Up & Down: Koreans at U.S. Open up, Americans at U.S. Open down
Logging in from the Scottish shoreline, CBSSports.com senior writer Steve Elling takes a look at the folks, if not the issues, that made birdies and bogeys over the past week in the wide world of golf.
Guess this isn't exactly news
Want to win the biggest title in women's golf? Move to Seoul. A common thread has clearly emerged over the past five years, a period that has produced three South Korean winners with minimal professional pedigrees. Unheralded Birdie Kim, Inbee Park and Eun Hee Ji have amassed a combined total of four LPGA-sanctioned victories in their careers, a staggering statistic given the supposed pressures of delivering an Open title. Kim and Park, in fact, hadn't won before claiming their Open titles, nor have they since. So whatever they are doing on the Korean assembly line is working. As for the Americans, read onward.
The plane truth
Last year, organizers of the PGA Tour's middle-tier John Deere tournament leased a jet, despite prohibitive fuel costs, to ferry players from Illinois to the U.K. in order to compete in the British Open the following week. It proved a popular feature and helped improve the Deere field. They did it again this year and 22 players signed up, and were deposited Monday at an airfield a few miles from Turnberry, the British Open site this week. It's not just about convenience, either. Two years ago, a slew of players lost their luggage before the British Open began at Carnoustie, delaying their practice rounds and forcing several pros to buy new clothes as replacements. The flight offered players two meals as well. Hey, any room for the media on that charter?
It's Norway or the highway
On a tour filled with finesse players and short hitters, LPGA star Suzann Pettersen has always played a power game, more like the guys. Last week, as several of her peers chickened out and declined to address the mutiny under commissioner Carolyn Bivens publicly, the Norwegian was the lone player who signed the petition asking for Bivens' resignation to address it at length before the tournament. Pettersen refused to be silenced by the tour, which asked a handful of players not to comment on the Bivens situation, and should be roundly saluted for having the courage of her convictions as others dived for cover. Was it to her detriment? Hardly. Pettersen finished T6.
Not olde, just older
It has been difficult to find a favorite other than Tiger Woods this week at the British Open. Phil Mickelson isn't here and there's no other player who seems a clear-cut No. 2 pick in the betting parlors. Thus, relative youngsters Sergio Garcia and Rory McIlroy have emerged as the odds-on secondary picks early in the week. But perhaps the punters, as they are called locally, should be looking at the other end of the age spectrum. Steve Stricker, 42, won last weekend at the John Deere, posting his second victory of the season and giving players 40 or older a total of seven PGA Tour victories this season. And Vijay Singh hasn't won this year to pad the total, either. Betting a few quid on a player? Take a sortie on the 40s.
My daddy the caddie
It isn't often that a father gets to ride shotgun when his kid plays for the first time on the PGA Tour. Given the meager level of playing talent among the U.S. golf scribes, it was a genetic impossibility it could happen among the media ranks before Mike Van Sickle came along. Van Sickle, the best player ever produced at Marquette, was given a sponsor exemption into the John Deere last week and his father, Gary, toted the bag for him in his maiden voyage among the pros. Gary is a senior writer at Sports Illustrated and one of the funniest and most insightful golf writers in the States. Despite being handicapped by his dad, Mike played respectably, missing the cut by two shots, and received another exemption into this week's tour event in Milwaukee. Most of the country's golf writers -- all dozen of us who still have jobs -- feel like doting dads, one step removed.
It sounds like Kerr-plunk
It was another lost weekend for the top Americans on the leaderboard at the U.S. Open, which based on recent history at the event rates more as a trend and less as a surprise. Cristie Kerr, the 54-hole leader and arguably the top American player, began to cave right out of the gate Sunday, making bogeys on three of the first six holes, and when she still had a shot at salvaging her second Open title, she three-jacked the 16th green from close range. Paula Creamer, the only other player in the conversation as the best American in the world, shot 79 in the third round after entering the weekend very much in the hunt. Creamer fell down and died in the final pairing at the Open last year, and seems to get downright shaky whenever she contends in the meaningful majors. Henceforth, at the national championship, the staggering U.S. crew shall be known as the Dodders of Uncle Sam.
What, George Lopez was unavailable?
Nancy Lopez is the most personable star in LPGA history. She is fan-friendly, likeable, funny and doesn't take herself too seriously. That doesn't mean she is qualified to run the LPGA. In the aftermath of the ugly Bivens debacle last week, several outlets have proposed propping up Lopez as the new leader of the foundering women's tour, a decision that makes as much sense as electing comedian Al Franken to the Senate. Oops, bad example. The LPGA is a $75 million business. A business background is not only advantageous, but essential. Lopez is a wonderful figurehead from a public-relations standpoint -- an area where Bivens had oft-detailed shortcomings -- but that doesn't mean she should be negotiating a TV contract or trying to secure crucial dollars from potential sponsors. With sponsorships expiring and tournaments already bailing, there's little time for training wheels or popularity contests.
Hey, who had the glass of $12 cabernet?
As the LPGA board of directors wrestled with the dirty business of giving the boot to a commissioner who still has 1½ years left on her contract, another issue comes to mind as it related to the details of how the player insurrection went down. More than a dozen premier players met at a Toledo eatery two weeks ago to sign a petition asking that Bivens step down and few of them have spoken publicly about what happened. To wit, have you ever eaten a restaurant meal with a passel of women from your workplace? Which took longer for the players, crafting the letter or dividing the dinner check?
Repairing the re-pairing
Stricker won the Deere title free and clear, fair and square, but for a while, it appeared as though co-runner-up Zach Johnson, who finished more than an hour earlier than Stricker, would emerge as the winner. In itself, that's hardly uncommon. But this disconnect was due to the PGA Tour decision not to re-pair the leaders between the third and fourth rounds, which both were played on Sunday because of weather issues earlier in the week. In order to finish all 36 holes, the tour elected not to re-pair after 54 holes, which can sometimes create an unfair predicament. Last year, Andres Romero won a tournament under similar circumstances, despite spending the final two hours seated in the clubhouse after finishing early and watching the other leaders fold as they played the final nine holes under considerably more pressure. The last guys off the course knew the tournament was theirs to win or lose. Those finishing earlier were under no such pressure. So the question becomes, does the importance of finishing all 72 holes outweigh the need for the players to stare, eye to eye, at their foes when the pressure becomes greatest? I'd argue that it isn't.
Click, click, tsk, tsk
When Ryo Ishikawa made his PGA Tour debut at Riviera five months ago, the presence of Japanese media was so intense the media center had to be enlarged. The Japanese media is borderline obsessed with the teen phenom, already a multiple-time winner on the Japan Tour. There's no shortage of Asian media at the British Open this week to track him, either. So why pair Ishikawa over the first two rounds with the global focal point, ensuring a media traffic jam that almost certainly will unsettle the players, possibly anger spectators who can't see over the cameramen and hurt the chances of anybody in the threesome winning? The third player, England's Lee Westwood, is another pre-tournament and local fan favorite. Didn't anybody learn anything from the Woods-Mickelson-Scott pairing last year at the U.S. Open? That was a cattle stampede for fans. Note that the USGA didn't do it again at this year's U.S. Open.
