Will You Gamble on Tiger?

Ok, so we’re approaching the 112th US OPEN at the Olympic Club next week. A few short ones:

1) Tiger is back. Or is he? He’s been like the magic man, disappearing here and there, playing like a 20 handicapper, then from no where wins Arnie and Jack’s. Remember when he won Arnie’s and we said he would be in contention in Augusta. Nope, he played like a twit. It seems this new Tiger can’t really handle success as well as the old Tiger. Unless he wins a few in a row, my gamble is off him. It’d be safer to head over to Party Casino and try my luck there. We might have better odds, because trying to predict Tiger these days is like predicting how many times Lindsay Lohan is going to go to jail.

2) David Duval. Man, I miss him a lot. He just missed the qualifiers to the 2012 US Open. There doesn’t seem to be any way back for the man with the shades anymore, and I can only hope his career slides so much that he has to start playing at our local golf tournaments in KGNS so at least I can chill and take a photo with him. Man, I remember him in his glory days, gracing sports illustrated and looking like Perseus. Go DD!

3) Phil Mickleson is pissed. He texted the PGA commissioner to complain that too many people are using handphones on the course. Am I the only one who sees the irony here? Phil, come on, it’s just handphones. Dudes like Michael Jordan and Kobe has play basketball with this in their face:

As a sportsman, you should be trained to block off distractions, so stop being a crybaby Phil.

4) Young Guns: will we again be seeing musical chairs at world number 1? Rory is kinda crap right now, and Donald might be in a good spot to finally win his major and get his monkey off his back. What about Lee Westwood? Does Fats have it in him to break the duck?

So who will you be gambling on for next week’s US Open?

The Old Familiar Feeling Again

Finally, golf is interesting again.

Instead of waxing lyrical about Tiger’s 73rd win at the age of 36 (Jack Nicklaus, arguably golf’s Greatest Of All Time – GOAT – was 10 years older when he nipped his 73rd win), let’s talk about how Tiger won it.

1) Rory – No, not our McIlroy, who has gone home to Wozniaki and cry together over their failures. Rory as in Sabbatini, the guy that likes to tweak Tiger’s ears and run off. Here’s the fact with Rory: he talks a big game but he doesn’t deliver. He talks. That’s it. He has never beaten Tiger in a true sense of the word…when they are head to head, mano e mano, because he can’t. He’s just not good enough. And Tiger gets super-powered when he knows a punk like Rory is ahead of him, winning one of his favourite tournaments with Jack Nicklaus watching. Watch out, Tiger Time is here.

2) The Young Guns – The young guns refer to a bunch of upstarts who are supposed to be the next Tiger Woods, in much the same way as there is supposed to be a next Michael Jordan. For both cases, it has been a demeaningly non-contest. Rory McIlroy was the next Tiger…but would Tiger fail to make a cut 3 times in a row at his Prime at number 1? Or play like a hack? Next up, Rickie Fowler, brother of Justin Bieber, I think. Staring down at this young gun, Tiger went on to shoot 67 to win the Memorial. His flight mate, Rickie, shot 84, which is worse than one of my Saturday flight mate, who earns approximately 7,800 times less than Rickie. And looks like Rickie’s carpet. And then you have a whole bunch of has-beens like Anthony Kim, Sergio Garcia, Ty Tyron and God knows who else. Tiger needs the motivation. He just needs to play with one of these punks and he gets Super-Powered.

3) Jack and Arnie – Jack’s tournament, Arnie’s tournament. Eversince his father passed on, the Gilagolf theory is that Tiger is always out to impress someone older and that he respected. Hence he always plays his best when the two best players in golf are hosting their tournaments. Plus it looks great on his CV. Can you imagine which introduction is better: Tiger Woods, winner of Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer’s tournament, or winner of Waste Management, Fries Open and Green Beer open? Super Powered.

Bring it on, US OPEN!

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

US Open Round 5

Ogilvy, Mahan and Jimenez.

Those were the 3 Gilagolf predicted would go the distance.  Obviously, we’ll need a second look at our GPE (Gilagolf Prediction Engine) and get this sorted out.

Ogilvy’s round ended on the back nine, with 3 bogeys, the worst, that short putt he missed on the 16th.

Mahan never got going, bogeying 2 in the first nine and 3 more coming in. So much for flame on.

Jimenez had the best chance to make a run, as he birdied 3 of the last 5 holes, but his bogeys on 2 par 5s were absolutely unforgiving.

What we got right, was Lee Westwood missing the putt that mattered most. It was the same jerky action he employed in round 3, when nervous, and he hit his putt much too slowly.

So now, Tiger vs Mediate?

Goliath vs David?

Ferrari vs Daihatsu?

The Hulk vs Wimpy Nerd in High School?

It looks like Tiger will be chomping down Rocco for breakfast, but here’s the deal, he’s injured. So the only thing that can make Rocco win, it’s if Tiger doesn’t make it tomorrow. GPE predicts, if Tiger actually shows up in Torrey Pines tomorrow, he will win. Rocco is just too overwhelmed, if he’s in the same group as Tiger. Rocco loves to chit chat, like Phil, but Tiger is just going to look at him and say, “Shut up, little man, and let’s play ball. I will destroy you.”

We generally won’t vote for Tiger and we’re all for the underdog, especially one that resembles us in so many ways, from the way he swings to the way he gyrates his body when he hit a bad shot, but we just can’t see Rocco’s adrenaline carrying him another 18 holes. We can, however, predict what will go on in his mind tonight:

“Oh crap, I’m playing with Tiger tomorrow. I’m so screwed. Will he mind if I steal his balls and glove for souvenirs?”

We wish it was Jimenez vs Tiger one on one, and then we’ll be rooting for the Spaniard.