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DEL.ICIO.USKim turns for the worse at Tour
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This might be Anthony Kim’s big turn in the road. He was leading the Tour Championship, alias The Playoff Finale — also presented by Coca-Cola — by three strokes, coming off a stirring performance in the Ryder Cup wars. He had led this tournament the first two days. After five holes he had a three-stroke lead. He had birdied the third hole from about 30 feet, and this was looking good.
Hold it! He would not birdie another hole. After the 15th hole he was down by three strokes to Sergio Garcia, also fresh from a stirring performance at Valhalla.
Meantime, sort of flowing along in their draft was Phil Mickelson, an old warrior compared to them. He would wind up the day tied with Kim behind Garcia.
Unfortunately, the nosiest stroke Kim would fire as the match progressed was a shot that bounded off the head of a male patron, and that shook young Anthony right much. “It didn’t affect my game, but I felt terrible. It was an awful feeling to look down and see a golf-ball-sized impression in his forehead. … It was probably the nastiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Before he was borne away on a gurney, the victim was holding a golf ball autographed by Kim. These golfing guys are good about that sort of thing.
Garcia came around in 67 strokes, as did Robert Allenby, the Aussie, who can sometimes get hotter than a kitchen stove. Kim did blast out of a greenside bunker on the 18th hole and save a par, arousing the crowd, but leaving him in grief. He had almost missed his starting time because he misread a schedule. Then he got into a lot of gabbing around the practice range and split more time. It just wasn’t a good start for the day, and it never got any better.
There is a lot missing for this Tour Championship. Everybody knows who the FedEx champion will be, even though the Tour had taken “refining” steps to ensure just the very thing that was happening. Vijay Singh is somewhere back in the pack, but he is the champ, all $10 million of it, plus what he can pick up here. He won the first two so-called playoffs and picked up some more change in the third, and he was uncatchable. It takes a lot of steam out of this event into which East Lake and Coca-Cola have put so much.
Heaven knows what can be done to give it the Tour Championship a fresh life.
It was moved back from November to September and ran smack dab into a gusher of other events, all working for the American dollar. One was taking place in Athens on Saturday night, and among the exuberant guests was Mickelson himself. He had made a dinner reservation for 5:30 and arranged for tickets to the Georgia-Alabama football game. Much of this could be attributed to Jim McKie, his caddie, who is an Athens resident when not under the burden of Mickelson’s bag.
They switch partners Sunday. Garcia gets Mickelson, and Kim gets Camilo Villegas, the Colombian. Kim will miss his pal Sergio. They were gossiping quite frequently as they trod the course Saturday. Sunday everybody gets down to business, everybody but Singh. All he has to do is collect the check and head for home in Ponte Vedra.
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Comments
By jeff
September 27, 2008 10:40 PM | Link to this
Villegas is Colombian. Seriously do you know anything at all about golf. You probably think AK is korean.
By Fernando
September 27, 2008 10:45 PM | Link to this
Hellooooo, Camilo Villegas is COLOMBIAN, not “Venezuelan” as you wrote. Best regards
By Reno Weldd
September 28, 2008 12:26 AM | Link to this
Bish:
You write: “Sergio Garcia, also fresh from a stirring performance at Valhalla.”
Garcia didn’t win a match in four tries. Hardly “stirring”.
By Keeping It Real
September 28, 2008 7:55 PM | Link to this
Mr. Bisher,
May I suggest that you retire with all of your bigotry. You are an embarassment.