Golf Central

"Deep within my heart lies a mel-o-dy ... a song of old San Antone ...": Why are you singing loudly over my PGA Tour report?
"Where in dreams I live with a mem-o-ry ... beneath the stars all alone ...": Ermm, I guess I'll have to do this one on my own ... Jesper Parnevik has needed a big week to stay on the PGA Tour, and our man is definitely having one.
"It was there I found ... beside the Alamo ... enchantment strange as the blue up above ...": So .... Jesper followed up a 61 with a 65 on Friday to put him on 126. That's 14 under, and the lowest score after 36 holes on the Tour in 2007.
"A moonlit path that only she would know ... still hears my broken song of looooooove!!! ...": And, erm, .... it's a good week to be a Swede in "old San Antone", as Mathias Gronberg is 10 under and Fredrik Jacobson and Richard S. Johnson on 9 under are Jesper's closest pursuers.
"Moon in all all your splendour, hear only my heart! Call back my Rose, Rose of San Antone ...": Call a taxi, will you? ... Bob Heintz, Robert Gamez, Bob Tway and Tripp Isenhour also need paydays this week to help keep their Tour cards, and so far, so good - they all made the cut. But Long John Daly has gone home, slamming his trunk after a second straight 72.
"Lips so sweet and tender like petals fallin' apart ...": We've got to get you out of here, mate. Is it the heat? The chimichangas? Too many Lone Star beers? Let's go to that other joint across the street, then ...
"Yee-haw! ...": Better yet, let's not.

"Look Pete, only one hand...you're not waaaaatchiiing"

 

Give me the scoop, the whole scoop and nothing but the scoop: You what?
Just tell me who's leading OK?:  InGolfWeTrust favourite and  Tommy Hilfiger clothes-horse Nick Dougherty shares an 11-under lead with German sounding South African, Hennie Otto and forgetful Australian Peter O'Malley.
Forgetful?: Yeah, you know those things that you need to play golf with?
Clubs?: Yeah them, he left them at home...
How did he play?: Excellently.11-under-par remember? He equalled Carnoustie's course record with a sublime 64.
No, how did he play with no clubs?: Oh, well he got the owner of the guest-house he's staying in to bring them out for him after he realised that he hadn't put them in the boot.
Wow, now that's service. Who else is challenging?: Well there's a cracking little B&B down near Carnoustie which attracts quite a bit of business, even without a club delivery service.
Very funny: Thanks. Anyway, Els is in third at minus 10, a score he shares with Spain's Gonzalo Fernando-Castano, Britain's Kenneth 'Roll-on Roll-off' Ferrie and South Africa's Anton 'Field Marshall' Haig. Haig's low score also means that he and his partner Schalk Burger share the team lead with Scott 'Steve' Strange and Robert 'Sebastian' Coe.
Schalk Burger? Sounds like a German fast-food joint: He's actually a South-African rugby legend and his son is playing in the Rugby World Cup quarter final tomorrow.
Rugby again?: Sorry, don't worry though, I probably won't mention it again as England are playing Australia today and that'll be that I expect.
Let's hope they all remember their boots...

On this day, in 1996, 20-year-old Tiger Woods, making only his fifth pro start won the Las Vegas Invitational – his first win on the PGA Tour.
    Jack Nicklaus, the man Tiger is still chasing, said it best that day: “Now that he’s gotten rid of that burden of the first win, there could be no stopping him.”
    Only weeks before, Tiger had announced he was turning pro in Milwaukee to a $40m flurry of endorsement packages, saying “Hello, world” to the assembled press and flashing that now-so famous Tiger grin. But there was no guarantee that Woods would do well enough on the Tour to earn his card, or avoid a trip to PGA Tour Qualifying School. For a majority of golf’s pundits, it all smacked of too much, too soon.
    Las Vegas fixed all of that. Storming back with a 64 in the final round, Tiger showed for the first time his unique ability to scare the bejeezus out of older, wiser heads – and when Davis Love III, then one of the top players in the world, faltered in the stretch, Tiger was there to bounce and beat Love on the first playoff hole.
    Eleven years later, here’s Tiger’s tally today: 61 wins on the PGA Tour, 13 majors, and still clawing at Jack’s back.
    Also, on this day in 1928, Leo Diegel, a Michigan boy who had taken up a dodgy residence in Tijuana, Mexico, knocked off Al Espinosa 6 & 5 to capture the PGA Championship in Baltimore, Md. – stopping Walt Hagen’s run of titles in the event at four.
    On this day in 1927 the first “talkie” movie burst onto the scene when Al Jolson’s “The Jazz Singer” opened in Warner’s Theatre in New York City, prompting the last 80 years of people shushing others in cinemas worldwide.
    It wasn’t such a great day in 1981 for Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, who was gunned down with a host of other diplomats and dignitaries by machine gun-toting assassins, sparking US pres Ronnie Reagan to claim that mankind had “lost a champion of peace.” Nor was it such a hot day for hippies, for on this day in 1966 the US government made LSD an illegal drug. The trippy thing is a lot of people still ignore this law.
    So it’s Joyeux Anniversaire!, as they say in Gay Paree, to Hawaiian LPGA-er Pam Kometani (43) and PGA Tour grinder Bob May (39), who lost the 2000 PGA Championship in a playoff to – you guessed it – Tiger Woods. And it’s balloons and cake for dishy Swedish Bond girl Britt Ekland (65); West Indies-baiting South Africa-born former England cricket skipper Tony Greig (61); Middlesbrough’s Aussie ‘keeper Mark Schwarzer (35); hunky period-role Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd (34); and former Fulham football fave Sylvain “Monica” Legwinski, also 34, at Ipswich Town.
    It also would have been the 30th birthday of dashing Frenchy fighter pilot Roland Garros, had he not been shot down in flames over Vouziers, Ardennes the day before 1918, quite literally going down in a blaze of glory. But he still had a nice stadium and a major tennis championship named after him, so it’s not all bad after all. Repos dans la paix.

Ten Broek prepares the old 'distract with the flag before wedge to the head' trick 

 

Many caddies are frustrated golfers themselves, yearning to be the one taking the shots, rather than just calling them. Lance Ten Broeck has more reason than most to be frustrated as he has the skills to pay the bills but no card with which to pay them.

Ten Broek made 162 cuts out of 352 career starts in his 20 years on the PGA Tour before spending the last decade as a caddy. As he has made more than 150 cuts he retains some privileges and so commits to play every event for which he is eligible and occasionally brings his own clubs with him. If there are no other alternates or a last second withdrawal, 51 year old Lance will get his chance to become the first man to be both caddy and player in the same week on Tour.

Two weeks ago he came close to playing in The Turning Stone Resort Championship but hit a snag when it emerged that he would be playing at the same as Jesper Parnevik for whom he has spent the majority of his caddying career serving. Ironically, when he came close to featuring in the Byron Nelson Classic after Tommy Armour III pulled out, he would have been paired with Lee Janzen and Parnevik. Jesper even offered to caddy for Ten Broek himself when John Cook's sore shoulder nearly ruled him out of the Buick Open. Unfortunately Cook played through the pain and we were denied the sight of Parnevik's bespoke, diamante-studded caddy uniform (probably).

With field sizes cut due to less daylight hours, it's pretty unlikely that Ten Broek will get his chance to play this year, but when it does come, he promises not to disgrace himself, even if his supporters do - he predicts that the gallery will be full of drunken, cheering caddies; a sight we're all looking forward to here, especially if it coincides with Parnevik with bag in hand.

"OK Brucie, I'll lead...I'll retire first, then you."

 

Lee 'Supermex' Trevino has had a change of heart over his retirement. Originally he had planned to make this month's AT&T Championship at Oak Hills his last professional appearance but a Champion's Tour official has confirmed that Trevino has decided to extend his career into next season. Although he has 29 Champions Tour victories to his name, he hasn't tasted success since 2000 so maybe it wouldn't be the worst idea if  The Merry Mex did put his clubs to the back of the garage behind his old tins of paint, lawnmower and rubber snakes.