My brain has been taken over by martians: I have new interest in golf.

The original golf, "links" type golf, didn't have irrigation systems and fertilizers and pesticides, so it's not golf itself that is the problem, but - for those of us who care about those matters - the way the game has developed.

In the meantime, I'm back to following the game despite my varied misgivings.

Hi, Quincy, glad to see you back.

All that matters is whether or not you like it. There are things that are a lot more catastrophic for the environment than watching golf. If you enjoy it, fair enough.

I think Robin Williams said that it's the only time a middle aged white man can dress like a black pimp.

Fortunately, out here in the hinterlands, no one gives a damn how you dress on the golf course. I play barefooted, it you can call what I do playing golf, and to the best of my knowledge, there are damned few barefoot pimps outside Arkansas. However, as long as you don't use a cart, it's decent exercise. When you hit as wildly as I do, you walk almost four miles to play nine holes. But you're right - it's a really crappy spectator sport.

So, I'm watching some dipshits describe the golf at Akron today, on the PGA website's live feed. I'm remembering why I have hated sports on tv. (I used to feel homicidal when watching the olympics, re the sport anchors.)

But, my two rambunctious kids are still near the top of the leaderboard - Rickie Fowler and Rory McIlroy. Rickie is the very colorful one. Local, for me. Well, Anaheim, within my range for much of my life. He started out racing motorcycles.. Seems pretty well liked by others. Wears outlandish outfits. Today he's all in orange, which he wears on final days in tourneys in honor of Oklahoma State. (He's presently third..)



I called them dipshits since one of them kept explaining that Jason Day had lead the golfers all day, several times. (I forget if this was Friday or Saturday).
He was wrong. Others lead for hours before Day did. I was following the data that day. I don't remember if this was the guy who over emphasizes his words as an anchor mode, or the other one.

Adding, I also like Ryo Ishikawa, age 19, and Jason Day.
I see I'm bundling my group to root for.

Also following the Molinari brothers and Manassero, viva italia.

And can't leave out Bubba.

You sound just like my late wife during Wimbledon. I'm glad you're enjoying it.

Didn't see what happened in Akron, but got in a quick 18 myself. Still don't play worth a damn, but it's a lot better than sitting indoors.

Smiles..
I follow Wimbledon a bit.

I should read your sports comments more closely. I'm a dolt re your football rivalries, and a blank slate re cricket. A negative blank, with starting bias against.

I have read some about Italy and Calcio, but those were books by literary types. A close friend's daughter lived with (many years) a fellow who had some kind of calcio shop, last I heard. Well, that, and owned many hotel bars and breakfast concessions. That sounds a tad cheesy, but I've met him and he is, or was at the time, an excellent human, astute in many ways. Educated, elegant even. His sister happily married a Somalian, so he was also an example for me that all northern italians are not xenophobes.

Picturing you barefoot golfing. Oh, gads, for a photo...

I spent 6 days in Tuscany 3 years ago. That's the full extent of my Italian experience. I live in Southampton and support the local team.

I'm italy nutso. I had a bunch of hard years in a row once and after passing my boards wanted to go somewhere. Something like seven years of both school, near full time work, doing homework at three a.m., intense study, internship, more intense study.. I was almost fifty, had never been to Europe. I'd been to Mexico many times when younger, but not for years.

I said to my husband, let's go (he was always laggard, writing in his room, but could be gotten to have a good time whenever we took the car on the road, something like fifteen minutes after we got in the car - we always traveled well, somehow). He had a choice, New York, Paris, Rome. He picked Rome, which had been my own unspoken choice.

I loved the place from the first seconds there, the first day of March. Since then I've read much on italy - to say five hundred books would not be exaggerating, but those were not all academic tomes.

I probably would have imprinted on anywhere, but italy was a good one to do that at.

Re the golf game, what can I say. Last time I checked in, not long after my last post, the station closed.

So, still semi addicted (or addlepated, if you will) to golf, I've been 'watching' the PGA Championship online.

The PGA of America website is where one can see some of what is happening, see shots of the individual eighteen holes, hear expert voices about the travails of this particular golf course. See the golfers maim themselves (my aforementioned favorite, Rory McIlroy) or at least maim their scores by ball drowning, sand burial, or poor reading of greens, and watch a few surge ahead, or mount a challenge, as they tend to say.

These guys just about never shut up. It's almost as bad as watching Gruden comment on NFL football, gut level painful for me.

So, I've checked out Golf.com's live blog, but some goodly part of the posts and responses from blog commenters have to do about Tiger Woods. I don't actually hate the guy, but I'm not t h a t interested and he is irrelevant for this particular tournament. Used to be.

What do I find today? The Guardian's Peter Murray has by far the best reporting of what is going on. Leagues better than anything else I've seen.
Cripes.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/aug/12/us-pga-2011-live

So, my new ploy will be to read the Guardian guy, put on the PGA site - but shut off my computer sound for the duration.

Oh, well, NFL football season is here soon..

I also won't have to hear myriad gripes about golf course designer, landscape architect Rees-Davies, reworking of the golf course to make it pro-worthy. A few courses being very hard sounds like a good thing to me, but I've a bias.

GOLF: FLOG spelled backwards.

Aw, schniff, I started crocodile tearing when Bradley the stoic recovered from his triple bogey. But I like Dufner too.. Dufner now at 18..
(I still despise the announcers.)

Now I understand the tower of Bable thing - it must have been the source of babbling. Dufner/Bradley presently tied.

Edit - now a playoff coming up.

Goes best with glog... (however you spell that)

Well, Bradley won
and that was appropriate.

But, I also liked the other guy, the one without the momentum, Dufner.
These guys seemed total opposites. Dufner had held rank though, for many hours. My hope is that he doesn't get bummed out re his close loss.

It can be restful, watching it, if u r tired,
especially watching it with the sound off.

Its even MORE restful, if u close your eyes, with the sound off.





David

US OPEN 2012 -

I'm still using the Guardian's golf commentary as more of a pleasure than the tv talking heads. Plus I get a kick out of the strange-to-me Brit english colloquialisms.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jun/15/us-open-2012-round-two-live
This blog is by Scott Murray.
Last I posted on this I named the writer as Peter Murray. Don't know if I mistyped or there are two Murrays over there who follow golf.

Crazed goings on, with hardly anyone at all under par for the two days so far.
Tiger is in the running, but hasn't teed off yet today, that'll be later this afternoon. Some of the guys I follow have done exceptionally poorly and will miss the cut, and some of the guys I follow who are usually somewhere in the middle are doing well.