PGA & LPGA Golf

I watched both golf tournaments yesterday, the Houston Open with the PGA and the Kraft Nabisco with the LPGA, and both were well worth watching. I was rooting for Matt Kuchar but the other Matt from Australia, Matt Jones, simply snatched it away on eighteen. Kuchar had to make a par on the final hole, but he most uncharacteristically hit his approach into the water and had to scramble for a bogey to get into a playoff after Jones birdied the final hole. And then Jones did his other snatch when he chipped in from waaaay off the green for a birdie on the first playoff hole, number eighteen again. Kuchar will be agonizing over that shot in the water for a very long time, and Jones will be savoring his chip-in for the win for a very long time.

And then we had an amazing display of raw power and talent when Michelle Wie and Lexi Thompson went at it in what used to be called the Dinah Shore. Was that ever fun to watch. I’ve been rooting for Michelle to live up to her potential for over a decade now, and she’s only recently begun to look like what she might have been years ago.

Now if she’d only stop leaving putts short, and if she’d only give up that ridiculous stance she uses when putting. And the young colt Lexi looks like she’ll be winning tournaments for many more years. If her back can hold up, that is. She and Michelle take such huge swings off the tee that the extreme torque might cause some physical damage over time. I wonder if her swing coach has ever tried to get Lexi to abandon that chicken-wing follow-through on her irons. But if it works for her, why change it?

And the Tiger-less Masters starts this week. It saddens me that he won’t be there. I’ll watch it as I always do, but it won’t be as thrilling as it would be with Tiger in the field. It was the same when Jack was in his prime. If he wasn’t playing in a tournament, I’d watch with one eye only. Same with Tiger. Many fans don’t care for Tiger, thinking he’s too aloof or too cocky (no pun intended) or that he even engages in cheating. I say poppycock (no pun intended) to all that. He truly is the best golfer of all time and I don’t want his career to end because of physical ailments. It’s what I said about Michelle and Lexi: swinging as hard as they all do, there’s bound to be physical problems. And Tiger is proof of that. But Augusta will be ravishingly beautiful this April, just as it always is, and there will be all kinds of drama on Sunday, just as there always is, and there will be all sorts of bowing and scraping to the overlords of that sanctum sanctorum, just as there always is. And I and millions of other golf fans will watch every minute of it.