Danny Lee becomes the Youngest U.S. Amateur Champion ever!

Danny Lee becomes the youngest U.S. Amateur champion in history of golf as he beat Drew Kittleson in style 5 and 4.  He also becomes the very first Korean-born golfer to win the U.S. Amateur.  That means Danny Lee is also the very first pure-breed Asian Asian person to win the U.S. Amateur.

UPDATE: Oops, Danny Lee ISN’t the very first Asian person.  Actually Tiger Woods is the very first Asian.  BTW, Tiger isn’t really black at all, he’s more Thai than anything else.

With Korean ladies taking over the leaderboard in LPGA, Danny Lee is also another one of those players starting the act of taking the PGA Tour along with the young PGA star, Anthony Kim.

Pinehurst, N.C. — Danny Lee became the U.S. Amateur’s youngest champion, supplanting Tiger Woods by holding off Drew Kittleson 5 and 4.

Lee, 18 years and one month old, frittered away most of a six-hole lead before regaining control with consecutive birdies midway through his second trip around Pinehurst’s No. 2 course. He capped his 11th consecutive day of competitive golf by sinking a 30-foot birdie putt on the 14th.

Lee is six months and 29 days younger than Woods was when he won the first of his three Amateurs in 1994.

The victory gives Lee exemptions into the U.S. and British opens, a probable invitation to The Masters and a 10-year exemption into the U.S. Amateur as long as he remains an amateur.

via theglobeandmail

Tiger Woods won't be holding a golf club until 2009!

It looks like Tiger Woods won’t be holding a golf club until 2009 folks.  Well, that’s what I expected after all those surgeries but the real bad news is for the PGA Tour sponsors.

With absence of Tiger Woods, TV ratings have dropped over 50% over last year.  That won’t be a big problem for most folks but for people who are sponsoring the tournaments, they are really losing 50% of their ad revenue.

What’s amazing is that a single human being can effect the TV ratings, especially when you consider the other 200 top players in the world.

Yes, most people would like to watch #1 golfer in the world, not #2 or #3.

As for waiting, I am also really tired of watching golf tournaments without Tiger.

My typical thought process when watching a major these days, “If Tiger was playing, he’s probably going to be 3 better than the field, of course leading the tournament”.

I am sure Padraig Harrington will have plenty to worry about when Tiger comes back.  In the meanwhile, he’s free to take all the freebie tournaments as he can.

Excerpt from LA Times:

“As far as swinging a club, that’s not going to happen until next year,” Woods wrote in a blog on tigerwoods.com. “I just don’t have a choice. We simply don’t know what type of swelling there would be or if there would be any residual effects the next day once you start wheeling and dealing on the knee.

Without Woods, the Nielsen ratings for the last two majors were dramatically lower, despite consecutive inspiring victories by Padraig Harrington.

The PGA Championship on CBS had a final-round overnight rating of 3.0, a drop of 55% from last year when Woods won. And the final round of the British Open on ABC had an overnight rating of 3.5, a decrease of 14.6% from last year.

If the Ryder Cup on NBC can’t deliver big numbers, without Woods, it doesn’t bode well for the upcoming FedEx Cup series, in which Woods won $10 million last year.

One thing I realized though, “Tiger Woods is golf, golf is Tiger Woods“.  Without Tiger, there would be no $10 Million in prizes, we might still have boring PGA Tour pros fighting for $1 Million.

At least for the time being that Tiger Woods is breathing, we will get to be part of golf where purses are worth 10 times more than what they should be.

Bob Heintz's Wishes May Come True This Weekend!

You’ve probably never heard of Bob Heintz or the fact that Heinz ketchup is actually spelled without the t.

The fact is that Bob Heintz has been trying to gain fans so he can enjoy his round more.

Of course, you need to score great scores week-in and week-out on the PGA Tour to accomplish that.

Today, Bob Heintz did just that, attracting about 50 fans to follow his partner who is a local amateur.

Of course, if Bob Heintz keeps shooting 63s for the rest of the weekend, it will be possible that one of Bob’s wishes may come true.

Quoting from interview today:

“I said, ‘I imagine y’all are here to watch Drew, right?’” Heintz said. “They kind of laughed and felt bad that they weren’t there to watch me. I relayed to them that one of my career goals was to get where I’m good enough where someone might actually go to a golf course, pick up a pairing sheet and say, ‘I’ll follow Bob Heintz’s group today.’

“That’s kind of a vague career goal, but they started to tease me about that as the day went on — ‘I guess I’ll follow you now.’ I’d rather have attention than, you know, have nobody know who I was.”

Yes, the hardest fact of life on the PGA Tour is not that everyone who qualified makes at least $100K/year.  But the fact that if you don’t finish near the top, no one will ever notice you.

How cruel is that if you were a PGA Tour member most of your life, only to have no one notice you when you retire?

Of course, those spotlights are reserved for players like Tiger Woods but still, professional golf is a mirror-image of our capitalist society.  In order for you to be happy at what you do, you need to be near the top whether that’s golf or business.

Now, I really want this Bob Heintz guy to win this weekend.  Before today, I didn’t even know he’s a PGA Tour player!

Even though Tiger Woods may not be playing in the PGA Championships this year due to his knee injury, he is clearly showing everyone the secret to winning a PGA Championship.

It’s so obvious that we cannot see it but the black nike hat and the red nike shirt are both part of Tiger believe in religiously.

For this year’s champion, let’s hope it’s someone who has been winning consistently so far as I have highhopes for some tour pros.

Here’s all the important internet links you will need this weekend starting tomorrow for the 2008 PGA Championship coverage:

2008 PGA Championship Scoreboard

2008 PGA Championship Official Site

Tickets to 2008 PGA Championship

2008 PGA Championship Course Overview

2008 PGA Championship Mobile Alert

News from 2008 PGA Championships

2007 PGA Championship

2006 PGA Championship

Michelle Wie Playing in the Reno Tahoe Open

It’s a wonder that Michelle Wie hasn’t won an LPGA Tournament.  Perhaps, Michelle Wie is not Tiger Woods of women’s golf or at least until she proves otherwise.

After the bad break of being disqualified at her last LPGA tournament, Michelle Wie will be playing in the men’s PGA Tour event coming this weekend at the Reno Tahoe Open.

Of course, most of the top players in the world won’t be there as they will be at Firestone Country Club to play the World Golf Championship.

Still, I wish Michelle Wie the best of luck beating the men at Reno Tahoe Open.   It’s going to be near impossible I’d say since she’s not used to playing longer golf courses with much tougher competition.  Even Annika Sorenstam, the former #1 player of the world for couple decades, failed to make a cut on the PGA Tour.

The point is not that a woman can make a cut on the PGA Tour but the fact of life is that men do hit the ball longer by nature and it’s certainly not fair for the women to play from the same tees.

If Michelle Wie makes the cut this weekend, that might start a whole new plethora of LPGA tour pros who might start asking for sponsor’s exemptions to play on the PGA Tour.

Go figure, if I were her, I’d concentrate on making the LPGA Tour first.  You can always play with the men but you don’t get infinite number of sponsor exemptions even with the LPGA.

Crap, Michelle Wie should have finished top 5 last week.  LPGA Officials can take their stupid rules and shove it somewhere I guess.