Why no nicknames for Seve, Monty, and Phil beyond the obvious?
L&D, it wasn't just that with Monty. Talk about a choke artist in majors, especially on this side of the pond. It was like he was searching for ways to lose when he was in contention in majors over here. At Congressional, when he was on 17 (18 now), he made a public display over crowd noise a hole over and proceeded not to get up and down. And people talk about Phil's choke at Winged Foot, but Monty's was worse. They were both a stroke ahead of Ogilvy going into 18. Phil at least was typical Phil and took out driver when he shouldn't have and then tried to hit it through a tree. Monty was in the fairway with a shortish iron and absolutely chunked his iron 30 yards short and then pitched it to the back of the green and 3 whacked. For a guy who talked so much shite about everyone else, Monty only backed his talk with his play on the Order of Merit and at the RC. My all time golf hate list is Monty 1st, then Seve, then Sir Nick.
L&D, it wasn't just that with Monty. Talk about a choke artist in majors, especially on this side of the pond. It was like he was searching for ways to lose when he was in contention in majors over here. At Congressional, when he was on 17 (18 now), he made a public display over crowd noise a hole over and proceeded not to get up and down. And people talk about Phil's choke at Winged Foot, but Monty's was worse. They were both a stroke ahead of Ogilvy going into 18. Phil at least was typical Phil and took out driver when he shouldn't have and then tried to hit it through a tree. Monty was in the fairway with a shortish iron and absolutely chunked his iron 30 yards short and then pitched it to the back of the green and 3 whacked. For a guy who talked so much shite about everyone else, Monty only backed his talk with his play on the Order of Merit and at the RC. My all time golf hate list is Monty 1st, then Seve, then Sir Nick.
I'm with you on Sir Nick. Do Elton John and Paul McCartney insist that everyone call them Sir Elton and Sir Paul? Or maybe it's just Nance being Nance.
Spieth didn't win with his B game. This always gets me, and the pros themselves are guilty of it too. They will be interviewed after a round and say "I played great today, just couldn't make any putts". Well, then that's not playing great. Putting is almost half of the game. You can't play well if you don't putt well. "I played great today, I just didn't get anything out of it". Nope, not true. You didn't play golf well today because you putted poorly. People - and players - have a tendency to marginalize putting or make putting an assumed part of golf. As though the real test of how you play or what you do is how you strike the ball. But that's just about half the game when you take into account putting and the rest of the short game.
So Spieth didn't have his B game. He had his A game, because his short game and putting was unreal. Hitting the occasional wayward tee shot or iron hardly plays into whether or not Spieth had his A game. Not to mention that a great recovery shot is also part of building your A game for that day. If you hit some shots off line but putted really well, then you played well that day. If someone wants to say that "that I hit my irons poorly and my driver all over the map, but I really putted well thankfully" then that works for me. But this "I played great today, I should have shot 63" as though putting is just some ancillary or assumed part of the game drives me nuts. Tiger was the worst offender of that quote.
I did a terrible job of putting into words what I am trying to say. Terrible. So it won't make any sense I'm sure. And I don't mean all this to say - like a hacker - drive for show putt for dough. I'm a plus 1 handicap player and former Wake player, and this above drives me nuts. But seriously, think about it.
Spieth didn't win with his B game. This always gets me, and the pros themselves are guilty of it too. They will be interviewed after a round and say "I played great today, just couldn't make any putts". Well, then that's not playing great. Putting is almost half of the game. You can't play well if you don't putt well. "I played great today, I just didn't get anything out of it". Nope, not true. You didn't play golf well today because you putted poorly. People - and players - have a tendency to marginalize putting or make putting an assumed part of golf. As though the real test of how you play or what you do is how you strike the ball. But that's just about half the game when you take into account putting and the rest of the short game.
So Spieth didn't have his B game. He had his A game, because his short game and putting was unreal. Hitting the occasional wayward tee shot or iron hardly plays into whether or not Spieth had his A game. Not to mention that a great recovery shot is also part of building your A game for that day. If you hit some shots off line but putted really well, then you played well that day. If someone wants to say that "that I hit my irons poorly and my driver all over the map, but I really putted well thankfully" then that works for me. But this "I played great today, I should have shot 63" as though putting is just some ancillary or assumed part of the game drives me nuts. Tiger was the worst offender of that quote.
I did a terrible job of putting into words what I am trying to say. Terrible. So it won't make any sense I'm sure. And I don't mean all this to say - like a hacker - drive for show putt for dough. I'm a plus 1 handicap player and former Wake player, and this above drives me nuts. But seriously, think about it.
I 100% agree on the putting, that's been a gripe of mine too. As you stated, putting is almost half the game and if you didn't make any putts, how can you say you played great. You might can say, I hit it great tee to green, but putted like crap or something. Tiger would say after tournaments when he didn't putt well that he never got used to the speed of the greens (usually when they were slow), well everybody else was playing the same greens so....???
Looking forward to Quail Hollow in a couple of weeks--going on Friday. Anyone else heading to the PGA?