Hanging out now that “school” has been dismissed for yet another year, waiting for the egg nog to be replenished at the company office party, all the while flipping through the mental calendar that is 2008:
• I realize Paul Azinger wanted another shot as Ryder Cup captain, but in the long run, it’s probably good he didn’t get it. I mean, does anyone remember what New York Yankees pitcher Don Larsen did in the next start after his World Series perfect game, or better yet, what Harrison Frazar shot the day following his 59? Hey, there’s nothing wrong with going out on top.
• This just in: As first item of business when he gets named U.S. captain, Corey Pavin is going to make all his players grow bushy mustaches and carry an old Cleveland VAS 4-wood. Think about it: The man hit the shot of the 1995 U.S. Open on the 72nd hole at Shinnecock basically wielding a garden tool on the end of a stick. Molding 12 men into winners at Wales in 2010 should be a cup of tea after that.
• Just wondering: Has there ever been a Q-School story filed without use of the word “grueling?”
• At the top of its Monday Q-School notes, the PGA Tour reported final-round conditions at La Quinta as “partly cloudy with the temperature reaching a high of 70 degrees.” Strange, because that came on the heels of Jay Williamson running 112 degrees a day earlier.
• Everybody should be able to finish Q-School with the ease of South African Ashleigh Simon, who wedged her approach at her 90th hole at LPGA International to about a foot from the cup for birdie to secure a card. Walking off the green, she told her dad what she was thinking as she stood over the final putt. She said, “I thought to myself, ‘You can’t miss this putt if you TRIED.’ ”
• Have to admit, this year’s Tour Q-School class had more than the usual handful of names even the most devoted golf followers don’t recognize. Tyler Aldridge played at Boise State – I wonder if the team plays on a blue golf course? And the last guy in was a gent named Wil Collins. He was so poor he apparently sold the second ‘L’ on his first name. Actually, after he answered the challenge by holing a hugely clutch 18-footer on the final hole Monday, let us be the first to knight him Wil the Thril.
• Yale grad Jeehae Lee earned a card at LPGA Q-School, and Yale grad Bob Heintz earned a card at PGA Tour Q-School. Something tells me that’s not sitting too well over at Harvard ...
• There were plenty of schools represented by the 50 Q-School grads from California to Daytona Beach, but my favorite is the alma mater of Mathias Gronberg: He attended Swedish Golf School, where he earned a degree in economics. Two questions for Mathias: Do you have to take the SAT to get in? And secondly, if Swedish Golf School is a co-ed institution, can you tell the coach I’m on my way and still have a little college eligibility left?
• Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you had Andrew “75-77-74-79-75-78” Dresser against Harrison Frazar head-to-head at the 2008 finals, you’d have lost by 58 shots. Or one shot less than Frazar needed to finish Round 4.
• OK, so I snoozed through most of the FedEx Cup post-season renovations and nip-tucks, and it wasn’t until the other day I noticed the winner at The Players still will be awarded the exact same number of FedEx points as the winners of the Masters, U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship. The Players is a nice tourney, but puh-lease. I realize the Tour has an inferiority complex and is driven to elevate its own little backyard gem, but that’s like grouping the Rose Bowl, Cotton Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl and the Meineke Muffler Bowl.
• I think a good “Punk’d” episode would be Ashton Kutcher, dressed nattily in a suit, walking into Tim Finchem’s office in Ponte Vedra Beach and telling the Commish that his new client, Tiger Woods, would like to play 2009 on a medical extension.
• By the way, as best shots of the year go, every time I see footage of Tiger over that 12-footer on Sunday at Torrey Pines just to get into the Monday playoff at the U.S. Open, then watch that Nike ball bound across the poa like a pebble down a bumpy road in super slo-mo . . . I expect to see it spin out on the right edge. Every time. And in the 193 times I’ve seen it, it never does.
• When I think of that putt, I also see my buddy from Motown, Steve Puertas, a close friend of Rocco Mediate’s, staggering out of the scoring area with Rocco on that late Sunday afternoon after Tiger set the place into an absolute frenzy. With a bewildered look of amazement, he turns to me and says, “Does that guy EVER miss a putt?”
• Simple answer to Steve: No, he doesn’t.
Gotta go. The egg nog just arrived.
Posted: 12/10/2008
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