Whacky Woody hands it to KP
June 30th 2008 22:34
You gotta hand it to Kenny Perry … well, that’s what Woody Austin did at the PGA’s Buick Open in Michigan yesterday.
Whacky Woody was leading at 20-under with two holes to play and KP was in the clubhouse at 19-under having made a big jumped when he scored a sandy eagle at the short par-4 14th, by holing his bunker shot.
Woody, who is eccentric to say the least, spends much of his round chastising himself, his putter, his ball … and seems as wound up as a Jack Russell puppy on speed.
So the idea of him trying to steady himself is about the same as him wearing a mono-coloured shirt, or even a shirt that looks vaguely fashionable.
So instead of making straightforward pars at the par-17th and the relatively short par-4 18th, Woody went bogey-bogey to cough up a title that was his for the taking. On both holes it was inability to hit a lag putt to within 10 feet and each time failing to make the come-back effort.
Golfdelerium’s best tip was Briny Baird, who finished in a tie for 12th – which was an OK effort but he could have done better.
In Europe, we had a better result with Soren Hansen finishing third behind young Spaniard Pablo Larrazabal.
Larrazabal distanced the field with his exhuberant and risky approach. Whether he can play with such attacking flair week after week and keep winning is another thing.
*Who says you can’t learn anything by watching golf? I was fascinated during the coverage of the Buick to hear Peter Kostis talking about why Woody Austin doesn’t use a tee for his driver.
Woody scuffs up a bit of turf and places the ball on top, a few millimetres off the ground and nowhere near as high as it would be if he’d teed it up.
The idea, said Kostis was to stop the ball going left. For whatever reason, maybe the fact the club contacts the ball lower on the face, the ball tends to go right – that means you can safely eliminate the left side of the course.
Amused, I tried this in a sense by simply teeing my ball a bit lower than normal. For each drive I aimed down the left hand side of the fairway on the basis this set-up would rule out dragging the ball further left and leave virtually the entire fairway to land on. And you know what … it worked and I had one of my best rounds in ages courtesy of hitting more fairways than normal.
So there you go. Until next time, good golf and better betting.
Whacky Woody was leading at 20-under with two holes to play and KP was in the clubhouse at 19-under having made a big jumped when he scored a sandy eagle at the short par-4 14th, by holing his bunker shot.
Woody, who is eccentric to say the least, spends much of his round chastising himself, his putter, his ball … and seems as wound up as a Jack Russell puppy on speed.
So the idea of him trying to steady himself is about the same as him wearing a mono-coloured shirt, or even a shirt that looks vaguely fashionable.
So instead of making straightforward pars at the par-17th and the relatively short par-4 18th, Woody went bogey-bogey to cough up a title that was his for the taking. On both holes it was inability to hit a lag putt to within 10 feet and each time failing to make the come-back effort.
Golfdelerium’s best tip was Briny Baird, who finished in a tie for 12th – which was an OK effort but he could have done better.
In Europe, we had a better result with Soren Hansen finishing third behind young Spaniard Pablo Larrazabal.
Larrazabal distanced the field with his exhuberant and risky approach. Whether he can play with such attacking flair week after week and keep winning is another thing.
*Who says you can’t learn anything by watching golf? I was fascinated during the coverage of the Buick to hear Peter Kostis talking about why Woody Austin doesn’t use a tee for his driver.
Woody scuffs up a bit of turf and places the ball on top, a few millimetres off the ground and nowhere near as high as it would be if he’d teed it up.
The idea, said Kostis was to stop the ball going left. For whatever reason, maybe the fact the club contacts the ball lower on the face, the ball tends to go right – that means you can safely eliminate the left side of the course.
Amused, I tried this in a sense by simply teeing my ball a bit lower than normal. For each drive I aimed down the left hand side of the fairway on the basis this set-up would rule out dragging the ball further left and leave virtually the entire fairway to land on. And you know what … it worked and I had one of my best rounds in ages courtesy of hitting more fairways than normal.
So there you go. Until next time, good golf and better betting.
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