Woods vs. Nicklaus

STORY

Thoughts?

Jumpin' Jeff and Stevie T. at Byron Nelson Classic

Jumpin Jeff and I have made plans/arrangements to attend the Byron Nelson this year. I live less than a mile from both courses, so it will be an easy trip to make during the day. Toss in the fact that the Red Sox are in town to play the Rangers, and it should make for a good weekend. I am sure that all of you wankers will be glued to your FPGP blog waiting for us to post updates on the days' events.

Be warned now, there is a good chance the world will end that weekend. Consider this:

In 1999 Jeff and I had planned to go to the PGA Championship at Medinah (the year Tiger won the event and Sergio burst onto the scene). Jeff's wife was preggers with his first child, but wasn't due for a couple weeks after the tourney. Well, she went into labor on Thursday night, and Jeff never made it to the tourney. Mind you, I still went to the Friday and Sunday rounds.

In 2001 Jeff and I planned to go to the WGC that was played at Bellerive CC in St. Louis. Jeff was planning to fly out on September 12. While the world watched planes crashing into buildings and fields, I was at the first practice round, clueless until about 2 p.m. The tourney was cancelled, and Jeff obviously did not make it out for the weekend. Toss in the fact that my ex-wife started her "we need a divorce" talks a few days later, and that my current fiance' was in the first WTC building that was hit (on the 4oth floor), and that entire timeframe is just freaky.

We have not bothered to try for the last 5 years, but with my location so close to the TPC Las Colinas and Cottonwood Valley coupled with the Sox being in town, this was too good to pass up.

We apologize in advance for armegeddon that will surely precede this event.

UPDATE as of 1/29/06

Phew!

As the FPGPer with only one guy making the cut I was fairly well glued to the end of the Buick. There were a lot of your picks up near the top of the board, but thankfully they all played like Tiger Philp without his much-needed MBP.

Updates have been given to Jeff for formatting... not much change in the ordinal standings, but I can tell you that Da Bandit is currently on pace to score -60 in the pool.

JJ Walker

After the initial titillation, Jimmy Walker is in the field next week, at least for a 2-day appearence -- enough to get da former Commish excited. --- Steve "Gore Sucks" V.

Big Weekend For Johnny V.?

Skip "Don't Call Me Jason" Kendall who opened the FPGP in the 202 spot is at -6 thu day 1 at the Buick. A top 5 finish would be huge for the defending champ's brother... You can track his progress through the tourney by clicking here.

Who are these guys?

Will these two ever make it onto a golf course again?

Golf with Shanks - The curious case of Robert Allenby

Will the real Robert Allenby please stand up?

The past few weeks have been mighty kind to Robert Allenby. He played the best golf of his life and won the Australian Triple - the Masters, Open and PGA. It's never been done before. Don't scoff too loudly at a 'lesser event' as the fields were dotted with world class players such as Adam Scott, Stuart Appleby and Peter Lonard. Impressive. Full Story

Fizzle

So much for Jimmy Walker being kid dy-no-mite!!! Click here to see his pathetic scorecard from round one of the Buick.

Duval Article

From PGATour.com...

JACKSONVILLE, Florida -- David Toms was curious, like so many others who get paired with David Duval.

They had not played together since the 2002 U.S. Open at Bethpage, where Duval was the reigning British Open champion. Duval shot 78 that day, the start of a spiral into one of the most mystifying slumps in golf.

Toms didn't know what went wrong. He only saw the scores.

(full story)

New Blog Feature

The current administration of me and Jumpin' Jeff are proud to announce a new blog feature. If you look at the sidebar on the right, you will note a link to right indicating CURRENT FPGP DATA. If you click on this link, you will see an image of the spreadsheet where all of the point totals are calculated, which is basically our worksheeet. I suggest that people check this from time to time to make sure we do not have any typos. We are saving it as a separate link because we don't want to clog the blog with a big image every week. The weekly leaderboards will still be posted directly to the blog, and the sidebar data will stay the same.

Jeff tells me that the image will open in a new window, so if you have a pop-up blocker activated, it may not come through... most pop-up blockers are disactivated by pressing the CTRL or CTRL-SHIFT keys. Let us know if you have any trouble.

Because the Gossett Corollary has not yet been invoked, you will note that there are players who have grey bars through their data. Those data are not used in any calculations, yet. See previous post on the Gossett Corollary for explanation. If you are too lazy to scroll, just click here.

One last statement... NO BITCHING!!! In this pool, the only score that counts is the final score... so if we mistakenly have Jason Butter Tits Gore listed as 278th on the money list when in fact he is 268th, we apologize. A simple mathematical/typo error is not the end of the world, and at least this year you are getting updates more regularly than the lunar cycle.

READ ME!!!!

This is too damned funny...

So, I was checking the Hope field this a.m. to see if Tiger Philp's 2nd sleeper, Danny Ellis made it into the field. From my reading earlier in the week, he was 1st alternate, and I just assumed he was in. Well, he wasn't. I checked the field, and his name wasn't listed as in or on the alternate list. I checked the tee-times and also couldn't find him. This was going to lead me to the obligatory "Have You Seen Me?" post with this picture of him.

Not satisfied, I performed further due diligence on the topic... I thought his name was familiar, so I checked his player profile out on PGAtour.com. Turns out this fucker went to Clemson! I knew it sounded familiar. I can't throw stones because I also have a Tiger on my list, so ok... fine. But then I stumbled upon the Danny Ellis Webpage.

SWEET HOLY SHIT BATMAN. YOU HAVE TO CLICK ON THIS LINK.

The splash page welcomes you to "The Official Site of PGA Tour Star Danny Ellis."

Tour Star? Really? Here is what his media guide lists as his career accomplishments on the PGA Tour:

His best finish on the PGA TOUR was T6th in 2001 at the National Car Rental Golf Classic Disney.

He ranks T60th in Consecutive Cuts on the PGA TOUR.

That's it. Perhaps they could add something like

Falls between Steve Elkington and Ernie Els on the alphabetic PGA Tour roster.

This reminds me of the old PUJ website we used to make fun of... remember that one? He would always talk about dinner with Jesper, hanging with Jesper, missing cuts and watching Jesper play... it was quite ridiculous really. I only wish Danny Ellis updated his web page more often (one of the top links is a story from 2004), but then again he doesn't really have a lot to say.

Gore illa

Jimmy Walker, Danny Ellis, PLAYOFFS!, who cares abouut these guys? Loveable Jason "big fat tub of goo" Gore is in the field; that's where the interest should be. Will he break par, play the weekend, eat one of the car prizes? I say the Buick is in the greatest peril.

Dy-no-mite!!!

Tiger Philp's sleeper pick of the year is in the field this week.

DiMarco is a Douchebag

That jackass passed on the Hope so he could play in another dessert, and he won! (FULL STORY). Sonovabitch!!! I may need to make a proclamation about where the earnings dollars come from.

UPDATE 1/23/06

Senden this

Well. it looks like da Bandit's pick of John "Breakback Mountain" Senden may reap benefits this week. Of course, a 2-over par round tomorrow will senden him downa the boarda with a check barely enough to make expenses.

Steve "da Champ" V.

Let's see who is making the cut.

Well, I see Mike Weir (56), Robert Johnson (116) and Justin Rose (55) all made the cut. David Duval is warming up for his home club's member-guest championship.

Jason Gore is Fat and He Sucks

Through 6 rounds thusfar on the PGATour, Jason Gore is a combined 35-over par. How can this be? Does he think each of these rounds is the final round of the US Open or something?

I suspected that he would be a sucker choice this year, and I think I might be right...

And yes, part of my reason for this post is to deflect attention from Duval's round... yikes.

Duval on Pace for 59!!!

If he stops after 15 holes...

da Bandit

Well, it looks like the FPGP's all time money winner (da Boca Bandit) is in danger of not being in the money this year. What a shame!!! Yes, his picks illustrate the unfortunate, but common, wanton hubris that afflicts those who have experienced success. Under that ruse of "loyalty" he has once again picked JJ Henry, John Senden, and Loren "lighfoot" Roberts. Loyalty, smoyality, this reeks of hubris if not outright pomposity. I say da Bandit will be lucky to escape the cellar in 2006.

Steve "crystal ball" V.

Update Coming and a Note on the David Gossett Corollary

For the sake of getting the chatter going on the blog, Jeff was kind enough to work on an update for this week... I had to do some formatting changes, but I think it is right. Jeff will publish the update to the blog later today.

One thing to note... we have had a long standing rule in the FPGP (which cost me money last year i might add) that if a player makes $0 during the year, their ranking spot is the worst ranking -1. So, if a player made $0 and the last player on the list is Joe Schmoe who comes in at #248, your player would get #249. I would like to refer to this as the Gossett Corollary, because that douchebag Gossett cost me money last year because of this rule... but i am not bitter.
For the first few weeks of the pool, the Gossett Corollary is NOT IN EFFECT. It doesn't make any sense, and it screws up the numbers anyway. For example, if you had picked that same idiot Gossett this year, he would suddenly be ranked something like 90, the same as Michelson and everyone else that doesn't make any money. As such, players who have not yet made a cut/money will NOT be calculated into the rankings... after a month or so, we will kick in the Gossett Corollary.

You can tell which players are not part of the rankings by looking at the raw data sheet... those players are in grey highlight.

Google

The FPGP has made it big time!!! If you google "FPGP" it will lead you to this page...

Less than a month into my first adminstration as commish and already so much glory.

Long live da commish!!!

David Duval Makes Cut!!

Some FPGPers have to be very, very happy about Duval's play on Friday. Sure, he is probably going to finish last in the tourney, but he will make a check. Those of us who have him don't expect him to win $1 million this year... but if he can get around $500,000 or so, he will be a huge point producer.

CURRENT LEADERBOARD

For everyone's convenience, I added a CURRENT LEADERBOARD link on the side bar. I believe pgatour.com uses the same URL each week for their leaderboard page, so this should work.

FPGP

It looks like Loren "light in the loafers" Roberts (currently tied for 8th) may ream da Bandit again this year.

Wie Misses Cut... Again.

Because, that is what happened. How is this a "respectable showing" as ESPN.com wants you to believe? Let's set forth some predicates here, so we can understand what is really going on with Michelle Wie's career.

1. She is a professional golfer.
2. The goal of any professional golfer is to make money at golf tournaments.
3. Failure to make money at a golf tournament for a professional golfer is simply a failure.

Good, now that we have laid that out... let's consider what happened with Wie this week. In the first round, she tossed up a hellacious 79. Ok, man or woman, a 79 is a horrible score for a professional golfer. Just terrible. On day 2, devoid of any real stress because it was going to be virtually impossible for her to make a cut, she shot a 68. This is somehow "respectable." How so?

The great thing about golf is that the bottom line tells you how well you do, aside from the endorsement money... but that is available in all sports. So, if you are A-Rod, and you bat .223 next year with 8 home runs, you will still earn your $20 million... but if you are Tiger Woods, and you shoot a series of 79-68 in PGA Tour events, you will likely earn $0 because you will never make a cut. My point? There is a "degree of success" in golf, but it also has a literal cutoff line. Make a cut, and move up the leaderboard, and you move through degrees of success. Miss a cut, and you failed. I don't care if you shoot 79-89 and miss the cut by 24 shots, or shoot 79-68 and miss by a few. A missed cut is a missed cut is a missed cut. It results in $0, and therefore is a failure .

The beautiful thing here is the inverse-sexism. Check out the leaderboard.

You will note that Wie's 2 day total of 147 was 4 shots too many... this is not even close to making the cut. Also note that Corey Pavin had rounds of 78-68, for 146. So, here is a former PGA Tour Rookie of the Year, and winner of the United States Open with a score of 146, after a nice second round. Did he have a "respectable" showing? Of course not.

The reason why people want to say Wie's showing was "respectable" is because she is a girl. When she turns 18, I'll call her a woman, so lay off that for now. So, it is OK for a girl to go out, try to play with the men (or at least big boys), and fail? Doesn't this imply that she had no business playing in the tournament anyway? If she is not going to be held to the same scrutiny of the other players in the field, then she already has an unfair advantage... that is, there is really no downside. Miss the cut but play well for one day and it is "respectable." Somehow make the cut and it is great. Where is the downside for Wie?

It truly aggravates me that this girl plays in these men's events. Clearly, she does not have the game to compete, any more than I do. Why do I say that? Because you cannot look at one round and say "see, she has the game..." Golf tournaments are 72 holes (if you make the cut, which she never has in a men's professional competition). When I was playing my best golf, I don't doubt that I could have played on a resort course in Hawaii, with the pros, and turned in one 9 hole round out of the 4 in the first two days, and be under par. No doubt at all. Does that mean I showed that I "had the game?" Of course not. It is because there is so much more to playing in a golf tournament than the average Joe/Mary understands. It is about consistency, not one flashy round.

Until Michelle Wie can demonstrate (perhaps on her own Tour) that she has the ability to compete with the men, I think that she should not be allowed to compete with the men. The reason being, her existence in the tournament costs another worthy player a spot. It is that simple, and it is that unfair.

Everybody's Short: Fred Funk

Whooooooo Yeahhhhhhhhh! Champions Tour Baby!

Vic

Vic is a former long-term military guy, so he's gonna be a little slow on the uptake. He'll come around ---

Picks Are In!!! And We Need To Get Repicks Done!!!

The picks are in... congrats on getting it all done in time. We have 9 entrants, including the return of Jumpin Jeff Sheidow, the introduction of Stan The Man Curbo (a colleague of mine, so watch the language... :-)), Vik Makela, and Joel's Father In Law. I have no idea what this man's name is.


We have our first problem, which I am resolving with a decree... not shockingly, EVERYONE picked Ernie Els, which makse his net effect 0. As such, we could either just go with 6 picks, or we could all repick a 7th player. WE WILL REPICK A 7TH PLAYER. Because it is impossible to get this done before the start of the tournament tomorrow, YOU CANNOT PICK A PLAYER FROM THE MERCEDES FIELD. Also, I need to get all repicks in by next Wednesday. At that time, I will post everyone's picks on the blog.

You can see the Mercedes field by clicking here: http://www.pgatour.com/tournaments/r016/field

IF I DO NOT GET A REPICK BY WEDNESDAY, YOU WILL FORFEIT THAT SLOT AND BE STUCK WITH 6 PLAYERS.

Best of luck everyone...