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Augusta 2012 Day One

The first major is here..and probably if you were to ask any PGA golf pros (maybe one of you reading this might actually be a very accomplished interviewer and has access to these guys) which major they would want to win if they had only one: Most likely the Augusta Masters would be their choice. It’s just not the awful-looking green jacket that makes the winner look like an idiot; it’s the massive tradition surrounding it. Augusta is like the World Cup in golf, except it comes every year, as opposed to every 4 years! It’s probably the only majors I’d stay up to watch, and admittedly, that too only for Tiger’s round. Here’s a quick breakdown of the 5 favourite character stories in Augusta this year.

The Comeback Hero. Tiger shot 72, thanks to some seriously retarded golf on the 17th and 18th, but he actually did pretty well not to look like a complete fool on the first and second. His swing still looks a little dodgy though and at times, like the 18th, it almost resembled the mighty duck hook that I have as my normal drive. We’re still rooting for Tiger though, since other alternatives are clearly as interesting as watching reruns of Home Garden Improvement.

The Prodigal Son. Rory. I really really really like this picture of him for two reasons: we don’t get to see his curly pubic head hair, and this stance resembles the normal stance I usually assume after every drive. Still undecided whether to hate or love Rory…he has a great game, for sure, and he is emotional…but at times, he comes off as just plain annoying. Not Sergio Garcia annoying, but enough to put us off. Anyway, he played well to a -1, despite a disastrous double bogey start, which also usually resembles my first hole in every game I play.

The New Colin Montgomerie Villain. Skinny Westwood. Who looks like the actual villain Willem Dafoe in disguise.

Willem Dafoe

Was never a fan of either skinny or fat Lee Westwood for some reason. Maybe because he comes off as a whinny, complaining guy much like his fat predecessor, Monty, who doesn’t seem to wish people well, or not too happy that a punk like Rory is beating the crap out of him everytime. Unfortunately he’s playing really well and now leads at -5. At one point, he had 4 birdies, and barely missed his fifth. Every story needs a villain anyway.

The low-self-esteemed No 1. He truly, remarkably is, Golf’s worst world no. 1. The PGA management must be flabbergasted at how a guy like this who only wins small tournament and again, resembles an overturned crab in terms of charisma would be the poster boy for best player in the world. No majors. World Number 1. My theory is that Luke wishes he wasn’t world number 1, because whenever he goes into a tournament as World No. 1, he immediately starts hacking like a nut. As in, he knows himself it’s such a stupid position to be when you haven’t done anything. True to form, he went out there to purposely sabotage his game and ended with a 75. He almost got away trying to disqualify himself by smudging a score to reflect 73, but PGA officials blamed it on the fax machine, and unhappily, Luke Donald has to play on. Watch for more of this self-saboteur in the coming rounds.

Henrik Stenson in World Golf Championships-CA Championship - Round One

The Stripper-Hacker-Golfer-With-A-Girl-As-A-Caddy. Henrik Stenson is unique is some ways. Aside from this horrifying picture of him in his undies, he’s also famous for forcing a woman to lug his bag around for him for 7KM every round. Many people conclude that he’s probably on the queer side, but who cares. I like this guy because he is probably the only person in the PGA tour that actually plays like us, on some holes. As in, he simply meltsdown.

18th hole, Augusta 2012. He shot an 8. I couldn’t get a video online yet, but here’s what happened from my viewing:

1) Snap hook a 3 wood into the woods on the left. Resemblance to myself: 100%

2) Duff his punch out and ended up in heavy pinestraws and not even out of the thick stuff. Resemblance to myself: 100%

3) Complain to official that he wants a free drop and is flat out refused because official doesn’t like the picture of him naked, although he vehemently shouts that he’s not going to strip, for crying out loud, because there’s no water hazard. Official doesn’t believe it and rathers play it safe. Resemblance to myself: 0% (just play it, Henrik and stop whining like skinny Villain!)

4) Due to his argument with official, and the fact that he still has his clothes on, he tops his shot 20 meters that skitters to the right. He stopped himself from tomahawking his club into the ground, turns around, and in a split second, decides to REALLY tomahawk it. Resemblance to myself: 100%

5) The official and commentators TSK TSK, and says, “Don’t do that in Augusta, naked Swedish man.” At this point, he screams that he’s not naked and was he eating crazy pills. Resemblance to myself: 0% ( I have no confidence playing golf naked).

6) He hits his 4th and simply airmails the green because he was already so pissed off. He immediately berates his caddy. Resemblance to myself: 50% (I’d airmail it too, but I wouldn’t berate my caddy…since usually I don’t have one. I’d choose to tomahawk my club again).

7) He clears everyone behind the green and rudely shuffles one clueless idiot who continues to sit there staring blankly at him. With three thousand eyeballs on him, he simply duffs his chip and doesn’t even reach the green. Resemblance to myself: 100%

8) He now putts from the fringe and it goes to about 2 feet from the hole. He misses his putt from 2 feet and finally settled in for 8, quadruple bogey. Resemblance to myself: 100%

And here’s the wonderful fact about Henrik…he is REALLY A HACKER who happens to be a PGA tour.

He was dead last in Augusta last year with an 83-74 score. This includes a QUINTUPLE BOGEY (8) for par 3 fourth and triple bogey on the 11th. His score in 2010? 80-75 and also miss cut with 5 bogeys and 3 double bogeys in round one. He truly suck. And that’s why we need to keep an eye out for him, because he’s our rep this year in the great fraternity of hackers.

On to day 2!!!

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Woods Mania is back

The actual golf season begins with Tiger.

Face it, quick trivia:

1) How many PGA tournaments have been played?

2) Who won these tournaments?

3) What is the current PGA tournament being played now, and who is leading at the halfway cut?

If you can’t answer any of the above, or wrongly answered Abu Dhabi HSBC championship for 3), chances are you are like 99% of the golf fans out there: NO ONE GIVES A CRAP about the other PGA tournaments outside of the majors, and outside of any tournaments Mr Woods play in.

Tiger Woods

I finally tuned into golf, between flicking channels to watch the tennis Australian Open, and watched the marquee group of Rory, Luke and Woods. Luke sucked. As a world no. 1, you gotta feel extremely castrated in many ways. He doesn’t have the charisma of Woods, he doesn’t have the don’t care attitude of Rory, he doesn’t even have a freakin’ major that both Rory and Woods at least have! And he’s supposed to be the ‘best’. It’s such a ridiculous burden he’s bearing, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to beat these two guys, driving shorter than them, less accurate than them, and yet, seeded World No. 1?? As expected, Luke played like a doberman on heat, i.e extremely out of control and crap. And did I mentioned he has the same amount of charisma as the random piece of brick you find at the construction site?

Rory? He’s entertaining, but he’s no Tiger. He plays like a punk, and his body language is just so hilarious because it reminds us of…well, us. Except that he birdies after bogeys, while we just descent into an eternal spiral of crap golf. His resigned slump when he hits a bad shot, his animated face when he hits the good ones. His penchant to engage Woods in conversation all the time…thankfully, Steve Williams is no longer Tiger’s guard dog, else Rory might have his face bashed in for speaking to the mighty Tiger. But Rory was hit with a 2 stroke penalty when Luke said that he couldn’t sweep sand from his ball path outside of the green. Which makes sense. As in how hundreds of stupid golf rules makes sense, but play by the book, right? To do him credit, he didn’t blame the tell tale World No 1 but penalised himself, but yet carded  an even round to remain at -5, same as Tiger…how does one get 2 double bogeys and some bogeys and yet remain even??

Tiger played like…someone else aside from Tiger. We are so used to seeing this guy flapping his clubs around and screaming FORE!! and go on to do a ridiculous recovery shot and sink an impossibly long putt…that the new Tiger, with the ability to fade the ball just needs getting used to. Tiger will always be Tiger, but we love him so much because he was able to overcome adversity, and come up with crazy shots that we would try on the course, much to the danger of everyone involved.

Now Tiger just plods along, hits great fades with 3 woods into the fairway (with the occasional top that can still skitter 240 yards), doesn’t do much fist pumps and resembles a black Luke Donald. Yawn. I hope this doesn’t mean Tiger is going to be playing boring golf all the way, or else I’ll be switching to watch Junior Masterchef Australia. He’s hitting it great though, and it will really be great for him to be in contention in the weekend, hopefully paired with the jabberwocky Rory McIlroy.

By the way, the report was that Tiger Woods was paid a significant sum to play in Abu Dhabi, about 2.x million USD. I think the rumor was that last year, one event organiser wanted to bring Tiger back to Malaysia for one of the tourneys…and was quoted RM5 million, which was before his Chevron victory and at his lowest value. That was his discounted value. I don’t think we’ll ever see Tiger going for RM5 million ever again, now that he has regained back some of the aura he lost when his car crashed into the tree and he downgraded from the most appealing and marketing person in sports into a not-so-pretty-pornstar lover. What a fall from grace ain’t it?

Ah Well, Tiger Mania is back, and let the season FINALLY begin!!

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Who Wins in the Major?

Now that the British Open is over, and the unlikeliest champion has emerged, we’ll all wind down the year and have a look at it. Wait, there’s still the PGA Championship and Fedex Cup. Meh. We all know that the last major, with flukes like Shaun Micheel, Rich Beem and YE Yang, isn’t as prestigious as the other 3. And Fedex cup? Please. Gimmicky.

Darren Clarke of Northern Ireland smokes a cigarette during the final round of the British Open golf championship at Royal St George's in Sandwich

So, the cigaratte chomping (curious, isn’t a cigaratte consider an outside help?) Daren Clarke wins, and I’ll leave to other better writers to talk about the glory of Northern Ireland majors, the odds, the story surrounding Sunday’s win, and the humiliating hacking nonsense conjured up by Phil Mickleson, Dustin Johnson and all the other clowns chasing Daren. It wasn’t so much that Daren won it, but the other fellas lost it. Missing a two footer. Check, Mickleson. Shanking into OB at a critical hole. Check, Dustin. Pulling into weeds and losing grip of club. Check, Anthony Kim. Whacking into the spectator stands. Check, Mickleson. What, again?? What’s wrong with you, tubby??

Phil Mickelson Phil Mickelson of the United States misses a birdie putt on the eighth green during the final round of The 140th Open Championship at Royal St George's on July 17, 2011 in Sandwich, England.

Now, what has this got to do with Tiger? Everything. Since our old friend left the game in shambles, we’ve got all these bunch of pretenders stepping up the plate and taking what they can. It’s like a pack of hyenas, after the lion has finished his fill of the dead elephant and wanders off to sleep, they come and gorge on the remains and take all they can before the old lion comes back and chase them all out.

Without Tiger, majors have seen first time winners piling up. Daren. Rory. Charles. Martin. Louis. Graeme. 6 consecutive first timers, and NOT. ONE. AMERICAN. Face it, for the viewers, supporting the underdog only makes sense if there is a top dog. We ALL want to have a top dog. There’s a culture of heroes in humanity. Hercules. Achilles. The naked guy in 300. Julius Caesar. Douglas MacArthur. Joan of Arc. King Arthur. Hang Tuah. Or, looking at sport heroes: Muhammad Ali. Michael Jordan. Maradona. The one person that stands above the rest, that says, “Don’t eat my elephant until I’m finished, you pack of hyenas!”

Tiger Woods, love him or hate him, is one of them. He is the Top Dog. He’s the Alpha Male. And he doesn’t like to share.

Once the Top Dog goes, you’ve got these hyenas going for the majors and the number 1 in the world. Luke Donald aka Justin Timberlake Lookalike. What a joke. A world number 1 CAN’T make the CUT??!! Lee Westwood, another joke. Martin Kaymer? He can’t draw the ball. Rory? We like him, but too streaky, just like a hacker.

Martin Kaymer and Lee Westwood - Singles Matches-2010 Ryder Cup

The real winners are all the PGA players, because since Tiger left, their chances have improved like 5000% to win a major. Also, the sport writers, because now they have more stories to write about, aside from the normal “Tiger Wins.” or the Horrendously overused, “Tiger out of the Woods” or “Tiger in the Woods”. Recently they have gotten a little creative thanks to his liaisons with pornstars, and have cheeky titles like “Tiger getting Woody” or “Tiger shows his Wood”. But still, over used. Now, with these new batch of hyenas, writers can be more creative with their headlines, such as:

If Rory wins: “Ror-ring victory”

If Daren wins: “Clarke of the Devil”

If Sergio wins: “Serg-ing to victory”…and my favorite:

If Thomas Bjorn wins: “To Infinity and Bjorn!”

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Where art thou, Tiger?

Dear Tiger,

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.

Regards,

Gilagolf.net

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All hail our Hacker Patron Saint: Rory McIlroy

Rory McIlroy

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.

Rory McIlroy

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.

Welcome to Kuala Lumpur, Saint Rory.

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Charl Schulz wins the Augusta Masters 2011

Charl Schwartzel

This Masters had it all.

1) We had a Lucy and Linus’s brother, Bo Van Pelt playing with two eagles yet cannot win.

Their creator, Charl Schulz instead took the honors.

2) We had Rory imploding with +7 in the back nine. So sad, yet, it’s a bit of schadenfreude isn’t it, hackers? BTW, Christina Kim seems to really feel for Rory in her tweets, so maybe we should all feel for him and stop making fun of his curly hair, because we all know most Gilagolf readers have a SERIOUS CRUSH on the big gal. Seriously. You guys voted in our previous Hot or Not poll. Christina Kim came first out of 268 voters, ahead of Michelle Wie and Natalie Gublis. Officially Malaysian Golfers have secret crushes on Big Women because we instinctively relate them with FOOD. Take that, stereotype beauties.

3) We had Tiger missing 3 putts within 3 feet like a 24 handicapper hacker. But Tiger finished 4th, and hilariously, here’s what Ian Poulter tweeted after his round:

“Shame I’m not watching the masters about ti fly home to Orlando, it sounds interesting.”

Or, to interpret: “I’m not watching because I know Tiger is going to piledriver his 7 down my throat and ask me to suck it for saying he is a crap golfer. Oh, I wish I didn’t tweet so much like a girl. And I wish I can play better golf instead of wearing tablecloths for my pants.”

4) We have, for the first time, 3 aussies in the top 4 of the leaderboard (yet, still cannot win). We have Jason Day putting like he’s Tiger on the back nine, yet cannot win. The Ghost of Greg “Sharkfin Soup” Norman rises to haunt the Aussies.

5) We had Adam Scott who decided last minute on the 17th and 18th he would look not so handsome in the green jacket and played like a misfit. We also had Luke Justin Timberlake Donald popping in a chip and going a fist pump like he won it all, when actually he is so far back it makes no difference. Compare him to Tiger’s “I rather go eat because -10 sucks.” Aiyo, relaks lah.

6) And we have a guy whose surname we can’t even remember win the green jacket. I guess Charl Sauerbraten deserves to win.

Once again, GPE’s pick of Tiger, Angel and KJ craps out again. On to the next major then….