Yes, I do think he will have to entertain, or at least acknowledge the front runner critique. It would seem it's his bete noir. Golfers don't get everything. And when you think of great putters does anyone think of buff? Of those Nadal-like guns? Ben Crenshaw? Loren Roberts? Bobby Locke? Billy Casper? Brad Faxon? Not exactly guys you'd look for when the tables are overturned and someone's head ends up going through a drum. Could Tiger be overdoing the cardio, and especially the weights at the risk of messing with his putting fine tuning?
Every tournament is a passion play, and this one was an opera, with a chain-smoking, former caddie, though part of an excellent tradition of golfers from the Argentine going back to Jose Jurado and Antonio Cerda. Carnage now officially enters the golf lexicon. We have a U.S. Open winner who thankfully was wearing a shirt with a collar. Mr. Baddeley will have a few more, well deserved, lines on his face, and perhaps be the wiser for the experience. Phil Mickelson may never win his national championship joining two other very good golfers named Sam Snead and Kathy Whitworth. And, in contrast to the observations of an old Texas pro that, “Good shots get good bounces and bad shots get bad bounces,” in this tournament good shots get bad bounces and bad shots get good bounces.
And, yes, I do think that the homogenization of PGA Tour courses week in and week out has a deleterious effect on our boys’ ability to nut it up for that one week of the year when the rough is high, and everything is just so, though not as high as when Bobby Jones couldn’t find his golf bag when it was set down in the rough, nor when Bobby Cruickshank, variously listed at between 5’ 1” and 5’ 4” had to wave a club over his head to signal his location to his fellow competitor, Bill Mehlhorn.
Finally, about the NBC coverage, Ben Wright likes to tell the story of the advice he received from Henry Longhurst. "We're only caption writers in a picture business," he said. My gosh! How quaint that seems with the magpies talking incessantly about...not much at all. I'm afraid I'll always be partial to the less-is-more school, the caption writers, or what I like to think of as the "Mr. Ed School of Sports Broadcasting," those who like the famous talking horse, never speak UNLESS THEY HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY.
