PGA Tour's WGC-Accenture Tourney Snowed-out

...in southern Arizona


Images Source

That's right. A few miles north of Tucson, AZ got a bunch of snow, and the PGA tourney there had to be postponed. Talk about a first!

Please click HERE to go see more pictures from PGA Tour's Facebook page..

A Bubba Watson Fan Having a Difficult time being Subtle

Image screen-capped from official Masters video (masters.com)                     Click to enlarge!!

I saw this immediately after it happened, when they replayed the shot in very slow motion. I laughed instantly, and HAD to go back and find it for you guys. It's a ton better in the video, which you can see by going to Masters.com, and clicking on "leaderboard", then clicking on Ooosthuizen's "4" on hole #18 (the first playoff hole) inside the sudden-death playoff mini-scorecard. A 2½ minute video will play, showing Oosthuizen's 4 shots for that hole.

The 2012 Masters Leaderboard

(Through Friday completion)


Source

Click the image above to go see the complete leaderboard!   Or, here is the Masters homepage.

Go Freddie!!!

The Masters - An Infographic

Via / Source

Here's Your 2012 Masters Preview

Image Source

This is one of my favorite weeks of the year. Someone said "if there's a golf course in Heaven, it would look just like Augusta National", and I believe it.

Here are a few good articles to get you pumped up for the 2012 Masters, which begins today, Thursday, April 5:

• Hype vs. Reality -- By Mike McAllister, PGATOUR.COM Managing Editor

• Tiger Woods Focused on Five -- By Gene Wojciechowski | ESPN.com

• Solving the Mystery of Augusta's Greens -- By Thomas Bonk

• The Field - Pairings

• PGA Tour's Expert Picks

• Masters Dot Com for all your online coverage..

My two foursomes for ESPN's Best Ball Majors Challenge are: (1) Mickelson, Couples, Stricker, and Wagner --and-- (2) Woods, McIlroy, Clarke, and Yang.

NCAA Tournament

Image Source

Sorry for the lack of posts the last few days - It's NCAA Tournament time, and I've spent a bunch of my free time creating my brackets. I think I've done 10 of them the last 36 hours. And I plan to win.

As a consensus of all my brackets so far, I like Kentucky, Vanderbilt, Louisville/Missouri, and North Carolina for my final four. Florida State, Kansas, and Baylor, are gonna make it interestingly tough, though.

NCAA Tourney Field Cut In Half

Why didn't the NCAA tournament committee attach all four play-in games to all four #1 seeds? Instead two of them are two 12-seeds (winner plays a 5-seed), and two 11-seeds (winner plays a 6-seed).

So they apparently sort-of rank all 68 teams. Then they sort-of put them all into regions based upon location. This process is apparently allowed to alter a team's seed by 1 or 2 - just to get them in the right region of 4 regions. A great example is Texas probably should've been a 3-seed, if not a 2 even, but were given a 4-seed to alleviate a ton of traveling. WTF?

Okay okay. I can swallow that, I guess, but why is it necessary? I mean UTSA had to travel all the way to Dayton, Ohio to play Alabama State in their play-in game. Is that because if they win (which they did) they'd be right there to play none other than Ohio State basically at home? I laugh at this.

Virginia Commonwealth U. had to travel to Dayton to play (gulp) USC for their play-in game, in which the winner would go to Chicago to play Georgetown. That makes a ton of sense! Props to VCU though for proving all the "experts" wrong. They were one of two teams who Jay Bilas and others said should absolutely not even be dancing. Alabama Birmingham and Clemson also had to go all the way to Dayton to play for the right to play West Virginia back in Tampa. Ehh.. North Carolina Asheville & Arkansas Little Rock did the same for a chance to play Pittsburgh - in Washington D.C.

If it's gonna be a priority WHERE teams play, then make it as such. Otherwise, rank the teams, give the bottom 8 teams 4 games to play all four #1 seeds, and let's get on with it.

Oh.. and one last thing: I agree that the Big East is a great basketball conference. OK I agree. But 11 teams? That's ridiculous. You're rewarding teams who are in the bottom half of their conference - for (what?) playing teams in their own conference. Stupid. But hey I loved Marquette going in. But giving them an 11 seed to play a 6-seeded Xavier? Sorry - The Atlantic 10 might deserve 3 teams, but that conference isn't worthy of the respect to have its champion play such a low big east team, let alone a team who didn't win its conference tournament.

So many things wrong. But hey - at least Texas won. Onto Anaheim to play Arizona for the right to play Duke. Wait a minute - Duke should be going to Newark.

The 110th U.S. Open at Pebble Beach

Source


Hey, it's pretty simple. The golf course won. Guys had their chances early during the back-9. As soon as 54-hole leader Dustin Johnson tripled the 2nd hole, doubled the 3rd, and bogeyed the 4th, his score of 6-under for the tourney was suddenly EVEN. Guys like Tiger, Phil, and Ernie Els were all breathing down his neck, but he obviously felt some pressure that didn't exist during his last two back-to-back victories at the AT&T Pebble Beach tourneys the last two Februaries.

2010 US Open Champ, Graeme
McDowell with his father - Source

Graeme McDowell stayed solid, and the "big guns" only shot blanks for the most part. McDowell was able to win the tournament with a final-round 3-over par 74. How can this be?

Well like I said, the golf course won. I enjoyed the tournament, and the final round could've been better had some of these guys made a serious run. However, no one in the last half-dozen pairings shot anything lower than 71. Sure Matt Kuchar and Ben Curtis shot final-round 68's, but they were well behind beforehand.

After all was said and done, Phil and Ernie carded 73's, and Tiger shot 75, but apparently the viewers didn't like this. I don't really understand why, but I did happen to run across this poll at ESPN dot com. So I voted, and then took a screenshot of the results -- in preparation for this post.

Take a look at the poll:

















Click to enlarge..

Longhorn Basketball: Worst Year In A Dozen

Just as I figured.. I have no idea how this team was 17-0 and the #1 ranked team in the country. Tonight they played sloppy, sloppy basketball, and I wonder how they managed to shoot 38%!

Well, I picked them to beat Wake Forest before they went down in flames. But even with TWENTY Demon Deacons turnovers, and a gift traveling call on a last-second inbounds pass, and a lucky trip to overtime, and a nice strong OT lead, they still couldn't close it out. Got outrebounded 56-31! Sigh... Story of the season (or rather the 2nd-half of the season).

But this post isn't about this FAIL. As I said it was pretty much expected. This post is about the huge difference between this season and the rest of Rick Barnes' stellar 12-yr. career as UT's head coach. I want to point out exactly what the guy has to work with this year. Damion James? Dexter Pittman? Avery Bradley?? This team cannot shoot. They have no leader. Both big men have disappointed when it mattered most. No one to dictate. Sloppy play...

Texas basketball has had a handful of guys go pro. OK literally about a half-dozen - until Barnes came into the picture. Let's look at some of the UT greats, focusing on Barnes' 12-year career. First I must mention a few pre-Barnes stars, just for the record:

Johnny Moore, 1977 -- A San Antonio Spurs legend who now has his "00" hanging in the rafters of the AT&T Center.

LaSalle Thompson, 1980-1982 -- A 16-year NBA career with the Kings & Pacers.

Also worth mentioning:
Lance Blanks, 1986-1989 -- 3 NBA seasons
Travis Mays, 1987-1990 -- NBA 1st-rnd pick - played 3 seasons

Chris Mihm, 98-00 -- 9-yr. career (CLE, BOS, LAL)
Royal Ivey, 01-04 -- Currently with MIL
T.J. Ford, 02-03 -- Currently with IND
P.J. Tucker, 04-06 -- 1 season with TOR
LaMarcus Aldridge, 05-06 -- Currently a POR starter
Daniel Gibson, 05-06 -- Currently with CLE
Kevin Durant, 07 -- 2nd overall pick, OKC all-star
D.J. Augustin, 07-08 -- Currenty with CHA



A.J. Abrams, 06-09 -- UT's all-time scoring leader, is now playing Pro ball in Greece (for now).

It's no surprise that there has to be a lull in UT basketball. We'll see how next year goes. Barnes deserves some credit, though. I don't think he had the talent to do much more than he did this season.

But how in the hell did they go 17-0 ???

EDIT: I forgot all about Maurice Evans 99-00 -- undrafted, 7-yr. NBA career, currently with the Atlanta Hawks.

My Final Four Picks

Champ Week: Seriously Underrated

March Madness is right around the corner!! How things have changed in the Big-12. Texas was #1 in the country a few weeks ago at 18-0. North Carolina is 16-15 and a #10 seed in the ACC tournament! Gonna be a crazy week. Tons up for grabs. Pretty wide open too!

And don't forget about the NBA!

Via