They can allow one team to commit egregious fouls on another in the NCAA basketball tournament, and just about assure its victory. Because they can.
The rules are no longer the means of maintaining the integrity of the game, but the means by which the umpire can bend the outcome to his will, and gain the notoriety that so eludes him by any other means of legitimate achievement.
Mark Wilson, co-chairman of the PGA of America Rules Committee, got his minute on camera with CBS--how sweet was that? Hi, Mom! Hi, Dad!--to begin the damage control.
The crowd was chanting 'Let him play!' Wilson decided to enter the history books this weekend, and he goes to his hotel satisfied in his quest.
Young Mr. Johnson is penalized two strokes. The playoff gets underway, and it is easy to sense the deflation in the entire proceeding. On eighteen, Bubba Watson hits his second shot into the creek, and a rules official is there, explaining it all to him, including the two-club-length rule from the hazard line. So, Bubba dutifully marks off his two club lengths, lay the driver down, mark with a tee, lay the driver down, mark with a tee. Only the rules official has his ****!!!! back turned as Bubba marks it off!
Inspires all sorts of confidence in the PGA Rules officials, now doesn't it?
The PeopleInChargeOfSuchThings back at PGA HQ will be on full-tilt damage-control and charm campaign. The press releases will fly, the ads of smiling golf pros with poor young children in the hospitals will run heavily. On and on and on,'cuz if sponsors (such as FedEx, Rolex, Mercedes-Benz, and RBC) smell trouble, sponsors walk. The PGA office will talk and talk and talk, and massage and massage, and spin and spin, and explain and explain, and privately threaten young Mr. Johnson within an inch of his young life, if he dare utter an honest opinion of the idiocy of his situation.
But the fans, and the players, know the truth already:
Mark Wilson screwed Dustin Johnson. Because he could. Not for the sake of the integrity of the game, but simply because he could. And the current leadership of the PGA will back him to the hilt, because they think they can get away with it.
But after today, we know a few things about the PGA:
No player, however skilled, however honest, irregardless of years of sacrifice to play at that level, is safe from a Mark Wilson. A shadow now hangs over the game, and every player must now always look over his shoulder while trying to compete, wondering where the next Mark Wilson hides.
No tournament, relying upon hundreds of volunteers donating thousands of hours and millions of dollars, is now safe from one rules official who decides how he wishes the tournament to conclude.
No corporate sponsor, spending money to buy goodwill from backing a tournament, is now safe from having their money flushed down the crapper by the PGA, when one rules official decides how he wishes the tournament to conclude.
Because he can.
Today, 15 August 2010, professional golf became just another professional sport.
The PGA will have to get out ahead of this massive, public screwup before Monday morning, but they will fail. The world saw the ball fall into the deep part of the crowd, on ground that had been trampled over again and again and again. Young Mr. Johnson was crowded in on every side by that crowd, with his ball lying on a flat sandy patch of soil, replete with grass and weeds. He was on the 18th hole on Sunday at the PGA Championship, with a one-stroke lead. He hits his shot, and scrambles to -11 for a three-way playoff. As he walks off the green, the rules official intercepts him to tell him that was a bunker he played from, after all.
David Feherty of CBS was with him when he played the shot. Feherty is an experienced professional player and journalist, someone who knows the game inside and out. Feherty didn't perceive it to be a bunker. He even went back to the spot, and said it again. The crowd that had witnessed the shot was with him, and they concurred. They were there. Where was the rules official? From what vantage did he see the event?
One rules official, somewhere, decided to play God, to claim his fifteen minutes of fame. Two-stroke penalty for young Mr. Johnson, or DQ for refusing to sign the card, and one of the strictest codes of silence in the world: Even breathe a word that we screwed up, my boy, and your career ends. Just try it.
Thus, let us take note: On 15 August, 2010, the PGA joined the ranks of the NBA, NFL, NHL, World-Cup Soccer, NCAA, and Major (and minor) League Baseball, where the umpires have decided that they deserve to intervene and direct the outcomes of games. Because they can.
They can take away a perfect game from a pitcher on the final out of the baseball game, and get away with it. Because they can.
They can allow one team to commit egregious fouls on another in the NCAA basketball tournament, and just about assure its victory. Because they can.
The rules are no longer the means of maintaining the integrity of the game, but the means by which the umpire can bend the outcome to his will, and gain the notoriety that so eludes him by any other means of legitimate achievement.
Mark Wilson, co-chairman of the PGA of America Rules Committee, got his minute on camera with CBS--how sweet was that? Hi, Mom! Hi, Dad!--to begin the damage control.
The crowd was chanting 'Let him play!' Wilson decided to enter the history books this weekend, and he goes to his hotel satisfied in his quest.
Young Mr. Johnson is penalized two strokes. The playoff gets underway, and it is easy to sense the deflation in the entire proceeding. On eighteen, Bubba Watson hits his second shot into the creek, and a rules official is there, explaining it all to him, including the two-club-length rule from the hazard line. So, Bubba dutifully marks off his two club lengths, lay the driver down, mark with a tee, lay the driver down, mark with a tee. Only the rules official has his ****!!!! back turned as Bubba marks it off!
Inspires all sorts of confidence in the PGA Rules officials, now doesn't it?
The PeopleInChargeOfSuchThings back at PGA HQ will be on full-tilt damage-control and charm campaign. The press releases will fly, the ads of smiling golf pros with poor young children in the hospitals will run heavily. On and on and on,'cuz if sponsors (such as FedEx, Rolex, Mercedes-Benz, and RBC) smell trouble, sponsors walk. The PGA office will talk and talk and talk, and massage and massage, and spin and spin, and explain and explain, and privately threaten young Mr. Johnson within an inch of his young life, if he dare utter an honest opinion of the idiocy of his situation.
But the fans, and the players, know the truth already:
Mark Wilson screwed Dustin Johnson. Because he could. Not for the sake of the integrity of the game, but simply because he could. And the current leadership of the PGA will back him to the hilt, because they think they can get away with it.
But after today, we know a few things about the PGA:
No player, however skilled, however honest, irregardless of years of sacrifice to play at that level, is safe from a Mark Wilson. A shadow now hangs over the game, and every player must now always look over his shoulder while trying to compete, wondering where the next Mark Wilson hides.
No tournament, relying upon hundreds of volunteers donating thousands of hours and millions of dollars, is now safe from one rules official who decides how he wishes the tournament to conclude.
No corporate sponsor, spending money to buy goodwill from backing a tournament, is now safe from having their money flushed down the crapper by the PGA, when one rules official decides how he wishes the tournament to conclude.
Because he can.
Today, 15 August 2010, professional golf became just another professional sport.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Ballantine Championship: European Tour PGA In South Korea
OS is a golf geek. It's one of those things, and he knows there are therapists out there who can help with this sort of stuff. He just enjoys this vice too much for the moment.
It's Saturday morning in Tennessee, and European Tour Golf is broadcasting from South Korea, actually an island off the southern coast of South Korea. Household names like Gareth Maybin, Ted Oh, Marcus Fraser, and Soren Hanson are near the top of the leaderboard. The course is beautiful, striking flora and terrain, and these guys really play well, even if there aren't thousands of screaming fans. Not one fist-pumper among them...
Here on the third cup of coffee, it strikes OS that we live in a remarkable world, that allows that live broadcast from South Korea. Considering events of sixty years ago or so, it's remarkable there is a South Korea to broadcast from, much less one that has developed the kind of wealth and order that would allow the event to take place. Golf clubs don't come cheap, and they certainly aren't life-and-death essentials to any nation's economy. But they are built in places that are orderly, where wealth and literacy have developed.
Let's consider where the golf courses aren't, beginning with North Korea, which managed to stage a war sixty years ago that killed several millions, spread misery all over East Asia, and accomplished nothing. They still can't feed themselves, but are working feverishly to develop nuclear weapons with which to blackmail the world. No time for golf, or music, or much of anything else.
Somalia--nope. Chad--nope. Iran--definitely no. Don't expect to see the 'Tehran Open' in this lifetime, do we? But, then again, in 1950, who could have imagined this middle-aged guy drinking his third cup of coffee in Tennessee, watching the tournament live from South Korea, writing about it on a laptop, chatting with his wife on a mobile phone as she drives home from her business trip?
Lots of moving parts there...but made possible in great part by brave people like Harry Truman who decided that the West should make a stand against the Marxist plague in Korea, and all the brave people from all parts of the world who sacrificed so much in that cause. And by people who live their lives believing that making money by making things that make life better is a worthy pursuit. You know...capitalists. And that things like a free press and rule of law with the consent of the governed is the best way to live. You know...Western constitutional principles, which have thrived best in places like the US, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. (Funny, that's where a lot of golf courses are located. How did that happen?)
See the connection yet? This generation's totalitarian plague is Islam, actually a repeat performance from previous centuries, but that's another discussion. We can't make it go away entirely, just like Marxism (after all, Harvard, Oxford and Berkley will always be with us...), but we can maintain the will to say: 'No. You don't get to take over. You can't even feed yourselves, and all you produce is murder and mayhem. You are the ones with the intrinsic problem, even if we have flaws. We're not going to apologize for being right, and we don't care if you get your feelings hurt.'
If we stand fast, here at home, and in other places where we have to, who knows? OS's grandson might watch Mickelson's grandson tee off in Tehran...
Here's hoping.
It's Saturday morning in Tennessee, and European Tour Golf is broadcasting from South Korea, actually an island off the southern coast of South Korea. Household names like Gareth Maybin, Ted Oh, Marcus Fraser, and Soren Hanson are near the top of the leaderboard. The course is beautiful, striking flora and terrain, and these guys really play well, even if there aren't thousands of screaming fans. Not one fist-pumper among them...
Here on the third cup of coffee, it strikes OS that we live in a remarkable world, that allows that live broadcast from South Korea. Considering events of sixty years ago or so, it's remarkable there is a South Korea to broadcast from, much less one that has developed the kind of wealth and order that would allow the event to take place. Golf clubs don't come cheap, and they certainly aren't life-and-death essentials to any nation's economy. But they are built in places that are orderly, where wealth and literacy have developed.
Let's consider where the golf courses aren't, beginning with North Korea, which managed to stage a war sixty years ago that killed several millions, spread misery all over East Asia, and accomplished nothing. They still can't feed themselves, but are working feverishly to develop nuclear weapons with which to blackmail the world. No time for golf, or music, or much of anything else.
Somalia--nope. Chad--nope. Iran--definitely no. Don't expect to see the 'Tehran Open' in this lifetime, do we? But, then again, in 1950, who could have imagined this middle-aged guy drinking his third cup of coffee in Tennessee, watching the tournament live from South Korea, writing about it on a laptop, chatting with his wife on a mobile phone as she drives home from her business trip?
Lots of moving parts there...but made possible in great part by brave people like Harry Truman who decided that the West should make a stand against the Marxist plague in Korea, and all the brave people from all parts of the world who sacrificed so much in that cause. And by people who live their lives believing that making money by making things that make life better is a worthy pursuit. You know...capitalists. And that things like a free press and rule of law with the consent of the governed is the best way to live. You know...Western constitutional principles, which have thrived best in places like the US, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. (Funny, that's where a lot of golf courses are located. How did that happen?)
See the connection yet? This generation's totalitarian plague is Islam, actually a repeat performance from previous centuries, but that's another discussion. We can't make it go away entirely, just like Marxism (after all, Harvard, Oxford and Berkley will always be with us...), but we can maintain the will to say: 'No. You don't get to take over. You can't even feed yourselves, and all you produce is murder and mayhem. You are the ones with the intrinsic problem, even if we have flaws. We're not going to apologize for being right, and we don't care if you get your feelings hurt.'
If we stand fast, here at home, and in other places where we have to, who knows? OS's grandson might watch Mickelson's grandson tee off in Tehran...
Here's hoping.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)