Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

Guess who’s on the Golf Channel: hootie & the blowfish.

I enjoy their music, and they are big golf fans. A super combination in my view.

I’ve always liked to listen to them, but I saw them do a live show on TV several years ago and had a flashback. Watching Mark Bryan on guitar during a performance was like seeing Pete Townshend when he was young. There was a tremendous electricity in the way he contolled the music for the group. Of course, Darius Rucker’s voice is dynamic.

Their music is nothing like The Who’s music, but their on-stage group persona is very similar.

They also host a charity tournament in Myrtle Beach each year on the day after the Masters. This show is a lead-in by TGC to help get them some publicity.

I’ve sent in my money, and am ready to go. One of the bennies of being a military retiree is playing in these tournaments. My dad has done so for about 20 years. I’ve played in three. I played at the one in Fort Worth twice, and played at the one at Barksdale last year. I’m still working, so I only get to do one a year.

This year I’ll go to Louisiana again. The tournament is played on three courses over three days. One day will be at Barksdale’s Fox Run course, which is a par 70 flat layout. Another day we’ll play Crooked Hollow, which was a nine-hole layout until last year. It is a nice course, with lots of hills. The third course is one I’ve never played: Olde Oaks south of Bossier City. Olde Oaks is part of the Audubon Golf Train in Louisiana, and a Hal Sutton design.

I really look forward to these tournaments–a bunch of old GIs playing golf, drinking beer, and telling war stories. I’ve played with guys who were WW II submariners, B-58 Hustler crewmembers, Korean War Marines, mess sergeants with Patton, generals (Army and Air Force) and a wide variety of other “characters”. You might say they are a group just dripping with diversity. Last year there were several women, and I would expect that number to continue to grow.

I’m just one of the “youngsters” hangin’ out with the old guys!

He’s one of those guys who seems to be having fun no matter what his score. Yeah, he’s a competitor, but he enjoys being on the tour, and won’t let a bad score get him down. He has led the Nissan Open for two rounds. Damn. I just wrote about “heritage.” Does that mean he’s a shoe-in for a win?

Mike Wier pulled into a tie with him. John Daly is lurking two strokes back. Tiger gained some ground today, but not much. He’s tied for 33rd.

Maruyama is like Daly–a pleasure to watch and always exciting with a stick in his hand. Mike Wier plays a solid game. If the cameras follow those three this weekend, it would suit me fine. But there is quite a field of interesting players to watch right with them. Scott McCarron, Briny Baird, and even old men Loren Roberts and Fred Couples.

I’d love to see another year like 2003 where a bunch of new folks win Majors and some of the older guys show they can still compete. It’s beginning to look that way. This is good for golf.

No, Ms Grok, but now I can’t say that!

One-liners from the sports media that got quite a different message across than the one they wanted to convey!

I sat down to write this, and noticed the message from Don. Now I don’t know if I have the heart to say what I wanted to on a topic as frivolous as golf after re-reading his editorial. I’ll try.

Sunday after his round, Tiger Woods spoke with Peter Kostis about his disappointing play. “I need to get the ball in the fairway. You know, I play pretty well from the fairway.”

That struck me as odd. Tiger doesn’t really play any better from the fairway than any of the other top pros. What makes him special is his ability to make a shot out of nothing. I remember his fantastic shots out of deep rough at Pebble Beach and St Andrews, and his ability to bend a ball around trees to get out of woods that would cost other players at least one stroke.

In the past, he has worked hard on making those impossible shots, probably spending more practice time on that than any other phase of the game. Now, though, his swing is ailing and he finds himself having to work on it, trying to put the ball in the fairway. His trouble game has suffered, and so have his scores.

It will be interesting to see if he can either keep the ball in play this week, or if he has recaptured the skill to salvage the bad shots he’s had recently.

Golf is such a visual game. Instinctively, I don’t understand how blind people play, and some of them play well.

But visualization is a big issue, brought home to me this weekend. Two weeks ago I played two courses in California, both of which had many trees along the fairway. I hit about 80% of the fairways, even though these are very tough courses. This weekend, on my south Texas home course, I hit three fairways in two rounds.

On my course, missing the fairway puts you in the rough, but there aren’t a lot of obstacles. We have some palm trees which will eat a ball, and mesquites which grab a ball and throw it to the ground, but there isn’t a dense wall. I did manage to hit a eucalyptus today–the only one on the course. When you stand on the tee box and identify a target, there isn’t a lot of definition to tunnel your vision.

This applies on the green as well. I roll the ball best when I sense a good line for the ball to follow. I sometimes rush myself, and don’t put the focus on the hole as well as I should or on the path I want. When I do, I invariably hit the ball too softly or off line.

I’ve read two books recently, unrelated to golf, which enforce this concept. One is a book about the function of the brain. Another was on vision. Both said that the brain retains an image for about eight seconds, but can only recognize an image if it is visible for at least half a second. They both agree that the body wants to comply with a vision and mental picture. If the target is 150 yards away, and you dial that into your brain, the body will try to comply with a swing that hits the ball 150 yards. (Don’t try this with a sand wedge.) I’ve tried, and had some success, although I let my mind wander too much to really get it in focus during a round.

Maybe that’s what really separates the tour pros from the rest of us.

The CBS coverage of the Buick Invitational disappointed me. They have some of the best people in the business on the course and in the booth, but business concerns lead the way. That was true last week at Pebble Beach. This week we’ve had Tiger.

Logic tells me that sponsors insist on TTC–Total Tiger Coverage. That’s okay with me when he’s on one of his runs. I enjoy seeing him do the things he can do. But it’s pretty blatant when he’s having his problems. I don’t want to see any golfer doing poorly, even if poorly is defined as being “only” eight under.

CBS covered virtually every shot he made. At the expense of others who are doing well but don’t have the name recognition. It was even more obvious as they showed the leaderboard at breaks. If Tiger was on the fifth page, they showed five pages. When he climbed to the second, they showed two.

I like Tiger. I just like to see the other guys on tour from time to time, especially someone like Daly and Cink.

Maybe I’m being over-critical. Buick sponsors this event and Tiger. Almost half the commercials featured him. We’ll have to wait until The Masters to see how CBS does again, and that tournament always features Tiger.