Only a few weeks beforehand had we learned that by winning the Senior PGA Championship that Lehman would be a part of the PGA Tour’s final major of the season – “Glory’s last shot.” It made the experience we were about to have infinitely more exciting, though I’m sure the golfer we celebrated with and agonized over for years will never know the excitement he brought to us on August 13, 2010, in Kohler, Wisconsin.
We arrived at the 2nd tee box about 20 minutes before Tom Lehman was supposed to re-start his first round on Friday. The day before had been delayed by fog so he didn’t get his round finished. After standing there for about 10 minutes, we saw that they had a sign with the people a couple groups behind Lehman on the Tee. Dave asked an official if Lehman had already teed off and he said he had and that he was laying on the green. So, we hoofed it up to the green, walking along Lake Michigan, in plenty of time, even before the players. We were puzzled to see that there were 6 markings on the green, only to find out that when they blew the horn the group behind Lehman decided to play to the green as well. We finally saw Lehman and his group (Shaun Micheel and Mike Small) come walking up the 2nd fairway to get ready for their putts. Of course, Lehman’s putt was about 5 times longer than either of the other two, but we didn’t know until after the hole that Micheel was putting for par, which he would miss, and ultimately bogey. Lehman 2-putted for par.
We followed Lehman all of the next 7 holes and he gave himself multiple chances to birdie but just couldn’t knock the putts in for the most part. Following anyone on that course – simply moving around in significant amounts – was an arduous task. Consider that Dad is 70 years old and plowed through that course and it was a miraculous undertaking. We walked no less than 10 miles that day, and it wasn’t walking – it was hiking. After Lehman finished with his first round, we ventured to the back nine (Lehman played the back first in his first round) to check out some of those holes, and some of those groups. We walked over to see the 17th, first, something Dad really wanted to see as it was one of the signature holes of the course. No one had made it to that hole yet from the 2nd round so we moved on to check out the groups in the middle of the back nine. We watched 2 or 3 holes of the “Major Winners” group consisting of Phil Mickelson, Graeme McDowell, and Louis Oosthuizen. We saw a few other groups play through, including Rory McIlroy, Miguel Angel Jimenez, Darren Clarke, Steve Stricker, Kenny Perry, and Henrik Stenson. After a while on the back nine, we headed back to the front nine to pick Lehman back up. When we got to 9 we checked out the group that was playing and figured we could see Lehman finish up 8. He finished up 8 with a birdie, as well as picking one up at 9 and he was rolling in the 2nd round. He played great all the rest of the back side giving himself birdie putts on almost every hole, but the 51 year-old just couldn’t make enough of them to get up on the leaderboard. A few Hail Marys were answered on the 17th when, amidst an incredible wind, Lehman landed his tee shot onto the right fringe of the green and then missed his birdie putt, which had to be 50-60 feet, by a turn of the ball. Unfortunately 18 wasn’t so kind to him and a bogey had him in the clubhouse with an Even Par score after 2 rounds at the 92nd PGA Championship.
When Lehman finished up his 2nd round, we figured we only had a short time to wait until Tiger teed off his 2nd round so we stuck around to watch him play a hole and tee off on another. We even got to see a small temper-tantrum on #2 as he missed the fairway with a drive. It was incredible to see one of the greatest golfers in the history of the game, and also to see the size of the crowds that follow him around. We no trouble following Tom Lehman’s group around, and very little trouble following around any other group, including the “Major Winners” group. But it was hard to be in the 10th row behind Tiger Woods as he hit any particular shot. By in large, people were there in full support of him, too.
Our legs sore and feet blistered, we hobbled back to the shuttle to the North Parking Lot. I still can’t believe my 70-year-old Dad trudged every last foot of the course that we did. We all left the course in absolute awe of what we had just seen, from an incredible golf course (or should I say “hiking trail”) as well as a great performance by 51-year-old Tom Lehman. It’s an experience I’ll never forget, seeing the 2nd round of a “Major” at Whistling Straits. Little did we know what would happen after we trekked on to the ISC World Tournament in Midland, Michigan, including a hole-in-one on the signature hole by Tom Lehman in the 3rd round, and a controversial “Is it a bunker or isn’t it a bunker” finish for Dustin Johnson – a bunker we very likely walked through at some point during our time there — before finishing up with a 3-hole playoff and a Martin Kaymer victory.
I’ll never forget some of the different things we saw. First of all, the course is beautiful and grueling. We got to see Lehman encouraging Mike Small (even raving “Wow, look at that shot!” as Small played a difficult trap shot to a par chance), the golf coach at Illinois, as he struggled through his two rounds paired with Lehman. We walked much of the course with who we would guess were Shaun Micheel’s wife and his caddy’s dad. We even saw Shaun Micheel throw a club out of a bunker and later gripe about how long the 16th hole was playing that day (as if it wasn’t for everyone else).
Most of all, I’ll remember walking the course with Dave and my Dad and thinking “I can’t believe we did that, and I can’t believe my dad did that.” (For what it’s worth, he says “I can’t believe I did that, either.”) Five days later, the blisters on my feet are still healing but the memory and the excitement from that day aren’t fading. What a day!
Most Augusts my dad and I (and other people from year to year) travel to the ISC Mens World Fastpitch Tournament. This year it will be happening in Midland, Michigan. Last summer I had noticed that the PGA Championship was going to be held at Whistling Straits, in Kohler, Wisconsin (almost perfectly on the way), on the Friday before the softball tournament. For Father’s Day, I bought tickets for my dad and I to go on Friday, before we head the rest of the way to Michigan. The only golf tournament I’ve attended is the senior event that happens in a suburb of Minneapolis, and I thought it would be a great experience to see, not only a PGA Tour event, but a round of a major tournament. A couple of weeks ago, the experience took an even greater turn. By winning the Senior PGA Championship, my favorite golfer of all-time, Tom Lehman, has qualified for the regular PGA Tournament. Needless to say, my dad and I know who we will be following for at least a few holes that day.
It was also great to find out last night that he continued his great golf of 2010 and has also qualified for the United States Open. Some fun golf is ahead, and God is good!
There has been a lot of discussion about whether or not Major League Baseball should have reviewed the call that kept Armando Gallarraga from perfection last week. There are basically two camps on this — one that sees baseball in its purest form, with flaws of the umpires as a part of that pure game, and another that sees the game in its purest form when the calls are most accurate and when officiating has the least amount of influence on any particular outcome (be it a victory or a personal feat). I don’t really know what my preference is on this. I’m bummed that a guy didn’t get a perfect game that he seemingly deserved (I didn’t see the other 8 innings to see if any other calls were close and went his way), but my form of baseball purism is that a win is a win.
Most importantly, though, neither side is morally superior. That is, I don’t think there is a moral absolute in play here. The fact of the matter is that baseball used to simply have to put up with the flaws of the umpires. That was 1910. In 2010 we can put together all the different technological advances and more or less prove that the call was a mistake, and we can give witness to anyone who might have doubted it with the naked eye. (Note: I’m sure there are a few people out there who will still say he was safe, in the same way they can look at an ultrasound and say the unborn child is something less than that.) Because instant replay is in its infancy with baseball, and only used in the most rare of occurrences, the baseball “purist” might state that we can’t use instant replay for that. If tomorrow we adopt a measure that integrates instant replay more like football (which I am not advocating for — just making an example), 10 years from now we will all think it was crazy this call wasn’t reversed. It’s a matter of perspective, not moral superiority.
All the baseball “experts” in the world won’t convince me this is an issue dealing with absolutes. If it was, we would either have outrage on every bad call that was ever made, or we would never have the right to complain about a single bad call (depending on which of the two aforementioned camps you are in).
One of the great features of Google Calendar is that you can create separate calendars and view them independently from your own calendar. Sometimes, though, it’s nice to import the events straight into your calendar. I kind of like to have some sporting events on my calendar so that I know they are there when making plans. For example, I might choose to do dinner with friends a different night if I notice that the United States is playing Canada in the World Junior Hockey Championships that night. This is why I have created a Google Calendar for this event, yet I want it to appear on my own personal calendar as well so I don’t have to actively check other calendars to make sure I’m “free.”
In order to add this into your Outlook calendar, you simply need to get the ICAL address of the calendar you wish to copy to your personal calendar. It’s easiest if you right-click on it and choose “copy shortcut.” Then, in Outlook, go to File > Import and Export and choose “Import an iCalendar or vCalendar file” and click “Next.” When it brings up the box to locate the file, simply paste the URL you copied into the “file name” box and click “open.”
You will then get a prompt to “Open as new” or “Import”
If you choose “Open as New” it will create a new calendar with just these events on it. If you choose “Import,” it will place all of the events on the new calendar on your personal calendar (which is what I chose to do for this particular event).
I have created a Google Calendar with the schedule for the upcoming WJHCs in Regina and Saskatoon. If you wish to use it, subscribe to it, etc., here are the appropriate links.
Ethan Skolnick says the Florida Panthers have become a punch-line.
This is what happens when an organization misses the postseason for two full presidential terms, when it has endured enough in-house drama to capture a daytime Emmy, when its team-building strategy has had all the consistency and coherence of the average Moammar Gadhafi speech. That organization becomes a punch line. In recent years, the U.S. government politely asked that the BankAtlantic Center remove the American flag for fear that the Panthers would start trading off its stars after they were done dealing their own. (You never know when some other country would offer a broken sickle and a broken-down left wing.)
Read the rest of the insightful and entertaining article. Do you think Mr. Skolnick has let his guard down? I’d say he has. I don’t think this team has the talent they had, even last year. Then again, maybe they have the character.
Iain MacIntyre, in the midst of the revisionists’ accounts of what happened the last two seasons in Calgary, hits the nail on the head with his post at The Sporting News. When Sutter was asked, a couple of years ago, why he brought Keenan to Calgary, Sutter basically scoffed at the question and quipped that all he wanted to know is if Keenan still wanted to coach.
But in May, Darryl fired Keenan after another first-round playoff flop. He then hired little brother Brent, who bolted from New Jersey for the chance to coach closer to his cattle ranch 90 minutes north of Calgary.
The most remarkable thing Darryl Sutter achieved with Keenan was transforming a coaching pariah into a sympathetic figure.
It wasn’t Keenan who had mismanaged the Flames’ salary cap to the point that a spate of late-season injuries, financial restrictions and a 3-6-0 finish cost the team first place in the Northwest.
Sutter has a far better, and much deeper team to work with this time around. He has four legitimate top-four defensemen, Olli Jokinen for an entire season, and more of the grit that Keenan loves in guys like Nigel Dawes. Still, this is the beginning of the end for the Sutters. When you hire your brother, there are generally only two ways out: you both quit, or you both are fired. My personal hunch is that Keenan will be redeemed by the results of this brotherly situation.
As the Minnesota Twins season winds to a close, either barely eeking into the playoffs or barely missing them, there is a lot of discussion about the second-half struggles of Justin Morneau. This idea has taken on legendary proportions about how Morneau is Harmon Killebrew-like in the first half, and Scott Stahoviak-like in the second half. I wanted to look at whether this was really the case, and whether Morneau really was significantly worse in the last 81 games than in the first 81. What I found will surprise many. I think these numbers speak to two points:
1) Morneau isn’t as bad in the 2nd half as people like to think. While his power numbers drop off in the 2nd half over the last four years, he’s still a .283 hitter averaging more than 10 HRs, more than 40 runs scored, and more than 50 RBIs in the last 81 Twins games of each of those four seasons.
2) Those numbers include this year, a particularly bad one, and it goes to show that this year was very likely a result of his back injury.
3) The Twins playoff hopes are fairly independent of a slight decline in production from Mauer and Morneau. Pitching is truly to blame or credit for the ups and downs from year to year, as we’ve seen the gamut run on good and poor years (by their standards) for Mauer and Morneau, and the Twins hopes have not correlated very well.
I provide you with the spreadsheet I put together (numbers as of early in the week). Just for reference, there is a tab on the spreadsheet (bottom left) that has Mauer’s numbers as well. While Morneau’s 2nd half production has dropped 18 points and a fair amount of power, Mauer’s decline has been even worse, dropping 33 points and, until this year, completely lacking the power numbers in the first half or second half. That’s not a commentary on Joe Mauer, but it does provide some perspective.
Heading into next season, here are five things that the Twins could do to make their team stronger.
Get Mauer some reps at 1B. Mauer is the kind of hitter that doesn’t come along very often and even if the Twins are determined to have him stay behind the plate to some degree, we need to start decreasing his time back there immediately if he is going to have a long, sustained career. There simply are no catchers who maintain a huge offensive presence while catching for 12-15 years. My solution would be to have him catch the 3 best starters he works with and play some 1B and DH the other days. On top of that, it seems clear that Morneau is going to need a little more rest to maintain his performance over the course of the year. They are probably going to need to find 10-12 games during the season where he sits, outright, and if Mauer is sufficient at 1B (Cuddyer is NOT) then Morneau can do some DHing as well. Kubel would be fine to play LF for 50-60 games during the year, so this wouldn’t be at his expense.
Sign Pavano. We started the season with something like Baker, Blackburn, Slowey, Liriano, and Perkins. Only Baker has pitched well enough and been durable enough to give us hope for next year. Who knows what we are going to get out of Slowey after the injury? Blackburn, Perkins, and Liriano have been dreadful, and there’s no reason to expect anything different given their sustained poor performance.
Sign an ace. Maybe a guy like Halladay or Harden is a pipe-dream, but I’m not necessarily talking about a guy like that (though it would greatly improve their chances of winning the division and the championship). I’m simply talking about a guy who is better and more consistent than their best pitcher (which is probably Baker right now). This, with #2, would give them a top 3 of Ace, Baker, and Pavano. That’s a better starting 3 than we’ve had for several seasons, and would give us a good shot at winning the division again.
Upgrade something in the infield. Crede is gone. You simply can’t have Buscher, Punto, and Casilla in most of your lineups and put any kind of scare into opposing pitchers. I’m not terribly excited about Orlando Cabrera, but if it’s him or nothing I will take him.
Cut your losses with Delmon. The guy is young, granted, but the organization hates him. From the players through the coach to upper management, it’s difficult to find someone with a favorable comment about him. Practically speaking, we have too many strikeouts in the outfield and not enough power. Cuddyer, with his huge salary, isn’t going anywhere. Span and Gomez don’t exactly knock the cover off the ball. If you are going to have a formidable lineup going forward that can compete with the big teams (and not just skirt through the Central), you are going to need to add some offense in the outfield. We’ve already addressed this a bit in #1, by putting Kubel out there a bit, so it’s mostly important that we get a good right-handed stick who can play 120-130 games in left field, and especially take the games vs. tough lefties.
The Twins will have a short new-stadium-induced honeymoon with their crowd sizes. The Tigers, however, proved that it also matters what kind of product you put on the field. Remember their first few season with that bum team? That says nothing about the worst Toronto crowd ever — the other night against these very Minnesota Twins. And there’s nothing wrong with the Rogers Centre…
