Author Archives: Tom

From waiting tables to the PGA Tour

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Tour school There really is nothing quite like the PGA Qualifying Tournament (commonly know as "the Q School") for sheer sporting drama.

After six nerve-wracking rounds (108 holes), the 25 low scorers get the treasured fully-exempt status to play in PGA Tour events for the 2009 season.

Don’t finish in the low 25? It’s back to slogging around the mini-Tours.

The pressure is excruciating. Take, for example, PGA Tour veteran Joel Edwards’ reaction after blowing the 2004 Q school. He was on the cut line until hitting his tee shot into the water on the 108th hole and taking double-bogey. Edwards went directly from the green to the parking lot, letting out guttural screams and pounding his bag along the way, paying his caddie and slamming his car door as he drove off.

John Strege sums up the drama well:

The emotional gamut ran its course all within a matter of moments on the 18th hole of the Nicklaus Tournament Course on Monday afternoon, the PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament delivering on its promise of compelling theater to the extremes.

Brian Vranesh, 31, was waiting tables a year ago. When he holed out to finish a round of seven under par 65, he had completed an improbable journey from working for tips to playing for millions, setting free a torrent of tears that qualifies as a gully washer in this bone-dry California desert.

Moments later, in the group directly behind Vranesh, a dispirited Josh Teater, 29, a veteran of mini tours who was on the verge of a promotion to the big leagues, completed a free fall finish — triple-bogey, double-bogey, par, double-bogey — that left the pieces of his shattered dream strewn across PGA West here.

It was, simultaneously blissfully and lamentably, a typical Q school finish. [.  .  .]

So while Vranesh is preparing to move onto the PGA Tour, Teater will attempt to regroup from the worst stretch of golf in his life, all things considered, and join the Nationwide Tour.

Teater was six under par on his round and 19 under par for the tournament [and in the top 25] when he came to the par-5 15th hole [his 105th of the tournament] on [his final round]. He hit his second there into the water, took a drop and hit his fourth into the water. After another drop, he hit his sixth onto the green and two-putted for eight.

He double-bogeyed two of the next three and fell to a tie for 62nd and on the wrong end of the extremes that make Q School what it so maddeningly is.

Jason Sobel provides short bios on each of 25 qualifiers. Former University of Texas golfer and PGA Tour veteran Harrison Frazar won the tournament by an impressive eight strokes (including one round of 59!). I wonder if he will get this sponsor back?

Finally, The Woodlands’ Stacy Lewis won the LPGA Q School this past weekend and is fully-exempt on the LPGA Tour for the 2009 season. Keep an eye on her.

225 Miles High

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Steve Bowen Check out these magnificent Mail Online photos of the Endeavour astronauts completing the recent repairs on the International Space Station.

2008 Weekly local football review

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Matt Schaub (AP Photo/Morry Gash; previous weekly reviews are here)

Texans 24 Packers 21

Could the Texans actually be turning into a reasonably dangerous team so long as they hang on to the ball?

Despite four turnovers, the Texans (6-7) rallied late and beat the Packers (5-8) on a Kris Brown 40 yd field goal in the last minute.

But for the Texans’ turnovers, this game would not have been close. The Texans rolled up 550 yds of total offense, including 414 through the air from returning-from-injury QB Matt Schaub (28-42/414 yds/2 TD’s/1 INT). Schaub cooly engineered a 75 yard, nine-play drive in the last two minutes to set up Brown’s game-winning field goal.

Meanwhile, Texans stellar rookie RB Steve Slaton rushed for 120 yards on 26 carries and caught three passes for 40 yards, cementing his place among the top five players selected in the 2008 NFL Draft.

And, although bearing no similarity to the Ravens or the Steelers, the Texans defense continued its improved play overall, including a key sack that set up the Texans’ final drive.

So, the Texans are on somewhat of a roll as they prepare for next Sunday’s game at Reliant Stadium against the Titans (12-1). They then travel to Oakland to play the Raiders (3-10) the following week before returning home to close out the season against the Bears (7-6), who may still be in the playoff hunt at that point.

Win two out of those three games and the Texans will finish with the same 8-8 record that they finished with last season. Few people (including me) were predicting that just three weeks ago.

Moving on to the college game, with Oklahoma’s (12-1) expected demolition of Missouri in the Big 12 Championship Game, the Texas Longhorns (11-1)  lost out on playing in the BCS Championship Game. So, the Horns will face Big Ten co-champ Ohio State (10-2) in the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix on January 5.

Rice (9-3) will play Western Michigan (9-3) in the Texas Bowl at Reliant Stadium on December 30 at 7 p.m., while the  Houston Cougars (7-5) will take on Air Force (8-4) in the Armed Forces Bowl in Ft. Worth on New Year’s Eve afternoon.

And the Texas Aggies stay home during bowl season once again.

What is this blithering 90-degree rule?

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golf cartWhen it comes to playing golf, I’m decidedly old school. Weather permitting, I prefer to walk while playing, which puts me in a decided minority among American golfers, most of whom prefer to ride in a motorized cart.

Golfweek’s British columnist Alistar Tait also prefers to walk, as do most golfers in the United Kingdom, where motorized carts are a rarity. Tait has just returned to the U.K. from his annual golfing trip to the U.S. and he weighs in with this clever article (entitled "Annoyed with America") in which he lists the "peculiarities" of playing golf in the U.S.

He includes one of my favorite cart-riding absurdities — the 90-degree rule — which requires that you drive on the cart path until you are 90 degrees from your ball, then drive to your ball from the cart path, hit your shot, and then return on your 90 degree path to the cart path, where you proceed to 90 degrees from your shot landed. Tait notes:

The 90-degree rule – Tell a British golfer that the 90-degree rule is in effect and you’ll get a blank look. Since we don’t have carts and paths, there’s no need for a rule that says you drive on the cart path adjacent to your ball and then turn 90 degrees to your ball.

Frost/Nixon looks interesting

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Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America (Scribner 2008), provides more insight into Nixon’s fascinating relationship with television.

But What About that Case in which the Threat Worked?

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This Wall Street Journal editorial from earlier in the week rightly notes that the “Department of Justice finally got something right” by electing not to appeal the Second Circuit’s decision earlier this year upholding U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan’s dismissal of tax fraud indictments against 13 former KPMG partners.

In the KPMG case, the DOJ made KPMG an offer that it couldn’t refuse — either ignore the firm’s long-standing policy of paying the criminal defense costs of its indicted partners or be prosecuted out-of-business ala Arthur Andersen.

Judge Kaplan concluded that dismissal of the indictments was the only reasonable remedy in the face of the DOJ’s deck stacking. I’m happy for the former KPMG partners, who at least get their lives back (but probably not their careers) from the threat of long imprisonment.

But what about Jamie Olis?

Unlike the KPMG case, the DOJ actually got away with undermining Olis’ criminal defense by threatening Dynegy with indictment unless it quit paying Olis’ criminal defense costs. Dynegy cratered to the DOJ’s threat and a cash-strapped Olis was unable to mount the most effective defense at his trial. The result was a conviction and a barbaric 24 year sentence, later reduced to a merely unconscionable six year term.

Olis is currently scheduled to be released from prison in mid-2009. This man and his family have already been tortured for over five years in one of the most egregious examples of prosecutorial abuse and excess of the misguided post-Enron governmental crusade to punish businesspeople.

Isn’t it about time that the DOJ finally got something right in the sad case of Jamie Olis?

Reflections on Mumbai

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Jonathan Ehrlich is a Vancouver businessman who was in one of the hotels that was attacked last week in Mumbai. Take a few minutes to listen to his harrowing story and to read the email (under the fold below) that he sent to his family members and friends during his trip home after the attack. A good example of the fighting spirit that is needed to win this battle.

And don’t miss this spot-on analysis of the Mumbai attacks by John Stewart and John Oliver:

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"That’s just not us"

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tiger-woods-with-buick-resized While General Motors is making its case in Congress for an $18 billion bailout (didn’t GM need "just" $12 billion last week?), it’s trying to cut corners in other areas, such as its endorsement deal with Tiger Woods that paid Woods $7 million annually over the past nine years.

As one sage headline writer put it — "GM lays off Tiger Woods."

But Conan O’Brien had an even better crack about GM’s termination of its relationship with Woods during one of his monologues last week:

"General Motors announced that they are ending their endorsement deal with Tiger Woods. When asked why, a spokesperson for General Motors said: ‘Tiger Woods is successful, competitive, and popular. And that’s just not us.’”

Checking in on the NBA

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Yao_Ming_Houston_Rockets Did you realize that 20% of the 2008-09 NBA season is already completed?

Most of the local mainstream media is locked into the Rockets narrative — i.e., "Tracy McGrady is a superstar and the Rockets can’t win in the playoffs without him, but he’s not the type of clutch superstar who can win in the playoffs, blah, blah blah." Thus, don’t expect to learn much from those sources about what really is going on in the NBA this season.

As noted last season, McGrady is long past being a bona fide NBA superstar and really is not much more than an average NBA player at this point except on those increasingly rare occasions when his injury-riddled body allows him to feel a bit like his formerly-dominant self.

Interestingly, however, even with McGrady sitting out several games and otherwise playing on a gimpy knee, the Rockets have muddled around well enough to lead their division through the first 20% of the season.

So, do the Rockets really have a chance to make waves in playoffs this season?

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2008 Weekly local football review

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Colt McCoy (AP Photo/Harry Cabluck; previous weekly reviews are here)

Texas Longhorns 49 Texas Aggies 9

As predicted in the previous weekly review, the Longhorns (11-1/7-1 Big 12) hammered the Aggies (4-8/2-6 Big 12), but still ended up behind Oklahoma (11-1/7-1 Big 12) in the Bowl Championship Series standings, so the Sooners will represent the Big 12 South in the Big 12 Championship Game next Saturday against Missouri (9-3/5-3 Big 12) in Kansas City. That gives OU the inside track to the BCS Championship Game.

if OU beats Missouri expected, then the Horns will have to settle for another BCS bowl game, probably the Fiesta Bowl in Tempe against Ohio State (10-2) on January 5th.

However, if Mizzou pulls off the upset, which is certainly possible given OU’s tough stretch of big games and last Saturday night’s injury to star OU QB Sam Bradford (he will play with a cast on his left hand against Mizzou), then the Horns would be a virtual lock for the BCS Championship Game against the winner of the Alabama-Florida SEC Championship Game.

As usual, QB Colt McCoy (23-28/311 yds/2 TD’s/0 INT/11 carries/49 yds/2 TD) was the star for the Horns, but what was most interesting about this game was how uncompetitive the Aggies were. First-year Aggie coach Mike Sherman certainly did not distinguish himself this season and his dubious decision-making in this game raises questions as to whether he has what it takes to rebuild the Aggie program.

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