Sunday, June 4, 2023

Enjoyed Golf on TV Today for a Change of Pace

I was relaxing this afternoon and, after starting to surf the available TV channels, fell upon live coverage of the final round of the Memorial Tournament in Dublin, Ohio...hosted by legendary golfer Jack Nicklaus.  I didn't even know it was going on until I tuned in, and then decided to stick with it a while after recognizing familiar names like Scottie Scheffler, Viktor Hovland and Roy McIlroy at the top of the leaderboard.  But an unfamiliar name, that of Danny McCarthy, was leading everyone, usually by a couple of strokes, as the afternoon wore on.  He had never won a PGA tour before but this time around it looked as if he would finally succeed as the normally clutch pros around him kept stumbling through hole after hole.  Finally, McCarthy, who hadn't bogeyed a single hole today, did just that on the 18th while Hovland had sunk an incredible long birdie putt on the difficult 17th...this forced a playoff which Hovland won on the first sudden-death hole.  Never having played as much as a single hole of golf in my lifetime...I don't count miniature golf, which I think I'm adequate at...it is interesting to see these trained players at the top of the game struggle with their swings to keep the ball on the fairway and out of the tall grass, woods, sand traps and water.  I do understand that the putting greens are often deliberately designed to be treacherous with their deceptive slopes that the golfers often must spend enormous concentration trying to figure out...after all, that's all that miniature golf is: putting.  Sitting back and placidly watching the tournament approach the conclusion was fun, but you know, I highly doubt that I'll be doing the same thing next week...maybe once every month or two sounds about right...

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