Blog Stop

I won't be posting for a week. For those who need a shot of blog every day, I recommend Mickey Kaus, Andrew Sullivan, James Lileks and Glenn Reynolds. I'll be back on April Fools Day.

All Hail the Cajun Kiwi

Craig Perks, the Kiwi-turned-Cajun veteran of the Hooters Tour, shot even par on the frightfully difficult TPC Stadium Course today to capture The Players Championship by two strokes. The final leaderboard can be found here.

The big surprise was that all of the big names (with the exception of Sergio Garcia and Nick Price) went backwards on the final day. Tiger couldn't buy a putt, Duvall couldn't get anything going, Faldo collapsed, so did Mickelson. That gave Perks the breathing room he needed and he got the job done. Well done.

What They Really Think

If you ever wonder what the key editors and writers at The New York Times really think -- what their mindset really is -- a reliable bellweather is the every-other-Saturday column of Bill Keller. Keller's column yesterday was particularly revealing. To the text:

"Nor can Mr. Bush be claimed by the culture warriors of the Christian right, although he gave them John Ashcroft and occasionally throws them a steak. The president is not a bigot, or a pessimist."

Which means that in Mr. Keller's opinion, "cultural warriors of the Christian right" are bigots. This is a widely-held view -- indeed, I would argue, a universally held view -- at The New York Times. In general, opposition to the high-minded Timesian view of cultural issues is seen by the Times top writers and editors as evidence of a character defect. If someone is so deranged as to believe that the Second Amendment is every bit as important as the First Amendent, well, we don't even want to go there.

Thanks to the great Mickey Kaus for the heads up on this.

Third Round Notes

Carl Paulson holds the record for consecutive tournaments played -- 83 -- on the Nike/Buy.com Tour. All that hard work was evident today as he posted his third straight 69 to take a one-shot lead at The Players Championship. Three straight 69s on that golf course and those greens is truly impressive. Almost as impressive was Craig Perks, Paulson's compadre from the Nike/Buy.com Tour. Had he not three-jacked the 8th green, he'd either be one up or tied with Paulson at the top of the Leaderboard.

Saturday, as the commentators kept saying, is not Sunday. It seems likely that Paulson and Perks will struggle tomorrow to shoot even par. If one of them does post a 72, he'll probably win the tournament. Right now, it looks like the winning number will be somewhere between 279 (nine-under) and 282 (six-under).

Mike Weir and David Toms are well-positioned to make a run. Both men are at 5-under and are proven players under pressure. Nick Faldo needs to shoot a 67. Tiger Woods needs to shoot a 66, which he can (and probably will) do. Phil Mickelson needs to shoot a 64. Sergio Garcia and Retief Goosen are by no means out of the hunt. Nor is Jim Furyk.

If you look at the stats pages, the thing that really stands out is Tiger Woods's putting (not good) and driving distance (astonishing). He's on the green in regulation, he's just not making the putts. If he starts dropping putts early tomorrow, Mr. Paulson and Mr. Perks will have the unsettling experience of watching Tiger's score fall to within striking distance, just as they are about to tee off. And then we'll see if they can breathe.

Yikes

It doesn't get much uglier than this. Check out the scorecard of Ernie Els on the first nine holes (he started on the 10th) today.

Trunk-Slammers and Cut-Makers

A "trunk-slammer" is a professional golfer who, at the end of Friday's round, fails to qualify for weekend play. In the telling of the tale, he stomps into the parking lot, tosses his clubs into the back of the car and slams the trunk door as hard as he can in enraged frustration. In reality, he heads into the locker-room and dials up the airlines to rebook his reservation from Sunday night to late Friday afternoon or early Saturday morning. Either way, it's a lousy way to end a day.

The cut-makers at this year's Players Championship are pretty much who you would expect to be playing on the weekend. Ernie Els probably had the best round of the day today (68, 4-under) and worked himself back to level par, six shots off the lead. Tiger Woods shot 72 today and is five shots back. Nick Faldo continued his fine play and is three shots off the lead. Phil Mickelson fell back a bit, but finished nicely and goes into tomorrow one shot off the lead. You can see the full leaderboard by clicking here.

There are a number of interesting sidebars at The Players Championship. One is the excellent play of newcomers David Gossett and Charles Howell. Gossett is only three shots off the lead. Another is the new-found length of Jose Maria Olazabal, who is hitting his tee shots 25-30 yards further than he has in the past. This bodes well for Olazabal at Augusta. Another is the continued strong play of the Rhode Islanders, Brad Faxon and Billy Andrade. Both men are in the hunt (as they have been a lot this year). But the most interesting thing (to me, at least) is David Duval's game, which appears to be markedly improved.

One of my favorite sports cliches is "he's hitting the ball with crisp authority." Duval is hitting the ball with crisp authority. If there's a sleeper at the Players, it's him.

Media Geezer Alert Update

Blogistanis apparently share my disdain for Louis Rukeyser, judging from the emails. That said, I feel kinda bad about kicking the old coot so hard. I mean, it's not like he ever did anything to me, except bore me to tears in hotel rooms. And I didn't have to watch.

Nevertheless, Media Geezer Watch will continue as a regular feauture of this site. This weekend should provide us with plenty of new material. The Oscars are on, which means Baba Wawa has a "special." Baba is the the queen of Media Geezers. It's not clear (to me at least) how her "special" this year could possibly be more tasteless than last year's effort, but as the New York Lottery ads say: "Hey, you never know."

Media Geezer Alert

The dreadful Louis Rukeyser, host of the truly dreadful PBS television program "Wall $treet Week," has been canned by his "partner," Maryland Public Television. Praise the Lord. Mr. Rukeyser, 69, said he was astonished by the news. "I was unaware of this until Wednesday," he said in a statement, adding : "most people who have heard that Maryland Public Television is going to try to do "Wall $treet Week with Louis Rukeyser' without Louis Rukeyser think it must be somebody's idea of a bad April Fool's joke."

No they don't. They think: it's about time. Here's the thing, Lou. You're 70 years old. Your show is a complete embarrassment. You're on your way to becoming a complete embarrassment. Just go. Get out. Retire. It's over. You're over. Go.

What It Really Takes

Watching the Players Championship this afternoon, I was struck by how well Nick Faldo was swinging. He hit a perfect four iron into one green and a lovely 122-yard pitching wedge into another (and made both putts for birdies). He must have hit a bunch of other good shots as well; as darkness fell and play was suspended, Faldo stood at 4-under par, one shot off the lead.

About five years ago, I began noodling around with a book proposal that was called What It Really Takes. The title was a direct steal from Richard Ben Cramer, whose book What It Takes remains the seminal work of modern American political journalism. The idea was basically the same. Cramer looked at six candidates running for president in 1988 and asked: (1) what does it take to do that, and (2) in the doing of it, what does it take from them? My book was going to be about three or four professional golfers and it would ask Cramer's two questions plus one more: What does it take to do it when you know you don't have what it takes anymore?

I read a great deal about golf and talked to many people familiar with life on the Professional Tour and inexorably, I was led to Nick Faldo, whose Ahabian quest for golf perfection has been both awesome and awful. From 1989 through about 1993, he was easily the best player in the game and in 1996, on that Sunday at Augusta, he lifted himself up from a disappointing Saturday round and played one of the great rounds in golf history to defeat Greg Norman and capture his 3rd Masters Championship. Faldo's cut 212-yard two-iron from a steep hook lie to the 13th green remains one of the great pressure golf shots of all time.

After that, in what seemed like no time, he couldn't make a cut and he couldn't make a putt. And as disappointment piled on top of disappointment, you could almost see him unravelling. It was Faldo, more than any of the others (I had started research files on seven other players) who seemed to be living and dying with this incredibly hard third question: What does it take to keep at it when you know, or at least sense, that you no longer have what it takes? And what does that mean?

I never finished the book proposal. Other things came up -- jobs, projects, columns, kids and eventually, two dogs. One of whom we named Faldo. Watching Nick Faldo on television this afternoon I could have sworn it was 1992 again. He had that long swing going and the bearing of his former self. On a couple of the par 5s, he chose not to go for the green in two and instead laid up to an easy wedge yardage. One of the TV commentators noted that back in the early 1990s, it was these wedge approach shots that Faldo invariably did better than anyone else in the game. On par 5s, he almost always left himself a make-able birdie putt. And so it was today.

I hope he has a great tournament. I don't suspect he'll win, but I hope he has at least as good a finish as he did at the 2000 US Open at Pebble Beach. It would be nice to know that there's someone out there who has what it takes even though, realistically, he doesn't.

The Players

The Players Championship begins today and will be broadcast live on the USA Network beginning at noon eastern time. This is one of maybe five non-major tournaments worth watching and the field is, as always, incredibly strong. I placed my "pool" bets last night and am reasonably happy with the official Ellisblog team: Els, Goosen (a second round pick!), Furyk, Kelly and Howell.

Tiger was taken off the boards because.....because he's Tiger Woods. This is the third straight year our little golf group has decided we can't run a pool with Tiger in it. Which is one minor measure of his dominance.