Maybe Sergio's clothes were too tight.

While Sergio seemed to be neck and neck with Tiger going into the final round, it quite possibly could have been his clothes that failed him. He dissolved in the final round of the Open, while Tiger pressed on. Ultimately Tiger won by 2 strokes over Chris DiMarco, with a -18.




No No, really what are you thinkin Sergio. I don't really care about the Yellow. Honestly, the yellow is kind of cool and obnocious. Don't shy away from that. But damnit why does it look like you accidentally went shopping in the pre-teen isle of the department store? Its a wonder he can even breath in that shirt.

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Woods at 12 under, On top after the second day of the Open.

Well, yesterday i was saying I didn't think Woods would be on top after the first day, because of his slow start to his round. Little did I know, later that evening I checked the scores, and I was right. I was almost wrong though, because last time i had checked Tiger was at -2 on the 14th. He ended his first day at -5, to be tied for 2nd. (Whew i didn't eat too much of my foot.)

Now with the conclusion of his second round, he's -12, with a commanding lead over the field. We'll see what the afternoon groups can do, to match Tigers roar.

Check out this ESPN article about his Eagle on 14

Leaderboard

The leader from yesterday, shot 1 over on the day, dropping him to be tied for 11th.

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Graeme McDowell, and the Open

So right about now its 1pm EST, and a guy from Northern Ireland is -6, to be the current leader. Who is this guy? I look at his stats he made 66k last year, and 2k the year before that. Could this be another darkhorse candidate to win the Open? or his he goin to fall to pieces after today. Even if he's not on top, after the rest of the field finishes, he still may be an intersting story to watch.

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The Open, 2006

So I read. I read and I read, all the golf news. I've become somewhat of an addict in the past few months to golf news, golf tips, golf blogs, and golf equipment reviews. The culmination of all of this brings me to starting my own golf blog. A small and probably unnoticed blog. I have my own personal blog, which has its own domain, and all that jazz, but I've sort of become dissinterested in chronicaling my life in general terms. I wanted to get specific. Whats this have to do with anything?

The US Open happened last month to set the stage for the British Open to be a very hottly covered golf event. Why did this happen? Of course you already know. Colin Montgomerie, dissolving on the 18th. Phil Mickelson doing the same. Tiger woods didn't even make the cut. Not to mention the controversy surrounding Winged Foot as a hard venue in the first place.

Now we've started The (British) Open. The controversy has already started, and with the morning crew of golfers already finished by the time many of us americans were getting to work, the wonders are flying as to who will be victorious on sunday.

Here's a quick look at where a couple of key people I've been thinking about stand.

Pos.	Name	Today	Thru
1	Graeme McDowell	-6	16
T2	Greg Owen	-5	F
T2	Anthony Wall	-5	F
T4	Sergio Garcia	-4	F
T14	Phil Mickelson	-3	F
T14	Darren Clarke	-3	F
T30	Vijay Singh	-2	F
T30	Retief Goosen	-2	9
T47	Tiger Woods	-2	11
T92	Colin Montgomerie	+1	F

Full Leaderboard from golf.com

Phils sitting good, Colin, has dissolved, Sergio is having an impressive showing, and as for Tiger after the 11th, he's 2 under. Looking at the score card, he's bogey'd once and 3 birdies.

Looking at all of the people who are finished their round, i could tell that many of them were making the majority of their birdies on the back 9. Though most of the top 10, have 2 birdies on the front 9. So if you're somebody who's rooting for Tiger, he's in good position, but he's probably not goin to come out on top of the leaderboard after today. But really, what does that matter, you save your best game for Sunday.

Something of note is, apparantly all the controversy over Tiger being paired with Nick Faldo, has not affected him. Tiger's -2, Faldo is +5.. hmmm maybe Faldo is more worried about playing with Tiger. Then again, the apparntly shook hands and practiced on the same range earlier. Though I haven't seen any reports that they're actually conversing. I so wish i had a tv around right now.

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Taylormade r580XD

So i bought this club about 3 weeks ago. I haven't played a round yet with it, thanks to a monsoon that the Maryland area had the day I last had an outing planned, though I have gotten to the range quite a bit with it so far. Here's my thoughts.

First the specifics:
10.5 degree
Standard flex, stock shaft (mas-2 or something like that)
400cc head (least from what i can tell from internet info)

I bought the club for the value, there isn't anything in the same price range of the same quality as this club, from what I could find. I mean i drool over the new biggest best thing from Nike, TM, Callaway, and the rest, but i sure don't have the money to go after that, nor would they help me out personally all that much more in the end.

My biggest problems with my previous driver had to do with forgiveness and seemingly well hit balls careening off into the woods. The 580XD helps that by having a decent shaft, and a nice sized club face. What made me fall in love with this club when I demoed it (and in fact from the first time i picked it up in the store) was the weighting. Compared to any other driver i picked up this had the best balance and weighting for what I wanted to feel. Some people like a heavier head, or some other kind of weighting, but personally i like that well balanced feel, that all I have to do is swing the club, and the clubhead is going to go right along for the ride.

On to my driving range impressions. At first, i really didn't see much of a difference from my old driver, which sort of troubled me. At the range i go to, the ball (when i hit it good mind you) was landing in similar spots that my old driver had been hitting. Combined with this i think i had reverted to some old habits when I was using the new driver. I believe this may have been the result of how much different the feel of the 580 is over my old driver. One thing that I did notice though after a bucket or two of balls was that the 540 was definately much more forgiving, as I'd hoped it would be. I had far less ultra-slices. If i hit it correct, it would head out straight, and if I hit it wrong it'd go off in some other direction. I knew when I hit it wrong from the moment I struck the ball. With the old driver, I didn't get that feeling sometimes. I could make a hit that felt totally great, and look up to see my ball taking a hard right into the woods.

But still the distance, that troubled me. The distance didn't seem to be there. Thinking about it now, i don't know if it should have troubled me though. I was making some poor swings that were going fairly straight and landing at about the max my old driver had hit at the range. At about the 3rd time out to the range with the club, i started to feel how i needed to swing it. I also started taking good practice swings, and focusing on swinging the club and not just hitting the ball. Plus i decided that previously, i had been trying to hard to creme the ball since this was my new driver and i wanted to hit it far. (many times having the complete opposite effect) So once i relaxed, and just swung the club, i could start to see a gradual improvement in my consistancy and distance. In fact the last time i was at the range i was consistantly hitting the ball 20 yard further than my old driver, along with making far less bad shots.

So in the end, much of my improvement is both in my head and my technique, along with the new club. I'm guessing I could hit the old club fairly decent with pretty good accuracy, by employing the swing practice that I've been doing lately, but it sure as heck would go as far, and it would definately punish me a lot more for screwing up.

So lastly, the sound... Its got this strange phink! sound it makes. I've never really heard it from anybody else's clubs. It very well could just be the difference of standing right over that sound and hearing it from behind though. Its definately a big change from my previous driver though. I like it, especially cause it only makes that nice sound when i do it right.

Anyways thats all i got. lata

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Kick my ass if i forget these things:

I guess an appropriate first post for my golfing journal would be some things I need to keep telling myself when I golf. Everybody has some reminders when they're golfing. Things that try to help you repeat that perfect swing you made back on the range.

0. TAKE A FREAKING PRACTICE SWING. TAKE A FEW EVEN. Make sure you're swing is comfortable before you actually have a hit at the ball. When you are comfortable. Step forward and do your swing, and don't even thinking about the ball, just make like its just another practice swing.

1. Take my backswing nice and easy. Stop whipping the club back like I'm trying to fend off a ninja stalking behind me. Just do it nice and slow to the top, and then put all i've got into swinging down through the same swing plane.

2. Set up to the club right. Lay the thing down near the ball, with the head a little bit across the ball.

3. If you're using a club with a big head tee it up high.

4. Bend your knees dangit!!!!!!! and keep the back straight.

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