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September 2008
FedEx Cup headed for more tweaking
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Blimey, how do you make sense of all this? While the Tour Championship was still in play at East Lake Sunday afternoon, and the winner wouldn’t be decided for nearly a couple of hours later, the man who finished 22nd was hauled before a television camera and presented the FedEx Trophy, and if not the FedEx champion’s check, it would soon be in the mail. And no one was more confused than the champion himself, Vijay Singh, a long way from his Fiji Island homeland.
This was the final round of the Tour Championship, where the FedEx Cup champion was supposed to be determined, based on points earned here and in an extended playoff system. Yet, Singh arrived at the Tour Championship with enough points already in hand to take the prize.
“When they started the FedEx Cup last year, I had no idea what the system was going to be,” Singh said. “I was reminded a thousand times before I started this week — make sure you finish 72 holes, sign your card, count your clubs and everything else.”
That’s all he had to do with the collection of points he had built up winning the Barclay’s and Deutsche Bank, the first two playoff tournaments. “We still, really, don’t understand what’s going on with the points system,” he said. “I had no idea what the system was going to be. It’s hard to tweak it to a point where the last tournament (Tour Championship) is as exciting as everyone wants it to be.
“I mean, no matter how much you tweak it, if somebody goes out there and wins two or three events, it’s all over.”
But, the recipient of the $10 million first prize was glad it was over with no mistakes, but to him, it was weird, “really weird. You make a bogey, you get congratulated, you make a double, you get congratulated. It really didn’t make any difference.” Nor a lot of sense.
On his way to the $10 million, Singh posted rounds of 73-74-72-70, and a final score of 289, which ordinarily would have earned him about $123,500 from the Tour Championship alone - or The Playoff Finale, the name the PGA Tour bestowed upon it in this muddled situation, which bore heavily on PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem.
Oh, it should be pointed out that the winner of the tournament was the young, lithe and tremendously popular — with the opposite sex — Colombian, Camilo Villegas, from the city of Medellin. In addition to his developing game, Villegas has developed a peculiar sprawling crouch to read the line of his putts. He is fitted out with skin-tight jeans, a kind of boxer’s cap, caters to the excessively long stringy hairstyle, and has been publicized by one magazine as America’s “Hottest Bachelor,” interpret it as you will.
He is University of Florida educated who had yet to win on the U.S. Tour until the third leg of this playoff series, the BMW Tournament in St. Louis. Though he has won two of the playoff series, including the one intended to be the “World Series of the Tour,” Singh had built up a commanding number of points in advance, however that might settle out. It should be pointed out that there were 28 other players in the field, that Villegas overcame Sergio Garcia’s five-stroke margin, and won on the first playoff hole, in this case the par-3 18th.
Sunday was the young Colombian’s day, for while Garcia, Phil Mickelson and Anthony Kim dawdled about, Villegas put up a round of 66, covering Garcia’s five-stroke edge and in the process banked $1,260,000 that goes to the winner. So, the series is done for this year, and it’s back to another round of tweaking.
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Kim 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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Tee shot of ages at Tour Championship
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It was a kind of moment you’d never forget. Man and boy, eight decades apart, but standing on the same ground, sharing the same game, a game that brought resurrection to a community being dragged through the dregs of hell. Errie Ball had not an inkling of the changes that taken place in this East Lake community where he had once worked as a youthful aide, assistant pro to his Uncle Frank. Frank had gone home to England, but Errie stayed and became club pro at Highlands in North Carolina and moved on from there.
So time moved on. Errie won a couple of tournaments in the South and when the first Masters was played in 1934, “First Annual Invitation Tournament” as printed on the program, he was one of the invited. At the age of 97, he stands alone, the only man still in life who played in the first Masters. He finished between Abe Espinosa and Gene Kunes, tied for 34th, and the Englishman went on to become an established professional, and an American citizen who served four years in the Navy in World War II. And so we move forward to a sunny September morn in the year 2008.
Errie Ball has been summoned out of the dusty files of time to establish a precedent at the Tour Championship — strike the first ceremonial tee shot. Alongside him will be a lad from the First Tee Program, developed in the interest of directing young people from an almost indescribably hopeless course of life to one with purpose. Martavious Adams is 14 years old, trim, smiling face, just a mite, taller than the driving club he was holding. Martavious is a product of the First Tee program at East Lake, proudly on display for this special occasion, a project that Tom Cousins created out of rubble that was old East Lake.
Some people 97 years old are 97 all the way. Errie Ball is a 97 going on 77, trim, personable and oozing life. He struck his drive with a swing that has been faithful to him for all these years, 226 yards, straight and true. Martavious was next, a 4-handicap and full of youthful vigor. His swing was lithe and his little body put every ounce into it. Two hundred and 93 yards, was the measure. The result was something that struck up visions of another such youth.
“Is Tiger Woods your favorite golfer?” someone asked him, anticipating the answer. “I think Tiger is wonderful, but my favorite is Anthony Kim.”
Look out, Tiger, here comes the next wave. Kim is the American-born Korean from Los Angeles, member of the Ryder Cup team flashing across your television screen lately, with personality. He has game and the attitude to go with it. Not a bad choice, Martavious. Down through the years, though, golf has made its case through the Errie Balls of the world. They played and they won. They taught and they shared. They set the pace for the generations that followed them. Erie Ball never won a major, but he left his mark on the game in the South, then the Midwest, and now in Florida. He still teaches at Willoughby Country Club in Stuart, Fla., plays a few holes nearly every day, but most of all, he has a style that recreates memories of the golf professional who helped lay the foundation of the game that is today, and brings the Tour Championship to East Lake each autumn. Keep that in mind, Martavious.
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Boosted by a day at the ballpark
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This is why I can’t quit this business. This is why I look forward to waking up each day and wondering what’s next out there. Sunday, the Braves were playing the last game of the home season, the Mets were the last item on their Turner Field menu, and the Mets were just a hare’s breath back of the Phillies for the lead in the National League East. A half game. The Braves were out of it, and had been for weeks, but they could have a say about who does win it, from the distance of 19 games back. Think of it, they could take the Mets down, the lofty dudes from Flushing.
It was a steely sky, but the stands were filled again. Saturday night 50,000 had come to see the Braves gut one out against the lauded Pedro Martinez. This afternoon over 49,000 were back again, and they came in full voice, cheering anything that moved. Scuffling for the T-shirts the scantily clad American beauties were firing into the seats, even started a wave for no particular reason. The wrong team was at bat and the home team was losing, all of which would have gotten deep under Skip Caray’s skin. (He hated the wave.) It was invigorating exercise, however, good for the pecs.
The Mets took a lead, then David Wright added to it with a home run, and the game sauntered along for several unnerving innings, and the 4-2 score was beginning to look permanent. Among the more exhilarating highlights of it all was that Jeff Francoeur was coming out of his long doldrum. Two doubles, but that was only the beginning of better things to come. It was the eighth inning, Mets still leading 4-3 when Omar Infante doubled. Casey Kotchman followed him with an excuse-me single to right field, started his swing, then changed his mind but couldn’t get the bat back in time. Score tied.
Here came Francoeur again, this time with a blast that brought back memories of the Francoeur who has been missing this season. By the time all the dust had cleared, Greg Norton, who is becoming more valuable each day, walked, Infante drove him in and the Braves led, 7-4. You couldn’t believe it. You could believe how that ball park rocked and the fans, who had been entertaining themselves all afternoon — one last sip of the nectar — rocked with it. Nobody was going home mad from this outdoor spree.
Carlos Delgado hit his 37th home run with another Met on base, but the rocking, grimacing Mike Gonzales closed the shop with two strikeouts, of Carlos Beltran and Damion Easley, pinch-hitting. Nineteen games out of first place and Turner Field had never seen such glee. The standings took you back to the days of the ‘80’s, when managers flowed through these portal like Wine, Haas, Tanner and Nixon, but these people had come to the old ball park to be joyful and they wouldn’t be turned off.
The Braves were doomed to lose their 88th game, it had seemed, but it would not be. All across town, there was joy. Georgia and Georgia Tech had won the day before, the Falcons were gutting Kansas City, and all was well elsewhere, but nowhere was there more joy than at the old ball park. Francoeur would be the Player of the Day, Jorge Julio would get the victory, the swinging and swaying Gonzales would get the save, and never in such losing circumstances (69 won, 87 lost) have you ever seen such happiness. Including, I might add, this old dude who is inoculated by such spiritual vaccine, who can’t give up such moments as these. I’m happy I was there.
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Tech is showing its true colors
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mississippi State hadn’t been to Atlanta on football business since 1929 and by the time the sun lowered over Grant Field on Saturday, the Bulldogs of Starkville realized they hadn’t been missing anything. From “black October,” as the stock market left its mark 79 years ago, to “black and blue September” in State’s current diary. Georgia Tech won the game, 38-7, and at times it seemed some of the towers of downtown turned their heads to avoid the sight of the pummeling going on below.
So let’s take it from here: First, this was the same Mississippi State team that held Auburn to three points last week. This was the same team that beat both Auburn and Alabama last year, coached by the same SEC Coach of the Year, Sylvester Croom. This also was a team that hadn’t scored an offensive point since the third quarter against Southeastern Louisiana two weeks ago, and the streak was extended for three more quarters Saturday. (The Auburn score was 3-2.)
This was an ACC team taking an SEC team to the woodshed, putting a new slant on all the critical jawing and restoring some of the shine on the ACC. To be blunt, it was a game that Paul Johnson virtually turned into a spring scrimmage. Except, in contrast to Tech’s spring scrimmage this year, rife with fumbles as the Yellow Jackets were being indoctrinated in Johnson’s totally mysterious spread option offense. And this was executed under extenuating circumstances.
Tech did it with four quarterbacks, not by choice. Josh Nesbitt, the starter, was gone after eight plays, out with a pulled hamstring after a 21-yard run. To be followed by Jaybo Shaw, a freshman from Flowery Branch; then Bryce Dykes, another freshman, and later Calvin Booker, a senior noted for his passing skill. Jonathan Dwyer had the day of his life, 141 yards afoot, 88 in one stirring dash that set a Tech record. By the time the game reached the fourth quarter, Johnson had very nearly emptied his bench. It was a splendid day for auditioning, though little about it was smooth and glossy, more along the line of wild and woolly.
It was a high noon game played in dazzling sunshine, to a registered audience numbering 48,402. The white uniforms of the Tech band were almost blinding, and the sun’s rays bounced off the oompah horns. It seemed a shame that these two teams hadn’t been sharing visits during all the years they were fellow members of the SEC. There was a reason: Bobby Dodd considered it a step back in social standing to schedule a game in Mississippi, State or Ole Miss. He played Ole Miss once in the mid-40s, a game scheduled by retiring AD Bill Alexander before Dodd became head coach. After that, it was his show and a personal matter.
This game with Mississippi State came about while Chan Gailey was coach, with Louisville on the schedule. He prevailed on Dan Radakovich, the new athletics director, to scratch Louisville, and it so happened Mississippi State had an open date, and willingly it fit. It isn’t supposed to become a steady thing, but Radakovich does have in mind expanding Tech’s geographical range, and with Johnson on station, it is an inviting prospect. However, not until we have seen the sideline photos of the coach and his expressive critiques shall we have a clue as to his view of the proceedings. There was one heartwarming indicator, however, as he departed the field. As the student body cheering cheered, he cheered back, clapping his hands and smiling broadly.
Stay tuned. This is only the beginning. The future is still in the works.
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Tour Championship an anticlimactic end
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It so happens that I have just finished reading five pages of the Official PGA Tour Guide titled “FedEx Cup,” in which the most significant information is in the smallest type: “Subject to Change.” Change there has been, but sadly, not in time to bring relief to the Tour Championship. This is supposed to be the crowning glory of the season, the “Super Bowl of the Tour,” in which the official champion is enriched by $10 million and sent away to an offseason of utter luxury.
With all the tinkering the Tour has put into making its FedEx venture foolproof, the Tour Championship comes up as a somewhat hollow climax. As you are surely aware, the championship has already been played out. All Vijay Singh has to do is tee it up, play the tournament at East Lake, even finish last, and he is the champion. This is brutally unfair to East Lake, and to Coca-Cola, who is what the tour labels the “presenter.” Which is why East Lake is the host and is in line for condolences.
Oh, yes, Singh says he is not coming to East Lake simply to pick up his check, “I’m going to try to win the Tour Championship,” he said in a teleconference. “I love Atlanta and East Lake. I’d rather be in this position than knowing I’d have to win the Championship to take the FedEx Cup.” They don’t raise any dummoxes in Fiji.
Singh won two of the tournaments known as playoffs, and tied for 44th in the third. Even if he finishes last at East Lake, he would have 124,651 points, and Camilo Villegas, who won the BMW Championship, would have only 123,050 should he win. Singh has won the Tour Championship before, in 2002, and lost another in a playoff to Hal Sutton in 1998, both at East Lake.
It’s possible to win the Tour Championship tournament, and take home $1,260,000, but not be the Tour champion. Stewart Cink says he’ll be playing hard, and so will the other 29 players, including Vijay, but no matter how hard they play, what they win is only one more tournament. The deed is already done, and this all brings to a head the pressing question of why the FedEx Cup in the first place? Which, it might be added, prompted Commissioner Tim Finchem to say, in the teleconference, that this unforeseen circumstance “kicked off another round of what do we do next?”
I got a suggestion: Tank it.
Isn’t the PGA Tour strong enough to carry its own load? This would never have happened, you might suggest, had Tiger Woods not decided to go in for surgery at this inopportune time. That brings up the question: Is the life of the PGA Tour dependent on one person? And if it is, there’s something out of kilter at Ponte Vedra. And look what else weighs heavily on East Lake: That the probable Player of the Year didn’t make the field, Paddy Harrington, winner of the British Open and PGA Championship. Something has to be seriously warped when that happens. Which brings up a thought that has puzzled me since Finchem first introduced his spinoff of the NASCAR marketing tool: Was he registering his fear of the rivalry of college football, the opening of the NFL season and the peak of major league baseball pennant races?
If this be the case, then the PGA Tour is staring in the face of a serious challenge. Tiger won’t be here forever. Arnold Palmers and Jack Nicklauses don’t keep popping up ever 25 years or so, and it is apparent that overseas stars don’t light up the American gallery. That in mind, I would have to say that the PGA Tour has come to a crossroads in its search for the magic touch. Indeed, what do they do next?
“Subject to change” — the type is small but the problem is major.
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The Falcons have met expectations
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It began as it usually does in the Georgia Dome. The players from the visiting team — in this case, Detroit — were announced and the gathering crowd booed. What began to develop thereafter was so astonishing I’m not sure where to begin. There’s a story that has gone the rounds for years about a famous journalist, just home from covering a war, and had just watched a football game that would go down in history. Then sat hovering over his typewriter, groping for words and begging inspiration, whereupon he leaped from his chair, and cried, “This is too big for me. I can’t write it,” and collapsed in the press box.
I’ll refrain from collapsing, but I’m on the verge. What those of us encapsulated in the Georgia Dome this September afternoon have seen is too big for the normal human being to translate into words. We slosh through the drudge that has been the fate of the Falcons these last few seasons and we find ourselves stumbling and bumbling through one catastrophic nightmare after another. Would it ever end? Would anybody ever get it right? Should this be Arthur Blank’s life sentence?
This Sunday afternoon the sun came to rest its rays on this bedraggled NFL franchise, and while no guarantees come with it, of all the Falcons moments that I have experienced, none other can match it. No Sunday in Minnesota on the way to the Super Bowl, nor a frigid afternoon in Green Bay, where the storied Packers were beaten on their own grass. Those were but wisps of a fleecy brush with history compared to this opening game of a new season and a change in direction under a fresh command.
It began this way: Michael Turner hit left tackle for nine yards. Then again for a first down. Then Matt Ryan, the rookie quarterback from Boston College, threw his first official professional pass. By the time the play was done, Michael Jenkins had reeled in the ball and scored, a play covering 62 yards, and Ryan followed gleefully down field pointing skyward. By the time the first quarter had ended, the Falcons had scored twice more and taken a 21-point lead.
Was this fate’s bitter tease? Would there be a flashback to failures of previous Falcons? This city had seen so much losing on autumn Sundays that life in the NFL seemed a condemnation to mediocrity. (And I refrain here for falling into the roiling pit of misery delivered to us by Michael Vick, Bobby Petrino and others who shall remain nameless and hopefully forgotten.)
Even when the Lions began a resurgence in the second quarter, there were those of us who began to feel a pitiable nervousness. Tell us this is not another fateful tease. Blessedly, it developed that it wasn’t.
The story had been: Could Turner take the pressure off Ryan? Was Ryan ready to stand the heat of the NFL? Well, it may have been only for a day, but if it was, it was one helluva act. Turner had played in the shadow of LaDanian Tomlinson in San Diego, out of Northern Illinois, a school in the shadow of the Big Ten. There had been questions about Ryan, his arm strength, his high draft number and the Falcons’ huge investment in him. As it stands, it is not so much the football intangibles hovering other them, but the judgment of the new Falcon high command, namely Thomas Dimitroff and Mike Smith, both plucked from the back row of other NFL organizations.
Vindication becomes them. Dimitroff is not one to attract attention, stood along the sideline before the game, dressed in a light colored suit, his electrified hair in place. Plain Mike Smith is just that, a solid man having his first fling under lights, only his snow-capped noggin distinguishing him. Neither conjures up the image of attention seekers. Both have been relatively out of sight while this team was being put together. This is just the first mile of a long road ahead, and nothing is guaranteed. At least you can say that on this one day they have met the prediction of The Sporting News. The Falcons would win one game, TSN said. They’ve done that. The score was 34-21. Stand by for further developments.
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