Wow, I didn't realize that I haven't updated my happy place since January! The past few months have flown by and I'm finding myself taking a collective breath on a Saturday morning.
In my Fantasy Golf world, it will come as no surprise to golf friends that I've been hovering below average so far. I've missed a few weeks completely, but even when I do remember, I feel like I'm just rushing to post some names in. I can't remember the last time I even went in to check if my Yahoo guys made the cut or not. AND speaking of making the cut - was TOTALLY bummed out that I knocked myself out of the Buzz Fantasy League "Make the Cut Challenge" by forgetting to post a player. I can't blame Jimmy Walker this year!
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Since I haven't really posted much in the past year, I need a little therapy time to clear out all of the thoughts clamoring around in my brain. So this may be a little random, but hang in there with me!
I still miss Q-school...I mean the REAL Q-school, where players could earn their way directly to the PGA Tour by going through possibly 4 stages to try to make the top 25. I loved following so many dreamers as they attempted to make it past one stage, only to find themselves in even tougher competition and less change to advance. If you followed my past blogs over at Tees2Greens, you know I had a special place in my heart for the Minnesota dreamers, but there were all kinds of great stories of both triumph and heart break. I've read all the arguments and logic behind having Q-school feed into the Web.com Tour and that players will have more success coming though the Web vs. going directly to the big tour...and it does make sense. But that doesn't stop my heart from missing that fall ritual where a club pro or satellite tour guy earns a shot at the big dance through Q-school. I've been thinking on and off about the 2015 PGA Tour golf season for the past week or so. I'll be honest, last year I was not a very good PGA Tour fan. I probably watched the Majors and a few other events here and there, but for the most part I gave up on Fantasy Golf by June. I wanted Phil to win the US Open and of course I was rooting for Matt and Stricks whenever I could. Then there was the Ryder Cup...we don't need to talk about that. But I got inspired about golf again during the holidays and for the past week I have been updating the site and reading up on some of the "best of" stories and reviewing the tournament winners over the past year. I guess I'm as ready as I'll ever be to throw out some predictions for 2015! Here. We. Go....
Happy Almost 2015! As I was scanning back on my limited amount of blog posting last year I couldn't remember if I had even done a Crystal Ball prediction for 2014...but sure enough, there it was! I cringe just a little because let's be honest, my prediction career hasn't been the greatest (although 2013 was my best yet!)...but I sure have fun doing it. Let's see how things went...
But now it's time to move on to 2014! It's almost time for another day of turkey leftovers for me, but after seeing a friend had updated his web site, I got inspired to update mine. For the first time in I don't know how long, golf seemed to take a back seat to other things happening in my world. The year seemed to fly by and before I knew it I was pulling out the clubs from the back of my car for the winter.
After getting rear-ended in May, my golf time was halted for awhile while my neck and back healed. By July I was feeling better, but other priorities were pushing ahead of golf, too. So while golf wasn't first on my list, I was still able to make time for some awesome days with great friends...and a few days with just some "me time" with the golf course It was an 18th Hole sandie that I could watch over and over again! After 3 putting from 4-feet on #17 it looked like Matt Kuchar might be giving back yet another potential victory by struggling on the final few holes...after putting his approach shot in the bunker in front of the green on #18 it was looking like a par and a -10 finish that would most likely send Kuch to a playoff, or even yet another missed opportunity.
But just after Nick Faldo announced on the CBS coverage of the tournament that Kuchar's bunker shot looked "easy", he blasted it out and after 1 hop and about 10 feet it sailed into the hole for a birdie. It was one of my favorite Kuchar reactions ever! Hat off, fist pump, and an exclamation that looked to be something like "that's how we do it"! I'm not sure if I can go a day on Facebook without seeing some kind of quiz to see what I might be - which muppet am I? Which color am I? Which 80's movie I might be? And those are just in the last couple of days!
The questions are often silly, and it seems more often than not there isn't even an answer that best describes me, so I just pick the closest and move on...but it got me thinking about a post a wrote back in 2008 that describes some golfers I know, including some of my favorite golf pals! During the 2014 PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, FL last week, Taylormade Golf, along with PGA officials and others rolled out their new initiative, Hack Golf - with the goal of making "golf more fun".
I'll be honest, at first, when I read about this and watched some video about Hack Golf, my first reaction was "We do NOT need to change golf!" We've got a pretty darn good field for this week's Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines, but I'm not surprised that most of the story lines that I've read so far are coming down to two players, defending champion Tiger Woods, and California favorite Phil Mickelson. Phil looked in danger of missing the cut last week at Abu Dhabi but came charging back into contention and was looking to win but got derailed when he attempted to chip out of a bush right handed and double hit the ball. And even though he didn't win, he was definitely the talk of the tournament (if I had $1 for every time I read "Phil the Thrill" on Twitter I could go on a mini-vacation!).
Yesterday I read an article by Jason Sobel about whether PGA Tour players, especially those searching for their first Tour win, should consider focusing on a non-Major PGA Tour event and prepare similar to others like Tiger and Phil would for the Majors they are shooting for. Sobel used the example of Brendon de Jonge (my definition of insanity for 3 years picking him to win countless tournaments!) ; de Jonge played the most events on Tour in 2013 (30) and made a comfortable $1.8 million but only had 4 Top 10's, with his best finish being a T-6 at the Waste Management Open.
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AuthorI love golf and I love to write, so I can't think of anything better than having a happy place like this to write about golf to my heart's content. Thanks for joining me! Archives
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