PGA Tour 2018-2019

[Don Wassall]

I'm not sure what happened to our semi-legendary room brightening smile thread. It's been inactive for a long time now, in part because Caste Football seemed to be pretty good at identifying the more outrageous stereotyping in the media and bringing at least some attention to it.

The "room brightening smile" trope is pretty scarce these days, but I felt nostalgic while thumbing through the newest issue of Golf magazine and discovered that lo and behold the six best smiles in golf belong to four non-White men along with Michelle Wie and White Canadian Brooke Henderson. No White men need apply as Asians now have a near-monopoly when it comes to great smiles. Who'd a thunk it? I wonder if this will create resentment among black athletes, for so long the undisputed owners of the best room brighteners.

The perpetually stone-faced half-White half-Vietnamese Rickie Fowler somehow made the list -- "we can't wait to see his lit-up face when he wins that elusive first major," gushes the article.

Another half-Oriental half-White golfer, Xander Schauffele, is feted thusly: "Is there a more likable face in golf? How could anyone not root for the X-Man?"

Then there's Korean-born American citizen Kevin Na: "That grin has helped everyone stop obsessing about his pace of play and focus on how gosh-darn likable he is."

And last but not least is another part-Oriental, His Majesty Himself Tiger Woods, classically described: "Sure, he can intimidate the field with his fierce intensity -- but a smiling Tiger truly illuminates the golf course." Yeah, and maybe if the author of the articles asks him, Tiger will perform a toothy minstrel show after one of his rounds.

 

[Freethinker]

I'm not sure what happened to our semi-legendary room brightening smile thread. It's been inactive for a long time now, in part because Caste Football seemed to be pretty good at identifying the more outrageous stereotyping in the media and bringing at least some attention to it.

The "room brightening smile" trope is pretty scarce these days, but I felt nostalgic while thumbing through the newest issue of Golf magazine and discovered that lo and behold the six best smiles in golf belong to four non-White men along with Michelle Wie and White Canadian Brooke Henderson. No White men need apply as Asians now have a near-monopoly when it comes to great smiles. Who'd a thunk it? I wonder if this will create resentment among black athletes, for so long the undisputed owners of the best room brighteners.

The perpetually stone-faced half-White half-Vietnamese Rickie Fowler somehow made the list -- "we can't wait to see his lit-up face when he wins that elusive first major," gushes the article.

Another half-Oriental half-White golfer, Xander Schauffele, is feted thusly: "Is there a more likable face in golf? How could anyone not root for the X-Man?"

Then there's Korean-born American citizen Kevin Na: "That grin has helped everyone stop obsessing about his pace of play and focus on how gosh-darn likable he is."

And last but not least is another part-Oriental, His Majesty Himself Tiger Woods, classically described: "Sure, he can intimidate the field with his fierce intensity -- but a smiling Tiger truly illuminates the golf course." Yeah, and maybe if the author of the articles asks him, Tiger will perform a toothy minstrel show after one of his rounds.

Imagine being such a pansy that you’d spend time penning an article about male golfer’s smiles. Now imagine being such a cuckhold that you’d deliberately choose as many non-Whites as possible. This “journalist” lives a sad life.

 

[Carolina Speed]

Just wanted to congratulate JT Poston on his first PGA Tour win at the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, NC. He is from my area of the state of North Carolina and he and my oldest son were friends in college at Western Carolina. Hopefully it's the first of many.
Congratulations JT!!

 

[Fighting Pride]

McIlroy wins FedEx Cup, TOUR Championship

https://www.pgatour.com/competition/2019/tour-championship/leaderboard.html

 

[Don Wassall]

Rory McIlroy hasn't won a major since 2014 but he capped a great 2018-19 season by winning the Tour Championship today and more importantly, the FedEx Cup for the second time in four years. It was his 17th PGA Tour win. He also won The Players in March and overall won three tournaments this year. Oh, and he'll also receive an immodest check for $15 million for winning the Cup. He joins Tiger Woods as the only players to win the FedEx Cup twice.

 

[Freethinker]

Rory McIlroy hasn't won a major since 2014 but he capped a great 2018-19 season by winning the Tour Championship today and more importantly, the FedEx Cup for the second time in four years. It was his 17th PGA Tour win. He also won The Players in March and overall won three tournaments this year. Oh, and he'll also receive an immodest check for $15 million for winning the Cup. He joins Tiger Woods as the only players to win the FedEx Cup twice.

Yeesh, who needs a Major when you can bag a cool 15 mil for an extended weekend’s worth of work! Congrats to Rory.

 

[Don Wassall]

The announcers were hyping it as the largest paycheck ever for a single sports event, but I'm sure a number of boxers would disagree. It also seemed that moving it up to August so as not to compete with the NFL and also shortening it by a week to three weeks didn't add much interest. I know it didn't for me.

 

[Don Wassall]

I'm probably the only poster here following the 2019 President's Cup so I'll post in this thread rather than starting a new one.

The U.S. has dominated this event since it started in 1994, only losing it once, in stark contrast to the way Europe has been beating up on the U.S. in the Ryder Cup in recent years. But the International team got off to a strong start yesterday, winning four of the five doubles matches. Then today the internationals again dominated for most of the day. At one point they were ahead in all five matches but the Americans finished strong to split the day in points, 2 1/2 each side, so going into the third day of four it's the Internationals (basically the rest of the world outside of Europe, with most of the players coming from Australia and East Asia) with 6 1/2 points to 3 1/2 points for the Americans. The U.S. needs 12 more points to retain the Cup while the International team only needs 9 to win it.

The event is being played at the Royal Melbourne Golf Club, so the Internationals have home field advantage. Ernie Els is their captain, while none other than Tiger Woods is the U.S. playing-captain. Should be a compelling final two days. This event has always been viewed as Ryder Cup Lite at best due to how one-sided it's been and its shorter history, so it would be nice to see it gain more prestige and excitement as it's conducted virtually identically to the Ryder Cup. The U.S. team has significantly better players as far as world ranking, but that's proved irrelevant so far.

 

[Booth]

Don, I have followed the matches as much as I can. The only good play from the U.S. squad has been from Tiger. He's not going to play the morning match so I don't expect anything great to happen for the U.S. I don't know what is going on with D.J. and Gary Woodland or Matt Kuchar or the rest of them really. Their games have been way off. Patrick Reed is being overly harassed by the crowd. If he was a bigger named star some fan would have been escorted out. I hope they make a comeback. On a side note did you read about Tommy Gainey's arrest. He should have known if they would arrest Bob Kraft they would arrest him.

 

[Don Wassall]

The International team has been sharper, in part because of familiarity with the course and the Americans overcoming some jet lag. It's a difficult and tricky course with very fast greens. But that's no excuse and the heart of the competition is today and tomorrow. Woods actually has not been a dominant player in either the Ryder Cup or the Presidents Cup, though you're right that he's been the best American player for the first two days this year.

 

[Don Wassall]

The U.S. team gained some ground yesterday and now trails 10 to 8 going into today's 12 singles matches (it's Sunday in Australia).

There was some really great golf and exciting matches yesterday. The crowd was pretty polite the first two days but eventually got into the swing of things, good-naturedly heckling the Americans and cheering loudly for the Internationals. It's undoubtedly hard for the Internationals to build up the same kind of closeness and purpose as the Americans, and the Europeans in the Ryder Cup, given they come from such unrelated countries as Chile, Mexico, Canada, South Africa, Australia, Japan and Korea, but this year's event promises to kick-start the tournament into more prominence going forward, especially if they succeed in slaying the team that has dominated them previously.

I've never watched the Presidents Cup before but fortunately have a lot more time than usual the past several days and am glad I have.

 

[Carolina Speed]

The U.S. team gained some ground yesterday and now trails 10 to 8 going into today's 12 singles matches (it's Sunday in Australia).

There was some really great golf and exciting matches yesterday. The crowd was pretty polite the first two days but eventually got into the swing of things, good-naturedly heckling the Americans and cheering loudly for the Internationals. It's undoubtedly hard for the Internationals to build up the same kind of closeness and purpose as the Americans, and the Europeans in the Ryder Cup, given they come from such unrelated countries as Chile, Mexico, Canada, South Africa, Australia, Japan and Korea, but this year's event promises to kick-start the tournament into more prominence going forward, especially if they succeed in slaying the team that has dominated them previously.

I've never watched the President's Cup before but fortunately have a lot more time than usual the past several days and am glad I have.

I haven't been following much golf at all lately. I've been playing a lot more. Right now I have to play in the evening, because it's a little too cold to play in the morning. So, by playing in the evening, I don't get to watch. When it gets warmer, I'll start playing the mornings and be able to watch when I get home.
On a side note, I've broken 80 several times this year. Prompting me to move back to the blues on some courses. I'm getting older. I'm supposed to be moving up instead of back. LOL.

 

[Carolina Speed]

I haven't been following much golf at all lately. I've been playing a lot more. Right now I have to play in the evening, because it's a little too cold to play in the morning. So, by playing in the evening, I don't get to watch. When it gets warmer, I'll start playing the mornings and be able to watch when I get home.
On a side note, I've broken 80 several times this year. Prompting me to move back to the blues on some courses. I'm getting older. I'm supposed to be moving up instead of back. LOL.

Duh? I just looked up where the President's Cup is being played, Australia. So, it's on live now. I'll try to catch some of it before I retire to sleep.

 

[Don Wassall]

The Americans dominate the singles matches 8-4 and come from well behind to win the Presidents Cup again, 16-14.

Thankfully Tiger Woods is a lot more palatable than he used to be as he has finally matured some, because of course the media narrative was that Tiger is a human god and everything else involved in this event paled by comparison, including patriotism that the U.S. won. All the Golf Channel coverage was astonishingly Tiger-centric, even for the Golf Channel and NBC. Paul Azinger, Johnny Miller's replacement at NBC, is even more of a Tiger nut hugger than Nick Faldo over at CBS, as impossible as that might seem.

I watched the post-event news conference of the U.S. team, and every single question was either directed at Woods (90% of them), or when asked of someone else referred to Tiger and asked for their assessment of Woods' performance as team captain (ignoring of course that the U.S. almost lost for only the second time). The only exception was a couple questions designed to humiliate Patrick Reed, but to his credit he didn't take the bait.

It reminded me of when I used to write the satirical "Corporate Sports Report" for the old CF site after Trevor Immelman won the 2008 Masters. During that fictional post-victory press conference the reporters kept calling him by the wrong first name and focusing every question on Tiger Woods. One reporter asked, "Trent [sic], when you sunk the winning putt to win The Masters, what do you think Tiger Woods was thinking at that exact moment?" Well, during the "real life" press conference yesterday, a question at the end was finally directed to co-captains Fred Couples and Steve Stricker. I kid you not, the question was, "Fred and Steve, when 'Kooch' (Matt Kucher) sunk the putt to clinch the Presidents Cup victory, what do you think Tiger Woods was feeling?"

Every announcer, every "reporter," worships Tiger as a human god, whether because they actually do or more likely because they understand the narrative that must be maintained at all times. It's not a "conspiracy"; everyone who climbs the public figure ladder knows the unwritten rules, and that to offend them is career-ending. It's a form of soft totalitarianism, in that the narrative brooks no alternative versions, and when any public figure deviates they are hung out to dry.