Wednesday's Open Championship Clippings

It's Wednesday so that must mean recycled stories day in the press tent! Today's special that you can fall asleep to here, here and here? Yes, the European's major drought. Fresh, cutting edge stuff! And in our global golf world where European's play half their golf in America, the majorless drought means so, so, so uh, little.

Judging by the photos on golf.com (with a couple posted on this site too), it looks like it was a nice day Tuesday.

Doug Ferguson reports on all the suckers taking Monty at 25-to-1.

William Hill has lowered his odds to 25-to-1, but the number of bets placed on Montgomerie to win has been so large that bookmakers say the betting turnover would be more than $50 million.

“Despite his failure to make the cut in the Scottish Open last week, Monty is the man the punters want to back for the Open,” Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe said. “Every other bet seems to have his name on at the moment, and we will certainly be handing over a hefty, seven-figure sum to punters should Monty manage to win.”

Paul Mahoney highlights Tiger's interesting links golf comments that I'm too lazy to go and read in the transcript tonight. Love the Ryder Cup jab:

"It allows you to be creative," he said. "Augusta used to be like that. The U.S. Open is obviously not. And the PGA is similar to a U.S. Open setup. We play so much in the States where everything is up in the air. Over here, you get to use the ground as an ally and hit different shots. It is neat to hit bump and runs, and to putt from 50 yards off the green, and to hit 5-irons from 135 yards and run the ball in.

"I wish we played more courses like this. It would be nice to see a Ryder Cup played on a real links course. The courses on the PGA Tour are virtually the same apart from the length of the rough. I think the players enjoy going back to the old-style courses like Oakmont and Congressional because we don't get a chance to play venues like that much any more."

What makes Woods so unusual is his ability to conjure up shots that his rivals (if he has any) simply don't have in their arsenals. And experimenting with his game has always been part of his makeup.

"Coming over here just enhanced that," he continued. "A lot of guys just get into a mode where they hit one normal shot all the time. If you are limited by that, when that one shot goes awry, you have no shots to go back on."

Steve Elling on the six guys with lost luggage.

Ed Sherman reports that Tiger supports a 2-year ban for those testing positive for banned substances...assuming they ever figure out what is banned. He sure is adamant about this. It's almost like he knows of someone he really dislikes using stuff! Can't imagine who that could be.

Jose Maria Olazabal is out with an unspecified injury so I think it would be a mistake to bet on him. Then again, people are throwing money away on Monty...

And finally, Martin Greig looks at Zach Johnson's faith and gets a little MBASpeak thrown in too...

"I don't know if He has anything to do with golf," Johnson said yesterday. "Golf is my job. My faith is very important to me. I'm not one that's going to flaunt it, but it's my foundation. It's what's inside of me. That's the way I feel my life should be lived.

"Now, at the same time, when it comes to golf I don't really think God cares what I do. It's just a matter of how I conduct myself and why I play. It's my job, it's the way I support my family and it's my platform. That's the way I go about it."

Johnson does not look like a major champion. He looks an insurance salesman, but he has a green jacket hanging in his closet.

Comments

[JIm]

Oh come on Geoff, Zach is just a midwestern guy from Cedar Rapids Iowa, cut him some slack !

LOL

[Tuna]

So I see Zach is one of those guys who wear their baseball cap on backwards.

Outstanding. (sarcasm intended)

I'm still getting over that getup he wore on Masters Sunday. Looked to me like he belonged on pit row.

[JB]

"That's the way I feel my life should be lived."

Let's hope that good old Zach wasn't an english major at Drake.

[Al]

Who does Tiger dislike so much that he think's he is using performance enhancing drugs. VJ? Phil? If it was Phil, you would think his body shape would look less like Homer Simpson.
I think this is the one case where you have the pot calling the kettle black. Have someone put together a before and after photo like they have been doing with Barry Bonds in baseball. My guess is that Tiger's head size is a bit larger than what it was a few years ago.

[86general]

"My guess is that Tiger's head size is a bit larger than what it was a few years ago.

Maybe, but if there's a high profile golfer who looks like they've been a Balco customer, it's Annika. Her face went from sweet little Swede to Cowardly Lion in about 2 years.

[JB]

86 General,

I agree 100% on your assesment of Annika. I have a friend who has been a personal trainer for over 25 years and he told me that he would be stunned if he found out Annika WASN'T doing steroids.
JB

[Chuck]

I have tried, and I can't honestly think of a single player on the PGA Tour who appears to have used steroids.
Not that no action is neccessary; I agree with Geoff that action is neccessary. "No action" is how baseball got where it is. Golf has no excuse to not take action -- they don't have a players' union to deal with.
As for Tiger, I don't think he's juiced. He was such a skinny kid, his growth is completely consistent with his age and his workout regimen. He always had a frame that could take some more weight. And he hasn't gotten a sudden case of acne as he reached the age of thirty.
On the other hand, Annika's freakish growth and appearance is perfectly consistent with... well, Barry Bonds. And that's sad. I always presumed that in the past, the reason that golfers like Tiger didn't say anything about steroids was because they knew that they'd soon find themsleves on the side of prosecuting their friend Anni. It was the logical, inevitable conclusion to anyone's supporting any kind of drug testing. Sad, because I want so much to like Anni.

[Hawkeye]

But Chuck, Tiger has been saying he's in favor of drug testing for a while now.
And 86 and JB, while you're right that the growth of my hallowed countrywoman has been overwhelming, the fact is that a woman can't juice herself without finding her voice dropping an octave, and the last time I heard her she still squeeked. The only fact I do know about her is that she does 150 sit-ups and 100 pull-ups before breakfast every morning, and, well, that's what you get.

[86general]

Hawk--the thing about Annika that made me wonder was not her physique, but her face. Maybe she's just aging, but she does seem to have developed more coarse facial features (so called "Leonine facies" in medical parlance), which can happen with the use of human growth hormone. I don't know if it would definitely deepen her voice as something like adrogens would.

[LM]

Annika ain't juiced. Her swing relies on tempo and good contact. Always has. She's not ripping at the ball or anything - her driver swing still looks like she's hitting a pitch shot with her lob wedge. All you've got on her is acne? Lots of adults have similar amounts of acne. And yeah, her voice is still squeaky, so that alone would seem to offset the only "evidence" against her: a little bit of acne.

And Tiger doesn't juice either. His head size is about the same. Look at Tiger in person and he doesn't look nearly as big as he does on TV. He used to be a whip, now he's just added some tone. As said, Tiger's frame could always take more weight.

Pffft. Tiger's adamant because he doesn't want to lose to someone on drugs. That'd be a crock. He appreciates tradition and honor too much.

Steroids don't offer much to a golfer except the ability to "heal" a bit more quickly, and not too many golfers are getting thrown around like football players or even baseball or basketball players. Golf isn't about big muscles and strength, and steroids would likely have a bad effect on your short game.

[Hawkeye]

86, my sister-in-law is an air stewardess and has developed similar facial features as Annika. What I'm saying is that that's typical of Scandinavian, fair-skinned, strawberry blondes in their mid-to-late thirties who have spent more time in the sun than what's good for people with their natural complexion. I don't think it's enough circumstatial evidence for illegal drug useage...

[86general]

LM: I accept Hawk's description of the aging scandanavian female, and will go along with her not being on juice.

But I wasn't talking about acne. Human growth hormone causes acromegaly, which is growth and thickening of facial bones and skin. It is the pathologic response to growth hormone when the body has completed its natural growth. If a child is exposed to growth hormone, the result is gigantism.

Acne is associated with anabolic steroids, which are different from human growth hormone.

I'm not sure I agree that steroids don't offer much to golfers beyond rapid healing. Annika certainly must have added a few mph of club head speed given the incredible amount of muscle she's put on. I'm not saying it can't be achieved without juice, but juicing certainly speeds up the process...

[Smolmania]

Hawk, I just hope you're right about Annika. It's certainly a shame that the question is being raised, but in light of other sports I guess it was inevitable.

LM, with respect to steroids, your arguments mirror things people were saying 6 years ago about baseball. We've now discovered that Bonds' eyesight improved with some of the performance enhancing drugs he took -- is hand/eye coordination any more important in baseball than in golf?

The only way to remove doubt is to test. And if one of those high-priced vps in Ponte Vedra has to go so that the tour can afford it, well, I guess maybe testing isn't that important after all, is it Tim?

[CBell]

Back in the day (that would be the 70's) I knew some national- and world-class women rowers. I highly doubt they were juiced, and, boy, did they get big. A woman with a strong frame who works really hard for a few years can do what Annika did.