The Florida Masochist

Miami Dolphins prediction and some sports notes

The Dolphins are playing their game tonight rather than on Sunday. This is due to Hurricane Wilma. This is the team's first Friday night game in 22 years but one of a half dozen times in last 12 years that Miami has had to re-schedule a game due to weather.

My opinion is the short week will affect both teams equally. Miami is going to get thrashed also, my prediction Kansas City 34, Miami 14.

*- The game will be broadcast on television in Kansas City, Miami, West Palm Beach and Ft. Myers television markets. But as James Joyner and the Tampa Tribune notes, the game won't be on NFL Sunday ticket live tonight or broadcast in the Tampa or Orlando areas. The NFL really needs to re-vamp their television rules.

*- How pathetic is it when a team that traded away a 2nd round pick to get a player have to turn around barely a year later by giving away a 6th to get rid of the same player. That's what Miami did the other day to unload AJ Feeley. A 6th round pick and Feeley for a QB that's never played a down in the NFL and is not likely to do so this year either. Why not release Feeley out right or just keep him to the end of the year. Just another dumb personel(or pardon the pun a lemon.) decision by Miami, and it looks like nothing has changed but the names of management for this team.

*- Houston Astros vs Chicago White Sox in the World Series. Two very dissimilar ballparks in my old Strat-O-Matic days. A lefty homer park vs. a Righty homer park. Creative managing and lineup juggling would be needed.

But we're talking real-life not a board game. I pick the White Sox in 6.

*- The Golf tours are winding down. The LPGA is off this week after seeing Annika stomp the field last weekend. They play in South Korea a week from now, then Japan before coming back to the US for the final two weeks of the year. Four weeks to the ADT Championship here in West Palm Beach. I will be attending.

This weekend's PGA tour stop is in Orlando. Tiger Woods is playing but Hunter Haas is leading so far. So there will be golf for me to watch this weekend.

Michelle Wie’s first Pro tournament- Not a happy finish

She was disqualified Sunday due to a improper drop she took during Saturday’s round. The mistake wasn’t discovered till Sunday.

Such things have happened to the best golfers on tour. Michelle wasn’t cheating, not like some now golf television personality. (Cough cough…) It was unfortunate, but Wie even said she learned from the experience. If in doubt, get a rules official.

PALM DESERT, Calif. - Michelle Wie walked off the 18th green with her head held high. It wasn’t her best golf, but it was good enough for fourth place — a respectable way to start her professional career. Nearly two hours later, with a stunned look on her face and the tears still not dry, she tried to explain a bizarre sequence of events that made her debut memorable for all the wrong reasons.

Wie thought she would be cashing her first check. Instead, she was embroiled in a rules dispute that got her disqualified Sunday in the Samsung World Championship.

“I’m pretty sad, but, you know, I think I’m going to get over it,” Wie said. “I learned a lot from it. It’s obviously not the way I wanted to begin, but it’s all right.”

Everything went all wrong when she finished with a 2-over 74, leaving her 10 shots behind Annika Sorenstam, as dominant as she has been all year, responded to all the hype around the 16-year-old phenom from Hawaii by turning a four-shot lead into nine shots at the turn, building it as large as 10 shots and then closing with a double bogey from the desert for a 3-under 69.

Wie’s troubles stemmed from the day before, when she took a drop from a Gold Lantana bush to the left of the par-5 seventh green, took a penalty drop for an unplayable lie, and escaped with a par.

Two rules officials escorted her to the seventh green after her final round Sunday, and she was asked to show where the ball disappeared into the bush, and where she took her drop.

They determined it was too close to the hole — 3 inches too close according to Wie, about a foot according to the rules officials. That’s a two-shot penalty, so she should have added two strokes to her third-round 71.

Ultimately, she was disqualified for signing an incorrect card, which cost her $53,126 in prize money.

“I learned a great lesson,” Wie said. “From now on, I’ll call a rules official no matter where it is, whether it’s 3 inches or 100 yards. I respect that.”

Michael Bamberger, a reporter for Sports Illustrated, told tour officials Sunday afternoon that he was concerned about the drop. Rules officials Jim Haley and Robert O. Smith reviewed tape from NBC Sports before taking Wie and caddie Greg Johnston to the seventh green after the tournament ended Sunday.

“If I had to make the ruling based on the videotape, to me it was inconclusive,” Smith said.
He had Johnston and Wie show him where the ball was in the bushes, then where they dropped. They paced it off, then used string to measure the distance and determined it to be slightly closer.

“The Rules of Golf are based on facts,” Smith said. “They had to tell us where it was. The fact was, the ball was closer to the hole by 12 to 15 inches.”

Bamberger was on the seventh hole Saturday when Wie took her drop, then paced off the distance from the hole after Wie, in the final group that day, went to the eighth tee. He asked her after the third round how she determined where to drop the ball, and Wie said she used “the triangle thing to make sure that you’re not closer.”

Even after her disqualification, she felt she did nothing wrong.

“I was honest out there,” she said. “I did what I thought was right. I was pretty confident. If I did it again, I’d still do that. It looked right to me. But I learned my lesson.”

Random Golf Comments

See I still follow the sport even from my hospital bed.

*- Congratulations to Phil Mickelson on winning the PGA Championship last weekend.

*- A belated Knucklehead award to CBS and The PGA of America for allowing late tee times that caused the tournament to end on Monday morning. This was bound to happen sooner or later with a major. CBS for knucklehead reasons insist on the Masters and PGA ending at 7 p.m. leaving little wiggle room for either bad weather or a playoff.

*- Tiger Woods didn't stick around for the finish of the 2005 PGA Championship. Instead he flew home to Florida after Sunday's round. Tiger only missed a playoff by two shots.

I'm not going to criticize Tiger, he's an adult and he can do what he wishes with his life. It would have been interesting to see what the PGA would have done if Tiger had made a playoff but that's only speculation.

The closest thing to anything like this happening in recent golf history is the 1999 LPGA Jamie Farr Classic. Karin Koch led by two shots going to the final hole, a birdie Par 5. There Carin made a double bogey setting up a record 6-way playoff. Kelli Kuenhe one of the players who made the playoff had already left the golf course and had to be summoned back via cell phone.

*- Will the 2013 US Open go to The Country Club in Brookline Massachusetts? To you non-golf historians out there, 2013 will mark the 100th anniversary of Francis Ouimet's upset victory in the US Open played at TCC.

Something rarely mentioned about last weekend's PGA Championship was that TCC was originally assigned the 2005 PGA Championship. Then in 2002 the PGA of America reversed itself and assigned the Open to Balutsroll. Neither side is talking much about why this was done, but bad feelings still exist between the PGA and TCC. Note- Remember the 1999 Ryder Cup was played at TCC.

Here is the link to Jim McCabe's Golf World piece on the politics involved with the 2013 US Open bid.

*- Despite double bogeying 18 yesterday, Tiger Woods is tied for the lead with Luke Donald at the NEC Invitational in Akron Ohio. With Vijay Singh, Chris Demarco and Thomas Bjorn one shot back, this could be an exciting tournament this weekend.

*- South Koreans are ruling at the LPGA right now. After the first round, Sung Ah Yim and Young Yang are tied for the lead. One shot back is Soo Yun Kang('The Fashion Model of the Fairways), another shot back is a group including Aree Song. Jeong Jang the defending British Open Champ, and Gloria Park are another shot back.

There are 20 South Korean golfers on the Ladies tour, and right now they are flexing their muscles. Since early June, Jimin Kang, Birdie Kim, Mee na Lee and Jeong Jang have won on tour. All these players getting their first LPGA wins at the same time. If Yang, Kang or Yim won tomorrow they would also be first-time winners.

At the same time the two top South Korean golfers, Grace Park and Se Ri Pak are having off years. The South Korean invasion isn't over yet, more are coming up through the NCAA, USGA girls and Futures tour ranks. More power to them.

Do they all look alike to TGC?

The Golf Channel has photos up on their website from last weekend's US Open. Click on this one. It is pretty embarassing when you wrongly caption the winner of a Major Championship. That's Birdie Kim not Young Jo.

Today's Golf

Kenny Perry and Christina Kim hold the leads in the PGA and LPGA tour stops respectively that end today.

Perry has shot an incredible 18 under 192 at the Colonial Country Club outside Fort Worth Texas.  Colonial often called the toughest par 70 in the world  may be getting caught up with via golf's technology that lets players hit 300 yd drives on a regular basis. I can remember when -4 to -6 won this tournament. Right now Perry is on track to shoot one of the lowest  72 hole scores in PGA tour history.

Something I find interesting is that Perry is about to win two tournaments this year on diametrically different golf layouts. Kenny won at Bay  Hill in March, that's an Arnold Palmer layout that definitely prefers a right to left or draw shot. Colonial on the other hand prefers just as much a left to right shot. Perry is the 2003 Colonial winner also. Is he just playing that well or that good a shot maker?

Other than Perry, only Fuzzy Zoeller and Ben Crenshaw have won on these two very different golf layouts.

At the LPGA's Sybase Classic, the entertaining Christina Kim holds a one shot lead over two South Koreans, Gloria Park the 2002 Sybase Champ, Tour rook Joo Mi Kim, and another tour rookie Paula Creamer.

The Korean golfers have so far been shut out this year, but have done very well in the past at Sybase. Also in the top 12 this week are Grace Park, Mi Hyun Kim, Soo Yun Kang and Jeong Jang. I think this is the week for one of them to come through and win.

The good news is no hurricane is coming to Florida. Why am I thinking of that? The only two times in her career that Christina Kim played in a final group on Sunday at an LPGA tour stop, were the weekends that hurricanes Jeanne and Francis hit South Florida last year. That coincidence has now ended.

Am I that superstitious? Nah.....