AJC > Sports > Columnists > Archives > 2006 > April > 02
Sunday, April 2, 2006
It’s Mickelson’s course, in any kind of weather
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Deed him the property. Why not? He owns it. If any golfer ever owned a golf course, Phil Mickelson owns Sugarloaf. He took unofficial possession over the weekend on his way to the Masters, and if this had been anything but golf, Sugarloaf would have been left looking like a war had been fought out here in the suburbs.
Let’s see, Lefty has played the BellSouth nine times, he has won three, he has banked $2,987,416. Oh, pish tush, just call it $3 million. Why quibble over a few bucks? No other nomad of the PGA Tour is even within shouting range after 38 years of this tournament.
Not all of his winning has been under the most soothing conditions, or without some overtime, until this. He won his first in 2000 but had to stay over a day to play off one hole against Gary Nicklaus, and one hole was all that was required. (It was the one and only time Nicklaus ever came close to winning a tour event.) Last year, same thing. A layover until Monday to get in 54 holes — again — and another playoff, this time with four other guys. What followed was one train wreck after another. Two of the four in the water on 18, but most disastrous of all, Jose Maria Olazabal missed two short putts that would have won it all before Mickelson closed it out and headed for Augusta to defend his title.
Weather threats have been the plague of the BellSouth, and in this farewell to the April Fool’s weekend, this battered event took it in the chops again. While Mickelson was floating home like a leaf in the wind, the weather idiot struck again as he approached the 15th tee. A thunderstorm struck with 18 players still in play, a sort of a farewell slug. One pocket of foul weather showed on the television screen, and it hovered directly over Sugarloaf. The devil was thumbing his nose.
Mickelson may have been 12 shots ahead of Jonathan Byrd and Olazabal, but the finish still had to be written.
He bogeyed the 15th, a reasonably mild par-4, but Byrd, Olazabal, J.J. Henry and Retief Goosen were just being carried along in his draft, a good view of a smashing show. Throughout the week we were hearing such terms as “dialed in� and “in a zone,� neither of which can be found in Webster’s, but truth to be, Lefty was riding the crest of his game. When he sank the eagle putt and walked off the 18th green, 63-65-67-65—260, 13 strokes in the lead, he had smashed every record in the BellSouth book, and a Mickelson family crunch took place, three kids, mom and dad in one big huddle. Great, but was his game peaking ahead of schedule? At Sawgrass he had spoken of elevating it to the level he wanted it two weeks hence, meaning at Augusta.
“I hope to do some more of the same,� he said. “I did last year at Phoenix [which he won] and in the AT&T [Pebble Beach to you and me, which he won the following week.] I wasn’t trying to win by such a score, but it does mean a lot to me to have your score reflect the way you play.�
This being the last time the BellSouth plays appetizer to the main course in Augusta, let it be said that it is not a tearful parting.
This slot on the PGA Tour calendar now falls to the Shell Houston Open next year. May the weather be with it. Meanwhile, The Players Championship and BellSouth move in tandem to May under the new schedule.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Furman Bisher, Golf
Bruins-Gators a worthy matchup for title
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Indianapolis — Last year’s championship game was a climax — No. 2 North Carolina against No. 1 Illinois. We can only hope this year’s won’t be an anticlimax. Saturday’s set of semifinals delivered a rude comedown from the giddiness of the regionals, and now we can only ask: Is there life after Big Baby and George Mason?
Probably. The NCAA championship game is rarely a dud. (Over the last decade, only Connecticut’s dismissal of Georgia Tech in 2004 could be considered a snooze.) UCLA is the most famous acronym in all of basketball; Florida has played better than any team in this tournament. It’s not No. 1 vs. No. 2 — the Bruins entered the NCAA ranked No. 7, the Gators No. 11 — but it’s still the last waltz in another Big Dance. So TiVo “24” tonight and watch this as it unfolds.
Pedigrees: UCLA has won 11 NCAA championships. Florida has won none. UCLA has lost only once in the title game — to Louisville in 1980. Florida has lost in its only championship appearance — to Michigan State in 2000.
In recent years, UCLA has been seen as a mighty program gone to seed. Since John Wooden retired in 1975 — his final game yielded his 10th title, naturally — the Bruins have gone through eight coaches. The chronological list: Gene Bartow, Gary Cunningham, Larry Brown, Larry Farmer, Walt Hazzard, Jim Harrick, Steve Lavin and Ben Howland. Bartow and Brown took UCLA to the Final Four, but only Harrick, of whom you’ve heard, could win a national championship.
Since its run to the 2000 Final Four, Florida has been seen as a program that had topped out. Over the next five seasons, the Gators didn’t even survive Round 2 of the NCAA tournament, losing to a lesser seed every time. The chronological list: No. 11 Temple in 2001, No. 12 Creighton in 2002, No. 7 Michigan State in 2003, No. 12 Manhattan in 2004, No. 5 Villanova in 2005.
What changed for UCLA: UCLA hired Howland away from Pittsburgh in 2003, and he has brought a brand of raw toughness to Westwood that the high-gloss Bruins — their campus sits between the famous L.A. thoroughfares Wilshire Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard — have never had. In beating Memphis and LSU, they’ve yielded a total of 90 points. UCLA has won its last 12 games, holding opponents to an average of 53.9 points during the streak.
Said Jordan Farmar, the UCLA point guard: “Our defense is always a total team effort. It’s five guys with the same goal, really helping each other out at all times. … [Florida] does a great job of getting second-shot opportunities. We have to limit them as much as possible. That’s just being tough and physical and getting down there and banging with them.”
What changed for Florida: In 2004, Donovan hired Larry Shyatt, who’d been fired as Clemson’s head coach in 2003 and who began to work with Florida’s defense. (To that point, it wasn’t clear that Florida played defense.) The Gators also benefited from addition by subtraction: Anthony Roberson and Matt Walsh, two me-first scorers, declared for the NBA draft after last season — neither was drafted, which tells you something — and a younger and more modestly hyped crew of Gators has bonded in a way the Gators hadn’t bonded since Lon Kruger was coaching them.
Donovan on his new approach: “If you have a great player who has a great level of unselfishness and work ethic, he’s going to overachieve and go beyond where he thought he could go. If you have a guy who’s talented but who’s totally into himself, who never had to be unselfish a day in his life, it’s really hard to change that mentality.”
Local vibes for UCLA: They’re all good. The sainted John Wooden, who’s 95, is from Martinsville, Ind. He played at Purdue and was a three-time All-American. He coached at South Bend Central High School and at Indiana State University (reaching the 1948 NAIA final).
Local vibes for Florida: Not so hot. The only other time the Gators played for a title was in the RCA Dome. They lost.
International influence (UCLA): Freshman Luc Richard Mbah a Moute is an actual prince in his village in Cameroon. His father, Camille Moute a Bidias, is the chief of Bia Messe, which is on the outskirts of Yaounde. Mbah a Moute left Cameroon in 2003 and enrolled at Montverde Academy in Florida.
Howland remembers seeing Mbah a Moute for the first time: “It’s July, no air conditioning, about 10 coaches there. It’s brutal — 110 degrees, 115 minimum with a humidity level of 100 percent. I’m wanting water after water out of the machine, and he is absolutely playing like you can’t believe.”
International influence (Florida): Sophomore Joakim Noah is the son of tennis champion Yannick Noah, who’s of French and Cameroonian descent, and Cecilia Rohde, who was the 1978 Miss Sweden and finished among the top five in the Miss Universe pageant.
The Jamaican-born Patrick Ewing, a friend of Yannick Noah’s, presented Joakim with his first basketball. Joakim Noah is a Bob Marley fan who believes his long hair “gives me strength and power. Yeah, it does. So don’t cut it.” Why not? “I can’t tell you that kind of information.”
Worst mispronunciation of an exotic name: Joakim Noah: “If somebody says ‘Yokum,’ I’m going to turn around. I know you’re talking about me.”
His name is actually pronounced JOE-kim. And keep this in mind: “Don’t call me ‘Joe.’ “
Actual pronunciation of an exotic name: Luc Richard Mbah a Moute: It’s LUKE Ree-SHARD um-BAH-a-MOO-teh.
Reason to root for Florida (if you’re a Georgia fan): Having the Gators crowned the champions of college basketball might influence Florida boosters and school administrators to put more money into this sport and thereby de-emphasize football, which would in turn make the Bulldogs’ annual October sojourn to Jacksonville somewhat more palatable.
Reason to root for Florida (if you’re a Kentucky fan or an Indiana fan or a North Carolina fan or a Duke fan): Another NCAA title would put UCLA even further ahead of the schools next in line in the category of total titles. (Kentucky has seven, Indiana five, North Carolina four, Duke three.)
Reason to root for UCLA: The Bruins’ uniforms are now and have always been the prettiest in college basketball.
McDonald’s All-Americans: UCLA has three on its roster (Farmar, Arron Afflalo and Cedric Bozeman). Florida, which seemingly used to sign nothing but McDonald’s guys, has only one (Corey Brewer).
John Brady’s take: His LSU Tigers lost twice to Florida and to UCLA on Saturday. His assessment: “Florida will have a few more weapons to score than we do. Florida can shoot the perimeter ball a little bit better than my team. [The Gators] may spread them a little bit more and make it difficult to concentrate on one perimeter player as they did with Darrel Mitchell. But I’m sure [UCLA] faced other teams that have multiple scorers, and I’m sure Ben Howland will have a plan on how to guard Florida.”
Troubling sign for Florida: The Gators’ path to the final has been fairly soft, seeding-wise: Of their five opponents, three were seeded 11th or higher. Contrast that track with UCLA’s, which beat a No. 3 in Gonzaga, a No. 1 in Memphis and a No. 4 in LSU.
Troubling sign for UCLA: The Bruins have scored a total of 42 points in the second halves of their last two games. Contrast that with the 44 second-half points they posted against Gonzaga, which blew a nine-point lead with 3:13 remaining.
What will happen: UCLA will guard hard, but the Gators have too many scorers for even the best defense to defuse. Undersized George Mason did a nice job against Noah and Al Horford underneath — the two big Gators scored only seven baskets between them — but Lee Humphrey and Brewer and Taurean Green torched the Patriots from the perimeter. Green is the key. He has only 11 turnovers in the NCAA tournament, and he scored 19 points against Villanova’s many fierce guards. The guess is that he’ll hold up against Farmar and Afflalo. Look for Green’s team to win 63-60.
Permalink | Comments (19) | Categories: Mark Bradley, Tech / ACC, UGA / SEC
