Posted on

What’s the big deal about anchored putters?

By now, we’ve already entered into the twillight zone of the golf season. Meaning, there’s nothing much to yap about.

So, in line with keeping golf relevant, the governing body has decided that anchored putters will be banned in 2016 when the rule changes comes again. Apparently there’s a four year rule change, and 2012 has already passed.

So there’s another 3 years for guys like Adam Scott, Mr Ernie Else and Keegan Bradley and a host of other guys using either the long putter or belly putter to come to terms with their existence: use the darn putter as it is!

Tiger Woods is one of the guys against it. He has never used an anchored putter, instead flitting between his beloved Scotty Cameron and the god awful Nike Method. Both are normal blade putters.

So what’s the big deal? It’s a rule in golf, so live by it. If the rule of golf says you play 18 holes you play it. If it says your driver is limited to 460cc, then that’s the limit. If the rules says you eat Lima beans, you eat lima beans, or you don’t play it.

Frankly, anchored putters are not so hot for weekend hackers like us. Not only, I guess it’s an ego thing, but really, can you imagine the confusion it will cost if we’re betting and have the rule of given if putter length? Imagine the advantage that these guys will have over poor saps like us!

Posted on

Festive Season Nightmares

I hate to be the grinch. But I get him. I get the Grinch.

The problem with festive seasons is this: holidays + noise.

Holidays might be a good thing for 99% of the people in the country. But not so if you’re running your own business. If you are chasing contracts. Or chasing collections. Holidays are just constant bumps in the road…when you gain a little momentum, something like this happens when the whole week goes down the drain.

Now I’m fine with that, because I’ve learnt to cope with it.

The noise, I cannot.

It’s a wonder as new fathers grasp their new role as drowning monkeys grabbing on straws, adjusting to the constant demand of this new creature in the household, constantly yelling, screaming, kicking, crapping, crying, wailing, laughing, then screaming again, refusing to sleep, pulling etc. Sometimes you wonder, how on earth did this fler get contained in the womb??

And then after a long period of shush patting, coaxing, bribing, blackmailing and begging, the little one drifts off into sleep. And the parents clamber into the bed, exhausted, and having mirages of heaven in their sleep.

And then it begins.

The cursed fireworks. Which I believe is a 1000 year curse placed upon parents, by weird aliens living on planet Mongo. I hate fireworks. Especially the ones that sounds like frigging cannons from frigates blasting in the high seas, and causing part of our wall plaster to chip. We live in a place that’s one road away from a large kampung area, and I don’t know how they do it, they got their hands on these humongously powerful fireworks and just literally destroyed any semblance of peace we had in my area.

Little One wakes, screaming.

Parents wake, screaming.

Police? I don’t know. Isn’t fireworks already banned? Why aren’t they doing anything about it??

I HATE FIREWORKS!!

Posted on

Was Tiger right to snub WGC?

A lot of flak had been given to our favourite misfit golfer, Tiger Woods over the past week, which really proves that if you are popular and back at the top of the world, you ain’t going to make everyone happy.

Apparently he was in China playing that mickey mouse 1 on 1 with Rory. First of all, 1 on 1 in golf in an exhibition, non-tournament game is pure nonsense. I mean, if you’re talking about a contact sport like basketball, then heck, yeah! Michael Jordan vs Magic Johnson, Kobe vs Lebron, Tim Duncan vs Anyone on this planet, why not? You see both athletes trash talking, bumping and grinding against each other (and not in a porno way), vs Tiger and Rory in grey sweaters walking around and talking about the weather and what to eat after that.

So anyways, the people at wgc hsbc are really pissed because since Tiger is in China and Rory is in China, they should have competed in the WGC tournament.

Morgan expressed “disappointment” earlier this week that both McIlroy and Woods were in China but did not stay to play the WGC event at Mission Hills. McIlroy is taking the week off before playing three of the remaining four European Tour events.

“To have a World Golf Championship in Asia is really important for the sport, to balance the sport out, and to grow,” Morgan said. “And because it’s a World Golf Championship event, it requires the best players to be here.”

HSBC also sponsors the Abu Dhabi tournament, which both Woods and McIlroy played this year (McIlroy finished second, Woods tied for third) and where both receive appearance fees. They will get paid again in January to return. The WGC event is co-sponsored by the PGA Tour, which prohibits such fees.

Guess what, Morgan? The reality here is this: If you give the money, then we’ll talk. As a business man, would you go into a deal that guaranteed you US2 million for just showing up for 4 hours or to grind it out for 4 days with the possibility of only getting about half of the prize money? Going by man hour rates, it’s pretty obvious a business decision is made in this case. If WGC paid Tiger, he would be there because he can afford it. And I bet he’s thinking, “Damn, when I was down and out and looked like crap, played like crap and 58 in the world, nobody gave rotten eggs to me. They said I was bad for the game, bad as a role model and I sucked. Now when I am number 2, everyone is hero worshipping me again and asking me to be a good ambassador to this sorry excuse for a sport. If they want me to be there, they better sponsor to fly in losers like David Duval and John Daly as well!”

It’s true. Tiger has gone past the “I need to be an example for the sport” period. He’s had it. He wrote a personal mail to me saying, “You know what, Gilagolf, I am done with this horseshit. From now on, Tiger only plays for one person: Tiger. I am bigger than this sport, and I might as well acknowledge it. So go suck it, Morgan Stanley or whatever the heck your name is!”

“And because it’s a World Golf Championship event, it requires the best players to be here.” – What is this about? If you can’t attract the best golfers you can’t attract it. Nothing requires the best players to be there. That’s why golf is for self employment, it’s that aside from playing minimum tournaments, there’s no mandatory tournaments that must be played?  And face it, after losing 16 kg of sweat in Malaysia, then heading off to China for USD2 million for a 4 hour game, then coming back to Singapore to screw around in Marina Sands, who’d want to go back to freaking Shanghai? He’s done. Time to recharge and win again next year.

About Rory watching his girlfriend lose again, I don’t know. Seems pretty dodgy, since Rory still has loads to prove and should be taking the mantle of role modelship from Tiger. Apparently, like all Irish, he doesn’t give a cannolli of what the world thinks as well…which is why he and Tiger get along so well, I guess.

Which is also strange, to see Tiger cosy up with curly hair Rory. We know Tiger would rather pound Rory into a pulp and spit on his carcass…so why the friendly strategy? What is going on up in the devious mind of Tiger?

Posted on

The verdict for KRPM’s fate is….

Safe.

But same can’t be said about the GC’s job.

Like all good members, I decided to miss out Tiger’s last day at CIMB (which turned out to be a heck of a day for Nick Watney and his hot missus), to attend the critical EGM to vote on KRPM’s future. There were a couple of resolutions in there, which I won’t bore my readers here. Basically the first one is saying to ammend something in the constitutional rule. Rule 36.3 or something. Then the next one was to get some professional guys to value our club. The other one was to see whether we want to sell it, either 36 holes or 9 holes, for some greedy developer.

Now I obviously am not sure if I understood it correctly, someone probably will correct me, but that’s what I think I was supposed to vote for. Which I didn’t. Because like all EGMs it started VERY late, and the room was too small to accomodate everyone, and the guy next to me (bless him for his good intentions) smelled suspiciously like he had too much to drink.

The turnout? Here’s the view when I turned into the road leading to KRPM.

Upon reaching to register my name:

Yup, that’s the freaking line. Someone told me, look you need long pants and shoes! I am like, are you serious? Cuz, I’m dressed as a typical china-man, which constitutes 80% of this club anyways right?

And so I had to head to the wonderful golf shop that had so much business and buy a  nice RM60 golf pants and a 300RM shoes. Yes. RM300. It’s a nice shoe though. It’s called TRUE Linkswear and I immediately LIKED it.

I bought the one at the top. Finally, they make golf shoes that you can go out with. Anyway, I thought I could splurge a little, seeing that I missed out Tiger and his 4th placing at CIMB. I was gonna spend the money anyways!

Anyhoos, back to the EGM. After the chaotic registration and the delay from 2:30 pm to 4:15, we finally convened in the main hall, which I think can probably sit 500 – 600 people but it turned out to have like, I don’t know 1500? 2000? I don’t know. A lot of human beings. And some of them had shorts. And japanese slippers. Dang the guy who tricked me into buying the funky looking golf shoes!

I’ll be honest with you. After being there from 2:30 and hanging out like a chimp with nothing to do for an hour plus, I wasn’t too happy at all. And a lot of people were pretty pissed. I stayed long enough to listen and do my customary hollering and heckling but by 5:30 pm, we were still stuck with people talking about the dang Rule 36.3, which some considered “sacred” and cannot be changed. The only thing sacred was my stomach growling with hunger.

But looking at the people gathered there and the amount of heckling towards Arthur, our president everytime he opened his mouth, I was certain there won’t be any sale anytime in the future. Here’s the breakdown of people attending:

1. People who want to sell at the current price – 1%

2. People who wants to sell, but not at this price – 98%

3. People who don’t want to sell even if you put a shotgun to the head of their first born – 1%

I am part of that 98% group, who feels that, look, if you were to give me a really really ridiculously good offer, like maybe 150K upwards, heck, it’s a no-brainer. Everyone has a price. But not at this basement price they were talking about. It’s a no-brainer as well. Our club is worth a whole lot more than that.

However, the 3rd group was pretty convincing in their rabid devotion to the club. They will never sell, not for a billion dollars. Either way, I’m pretty happy it turned out ok, and that KRPM (for now) is safe. Who knows, maybe 2 years down the road, the offer will be something we can’t refuse?

Posted on

Tiger vs Rory

Did any of you know that there was apparently a “Duel and Jinsha Lake” yesterday? It’s a mano-e-mano, one to one matchup between the world number 1 and world number 2.

World number 2 gets 2 million USD. World number 1 gets 1 million USD. I know, there’s something a bit wrong here, so I am guessing world number 3 gets…?

Anyways, Jinsha lake is located somewhere in Henan, China. Which is somewhere in China. Anyhoos, I managed to accidentally catch the game on TV as I came back from lunch. A couple of calls to clients moved all my meetings two hours later and I managed to catch the majority of the so-called Duel.

Which.Was.A.Waste.Of.Time.

Not so much that Tiger lost, I think -4 to Rory’s -5, but the way they lost it. They didn’t give a crap. It was exhibition. They got a couple of million bucks just to show up, and even though the commentator said it was for ‘pride’, I am not buying it. 2 million bucks is more than they will get if they won a regular tour tournament. Heck, it’s larger than a major event’s purse! All they need to do was play 18 holes. It’s equivalent to a consultant working on a project for 3 months to get 300,000RM, or work 3 days to get 600K RM. Which one would be better?

Tiger played like I’ve never seen before. Without a damn. He just wasn’t locked in. When he hit a bad shot, he didn’t care. When he hit a good shot, he didn’t care. No fist pumps, no anger, no slamming of clubs, no clenched fist. It was like his mind was on Mickey Mouse playing the ukelele. You could see how disengage he was, when rory would talk to him facing him, he never looked back at Rory, just stare into the ground ahead and talked back a bit. After a while, I think Rory said, “Darn it Tiger, just play along a bit or we will lose this stupidly easy paycheck, will ya??!?”

Rory? Heck, I don’t know, he was playing well, but he was just walking about, not really caring much as well and I think purposely missing a few putts to keep it close. He was a lot better than Tiger, granted.

The only interesting thing was their conversations to each other as they sauntered along, collecting a few thousand bucks with each step they took. Rory was talking about the weather and Tiger was saying it was a hell lot better than the hellhole called Malaysia last week (not in those words)…and he was saying he was literally dripping as he addressed the ball in KL. (in those exact words).

Another interesting bit was this humongously irritating on-course chinese interviewer, who literally stopped Tiger and Rory while they were still playing and asked stupid questions like: “How do you think you are hitting it?” “How is the weather?” “What color underwear are you wearing?” He was classic hilarious. The look on Tiger’s face when he was first accosted as he was walking to his second shot, as if “WTF is this china man?” The very next hole, the hole he swung his driver dramatically out of his hands in a hook shot, he strode off to his ball fuming. And this annoying chinaman interviewer hops in front of him and says: “What do you think of your shot?” Tiger at that moment was a milisecond away from slamming his Nike club into the head of this guy but stopped himself with two sentences: “2 Million prize money. 100 billion losses in PR”. He smoothed his face and smiled forcefully and through visibly grinding teeth said, “I don’t know, I havent seen it yet.”

Ah, the beauty of insensitive and utterly clueless chinese interviewers!

Posted on

CIMB Classic and Tiger Woods

Well I suppose you couldn’t keep Gilagolf away from Tiger Woods, not when the guy is back in malaysia after a 13 year absence. I mean, he’s like the Haley’s comet. I don’t know what prompted him to come down to this backwater country for golf, probably the 5 million appearance fee and the no-cut 48 person event had something to do with it.

I don’t often go and watch golf on the course…I rather be playing it, but this is Tiger. And this is Thursday. And the crowd. Was. Nuts.

Thursday crowd mind you.

It was pretty hard to see Tiger, but there are some tips to catching Tiger properly.

Predict where he will end up. He was playing absolutely great at his driving, so we just needed to predict where his drive would end up. Nick Watney was ahead of him, and I gauged that he would be about 15 meters in front of Nick when he teed up. So while everyone was at the tee box on 18th, I settle myself at a nook where no one was there, where I predicted he would hit. A larger crowd was at around where Nick hit his shot.

Bam, Tiger’s ball ended up absolutely smack at the distance I was sitting, hence I had a great view of his second shot in the last hole.

Unfortunately, those CIMB volunteers decided to camp right in front of me with their QUIET signs to block my view when Tiger hit his shot. I wanted to murder that imbecile CIMB volunteer.

Another way to get a good shot is to predict his walking path. Then stand there and take the damn photo!

Overall he played great in the back nine and gave us a lot to cheer for. Of course, a few of us were hoping one of his wayward tee shot would hit us on the head so we could get an autograph (do you know how much that is worth??!), but he played too well. And the crowd was just berserk.

I managed to capture a video of his chip attempt that nearly eagled on the 17th. Otherwise, most of my shots are all pretty far away. The video is actually crap quality, you can’t even see the damn ball, but I’m putting it in because at around 0:22, the old uncle next to me started to hit on one of the CIMB volunteer, who is young enough to be his daughter. He says: “I remember you from Maybank Open. Wow, you are always here for golf events. When is the next one you will be at ah?” In response, the girl gave a nervous look around and scurried away.

Anyways, it’s ridiculous fighting with the crowd at Tiger World. He truly is bigger than golf.

Another interesting sight was Nick Watney. He had this really hot looking caddie by his side. Which was really interesting, because since I couldn’t get a view of Tiger much, the hot caddie was the next most interesting thing on the course.

Who is the hot caddy? I don’t know, but I think likely his wife, Amber Watney, who had caddied before for him I guess during the mickey mouse rounds in Augusta. She’s the niece of another pro golfer so I guess she knows what she’s doing. Check out Amber Watney below:

She’s the number 34. YOW-ZAH.

Posted on

Tiger Woods in Malaysia

Suffice to say, that at this very moment, the greatest player in the history of our known universe is about 25km away, hacking away at one of the courses that Gilagolf had hacked before. Some comments have mentioned I am a rabid fanboy of Tiger. What else is there to support in golf? Your spine? Unfortunately, unless someone miraculously reads this article and take pity on me, I didn’t get any tickets to this year’s arguably biggest golf event. So I’ll just have to watch him like everyone else, from the TV. And annoyingly, we still have that EGM issue with Rahman Putra happening this Sunday as well. Damn you, golf club!

He’s teeing up with our prime minister even right now as I write, and I heard, opting to use only a putter for every shot so that our PM can at least keep pace with him in driving. I guess our PM has quite a lot of time to be accomodating, what’s with the country going through our best golden years both socially, politically and economically. I’m sure there’s no reason to worry about that small, miniscule, little thing called the GE13, or our country has gone to the bollocks for the past couple of years. Sure, let’s just tee up with Tiger Woods, who represents the greatest role model in golf and extracurricular activities.

I’m not bitter at all that the PM gets to tee up with Tiger Woods. I am sure the PM teed up with Rory McIlroy as well when he came. You mean he didn’t? Why the hell would he tee up with Tiger then? Oh yeah, because Tiger is bigger than golf, that’s why. Suck it, Mr Toby.

Anyways, predictions? I really doubt Tiger is driven to win in this CIMB (he pronounces it as See-im-bee) tournament, playing in possible the crappiest course against the crappiest opponents in the crappiest weather ever. I think by the end on the first round, he’s going to be sweating so much, and fainting and saying Malaysian weather sucks and that’s why bloody Vijay Singh rejected this  country in favor of Fiji. He’ll be in the top 10, but he won’t be winning. As far as Tiger goes, this is like 2nd gear work out for him. He’s just here to kill time and to see our PM play golf. You can see his reaction to our PM’s tee off below here:

Ah Tiger. The only one who dares to donkey-laugh at our PM’s golf skills.

All the best and win one on Malaysia soil!

Posted on

Rahman Putra or Tiger?

Well, we all know Tiger Woods is coming to Malaysia.

And we all know that Gilagolf is a rabid fan of Tiger. Because, again, he is the only reason why golf exist in ESPN highlights. I’m not going to go into another long harangue on why Tiger is bigger than the game, but here it is, he is coming to Malaysia, to Mines for the CIMB classic at the end of this month.

Obviously, I was prepared to go.

However.

For those gilagolfers in the know, we’ve seen our share of land grabbing of recent times. The golf courses in Malaysia are no longer invincible to development, and of recent years, we’ve seen courses like Kajang Hill, KGSAAS, IOI Palm Garden, Venice Hills and some others fade away into the oblivion of property development.

Recently, my other club, KGNS also got hit with some foul play of government getting back the land. Sorry, my legal capabilities is next to a chipmunk so I have no freaking clue how it happened.

Now, of course, Rahman Putra, of which I’ve been a member for years, is faced with a critical crisis. Some sections of people have made a move to look to sell the club out to some property developer. They are looking to buy over our membership and build condominiums over our beloved, hallowed course that we’ve dug up for years.

How much are they paying? Not enough. According to our quack calculations, we’re looking at 279 acres, which is 279×43560 = 12, 153, 240 square feet. Our quack calculator states that that area itself should go for at least RM60, so that means 729M, divided by 4500 members, it’s roughly 160K per person. Now even if it goes for RM40 – 50, we should be seeing a whole lot more than what they are offering us now. And that too will be a big IF, if guys like me want to sell. I love the club actually, it’s heck of a convenient and it has a big swimming pool for my 10 future kids. Plus it’s not like I have a big need for money. I actually do, but I’m trying to sound macho. OK, if you give me an offer I cant refuse, Don Corleone, I might be bought over.

The problem here is that there will be a vote for resolution in the EGM. They require 3/5 of the people present to vote to pass. These guys who want to sell already have quite a large contingent, I hear. Why would they want to sell? I don’t know. Maybe they are too old to play golf and want to cash out? Who knows? All I know is that the current price isn’t what I’d want to sell Rahman for. Would I sell out the club in the future? Hey let’s be frank, if someone dropped 500K for you to sell a golf club membership….come on. Seriously.

So when is this EGM? Now, you guessed it. Sunday, on the final day of CIMB classic, the day when we all expect Tiger to be the last flight. Oh great. Don’t think it’s a coincidence. I am sure they knew this, in order to get fewer fence sitters like myself so they can vote to go for the sale. But what can be done? Go for Tiger or secure the future of Rahman Putra?

Such tough tough decisions we have to make in life.

Posted on

Gilagolf is out for a few months

Well, not the blog, but rather the player.

Reinjured my wrist today trying to hack away at a ball in KGPA. To begin with, my wrist had never been doing well since one half month ago. It’s the left wrist, so I needed to strap it really tight and hence no wrist cock. I’ve been seeing a lot of pulls, because (I think) I’m dropping my club too early in the swing and it just goes round and my right hand turns over then. At least, that’s my assumption.

So I’ve been playing a lot of compensating golf: Aim right, hook it back. Problem is about 30% of the time I flush it straight and it goes into OB or somewhere in the woods where I need to hack again, and thus re-stressing my already stressed wrist. Now I know how Duval feels playing like a hack knowing you can play a much better game.

Anyway, the doc says it’s an overstressed tendon issue on the wrist, so it’s swollen up and I can’t turn it without feeling pain, and I went to the sensei at Seapark (Oriental something, pretty good), who massaged, put in a herbal wrap on it and advised me to knock off golf for at least 2 months.

What happened? Possible a mixture of a bad swing and a bad way in carrying my kid. Kid is more than 7 kg now and I must have twisted something when I carried him wrongly one of those times, trying to manuever his squirming body into the blasted car seat.

So, no golf till December at least, but I’ll keep updating the blog on anything to do with Tiger and stuff.

Posted on

We hate Love Part II.

I thought this was done and dusted. But after reading the ESPN article, I’ll have to say this: Davis Love III will be used as a bad word from now on. Here’s how we use it:

“What? I don’t give a flying Davis Love III whether you know how to do it or not, just do it! Davis Love III!”

“I just had the most Davis Love III-ing amazing time tonight.”

“Davis Love III’s sakes! You can’t even do a simple thing like that??!?”

“That mother-Davis Love III-er is really going to get punched in the face one day.”

Davis Love III captained the US team as how he played: spineless, courageless and absolutely in mind-numbing, mentally crippling fashion. He’s the villain for US, and he will always be known as the absolute worst captain of all time. He’s finished. From here on, Davis Love III will be selling hotdogs for a living, nobody should come within a 10 foot pole of this guy.

US would have won, if they had been captained by this instead: