Tiger Sits, Doesn’t Play Memorial

5pm ET on Friday May 23 came and went, and Tiger Woods decided not to play at the Memorial this week, Jack Nicklaus’s event. It was a smart decision.

At a press event to promote his AT&T National tournament (one of the best events on tour, even after 1 year), Tiger said the following:

“I wasn’t ready. My practice wasn’t I started my practice basically just recently. So going to Memorial that rusty, it wouldn’t have made any sense. I wasn’t sharp enough. I didn’t hit all my shots I needed to hit yet at home and make sure everything is organized. I wasn’t quite ready. So no sense in going there not ready. The whole idea is to be ready for the U.S. Open.”

Tiger went on to stress that what he is feeling is stiffness, not exactly pain, and that he is just slowly and methodically going through the rehab, as the doctors prescribe, that he needs to do to get ready for the Open.

He could have played the Memorial, shot 72-75, missed the cut, and gone home unhappy. But no, because he MUST feel like he can win every time, he’s not playing.

I think if a lot of other players took that approach, you would not see top flight players having a lot of MC’s and other bad finishes coming after injuries. Come back when you can — and feel like you can win.

We’ll see if that mentality works for Tiger in 2 weeks at the Open.

Read Full Post »

PGA Tour Digest Vol. 1 No. 23

Apologies for not posting earlier this week — been very busy since home from college.

Everyone but Tiger and Adam Scott it seems is at the Memorial Presented by Morgan Stanley this week on the PGA Tour, Jack’s event. Matthew Goggin, looking for his first PGA Tour win, is in contention along with Kenny Perry and Mike Weir.

Watch bonus coverage early Sunday on Golf Channel at 12pm ET with Kelly and Nick and then at 2:30pm ET, Live, on CBS Sports with Jimmy and Nick.

Read Full Post »

Congrats to David Cook

As some of you now I’m a big American Idol fan, so the David vs. David battle at the finale was great and sensational to watch. In the end, by 12 million votes and a 56%-44% margin, David Cook beat David Archuleta to win Season 7 of American Idol.

Cook was the rocker, bucked all trends, and eventually overshadowed the tween-teen vote and won Idol. Archuleta, only 17, has a great musical future ahead of him but Cook is the better NOW talent. I’m sure he’ll be potent once his record comes out in the coming months.

The Winning Moment

Singing “Dream Big”

Read Full Post »

So Long to Annika

Annika Sorenstam announced earlier this month that she is stepping aside and retiring from women’s golf at the end of this year. She will be missed.

Annika is probably, by most accounts the greatest women’s golfer in history. Currently she is toe-toe for #1 ranked player in the world with Lorena Ochoa, who after her career is over may just supplant Annika for that title.

Annika, however, has done amazing things and been a great role model for young girls. She drives the ball so straight with such a consistent swing — and hits it a long ways on top of that — and is something that anyone who wants a consistent golf swing should try to follow. And then, to top it all off, her short game is pretty darn good as well.

She took risks, playing in the 2003 Colonial on the PGA Tour, against the men, and handled all the attention with grace and humbleness. She has also won 10 major championships — a number any golfer would take in a heartbeat.

Now she’ll go on to work with her academy, foundation, and all her other adventures. And she’ll have more time to chill with Tiger. That friendship goes beyond golf, and epitomizes what Annika hopes to do in the coming years: help everyone, beyond golf.

Read Full Post »

Joba What?

So the transition has started, the move of Joba Chamberlin from the New York Yankees‘ setup man in the 8th inning to starter in the rotation.

Many, from diehards, ordinary fans, sports talk radio in New York, and just baseball fans from all over are against this decision. And I agree.

The Chamberlin-Mariano Rivera 1-2 combination is (I guess I have to say was, now) the most dominant one in all of baseball. If the Yanks had a lead by the 7th inning, the game was effectively over.

Now this year, that combo has been stronger than ever while the Yankees’ starting rotation has faltered. That, coupled with a sometimes anemic offense, has caused them to fall into last place. However, with Phil Hughes coming back soon, Ian Kennedy looking stronger after a stint in the minors, and Darrell Rasner giving us great help from Triple-A, going 3-0 now while Hughes gets healthy, I thought Joba could stay in the 8th inning role for the rest of the year. But I guess I’m wrong.

I want to stress: I have no problem at all eventually turning Joba into a starter. But I just don’t think, by eliminating one of the strengths of your team and taking a risk into making him a starter mid-season, you are helping the Yankees. Now they must trust Hawkins, Farnsworth, Veras, and whoever else Joe Girardi tries to lump into that bullpen to precede Mariano. It’s just not trustworthy.

We’ll see how it plays out, and I just hope it does play out successfully or else the Yanks may just miss the playoffs.

Read Full Post »

PGA Tour Digest Vol. 1 No. 22

This week we go to Hogan’s Alley and the Crown Plaza Invitational at Colonial. Now this field isn’t as strong as it has been in the past, unfortunately, this week with the European Tour’s star event, the BMW PGA Championship also going on this week.

But the Colonial field, at one of the PGA Tour‘s most historic events does include #2 Phil Mickelson, who was in 2nd after yesterday’s 1st round.

Coverage is today at 3pm ET on the Golf Channel, Live, and continues over the weekend Live at 3-6pm ET on CBS.

Read Full Post »

Some Interesting PGA TOUR Facts

Ryuji Imada was the 6th first time winner on the PGA Tour this year.

The PGA Tour has staged 22 events so far this year, and there have been 20 winners of those 22 events. Only that guy by the name of Tiger Woods has multiple wins, and he’s won the other 2 for a total of 3.

As I stated last week the under-30 crowd has won I believe 8 times and is making a major push. Matt Kuchar said it basically takes 10 years when you first crack the pro ranks to know what your doing. It’s been now a decade since Tiger got on tour, and some of the guys that have grown up and become big during that era are now becoming mature and winning, ala Anthony Kim.

This is a great time to be a fan of the PGA Tour. You have awesome playoffs like there were yesterday and dominating performances by guys like Tiger and Phil. I can’t tell you what is gonna happen this summer on tour except that it’s going to be exciting and we should ALL keep watching.

Read Full Post »

BTX Back Up

I can see from the searches being done to my blog that people are wondering this:

The Backstreets.com Forum, also known as BTX, is back up and running! Thank you to Greasy Lake for letting all of us BTX’ers stay for awhile over this weekend.

Read Full Post »

Sixth WQAQ Sports Golf Entry for Spring 2008

(Editor’s Note: The following article can be found here on the WQAQ Sports Site.)

Bobcats Finish 9th at NEC Championships
By Jeremy Schilling

The Quinnipiac University Golf team finished up the spring 2008 season with a 9th place finish at the NEC Championships on May 2-4 in Hershey, PA. The team scores for this tournament are calculated by adding together the best (lowest) 4 scores from each day. The Bobcats finished with a total of 912 over the 3-day, 54 hole tournament, with their scores being 311 on Day 1, 300 on Day 2, and 301 on Day 3.

Sacred Heart won the team portion of the competition with a score of 870. Long Island University and Central Connecticut State followed. 11 teams in total participated. The individual winner was Monmouth University’s Anthony Campanile, (who has his roots in the Jersey golf scene) who shot a 54 hole total of 212, 4 under par. He defeated Sacred Heart’s Patrick Fillian by one shot. In total, only 4 players finished under par.

Individually for the Bobcats, they were led by Ian O’Connor, who tied for 14th place overall with a total of 224. Brady Giroux followed with a 54-hole total of 225. Rounding it out for Quinnipiac were Ryan Reynolds, Charlie Niland, and Jayson Loranger, who all had scores of 235.

That concludes the spring 2008 golf season, and 2007-2008 school year for the Bobcats. That also concludes the college golf career for Kyle Chumas, who graduates in the coming week. The rest of the Bobcats’ now have the summer to work on their games and make themselves better for the upcoming fall season that will be here before we know it.

Read Full Post »

PGA Tour Digest Vol. 1 No. 21

So after Sergio’s great win at The Players we move to the AT&T Classic in Duluth, GA — a tournament which until last year was the week before the Masters, and now gets the slot on the PGA Tour schedule of after TP. A decent field is here this week, including the defending champion Zach Johnson and Greg Norman.

Through today’s opening round there are six tied for the lead including two Jonathan’s who some thought would become stars who haven’t, Kaye and Byrd, two other young guns, Parker McLachlin and Ryan Palmer, and the old guy, Kenny Perry. What a grouping!

TV Coverage is tomorrow from 3-6pm Live on the Golf Channel and Saturday and Sunday 3-6pm ET, Live, on CBS.

Read Full Post »