I’m watching the LPGA US Women’s Open and two Korean girls just finished tied on top, heading into playoffs. I’m usually not very fascinated with the ladies game, but after watching these two players, So Yeon Ryu and Seo Hee-Kyung, I am pretty much positive that they are twins separated at birth. I mean, I am an Asian, so I generally won’t think that we all resemble Vietnamese like some of my American friends think we do. The only people I can’t tell the difference are Singaporeans and Malaysians.
Koreans? Sure, I can probably differentiate most of them, but when it comes to these two, I’m pretty much bewildered at how similar they look. Except that Ryu seems to have slightly bigger eyes, but maybe because Seo keeps grinning in every shot. Either way, I’ve decided to support Seo, simply because I like her Polo Ralph Lauren outfit. It’s nice. I might get one for my wife. And frankly I think Seo dresses a lot better.
Ok, Seo vs Ryu. Check it out yourself.
Seo Hee Kyung
So Yeon Ryu
Note: Wow, Ryu just Shoryuken-ed Seo in the playoffs with Birdie-Birdie on 16 and 17.
Rats, Seo, you lost, but you still have a great Polo outfit!! And you speak better English. But your eyes are still smaller because you’re always grinning.
Congratz to Ryu with a Birdie-Birdie-Birdie finish. With a name like this, sure can win any one on one matchup, until you meet a China Golfer called Chun-Li.
It makes for a great Hollywood story. Now, just for the comeback.
10 years ago, a guy by the name of Ty Tryon was going to be the next Tiger Woods. He was 16 years old when he shot a ridiculous -10 at the Honda Classic PGA Tour event on an exemption. That’s like Michelle Wie teeing up with the guys and winning the competition. Even Woods, given a sponsor’s exemption for the first time missed the cut.
That’s a 16 year old kid, playing in PGA tour conditions and shooting 10 under. Tiger Woods? Here comes Ty Tryon.
He turned pro in 2002, having obliterated the field in Q-School and signed a multi million dollar deal with Callaway, and announcing his arrival like the Hello World Nike Commercial for Tiger.
Ty vs Tiger seems destined to be the greatest matchup history ever, it would be them on top of the leaderboards, both Phenomenons duking it out in the heavenlies while the golf mortals play for 3rd and 4th. It would be Ali vs Frazier. Connors vs McE. Coke vs Pepsi. Power Root vs Red Bull.
10 years later, the bright supernova of Tiger has somehow faded but still remain the brightest in an otherwise dreary golf universe.
Ty Tryon? He is now occasionally playing on a conditional status in the Nationwide Tour. That too, if he’s there. Otherwise, he’s probably hacking around in some of the courses found in his hometown, and a curious golf historian might just catch him in one of these Orlando tee times.
And how would history have it? As one of the most famous flameout in Golf History? As a cautionary tale to other young golfers looking to break into the PGA tour dream? How did a golfer who was seemingly bestowed with all the divine skills from the pantheon of golf gods turn into an average hacker like the writer (and most of the respected readers) of this blog?
I thought David Duval would be the Gilagolf poster boy for a hacker, but he’s actually getting really good, and he was never really that bad. Ty Tryon has seemingly gone from the highest peaks to the lowest of the lowest pit, and is still trying to hack his way out of it.
There’s quite a lack of coverage on Ty Tryon for some time, except for his awful showing at the recent 2011 US Open. We hope he picks up his game soon and escape the realm of hackerism that plagues the rest of us. Go Tryon!!
It’s been a while since you showed up for a golf tournament, my friend. The last time we caught you was at the Players, where for some strange reason, you decided to demonstrate to the world how life is like as a hacker by shooting 42 on the front nine and withdrawing. Actually I’d be extremely happy to shoot 42 at the TPC, but then again, I don’t earn 10 million bucks a year (minus whatever Elin’s taking from you), and have 1 billion people watching your every move and every stroke.
Anyways, strangely as well, the world has moved on even without you. If you were to come back now, you’d see an unrecognisable group of misfits in front of you. You have this boy band Justin Timberlake lookalike called Luke Donald as world number 1, a marshmallow man lookalike Lee Westwood as number 2, and a guy that resembles as much personality as a piece of cardboard as world number 3, by the name of Martin Kaymer. We’ve always been a fan of Rory’s so I won’t talk too much about his curly hair (on his head). But for sakes, Tiger, you’ve got that awfully dressed Ian Poulter in front of you at the world rankings. Doesn’t that make you want to continually pound your 7-iron into his face over and over again?
The fact is, the PGA ranking is becoming like the LPGA, or women’s tennis. It’s embarassing. Nobody cares about the world 1,2 or 3. Those clowns have less charisma than my half blind terrier who lounges in the sun all day and occasionally scratches his bollocks. They are bringing back golf to the middle ages, where it’s dominated by characterless, personality challenged gentlemen who sips tea and don’t talk trash to each other. These are the ones who make golf inaccessible to the foul mouthed public hackers who has ever picked up a club and shanked a ball and miss a 2 foot putt to win 5 bucks. They are alienating the hackers by blasting our beloved game back into the throes of the upper class genteel society, who would always smile losing or winning, and thumb their noses to us sweat covered, mud streaked hackers struggling to a quintuple bogey on an easy par 3.
Where art thou Tiger, the game of golf needs you. You have brought the game out of the dark ages when you thrashed the US Open in Pebble beach by 15 strokes (almost twice more than Rory!), and suddenly we are seeing everyone in our local club wearing red on a casual Saturday round, a’la Tiger (but still playing like crap). You inspired thousands of golfers into the game, because it was no longer a white man’s, gentleman game. You talk smack. You fist pumped in front of your opponents. You had your thug/caddy Steve Williams throw cameras into the pond and kicked reporters. You trashed the crap out of clowns like Stephen Ames who dared challenge your god-like status. Now Rory, Ian Poulter and an unknown idiot called Brendan Steele are all thrash talking you to death, so please, rise up from the ashes like the Phoenix and burn them all! (Not literally since we do not support murder).
Where art thou Tiger? We know you will return, and until then, we’ll just have to be contented with the garbage that’s been showing in golf channel week in week out. Without you, the PGA tour resembles some sort of episode from the Walking Dead, all of these jokers like zombies, playing, smiling, no fist pumping, no club throwing, no foul mouthed screaming that we’ve grown so used to when you ruled the world. You made golf an everyman’s game. Now, it’s just not the same anymore. Who’s gonna stay up to watch golf anymore? Who cares about the next tournament anymore? I’d rather watch reruns of sesame street or Barney the Purple Dinosaur.
Where art thou Tiger?
The world needs you back.
Back on top of the leaderboard, fist pumping your way to Jack’s record, the gallery cheering loud, the glorious Sunday red once again shining bright for the world to see.
The football season has just ended, so that means many Saturday and Sunday nights of idleness and boredom for 90% of the male population in Malaysia and restful nights for my wife (we have a mamak opposite our place, so, yep, every goal is a nightmare to her). So after next week’s big game, we’ll be officially in the off season.
So anyways, I don’t know if it’s just me, but I find it so uncanny that Juventus has an almost mirror image in the Barclay’s in Liverpool. So much so, that this season, I have become a secondary Liverpool fan (since I can’t seem to catch Juve playing often!). I mean think about it:
1. Both Suck. At the moment.
2011 was tough for Juve. I mean, how the heck did the promise of 2010 (when they were 4th place), turn into such a nightmare as 2011. 4-1 to Parma?? 3-0 to Napoli?? 2-1 to Palermo?? And Liverpool? Exact opposites. 2010 was horrendous for them thanks to a certain coach. Who sucked. But they turned it arround in 2011. Where are we both? 7th and 6th place.
2. Legends at the Helm.
Liverpool has King Kenny. Now, Juve has King Conte. Ok, that’s probably a bad name but both are legends respectively.
3. Players Exchange
Liverpool to Juventus:Alberto Aquilani. Juventus to Liverpool: Christian Poulsen. Guess who got the better deal?
4. Rivalry with Champions
Juve hates Inter. Liverpool hates Manchester United. Ok, Inter isn’t the champion anymore, but who cares.
5. Crap results with crap team, good results with great teams.
It’s like a mirror image. Juve beats Inter. Liverpool thrashes Manchester United. Liverpool beats Chelsea–twice, Juve beats Lazio twice. Liverpool beats Man City, Juve beats AC Milan. Juve’s bogey team: Napoli. Liverpool’s: Spurs. Liverpool collected 14 points from the top 5 team, Juventus collected 17. That’s pretty impressive stuff.
6. Super Midfield Flops
Liverpool has Joe Cole this season. Juve had Diego last season.
7. Super Legend Captains
Liverpool has Gerrard. Juve has Del Piero. Both have spent their entire careers with ONE Club. Ah, loyalty.
8. Mirror Achievements
Liverpool was the most successful club in English Football (until last week), Juventus is the most successful club in Italy. Even by ranking, Juve and Liverpool both have 11 International club titles, both rank 6 in the world.
9. Derby with not so great clubs
Liverpool overshadows Everton. But Liverpool actually was birthed from Everton. Juventus overshadows Torino. But Torino was birthed from Juventus. But since Torino is in the toilet for some time, Juventus now picks fights with Fiorentina, for weird reasons. Strange.
10. History
Both are founded in 1890s due to splits with other clubs. Even their fanbase is similar, with locals in Liverpool preferring Everton (at least, that’s what I hear), and local Turin preferring Torino. Liverpool and Juve both have huge fanbase outside of their home cities.
And of course, Heysel 1985 forever linked these two clubs together. Like Forever.
So much for my football gilanalysis. Enough of that. Time for GOLF!
I’m trying to create an old school set to experiment on the course. We’ve been talking about really making Gilagolf Gila (or crazy), and might be interesting to play this dratted game with the OLDEST clubs in your possession (or you can get a hold of from your grand pappy’s storeroom), and see if our scores remain the same.
By the way, for all the clubs below, if anyone can shed light on the year of make, or year of production, it would be excellent!
So far I’ve cobbled up the following:
Is it me, or does anyone else think this is the coolest thing ever found in golf? I mean look at it….it’s an actual WOOD! It’s persimmon me thinks and this is why when youngsters ask, “Why do we call it a 3 wood when it ain’t a wood?”, you can go “Such a young punk, never appreciate the finer things of life.” This is my big dog, the big mama. The driver.
This is the big dog’s little brother, the really thrashed up 4 WOOD. I don’t think I can hit it any more, but darn, they look good together.
Ok, never mind, I’m gonna put this ‘newer’ Blue Ridge 3 wood in my bag. Also, I have a spare driver and what do you know, it’s the same loft as my 2010 Cobra driver!
Now in case my 3 wood breaks on the course, I have an additional one, the modern looking Taylormade BURNER. yeah! Super Technology!!
OK, I have Blue Ridge irons 3,5 and 9 so I’m using these. These look terrific.
And yes, my all time favourite set, the Ping Zing, which I have a few loose irons, mixed with the equally sexy Ping Eye2.
For my 60 degree, an extremely old Wilson Lob Wedge, and here’s my favourite weapon of ALL TIME:
The vintage Sam Snead putter…this is legendary, because it’s just flat. It’s way before the classical Anser shape, no offset, no inserts, no cavities…those are for sissys. Welcome to a man’s putter. Rock on.
With that, and an old scaly, snake skin Ping Bag, I’m ready to go. We can play our old clubs challenge.
Propose a stableford point system, with 1 point for using clubs older than 10 years, 2 points for 20 years, 3 points for 25 years, 4 points for 30 years, and 5 points for any old junk before 1981.
In our group, when one of us manage to pull off a great sand shot that lands within a foot of the hole, another guy in the group would routinely squawk, “Phil Mickleson!” in tribute to the fat guy that once challenged Tiger and who can pull off ridiculous shots with his wedge, in his sleep, while having grandular fever.
However, when we manage to pull off an impossible escape shot (which to us, so far, counting is about 1 in 6,456 swings of the blasted club) we have a term for it. We ‘Ballesteros’-ed it. Or, the same squawk will come, only with the more awsome: “YOU ARE THE SEVE BALLESTEROS…”
It’s amazing how much us hackers pay tribute to a guy that most of us have not even watch before…I mean, Seve was way before our time. When we started guy, it was for the black guy in Sunday red, not a Spanish matador in bell bottoms. But as Ballesteros passes away this week, I managed to look at some of his shots, and realise that this is the guy that embodies Gilagolf. He’s an inspiration to the hacker because he misses as many fairways as us! Granted, he can do probably a trillion more shots than the average hack, but hey, he seems like a fun dude to play with. He seems like a guy you’d want in your sixers team. He seems like a guy that would compete and kill for a 15-5-5 game not for the money, but for the pure joy of thrashing the living daylights out of the competition.
So here’s Ballesteros in all his top 5 hacker glory:
1) Fall on your knees: How many times have we always tried to attempt this shot, only to completely whiff it and break our spine? Countless….
2) Nightmare to play against: How do you hate a guy like this when you think you can one-up on him only for him to mock you with save after save? It’s like: “Golf is so bloody boring, let me level the playing field with these losers by playing from all the bushes and jungle….”
3) We’ve seen this guy called Kevin Na shoot 16 from a similar position. Seve? He bogeys it. Take that!
4) This is the most ridiculous save ever. And there’s so many more like it from this guy.
5) And finally, the famous birdie from the parking lot “Parking Lot Champion”, truly the a gila shot reminiscent to 99% of our drives. To all the hacks out there: Never give up on your golf, no matter how crap we play, in memory of Gilagolfer Seve.
I know this is a golf blog, but sometimes–rarely–there are topics that completely transcends type, categories and style and simply become universal topics to be written, commented on and opined on, and in the past couple of months, our great motherland Malaysia has continuously spewed up such comedic gems, it’s difficult not to look on without cracking up.
Starting with the initiative to bring back talent, Malaysia’s comedy hit its nadir at the recent unveiling of the 1Malaysia email concept. As of now, there are probably 22 trillion posts internet-wide on its widespread stupidity so I’m not going to add to it. I just want to bring to attention what we have always faced when reading other reviews of golf courses throughout Gilagolf’s existence: the guarantee of the existence of B.S in humanity as a whole.
Possibly the funniest article I have read today is
Basically, just saying we needed to BUY a USB from Tricubes to use their email and to give money to them to help them buy their Mercedes S-Classes. But their CEO is truly the raja lawak (Comedy King) of Malaysia and just completely goes off the blocks with these statements:
“Our default setting is a basic Secure Sockets Layer, which is quite secure” – Whenever we hear the word, ‘Quite’, especially from a CON-Sultan, it technically means, “Ah crap, I have no idea what I am BSing about, but hopefully I will talk really fast before some smart alec asks me to explain what the shitaake is Secure Sockets Layer. I think it’s a dress style from ancient Mongolia…”
“Even with the friendly emails, and without the billing, everything is through SSL. Users can also send personal emails to their friends and it would be completely free.”
Friendly emails, as opposed to emails designed to suck all our hard-earned, bound for the golf course, ringgits into their hands. The last part is a revelation, as he’s speaking as if it’s such a novelty to send personal emails to our friends (as opposed to enemies, which is what Gmail is used for), and wait for it…..IT IS COMPLETELY FREE! Wow, thank you Mr BS CEO, we worship you for such a killer service!
“those who wish to send emails to myemail.my accounts will have to pay a maximum of 50 sen an email, adding that Tricubes aims to sign up 5.4 million users by year-end.”
So, ok…I think it’s a miscue here…send “TO”?? You mean, “FROM” Mr BS CEO? Anyways, now we need to pay 50 sen to send out one (ONE) email. And they are going to force (likely at gunpoint as in how its done in a concentration camp) 33% of the nation’s internet users to sign up for it. On average, I send out an average 30 emails a day, so that means I am paying RM15 per day to use their wonderful free, USB based quite secure SSL system. I.e RM5,475 per year to use email. So if I am an average user (and my volume is LOW compared to other corporates), these guys have a forecast of RM29,565,000,000 of revenue..which is ummm, RM29 Billion, which puts TriCubes 3 times the valuation of Twitter. Wow. I’d love to work as their janitor. Please let me.
And the scary, scary thing is this: Malaysian Insider understands that Tricubes is pinning its hopes on the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and Internal Revenue Board (IRB) to sustain the service through pension and tax notifications.
Time to take out as much as possible from the EPF before they do such an idiotic thing as that.
Why-la, do we constantly let these bunch of clowns take advantage of our kindness and loyalty to motherland Malaysia, only for someone to say, “Malaysians generally has brains the size of planktons. There, their brains are this tiny….”:
Anyways, to end it, I also read that we’re going to blow away RM18 Million to bring 300 english teachers to teach us how to talk and write proper England…
RM18 million is a lot of Golf games. Why not just bring 1 guy in and teach all the teachers? We’ve got seriously, really really magnificent English teachers teaching our kids at school,evidenced by this actual question asked in an actual school:
Which brings an end to this Gilalogy, and this classic YouTube of how Malaysia BS is truly alive and kicking in every aspect of our lifestyle here in wonderful Malaysia (skip the first minute, the hilarity begins after):
So here’s the tribute to every TriCube, Government and English Teachers who has ‘How Much The Rice’-ed the crap out of us!
P/S – Of course, the golf news is that the Houdini of Golf, Seve Ballesteros who could put Mickleson in his back pocket on short game, has passed on due to brain tumor. What a genius, and an inspiration to all hackers to attempt the 170 yard, on our knees, escape shot.
Ok, I was randomly watching this golf program on Star Sports today called “Golf Focus”. Basically, it’s like Football Focus where three dudes sit in the studio and talk about the sport. Football focus is enough to put me to sleep…but occasionally, Shebby Singh tends to make some out of the world nonsensical, Paula Abdul sort of remark that cracks me up, before I eventually snooze off again, until my wife shovels me up to bed at 3 am.
Now, Golf Focus? Heck, the game is already as boring as it is (although there’s now an attempt to shorten it, like Cricket, calling it Powerplay Golf, which is supposed to condense golf tournaments from 4 days to 3 hours. Don’t laugh, it’s supported by Colin Montgomerie, mainly because he keeps choking on the 4th day, so he hates long golf games and is lobbying to make Augusta a 3 hour fiesta. With a Mardi Gras float.)
Anyway, Golf Focus is currently hosted by this guy called Alan Wilkins (obviously airbrushed):
And supported by a guy called Lip Ooi. Yep, that’s his name, and no, it’s not a Hannah Barbara Cartoon character who teams up with Wile E Coyote to hunt down Road Runner. Here’s Lip:
And the ‘golf pro’ is this guy called Richard Harris, and I can’t find a picture of him because his name is so common, it’s the name of a dead actor, a black singer, a criminal, a knight from England, a Puritan in the revolution, a wizard and the brand of a Chinese fertilizer used in the Yong Chow region. I recall the golf focus Richard Harris is bald with a moustache, so I’ll just take the closest resemblance:
Ok, there is a point to this post. For close to an hour, I was between watching this Golf Focus show, picking my nose, clipping my nails, eating a pear and wondering how on blazes did Tiger miss a 2 foot putt for eagle on the 15th at the Augusta. Then, towards the end, the show shifts to the weather forecast (?!?) for some strange reason, mainly because they ran out of things to yammer about, and Lip Ooi was snoring halfway through. The weather forecast was then done by this girl called Kelly Latimer:
Golf Focus, are YOU SERIOUS? No, are you guys at the booth smoking weed, that has blinded all of you to the obvious PROBLEM with Golf Focus, which so far has only accumulated a total of two viewers in the world, that of the 0.1% of my attention, and the attention of my westie Terrier, and that only because he can’t change the channel on my new TV?? You have this girl called Kelly Latimer in your show for a total of 43 seconds, talking about the weather, and for almost an hour, you have those 3 clowns anchoring the show?
From that, my terrier and I conclude that the entire Golf Focus team are on weed, or made out of entirely women staff. Who hates pretty girls. Because they are obviously not pretty.
OK, here we go again, Golf Focus team chooses these group of misfits to handle their show:
Mr Airbrushed-One-Eye-Larger-than-the-Other:
Wile E Coyote’s Chinese Partner to Capture the Road Runner:
Moustachioed Bald Man who has many boring opinions of other golfers:
Instead of using:
Hot Girl:
Seriously. Again. This is almost sad.
Again, our general conclusion is that Golf Focus is either run by weed smoking producers or the HOUSEWIVES-AGAINST-PRETTY-GIRLS-IN-FRONT-OF-CAMERA association.
Just when you think a PGA trainwreck can’t be as bad as Rory’s, you are wrong.
Kevin Na, a Top 50 player in the world, shoots a 16 on a par 4 for the currently running Valero Texas Open. Read it: That’s a +12, or what we golfers will call it:
Anyways, here’s to the mother of all HACKERS Na, whom we can now say we play our par 4s a lot better than him! (and he still manage to shoot 80!). The whole sequence is just painful, just like our weekly golf. Check out the caddy’s face, which says, “You idiot, there goes my paycheck!”
Before this Masters, I was never a huge fan of Rory. Maybe because he’s Europe’s answer to our all time favourite chinaman pai-kia Anthony Kim. Maybe because he’s young, darn rich, and can pound the ball miles and miles. Maybe he doesn’t need to go and work and always seem to have so much fun on the course while we whiter and die in our offices. Or maybe because he has permed hair. I don’t know.
But in the course of 3 holes in the back nine, the Gilagolf prediction engine was eerily and devastatingly accurate, that he would “crack under the enormous pressure and his drives will be as curly as his hair in the back nine. ” I’d like to add this prediction is way better than all the so-called experts at BBC, NBC, Golf Channel because they are all full of crap.
I can’t help but think it was a hex, because that tee off on 10 was horrendous. And Amen corner saw the funeral procession of this gifted young gun: +6 over 3 holes. +6. A 4 putt on 12. 4 putts. Wow. I don’t remember the last time I 4 putted. Actually I do, it was in Perangsang, which, compared to Augusta is like Augusta being eaten by a giant then taken a huge dump, and eating that dump and taking another huge dump again.
Anyways, in some parts, watching his body language, it struck me: He looked so familiar to us. He’s just like our fourball partners, when we duff a shot, or cant get our tee past the ladies, or completely top a pitch or blow a putt past the hole off the green. Those poses are strikingly similar to us HACKERS. Even when Tiger shanks his ball, he blows off steam but he never bends down and cover his whole face like Rory when he duck hook on the 13th into water, or walk with a hunch, with his shirt untucked, his cap pulled down. He never would miss a 1 foot putt on a par 5 then looks around like he wished the course would swallow him whole. He would never shrug at his caddie like he was going to cry as Rory did after three putting on the par 5 15th.
But Rory, he wears his emotions on his sleeve, and from hole 10 – 13 in Augusta, on 10 April 2011, he became a hacker once more.
And from hole 10 -13 in Augusta, Rory turned into Gilagolf’s poster child, and favourite golfer (other than David Duval), because of the fact that, despite earning more than all the hackers in Malaysia’s combined salaries, he is still, at heart, a HACKER. And he relates to us, and we relate to him. We know his pain, and now he knows ours. He has been vilified by the press as a choker; he has now been elevated by us as our patron saint. He is a trillion times better than us; yet, he has descended into hackerdom for 4 holes in the greatest golf tournament of his life; and like us, felt the sting and abysmal cruelty of this volatile lover called Golf. We now have kinship, because as the great writer Victor Hugo says:
“Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.”
Here’s our support, and praying that our new found hero will win the Malaysian Open this week.
