On the greatest sporting achievement that almost was…..

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(This is basically an edited version of an email response to the good Scrib50 regarding Tom Watson’s astonishing run and disappointing finish at the 2009 British Open. I’m posting it because it contains some thoughts on caddying, as well as my shared perspective with Scrib50 on how incredible a sporting feat this actually was and where it would have ranked if Watson had managed to win. Thanks Scrib50, for firing up this line of thought and for the encouragement in turning it into a blog post)

I was just absolutely crushed, like most people, when Watson’s putt to win the Open championship didn’t even come close. Watson didn't just have it on Sunday, he had it in spades! He was in control on the back 9. A lot of people had trouble on 15 and virtually everyone melted on 16---Watson cruised thru there. Then he birdied 17 like he should have. Westwood bogeyed 3 of the last 4. He got incredibly lucky after his drive on 17---though he did get robbed on his eagle putt. Even Cink didn't birdie 17 like he should have---that was a long par 4 for these guys and he absolutely should have birdied it or better. But to his credit, Cink did birdie 18---though he got a very favorable bounce that Westwood or Watson didn't get.

Still, after all that, Watson had an 8-footer to win---I actually stood up from my chair with anticipation. It was very disappointing how he never gave it a chance. Short putts have been Watson’s problem for years, and it was painful to watch how the 8-foot putt barely made it past six feet.

His caddie/friend should have talked to him before lining up the putt---I know, he probably thought "Jeez he's won 8 majors, let me leave him alone" but seeing how Watson was shaky all day with the putter he should have talked to him. In his place I would have absolutely told Watson "Let it flow Tom. It’s all gravy anyway man. This improbable ride has come this far---you've gotta believe it is meant to be. Pick a spot and let the thing roll. Let's cash this one in". That's all it takes to release pressure. Instead, the caddie looked tense and funereal and just tried to avoid Tom as much as possible at a time when you could feel the tension all freaking around. The collective breaths of like 20000 people around the grandstands were being held---the short putt has been Tom's Achilles Heel for decades now, and you could feel everyone---there and around the world--- get all puckered up, if you know what I mean. I mean you could reach out and touch the stress thru the TV---you think Tom couldn't feel how anxious everyone was?!!

You HAVE to break that tension before you let your guy putt. I mean, it is not some super-caddie-juju-secret or anything, just freaking common sense. You have to loosen him up, PUT ONE REALLY GOOD THOUGHT IN HIS HEAD and then give him a moment to focus on the spot/line and then go.

That bad putt was purely the result of very tight hands and forearms---I should know as I gag like that all the time. And even I know, over a crucial putt, to tell myself, "Dude, you get tight, nothing good will happen. You stay loose and let it ride, and chances are that you make it; even if you don’t make it at least you won't regret it like you would if you were all wound up and gagged". But the bigger the moment and the more frustrated/tired/wired/excited/anything but thinking clearly and positively/ that I am, the more apt I am to forget to remind myself to relax. That's why pros have caddies---and it is part of the caddie's job (even if it is a friend or an amateur caddie) to jockey the player home. On that incredibly huge stage, with that much emotion going thru him and the pressure of the world on his shoulders, even a seasoned pro needs a gentle nudge in the positive direction. All good caddies know and do that. Tom's caddie should really have given him a strong positive thought, and maybe even gotten him to genuinely chuckle or something, before Tom started lining up the putt.

It has been said, even by the great ones, that Tiger "willed in" putts. Sure seemed like it to me. And I am convinced it is because he saw the picture of the putt like his dad taught him, and then he convinced himself that if he hit it on that line it would definitely go in. That confidence frees up your body, and all the info your mind has processed when lining up the putt gets mobilized into action even somewhat subconsciously---and whaddaya know, you make the damn putt!

If Watson had sunk that putt I think it would have been, hands down, the greatest sporting story in modern history. People have made comparisons to the Miracle on Ice team, Buster Douglas’ upset of Tyson etc. But they are not even close, due to the crucial differences. Firstly, all the others were somewhat fairly matched contests. The USA sent its hockey team--it was a national team, however much of an underdog it was. Buster was an underdog but he was an active fighter in the same age and weight class and had some resume. Anyway, you get the idea. Watson was not remotely on the same plane as much of the field. He doesn't play on the regular Tour. He doesn't even really contend all the time on the Champions Tour. He would not have come close to qualifying by normal criteria for the Open---the only reason he played was that he was a past champ and was eligible to play till he was 60. There was nothing in his game, even remotely recently, that suggested he could even make the cut, let alone contend for the title.

But even more importantly, most of the other "greatest sports stories" (even where talent wasn't evenly matched) were single day events---one good day and you could make history. Watson had to beat all comers for four full days. If one golfer had a meltdown, there were still 70 or so more over the weekend to fend off. What it came down to was that Watson just couldn't afford even one really bad hole, on a course that would destroy you if you have a momentary lapse of concentration---Ask Ross Fisher, who led the field by 2 strokes after 4 holes on Sunday and then made an 8 on a par 4 because of one bad tee-shot.

And Watson pulled it off. All the experts kept commenting on how well he knew the course (having won there in 1977), knew to play links golf (having won 5 Open Championships) etc, but none really commented sufficiently on how difficult it is to execute nearly flawlessly for 4 days, especially at the age of 59, playing with an artificial hip! It is really great to know where you need to hit the ball, but then you have to go out and do it really well for 4 full rounds. Anyone who has ever walked 18 holes of golf, on a championship-level course, knows how much it takes out of a player. Anyone who has walked 18 holes of golf for three days straight, then tried to play the fourth day, knows how difficult it is to swing the club decently let alone to keep form and balance all the time. If your club face is off by 5 degrees on impact, a 150-yard shot will be errant by about 10-15 yards---these guys can't afford to miss by 10 feet on many of these approach shots. Imagine it, man. 3 or 4 lousy degrees open or shut, and you are in a bunker or off the green or something like that. This is not talked about enough by the 'experts' --- most people have trouble closing out tournaments on Sunday because of fatigue. Even subtle fatigue matters. Even a supremely fit athlete who tires slightly during the fourth round will have some trouble. Just because Tiger at his weakest is stronger than me at my strongest doesn't mean that if Tiger is immune to fatigue-related errors. If he is off his optimum by 3% then his club could also be off by 3% on a crucial shot and could be scrambling to save par instead of licking his chops at a birdie. And that's just the physical stuff---the mental toll over 4 rounds is just as high, if not higher. Fatigue happens all the time to golfers on Sunday. The great ones know how to manage it, and Watson did it so freaking well---till that last putt. Obviously and remarkably, a lot of it was pure adrenaline too, as you could see that he was just completely gassed in the playoff after missing the putt on the 72nd hole.

The only story that comes close is Francis Ouimet’s stunning win at the US Open in 1913---he was a 20-yr old amateur who beat a couple of legends. But even there, Ouimet was clearly a talented enough amateur to qualify for the tournament. He went on to win the US Amateur title the next year and went on to have a distinguished golf career. His win at the 1913 US Open, in retrospect, was an announcement of a talented golfer’s arrival—remarkable, but it happens every now and then. Tiger Woods’ three consecutive US Amateur titles, his record win at his first professional Masters---I think that these were just as remarkable and stunning as Ouimet’s win.

But Watson’s performance last week was just unparalleled in major sport in recent history. I think that if he had won, it would clearly have been the greatest sports achievement of modern times.

What a bummer, the way it turned out. Nevertheless, I think it will prove to be one of the most inspiring events to many people, especially senior citizens. I do not think anyone seriously thought that a 59-yr old man could contend, and indeed beat, a whole field of young thoroughbreds for virtually an entire tournament. I think it will have opened up a new avenue of hope and rejuvenation for a lot of older people struggling to come to grips with their failing faculties. It reinforces, in an exhilaratingly tangible way, the hope that incredible things can happen if one can stay fit. Anyway, that's how, I've decided, I will always think of the 2009 Open Championship.

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Fight the urge

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I just took a glance at the main page for SI.com only to find a big splashy spread on some MMA (mixed martial art) fight that was held last night. Out of curiosity I checked out the ESPN main page and, sure enough, big splashy MMA coverage up front. This is what we have come to as a society---back to cage fighting. In the year 2009, human beings cannot find a better way to entertain themselves than to put two roided freaks into a cage and let them beat each other into submission? Seriously? And the “hey, it’s what the people want and we’ll cater to the lowest common denominator if it will make us a buck” media cannot find anything better to put on the front page or on the TV screen? I have mixed emotions about this last part---on the one hand, I have a philosophical problem with publicizing and encouraging fighting but, on the other, I find it incredibly funny that two days before the MLB All Star Game the nation’s foremost sports reporting agencies relegated baseball to a distant third behind cage fighting and NASCAR. This should give you an indication of how far baseball has (deservingly) fallen---the stewards of the game must be proud.

Anyway, I have contemplated this for years now as I watched, somewhat gladly, boxing die a slow death in the public arena. I used to follow boxing, you know. I remember growing up fascinated with the sport (or the sweet science as it used to be called). I was an unabashed fan (who wasn’t?) of Muhammad Ali. I remember speculating, idly and somewhat foolishly, if Teofilo Stevenson would have a chance against Ali if he ever turned pro. I remember prancing around in the living room on summer afternoons, when it was too hot to go play outside, punching the shadows and chanting “I float like a butterfly, I sting like a bee……”. I remember reading about how Larry Holmes would never get the credit for how good a fighter he was, as none of the bigwigs would fight him in his prime. I remember being at once thrilled and nauseated by the sheer savagery of Mike Tyson when he burst upon the scene --- watching the highlights of his KOs were like watching a bad wreck; it turned your stomach but somehow, perversely, you couldn’t not watch it.

Then I grew up. At some point, and I cannot pinpoint exactly when, it occurred to me that we should be better than this. Sure, a lot of sports are physical and some, like football, are even occasionally violent. But boxing (and now the MMA-type crap) differed from other physical sports in a crucial way --- violence is not incidental to the sport--- rather, the object of a fighting sport is to subjugate the opponent by inflicting pain and physical harm. At some point in my maturation this became philosophically unacceptable to me. I think that if we condone this concept (that it is somehow not just OK but even glorious to beat another human being into submission) in even a controlled arena, we end up, to some degree, condoning all physical abuse --- the kind that occurs in domestic violence, for instance, as in all these cases it is the twisted mind of the abuser using physical force to dominate his or her arena.

I think it is time to stop catering to our bloodlust. The only fighting we should be doing is against the urge to fight.

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Bye-Bye Tiger?

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Wow. Talk about luck of the draw. A bunch of guys played their first round at the US Open in mostly miserable conditions between yesterday and this morning--wet, soggy and unpredictable fairways and rough, and greens that were not rolling out as much as normal. Par would have been a great score.

Then the remaining guys tee it off this morning and play much of their first round in relatively ideal conditions---fairways and rough drier, greens still soft and absolutely receptive (heck, people are spinning he back back out of the rough! Normally at a US OPen you can barely spin the ball of the fairways on cement-like greens) and rolling beautifully. Moreover, the tough holes were set up shorter to keep them being impossible in yesterday's weather---in today's weather they are playing as birdie holes. The guys are throwing darts out there apparently---in the elite golfer set the scores are lower by 3-4 shots today.

Worse still for Tiger and others who played first, the 'later' groups of guys get to play a bulk of their second round today too, under ideal scoring conditions. Tomorrow, the weather is supposed to be bad again (and the 'early' guys will have to play round 2 and bulk of round 3 then) so it may be that the early group gets screwed twice. Even if the weather holds up fine tomorrow, it will still be tough because the greens will have dried out much more by tomorrow and they can't just shoot at the pins like the guys are this afternoon today. Scoring will be difficult no matter how you cut it.

Luck of the draw is not unheard of in golf tournaments but this time the circumstances seem to have skewed the fairness more acutely.

All that having been said, Tiger probably has only himself to blame if he's too far behind after today---he was at level par after 14 holes (he played the second half of his round in the more benign conditions of this morning), but dropped 4 strokes over the last 4 holes. Very uncharacteristic of him and it may have lost him a chance at the tournament. If he finished around par he would have been maybe 4-5 shots behind the leaders. Doable, for him --- he could have pulled close by the final round. Now he may be 7-10 shots behind a number of people before he even starts his second round and that is too much to make up. USOpens are not set up for scoring, as we will see---this scoring burst of today is an anomalous result of a perfect storm, if you will, of events. To make up ten shots, you normally need a lot of people to falter pretty badly. But that can happen at US Opens too, I guess.

As of now, it ain't looking good for Ol' Eldrick. The toughest test in golf just got much tougher.
But no one grinds like he does and if anyone can still think of winning from this position, he can. Let's see if he can claw his way back into this tournament over the next couple of days.

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Kobe Beef

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Since the sports establishment can't stop praising Kobe Bryant as a hungry, strong-willed great champion (or whatever the fuck the adulation-du-jour may be) I thought I should remind people that it is highly likely that Kobe is a goddamn rapist who got away with his crime because he could assemble a multi-million dollar 'defense' (a.k.a. character assault and intimidation) team. It helped, I suppose, that the NBA was struggling in those years and it was in the financial interest of a whole lot of people to sweep this under the rug as fast as possible, cos, you know, it's all about 'protecting your assets' and 'managing your brand' and shit like that.

The intimidation and character-assasination that Kobe's team indulged in was despicable. But then again, Kobe is despicable, so what else would you expect? Besides, the victim's lifestyle or habits, whatever they may have been, does not give anyone a license to sexually assault her. The Kobe line of defense was basically the same old "She was asking for it" mentality that only rapists can favor.

For those who may not be familiar, or for those who may have forgotten, go read the Wiki summary of the case and Kobe's admission of guilt in exchange for his freedom.

Congrats LAkers and NBA and all the rest of you fawning sports 'journalist' parasites---looks like your star 'product' is the worst kind of stinking despicable criminal who bought his way out of punishment!

The NBA: Where Awesome Image-laundering Happens!

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Silence is the enemy

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A bunch of bloggers are trying to advance the cause of Doctors Without Borders to help the victims of sexual violence in Liberia.

Go to these links --- Isis, CPP --- and others in those messages.

Please read, listen, spread the message, and help.

These atrocities, in Liberia as well as around the world, have got to be stopped. CPP's post also has a bunch of other links that you can use to help.

PS: Many times your employer will match certain charitable donations. Often you won't know that if you don't ask. In smaller companies, partnerships etc, employers will sometimes match donations in special instances, on a case by case basis. Ask, and try to double your efforts if possible in this relatively simple manner.

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Great. JUST FREAKING GREAT

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Now the NIH puts out some token fucking bullshit funding opps for small businesses from the ARRA funds. And it just screws things up.

First there's this peach of an opportunity where $5 million is set aside for 20-25 Phase Is worth 200K for one yr each. AWESOME! You are just too freaking kind!

And then there's this monstrosity: $35 million set aside for at least 10 awards (woo-freacking-hoo!)--award limit 1 million/yr for 3 yrs---basically for 'bridging' the gap from science to market that any company can apply for! There's the token bullshit about 'preference will be given to Cos with fewer than 500 employees' etc etc blah blah. but freaking COME ON! Yeah, a 3-5 person company that kicks ass is really gonna stand a chance against a 250 person, venture funded enterprise that can assign 25 people to the task of writing the 3 million dollar grant based on their stuff. Lemme see, 40% of the score goes to Team and Facilities etc....so the company of BSD from MRU gets spotted a healthy 40% on the score. Besides, a cursory glance at the bullet points shows quite a bit of advanced applied stuff --- not much of immediate-basic translational work is represented.
There's nothing wrong with bigger Cos getting money, BTW, except that the ones of that size that show promise have healthy funding streams to begin with. Way to go all repub and see that the rich get richer (not surprising---I bet big biotech pharma dollars lobbied this shit up).

So the biotech "small biz" community gets a whopping $40 million, 0.4% of the ARRA NIH money (oooohh, you are too generous, sire), much of which goes to approx a dozen awards---that good small biotechs cannot compete for in reality .

In return, my guess is that all reasonably competitive RC1s and RC2s from biotech start-ups will get trashed in review---"hey, the business guys get their own set-aside, let them compete there...." I figure it was a lot of lobbying from the business community that got this set-aside---but not to help small business biotechs really, cos there's a few one-year-Phase Is (big fucking deal) and a handful of big ticket awards that even good start-ups cannot realistically compete for. With friends like these, who needs enemies?

DAMMIT, I AM SO FREAKING MAD. We had a pretty competitive proposal in with the general stream, and I was happy to take my chances. In my deluded state, I guess, I was even feeling a bit positive about it. The last thing we needed was a stupid meaningless set-aside that could nevertheless influence reviewers to bag it sayin "Fuck em. They can get some of the small business pie".....

Now, I am almost kicking myself for putting in all that time. Dammit. At least if they'd announced this before I turned in the proposal I'd have had a chance to argue the proposal in this light. Dammit. Dammit. Freaking dammit.

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Just Manny being ban-ny

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So Manny is the latest to get busted for sticking performance-enhancing needles in his fanny. Big freaking surprise.
Then I read that he was busted for taking human chorionic gonadotropin.
Manny being tranny?
Manny being nanny? granny?
I know, it's supposed to be taken by dopers who are cycling off---just couldn't pass up the chance to dish out some pun-ishment.

Seriously though, if you're surprised, you're incredibly naive or stupid. Yeah, sure it was a mistake or an honest prescription that he forgot to run by the team doctors.

The past 25 years or so have seen the greed-fueled supply-side mentality create a culture of billion dollar entitlements and billion dollar lies. We have seen this in American government and American industry. And in American sports. And in the sporting realm, no sport has quite encapsulated this excess, embraced this culture of abusing the public trust and exploiting the public ignorance and apathy---all for incredible monetary gain---quite as well as Major League Baseball.

Reminds me of Terrance Mann telling Ray Kinsella in 'Field of dreams'---"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball......baseball has marked the time."

Well, it sure has, hasn't it?

Of course, Mann went on to say, "This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again."

Now, about that last part........maybe not so much.
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